Flight of the Condor Page 6

  Whereas the room used to be open to the entire crew, entry was now strictly limited.

  The staccato noise of a typewriter broke from the right side of the corridor. Hastily Exeter poked his head into the sub’s general office. Inside this elongated cubicle was a copier machine, various file and storage drawers, and just enough space for the boat’s Supply Officer to do his thing in. Currently pecking on the typewriter was the most junior officer on the staff, Ensign Oliver Tollbridge. Without drawing his attention, the Captain peered over the ensign’s skinny shoulders, and saw that he was typing up a revised list of the Razorback’s current video library. Not desiring to interrupt this allimportant task, Exeter silently backed out of the office and continued on towards the boat’s bow.

  Swiftly now he passed through a corridor lined with a myriad of pipes, cable, and copper fittings.

  This area of the sub also held the gyroscope, various ECM gear, and their unmanned Mark 101A firecontrol system. The stairwell on his left led downward, to the boat’s second level. There was stationed the sonar and torpedo rooms, the crew’s quarters and galley, and, toward the stern, the Razorback’s engine compartment. Continuing on past this stairway, Exeter emerged into the control room.

  As always, this section of the boat buzzed with activity. Bisecting the room was the periscope station.

  It was here the captain and the current Officer of the Deck usually positioned themselves.

  An alert seaman noticed Exeter’s arrival and spoke out clearly for all present to hear.

  “Captain’s in the control room.”

  With familiar ease, Philip Exeter scanned the compartment to determine the boat’s exact status. Before him, he identified the lean figure of the current OOD, Lieutenant Scott Willingham. In the process of scanning the horizon with their forward periscope, the blond-haired khaki-clad officer quickly circled the metal-mesh platform, his shoulders bent, his eyes snuggled firmly into the periscope’s sights.

  To this station’s left was the boat’s nerve center.

  Here Chief of the Boat Lester Brawnley parked his hefty figure before the diving station. Ever alert to any change in their depth status, the chief sat before the board responsible for adjusting their trim and determining their buoyancy. By merely triggering the opening or closing of a variety of valves, he could vent air into their ballast tanks or add heavier sea water.

  The actual up, down, or sideways movement of the boat was regulated by the two planes men seated in the forward portion of the room, to the chief’s right.

  Two seamen first class presently sat in the upholstered “drivers’ ” chairs, their hands carefully gripping the aircraft-type steering wheels that guided the Razorback’s wanderings. Before them was mounted the ever-important depth gauge, which read a steady sixty-five feet.

  Exeter took in the calm chatter of the control room’s personnel and, satisfied with what he heard, crossed over to the compartment’s rear.

  Here was placed the navigation station. Perched before its compact metal table, both the XO and Lieutenant McClure scrutinized a detailed bathymetric chart of the Gulf of Santa Catalina. The Captain was just taking in their current position, in the waters between San Clemente and Catalina islands, when the firm voice of the OOD spoke out excitedly.

  “I have a surface contact, bearing three-two-zero, relative rough range five thousand eight hundred yards!”

  Instantly, Exeter’s attention snapped back to the periscope station. His ensuing orders were delivered crisp and clear for all to hear.

  “Down scope! Take us down to two hundred and fifty feet, at one-third speed. Has sonar got anything on this contact?”

  The seaman responsible for manning the direct comm line to sonar responded a few seconds later.

  “Sonar’s got them on passive, sir. They apologize for not picking it up earlier, but the ship was apparently just lying there, dead in the water. She’s a major combatant, all right. Captain, and she’s coming towards us with a bone in her teeth.”

  “Change our course to two-six-zero,” ordered Exeter firmly. He was aware of the sudden tilt of the deck as the Razorback’s sail-mounted planes bit into the Pacific and the 2,800-ton vessel plunged downwards.

  The Captain’s eyes were locked on the depth gauge as they dropped beneath the one-hundred fifty-foot level when the comm line from sonar again activated.

  “Sir, sonar has another pair of surface contacts, bearings two-eight-five and two-two-zero respectively.

  Relative rough range for both contacts is five thousand yards and rapidly closing.”

  Genuinely shocked by this revelation, Philip Exeter silently cursed. Here he was less than an hour into the exercise and already they were boxed in and about to be tagged. To escape this rapidly tightening net the Razorback would have to play its alternatives most carefully.

  “All stop!” he ordered.

  “Level us out at twofive- zero feet.”

  While these directives were being relayed, the boat’s senior officers gathered around the navigation table. Fresh from his own recently concluded conversation on the comm line, the XO briefed them of his find.

  “Sonar had time to do a preliminary signature ID on those contacts, Captain. The first one that we picked up was a dual-shaft gas turbine. Lefty bets his pension that she’s a Spruance. The other two are single-shaft geared turbines, most probably belonging to a pair of Knox-class frigates.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll bet they’re the Roark and the Joseph L. Hawes,” added the OOD.

  “I personally saw those two frigates trying to sneak out of Loma two nights ago. And here they’ve been just waiting for us all this time.”

  Aware that the angled tilt of the deck was decreasing, Exeter sighed.

  “Whoever they are, you can be certain that all three ships have got choppers and variable depth sonar. That means that we’ve got to make our move quickly or forever hold our peace.”

  With his glance locked on the bathymetric charts of the waters they were presently plying beneath, the Captain’s eyes momentarily brightened.

  “Lieutenant McClure, do you think you could find us a nice, sandy portion of sea floor nearby for the Razorback to settle into?”

  Already taking into account their new course, the sub’s Navigator bent over the chart and responded.

  “I believe I can find us a good spot approximately seven nautical miles from our current position, Captain. The only trouble is that we’re going to have to go down to six hundred and twenty-five feet to reach it.”

  “We can handle that,” retorted Exeter, who briefly met his XO’s concerned glance.

  “Chart us the quickest course and let’s get going. Mr. Willingham, rig us for a deep dive. Then I want the boat to be buttoned up as quiet as a church. Spread the word that a state of ultra-quiet will prevail until further ordered. The only way we’re going to evade these guys is by convincing them that we’re no longer here, so let’s get moving! The U.S.S. Razorback isn’t about to’ get licked so easily.”

  One floor beneath the control room, Seaman First Class Todd “Lefty” Jackman sat in the narrow compartment reserved for the sonar monitors. The light here was veiled in red, the atmosphere hushed, as Lefty concentrated on the myriad of sounds being channeled into his headphones. He had been exclusively monitoring the Razorback’s passive-detection system for over two hours. During this time, the noises created by their own vessel had been at a minimum, for they had been lying on the ocean’s bottom, hushed in a state of ultra-quiet. This condition was fine with the senior sonar technician, for it gave his hull-mounted microphones a clearer sweep of the surrounding waters.

  The sounds that he had continued to pick up these last one hundred and twenty minutes were far from reassuring. Above them, it was most obvious that the trio of destroyers had yet to be convinced that their target had moved on. He clearly heard the characteristic chugging of their turbines as they circled and probed. Thirty minutes before, the largest of these vessels had even
sailed right over them. Lefty had been able to pick out the oscillating hum of its towed VDS unit, being pulled in the destroyer’s wake, seeking any sign of the sub. In this case, fortune had been with the Razorback, for the Spruance-class ship had merely kept moving on. Currently, their pursuers were still in the area, though none were closer than 20,000 yards.

  Lefty sat back in his chair and tried to stretch his cramped, muscular limbs. His hands were cold, and his feet practically numb. What he needed was a good thirty-minute workout in the gym. That would get the blood pumping through his body once again. He had heard that the larger subs, such as the 688’s and Tridents, had such facilities right on board. This was not the case with the Razorback. In fact, he was fortunate just to have a bunk of his own. When he had been first assigned to the sub seven months before. Lefty had been forced to hot-bunk with a torpedo man, and he hadn’t had many kind thoughts as to his draw of assignments. It wasn’t until a month before, when he had finally passed his sonar qualification, that the XO had assigned him a space of his own. Though he couldn’t even turn over without getting out of the bunk first, he wasn’t about to complain. The torpedo man had stunk of cordite and machine oil, two scents that Lefty could certainly live without.

  The exercise that they had just completed in the North Pacific was his first as a seaman first class.

  Comfortable with his specialty. Lefty was beginning to enjoy the Razorback and its crew. Being the last of her kind meant that the boat deserved extra-special attention. He was proud of this fact, and never wanted to be the one who let the tradition down.

  Temporarily lifting the headphones from his sore ears, Lefty turned to see what his coworker was up to. Seaman Second Class Seth Burke, who sat to his left, was also taking a breather, and the two conversed in a whisper.

  “Well, what do you think. Lefty, will our playin’ possum fool them?”

  Lefty shrugged.

  “We’d better hope so. Otherwise the Captain is going to have our heads for sure. We should have heard that destroyer long before they saw it on the periscope.”

  “It sure is getting nippy down here,” added the seaman second class as he zipped his gray sweatshirt up to his neck.

  “What happens if they wait us out and we have to surface to snorkel?”

  “Then we lose,” returned Lefty, who was beginning to feel a bit chilly himself.

  “It’s times like these that I wish we were in a nuke,” observed Burke.

  “Then we could stay down here almost indefinitely.”

  “I don’t know about that, Seth. If we had been in a 688, I’ll bet that Spruance would have tagged us for sure when they passed over us. Those nukes can’t shut down like we can. They’ve always got to have some sort of coolant pump going, and that means additional noise. For good-old quiet, I’ll take the Razorback’s battery power any day of the week. Say, have you ever heard the sound of your flashlight going?”

  This question seemed to stump the seaman second class, who pondered an answer. Meanwhile, Lefty Jackman’s attention was drawn back to his headphones as a far-off, crackling noise sounded from their stern hydrophone. Of a different pitch than that of a turbine engine, the faint noise was somehow familiar. Positioning himself squarely before his console, Lefty began to investigate it more fully.

  On the floor immediately above Lefty, Commander Philip Exeter and three of his senior officers stood before the chart of the Gulf of Santa Catalina. The atmosphere that surrounded them was tense. The rest of the control room’s complement of men was hunched in front of inactive instruments, waiting for the word that would get them going once again.

  Around the navigation station, a whispered discussion was taking place. Lieutenant Smith, the Engineering Officer, had just figured out that they had a little less than sixty minutes of battery time left. Then they’d be forced to ascend and recharge their batteries.

  Since Operation Mauler extended another ten hours, if the destroyer and her escorts stayed close by, the Razorback would come up on the short end.

  Smitty also informed them that the boat’s heating unit was close to failing. It was impossible to repair in a condition of ultra-quiet, and the temperature inside the vessel had already dropped a full ten degrees.

  Philip Exeter and his fellow officers had long since put on their short khaki jackets. The additional chill was the least of their problems, and Exeter opened their predicament up for discussion.

  Lieutenant Willingham was the first to offer his opinion.

  “I think we should attempt to creep away under battery power while we still can. Directly to the east of us there’s all sorts of shallow trenches we can take advantage of along San Clemente’s eastern shore. There we can safely ascend to snorkel depth, and if necessary, take on additional air in quick sips.

  When night falls, it should be a relatively easy run around the island’s southern edge, and then we’re home free in open ocean.”

  Contemplating this plan, Exeter turned to query his XO, who was standing to his right.

  “You’ve been unusually quiet this morning, Mr. Benton. What do you think is our best course of action?”

  Pulling his pipe out of the corner of his mouth, the XO studied the chart a few seconds before answering.

  “Lieutenant Willingham’s idea is interesting, but I’m afraid, in this instance, it’s just too dangerous. The currents around San Clemente are extremely treacherous.

  This drastically increases the risks of us going aground. Not only could we fail the operation, we could lose the boat as well.

  “I’d say we’d have a much better chance following the bottom of the trench we currently occupy northward.

  That will put us smack in the middle of the Outer Santa Barbara Passage. Once our batteries get us there, we can find ourselves a thermal and use it to veil us until it’s safe to ascend. Right now, I’ve got a feeling that those surface ships topside aren’t really certain where we are. Pushing on to the north could lose them for good.”

  Taking in this suggestion, the Captain was just about to offer a comment of his own when the comm line activated. The excited seaman relayed the message breathlessly.

  “Sonar reports an underwater contact, sir. The bearing is one-eight-seven, with a range of fifty thousand yards.”

  Hastily rechecking the chart, Exeter realized that this would place the contact well within the southern perimeter of Operation Mauler. Since no U.S. submarine but the Razorback was authorized to be in this triangular sector for the next seventy hours, the Captain’s pulse quickened. Tapping the comm line to the sonar room himself, he issued a single query.

  “Can you get me a signature I.D. on it. Lefty?”

  Recognizing this voice’s source. Seaman Jackman’s voice nervously faltered.

  “I believe I can, Captain. Though it’s at the limit of our range, it’s making speed and really kicking up a ruckus. Don’t hold me to this, sir, but I could swear this is the same sub that we picked up off Washington. Though I can’t definitely prove it as yet, my gut tells me it’s that outlaw Soviet Victor!”

  Shocked by this revelation, Exeter stirred.

  “Good work. Lefty. Keep me posted on any developments.”

  Disconnecting the line, he pivoted to address his officers.

  “Well, this certainly throws a new log on the fire. Seaman Jackman feels this newest contact is none other than that Victor we chased out of Juan de Fuca. Do you believe the gall of those guys? It looks like it’s time for us to teach our comrades another lesson about trespassing in American waters. Prepare the boat to get under way. I’m going to want flank speed.”

  “But what about the exercise?” offered the XO.

  “Damn the exercise!” countered the Captain.

  “I’m not about to just sit here twiddling our thumbs while one of the Soviet Union’s most advanced attack subs scoots right through our own backyard. Even if we can’t pull thirty-two knots like they can, at least our pursuit will lead our ASW force to them. I say that it�
��s time to put the fear of God in them!”

  It was while he was initiating the flurry of orders that was putting new life into the Razorback’s control room that one of the vessel’s radiomen proceeded to the Captain’s side. He handed Exeter a single, folded sheet of white paper. Opening it with a flourish, the Razorback’s senior officer paled upon reading its contents.

  Conscious of this message’s effect, the XO approached him.

  “Is there anything the matter. Captain?”

  Philip Exeter managed a small grin.

  “Just when it seems most confusing, the U.S. Navy has a way of stepping in and making your decisions for you. Cancel that intercept, Mr. Benton. We’ve just received a top-priority transmission from COM SUB In effect, the Razorback has been ordered to abandon all operations and proceed with all due haste to the seas off Vandenberg. There we’re to assist the Air Force in the salvage of a Titan 34-D rocket that has just gone down in the Pacific.”

  “Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding!” returned the XO.

  “What about the Victor?”

  Exeter shrugged his shoulders.

  “I guess we’d better radio those destroyers and let them know where the real enemy lies. Right now, I’d better get going on that course to Point Arguello.

  “Prepare to ascend, Mr. Brawnley. Lieutenant Willingham, our new depth will be sixty-five feet. All ahead full on course three-zero-zero.”

  To a roar of venting ballast, the Razorback shuddered and slowly began rising. Invigorated with new purpose, the black-hulled vessel appeared imbibed with life itself as its planes rotated upwards and its single screw whipped into action with a frantic hiss.

  Chapter Four

  The morning was hot and steamy as Lieutenant Lance Blackmore walked out onto the exposed bridge of the tender U.S.S. Pelican. This was only his seventh day in Hawaii, and already he had found little to be excited with. Although the scenery was beautiful, unfortunately his first Naval assignment was turning out to be a real disappointment. And to think that his classmates had been actually envious of him when he’d opened the orders directing him to Pearl Harbor!