CHAPTER 51
“W
here is it?” asked Captain Borodin.
“Amidships, port, sir,” reported the sonar tech. “It's close inâa few meters at most.”
Borodin took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He'd been on the edge for the last ten minutes.
Even in its degraded state, the
Neva
's passive sonar detected the high-pitched whine of the ROV's thrusters as it struggled on its return voyage to the submarine. The flooding current taxed its propulsion system.
Borodin faced the sonar watch stander.
“Is it still heading toward the bow?”
“Yes, sir. Coming up on it right now.”
“Xoróšij!”
Good.
* * *
“Okay, what do you want me to do now?” asked Laura as she stared at the video display.
“Ascend three meters,” Yuri said.
It was 6:37
A.M
. The ROV redeployed twenty minutes earlier. During a previous attempt, after modifying
Little Mack
, the camera had broadcast static only. It took over an hour to locate the corroded cable connector.
“Three metersâten feet, okay.” Laura eased back on the joystick while keeping her eyes on the hazy video image of the underside of the
Neva
's rounded bow.
“Better slow up,” Yuri warned as the tip of the bow approached.
“Right.” Laura backed off the control and
Little Mack
hovered.
“Can you bring it in a little closer?”
“I think so but the current's still a problem.”
“You're almost there.”
“I can see it.”
Laura maneuvered the ROV opposite torpedo tube five.
“That's it, perfect!” Yuri said.
“I'm just about maxed out here with the current. I have to do it right now.”
“Go ahead.”
Laura rotated her right wrist and
Little Mack
crabbed into the current. Two seconds later, she backed off one thruster, letting the current swing the camera end of the ROV into alignment. She powered up all thrusters and
Little Mack
squirted into the torpedo tube.
“We're in!” Laura shouted while backing off the power.
Little Mack
hovered inside the opening of the 25.5-inch-diameter cylinder. The outer bow cover or shutter had sheared away from its mount. The torpedo tube's muzzle door that normally would have sealed the tube from the sea had also disappeared.
Both Yuri and Laura stared at the video display. The camera and its supporting lights probed deep into the tube.
Laura commented, “I see him.”
A pair of black fins and dry suitâencased lower legs filled the camera's view.
Yuri didn't respond. He'd had several hours to prepare but remained distressed. Warrant Officer Viktor Skirski had been his diving partner and friend.
Laura faced Yuri. “What should I do?”
“Let me do this.”
Laura stood and stepped to the side, allowing Yuri to take her place.
“I want to see what happens if we push forward.” His right hand rested on the joystick.
“Let me help you,” Laura said. She placed her hand over his and rotated the joystick forward.
Little Mack
crawled down the tube until the modified pipe frame guarding the camera lens was about a foot away from the right fin.
“I've got him,” he said.
Laura took her hand away.
Yuri added thrust and the camera slipped past the fin, riding up onto the leg. The lights above the camera scraped against the metallic lining of the tube.
“Govnó!”
“What's wrong?” Laura asked.
“He's not moving. I was afraid of this.”
“Afraid of what?”
“There must be debris in the tube. That's what Viktor got caught on.”
Laura leaned closer to the screen.
“I don't know about that. I can see under the body a ways and I don't see any damage.” She paused. “Maybe something else happened now that the body is decomposing. . .”
“No. It's fouled on something.”
“Try increasing the power.”
Yuri did but Viktor's corpse still refused to yield.
Laura said, “I guess it's time for your backup plan.”
“Yes, we have no choice.”
“Okay, I'll bring it up.”
Eighty minutes later, after returning to the surface for another modification,
Little Mack
reentered the torpedo tube. The grappling device that Yuri bolted to the upper frame extended about two feet beyond the camera.
“I'm ready,” Laura announced.
“Okay, do it.”
Laura gunned the thrusters and the ROV jetted down the tube. It slammed into the corpse; the barbed stinger pierced the dry suit and tore into the corpse's right thigh.
A plume of inky fluid clouded the camera's eye. Yuri looked away, disgusted at the desecration. The water cleared.
“Now?” Laura asked.
“Go ahead.”
She applied reverse thrust.
Half power: The barb held but still no movement.
Three-quarters power: The corpse refused to budge.
“Here goes everything,” Laura said, her eyes glued to the monitor.
Yuri turned back.
Little Mack
hadn't moved a centimeter. “It's no use,” he said. “We'll have to think of something else.”
Laura held up her left hand. “Hang on. I'm going to try something different.” She adjusted one of the thrusters, forcing
Little Mack
to rotate in place.
Yuri watched as the camera's view angle changed. After reaching eighty degrees of arc, the TV screen blinked and the camera lost focus.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I think it moved.” Laura shut down the thrusters. She continued to stare at the nearly blacked out video screen. “Something's jammed tight against the camera lens.”
“Viktor's shifted position. Back upâslowly.”
Laura applied power. The video image changed as several inches of space opened up between the lens and the obstruction.
“That's Viktor's rebreather,” Yuri announced as he pointed to a black plastic boxlike object in the screen. One corner of the housing appeared bent.
“Could that have been what was jammed?”
“Maybe.”
“See if he's really free,” Yuri said.
“Okay.” She reapplied reverse thrust.
Little Mack
crept backward.
* * *
Nick Orlov and Captain Miller stood facing each other in the wheelhouse. Both were on edge.
“Remember, now, if I don't have my cash by four o'clock this afternoon, me and the
Herc
are sailing back to Seattle and you and your friends can go screw yourselves.”
“You'll get your bonus, Captain.”
“I'm not kidding around. You promised it and that's that.”
With eyebrows tight and straight, Nick backed out of the wheelhouse, barely able to contain his anger.
Nick sucked on a Winston while leaning against the guardrail until his anger finally subsided. Captain Miller remained inside the pilothouse. The
Hercules
was bathed in welcome mid-morning sunshine. The workboat hovered in place about a hundred feet north of the VLF buoy.
In the distance, Nick could see the southern shoreline of Point Roberts. With the exception of a southbound containership in the adjacent shipping lanes, the
Hercules
had this stretch of the Strait of Georgia to itself.
Nick looked aft. Yuri stood next to the starboard railing, peering overboard.
The submarine officer and his American companion had been monitoring the ROV's video display for hours. Nick checked in with them several times but learned zilch.
Captain Miller, on the other hand, was a royal pest. Part of their latest clash was Nick's fault. He had forgotten that it was the weekend and offhandedly mentioned to Miller that he might need additional time to assemble the funds. Big mistake.
Having thought about the tactical situation, Nick made a critical decision. But before he could act, he needed help. He'd already called Elena's cell three times, each one connecting to her voice mail.
Nick flipped the spent butt overboard and was about to head back to the bridge, when he noticed that Laura and Yuri were leaning over the starboard bulwark. They reached for something in the water.
He headed aft, curious.
* * *
“Can you free him while still in the water?” Laura asked.
“I don't know, maybe.”
Yuri hung on to the end of a boathook. Its hooked end had snagged onto
Little Mack
. The ROV surfaced.
“Say, Yuri,” Nick Orlov said in Russian, approaching the pair, “I think it's time that weâ”
He stopped in mid-sentence when he spotted the black-clad form next to the ROV.
“What's that?”
Yuri turned to face Nick. “It's one of the crewâa diver. He's dead. Come and help us.”
* * *
After Yuri extracted Viktor's corpse from
Little Mack
's stinger, a quick examination on the main deck revealed no hints as to the cause of death of his friend and colleague. Yuri next removed Viktor's backpack and salvaged the dive light still strapped to the left wrist.
Laura said a prayer just before Yuri and Nick gently eased Viktor's earthly remains back into the water. Still encased in the heavily weighted diving gear, the body promptly submerged, commencing its final descent.
CHAPTER 52
E
lena Krestyanova drove south from Vancouver. Captain Dubova sat beside her. Lieutenant Grigori Karpekov occupied the backseat of the Mercedes.
Posing as Canadian tourists, they breezed through the U.S. border station at Blaine. Elena's stated reason for visiting the United States: shopping at the Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham and then lunch.
Dubova yawned and said, “All you know is that the
Neva
is somewhere south of Point Roberts.”
“Yes. We've been trying to obtain its precise location.”
Unsure how much the FSB operators knew, Elena doled out the minimum. Yuri had never revealed the
Neva
's exact location and Elena used it to her advantage.
“This boat your partner is using, it's roughly twice the size of the one you're taking us to.”
“I suppose that's right.”
“And it has a hydraulic crane?”
“Yes, but what's thatâ”
“I think we should use that vessel. The boat chartered for us is marginal at best.”
“I don't think we can do that,” Elena said, caught off guard.
“Why not?”
Elena invented an instant response. “The charter is up today.”
“Can't we rent it for a few more days?”
Elena could not let the FSB operators anywhere near Yuri Kirov or his woman. They would blab back in Moscow and her boss would know that she and Nick hadn't followed orders.
“What's so great about the bigger boat?” Elena asked.
“The crane, ma'am,” answered the backseater.
Elena looked at the rearview mirror.
Karpekov stretched out his arms. “The underwater robotic gear we need to deploy to set the charges is heavy, so the crane will really help there.” He yawned. “And by the way, what kind of survey equipment is your partner using?”
“What?”
“You know, to search for the hull.”
Elena was clueless, lost in her lies. “I don't know.”
“Well, if it's standard side scan sonar they may never find it because the hull is covered with anechoic tiles. The side scan gear we have has been modified to account for the tiles.”
“Side scan?” Elena said.
“Like underwater radar but uses sound waves rather than radio signals. We tow an instrument through the waterâa fish. It sends out acoustic signals that reflect off objects on the bottom. The fish picks up the reflections and software turns the signals into images.”
Dubova rejoined, “We'll probably have to use our search equipment to find the
Neva.
Having a large deck with the crane would be more efficient.”
Elena scanned an approaching roadside sign. Bellingham was ten miles away. “I might be able to extend the charter but there's no way we can access the vessel today.”
“How about tomorrow? If you could have the workboat meet us at the Bellingham harbor, we could load up there.”
“Possible, but I don't want to do it at the harbor. Too many people around.”
“Yes, I see your point.”
“What do you suggest?” the junior officer asked.
“We could make the transfer offshore, out of sight of land.”
“Yes, that could work if it's calm,” Dubova said. “We'll load up our equipment on the trawler today and run a systems check to make sure it's all working. Tomorrow we'll rendezvous with the workboat and make the transfer.”
“That could work. After I drop you off I'll return to the mission to set it up.”
“Good.”
Elena would be heading back to Vancouver but not to the Trade Mission. She had locked the Beretta and its suppressor inside the desk at her apartment. Later in the day, she would return to Point Roberts and confront Nick Orlov.
Yuri Kirov had to be stoppedânow.
CHAPTER 53
“I
don't see anything else in the way, do you?” asked
Laura.
Yuri leaned closer to the screen. The brightness of the late-morning sun played havoc with the video image. “It looks clear but stay away from that guide, it could snag the ROV.”
“Okay.”
Little Mack
was inside torpedo tube five, halfway into the forty-foot-long cylinder, next to the twisted remnant of a plastic rail guide. The four guides, equally spaced apart and extending the full length of the conduit, isolated a torpedo from direct contact with the tube's steel surface. The six-foot section of damaged rail guide had snagged Viktor's rebreather backpack. Whether he had expired after becoming ensnared or died first while exploring the tube and drifted into the tangle remained unknown.
“What now?” Laura asked. The ROV hovered near the end of the torpedo tube. Light from the camera system revealed an opening ahead.
“Move to the edge but don't enter the compartment. I want to look at the damage.”
“Okay.”
Laura inched
Little Mack
forward. The twin searchlights beamed inward.
“Oh dear Lord,” she muttered.
Several intact bodies, and assorted body parts, were suspended mid-depth inside the flooded torpedo compartment.
“What happened to them?”
“It was a
Shkval
. A special kind of torpedoârocket powered. We had a new heavyweight model aboard.”
“Did it blow up?”
“No. But somehow its motor ignited while still inside the tubeâwithout warning.”
“How could that cause all of this?”
“It's designed to fire the rocket motor
after
being ejected from the tube.”
Laura scrutinized the video feed. She looked beyond the human carnage. “Everything's been scorched.”
None of the
Neva
's survivors knew for sure what had happened that fateful morning almost two weeks earlier. But it was now obvious to Yuri. The terror of that day came back in a torrent. First, without warning, a horrendous roar engulfed the entire pressure casing. Then the deck unexpectedly tilted downward at a steep angle. When the
Neva
plowed into the bottom, Yuri and the other men in his compartment were tossed about pell-mell. The main lighting blinked off, but ten seconds later the emergency lights flickered to life.
Yuri had called the central command post using the intercom but received no reply. Five minutes later Stephan Borodin's voice had broadcast over the submarine's master intercom. “This is Borodin. I have assumed temporary command. All compartments make your damage reports,” he'd ordered.
By protocol, the watch officer for each compartment made the report, starting at the bow with Compartment Oneâthe torpedo roomâand working aft.
Borodin started the roll call. “Compartment One, report!”
An awkward ten seconds passed. Borodin repeated the command.
Again, no reply, so Borodin moved on. “Compartment Two, report!”
Silence.
A repeat plea, also not answered.
“Compartment Three, report!”
There would be a response hereâBorodin called from three.
The CCP watch officer standing beside Borodin responded, “Compartment Three on emergency power. No flooding. Twelve crew. Three minor injuries.”
“Compartment Four, report!” Borodin ordered.
“Compartment Four on emergency power. No flooding. Reactors are offline. Five crew. No injuries.”
“Compartment Five, report!”
“Compartment Five on emergency power. No flooding. All turbines and turbo generators shut down. Seven crew. Two minor injuries.”
“Compartment Six, report!”
Yuri had keyed his intercom microphone and said, “Compartment Six is on emergency power. No flooding. Six crew. No injuries.”
“Compartment Seven, report!”
“Compartment Seven on emergency power. Minor flooding. Five crew. No injuries.”
That report drew a command from Borodin. “Describe your flooding situation.”
“Sir, a seam in a cooling water pipe opened up. We've banded it but it's still leaking.”
“Flow rate?”
“About half a liter per minute.”
“Very well, let me know if it increases.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Borodin continued the roll call, “Compartment Eight, report!”
“Compartment Eight on emergency power, sir. No flooding. Four crew. No injuries.”
Borodin: “All compartments stand by as you are. We'll get back to you soon.”
The intercom clicked off.
Yuri recalled how bewildered he and the others inside Compartment Six had been after the roll call. When he did the math, he'd discovered that fifty-three members of the ship's company were unaccountable. If both forward compartments had flooded, there would be no survivors.
The leak in Compartment Seven also alarmed Yuri. It was only a trickle at the time but a harbinger of more trouble ahead.
* * *
“Try moving forward a couple of meters,” Yuri said.
“Okay.”
Laura advanced the joystick and
Little Mack
swam into the torpedo room.
“That's good! Now turn the camera around. I want to check the tube's breach.”
She executed the maneuver.
Yuri leaned forward, examining the screen with a hand over his eyes to block the sun. He muttered
, “Vot der'mó!”
Oh shit.
“What?” Laura asked.
“I was afraid of this.” He pointed to the screen. “The breach door was blown off its hinges. See the door on the tube next to it?” He tapped his right index finger on the image. “This is what's supposed to be on the end of the tube.”
“That's a huge hunk of metal. There must have been a titanic explosion to tear it apart.”
“It didn't explode, not in the conventional sense. Instead, the rocket motor ignited while inside the tube; it was sealed at both ends.”
Laura pictured the process. “I seeâthe motor fired inside the tube. The pressure built up from the exhaust and then the door was blown off.”
“Yes!”
After an internal electrical short circuit ignited the rocket motor, the three-ton weapon blasted forward in the torpedo tube. The forward end of the torpedo
,
with its thick tempered steel super-cavitating disk mounted on its very tip, slammed into the tube's muzzleâthe outer door.
Trapped by the muzzle door, the torpedo's rocket motor continued to burn fiercely. Weakened by the searing blast flames and overstressed by the mounting exhaust pressure in the tube, an existing microscopic crack in the breach door's rack-and-pinion locking ring elongated and then fractured. In just a millisecond, the breach door ripped open while simultaneously shearing from its hinge mounts.
The torpedo pumped thousands of cubic feet of toxic white-hot gases into the submarine every second. With a burn time of about a minute, the buildup of pressure from the rocket gases could have burst the
Neva
's internal bulkheads.
But that didn't happen. Instead, after burning for just under half a minute, achieving maximum thrust, the weapon tore open the outer door and blasted the bow shutter from its mount. It launched itself into the sea.
As it exited tube five, the torpedo's steel casing split apart from remnants of the outer door. A torrent of ripped metal spat from the tube, followed by the half-spent rocket motor; it tumbled through the deep like a Fourth of July fountain wheel.
Had the rocket motor continued to burn inside tube five for a few more seconds, the assortment of torpedoes and other arms stored in the adjacent weapons bay would have cooked off. That would have been the end of everythingâlike the
Kursk
's fate in 2000.
Still, the rocket torpedo's exhaust wreaked mayhem.
The weapon's crew died in seconds, their bodies shredded and incinerated.
The sailors in Compartment Two might have lived if there had been time to close the bulkhead door to the torpedo room. While the blast flames didn't penetrate the second compartment, the exhaust flooded the compartment's main accommodations section in just a few breaths. With the full force of the rocket engine venting into the torpedo room, the pressure inside Compartment Two skyrocketed. Piercing ear pain from burst eardrums took the initial toll on victims.
The vile exhaust gases invaded everything, displacing nearly all breathable oxygen. Those few with ready access to emergency breathing apparatus had just moments to don their gear before the toxic fumes killed. Several men succeeded, including the
Neva
's executive officer, Mikhail Gromeko. The XO had been on his way to the CCP when the
Shkval
erupted.
The final assault took place thirty-four seconds into the event. The instant the rocket torpedo blasted through the bow shutter, the excess internal pressure in the hull vented through the open torpedo tubeâlike air bleeding from a balloon. Seawater gushed into the tube.
The main storage batteries flooded under the deluge and shorted out, triggering a cascade of events that led to the shutdown of the reactors.
Without power, the propeller stopped rotating. As the
Neva
slowed, its forward diving planes lost lift, causing the bow to dip downward. The seawater pouring into the open torpedo tube tripled the downward track.
The CCP watch officer had ordered an emergency blow of the ballast tanks, hoping to surface the boat. But it was too little, too late.
The enormous weight of the flooded compartments caused the
Neva
to plunge bow first into the bottom; it plowed a thirty-meter-long furrow into the muddy bottom before coming to rest.
The XO and the three other survivors with EBAs evacuated to a partially flooded upper deck in Compartment Two. With no lights and the intercom shorted out, they sat in the darkness, freezing. They lasted twenty minutes before succumbing to oxygen toxicity induced by breathing air compressed over twenty times atmospheric pressure.
* * *
Laura studied the live video images of the torpedo room until Yuri said, “It's time that we move to Compartment Two.”
“Okay. How do I get
Mack
there?”
“Stay to the right and head aft.”
Laura checked the screen as she manipulated the ROV's joystick. The opening revealed a narrow hallway. Mechanical debris, mainly piping and electrical cables, hung from the overheadâimpact damage when the
Neva
collided with the bottom.
“Mind the debris,” Yuri warned. “The tether could get hung up.”
“Okay.”
* * *
About an hour after the sinking, acting Captain Borodin had summoned all compartment heads to the central command post. That's when Yuri learned the nature of their situation.
The
Neva
lay mired in muck under 220 meters of enemy waters. Captain Tomich, XO Gromeko, and fifty-one of the crew were dead.
With the nuclear reactors offline and the main batteries fried, the backup batteries in Compartment Five served as the
Neva
's only source of power; but they provided just a quarter of the main's amperage.
The forward 30 percent of the pressure casing had flooded, which in addition to the torpedo room included most of the crew's quarters, the boat's galley and mess areas, and much of the food.
Yuri remembered his thoughts at the end of Borodin's briefing.
We're all dead men. No one's getting off this thing.
* * *
As
Little Mack
swam aft through the passageway, Yuri scrutinized the video display. His heart rate accelerated in anticipation of what lay ahead. He spotted it in the merged beam of the dual floodlights.
Thank God!
“That's the door just ahead,” Yuri said, tapping a finger on the display.
Laura stared at the screen. The ROV hovered about twenty feet away from a bulkhead. Near the center of the steel wall just above the deck, she spotted a circular penetration. “It's open like you thought it might be. That's good, isn't it?”
“Yes, very good.”
The passageway to the second compartment was about three feet in diameter. Had the side-mounted steel bulkhead door next to the opening been shut, the buildup of pressure would have ruptured the bulkhead. Repairing a burst bulkhead underwater would be virtually impossible. But closing the door would be no simple matter, either.
Although hidden from the camera's view, a latch locked the open door in place.
“What should I do?” Laura asked.
Yuri refreshed his memory. This particular latch had a simple spring-loaded mechanism. Once released, the three-hundred-pound door would pivot into the closed position with a gentle shove. But one needed a hand to trigger the release.
Little Mack
, unfortunately, had no means to accomplish such a task.
“Try coming alongside the door and giving it a little push.”
“You want me to see if I can move it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Yuri watched as the ROV moved closer to the door. Twelve feet away it stopped advancing. He leaned toward Laura. “What's wrong?”
“It's not responding. I'm applying maximum thrust, but it just stopped.”
“Try moving it up half a meter.”
“Okay, but I don't think that'll help.”
Laura adjusted the control and the video image responded.
Little Mack
moved upward a foot but remained the same distance from the door.