admitted openly to being homosexual would have been harassed
unmercifully and might even have had some sort of “accident.”
Perhaps the single saving grace there was that the victim could not fall
overboard while the sub was submerged.
Those mechanical sounds were growing slowly louder. He concentrated a
moment, closing his eyes, willing the sounds he was hearing to take
shape in his mind. Yes … it was the throb-throb-throb of a ship’s
screws, two of them, turning slowly. Whatever it was was making revs
for only a few knots at best.
“Control room, Sonar,” he said, speaking barely above a whisper into the
mike attached to his headset. All submarine ICS had been set to be
barely audible at the other end. For a moment, he wondered if the
skipper had heard him.
“Sonar, Captain. Whatcha got, Ekhart?”
“Definite submerged contact, Captain. Designate Sierra Nine. Sounds
like something big coming out of the barns.”
“Submerged, you said?”
“Yessir.”
“You got a make and model yet?”
“Wait one.” Ekhart adjusted the gain on his console, still listening.
On the screen inches in front of his face, he was getting the peaks and
troughs of low-frequency sounds now. That thumping just behind the beat
of the screws had to be a reactor pump. And there was a sharp,
thuttering sound that puzzled him for several moments. Then he got it.
There was some weed or a length of rope, possibly a ship’s painter,
trailing from the approaching vessel’s deck.
He sensed a presence at his back. Captain Montgomery had stepped in
behind him. “Let me hear, son.” Montgomery was from south Texas, and in
times of stress his accent and country mannerisms grew pronounced.
Ekhart passed Montgomery the headset, then leaned back to run the sound
through Galveston’s library. All American submarines maintained
digitized collections of sounds from a staggeringly vast number of
sources, everything from fish love-calls to the running sounds of
specific submarines. Often, Galveston herself could identify not only a
given class of submarine, but a specific individual. Ekhart liked to
compete with the boat’s library, coming up with an ID before it did.
This time, it was a tie. “My guess is a Typhoon, Captain,” he told
Montgomery. “Twin screws, and big as Godzilla. Can’t tell you which
one.”
“That’s what the Gal says, sir,” Sonarman Second Class Harrington said,
checking the computer display. “Typhoon, no ident.”
“This must be one of the ones we haven’t heard before,” Montgomery said.
“Any guess on the range?”
While active sonar could give an exact range to target, the same was not
true for passive listening. Still, a good sonar man could make a shrewd
estimation, based on local conditions and a lot of experience.
“He’s moving damned slow, Captain. Cautious like. Given the current,
and the channeling effect of the sludge above us, I’d guess he’s within
ten or twelve miles.”
“Good enough. I want you to stay on his ass, Ekhart. Stick tight like
a tick on a hound dog’s ear and don’t let ’em go. Tell me the moment
you pick up an aspect change.”
“We’re gonna tail him, Skipper?”
“You bet. That’s what our orders say. We’ll come about real nice and
easy, until we’re pointed out of this pocket, then wait. When Sierra
Nine passes us, we’ll just slip in behind him, right square in his
baffles.”
“What if he’s heading straight for us, Captain?” Harrington asked.
“Then we try to get out of his way, son. I don’t plan to ram the
sumfabitch. You need any help, Ekhart?”
But Ekhart had taken back the headset and was already lost in the black,
watery world beyond Galveston’s double hull, his eyes closed, imaging
the approaching monster in his mind.
He could almost see her.
CHAPTER 14
Friday, 13 March
0835 hours (Zulu +2)
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Leninskiy Nesolashimyy Pravda
Captain First Rank Anatoli Chelyag was furious. “Idiots! I can have
you shot for this! I should have you shot for this, this blatant and
irresponsible destruction of the State’s property!”
The eight seamen standing on the Pravda’s mess hall deck glanced
uneasily at one another, each looking as though he expected someone else
to step forward and accept the blame.