one side of a status display to the other, and a hollow-sounding shush
echoed faintly through the control room. Unlike earlier submarine
classes, a Los Angeles sub’s torpedo tubes were mounted amidships, two
to either side of and just below the attack center, and the sound was
easily transmitted through the inner hull.
“Torpedo one fired. We have positive guidance.”
The Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo was wire-guided, at least for the first part
of its run. It was being steered by an enlisted man at the weapons
board, who tracked it through its own passive sonar relayed down the
unraveling wire that connected it with the Galveston. Responding to
those signals, the crewman could in turn send steering instructions back
down that same cable, using a small joystick on the console before him.
Silently, Montgomery ticked off twenty seconds.
“Fire two.”
The second ADCAP lurched from Galveston’s number-two tube.
Shots under the ice were always risky, the sonar picture obscured by
reflections from the “roof.” Montgomery wanted to make certain of his
kill.
“Number two away. Running on positive guidance.”
Montgomery glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. It now read 1511
hours.
How long would it be before the Russians heard Galveston’s approaching
torpedoes?
1525 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
“Captain! Sonar! High-speed screw, bearing one-nine-five!”
“What!”
“Confirmed, Captain! Torpedo in the water! Range, estimate less than
eight thousand meters. Speed fifty to fifty-five knots.”
Damn the Americans and their superbly silent submarines! How had a
Yankee attack sub managed to slip to within a few miles of the
Revolutsita?
Or … could the attacker be another Russian sub? One loyal to the
Leonov faction and attempting to halt the firing of the Revolution’s
missiles?
Dobrynin at once discarded that possibility. Some of the recent Soviet
submarine designs, building on technology liberated from the West, were
extremely quiet. Typhoons, for example, were among the most silent
submarines in the world’s oceans. But if this was a Russian attack sub
it was most likely what the West called an Alfa, a small boat designed
for high-speed interceptions … and the pumps for an Alfa’s liquid
sodium-cooled reactor were distinctive, and extremely noisy. There was
no way that the Revolution’s sonar officers could have missed an Alfa’s
approach!
So the torpedo was an American one, probably one of their wire-guided
ADCAPS, with a range of less than twenty miles at fifty-five knots, and
carrying a 300-kilogram high-explosive warhead.
Why had they fired? Possibly, they feared an ICBM launch on the
continental United States. Whatever their reasoning, there was no time
to analyze it. Dobrynin was faced now with a critical tactical
decision. Should he stay put and carry out the launch sequence already
begun, hoping to get the missile aloft before the torpedo hit; or should
he button up and dive, seeking maneuvering room beneath the ice in an
attempt to avoid the torpedo and keep his options open for a launch
later?
“Sokolov!” he yelled. “Abort the count! Secure missile hatch and
prepare to dive!”
“At once, Comrade Captain!”
“Is this wise, Comrade Captain?” Inevitably, Strelbitski was there, at
Dobrynin’s elbow, his thin lips tight with disapproval.
“We could still carry out our orders before the torpedo reaches US.”
“Damn you, Strelbitski. I have a duty to this vessel and to these men.
We will fire the cursed missile … if we survive the next five
minutes!” He snatched up a microphone. “Torpedo room! This is
Dobrynin!”
“Torpedo room here, Captain.”
“Torpedo status!”
“Eight tubes loaded, Comrade Captain. One through four with Type 65!
Five through eight with Type C-1!”
The Type 65 was the largest and deadliest torpedo in the world, a
650mm-thick, nine-meter-long wake- or active-sonar-homer that could
travel twenty-seven nautical miles at fifty knots, or fifty-four miles
at thirty knots. Type C-1s were older, smaller torpedoes with smaller
warheads and a range of eight miles.
Typhoons mounted tubes for both sizes, arrayed four-over-four across the
huge submarine’s broad, bluntly rounded bow.
“We will use the Type 65s,” Dobrynin ordered. “Set running speed at
fifty knots.”
“Comrade Captain! The missile hatch is secure. The submarine is ready
to dive.”
“Then dive him, damn you! Dive!” The Typhoon’s deck trembled as water