Panic Switch полностью

“I fucking hope not,” Varney said. “Dying under the polar icecap in a drysuit ain’t my idea of how I want my career to go.”

“What about you, Patch?” Dankleff said.

Pacino smiled. “I’m with Boozy Varney on this one, U-Boat.”

“So, Commander Fishman,” Seagraves began when he, the XO, the navigator and the SEAL commander were all seated at the conference table in his stateroom. “Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

“Go ahead, Captain,” Fishman replied, frowning.

“If this were a do-or-die combat situation, could you conduct enough training over, say, two days, to bring the Panther officers up to speed on the intricacies of this dive?”

Fishman crossed his arms over his chest. “Do-or-die, Skipper? The answer is yes. If you were to ask the next question, what the probability of success would be? I’d have to say maybe one chance in twenty that we get it done. The odds say we’ll all die out there and drop the mines. It’s a complex evolution, sir.”

“Walk us through it, if you wouldn’t mind,” Seagraves said.

“We start with your torpedo room loading two torpedo tubes, each with a Mark 80 swimmer-delivered mine, pre-programmed for sonar signal detonation. Each mine will be outfitted with cables that will allow it to be towed. Both torpedo tube muzzle doors would be opened. A four-man diver team would lock out of the dry-deck shelter with Mark 76 swimmer-propulsion units, each one powerful enough to bring the diver and the mine to the intended target. The divers would break up into two-man teams and each would maneuver to the bow to retrieve the Mark 80 mines. The divers in each team would have a communication wire between them so they can talk. Ideally, there would be a wire between each team leader, which presents problems, since the mine cables and communication wires can get fouled.”

Fishman took another pull of his water bottle, then continued. “The diver teams would swim to the target. Towing a heavy mine like the Mark 80 is extremely taxing — if it’s too heavy, it will drag a swimmer to the bottom. Too light, it’ll pop to the bottom of the ice overhead or to the bottom of the Omega. So managing the ballast bladder of the mine is a full-time job, and it’s a constant adjustment for water temperature and salinity. The mine can be heavy one minute and a balloon the next.

“So, getting to the Omega. Already there’s a problem, because you’d have to drive the New Jersey very close to the Omega — and we all know there are tactical problems doing that. You could bump into the Omega or your closer noise could alert him, revealing that you’re trailing him. If he took evasive action, it could kill the divers. A mine cable could get fouled in his sail and the team could be helpless if he dives deep. Or worse, a cable could get fouled in one of his screws and pull the divers into it, chopping them into fish food. Assuming that the divers can find the Omega, they’d have to maneuver close enough to place the mines in the right place. An exploding mine in the wrong location would do nothing except blow a harmless hole in the Omega’s ballast tank. They have to be placed at the point in the Omega’s hull where his weapons are stowed.”

“Go on, Mr. Fishman,” Quinnivan encouraged.

“Bear in mind, during this whole time, the divers are fighting the relative current of the Omega’s motion. If he’s going three knots, that’s a three-knot current that they will have to fight. Not easy even if there’s no payload to tow. It takes extreme training. We’ve practiced this with submerged submarines, over and over. Anyway, let’s say that problem is overcome. We’d then have to attach the mines to a hull covered in rubber coating. The mine is opened up at that point. It’s a cylinder for stowage in a torpedo tube, but here we’d open it up on its longitudinal axis. Like slicing a banana in half lengthwise. That exposes the vacuum pump of the mine. Fighting the current the whole time, one diver uses the propulsion unit to keep the mine at the right location while the other opens the mine, places it against the target’s hull and engages the vacuum pump. If that works, all is well. The mine will cut through the anechoic coating and light off an electromagnet for a temporary connection to the hull. At that point, the mine will weld itself to the Omega hull. If the coating is too thick and the vacuum pump can’t keep the mine attached, a diver will have to cut through the coating and expose enough steel that the vacuum pump can get attached. Once the divers are satisfied that the mine is safely attached, they’ll activate the mine’s electronics, then they have to connect the two mines with a communication cable, wrapping it under the hull and gluing it to the hull surface so it won’t flap in the current of the submarine’s passage. Then, finally, they have to do a system check and make sure the mines are okay and programmed correctly and talking to each other.