Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

“A moment please.” The officer did some rapid calculations. “I would estimate about two hours.”

“Is it violent enough to mask our passage from the Americans?”

“Those above the surface, sir. Underneath I cannot be sure.”

“Still, it is good news. We will make our own arrangements to make us invisible under the water as well.” He bounced a clenched fist off the armrest of his command chair. “Helm, all stop.”

“Helm answering. All stop.”

The Captain was decisive as he issued his next commands. “Take her to fifty meters. Radio operator to the control center. One more favor to ask the mainland before we catch our ride home. XO, prepare to charge the batteries as well. I want us ready for all possibilities.”

The hunters tracked their prey, as any good hunter does, with his ears and his nose. The sonar operators on board USS Miami sat at their consoles and waited for the smallest telltale sign of the ghost Korean sub they had been tasked to find. If any boats could find the thing, it was Miami and her sister, Topeka. The building storm topside was not making their job easier. It had raised the background noise of the surrounding ocean considerably. It was like listening for a whisper in a room of talking people. The waterfall displays were frosted with green hash across all of the bands. Odds were the Korean sub was a diesel electric, the utter bane of a nuke. Miami trolled along at a bare four knots, making just enough turns to keep them aligned in the current and the towed array deployed. The crew had been briefed on the threat. There were few secrets on a submarine. Miami was at General Quarters, running silent with torpedoes loaded and waiting in the forward tubes. If the Korean sub was detected, the orders were clear: sink it.

The boat shifted under them as they started a new leg. Every movement of the Miami in water this shallow was a delicate ballet. The Los Angeles class had been built for speed in the deep, not to limp along in shallow water. With only three hundred feet of water under their keel, a sharp pitch up would be very bad indeed. The swells topside were starting to make themselves felt in what was normally the steadiest of worlds. That was bad. It was going to degrade the passive sonar performance even more.

The driver of the North Korean Bear bomber could not believe his orders, but belief in the DPRK forces did not matter, only abeyance. The Bear plowed through what was the most disastrous weather the pilot ever had the misfortune to fly in. The bomber’s four contra-rotating propellers on full power were just able to keep them at cruise speed.

The flight engineer kept a wary eye on the engine temperatures, the pilot, and an even closer eye on the altimeter. This was an old plane and they were only four hundred meters above sea level, right in the thick of the maelstrom. The airframe bucked and surged around him. One good downdraft and it would be a long swim home… if they survived.

The navigator sat between the pilot and copilot seats. His was the most important job of all: keep them on course.

The electronic warfare officer came alive behind the pilot. “Eisenhower has us on radar. They want us to identify.”

The pilot swore under his breath. So it was going to get even harder. “Launch a barrage of chaff on my order.” He looked over at his copilot. “We go lower when the chaff is away, understand?” The copilot, too scared to speak, just nodded his head. The pilot steeled himself. “Now!”

“Chaff away!”

The pilot pushed the heavy steering yoke hard forward. The Bear plunged ever deeper into the murk, rain sheeted off the windscreen. They had turned the wipers off long ago… the wipers did no good and there was nothing to see anyway. The lumbering bomber leveled out at one hundred and fifty meters. The battering at the airframe increased in volume. At this altitude, there was absolutely no hope of surviving a crash. Now if Eisenhower wanted to find them, they would have to use their bigger radar array and that would give away the flagship’s position. The pilot wrestled the Bear along, his hands locked onto the steering yoke. “How long till the first drop?”

The navigator checked his watch and chart. “Fifteen more kilometers.”

“Open the bomb bay doors.”

The copilot pressed a stud on his steering yoke. They surged sideways as the wind caught hold of the new expanse of surface area.

The pilot struggled to keep the aircraft trim. “Any more sign of Eisenhower?”

The EW officer shook his head and then realized the pilot could not see him. “No. We seemed to have confused them. No sign of airborne search radars either.”

“Good.” The pilot glanced at the navigator. “On your mark.”

“Entering the drop zone. Standby.” The navigator counted off the last seconds on his chronometer. “Mark!”

The pilot thumbed the drop button on his flight yoke. Depth charges and noisemakers knifed into the water below. The release times were random, but he could not come to a new heading until six of each were dropped.

The navigator kept one eye on the drop indicator and one on his stopwatch and map. Only when the sequence was done did he speak. “Come to new heading one six zero.” The Bear banked in compliance.

The pilot called out the new heading. “Heading is one six zero.”

The navigator never took his eyes off the chronometer. “Again on my mark. Mark!” Another series of counter-measures splashed into the gray waters beneath them. These units were programmed to all go off at the same time. Everything depended on the navigator’s timing. “Series complete. New heading of one four zero, drop on my mark.”

“Heading one four zero.”

“Mark!”

The Bear was getting lighter by the minute.

The EW officer cried out in alarm, “Airborne search radar to our rear! Missile lock! Launching chaff and flares. Counter measures ineffective. There’s more than one lock.” His voice cracked with fear, “We’re dead…”

The pilot flicked the Master Arm switch to, ‘ON’ and armed the remainder of the load. The navigator read out the next heading. “Come to zero nine zero. Drop on my ma…”

The Bear exploded, vivisected in midair as three Phoenix missiles found their target. The wreckage tumbled down and was swallowed by a hungry sea.

“Conn, Sonar, Sierra one! Multiple transient contacts bearing two seven three, it’s on the roof.” The Sonar Supervisor relayed the information to Miami’s Captain and then took a look at his operator’s scope on his own screen. Damn the storm anyway!

“Conn, Sonar, Sierra two!” Similar series of transients bearing two three five.”

The supervisor watched the straight lines drag their way across his CRT Waterfall display. An icy chill began to crawl up his spine. The contacts were swinging onto their heading.

“Conn, Sonar, Sierra three! Whoa!” They all heard the explosion and then the impact of the Bear’s wreckage on the surface directly above them.

The sonar supervisor tore his earphones off and yelled at his men to do the same. “Get your phones off! Shut down the passive arrays and get the towed array pulled in! Conn, rig for impact! Something big just landed on the roof and I think we have depth charges on the way down.”

At four knots, the Miami was a sitting duck. The Captain acted as fast as he could. “Ahead flank, come to two nine zero.”

The helm relayed the command, “Ahead flank, come to two nine zero. Aye, sir.”