"The hell of it is, it's exciting," O'Malley went on. "You're doing something extremely difficult. It requires concentration and practice and a lot of abstract thought. You have to get inside the other guy's head, but at the same time you think of your mission as destroying an inanimate object. Doesn't make much sense, does it? So, what you do is, you don't think about that aspect of the job. Otherwise the job wouldn't get done."
"Are we going to win?"
"That's up to the guys on land. All we do is support them. This convoy's going to make it."
"They told me you were dead," Beregovoy said.
"Not even scratched this time. It startled Vanya here out of a sound sleep, however. How does the attack go?"
"Initial signs are promising. We have an advance of six kilometers here, and almost as much here at Springe. We might have Hannover surrounded by tomorrow."
Alekseyev found himself wondering if his superior had been right. Perhaps NATO lines had been thinned so much they'd been forced to give ground.
"Comrade General." It was the Army intelligence officer. "I have a report of German tanks at Eldagsen. He-he just went off the air."
"Where the hell is Eldagsen?" Beregovoy peered down at the map. "That's ten kilometers behind the line! Confirm that report!"
The ground shook under them, followed by the roar of jet engines and launching missiles.
"They just hit our radio transmitters," the communications officer reported.
"Switch to the alternate!" Alekseyev shouted.
"That was the alternate. They took out the primary last night," Beregovoy answered. "Another is being assembled 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."
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."
