Torpedo! (The Silent War Book 3) Page 16

  “I won’t run the same risk this time. I have decided to promote Sophia Blovin to the position of my aide. I gain in two ways if I do that. I have her expertise on the American psychology close at hand and I am more familiar with feminine appetites than those of perverts.”

  “Blovin,” the old man said. He made motions with his hands, indicating Sophia’s generous bosom endowment. “I remember her from the meeting we had. I think she’s a good choice.” He grinned slyly. “Now all you have to worry about is her falling into bed with some CIA agent or an Israeli agent. Maybe you had better take care of those appetites yourself, Igor. You used to have quite a name for that sort of thing at one time.”

  “Comrade, you shock me,” Shevenko said with a small smile. “I’m a happily married man.”

  “Hah!” Plotovsky said. “I knew your mother-in-law before you did. Like mother like daughter. If the daughter is like the mother you live with an Arctic ocean iceberg.”

  “Did my honored friend seduce my mother-in-law?”

  “Before she married your late father-in-law, who must have died of frustration,” Plotovsky said. He leaned back in his chair. “Your wife’s mother was a handsome woman, still is. I was younger then, full of piss. That was before the Great War and I didn’t seduce her, she seduced me. She told me she believed it her duty to give solace to a hero of the Soviet Union.” He shuddered at the memory. “A bad experience. I never went back. Enough of that, let’s get to the business at hand. Did you know the Admiral was servicing your late aide?”

  “No, sir,” Shevenko said with a straight face. “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure,” Plotovsky said. “What sort of information could your late aide have passed on to the Admiral?”

  “Not much,” Shevenko said slowly. “I told him as little as possible. He didn’t know I went to Israel, as you did because I told you. I told him only enough so that he could do his job.”

  “But he did have access to your office files,” the old man persisted. “He could have gone into the files at night, when you were not there.”

  “I keep confidential material in a safe, sir. The safe is fixed to sound an alarm and spray the intruder with an indelible red dye if the safeguards are not first deactivated. He did not know about those safeguards.”

  The old street fighter put his gnarled hands on his desk top and studied them. “Lubutkin’s death seemed to have happened most opportunely. Now that his lover is dead the Admiral has no chance to know what our strategy will be to oppose him unless there is some other leak in your organization. Is that possible?”

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Shevenko said. He watched Plotovsky carefully. Sophia had told him earlier that Simonov had been summoned to see Plotovsky. Had Anton said anything? He thought not.

  “I think that’s enough of that subject,” Plotovsky said suddenly. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Shevenko stood up and walked to the coat tree and put on his coat and muffler and settled a fur hat on his head. After Shevenko had left the office Plotovsky buzzed for his secretary.

  “Ask Comrade Simonov to come back in, please.”

  Simonov entered from the secretary’s office and stood before Plotovsky’s desk. “Your secretary arranged for me to hear what was said in your conversation with Comrade Shevenko,” he said in a low voice.

  “And?”

  “I cannot believe anything bad about Comrade Shevenko, sir. We have been friends since our school days. You know that. He promoted me to my present position, sir. I admire him and trust him.”

  The old man nodded. “I know all that. I approved of your promotion. You do your work well and you have a tight mouth.” He nodded his head slowly on his stalklike neck. “I know, too, that he arranged for your wife’s mother to emigrate to Israel.” He raised his hand as Simonov started to speak.

  “I arranged for her passport, Anton,” he said. “She is an old lady. She could do no harm. I have nothing against the Jews. I fought beside Jews in the Revolution. They were good men, good fighters. Our Communist theorists think they know everything. They don’t. But I do. Almost everything. That is one of the advantages of age, Simonov, what you don’t know you know how to find out. That’s all. My thanks for your good work.” He lowered his head and hawked and spat into the cuspidor that stood beside his chair.

  He sat quietly for a few moments after Simonov had left and then he carefully turned over the pictures and sorted through them, looking at each picture with care.

  “The naval defender of the Soviet Union!” he rasped. “What a farce!”

  Vice Admiral Brannon’s Chief Yeoman came into the Admiral’s office and closed the door behind him.

  “Permission to speak off the record, in confidence, sir?”

  “Of course, Chief, what’s on your mind?”

  “I had lunch today with a chief I served with when he was first class. I got him his hat. He told me, his exact words, sir, were, quote a certain four-striper is out to hang Mike Brannon’s ass unquote.”

  “Nothing very new in that, Chief. That certain captain has been after my ass ever since I was assigned to this billet.”

  “I know that, sir, but that captain hasn’t been using his big guns. Now he’s loading up for a broadside, sir.”

  “What’s the caliber of his broadside guns, Chief?”

  “Pretty heavy, sir. This chief told me that it’s a congressman. A powerful congressman. Powerful enough to already have run a check on your private and official life sir. His caliber is big enough so that he went into the FBI’s secret files to try and find something against you. That came up a blank so now, this chief tells me, they’re gonna get at you through Admiral McCarty of the Joint Chiefs. They figure he can find a way to push you into retirement, sir.”

  “Interesting,” Mike Brannon said. “I owe you my thanks, Chief. Both of us know that carrying tales is never good duty.”

  “I don’t consider this to be tale-carrying,” the Chief Yeoman said. “You shoot square with all hands, Admiral. This other chief and me, we hate to see someone playing dirty games to get at you, sir.”

  “You’ve paid me a compliment, Chief,” Brannon said with a grin. “And I’ll accept it. And I thank you for the scuttlebutt.”

  “Sir,” the Chief Yeoman said in a strained voice, “sir, it isn’t scuttlebutt! It’s the straight poop!”

  “I’ll treat it as such,” Brannon said.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Soviet ballistic missile submarine cruised steadily at 15 knots, running at 200 feet below the surface of the Atlantic. The crew was relaxed, a patrol station off Washington, D.C., even in winter, was better than the previous patrol area, which had been conducted under the ice near the North Pole. That had been almost seven weeks of complete discomfort, the ship wrapped in a numbing cold that the ship’s heaters could never dispel, the crew swathed in sweaters, heavy boots and gloves day and night. The Atlantic in the Washington latitude would be chilly but not as cold as the far North. The great winter storms that often raged off the American coast were of no consequence to the submarine. It could submerge below the storm action and wait until the weather front had passed.

  Captain Malenkov stood in the Command Center of his submarine and studied the chart his Navigator had placed on the work table. He nodded approval of the course line and the ETA on station. The chart showed that the patrol area would be 350 miles east of the American coast line, just east of the sharp drop where the Continental Shelf descended into an area noted on the chart as the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. The water in the patrol area was deep, almost 2,000 fathoms. Farther to the west, over the Continental Shelf, the chart showed depths of 12 to 24 fathoms. He turned his face upward as the loudspeaker rasped.

  “Contact! Sonar reports fast screws bearing two three zero degrees. Contact is below our depth.”

  Captain Malenkov turned to his Navigator. “We have a visitor, Alexy. Our information was that the Americans didn’t have any of their submarines out here. Like all our i
ntelligence, it was apparently wrong.” He stared at the chart.

  “We’ll stay on course, maintain speed. He will probably nose around like a dog at a garbage heap and then go away.”

  “Contact is making very fast turns,” the loudspeaker rasped. “Contact is changing course to our stern.”

  “Range on the contact, get his distance and give me a triangulation on his depth,” Captain Malenkov ordered.

  “Range is two thousand yards. Target’s speed is approximately forty knots. Target is definitely coming around our stern. Depth is three hundred feet.”

  The Soviet Captain watched as his Navigator swiftly drew in the plot on the chart. He snapped his head around to stare at the Navigator as the clangor of the other submarine’s sonar beams echoed through his ship.

  “He’s letting us know he’s there,” Malenkov grunted. “He must be hitting us with his full decibel range. What the hell is he up to?”

  “Target is now bearing one eight zero and moving to our starboard . . . Target is now changing course to run up our starboard side. It’s very hard to get accurate bearings, sir. He’s ranging on us with everything he’s got.”

  “To hell with him,” Captain Malenkov grunted. “Let him play his game. Let him make all the noise he wants. This is the open sea. We have a right to be here.”

  “And a duty,” his Navigator murmured. He drew in a line on the chart to show the position of the other submarine. He looked at his Commanding Officer.

  “Two can play at this game, Comrade. We could range on him.”

  “Let’s do that,” Captain Malenkov said. He picked up the telephone. “Sonar Room, I want full decibel ranging on the target. Let’s find out which of us is the noisier.”

  Aboard the Orca Captain Reinauer and his XO studied the computer video screens in the Control Room. “He’s locked in on him,” he said to Eckert. “Look at the rate he’s closing at, he must be doing thirty knots or better. Looks like he’s going to sweep around his stern.” He turned his head as the loudspeaker on the port bulkhead began to rattle and then blare.

  “He’s hitting him with all the power in his sonar transmitters,” Ecker said. “Those Russians must think they’re inside a boiler factory, all that noise hitting them.”

  Captain Reinauer studied the screen closely. “We’ve lost Devilfish on the passive. He must be around on the Russian’s starboard side.” He touched the helmsman on his shoulder.

  “Six hundred feet. Let’s do it quickly. I want to be able to hear both of them.”

  The Orca slanted downward sharply until it was well below the other submarines. The two white dots on the video screens now showed clearly.

  “Looks like he’s only about five hundred yards off the Russian’s beam,” Eckert said. The loudspeakers began to scream and Captain Reinauer, annoyance showing on his face, reached for the telephone. He stopped as the loudspeakers went suddenly quiet and the voice of the Sonar Chief on watch came over the speakers.

  “Both targets are hitting each other with full decibel range, Control. I’ll turn down the volume so it won’t ruin your ears. They’re making so much noise out there I don’t think they can hear anything at all, Control.”

  “Affirmative,” Captain Reinauer said into the telephone. “I want one quick echo range on the nearest target, that’s a Russian submarine.”

  “Will do,” the loudspeaker said. Reinauer waited.

  “Range to the nearest target is two zero zero zero yards, Control.”

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. “Helm, come left to three zero zero.” He looked at the video screen.

  “That puts us on a closing course with him,” he said to Eckert. He turned to Lieutenant Bill Reiss, the weapons officer.

  “Give me a time of direct closing,” he said quietly. Reiss punched the keys on his computer console.

  “At this speed, twenty knots, we’ll be at collision point in three minutes, sir,” Reiss said. “He’s running at two hundred feet, sir. Devilfish is on his starboard beam at the same depth.”

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. “Maintain present speed.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Eckert said.

  Captain Reinauer grinned, his white teeth showing in his thick black beard.

  “We’ve got a reinforced sail on this lovely baby of ours. We can break through six feet of pack ice if we have to. I’m going to try and slide up underneath that bastard and give him a nudge. ComSubLant said to do a bump and run if possible. We’ll bump the bastard!” He held down the talk button on his telephone.

  “Sonar, this is the Captain. You think there’s any chance either of those targets out there can hear us?”

  “Not a chance, sir. They’re making so much noise I don’t think they can hear anything at all, sir.”

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. He looked at the screen again and raised his eyes to Bill Reiss.

  “Go to computer navigation to close on the nearest target. I want to come up underneath him and do it at dead slow.” The helmsman leaned back in his padded chair as three lights flared on his console, indicating that depth, course and speed were now being controlled by the computers. Reinauer and Eckert watched the video screen as the white dot that was the Orca closed rapidly on the nearest of the other two white dots.

  “Depth is three hundred feet, sir,” the helmsman said. “Up bubble of five degrees. Speed slowing to five knots, sir. Up bubble now two degrees, sir.”

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. He looked upward instinctively as the sound of the Soviet submarine’s screw echoed through the hull of his ship.

  “Relative positions,” Reinauer snapped.

  “We’re coming into him just aft of his bow,” Reiss said. “Eighty degree port angle on the bow for us.”

  “Give me a vertical range!” Reinauer snapped.

  “Target is fifty, repeat five zero feet above us, sir!” The sonar operator’s voice was cracking with excitement.

  “Close on a collision course!” Reinauer ordered. “One bump and then flood down and come hard left rudder after the bump.” He turned to Eckert.

  “I hope that bastard’s got a solid keel, I don’t want the son of a bitch draped around our neck!” He pressed the button on his telephone set.

  “All hands, stand by for a collision. Helm, stand by for hard left rudder and turn for forty knots as soon as we hit. Flood manifold, stand by for quick flood and deep depth after the bump.” He waited, watching the two white dots merge on the screen. Bill Reiss, standing in front of his computer console keyboards, cleared his throat.

  “Expect collision in twenty-one seconds, sir. Override for helm on speed and depth is go, sir.”

  The Orca closed relentlessly on its target. The American submarine’s bow slid just beneath the hull of the Soviet submarine and the heavily reinforced top of the Orca’s sail slammed into the Soviet submarine’s keel with a loud crash. The crew members on watch in the forward section of the Soviet submarine were thrown off their feet by the force of the collision and amidships, in the Command Center, Captain Malenkov went to his knees, clutching at the work table in front of him to keep from falling.

  “Collision!” the Navigator screamed. “Rig all compartments for collision! Make a report on damage!”

  Aboard the Devilfish Captain Miller ordered his Sonar Room to stop ranging on the Soviet submarine.

  “Ranging stopped, Control,” the Sonar Room reported. “The target has stopped ranging, sir.”

  Captain Miller studied his video screens. John Carmichael, standing beside him, pointed at the screen. “That second blip, that must be the Orca. What the hell did he do? Look, he’s turning away, going deep, increasing speed. Both the damn blips were one piece when I looked at it the first time.”

  “I think that son of a bitchin’ Reinauer sneaked in on the Russian while all the noise was going on and gave him a bump and run,” Captain Miller said. “Bastard never did tell me what he intended to do if we caught up with the Soviet sub. All he asked me to do
was to get on its starboard side if we were both to port when we picked up the Soviet sub and to make a lot of noise. Bastard!” There was a tone of admiration in his voice. “Look, he’s well clear of the Soviet now and he’s turning back, coming up to depth.” He winced as the loudspeakers on the bulkhead blared with the sound of the Orca’s echo-ranging transmitters.

  “He’s giving him hell from the other side. Commence full decibel ranging on the target. We’ll make that bastard go out of his mind with noise!”

  The initial confusion aboard the Soviet submarine was over in less than a minute as the crew, meticulously trained for emergencies, found that there were no leaks and that the ship was still answering its helm. Captain Malenkov looked at his Navigator.

  “Two submarines after us,” he said. “One deliberately came up underneath us and hit us! They’re madmen! What in the hell is going on? We’ve done nothing wrong. Are these bastards going to risk an international incident?” He jumped as the Orcas’s sound transmitters hit the port side of his ship with a devastating roar of noise. Seconds later the noise doubled as the Devilfish joined in from the starboard side with its own shattering sound waves.

  “Surface!” Captain Malenkov ordered. “I’m not going to stay down here with two madmen on each side of us. We’ll go up and if they come up we’ll find out what the hell they’re up to.” He grabbed at the work table for support as the submarine slanted upward sharply.

  “He’s going up,” Orca’s Sonar Room reported. “He’s blowing ballast tanks, Control. He’s at one hundred feet and going up, sir.”

  “Surface,” Captain Reinauer ordered. “Let’s go up with him and see what happens. Tell Devilfish we’re surfacing and suggest they do the same.”

  The Soviet submarine broke through the surface of the Atlantic and wallowed in the long deep-water swells, its rounded hull almost submerged. On either side of it the smaller American attack submarines burst through the surface, throwing spray as the sleek hulls reared half out of the water and then settled back. Captain Malenkov climbed into the upper part of his submarine’s sail and took a bullhorn from his quartermaster. He watched and saw figures come into view in the top part of the sails on the two submarines that were now stationed on his port and starboard beams, less than one hundred yards away.