Page 92 of Gryphon

Then an unholy crack sounded overhead, like thunder and lightning had struck her ship. The lead Gripen had just unleashed a sonic boom as it passed over them.

“This is Four-Two,” crackled over the radio. “Positive report of torpedoes on hardpoints.”

“This is Four-Seven. Targeting. Fox three. Missile away.”

As Kerstin watched through the binoculars, two tiny dots dropped away from the helo and plunged into the water—coming toward her ship.

One second too late, the Little Bird disappeared in a ball of fire.

75

Kurbanov’s brains were splattered across the patio. He still had a face, but the side shot meant that he didn’t really have a head anymore.

As Max and the Aussie had told him they would attempt, Chief Kancheli still lived, though not for long. His shoulder was mostly gone and blood was pumping out.

Pavle knelt clear of the fast-growing pool and grabbed Kancheli’s chin, forcing his attention onto Pavle.

“The torpedo attack. Where and when?” He felt cruel interrupting the man’s dying moments, he wanted to puke at the sight of his imminent death, but he felt a clarity of purpose that he’d been missing for a long time.

Kancheli groaned.

Pavle slapped him, hard, to force the man to focus.

“Too late,” a bloody froth came to his lips. “You little mole-rat.” He coughed. “Already gone. Done.”

“Better a mole-rat than you,” but he was talking to a dead man.

His phone rang. It would be the shooters asking what he’d witnessed.

At the same moment he heard a safety click off close behind him.

76

“Full throttle,” Kerstin ordered. “Turbines and diesels.” Usually they were run as one or the other, but their power could be combined when the need was dire. “We’ve got torpedoes in the water.” Definitely dire.

The bridge crew went impossibly silent as the Karlstad began accelerating.

“And you’re heading straight toward them?” her first officer asked. Nice that he didn’t add a have-you-lost-your-mind tone.

“It is faster to gather speed and then turn, rather than trying to spin the boat.”

The waterjet drive could turn the boat exactly on its center if needed, but with the keel designing for moving ahead rather than sideways in water, it wasn’t a fast maneuver. Instead, she’d get up speed and then carve a turn away from the two fish in the water.

“Ready depth charges, set for a spread of five, ten, and twenty meters depth. They’re Mark 46 fish. They’re designed to locate us, come in under the center of our keel, then explode to break our ship’s back. We’re not going to let that happen.”

She’d trained for seventeen years for this moment. Ever since her days as a cadet at the Naval Warfare Centre she’d dreamed of entering action. She was now older and wiser enough to hope that it never happened, but it didn’t stop her desire to bring pain to the Russians. Too many years they’d been the bogeyman of all Europe and a chance beckoned to bring them down further than they’d already done to themselves in Ukraine.

Except the NATO general had said they were Mark 46 weapons. Those were US and NATO standard, not Russian.

Time to worry about that later.

When the ship hit twenty knots, she called out to the helmsman, “Start your turn. One-eighty about. Try not to hole us on any ice at this speed.”

“Roger, Kommendör. Turning north and continuing for heading two-seven-zero.” Due west.

The water jets were powerful enough that they would continue to accelerate through the turn. She leaned upslope as the ship heeled outward on the turn.

Kerstin resisted the urge to remind the helmsman not to heel so far over that one of the waterjet’s intakes sucked air.

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