George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

“All right, XO. Let me know when we have a curve. I want to bracket the range estimate and spiral in on him. I want to shoot from a range of five thousand yards, broad on his quarter. Do what you have to do to get me there.”

Edwards answered, “Yes, sir!” and stepped back over to look at the fire control computer screens.

Pat Durand looked up as Edwards leaned over his shoulder. The young lieutenant had stopped clicking away on his keyboard for a moment. He looked worried.

“XO, I heard Master Chief’s report, but my stuff is telling me this guy is pretty close. The only solution I can fit is at five thousand yards.” Durand pushed a button on his panel and tweaked a small knob on the keyboard. “Frequency’s going up, so we know he’s closing.”

Edwards watched the computer screen for a moment. Durand was very good, but Zillich was the acknowledged master. It would be much simpler if they both heard the same things.

“Try a solution farther out,” Edwards suggested, making another of his patented snap decisions. “I’m going with the master chief on this one.”

Not convinced, Durand nodded anyway and tweaked the dials some more, making it look out through the black water at longer ranges. The display now showed the target out at over nine thousand yards, moving across the screen diagonally at twenty knots, just as Zillich had said. Durand shook his head, still unconvinced. This solution fit the data all right, but not as well as the close-range one. Durand looked up at the XO, who nodded, even more satisfied now that Zillich had the right answer. The distant target was the one they were looking for.

Edwards turned to Glass. “Skipper, we have a curve, contact sierra three-one, current bearing zero-two-one, estimated range nine-two-hundred yards. Recommend coming left to new course one-two-five.”

Glass played the picture out in his mind. His executive officer’s solution had the target heading from the northeast toward the southwest. He was setting up to sneak around behind him, all the while keeping him at a range where he would not detect Toledo. Once they were in place, they would shoot the target in the back. The first time the poor, helpless target would even suspect Toledo was in the area would be when he heard the ADCAP torpedo racing in for the kill. Assuming Master Chief Zillich was correct about where the prey was located, it was a good, smart tactic. Time would tell.

Glass turned to the helmsman and ordered, “Left full rudder, steady course one-two-five.”

He watched as the rudder swung over to the left and the compass started to swing to port.

Suddenly the 21MC blared with Master Chief Zillich’s excited voice.

“Torpedo in the water! Bearing three-five-five.”

Glass didn’t hesitate. He ordered, “All ahead flank! Right full rudder! Steady course two-four-five! Launch the evasion device!”

He watched as the broad white track of the torpedo appeared on the sonar repeater. It had come out of nowhere just as they started their turn. The hunter was now very much the hunted. Time to run!

Toledo jumped ahead as the throttle man, a hundred feet aft in the maneuvering room, whipped open the sub’s throttles. Steam roared down the pipes to push the giant turbines faster. The steam sucked energy from the primary coolant, lowering its temperature, sending colder water racing back into the reactor core, causing the power to race higher and the core temperatures to soar. The reactor needed more cooling water to keep the temperature under control. The reactor operator stood and grabbed the large black reactor coolant pump switches. When he yanked them up, the giant pumps shifted to fast speed, sending torrents of coolant water into the core to remove the heat.

This entire, well-choreographed operation was completed in less than five seconds.

“Torpedo bearing three-five-five! Going active!”

Toledo raced desperately, trying to outrun the approaching torpedo. Twenty knots, twenty-five, thirty, and more.

“Torpedo still bears three-five-five! Classified as a British ‘Spearfish.’”

Glass stood by the plot as he watched the picture of Toledo ’s trail and the developing image of the closing torpedo. It was already past the evasion device, the noisy mass that had been released from one of Toledo ’s signal ejectors to try to confuse the weapon’s instrumentation. The Spearfish blew past the acoustic noisemaker without even a glance. Glass guessed that he now had a minute left to avoid this high-speed underwater bloodhound.

“Make your depth one hundred feet!” he shouted.

The deck angled upward as Toledo now stretched toward the surface of the sea.

“Skipper, we’ll cavitate big-time that shallow!” Edwards yelled. “Everyone in the ocean will know where we are.”

“XO, that Spearfish on our ass already has a pretty good idea where we are. I’m hoping to lose it in the surface noise. It’s a long shot, but it might work.”

They could already hear the machine-gun rattle of cavitation from the sail and the screw as bubbles formed in the very low-pressure areas behind the trailing edges of the sub and then collapsed, making a very noisy bang.

Zillich’s voice broke through the din of the cavitation. “Torpedo bears three-five-six! It’s range-gating now!”

“Launch another evasion device,” Glass ordered. He knew it was a futile effort, but it just might be enough to deflect the incoming torpedo.

“Conn, sonar. Torpedo is in final attack. It has us for good!”

The plot confirmed the report. The incoming torpedo was now merging with Toledo . No one breathed for a moment.

“Conn, sonar. Torpedo in turn-away,” Zillich reported, his voice heavy with frustration.

Joe Glass turned to Edwards and spoke. “XO, if that had been an actual war shot, we’d all be dead right now. You put your trust in an old salt’s hunch rather than believing what the data told you. You had time to evaluate the data further before making your move. Sometimes it’s better to be certain you’re right before going ahead. I hope you learned a lesson today.”

Edwards’s answer was drowned out by a sudden blast of music over the sonar speakers. It was the song “Now Give Three Cheers” from HMS Pinafore and it had all the effect of a good, old-fashioned Bronx cheer.

Glass couldn’t help laughing. The look on Edwards’s face was priceless. “There’s your answer, XO. That damned Turbulent is having some fun at our expense. Looks like we buy the first round when we get into port. Now let’s get back to work and make damn sure we aren’t the only ones buying.”

Many miles away to the north and east of where the Toledo drilled, Miami commander Brad Crawford had eased back down in front of his desk to review some of his never-ending paperwork. Just when he was making some headway, his phone buzzed. It was Bill Schutte, standing watch as the officer of the deck.

“Captain, request you come out to the conn. Sonar has picked up a contact on the thin-line towed array that I think you should see.”

The TB-29A thin-line towed array was a thousand feet of ultrasensitive low-frequency hydrophones towed more than a mile behind the Miami . Its length allowed it to detect very low-frequency sounds such as those a whale makes. By being towed far behind the sub, it could hear sounds made in the water hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles away. The whole thing, array and tow cable, could be wrapped on a reel in one of Miami ’s after-ballast tanks when not in use.