Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

Grishkov nodded. Stashinsky’s hair was getting snowier; so was Grishkov’s fedora. They saw a pair of male tourists coming toward them. One held a deployed green, white, and red Cinzano umbrella over their heads.

“We absolutely must find Zakayev and Litvanov before the Americans do,” Stashinsky said. “Even if it means shifting all our forces out of the Barents Sea to the south.”

“That will take days.”

“Then use what you have in the Baltic. Everything. Even if you have to send in every helicopter and plane and auxiliary and oiler and barge we have. Just do it. The only thing the Americans understand is force and resolve. We have to demonstrate what we are capable of.”

“I’ll do what I can. But I must tell you. Admiral, we are not in good shape in the Baltic. The Americans know it too. If we do what you say, it may send the wrong signal and make us look desperate.”

“On the contrary, it will clog up the Baltic and make it difficult for them to operate freely. I’m for anything that will impede their hunt for the K-363.”

“It may also impede our own hunt for the K-363.”

“We are looking for only one submarine, not an entire fleet.”

“Actually, if this American, Scott, shows up, we may end up having to deal with two submarines. It could be difficult telling them apart. I wouldn't want to make a mistake and sink the wrong one. It could happen, you know. And if it did, the Americans would shit their pants.”

Stashinsky smiled and pointed to Khrushchev’s grave, turning white with snow. “I think Nikita would like that.”

After sorting for hours through dozens of false contacts, sonar reported: “Kapitan, contact! A submarine—an Akula!”

Scott donned a pair of spare headphones and listened to it. How many times had he heard Akulas while patrolling off the Kola Peninsula, in the Atlantic Ocean off Spain, and once off the coast of South Carolina?

“Faint. Very faint. A three-hundred-hertz line bearing zero-three-two; for sure it’s the K-363.”

Scott had slowed their headlong dash across the Skagerrak, and, north of Læsø, had started hunting for the K-363. At first there had been nothing to hear but the normal squeal and pop of sea life, the groaning shift of sand and bottom debris, and the sound of wind-driven waves, which provided perfect cover for a submarine.

Scott had hesitated to deploy the submarine’s ultra sensitive towed sonar array from its stowage pod on the after vertical fin, fearing that the noise it would make reeling out might alert the K-363. To find their target, he was relying solely on the К-480's MGK-503 passive bow sonar array and the sensitive ears of his sonarmen.

The K-363 was quiet but not totally silent. Her slowly turning seven-bladed prop created a corkscrew of collapsing bubbles and low-amplitude pressure ridges that bounced off the seabed and radiated outward from the coast. Little by little the MGK-503 sonar suite stripped away the K-363’s cover. A half hour into the search a green spike—a three-hundred-hertz tone—began to crawl down a video monitor in the sonar room.

“Fire Control. Range?”

“Under twenty kilometers, Kapitan.”

Scott checked the bathythermograph readout. The K-480 was enveloped in a layer of cold water, which had piped long-range sound reception from the slow-moving K-363 into the K-480’s sonar.

“Bearing?”

“Three-three-zero, steady.”

“Excellent. Can you nail down his base course?”

“Aye, Kapitan.”

“Now let’s see if we can ease on in without being detected,” Scott explained to Abakov, who by now had a good grasp of tactics.

“Maybe he’s already heard us,” Abakov said. “And is expecting us.”

“Maybe,” Scott said. “But he’s operating on the edge, where his sonar's ability to detect targets is degraded.”

“Because he’s in littoral waters?”

“Exactly. We may be able to sneak right up on him and stick a fish up his ass.”

Scott glanced at the fire control console. The K-480’s four 650mm torpedo tubes were loaded with Type 65–76 antiship torpedoes and the 533mm tubes held TEST-71M antisubmarine acoustic wire- guided homing torpedoes. She also had six 400mm bow tubes loaded with acoustic decoys. Rows of illuminated green lights on the fire control console indicated the status of each weapon and decoy.

“Kapitan, Fire Control. Target is on base course one five-two degrees.”

Scott laid a steel rule on the chart’s compass rose and saw that 152 degrees from due north pointed south-southeast to the entrance of The Sound. The K-480’s present course was the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle, while the K-363’s course was the height. If nothing changed, the two submarines would meet at the tip of the triangle.

“He’s heading for the Baltic Sea,” Abakov said, looking over Scott’s shoulder at the chart.

“Damn right. Starpom, call away battle stations: Pass the word by mouth. I don't want our friends in the K-363 to hear the gongs.”

“Aye, Kapitan, battle stations away.”

The men in the CCP and in other parts of the submarine had been alert to the subtle changes that a submarine undergoes when tracking a target and had been hovering near their battle stations, anticipating the call. Now they sprang into action.

Scott looked around the CCP and saw the fire control plotters at work; the auxiliarymen at their manifold controls; that the diving station was fully manned and ready. Reports came in from every part of the ship. Engine room, auxiliary machinery spaces, reactor control. In the torpedo room a deck below the CCP, torpedomen had run tests on their fish and double-checked their circuits and links to the fire control station in the CCP.

“All stations manned and ready, Kapitan,” the starpom reported.

As the K-480 closed in and the K-363’s relative bearing changed, the tactical display on the fire control plotter changed with it, constantly updating information the torpedoes needed to find their target.

Scott saw Alex ease into the CCP. She’d been tending Botkin and looked exhausted. Abakov said something to her that Scott couldn't hear but saw her shake her head no.

“What’s going on?” she asked Scott.

“We have sonar contact with the K-363.I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next hour or so, but you’re welcome to stay here.” His eyes roamed her fatigued face. “How’s Botkin?”

“Same.” She looked around as if seeing the CCP for the first time, its lights, its equipment, the men themselves taut with expectation. “Is this the real thing, Jake? Are you trying for a kill?”

The tension had risen until it was palpable. The men, intent on their duties, had reached the point that they were unaware of anything or anyone around them. It was the moment they had trained for, and the payoff would soon be theirs to savor. Even Alex had been affected. Consciously or not, both her hands had a white-knuckle grip on the railing around the periscope stand.

There was no need to explain. She could see for herself that something extraordinary might happen soon. Yet, Scott wondered if it could be this simple, that on his first contact with the K-363 he might nail her with a clean shot. He knew it was never that easy and tempered his anticipation of the kill with a dose of reality. Anything could happen and probably would. Expect it and you won't be taking a torp up your own ass….

“Kapitan, sonar! Multiple contacts bearing on an arc one-two-zero through two-two-zero…. Norsk- class frigates…and…the Oslo-class frigates we heard before!”

Scott donned headphones and heard the noise from ships’ machinery distorted by heavy seas. “You’re sure?” he asked the sonarman.