George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

Now the fun was about to begin. The announcement on the 21MC confirmed that they had found their quarry. The TB-16 towed array, a two-hundred-foot-long line of sonar hydrophones on the end of a tow cable that stretched out far behind the Toledo , was designed to search the depths for the faintest trace of noise from another submarine. Its great sensitivity meant that the Toledo could search vast areas of the ocean and hear other submarines before they were even aware she was there. The problem was the array couldn’t tell from which side the noise was coming. The contact they had just detected could be on either one of two possible bearings, one correct, the other one the ambiguous bearing.

From his position, Glass watched Brian Edwards, his executive officer, lead the fire control party as they tried to ferret out every bit of information they could. The tall, thin XO was good, and he knew it. He made a perfect counterpoint in many ways to Glass, his new commander, who was short and stocky, quiet and thoughtful. The young XO had already shown a bit of cockiness, a tendency to make decisions quickly and move on, as opposed to Glass’s deliberate and studied manner. Edwards had two years’ experience on board Toledo and knew everything there was to know about her. It showed in the self-assured way he went about his business. And sometimes in a flash in the young officer’s eye when he disagreed with his new commander or thought Glass was taking a bit long to make a decision.

Glass smiled as he watched Edwards work. He decided that when the shit inevitably hit the fan, he would rather have someone at his side who was good and knew it than be saddled with a hesitant dolt. There would be ample opportunity to imbue the young man with some humility as time went on.

Now Glass, Edwards, and the rest of the twenty men seemed to already be working smoothly enough together, even as they were packed into a space the size of a cheap motel room. They were quietly and professionally doing their jobs. Edwards had trained them well.

The XO stepped over next to where Glass stood. “Captain, sonar reports a contact on the towed array. Designate sierra three-one, bearing zero-three-five, and sierra three-two, bearing one-two-five. Received frequency is five-zero point two. Very weak contact.”

Glass nodded. “Very well, XO. Is this the guy we’re looking for?”

Edwards shrugged. “No way of telling for sure yet. He’s the only contact we have, though. He’s coming from the right direction and the right frequency.”

“Okay, it’s the best we got. Let’s track it and find out if this is our little playmate.”

Edwards stepped over to look at the computer screen for the BYG-1 fire control system. Pat Durand, the lieutenant operating the system, looked up from the complex display of numbers, dots, and lines. He nodded at Edwards. “XO, we have a curve. Ready for a maneuver.”

Glass watched the young lieutenant’s fingers dance across the keyboard of the system. The kid was as much a magician as advertised. He played the computer keyboard as if it were a concert piano. He even had a pronounced bob of his head as he worked, like some musician playing with feeling.

Edwards was checking the paper geographic plot the team was using to record all of Toledo ’s moves and to note any information they could scrape up on the new contact. It was laid out on a small glass-topped table at the rear of the control room, behind the periscope stand. A small X-shaped light, the “bug,” moved beneath the glass to show the sub’s current position.

“Captain, recommend we come left to course one-eight-zero to resolve bearing ambiguity,” Edwards said.

Glass smiled to himself as he turned to face the young officer. How many times had he been in the same situation the young XO was now in? How many times had he told his commander, Jon Ward, how he should steer the old Spadefish ? Now here he was, listening to the recommendations from his XO on how to drive his own nuclear submarine. It was what he had been working for since he was a kid, growing up back in Iowa. He had a bedroom wall covered with pictures of submarines, bookshelves full of plastic models of subs and ships he had assembled. Sometimes it was still hard to believe he was here, commanding this sophisticated piece of equipment and her ready crew.

“Helm, left full rudder. Steady, course one-eight-zero,” he ordered.

Glass could hear Edwards muttering into the headset he wore, warning the sonar operators that they were turning. The sonar array was on the end of a two-thousand-foot-long cable. As the sub turned, it played “crack the whip” with the flexible array. Any information gathered during the turn was useless and had to be discarded. When Toledo was steady on the new course, the array would take several minutes to stabilize and integrate so they could once again locate the contact.

During the entire time they would be deaf. Often when the array was once again stabilized, the contact would be gone. There would be no choice but to start the hunt all over again.

The compass swung around, the only indication to anyone on board the Toledo that the boat was turning. The indicator steadied up with the arrow pointing at “one-eight-zero,” due south. Now they would have to hang on for the array to stabilize behind them, five minutes of anxious waiting. There was nothing to do but hope the target would still be discernible. It was a time that tried men’s patience. It was a game that required slow, stealthy stalking of the prey. Nothing like high-speed, high-adrenaline air battles, with everything decided in a few terrifying seconds. This was more like the slow, deliberate tracking of a big-game hunter. Find the prey, sneak up on him, and shoot him before he even knew anyone was there. Otherwise, the hunter could become the hunted.

Edwards held his headphone close to his ear, concentrating on what he was hearing. He held his hand up, signaling silence. “Sonar reports regain of sierra three-one, bearing zero-three-two. Drop sierra three-two, track sierra three-one.”

They were back in business. The other submarine had not gotten away. They had verified that the target to the northeast was the real one.

Edwards stood next to Glass once more. He slid the headphone back off his ear, easing the pressure a little.

“How do you think everyone is doing, Captain?” he asked.

The XO was aware that this was Glass’s first time to evaluate the team under pressure. He was hoping to make a good impression. “Okay so far. We’ll see how it goes.”

Hunting a submarine with another submarine was a competition played out entirely in the dark. The hunter listened for the other guy and tried to determine where the quarry was located and where he was going. The only real information to work with was the bearing and the received frequency of the sound—range, speed, and course had to be inferred from those two snippets. The usual game plan was to be quiet and listen a little, try to determine how the bearing and frequency were changing, change course accordingly, and then do it all over again. After several iterations of checking all possible answers and discarding the wrong ones, the only answer left would be the correct one.

This all depended on the target cooperating by staying on the same course at the same speed. Otherwise, it meant starting all over again or losing the game.

“Master Chief Zillich reports he is starting to get hints of some other tonal lines showing up,” Edwards said. “Nothing definite yet, but looks like it could be our guy, very distant.”

Glass nodded. Ever since he first received his orders to command, he had heard stories of Tommy Zillich and his legendary exploits with a sonar system. The crew viewed his abilities as mystical. If Master Chief said there was a flying saucer out there full of little green men, you could break out the Martian dictionary.