thundered into the sub’s ballast tanks. “Set depth to … set depth at
twenty meters. Come to one-eight-five, speed fifteen knots!”
Strelbitski stared at him, open-mouthed.
“We still have a few tricks in our weapons locker, Comrade Comnissar.”
The man’s face was pale. He looked frankly terrified. “What is it you
intend to do?”
Dobrynin did not reply. He was staring at the attack center’s overhead,
focusing on the faint, far hum of the American torpedo, audible now, and
swiftly growing louder.
1527 hours
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
Sixteen long minutes had passed since the torpedoes had been fired.
“Torpedo one has acquired the target, Captain,” the weapons officer
announced.
“Cut it loose.”
Freed of the wire connecting it to the Galveston, the torpedo went to
active homing, sending out a stream of sharp pings that reflected from
the hull of its slow-moving target and returned like a radar echo,
guiding the ADCAP torp toward its prey.
“Torpedo two has acquired.”
“Release it.”
Now two Mark 48s howled through the water, skimming a few yards beneath
the jagged, downward thrust of the ice-roofed surface. The target was
less than two miles ahead.
1528 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
“Now!” Dobrynin roared. His eyes were squeezed shut as he pictured the
shifting relative positions of submarine, torpedoes, and ice. “Full
speed ahead! Come right to three-five-zero! Engineering! I want one
hundred ten percent on both reactors, now! Kick his ass!”
Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita shuddered, heeling sharply to the right
as the helmsman swung the giant sub into a hard starboard turn.
Strelbitski grabbed for a brass stanchion and clung to it, his eyes very
large as he stared up past the attack center’s fluorescent lights.
Ping!
The sound of the torpedoes actively hunting the Revolutsita echoed
through the sub’s double hull like a hammer blow.
Ping! Just a little farther into the turn …
WHAM!
The Typhoon, already heeling a good twenty degrees to starboard, slewed
even farther onto the beam, flinging men, clipboards, loose papers, and
unsecured gear into the bulkhead. In the crews’ quarters, off-duty
personnel were unceremoniously dumped from their bunks; in the torpedo
room one of the racked monsters burst its steel bonds and smashed across
the compartment, crushing two torpedomen to death and pulping the legs
of a shrieking third.
Then the Typhoon rocked back to port, hurling her bruised and battered
crew back in the opposite direction, before steadying at last in a
precarious balance between the two extremes.
And around the sub thundered the booming roar of echoes gone mad.
1528 hours
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
“Hit!” someone yelled, as the boom rumbled through the water, caressing
the Galveston.
“Belay that!” Villiers shouted back. “It exploded too soon!”
Then the second torpedo went off, closer to the sub. The second blast’s
underwater shock wave, riding close on the heels of the first, caught
the attack sub and shoved her, hard. Her bow came up … and the sail
rocked into a rugged mass of ice protruding down from the ceiling, the
deepest thrust of a major pressure ridge. Sparks dazzled from a bank of
electronic gear, and smoke began billowing through the compartment.
“Fire!” someone yelled as the lights dimmed. “Fire in the control
room!”
1530 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
“Captain! This is the sonar officer. I cannot get a clear picture.
Wide-band noise and transients-”
“Never mind that. Is the sonar still operational?”
“Yes, Captain. But it will be several minutes before we have full
sensitivity again.”
“We don’t need it. We have them! Helm! Bring us back around to
one-nine-zero!”
The Typhoon had been shaken when the American torpedoes had struck the
ice, but was otherwise undamaged. Dobrynin had acted deliberately,
turning away from the torpedoes and going to full speed, a maneuver that
had attracted the notice of the torpedo’s passive sensors and drawn them
along. He’d noticed, during his maneuvering here an hour before, the
presence of several major pressure ridges, where the ice, piled high by
wind and currents, thickened into inverted ranges that posed a serious
threat to submarines operating close to the ice.
Or to torpedoes. He’d been taking a gamble; Revolutsita could have