Voyage of the Devilfish

“One point one megatons.” Geronmyy turned to look at Krakov. “The targeting manual also gives us direct-hit credit for taking out the American Navy’s submarine headquarters and the Atlantic Fleet headquarters. And most of the adjacent Naval Base and Naval Air Station runways and aircraft should be in ruins.”

“Open the outer door,” Krakov ordered.

USS BILLFISH

“Conn, Sonar, we’ve regained Target One, signal-to-noise ratio above threshold. Contact is definitely above the thermal layer.”

“Sonar, Captain, aye,” Toth responded. “Anything more from Target One? Anything unusual?”

“Conn, Sonar, yes. Transients from Target One now… scraping noise… Conn, Sonar, Target One is opening a hull… possible torpedo tube outer door.” Toth swore under his breath. When he was a sonarman he would know for sure, not have to guess. Was it a torpedo tube door or not? It didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. The contact could be dumping garbage, pumping his sanitary tanks, dumping some bilge oil… It wasn’t exactly appropriate to consider dumping trash an offensive action. Toth could almost hear his own court martial.

“Sonar, Captain, did he open a fucking torpedo tube door or not?”

“Conn, Sonar… yes.” The sonar chief still sounded unsure. What if this guy was about to shoot him? Did he really have to wait for the Russian to launch a weapon before shooting back? Of course he had to. Rules of Engagement said so, gut feel or not. Toth looked over at Pos Two. The solution was set into the Mark 49 torpedoes in tubes three and four, overheating as they were. But it would take the 49s in tubes one and two a full five minutes to spin up. Commander Harrison Toth opened his mouth to order the weapons in tubes one and two be powered up. Just in case.

FS VLADIVOSTOK

“Missile on internal power, sir.”

“Stand by to fire on my mark,” Krakov commanded.

“Standing by, sir.”

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark’.”

“Fire!” the Weapons Officer called, punching a fixedfunction key. The ship shuddered, Krakov’s eardrums popped.

USS BILLFISH

“Conn, Sonar, launch transient from Target One!”

“What the hell was that?” Toth demanded. Was this a torpedo in the water or not?

“Sonar, Captain, did Target One launch or not?” No answer for a moment, then: “Conn, Sonar, no torpedo in the water, but it was definitely a launch transient…”

A dry fire? Toth thought.

“Sonar, Captain, was that a water slug?”

“Conn, Sonar, no, but… we suspect a misfire of a weapon. More transients from Target One. He may be lining up another tube.”

“Any sign of a counterdetection? Does he know we’re here?”

“No.” Then who the hell is he shooting? Toth thought. Unless it’s not a torpedo… in which case it might be… Oh God… a cruise missile?

CHAPTER 16

19 DECEMBER, 0914 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

WESTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN

FS VLADIVOSTOK

“What happened?” Captain Krakov was furious.

“Relief valve lifted on the tube. Captain. The weapon is still in the tube. Warrant’s working on it now,” the Weapons Officer reported.

“Can we shift the weapon to one of the other tubes?”

“Only tube four is set up for the SSN-X-27, Captain.”

“How long?”

“An hour to replace the valve, sir.”

“No. Reset the relief valve and line up to fire again.”

“Sir, it may work, but odds are it’ll just lift the valve again.” ‘Today we shall test the odds,” Krakov said. “Reset the damn valve. Shut the outer door, drain the tube, bring the weapon back onto ship power and do a recheck. Thirty seconds!” Damned shipyard, Krakov thought. A ten-million-ruble cruise missile crippled by a forty-ruble relief valve. Now the power surge from reconnecting the missile might blow its circuit and leave him with a useless, inert bomb.

“Status,” Krakov demanded impatiently.

“Tube drained. Missile power is external. System checkout is… complete… no errors. Weapon is nominal, sir!”

“Flood the tube, open the door and reinitialize the launch sequence.” Goddamned relief valve, Krakov thought. This time it had better work.

USS BILLFISH

“Sonar, Captain, what’s the status?” Toth shouted into the boom microphone.

“Conn, Sonar, several transients from Target One. Sounds like he shut the tube door and drained the tube.” He must be lining up for another try, Toth thought. Or it could still be an exercise. Did he have enough evidence to justify shooting the Russian? The Rules of Engagement still said no— “Conn, Sonar, Target One has reflooded his tube… outer door coming open now…”

“Screw it. Snapshot, tube three. Target One!” Toth commanded.

FS VLADIVOSTOK

“Missile on internal power, sir.”

“Stand by to fire on my mark,” Krakov commanded.

“Standing by, sir.” The Weapons Officer was on the phone to the torpedo warrant officer in Vladivostok’s first compartment in case the relief valve lifted again.

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark!”