The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [381]
"What the fuck was that?" Ricks nearly screamed.
"Tail's gone, sir. We just lost the tail," a sonarman said. "Right side lateral array is damaged, sir." Ricks was already out of the room. The petty officer was talking to himself.
"Conn, maneuvering room," a speaker was saying. "Something just pounded the hell out of our screw. I'm checking for damage to the shaft now."
"Stern planes are damaged, sir. Very sluggish on the controls," the helmsman said. The Chief of the Boat pulled the youngster off the seat and took his place. Slowly and carefully, the Master Chief worked the control wheel.
"Damaged hydraulics, feels like. The trim tabs" - these were electrically powered - "look okay." He worked the wheel left and right. "Rudder is okay, sir."
"Lock the stern planes in neutral. Ten degrees up on the fairwater planes." This order came from the XO.
"Aye."
"So, what was it?" Dubinin asked.
"Metallic - an enormous mechanical transient, bearing zero-five-one." The officer tapped the blazing mark on his screen. "Low frequency as you see, like a drum but this noise here, much higher pitch. I heard that on my phones, sounded like a machinegun. Wait a minute " Senior Lieutenant Rykov said, thinking rapidly. "The frequency - I mean the interval of the impulses - that was a blade-rate, that was a propeller only thing it could be "
"And now?" the captain asked.
"Gone completely."
"I want the entire sonar crew on duty." Captain Dubinin returned to control. "Come about, new course zero-four-zero. Speed ten."
Getting a Soviet Army truck was simplicity itself. They'd stolen it, along with a staff car. It was just after midnight in Berlin, and since it was a Sunday night, the streets were empty. Berlin is as lively a city as any in the world, but Monday there is a workday, and work is something that Germans take seriously. What little traffic there was came from people late to leave their local Gasthaus, or perhaps a few workers whose jobs required round-the-clock manning. What mattered was that traffic was agreeably light, allowing them to get to their destination right on time.
There used to be a wall, Gunther Bock thought. On one side was the American Berlin detachment, and on the other a Soviet detachment, each with a small but heavily used exercise area adjacent to their barracks. The wall was gone now, leaving nothing but grass between two mechanized forces. The staff car pulled up to the Soviet gate. The sentry there was a senior sergeant of twenty years with pimples on his face and an untidy uniform. His eyes went a little wide when he saw the three stars on Keitel's shoulderboards.
"Stand at attention!" Keitel roared in perfect Russian. The boy complied at once. "I am here from Army Command to conduct an unannounced readiness inspection. You will not report our arrival to anyone. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Colonel!"
"Carry on - and clean up that filthy uniform before I come back through here or you'll find yourself on the Chinese border! Move!" Keitel ordered Bock, who was sitting at the wheel.
"Zu Befehl, Heir Oberst," Bock replied after he moved off. It was funny, actually. There were a few humorous aspects to all this, Bock thought. A few. But you had to have the right sense of humor for it.
The regimental headquarters was in an old building once used by Hitler's Wehrmacht that the Russians had used more than they had maintained. It did have the usual garden outside, and in the summer one could see the flowers arranged to duplicate the unit's patch. This one was a Guards Tank Regiment, though one with a history to which its soldiers paid little attention, judging by the sentry at the gate. Bock pulled right up to the door.