Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,268

now. So we use what we have here."

"No," Alekseyev said. "If we do that, we do it on the move."

"I can't coordinate well that way!"

"You can't coordinate at all if you're dead."

USS CHICAGO

All hell was breaking loose. It was like a nightmare, except you woke up from those, McCafferty reminded himself. At least three Bear-F patrol aircraft were overhead, dropping sonobuoys all over the place, two Krivak-type frigates and six Grisha patrol boats had shown up on the sonar, and a Victor-III submarine had decided to come to the party.

Chicago had nibbled the odds down some. For the past few hours, fancy footwork had killed the Victor and a Grisha and damaged a Krivak, but the situation was deteriorating. The Russians were mobbing him, and he would not be able to keep them at arm's length much longer. In the time it had taken him to localize and kill the Victor, the surface groups had closed five miles on him. Like a boxer against a puncher, he had the advantage only as long as he kept them away.

What McCafferty wanted and needed to do was talk with Todd Simms on Boston to coordinate their activities. He couldn't, because the underwater telephone couldn't reach that far and made too much noise. Even if he tried to make a radio broadcast, Boston would have to be near the surface, with her antenna up to hear him. He was sure Todd had his boat as deep as he could drive her. American submarine doctrine was for each boat to operate alone. The Soviets practiced cooperative tactics, but the Americans never felt the need. McCafferty needed some ideas now. The "book" solution to the tactical problem at hand was to maneuver and look for openings, but Chicago was essentially tied to a fixed position and could not stray too far from her sisters. As soon as the Russians understood that there was a cripple out there, they'd close in like a pack of dogs to finish Providence off, and he would not be able to stop them. Ivan would gladly exchange some of his small craft for a 688.

"Ideas, XO?" McCafferty asked.

"How about, 'Scotty, beam us up!'" The executive officer tried to brighten things a bit. It didn't work. So, okay, maybe the skipper wasn't a Star Trek fan. "The only way I see to keep them off our friends is to get them to chase us awhile."

"Go east and attack this group from the beam?"

"It's a gamble," the exec admitted. "But what isn't?"

"You conn her. Two-thirds, and hug the bottom."

Chicago turned southeast and increased speed to eighteen knots. This was a fine time to find out how accurate our charts are, McCafferty thought. Did Ivan have any minefields set here? He had to shut that thought out. If they hit one, he'd never know it. The executive officer kept the submarine within fifty feet of where the chart said the bottom was--actually he hedged, keeping fifty feet above the highest bottom marker within a mile. Even that would do no good if there was an uncharted wreck. McCafferty remembered his first trip into the Barents Sea. Somewhere close to here were those destroyers sunk as targets. If he hit one of those at eighteen knots ... The run lasted forty minutes.

"All ahead one-third!" McCafferty ordered when he couldn't stand it anymore. Chicago slowed to five knots. To the diving officer: "Take her up to periscope depth."

The planesmen pulled back on their controls. There was some minor groaning from the hull as the outside water pressure relented, allowing the hull to expand an inch or so. On McCafferty's order the ESM mast went up first. As before there were several radar sources. The search periscope went up next.

A weather front was moving in, with a rain squall to the west. Fabulous, McCafferty thought. There goes ten percent of our sonar performance.

"I got a mast at two-six-four--what is it?"

"No radar signals on that bearing," a technician said.

"It's broken--it's the Krivak. We got a piece of her, let's finish her off. I--" A shadow went across the lens. McCafferty angled the instrument up and saw the swept wings and propellers of a Bear.

"Conn, sonar, multiple sonobuoys aft!"

McCafferty slapped the scope handles up and lowered the scope. "Take her down! Make your depth four hundred feet, left full rudder, all ahead full."

A sonobuoy deployed within two hundred yards of the submarine. The brassy sound of its pings reverberated through the hull.

How long for the Bear to turn