To Kill the Potemkin (9 page)

"You
know what
they say, kid. See Naples
and die."

Sorensen
had
visited Naples many times but
had never looked at it as anything more than a backdrop for a debauch.
He
wasn't looking now. His face was turned into the sun.

As
they rounded
the point and entered the
gulf, Sorensen slowed to get his bearings. Fogarty chattered excitedly
about
the villas along the beach, the icecream town of Pozzuoli visible four
miles
away, the range of mountains that loomed over the gulf.

"C'mon,
Sorensen.
Which one is
Vesuvius?"

"How
do I know?
The one blowing smoke
rings."

"Where's
Pompeii?
It's supposed to be
around here."

Sorensen
became
annoyed. "Look, Fogarty,
I know this is all new to you, but try to restrain yourself. I'm not a
tour
guide and we've got a little job to do." He started putting on his
scuba
gear. "You check your tanks, kid?"

"Yeah."

"Look,
I don't
mean to be hard on you.
You'll have plenty of chances to play tourist. Hey, you know what you
get when
you nuke Naples?"

"What?"

"Plutonium
pizza."

"Jesus,
Sorensen,
you're a sick
man."

"You
think it's a
joke?"

"I
hope it is."

"Well,
it's not.
Listen, I live in a
submarine. I'm a bubblehead, and that gives me a certain point of
view." He
paused to gesture widely, taking in the entire region around Naples.
"This
is a target. As long as Naples is the home port of the Sixth Fleet it
will be
destroyed in the first salvo. A million people are going to die here,
blasted
by the Russians. As far as I'm concerned they're already dead. They
don't
exist. I don't want to know who they are or how they live."

"Do
you really
think we're going to have
a war?"

Sorensen
looked
around. "We're already
at war. It's just that we don't shoot each other, but we do everything
else.
We're fighting for control of the sea. Whoever controls the oceans
rules the
roost. When the Russians put that sub in the Med, the one we stumbled
across
yesterday, they took a big step in that direction. They're not supposed
to get
through Gibraltar undetected, you know. That's bad news. If they can go
on with
this shit, sooner or later they'll be able to track our missile subs in
the
Med. That threatens our strategic deterrence—you know, the one they
make all
those speeches about—and that's not allowed."

"But
we track
theirs too. We know the
location of every one of their subs in the Atlantic and the Caribbean—"

"Except
we're not
them. We've had
superior forces all along. We can waste them any time we want, only we
don't.
We aren't so sure that that would happen if the situation were
reversed."

"And
we don't
want to find out..."

"Maybe
I don't
give a shit. I don't know... we're all bugs crawling over a ball of
dirt on the edge of some
nowhere
galaxy. You think we're all there is? If we go down like the dinosaurs
maybe
the whales will get their chance. They'd probably do a better job...
Hey,
ain't I profound... you'd think I knew something." He looked at his
compass and checked his bearings, then with a
flourish zipped up
his wetsuit. "C'mon, sailor, drop anchor. We're here."

Murky
green light filtered down into the gulf. Sorensen and Fogarty followed
the
anchor rope to the bottom, where Sorensen consulted his compass. He
carried the
beacon and Fogarty the magnet.

Fogarty
expected to find a bouillabaisse in the gulf, rascasse and eels, scampi
and
sole. Instead he found a garbage dump, long since fished out. The
debris of
centuries littered the bottom. Mixed with the silt were layers of
slime,
condoms, volcanic ash, broken statuary and Pepsi bottles.

It
didn't
take long to find their objective—a dark shape looming up from the
deep, the
mangled hulk of a World War Two German submarine. The stern was
half-buried in
the silt, and the rest of the wreck was covered with algae and rust. On
the
conning tower they read:
U-62.

Sorensen
took the magnet from Fogarty, swam to the sub and attached the beacon
to the
hull. He switched it on, and they listened to the beep.

They
swam
slowly around the wreck. Half the bow was torn away, and around the
edges of
the gaping hole the metal was twisted outward. In one awful moment a
torpedo
had exploded inside the boat, sinking it instantly. Since the hatches
were
closed and the radars and periscopes retracted, it was clear that the
accident
had occurred while the boat was submerged.

Sorensen
lingered, looking for a souvenir, but the old sub had been stripped by
divers
long ago, and besides, it was too dangerous to go inside without
lights.
Sorensen jerked his thumbs toward the surface, and together they began
the slow
ascent.

On
the
surface the wind died, the light faded and the bay turned smooth as a
sheet of
Formica. As they approached
the breakwater the sub was a black silhouette looming against the gray
washes
of the tender.

Sorensen
imagined
he could see radiation
seeping from the hull aft of the sail. To him.
Barracuda
glowed in the
dark, her atomic fire burning with an intensity that could not be
contained.

Back
in the crew
quarters Sorensen whistled
cheerfully as he rummaged around in his tiny locker for a cigarette. He
found
books, tapes, electronics manuals and uniforms, but no smokes.

"Say,
Fogarty,
can I bum a
cigarette?"

They
were alone.
Fogarty lay on his bunk in
jockey shorts and glowered at the bulkhead. He had not said a word
during the
ride back to the ship.

"What's
the
matter with you? You quit
smokin' or what?"

Fogarty
tossed a
pack of Luckys across the
passageway. Sorensen took one. "Some folks would pay a fortune to go
scuba
diving in the Med."

"Christ
almighty,
Sorensen. There were
dead men on that boat—"

"Maybe,
maybe
not. The ocean is full of
dead men and sunken ships. Their wars are over. Those guys on that
U-boat died
a long time ago. Fish ate them before you were born. It's ancient
history."

"They
were
sailors just like you and
me—"

"They
were not
like you and me. They
were Nazis. They were the enemy. It was lucky for our side that they
blew
themselves up."

"Ah,
come on,
Sorensen, that's just it.
A fish blew up inside their boat. I can't even imagine what it was like
in
there when that torpedo exploded. They never had a chance."

Sorensen
nodded.
"I wouldn't think too
much on it. When we come back here next week
we can borrow some
tanks and dive down to old
U-62
again. We'll go in
there with lights,
and you can find out what it was like. It'll be an object lesson in
what can
happen if somebody makes a mistake underwater."

"
U-62
didn't have nuclear torpedoes. If we blew up in the Bay of
Naples, plutonium pizza."

"C'mon,
Fogarty, lighten up." He punched the young sailor playfully on the
shoulder. "Listen, kid, you've got a bad habit. You think too much. It
isn't going to make your life any easier, I guarantee you. Sooner or
later
everybody on this ship has to come to terms with the fact that we're a
fucking
bomb waiting to go off. You've got a head start. You're green, but you
think
about these things. You have to grow up fast, we need guys like you
down
here." Sorensen grinned. "At least on this ship we might get a chance
to waste a Russian missile sub before she blows up New York City."

"And
until then?"

"Hey,
man, we all live in our little yellow submarine. Relax, try thinking of
yourself as a pioneer exploring life underwater. The price for the
privilege is
that you have to work for the navy. So you put up with a lot of
chickenshit.
But at least you get a nice clean comfortable air-conditioned submarine
to
drive you around, all meals provided. You get the best toys and the
best talent
to operate them. And for excitement you get to play Cowboys and
Cossacks with
the Russians. Some deal, right?"

"Except
a forty-million-dollar submarine designed to kill people isn't a toy."

"Well,
we haven't killed anybody yet, and as
far as I know we aren't planning on doing it today. Listen, Fogarty,"
Sorensen said, his voice slowing down and lowering in tone, "as long as
you are on this ship I'm your supervisor. For some stupid reason I like
you. I
think you will turn into a fine sonar operator, so I'm giving you a
choice.
Just keep your mouth shut, do your job, or get the fuck off this ship
today.
You hear me, sailor?"

Fogarty
kept his mouth shut. Sorensen looked at him, then broke into a smile
and
slapped him on the back.

"Hey,
okay, lighten up now and get your ass in gear. We have to report to the
XO."

The
ship buzzed with excitement. The word had
been passed that an admiral was coming aboard to give
Barracuda
a
special assignment, and the crew was busily preparing for an
inspection.
Sailors in freshly laundered jumpsuits executed routine tasks with an
extra
touch of crispness. Internal communications technicians checked every
circuit.
Settings on the inertial navigation gyros were adjusted. Radar
monitored the
traffic in the harbor. Only in the galley was there a note of
discontent. The
admiral would not dine, and Stanley felt dejected.

Sorensen
and Fogarty were passing through the
control room when Pisaro called out, "Attention!"

Instantly
the control room was transformed
into a parade ground.

The
quartermaster blew his pipes, and two men
passed through the hatch.

"At
ease," said Pisaro.

Fogarty
saw a short pudgy man of sixty in a
flowered Hawaiian shirt, flat black sunglasses and a salt-and-pepper
beard that
wrapped around his jowls like a mask.

"Who
is
that?
" he whispered to Sorensen.

"Netts,"
said Sorensen.
"Vice-Admiral Edward P. Netts."

"Never
heard of him," Fogarty said.

"The
Russians have."

The
second man was impeccably dressed in
custom-tailored tans.

"Who's
that?" Fogarty asked.

"His
aide, Commander Billings. I expect
he'll be with us for a few days."

Netts
looked around the control room and
spotted Sorensen. Quietly, to avoid being overheard by the other men in
the
compartment, Netts asked Sorensen about the Viktor they had
encountered.
"I understand it went below two thousand feet. Is that true?"

"Yes,
sir. It did, indeed."

Netts
mulled over the unhappy implications.
"Is the beacon planted on
U-62?
" he asked.

"Yes,
sir."

"Did
you go over the plan with the
skipper?"

"Yes,
sir. It's going to be a piece of
cake. Admiral."

"All
right"—Netts turned to
Pisaro—"let's get on with it."

The
admiral was in no mood to see his special
assignment torpedoed—he winced at the unintended pun—by a faulty stern
plane, a
leaky pipe or a crazed computer. He intended to inspect the ship.

At
the navigation console the quartermaster
was taking a satellite feed of up-to-date information on tide, current,
wind
and sea conditions. On the display screen an electronic chart of the
Naples
roadstead was ready and waiting with
Barracuda
's
course already plotted.

At
the attack console Hoek took another
satellite feed, which showed
Kitty Hawk
and her
escorts on a radar
screen. The fleet was three hundred miles from Naples, fifty miles off
the
southern tip of Sardinia. Netts stared at the screen. "Do they have
company?"

"Yes,
sir, they sure do," said
Hoek, punching buttons. Two more blips appeared, trailing the rearmost
destroyer by two miles.

"
Boris
Badinoff
and
Natasha
," said the lieutenant.

"What
about subs? Any sign of the Viktor
you met?"

"So
far,
nada
."

"Well,
let's hope it stays that way, but
don't bet on it. Can you show me Naples?" asked Netts.

"Certainly,
Admiral." Hoek punched
more buttons and the screen showed the navigation chart. Netts studied
the
screen. Scattered among the freighters and ferries that appeared as
blips on
the screen were the buoys that marked the channel.

"Lieutenant,
there's a sub waiting for
you out there, probably ten or twelve miles out. There might even be
two. I
wouldn't be surprised if she's under one of those buoys. I suggest that
you
plot an attack course for each buoy more than ten miles out, just in
case one
of them moves."

"Aye
aye," replied Hoek as he
energetically began to push buttons. Hoek was ready for a fight. His
breath was
short, his chest felt constricted. He was due for a physical when
Barracuda
returned to Norfolk, and he knew he would never pass. This was his last
patrol,
and he wanted some memories to take ashore.

Netts
led his party forward through officers'
country. In the narrow passageways he paid particular attention to the
control
cables and pipes that ran through the ship, all open and exposed for
instant
maintenance and repair. The cosmetic paneling that at one time had
covered them
was ripped out after the
Thresher
disaster.

Sorensen
and Fogarty made their way to the
mess. The moment they arrived, Sorensen was cornered by Cakes, who
asked,
"Who's the brass?"