Gorov was disappointed. The Ministry’s indecision cranked up the level of his tension. The next hour would be more difficult for him than the hour that had just passed.
He turned to the other two men. “Clear the bridge.”
They prepared to dive. The lookouts scrambled down through the conning tower and took up stations at the diving wheels. The captain sounded the routine alarm—two short blasts on the electric horns that blared from speakers in the bulkheads of every room on the boat—and then left the bridge, pulling the hatch shut with a lanyard.
The quartermaster of the watch spun the hand-wheel and said, “Hatch secure.”
Gorov hurried to the command pad in the control room. On the second blast of the diving klaxon, the air vents in the ballasts tanks had been opened, and the sea had roared into the space between the ship’s two hulls. Now, to Gorov’s right, a petty officer was watching a board that contained one red and several green lights. The green represented hatches, vents, exhausts, and equipment extruders that were closed to the sea. The red light was labeled LASER TRANSMISSION PACKAGE. When the laser equipment settled into a niche atop the sail and an airtight hatch slid over it, the red light blinked off and the safety bulb beneath it lit up.
“Green board!” the petty officer called.
Gorov ordered compressed air released into the submarine, and when the pressure indicator didn’t register a fall, he knew the boat was sealed.
“Pressure in the boat,” the diving officer called.
In less than a minute they had completed the preparations. The deck acquired an incline, the top of the sail submerged, and they were out of sight of anyone in a ship or aircraft.
“Take her down to one hundred feet,” Gorov ordered.
The descent was measured by signifying beeps from the computer.
“At one hundred feet,” the diving officer announced.
“Hold her steady.”
“Steady, sir.”
As the submarine leveled off, Gorov said, “Take over for me, Lieutenant Zhukov.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can return the control room to a skeleton watch.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gorov left the chamber and walked aft to the communications center.
Timoshenko turned toward the door just as the captain entered the room. “Request permission to run up the antenna, sir.”
“Denied.”
Blinking in surprise, Timoshenko tilted his head to one side and said, “Sir?”
“Denied,” Gorov repeated. He surveyed the telecommunications equipment that lined the bulkheads. He had been given rudimentary training in its use. For security reasons, the telecommunications computer was separate from the ship’s main computer, although the keyboards were operated in the same manner as those in the control room with which he was so familiar. “I want to use your coder and the communications computer.”
Timoshenko didn’t move. He was an excellent technician and a bright young man in some ways. But his world was composed of data banks, programming keys, input, output, and gadgets—and he was not able to deal well with people unless they behaved in a predictable, machinelike manner.
“Did you hear me?” Gorov asked impatiently.
Blushing, embarrassed, and confused, Timoshenko said, “Uh … yes. Yes, sir.” He directed Gorov to a chair before the primary terminal of the communications computer. “What did you have in mind, sir?”
“Privacy,” Gorov said bluntly as he sat down.
Timoshenko just stood there.
“You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
His confusion deepened, Timoshenko nodded, tried to smile, but instead looked as if he had just been jabbed with a long needle. He retired to the other end of the room, where his curious subordinates were unsuccessfully pretending that they had heard nothing.
The coder—or encrypting machine—stood beside Gorov’s chair. It was the size and shape of a two-drawer filing cabinet, housed in burnished steel. A keyboard—with all the usual keys plus fourteen with special functions—was built into the top. Gorov touched the ON switch. Crisp yellow paper automatically rolled out of the top of the coder cabinet and onto the platen.
Gorov quickly typed a message. When he was finished, he read it without touching the flimsy paper, then pressed a rectangular red key labeled PROCESS. A laser printer hummed, and the coder produced the encrypted version under the original message. It appeared to be nonsense: clumps of random numbers separated by occasional symbols.