Shadow Hunter by Geoffrey Archer

Wales, and the data could be presented within minutes as hard intelligence information at headquarters in Norfolk, USA and Northwood, UK.
    Philip guessed the hounds would be rapidly unleashed once his masters knew he was out of their control. The Faroes-Shetland gap would be the obvious place they’d start looking for him; he didn’t want to give them a head-start by revealing his position.
    His first thought had been to hide amongst the noises generated by the aircraft-carrier
Illustrious
and her frigate escorts, but they were too far ahead, and would already have crossed the SOSUS barrier before
Truculent
could catch up.
    So he’d decided to hug the continental shelf and pray for a merchantman to happen past. Throughout Saturday night they’d lurked, listening, west of the Orkneys. Philip had slept fitfully, leaving orders for the watch to wake him the moment a suitable decoy appeared.
    Sunday morning came and went, with Philip finding it increasingly difficult to contain his fear of entrapment. He’d been on the point of making a run for it through the gap; to hell with the risk of being detected. If he was fast enough, he might slip away into the Norwegian Deep before the surface ships and the Nimrods could be marshalled onto his trail.
    Then soon after lunch had come the breakthrough he was waiting for. A Russian fish-factory ship was heading back to Murmansk from the Scottish coast, laden with sprats and mackerel. The heavy thump of its diesel engine and the uneven beat of its imperfectly-milled propeller provided the screen of noise he needed.
    To compound the deception, Philip ordered the trailing of a noise generator, a slim canister towed astern which transmitted a broad band of underwater noise, to swamp the discrete frequencies from the submarine which could identify it to the SOSUS system as a
Trafalgar
Class boat.
    Philip crossed the control room to the chart table.
    â€˜How’re we doing?’
    Nick Cavendish was ready; the captain had asked him the same question every thirty minutes since lunch.
    â€˜â€™Bout twenty miles northeast of SOSUS. Still at twelve knots, with the Soviet fisherman two miles to starboard.’
    â€˜Where’s the
Victor
?’
    â€˜Last reported about one hundred miles north, but that was yesterday, sir. We’re short of fresh intelligence.’
    â€˜Okay. Let’s dump the noise generator, and head due north. Get down into the deep water and do some listening.’
    â€˜Aye, aye, sir.’
    â€˜Stretch our legs a bit. Once you’re sure we’re out of everyone’s way, we’ll stick a mast up and pick up an int. broadcast.’
    â€˜I’d like that, sir.’
    Ahead lay the vast, empty waters of the Norwegian Basin, 3600 metres deep in places. Deep down,
Truculent
’s towed sonar array came into its own. If the Soviet
Victor
was anywhere within a hundred miles they’d have a good chance of finding her.
    Cavendish gave the orders for the new course and depth. He set their speed at fifteen knots, fast enough until he had a better idea what other submarines might be sharing the waters with them.
    He stepped into the sound room to look over the shoulders of the sonar ratings as they checked their waterfall displays. In the deep sound channel into which they’d descended they heard no trace of other submarines, just the squeaks and groans of countless krill. The
Victor
must have moved on.
    Back in the control room he decided it was safe to put some distance behind them.
    â€˜Make revolutions for thirty knots!’ he ordered. ‘Maintain depth two-hundred-and-fifty metres.’
    Their own sonar would be deaf at that speed, but he’d risk it for half an hour. He clicked the intercom to report the change of speed to the captain.
    â€˜Very good. Carry on,’ Hitchens approved.
    *
    Thirty minutes later Cavendish ordered a return to fifteen knots. They were now over forty miles from the SOSUS