To Kill the Potemkin Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Opening Quotes

  Prologue

  Intertitle

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  FOR MY FATHER

  War is a game.

  —CLAUSEWITZ

  All war is deception.

  —SUN TZU

  Prologue

  On May 27, 1968, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the USS Scorpion, a nuclear submarine with ninety-nine pen aboard, was due to arrive at her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, after a ninety-day patrol. The families of the crew were waiting on the dock.

  At about three o'clock a navy public affairs officer announced that Scorpion was overdue. She had failed to request her berthing assignment and tug services.

  Scorpion had last communicated on May 21, when she filed a routine position report from fifty miles south of the Azores in the mid-Atlantic.

  After several more hours of continued silence, the navy undertook a massive search of the waters around Norfolk. Over the next few days the search was widened into the deep Atlantic. On June 5, the navy declared Scorpion presumed lost with all hands, and on June 30 her name was struck from the navy list.

  The loss of Scorpion was the worst disaster to befall a fully armed United States Navy warship on patrol since the end of World War Two.

  The USS Scorpion, SSN 589, one of six Skipjack class submarines, was 252 feet long and 31 feet wide. She was built by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut, and commissioned July 29, 1960, at a cost of forty million dollars. Her S5W nuclear reactor, built by Westinghouse, was capable of lighting a small city. An attack submarine, a hunter-killer, she carried no ballistic missiles. She was armed with torpedoes of various types, including several with nuclear warheads designed to destroy enemy submarines and other capital ships, Her crew of ninety-nine represented the highest level of training and achievement of any military unit in the Armed Forces of the United States. They were the navy's elite.

  Their loss went largely unnoticed. In May 1968 American soldiers and sailors died every day in Viet Nam. France endured a general strike. Students at Columbia and elsewhere laid siege to their universities. The battle of Khe San, the cultural revolution in China, the civil war in Nigeria, and the death the previous month of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., crowded the front pages of America's newspapers. Unlike the Thresher, which sank in April 1963 during a time of relative tranquility, the Scorpion has been all but forgotten.

  On June 5, 1968, a Navy Court of Inquiry convened in Norfolk and took testimony in secret from more than ninety witnesses. On August 5 The New York Times, in a two-paragraph article in the back pages, reported that technicians at a U.S. Navy SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) listening station in Greece made a tape recording of an implosion in the mid-Atlantic on May 21.

  Meanwhile, the search in the deep Atlantic began in earnest. The USS Mizar, an oceanographic research vessel, was assigned the task of finding the wreck. Mizar towed a sled over the bottom, more than ten thousand feet down, and searched with sonars, magnometers, lights, and television and still cameras.

  In August the Court adjourned with no conclusive evidence as to the cause of the disaster. On October 29 Mizar found the wreck of Scorpion four hundred miles from her last reported position, under 11,235 feet of water, and took twelve thousand photographs of the debris field.

  The Court reconvened in November, examined the evidence gathered by Mizar and issued a Findings of Fact on January 31, 1969. Most of that document remains classified today. In the declassified portions the Court declared that "the certain cause of the loss of Scorpion cannot be ascertained from any evidence now available." The death of SSN 589 became an official mystery.

  During the early months of 1968 multiple submarine disasters were reported in the public press. On February 25 the Israeli sub Dakar disappeared in the Mediterranean. On April 11 a Soviet Navy Golf II class submarine sank in the Pacific. Several months later parts of that sub were raised by the Glomar Explorer. Scorpion exploded and sank on May 21. Were all these events coincidence? Answers may lie deep in the archives of all the navies involved. The essence of submarine warfare is secrecy and stealth, and submarine operations rank among the most carefully guarded secrets of all military powers. In the U.S. Navy, submariners are said to belong to the Silent Service. The boats are quiet, but the men are mute.

  Nevertheless, as in all navies, there is scuttlebutt. Rumors circulate for years, become exaggerated and inflated, but never lose their fascination. Was there a sub war in the late 1960s, when the Soviet Navy was making frantic efforts to catch and technologically surpass the U.S. Navy?

  The story that follows is fiction. The ships and the men who sail them are imaginary, but their time and the nature of their struggle were real. Then, as now, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, the submarine forces of the United States Navy and the Soviet Navy confronted one another under all the oceans of earth, playing a deadly game of nuclear war. What happened then, if it happened at all, may happen again...

  MAY, 1968

  1

  SILVER DOLPHINS

  Twin dolphins faced each other across Sorensen's chest. Sailors called them dolphins, but the strange creatures inked into Sorensen's skin scarcely resembled the small singing whales that live in the sea. Their eyes bulged and their mouths gaped, as if they were about to devour the submarine making way between them. The sub, an old-fashioned diesel-electric with knife-edged prow, crude sonar dome and archaic anchor, appeared to drive straight out of Sorensen's heart.

  Over the years the tattoo had faded to a bluish gray. Tufts of blond hair obscured some of the intricate detail, but the legend that curved over the sub was still legible: SSN 593.

  Sorensen was a big man. Even in his present condition, drunk, stoned, sprawled naked on a whore's bed, his wide shoulders and lean swimmer's muscles spent and exhausted, he radiated tension like a sheathed sword.

  Almost asleep, he closed his eyes and listened to the girl breathing softly beside him.

  Ordinarily, Lorraine took little notice of her tricks, most of whom came from the navy base. Sorensen was different. He spent a lot of money, he knew what he wanted and he treated her right. She was enjoying herself. She liked the way his lopsided smile slanted across his face when he grinned. Dark rings surrounded his eyes, but whether they were a permanent feature, she didn't know. His hair was longer than regulation and slicked back over large ears. His skin was tan and healthy.

  Lazily, she traced her fingers over the tattoo. She had been in Norfolk long enough to recognize the insignia of the Submarine Service, and long enough to know which questions not to ask a submariner. No, they didn't get claustrophobic. Yes, they got insanely horny on a long patrol. Yes, they worried about the radiation, but not too much. They all said the asbestos was worse.

  "How long you been in the navy. Jack?"

  Without opening his eyes, Sorensen mumbled, "T
oo long."

  "I bet you're a lifer. Otherwise, you wouldn't have this tattoo."

  "Yeah, well, one night in Tokyo I had too much to drink. So it goes, so it goes."

  She giggled. "You submarine guys are all a little crazy, you know? But you're the only one I ever saw with a tan."

  He smiled. "You like that?"

  "You look like one of them California surfers."

  "Hardly likely. I'm from Oakland. That's California, but the only beach is a mudflat where people shoot ducks and watch bodies float by. That's my home town, but I've never been back."

  "Wait. Let me guess. Now your address is on your chest, right?"

  "Right."

  "SSN 593. That your ship?"

  "USS Barracuda. The one and only."

  "You're a lifer, Sorensen. Admit it."

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. "We're all lifers, every last one of us. You, too." He closed his eyes again. "What time is it?"

  "Three A.M."

  "Listen, be a good girl and let me sleep for an hour. Wake me up at four."

  "Sure, sailor."

  He listened to her slide out of bed, walk across the room and pour herself a drink. Ice, whiskey, water. From outside came insect noises and the grinding and whirring of a garbage truck. Sorensen pulled a pillow over his ears.

  Lorraine sipped her drink and gazed at the naked man on her bed. He fidgeted in his sleep as if he were disturbed by his dreams.

  Suzy had told her that Sorensen visited the house once or twice a year, usually the night before Barracuda went on patrol. That evening he had presented Suzy with a silk kimono, explaining that he had just returned from a two-day round trip to Japan. Upstairs he had a drink and relaxed. To Lorraine's delight, he had demonstrated a novel miniature tape recorder he had brought back from Tokyo. The machine fit into his jumper pocket, and he had dozens of tiny reels of ultrathin tape. During the night they had listened to Fats Domino, Mose Allison, Beethoven, Hoyt Axton and the Grateful Dead.

  While Sorensen slept she found the Hoyt Axton tape and listened to him sing about junkies and cowboys, wondering lazily what life was like under a city block of ocean.

  * * *

  Sorensen listened to the night. A toilet flushed on the floor above, and he followed the water as it gurgled down through the pipes on its way to Chesapeake Bay. He strained to hear the sounds of the harbor, ships and buoys, but they were too far away, lost in the shore sounds of trucks and trains and the low rumble of a sleeping city. Gradually the sounds of Norfolk were replaced by the ocean sounds inside his head. Submarine sounds, underwater sounds, whales, snapping shrimp, sonar beacons.

  Just before passing out, the last thing Sorensen heard was the sound of engine-room machinery pounding in his head. Steam throttled through valves and pumps, pushing turbines and turning gears. It was as if he were listening to his own blood rushing through his arteries. He fell asleep and dreamed he was a steel fish with a nuclear heart, swimming effortlessly through the vast blackness of the sea.

  He had surrendered to the dream long ago. Asleep, he became Barracuda. The ship's technology became an extension of his senses; her sonars were as his own ears, plunging him into a world of pure sound. The open sea is a noisy place. Whales signal across thousands of miles. Fish chatter and croak. Surface ships clutter up the medium with their struggle against wind, waves and turbulence. As Barracuda, perfect and invulnerable lord of the deep, Sorensen ignored them all. He was searching for one sound, one unforgettable sound. It was another sub, sometimes far away, sometimes nearby, but always moving and elusive. The sound faded in and out, one moment barely audible, an instant later roaring in his ear. The sound was deeper in pitch than that of any other sub in Sorensen's experience, and conveyed a sense of raw power and terrible menace. Though he taxed his remarkable hearing to the limit, he could never establish its identity.

  This time it was closer than ever before, so close he could hear men breathing inside. They wore black uniforms. One of them was the sonar operator, sitting at a console. Sorensen listened to his beating heart, and when the man turned around, Sorensen saw his own face.

  * * *

  After an hour Lorraine gently shook his shoulder.

  "Jack, wake up."

  "Go 'way."

  "Listen, you told me to wake you up at four. It's a quarter after."

  She heard him sigh. "Okay. Give me a minute. Turn off the light."

  Awake, he realized the dream would never end. It was too deeply rooted in his psyche to disappear completely. Sorensen wasn't sure what it meant. Perhaps he had lived underwater too long. On each patrol Barracuda seemed to get closer to the Russians. Or maybe the Russians were getting closer to him.

  Lorraine was standing next to the bed, her dressing gown parted in the middle. Between the wine-red folds of satin, a streak of creamy flesh was visible from her neck to her blond pubic hair. Sorensen kissed her thigh. She smelled of strawberries.

  "Did you have a bad dream?"

  "Why? Did I say anything?"

  "You said, 'It's a Russian,' but the rest was mumbo jumbo."

  He slapped himself in the cheek. "Shut up, Sorensen. You talk too much."

  She lay down beside him and fondled him until he grew hard. He ran his hand over her rump and stroked the back of her legs. She was a bit overweight, which was why he had chosen her from the lineup in Suzy's parlor. Skinny women reminded him of his ex-wife.

  She rolled over and straddled him.

  "This one's for free," she said, and leaned over to lick his chest.

  It had been a steamy night. After eight years of living on a submarine, Sorensen knew how to get his money's worth. Expensive, but worth it. Blowing his brains out with sex and booze made as much sense as anything else. Nothing he did ashore made any difference because nothing ashore was real. Life ashore was layer after layer of illusion, like the TV news. Nothing important ever got on TV. Anything important was classified. Reality was top secret.

  "Can I turn on the light?"

  "Sure."

  Sorensen shaded his eyes with his hands and looked at Lorraine. She was pretty. At Suzy's they were always pretty. She slipped off and lit a cigarette.

  "Is there any beer left?" he asked.

  "It's warm."

  "That's okay."

  He stood up and teetered. "Christ almighty." He grinned his off-center grin. "I must be getting old."

  He found a bottle of beer, opened it and sat back down on the bed. The room was decorated in a Victorian style with paisley wallpaper and velour couches. Suzy's was the best whorehouse in Norfolk, and he was comfortable there. He liked the whores. They didn't complain when he babbled nonsense about the navy, the nucs, the officers or even the Russians. They didn't try to pry secrets out of him, or ask him to explain what he did or why he did it. They just fucked him and laughed at his jokes. Sometimes they gave him the clap.

  Through an open window he heard trucks passing on a highway. Norfolk droned, a city asleep. The ocean never slept. Underwater there was neither night nor day, only the passing of the watches and blinking numbers on a digital chronometer.

  It was time to go. Barracuda sailed at dawn. The reactor in his mind was critical. The chain reaction had started.

  While he was putting on his uniform, there was a knock on the door.

  "Sorensen, you pinche cabron, are you in there?"

  The voice was pure East Los Angeles.

  "Who's that?" Lorraine asked.

  "Open it up," Sorensen said.

  Jesus Manuel Lopez y Corona stood in the corridor, two hundred fifty pounds of Mexican torpedoman dressed in the full regalia of a chief petty officer.

  "I ain't gonna let you screw up, Ace. Come on outta there. You're late."

  "Want a beer, Chief? Meet my friend, Lorraine."

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance. You'll excuse me, but it's a little early in the day for breakfast. The shore patrol has kindly lent me a car and driver. He's waiting downstairs."

 
"How'd you know I was here?" Sorensen wasn't angry, merely curious.

  "I'm chief of the boat, Sorensen. It's my job to know where every one of you cabrones is every minute. Besides"—Lopez lowered his voice and winked—"me and Suzy are old pals. She called the ship and told me you were here. Let's go."

  Sorensen looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and he needed a shave. His uniform was rumpled. He drew himself to attention, placed his hat two fingers above his eyebrows and saluted.

  "Listen, Lorraine, did I pay you?"

  "You paid Suzy."

  Sorensen picked up his kit bag, checked to make sure he had his recorder and tapes, and pulled out a fifty dollar bill.

  "Here's a little extra. For truth, justice and the American way. See ya later, baby."

  2

  Barracuda

  Sorensen sat in the back of the jeep, peering with underwater eyes at the shabby streets and rotting Victorians of Norfolk. He felt as though a sheet of water was between him and Barracuda's home port. To him, Norfolk was a target, a blip on a Soviet attack console, and when he was there, he felt naked and exposed, like a sub on the surface.

  The jeep turned a corner and he caught a glimpse of lights on the river and the darkness of the Atlantic beyond.

  "What's the word, Chief? We got us a Russkie out there?"

  Lopez shook his head. "Nah. There was one sub that tried to get in yesterday, but Ivan hasn't figured out yet that we can track him anywhere in the Atlantic. We let this November class get in as far as fifty miles offshore, but Mako flushed her last night. She won't be back. She's heading for the ice pack."

  "Why didn't they leave it for us?"

  "You're nuts, Sorensen, you know that? All you ever want to do is chase the Russians around the ocean. Me, I like a nice quiet patrol with no excitement."

  "That's because you're a torpedoman, Lopez. It makes you nervous to think that someday you may even have to blow off one of your fish."

  "This is my last patrol, Sorensen. I been down below for twenty years and I've never fired a war shot yet. I want to go out the same way."