Voyage of the Devilfish

But the worst part was the direction of the liftoff. Toth had hoped the missile might have been knocked off course by the Mark 49 torpedo detonations’ shock-wave. No such luck. The rocket motor exhaust pointed due west, in a perfect trajectory toward Norfolk. Toth handed the scope over to Culverson. “You have the Conn. Secure battle stations. I’ll be in radio.” The emergency nuclear-warning message was called an OPREP 3 PINNACLE for some forgotten reason. Just a code word for a flash transmission to the White House consisting mostly of numerals in preformatted fields. The mere fact that it was being sent would be drama enough at COMSUBLANT and CINCLANTFLEET Headquarters. At 0917 Greenwich Mean.Time the BIGMOUTH antenna of the USS Billfish came out of the sail and transmitted the remarkable, harrowing message. The communication went out first on the NESTOR UHF satellite secure voice circuit, then on a teletype burst communication coded to the satellite, also by UHF. The messages sent, there was no sense lingering at periscope depth. Yet Toth wanted to stay at the surface to see if the transmissions on the HF frequency from COMSUBLANT HQ stopped suddenly, which would indicate their incineration. He especially wanted to see if the CINCLANTFLEET SIOP WARPLAN implementation message would come through at FLASH priority. The SIOP WARPLAN was the collection of detailed instructions on exactly how they were to proceed in the event of a battle. Toth walked slowly forward to the control room. All eyes of the watch standers were staring on him. He cleared his voice.

“Off sa’deck, lake her deep to 546 feet. Ten knots. Start searching for another Russian attack unit. Maintain the rig for ultraquiet. And stream the buoyant wire antenna. I want to be in synch on VLF in case anything is transmitted from ashore.” He stood at the red sonar monitor panel of the Conn, waiting to find another Russian submarine, waiting for radio instructions to reach him from his wire antenna skimming the surface 500 feet above — or much worse, for no instructions (p come from an incinerated headquarters. It was time to give one more order.

“Off sa’deck, tell the Communications Officer to get into his top secret safe. Have him bring the CINCLANTFLEET SIOP WARPLAN to the Conn.”

CHAPTER 18

19 DECEMBER, 0924, GREENWICH MEAN TIME

ARCTIC OCEAN

BENEATH THE POLAR ICECAP

USS DEVILFISH

“Captain, the firecontrol system is overheating, we’ll have to shut it down.” Weapons Officer Lieutenant Commander Steve Bahnhoff looked very unhappy. Pacino gestured for Bahnhoff to wait. He had a last chore in mind for the Mark I firecontrol system.

“Two minutes since the Magnum launch. Captain,” Rapier said. urging Pacino to return fire.

“Very well, XO.” What had his father thought over two decades before when an older Russian torpedo was on its way, just as a bright shiny Russian Magnum was now on the way to the Devilfish Had Patch even had time to think? An image of his father coughing up blood and seawater, drowning in both, came to him, etched in his mind. It was almost time. Time for payback. Pacino literally felt the eyes of his crew on him, waiting for his lead. The quiet was palpable. No bass rumble of ventilation. No whine of the SINS navigation system. Only half the lights, the sonar and firecontrol systems were functional. Without air-conditioning the residual heat from the steam and reactor plants made the ship stuffy and hot. Bahnhoffs voice broke the silence. “Captain, firecontrol casualty… it’s a disk crash. Firecontrol is in tape mode.” Which, of course, meant the system would be twenty times slower and all positions would show the same clunky tape-mode display, the line-of-sight view. Pacino had no time to answer.

CHICK! CHICK! PWEEP! CHICK! CHICK! PWEEP! …

“Conn, Sonar, Magnum torpedo is doing a range check.” Pacino didn’t answer. Bahnhoff looked up at him. “Firecontrol temperature is almost a hundred and fifty, sir. We’re about to lose it…” But Pacino had to wait. The Magnum was still on its way in. Would the firecontrol system hold out till the torpedo passed? More to the point, would the Devilfish herself survive?

The Magnum torpedo, serial number 0011779, propelled itself through the cold arctic sea with an external combustion engine, combining fuel with liquid oxidizer in a combustion chamber and sending the expanding gases to twin Bend hydraulic motors, spinning the concentric propulsor shafts. The engine design was old but ingenious. The torpedo cruised through the water, its counter-rotating screws just on the verge of cavitation, its slippery surface enabling it to get up to its final intercept velocity of 110 kilometers per hour. One hundred ten clicks. Fastest torpedo on earth. At the moment, however, the weapon meandered beneath the ice at a leisurely 70 clicks, making sonar reception better. There would be time to speed up to intercept speed once the weapon identified where the enemy ship was.