George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

“Dr. Croley, would you please stay here and translate? Tell me if anything changes.”

“Should we answer him?”

“Not just yet. Stand by.”

The captain trotted out of the sonar room and headed back to control. There he gathered Gerson and Schutte around the navigation plot. This had now become a matter of life or death. They needed to figure out what to do. Crawford told them of the translation of the underwater telephone plea.

Schutte studied the chart. It was a little over three miles from their current position to the sunken sub. Water depth there was marked at just under two hundred fathoms. Deep, but still shallow enough that a sub could sink to the bottom without being crushed by the pressure. He looked up at Crawford.

“Skipper, if they are bottomed here we need to get help quick. There’s nothing else we can do for them but say a prayer or two.”

Gerson nodded his agreement, but Crawford noticed his executive officer’s brow was creased with worry when he spoke. “Okay, XO, what’s bothering you? Something’s gnawing away in there. Spill it.”

“The way I read what this guy is saying, he’s calling out for someone named ‘Wolf.’ Or maybe a boat named ‘Wolf.’ Do you think there might be another sub that he’s expecting to be up here, and close enough to hear his distress signal on the underwater phone?”

Crawford shook his head. “Not that we’ve seen. We’re not detecting anyone else. Not even with the TB-29. Looks like we’re up here all by ourselves, except for the poor bastard on the bottom. Let’s go talk to him and let him know we’ve heard him, even if ‘Wolf’ hasn’t.”

Gerson nodded but he didn’t lose his worried scowl.

Dimitriy Pishkovski was growing ever more tired and despondent. For hours, it seemed, he had been sitting here, repeating his plea over and over again, his pain-slurred words spilling out into the cold, empty Arctic water. Why bother? Would it not be better to fetch the bottle of vodka from his stateroom and enter the next life in a stupor?

He knew Andropoyov would never allow such an easy, cowardly way out. He had served too long with that old fighter. The captain would never allow anyone to quit. Not until the aloof, icy waters of the sea had overpowered them, strangling out the last breath from their lungs. The tough bastard would still be at the helm, trying to give marching orders to the sea.

When Dimitriy released the TALK button on the phone to listen yet again for a reply, there was a voice there. An odd voice.

“ Gepard. Gepard . This is the American submarine Miami . We heard your underwater telephone. What is your status?”

Pishkovski shook himself. Had he imagined the voice? Who else would be up here in this place? Besides Volk , who, as far as he knew, had not yet arrived?

He raised his head. He winced as the pain shot through his temple and down the back of his neck.

“Captain, come quickly! Listen!” he shouted.

Andropoyov rose from the table where he was planning their survival. He listened to the words on the phone, spoken in Russian but with an unmistakable halting American accent.

“Dimitriy, we have been found by the Americans.” He ran through his mind what the proper procedures would be. There had been a time when they would have refused any assistance from the Americans. When they would have taken their chances on the eventual arrival of Volk , wherever the tardy bastard might now be. When they would have accepted any fate besides surrendering themselves and their boat to the hated Americans. That was another day and time. “Tell them we need help, and we need it soon.”

Pishkovski held the microphone to his lips. “ Miami, this is Gepard . We are bottomed. An explosion… some kind of explosion… destroyed our propulsion and flooded the after compartment. We have injured on board. We need help.”

The acknowledgment of receipt of the transmission from the American was the sweetest sound Dimitriy Pishkovski had ever heard.

Brad Crawford looked up at Gerson, a wry smile on his lips. “Well, XO, that tells the story. Only way to get them help is to get the DSRV here on a mother sub, and get it here quick.” He turned to Schutte. “Nav, find me a polynya. We need to talk real bad.”

They would have to surface to radio back word of the sunken Russian submarine and get a deep-sea rescue vehicle en route. No telling how long that might take or how much longer the Gepard ’s crew could hold on.

Schutte checked the charts. “Skipper, I think our luck may have just changed. There should be one three miles east of here, toward Novaya Zemlya.”

Crawford called over to Croley. “Doc, tell them we’re going for help. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Croley relayed the message while Miami ran for the hole in the ice as fast as she could go.

Then, unknowingly, they flew right past a shadowy shape, silently hovering nearby, its sail resting on the bottom of the ice pack, its bulk hidden by the sides of the narrow inverted ice valley where it lay coiled like a snake in its hole. Miami zipped past the hidden Volk much too fast for the Russian to react.

The polynya was right where the chart showed it might be. Miami eased to a stop beneath the thin ice. Crawford maneuvered around, much as Serebnitskiv had done earlier with Volk , making sure that Miami was lined up beneath the gauzy skin of ice so they could surface without hitting the thick pack ice surrounding it.

When he was satisfied, he ordered the ballast tanks blown dry. Miami shot straight upward. She crashed through the foot of ice that covered the polynya, sending shards of frozen ocean flying in all directions. Once she stopped, her sail stood high out of the water in the howling Arctic wind.

Crawford sent the carefully worded message to COMSUBLANT, giving them the limited information that he had about the situation. He ended the message by telling them that he was going back to the helpless sub and that he would be out of radio contact for twelve hours. Crawford knew from experience it would take at least that long for the people back home to react to this shocking news and to figure out what to do next. He also assumed that Miami could be of better use back with the Gepard . From that position, they could offer moral support and guide the sub that was bringing the DSRV to the site.

With the message sent and receipted for, Miami dropped back down into the deep and turned to head back to where the Gepard rested on the bottom.

“No rush, XO. We got time to kill while we wait for help,” Crawford announced. He ordered a safer twelve-knot pace. “I doubt those poor souls are going anywhere, either.”

Now Miami steamed a little more than a kilometer in front of Volk , no longer racing at top speed to summon help. Igor Serebnitskiv had ample time to observe their approach and passing. He could line up his shot at his leisure.

Aaron Miller was the first to hear the unmistakable sound. His mouth dropped open in shock, but he was quick to shout the warning. “Conn, sonar! Torpedo in the water! Bearing zero-two-one!”

Years of intensive training kicked in by instinct. Crawford was stunned, but he went to work without hesitation.

“Ahead flank!” he shouted. “Left full rudder! Steady course one-four-zero!”

Miami leaped ahead in obedient response to his order. They were in a race against death itself.

“Torpedo bears zero-two-one!”

Miami flew through the water, her enormous screw pushing the seven-thousand-ton behemoth forward at better than thirty knots. Still, the torpedo was coming at seventy knots. It wasn’t a fair race at all.