that had rocked them earlier, but not nearly so damaging this far
beneath the ice.
Galveston rocked to starboard, shuddered, then tilted back to port.
An instant later, the second torpedo struck home, the detonation
thundering through the water close on the heels of the first.
The third torpedo did not detonate. Either it had been seduced by the
Typhoon’s noisemaker decoys, or the first two explosions had damaged it.
No matter. As soon as Ekhart slipped his headset back on, he could hear
the unmistakable sounds of water flooding a large, empty space, a
rushing, thundering sound, punctuated by startling popping noises.
Homing on her screws, striking the Typhoon in the stern, the first ADCAP
must have ruptured the seal around one of her drive shafts, sending
water pouring into her engine spaces. As he continued to listen, Ekhart
heard a low, eerie groan building to an almost human wail of agony as
steel warped under incredible stress, not from depth–the Typhoon was
not nearly deep enough for that–but from unbalanced loads surpassing
engineering tolerances.
He was hearing the sound of the huge sub’s back breaking as her after
spaces flooded and started dragging her down.
“Captain, this is Sonar,” he said. “Two hits. I’m picking up breakup
noises.”
“Pipe it over the ICS.”
He flipped a switch, transmitting the death cries of the giant Russian
sub throughout the boat. Ekhart had half expected the crew to break
into cheering, but the Galveston remained death-silent. Now he could
hear the rustle of air bubbles streaming into the void. The target was
changing aspect too as it dropped away into blackness.
“Now hear this” rasped over the ICS speaker. “This is the captain
speaking. All I can say, men, is congratulations to each and every one
of you on a job very well done. The details of this mission may have to
remain secret, but I can tell you that Washin ton had information that
our target was a Russian Typhoon that had surfaced in order to launch
her nuclear missiles.
Your action prevented that launch, and the country and the world owes
you a very large debt.
“Sonarman First Class Ekhart, I want to extend to you a very special job
well done. That was good work, picking out the Typhoon’s screws from
the background garbage. You may have saved the boat, and you certainly
contributed to the success of our mission. I’ll be writing you up in my
after action report, recommending you for special commendation …”
Ekhart did not feel like he deserved commendation. His … talent, his
ability to feel out an opponent in the darkness of the ocean, had just
been put to the ultimate test, and 150 people had died. True, they’d
been trying to kill him and his shipmates at the same time, but it was
still not something he could feel proud about.
The sonarman sitting beside him clapped him on the shoulder. “Real
number-one job, Rudi.”
“Yeah,” another said, grinning from ear to ear. “The Old Man usually
ain’t none too free with his ‘well dones.” Good work!”
Somehow, though, Ekhart had never felt more distant from his shipmates
than he did at that moment. He felt both proud of his skill and ashamed
of the fact that he’d just helped kill 150 men, submariners like
himself.
He wished that he’d never joined the Navy.
1430 hours EST (Zulu -5)
Situation Room Support Facility
Washington, D.C.
The news that Galveston had torpedoed a Russian PLARB had everyone in
the Crisis Management Group keyed to fever pitch. All expected some
form of Russian retaliation, either against American submarines in the
Barents Sea, or more likely, against the carrier battle force at Bear
Station. Oddly, while the Kola bases remained on full alert, no new air
strikes, no cruise missile attacks had been launched.
“Since that time,” a military aide, a Navy captain, was saying, “there
have been five additional incidents in the area. We’re still checking
on some of them, but it appears that at least four more Russian
submarines have been sunk during the last three hours.”
“What kind of subs were they?” someone in the audience asked.
“Two were PLARBs. Not Typhoons, but older models. A Yankee II and, we