Clive Cussler - Plague Ship

From the camera on the loading derrick, Cabrillo could see the wake line of the incoming torpedo, a faint disturbance in the otherwise tranquil water. It was approaching at better than forty knots.

“Wepps, we need to take it before it dives for the keel.”

“Tracking,” Murph said.

Eric Stone slid the Oregon into position, using her athwartship thrusters and a heavy blast from the magnetohydrodynamics on full reverse, to place them directly in the path of the torpedo.

“Permission to fire,” Juan said.

Mark tapped a few keys.

Outside, along the Oregon ’s flank, the armored plate over the Gatling redoubt slammed open and the six-barrel gun shrieked, a string of foot-long empty shell casings arcing from the mechanism in a continuous blur. A plume of smoke and flame erupted from the ship as a second’s-long burst from the 20mm machine cannon arrowed across the water. Just ahead of the onrushing torpedo the sea came alive, shredded by hundreds of depleted uranium shells. Gouts of water flew in the air as the slugs bored a hole in the ocean amid a cloud of steam.

The Russian-made TEST-71 torpedo, packed with over four hundred pounds of explosives, roared into the path of the Gatling gun. With enough water forced out of the way by the continuous stream of fire, four of the kinetic rounds hit the weapon dead center. The warhead exploded, sending a series of concussion waves racing across the sea, while, at the epicenter of the blast, a column of water rose eighty feet into the sky before gravity overcame inertia and the entire plume crashed back into the chasm.

Though located in the heart of the ship and well insulated from the outside, the crew heard the detonation as though it was thunder crashing directly overhead.

Juan immediately turned to Max. “That bought us about thirty seconds. Convince me.”

“Their torpedoes are all wire guided. If we can cut them loose, they should go inert. Not even the Iranians would let fish run around in these waters without some sort of control.”

“What do you propose?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Sink the damned Kilo.”

Juan looked at the tactical display again. He saw the red flashing lights indicating the two inbound American S-3B Vikings, as well as the track lines for the three remaining torpedoes. The reserve fish was beginning to accelerate toward the Oregon , while the primary weapon targeting her had altered course for interception.

“You sure it’ll work?” he asked without looking back.

" ’Course not,” Max told him. “It’s an Iranian copy of an already-flawed Russian weapon. But my crew worked through the night adapting the number one tube so we can fire it, and Murph seems to have the software worked out, so I say go for it. If it works as advertised, it’ll take out the three torpedoes long before they reach their targets.”

"Murph?”

“Whopper has it pegged, Chairman. I can control it as best as it can be controlled, but it’s mostly an aim-and-hope kind of weapon. At two hundred knots, it’s pretty damned hard to steer anything.” Cabrillo would either kiss Max and Murph in a few seconds or curse them in hell. “Helm, turn us bow on to the Kilo. Wepps, open outer door for tube one. Match bearings and shoot.” Foam creamed off the Oregon ’s bow as Eric Stone brought the ship around, digging her deep into the waves, to give Murph his shot.

“Stoney, another two points to starboard,” Mark asked, and Eric goosed the thrusters to maneuver the ship so she was pointed directly at where the Kilo had fired the spread of torpedoes. “Linda, she hasn’t moved, right?”

“No. She’s just sitting there paying out wires to guide her school of fish.” Ross replied and took off the passive sonar headphones she’d been wearing.

That was the last piece of information Mark needed. He keyed the launch control. With a blast of compressed air powerful enough to make the freighter shudder, the modified tube shot the rocket torpedo out through the hull door at nearly fifty knots, fast enough for its specially designed nose cone to create a high-pressure bubble of air around the whole weapon. Just as its onboard computer detected the torpedo was slowing, its rocket kicked on with a deafening roar and its stabilizer fins flicked open.

The Hoot, or Whale, rocket torpedo sliced through the ocean in an envelope of supercavitated bubbles that eliminated the deadly drag of having to bull its way through the water. In essence, it was flying, and quickly accelerated to two hundred and thirty knots. Its wake was a boiling cauldron of steam.

The image from the topside camera showed that the sea was being ripped apart by a perfectly straight fault line that began at the Oregon ’s bow and grew at four hundred and twenty feet per second.

“Look at that mother go!” someone exclaimed.

“Range to target?” Juan called.

“Three thousand yards,” Linda said. “Make that twenty-six hundred. Twenty-two hundred. Two thousand yards.”

“Mr. Murphy, be ready with the autodestruct,” Juan ordered.

“You don’t want to sink the Kilo?”

“And cause a bigger international incident than we’re already looking at? No, thank you. I just want to ring their bell a little bit and cut the guide wires spooling out of the sub’s bow.”

“How close?”

Juan checked the tactical display, gauging distances between the torpedoes targeting the Aggie Johnston and the Oregon and the ships themselves. The Johnston was less than thirty seconds from having her hull split open by a direct hit. He watched the line of the rocket torpedo cutting across the flat panel, moving so fast that the computer needed to recycle the image every second. He had to make sure to damage the Kilo enough so she couldn’t fire another spread but not to so cripple her that she sank.

“One thousand yards, Chairman,” Linda called out, although Juan could see the numbers on the screen blurring backward for himself.

There was less than two hundred yards now separating the Johnston from the torpedo hunting her. The vectors and speeds involved were complex, but Juan had a handle on it all.

“Wait for it,” he said. If he detonated the rocket too early, there was a chance it wouldn’t cut all the wire.

Too late and the Kilo’s crew of fifty-three were going to die.

“Wait for it,” he repeated, watching the Hoot arrow through the sea and a faint line of disturbed water approaching the supertanker’s exposed flank.

One torpedo was fifty yards from its target, the other, three hundred, but their relative speeds were so vastly different that they would reach their objectives at precisely the same instant.

“Now!”

Mark hit the button that sent an autodestruct signal to the torpedo’s onboard computer. The warhead and remaining solid rocket fuel blew a fraction of a second later, sending an erupting geyser of water into the air and opening a hole in the sea that was fifty feet deep and equally as wide. A stunning concussion wave radiated from explosion. It hit the Oregon bow on, but hammered the side of the Aggie Johnston so that the massive ship heeled slightly to port.

With the explosion’s acoustical onslaught reverberating through the sea, it made passive sonar signals impossible to detect. Cabrillo focused his attention on the topside camera shot of the Petromax supertanker. She rolled ponderously back to an even keel. He continued to watch her for a moment before a smile crossed his lips. There was no explosion from a torpedo slamming into her hull. Max’s plan had worked. The wires coiling out from the Kilo to guide her fish had been cut, and the weapons immediately shut down.

“Linda, tell me the instant you hear anything,” he ordered.