Deep Sound Channel (42 page)

"Fifteen thousand feet."

"Same as us," Jeffrey said, "and that's as deep as I want to push it." The hydraulic-ram main compensating pumps felt asthmatic as it was.

"Captain," Bell said, "should we head up toward the surface where our countermeasures work?"

"They didn't work against that 212's fish at Diego Garcia," Jeffrey said.

"There aren't any terrain features we can hide behind either," Ilse said. "We're over the Agulhas Basin at this point, nineteen thousand feet."

"Uh-oh," Jeffrey said, "I'm not thinking. Helm, right full rudder, make your course zero zero zero."

"Sir?" Bell said. "That fish will cut the corner on us."

"Yes," Jeffrey said, "it's a gamble. But we have to reach shallower ground."

"What's incoming torpedo's depth now?" Jeffrey said.

"Thirteen thousand five hundred feet," Bell said.

"Good," Jeffrey said, "and we're still at fifteen thousand, hugging the bottom. Looks like that fish is set to track five hundred meters above the floor but not below its crush depth, about what I suspected. . . . Fire Control, the range?"

"Ten thousand yards," Bell said, "and on an interception course."

"But we got its height-to-distance down to one to twenty," Jeffrey said, "so it's too close to the bottom for an effective Mach stem."

"Concur," Bell said. "That was smart, sir, veering north." "It can still kill us the oldfashioned way very nicely," Jeffrey said.

"If it was a high-explosives warhead," Morse said, "it would impact in twelve minutes. One KT's in lethal range in half that time."

"It's obviously got passive lock on all our noise,"

Jeffrey said, "but if we slow down any, we just help it more, and making knuckles slows us down."

"It may be programmed to go active if it loses passive lock," Morse said. "I doubt then that we'd fool it with a knuckle."

"No," Jeffrey said, "but it might be using a passive-only proximity fuze. If we can somehow make it think it's overtaken and it's passing us, it may blow prematurely. . . . Helm, hard right rudder!"

"Hard right rudder, aye," Meltzer said. The boat banked hard to starboard.

"Helm, hard left rudder!"

The boat banked hard to port.

"A pair of knuckles just might do it," Jeffrey said, "make our self-noise seem to fade."

"Sir," Sessions said, "incoming torpedo has started pinging, ultrasonic at thirty-two kilohertz."

"That's cute," Jeffrey said. "Rudder amidships." "Rudder amidships, aye," Meltzer said. Challenger steadied up on zero three five true.

"Torpedo is course-correcting," Sessions said, "once more on a constant bearing off our stern."

"It didn't work," Jeffrey said. He glanced at a chronometer. "That torpedo should have exhausted all its fuel already, even with not pinging till just now. The Axis must have an improved mod in the field. Useful Intel if we live to share it."

"What's range to the torpedo?" Jeffrey said.

"Eight thousand yards," Bell said.

"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "put your broadband on the speakers." A harsh screaming filled the CACC, gradually getting louder, the last incoming torpedo. Mad hissing and rumbling filled the background, the warheads that had already gone off. There was a steady sharp hiss also,

Challenger's own flow noise. The Axis fish's pinging was too high-pitched for the human ear.

"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "can you clean that up and say what else is happening out there?" Sessions tapped his keyboard and spoke to his senior chief. "Sir, we're getting intermittent passive contact on something on the surface, assess it as Sierra 1. Best guess it's all their bilge and fire-fighting pumps."

"Sounds like we really hurt them, Captain," Bell said.

"But we didn't sink them," Jeffrey said. "Is Sierra 1 in motion?"

"Hard to be sure with all the reverb," Sessions said, "but we have enough slant separation over the camoufletted blast zones to drive a TMA."

"Good," Jeffrey said. "Fire Control, what's the dot stack tell you?"

"Sierra 1 is stationary, Captain," Bell said.

"Well done!" Morse said. "A mobility kill and fire and flooding damage too."

"Let's just see how we make out," Jeffrey said as he glanced at a sonar speaker, then tried to ignore the constant swelling screaming from outside. "What's torpedo range?"

"Seven thousand yards," Bell said.

"It's almost surely set for active-sonar proximity fuzing," Jeffrey said. "We can't suppress our echo signature this close, our back end's too complex a profile."

"If I were them, Captain," Bell said, "I'd program it to blow four thousand meters from us. Forty-four hundred yards."

Jeffrey nodded. "If it doesn't drain its fuel tanks soon, we've had it." He grabbed the 7MC. "Maneuvering, more speed. Push it to a hundred twelve percent."

"Range six thousand yards!" Bell said. "It's turning into our baffles!"

"Helm," Jeffrey said, "left standard rudder, no course specified."

"Left standard rudder, no course specified, aye," Meltzer said.

"At least this way we'll take a glancing blow off our port quarter," Jeffrey said.

"The floor drops off in that direction," Ilse said.

"Good," Jeffrey said. "Helm, ten degrees down bubble smartly, head for sixteen thousand feet. We'll get more counterpressure against the warhead and more speed as our hull compresses."

"Ten degrees down bubble smartly, sixteen thousand feet, aye."

"Range still closing," Bell shouted. "Any second now!"

"Phone Talker," Jeffrey said, "collision alarm and rig for depth charge. Sonar, deactivate the hydrophones again.'

The CACC grew quieter but the torpedo could be heard outside the hull. Its screaming stopped.

The weapon detonated with a stupendous crack and several console screens went dead. Challenger's stern dipped as COB and Meltzer struggled for control. Newly replaced fluorescent light bulbs shattered and the fixture covers failed, scattering broken glass. Insulation fell from the overhead and another freshwater pipe exploded. Smoke came out of one of the sonar workstations, flames crackled in the forward passageway, and high-voltage circuits arced and popped. The air took on a stinking bite as fire fighters struggled with CO, and foam.

Jeffrey tried to read his damage control display, but the vibrations were so bad he couldn'

t focus. He realized he'd been deafened—there was a painful throbbing in his head amid an eerie silence. The black smoke made him cough; it wasn't clearing. The CACC crew began to don their emergency breathing masks, plugging the tubes into the air lines in the overhead.

The insane shaking died down enough for Jeffrey to make out his screens, but incoming reports were fragmentary. Challenger's reactor had done an autoscram from the shock. It would take a couple of minutes for Willey's people to safely restart, assuming there wasn'

t other, fatal damage. Meanwhile the boat was drifting, getting by on batteries. COB had to try maintaining depth by pumping variable ballast alone, an excruciatingly slow process against a head of 16,000 feet of water.

Jeffrey's hearing came back gradually. "Fire Control," he shouted, "status of the torpedo room?"

"More misting round the tube eight door," Bell said. "Tubes three and seven appear to be operational."

"Reload tubes one and five with Mark 48s!" Jeffrey said. "Navigating, get our gyros reset! Sonar, reactivate the hydrophone arrays!"

Morse put his hand on Jeffrey's shoulder. "Don't," Morse yelled. "You don't know what shape Voortrekker's in, how many nuclear torpedoes she has left."

"We'll have four ADCAPs in the tubes," Jeffrey said.

Morse ducked to keep his head below the thickening smoke. "Unless we scored a firepower kill, we'll be defenseless against more A-bombs once we show ourselves."

"She's dead in the water up there," Jeffrey yelled. "So are we right now."

"We'll do a stationary rise and get in range on emergency diesel if we have to." Morse shook his head firmly. "If their AT rockets are still functional, the chance of our success isn't worth a damn. It isn't worth the risk to this ship and her crew and intel payload!"

"Sir," Sessions shouted, "Sierra 1 has started active pinging!"

"Any torpedoes in the water?" Jeffrey said. "Impossible to tell yet."

"And remember Axis air support from the Prince

Edward Islands," Ilse said, pointing to Meltzer's nav display for emphasis.

"Enemy Mach 2 nuclear-capable fighter-bombers are only minutes away," Bell said.

"Captain," Sessions yelled, "I'm getting acoustic coupling through the air/ocean interface, sonic booms. Assess many inbound aircraft bearing one three zero true!"

"You mean just let him go?" Jeffrey said.

"Captain Fuller," Morse said, "don't get emotionally involved now. We've more than accomplished what we came for, Umhlanga Rocks and everything else."

"Sir," the phone talker said, "Lieutenant Willey reports pump-jet turned over well on the battery, full propulsion restart in one minute."

Way to go, Engineering.

"Sir," Bell said, "you turned a standoff here from a loss into a win. You cleared the pathway home." Jeffrey glanced at Ilse. She nodded ruefully.

"But . . . ," Jeffrey said.

"Jeffrey," Morse said. "To lay Voortrekker up for even a month or two at this point in the war is a vital achievement for the Allied cause."

Jeffrey sighed. He ran his hand over his face and looked at Ilse again. Again she nodded, giving him a crooked smile.

"There'll be other chances," Ilse said. "Jan will wait."

"Remember Jutland was a draw, Captain," Bell said, "but a strategic victory for the Allies in World War I."

Jeffrey hesitated. "Very well, Commodore. Very well, XO." He glanced down at his console screens. Power had come back already and Challenger's speed was building. The smoke began to dissipate.

Jeffrey cleared his throat. "Helm, maintain flank speed. Left full rudder, make your course one five three. We'll turn around, jink randomly, and use the extended sonar whiteout to disappear inside the Fracture Zone."

Van Gelder and ter Horst glanced up at the sky. Waves slapped and sloshed against the hull. Friendly aircraft flew overhead in escort as Voortrekker chugged along on her emergency diesel. Occasionally other aircraft dropped more parachute-retarded nuclear depth bombs at a safe distance, all camouflets in the abyss, hoping to hit Challenger. But it was obvious they were shooting blind, just as Voortrekker had been when she fired another salvo at the enemy sub once stabilized on the surface. That last torpedo in the first bunch had been the clue, blowing when its fuel would've run out but on a divergent course, as if chasing a sonar contact that got away. A bottom search would tell for sure—

they knew exactly where to look for wreckage—but ter Horst said he wasn't optimistic.

"Things are falling into place now, Gunther," ter Horst said.

"Captain?" Van Gelder said.

"You were right, you see, about there being just the one blast at Durban. It's all too neat. It wasn't a coincidence.,,

"I don't quite follow you, sir."

"Challenger," ter Horst said, "and an A-bomb. . . . The bomb was designed to get our boats to sortie in a hurry, and it worked. That's why Challenger was laying mines just there and then. They found a way past all the armor in the bluff, and a way around our hostage strategy, by clever indirection."

"Except their timing was off, sir," Van Gelder said. "The explosion came a bit too soon, or Challenger too late."

"Yes. . . . And you say it went off at Umhlanga Rocks?"

"I thought so, Captain, right at the peak of the headland. It would be easy enough to find out, from the crater."

Ter Horst nodded. "I believe there was a secret installation on that hill. I know there was a missile bunker there."

"You think they're all connected somehow, Captain?"

"I do, Gunther, I do. The bomb may have been sabotage from within, coordinated with the so-called Allies. The fallout mix will tell. .. . And how else could they have known precisely where the daily safety corridor lay?"

"It doesn't seem possible," Van Gelder said. "We have such tight security everywhere."

"Treason," ter Horst said. "There'll have to be a formal investigation of it all. . . . Voortrekker will be laid up for a while—I'll use my influence to get to chair the board personally."

"While we're in dry dock, Captain, in the bluff?"

"Yes," ter Horst said. "And when I find out who among our people were responsible, I'll put the nooses round their necks myself!"

Two ex-French Mach 2 interceptors roared by low off the bow, like arrowheads with their canard winglets under the canopies—under the winglets the aircraft now wore Iron Crosses. They vanished over the horizon, then a messenger popped his head out of Voortrekker's bridge hatch—Van Gelder resolved some minor matters quickly.

"Saved by a bunch of fly-boys, Gunther," ter Horst said a minute later. "Who'd have ever thought?"

"We did our best, sir," Van Gelder said. "The important thing is that we live to fight another day."

Ter Horst sighed. "This engagement was like in their Civil War, the battle between the world's first ironclads, Monitor and Merrimack. They fought each other to a standstill, then withdrew, and not for lack of courage on either side."

"Virginia, sir, not Merrimack," Van Gelder said. "The South renamed her when she was rebuilt."

Ter Horst stared into space, then set his jaw. "I underestimated the Americans. I took much too much for granted, and I fell for their clever tricks. So be it, but I swear to you, no longer. Next time we meet Challenger, she and her crew will die." NIINDELO, SAO VICENTE ISLAND,

REPUI3LIC OF CAPE VERDE,

10 DAYS LATER

The music blaring off the crowded patio was a kind of reggae with an African beat. The rhythm stirred Jeffrey's blood as he gazed across the narrow strait to Santo Antao, the next island in the volcanic chain, the 6,500foot-high peak of Tope de Coroa bristling with antennas and missile sites. He glanced at his watch and his heart started pounding—

thirteen hundred local, finally. Jeffrey turned back toward the hotel. Ilse was coming.