George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

“Torpedoes passed astern!” Tommy Zillich yelled as he listened to the headset, his hands pressing the earpieces closer to his ears so he could hear everything going on out there. “We may be clear!”

Toledo was still angling sharply downward, toward the bottom, racing to get clear of the Russian weapons. They had all heard the deep rumble of the other submarine as it exploded. Now the control room was silent, everyone listening for the high-pitched scream of the incoming weapons.

That sound, as all the men aboard knew, would signal their immediate death.

A few of them breathed sighs of relief when they heard Zillich’s report. Glass knew better. They weren’t free yet. Those two torpedoes were still out there, still searching doggedly for them.

The sonar man confirmed his worst fears.

“Torpedoes! Both coming out of the baffles!” Zillich yelled over the 7MC. Now he had lost his calm demeanor. His voice was high and strained. “They’re closing!”

The Russian weapons had crossed astern of them and then turned back, looking once again for Toledo . They were both still relentlessly coming after them.

Captain Second Rank Sergei Andropoyov pulled the heavy sealskin coat even more tightly around his body and stepped out of the Naval Command Building into the bitter Arctic wind. He hated winters in this gray godforsaken land. The sun never dared rise above the horizon and the icy wind, its fangs bare, howled in off the Barents Sea, just a few miles to the north.

At times Sergei wondered why anyone would ever build a submarine base in a desolate place such as this, but he knew the answer: water. When she was a mighty sea power, Mother Russia needed access to the world’s oceans, and this was the best she had. The warm southern ports were all bottled up on inland seas, but here, ports on the bleak, bitter-cold Kola Peninsula offered a gateway to the West. Submarines could depart into a narrow ribbon of open water in the Barents Sea before disappearing under thousands of square miles of Arctic ice. Driving submarines out of this extreme environment demanded hard men and strong ships, but those sailors and boats had done their jobs for the motherland, and had done them well.

Captain Andropoyov pulled the fox fur hat even farther down over his ears and yanked the heavy fur-lined mittens onto his stiffening hands. He glanced around before stepping off the little stoop into the horizontally blowing snow. The dull gray buildings that made up the Polyarnyy Northern Fleet Submarine Base added no color at all, nothing that might alleviate the drabness of the landscape. They only served to funnel the icy winds into an even more concentrated blast of knife-sharp cold.

Andropoyov walked quickly to the slushy street that ran in front of the building and jumped into the backseat of the old black Zil waiting at the curb. He didn’t utter a word to the tall, thin man who held the car’s door open for him. Michman Tschierschkey slammed the door shut and scurried around to climb into the driver’s side.

“Back to the ship, Captain?” he asked, rubbing his nose with both hands to get the circulation going again.

“Oh, da , Tschierschkovich,” Andropoyov said without even looking up. “It is time for us to be sailors again.”

The two men had sailed together for as long as Andropoyov could remember. Tschierschkey had been a draftee on board the old submarine Kommosellet when Andropoyov first reported aboard, fresh out of the Soviet Naval School at Stalingrad. Much had changed in the years since. The city was called St. Petersburg once again, the Soviet Union no longer existed, and the mighty Northern Fleet of the U.S.S.R. was nothing more than a rusting shell.

That is, except for Sergei Andropoyov’s new submarine. The K-475, Gepard , waited in the covered sub pen at Shkval on Olenya Bay, newly completed and hungry for her first taste of the sea.

“We have orders, Captain?” Tschierschkey asked, his eyes wide as he turned to look back at his commander.

“We sail with the tide.” Andropoyov met the gaze of the thin man, his eyes squinting in mock anger. “Admiral Durov will not be sympathetic if we are late because my insolent driver wanted to sit here in front of his headquarters and chat.”

Tschierschkey wore a broad grin as he turned and ground the car’s starter. He already had the inside of the old Zil warm, just the way he knew Andropoyov liked it. The captain slipped off the heavy mittens and pulled the fur cap from his head, revealing a disheveled shock of white-blond hair. He sat back in the seat and sighed as the old michman pulled away from the curb, skewing a bit on the patchy ice in the roadway.

The ride over the steep, potholed streets back to where his boat awaited him would give Andropoyov time to reflect on the meeting he had just completed. Admiral of the Northern Fleet Durov had been his usual imperious self, but as well as he knew him, Sergei had never seen him act quite the way he had this morning.

Over his career, Durov had single-handedly built the Soviet Northern Fleet into the largest, most potent submarine force in the world. Then, as he was not shy about telling anyone who would listen, he had watched it all be discarded by the spineless politicians in Moscow. On several occasions Sergei Andropoyov had seen him foam at the mouth as he ranted on and on about the castration of his beloved submarine service, all to appease the Americans and the clear-eyed capitalists in his own nation who would rather be rich than omnipotent, comfortable instead of supreme.

The old admiral had been much more subdued than normal this morning. Oddly subdued, Sergei thought. Still, Durov had been in no mood for pleasantries. He acknowledged Andropoyov’s greeting with little more than a grunt and a broad wave to take a seat. The glasses of tea were not even cool enough to drink without scalding their lips before the old man had rushed into the briefing, as if the information might grow cold and useless if it was not consumed at once.

“Sergeiovich, you have done well. I am told the K-475 is ready ahead of schedule for her first sea trials. She will do the Rodina proud. Our first new submarine in ten years! As much as I would love to show her off to them, even the Americans with their damnable spy satellites have no idea she exists. Nor do most of the bureaucrats back in Moscow. We must keep it so as long as we are able.” The admiral sipped his tea and eased back in the plush padded leather chair, crossing his legs, a near smile on his lips. Andropoyov tried not to stare. He had never seen the old man so relaxed. Andropoyov had to listen hard to hear his words when he spoke again. “You will get under way with the evening tide, Captain. The K-461 will escort you to your operating area. You have not been certified to carry weapons yet, so K-461 will be your guard.”

“I understand,” Andropoyov said. He sipped his tea, not sure what else to say. He could hear the ticking of the admiral’s desk clock, the shriek of the wind as it gusted around the corner of the building.

Durov stared into his glass for a long moment, as if he was studying the liquid for something that might be hidden there. He set the glass down and opened a drawer on the ornately carved antique wooden desk. He withdrew a large buff-colored envelope sealed with red wax and imprinted with the emblem of the Russian Navy.