Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,156

pingers, active sonobuoys to the northwest. We count six of them, all very faint." The sonar chief read off the bearings to the signal sources. "Still no active sonar signals coming from the target formation, sir."

"Very well." McCafferty returned the mike to its holder. Chicago's depth was changing quickly, as they dove at a fifteen-degree angle. He watched the bathythermograph readout. At two hundred twenty feet the water temperature began to drop rapidly, changing twelve degrees inside of seventy feet. Good, a strong layer to hide under, and cold water deep to allow good sonar performance for his own sensors.

Two hours before he had removed a torpedo from one of his tubes and replaced it with a Harpoon missile. It gave him only one torpedo ready for instant use if he found a submarine target, but a salvo of three missiles available to fling at surface ships, plus his Tomahawks. He could fire either now, and expect hits, but McCafferty didn't want to fire at just anything. There was no sense wasting a missile on a small patrol craft when there was a cruiser and a carrier out there waiting for him. He wanted to identify specific targets first. It wouldn't be easy, but he knew that easy things didn't have to be done by the 688-class subs. He went forward into sonar.

The chief caught him out the corner of his eye. "Skipper, I may have a bearing to Kirov. I just copied six pings from a low-frequency sonar. I think that's him, bearing zero-three-nine. Trying to isolate his engine signature now. And if--okay, some more sonobuoys are dropping to the right." The display showed new points of light well to the right of the first string, and a sizable gap between the two.

"Think he's dropping them in chevrons, Chief?" McCafferty asked. He got a smile and a nod for an answer. If the Soviets were deploying their sonobuoys in angled lines left and right of the formation, that could mean that their ships were heading right for Chicago. The submarine would not have to maneuver at all to intercept them. She could stay as quiet as an open grave.

"They seem to be alternating them above and below the layer, sir. A pretty fair gap between them, too." The chief lit a cigarette without averting his eyes from the screen. The ashtray next to him was crammed with butts.

"We'll plot that one out. Good work, Barney." The captain patted his sonar chief on the shoulder and went back to the attack center. The fire-control tracking party was already plotting the new contacts. It looked like an interval of just over two miles between the sonobuoys. If the Soviets were alternating them above and below the layer, there was a good chance he could sneak between a pair. The other question was the presence of passive buoys, whose presence he could not detect.

McCafferty stood at the periscope pedestal, watching his men at work as they entered data into the fire-control computers, backed up by other men with paper plots and hand-held calculators. The weapons-control panel was lit up by indicators showing ready. The submarine was at battle stations.

"Take her up to two hundred feet, we'll listen above the layer for a few minutes." The maneuver paid off at once.

"I got direct-path to the targets," the sonar chief announced. They could now detect and track sound energy radiating directly from the Soviet ships, without depending on the on-again, off-again convergence zones.

McCafferty commanded himself to relax. He'd soon have work enough.

"Captain, we're about due for another sonobuoy drop. They've been averaging about every fifteen minutes, and this one might be close."

"Getting that Horse-Jaw sonar again, sir," sonar warned. "Bearing three-two-zero at this time. Signal weak. Classify this contact as the cruiser Kirov. Stand by--another one. We have a medium-frequency active sonar bearing three-three-one, maneuvering left-to-right. We classify this contact as a Kresta-II ASW cruiser."

"I think he's right," the plotting officer said. "Bearing three-two-zero is close to our bearings for a pair of screen ships, but far enough off that it's probably a different contact. Three-three-one is consistent with the center screen ship. It figures. The Kresta will be the screen commander, with the flagship a ways behind him. Need some time to work out the ranges, though."

The captain ordered his submarine to stay above the layer, able to duck beneath it in seconds. The tactical display was evolving now. He had a workable bearing on Kirov. Almost good enough to shoot on, though