Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

142 JEFF EDWARDS
Commander Ortiz nodded. “Frankly, sir, so did I. But the Germans
have apparently taken the technology past the rumor stage.”
Admiral Joiner looked up at the tactical display. “You did good, Ernie.
Priority One is to protect the carrier first. That buys us time to think about
Priority Two: how to turn this situation around and kick some ass!” He
rubbed his chin. “Let’s establish datum halfway between the last-known
positions for the helos. Designate the frigates as a Search Attack Unit and
get them down there to run an active sonar search. Then I want you to
issue full weapons release authority to all ships for torpedoes and ASROC.
There aren’t any friendly subs in the area, so the order is shoot first.”
Commander Ortiz reached for a radio handset. “Aye-aye, sir.”
The admiral’s eyes were still locked on the tactical display. “How
much longer before our Ready-Five helos are ready to launch?”
“About three minutes, sir.”
“Get on the horn and tell the flight deck to shake a leg,” the admiral
said. “And tell the frigates to keep their eyes peeled for dye markers and
flares. Maybe somebody made it out of one of those helicopters.”
U-307:
The voice of the Sonar Operator came over the Control Room speaker.
“Active sonar transmissions, bearing three-zero-five and two-eight-zero.
Frequencies consistent with SQS-56 surface sonars.”
“That will be the frigates, searching for U-304,” Kapitan Gröeler said.
He nodded. The Americans were performing just as he’d expected. Their
tactics were rapid, efficient, and (no doubt) lethal—at least against an
adversary who was unfamiliar with them. Gröeler knew their tactics well
though, and that made them predictable. And in combat, predictable was
synonymous with dead.
He leaned over the plotting table and reviewed the tactical situation.
The plot showed his submarine, U-307, at the southern edge of the strike
group’s defense perimeter. U-305 would be in position to the west of the
carrier formation, and U-306 would be to the east.
He checked his watch. In exactly fifteen seconds, U-305 and U-306
would each fire a spread of torpedoes toward the heart of the formation.
Perhaps one of them would get lucky and nail an escort ship, but it didn’t
matter if every torpedo missed its mark. They would almost certainly miss
the aircraft carrier, but that didn’t matter either.
The carrier couldn’t possibly know how close the torpedoes were, so it
would have to turn to evade them. It couldn’t turn west, toward the