“I want to reiterate, sir, what Scott said: that the Russians are sure there are no cruise missiles, nuclear or conventional, aboard that sub. Still, I think it wise to assume for the moment that there are.”
“Has Zakayev and his cohort, this…”
“Georgi Litvanov,” said Radford.
“…made any demands either on us or the Russians?”
“No, sir, not yet,” Radford said. “But we don’t have time to wait for an ultimatum or to make a deal with them. The situation is unprecedented and we can’t afford a mistake.”
The president put his unfinished drink aside. “Okay, Karl, we’d better have a chat with Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, bring them in on this now.” He turned to Friedman. “Paul, while we’re at it, set up a meeting with the Russian ambassador tonight. Let’s find out what they know, see how we can coordinate our efforts to head this thing off. After I’ve talked with the ambassador, I’ll talk to the Kremlin.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll also contact Admiral Grishkov, C in C, Northern Fleet.”
“Do you know him, Karl?”
“Yes, sir, he’s a leftover from the Putin days, but a man we can work with.”
“Good. What else?”
Friedman said, “Sir, I think it would be prudent to cancel the summit meeting—”
“Out of the question,” the president said with conviction. “The press will say we’ve been blackmailed by terrorists. I’m sure the Russians would agree.”
“Sir, I must protest. I agree we can’t give in to terrorist demands, but the situation is too dangerous to risk a summit meeting now. In fact, announcing that you will not attend the meeting may well disrupt Zakayev’s plans and forestall an attack on Russia. With all due respect, you can’t risk your life and the lives of millions of innocent people. And if Zakayev does carry out his plan, the Russians may well retaliate with nuclear weapons that would devastate not only Chechnya but the entire Caucasus region.
It could ignite World War III!”
“Nice speech, Paul,” said the president, “but the summit meeting will take place as planned. Now, how about calling the Russian ambassador.”
Zakayev closed the door of his stateroom so he could be alone. The K-363 was so big that each officer had had his own stateroom. And because so many officers from Litvanov’s crew had been left behind, there had been many empty staterooms to choose from. The one he picked was large—larger than Litvanov’s—and well appointed. It had a comfortable bunk, a desk, chairs, and a head complete with a shower and fixtures worthy of a luxury hotel. The stateroom also came equipped with a video monitor slaved to the monitor in the CCP that displayed images seen through the periscope.
Zakayev sat on the edge of his bunk and unzipped a canvas duffel. He took out a small hand-tooled leather portfolio containing color photos of his wife and three children, the only ones he had of them.
Irina. Smiling, posing for the camera against their one-story whitewashed house in Caucasian Grozny.
It was spring, and they had been planting flowers in the side yard. Feigning impatience with his manipulation of the old Argus C3 camera, she had brushed dark strands of hair from her face, leaving a streak of mud on a cheek that had showed up in the photo, and, she said, made her look like a krestyanka—a peasant. It was his favorite picture of Irina, exuding seduction and vulnerability in equal proportion. The children had joined in, and after the picture-taking session they had cleaned up and gone to Zakayev’s mother’s house for dinner. A week later Irina, the children, his mother were dead.
There had been warnings circulating for weeks that Russian Spetsnaz supported by armor had been probing the outskirts of Grozny in search of rebels who had attacked a Russian outpost and killed ten soldiers. No one in Zakayev’s neighborhood had seemed overly concerned because the rebels being hunted had moved north.
Zakayev had been attending a strategy meeting in central Grozny with members of the Muslim Brotherhood when he received a frantic phone call from his uncle about a disaster unfolding at home.
By the time he arrived, it was too late. His house, along with several others, had been leveled by Russian tanks. He found Irina, the children, and his mother lying in the side yard by the flower beds, shredded by machine gun bullets.
Looking at their pictures now, he remembered the white-bearded village elder who had said, “For a Chechen, death is unimportant. What matters most for a Chechen is to have lived and died for your family and your people.”
There was a soft knock at the door of his stateroom and a voice said, “Ali?”
He put the pictures away and opened the door.
“Would you rather be alone?” the girl asked. She had her own stateroom next to Zakayev’s.
“No. Come in.”
She looked at him in his dark blue submarine work coveralls, the same kind she had on except that hers were too big and had rolled-up sleeves and pant legs. “I wanted to be with you,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind,” Zakayev said. He held her by the arms and kissed her forehead.
“You seem distracted,” she said. “Are you worried about something?”
He released her and they sat on his bunk. “I’ve been going over our plan. In a little while Litvanov will put up a radio mast to monitor a CNN broadcast to see if the Americans have canceled the summit. If they have, it means the Americans and Russians are hunting for us because they know something is going to happen. Then we can expect to run into American and Russian naval forces, but Litvanov is good and I’m not worried about that.”
She sat beside him and said, “Hold me.”
He put an arm around her and she turned into him. He ached for her and for Irina and the children. The pain was bearable only because he knew that when it disappeared, he’d be free.
Litvanov glanced at the ship’s chronometer. “Come to periscope depth,” he ordered, adding, “zero bubble.”
“Periscope depth, twenty meters, aye,” repeated Starpom Veroshilov.
The planesmen manipulated their joysticks and eased the K-363 toward the surface, employing a combination of power from the turbines and hydrodynamic action on the diving planes.
“Stand by to update your inertial computer,” Litvanov barked at Veroshilov.
“Standing by, aye.”
Litvanov, an eye on the unwinding depth gauge, explained to Zakayev what was happening: “We use our Molniya-3 satellite system to navigate and to target our weapons. It’s linked to our Orbita ground terminals and it’s accurate to within a meter anywhere on the face of the earth.”
Litvanov didn’t wait for confirmation that the K-363 had reached periscope depth. “Up,” he ordered.
Crouched, elbows on knees, he seized the handles. The periscope drive hummed as he walked it around twice. The periscope video monitor showed the scene Litvanov saw through the raised scope: a rising and falling sea and a few hearty gulls braving frigid weather.
“Clear,” Litvanov reported. “Raise the ESM.”
The electronic signals mast, its sensors able to detect radar and radio emissions from ships and aircraft, rose above the surface.
“Anything?” Litvanov asked, eye to the scope.
“A weak single sideband contact,” said the electronics petty officer. “Bearing three-five-zero. Signal strength One.”
“Probably a freighter,” Litvanov said. He put the scope on the reported signal bearing but saw nothing.
Whatever it was had hauled over the horizon, which had merged with a cloudy sky into a wall of gray.
“Down ESM,” Litvanov ordered. “Raise the GPS antenna.”
“Aye, Kapitan.”
Veroshilov got ready to update their position with a satellite fix.
“Now, let’s see what they’re saying about us on CNN. Raise the antenna.”
A small TV set mounted over the chart table came on, a diagonal band of light rolling up its blank screen.
As the two antennas rose, the quartermaster thumbed a stopwatch to keep track of how long they were out of the water. He reached up to an equipment rack and punched a button on a DVD recorder in time to the opening graphics and music of the CNN satellite transmitted hourly newscast.
The news readers, a man and woman, prattled on about Wall Street, the Middle East, and a plane crash in Spain. A string of ads followed, then a weather report for western Europe.
“Come on, come on, give us what we want,” Litvanov urged.
“One minute,” the quartermaster intoned.
The Russian president appeared with his foreign minister.
“What’s he saying?” Litvanov said. “I can’t follow the English translation.”
The quartermaster interpreted. “The, uh, President is looking forward to meeting with the, uh, American president in St. Petersburg. Their meeting will include, uh, discussions about the refinancing of Russian debt to the IMF, international terrorism, and the future of Chechnya.”
“Did you hear that, General?” said Litvanov. “The future of Chechnya. Ha!”
CNN rolled a tape of fighting outside Grozny, then switched to a correspondent reporting from the devastated Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, where bulldozers clawed at the wreckage.
“Two minutes.”
“Enough. Retract all masts,” Litvanov ordered.
The TV screen went blank.
Paul Friedman pushed aside the remains of a cheese burger as the Secure Video TeleConference split-screen monitor flickered to life in the White House Situation Room. “Right on time,” he said, wiping his hands on a linen napkin.
Karl Radford squared his note pad and pen. He saw familiar faces swim into focus: at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Dale Gordon and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Jack Webster; in Norfolk, ComSubLant Carter Ellsworth; in Moscow, Admiral of the Fleet, Commander in Chief, Russian Navy, Vyacheslav Stashinsky; in Severomorsk, Commander in Chief, Northern Fleet Russian Navy, Vice Admiral Mikhail Grishkov.
“I’d like to get right to it, gentlemen,” said Friedman. “The recommendations we develop from this conference will be presented for consideration and implementation by our respective chiefs. We’ve all had time to read and digest the staff summaries. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Chechen terrorists armed with a stolen Russian nuclear submarine, the K-363, pose an extraordinary threat to the world, to Russia, and to our respective leaders. Therefore, I urge that we focus our attention this morning on finding an answer to one question: Do any of you have any ideas on how this threat can be eliminated?”
There was a brief rustling of papers before C in C Stashinsky said, in heavily accented English, “I resent the implication in your summary that the Russian Navy was careless in regard to the theft of the K-363 and that we bear sole responsibility for the crisis. The Chechen problem is not just Russia’s problem alone.”
“Admiral Stashinsky—” Friedman tried to interject.
“The United States,” Stashinsky went on, “bears as much responsibility for this crisis as anyone.”
“Admiral Stashinsky, nothing in the report implies that the Russian Navy was careless,” Friedman said.
“A postmortem of events leading to the theft of the K-363 can come later. For now, perhaps you have a solution to our immediate problem that we can discuss.”
Stashinsky had a face with heavy features and bushy black eyebrows that, on the video feed, gave him a menacing look. “There is only one solution and we’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure its success: We’ve ordered the deployment of antisubmarine forces into the Barents Sea. And we have taken the extra precaution of alerting the Norwegians and Swedes to our deployment, telling them it is only an exercise. It will take time, but I’m confident we will find the K-363. Radioing an entreaty to the pirates aboard the K-363 to surrender won’t work. The only thing that will work is brute force.”
“Unfortunately, Admiral, your government has refused our assistance,” Friedman said.
“We are well equipped to solve this problem without your help.”
Defense Secretary Gordon, a former civil rights attorney and Wall Street banker friend of the president, said, “With the dwindling assets you all have, how in hell are you going to find, much less eliminate, one of your own submarines?”
“On the contrary,” Northern Fleet C in C Grishkov snapped, “we have forces adequate to the job. What you are saying is simply untrue—”
“Mikhail,” Friedman cut in, “let Secretary Gordon finish.”
“What I was getting at,” Gordon said, picking up his thought, “is that you’re dealing with a huge area.
Hell, look here.”
The conference screen went blue before a detailed map of the Barents Sea area appeared.
Webster, Gordon’s tag-team partner, took over. “The area you have to search, Mikhail, and search quickly,” Webster said in a voice-over, “stretches from Finnmark, Norway, in the west to the mouth of the White Sea in the east, and from the Kola Peninsula in the south to the Spitsbergen Bank in the north.”
“We know the area quite well,” Grishkov said caustically.
Undaunted, Webster said, “Your ASW forces will take days to organize themselves and get under way.
And what’ve you got to work with? Less than thirty MPK patrol craft, a couple of command ships, and some old Be-12 Mail amphibians, some Ka-25 helicopters, and a few Il-38 prop jobs.”
Don’t rub it in, thought Radford. He knew only too well that since the end of the Cold War, the U.S.
Navy’s ASW capabilities had atrophied and that both surface and submarine forces had been sharply reduced. Radford also knew that the Navy’s Sound Surveillance System, SOSUS, had for all purposes been mothballed. Gordon and Webster would have to strip assets from other theaters to mount an effective search in conjunction with the Russians, if they’d allow it.
“Admiral Stashinsky, why won’t you allow the U.S. Navy to lend a hand?” Gordon asked.
“Ego,” Friedman whispered behind a hand to Radford, who nodded agreement. “Pure and simple.”
“Don’t presume to lecture us on our abilities,” Grishkov snapped. “Furthermore, we are hunting for one of our own submarines and reserve the right to find and kill it. Not the U.S. Navy.”
Carter Ellsworth said, “The Barents Sea isn’t a private Russian lake, gentlemen, it’s international waters and we’re entitled to access. The U.S. has a big stake in finding the K-363 and this band of terrorists. Your Northern Fleet doesn’t have the muscle to do the job by itself, and by the time you admit it, it may be too late to head off disaster.”