War Plan Red (36 page)

TO COMM/BADGER ONE

//QUERY ONLY//OPAREA BRAVO SIERRA//

1. BREAK RADIO SILENCE AND REPORT STATUS K-363/ REPORT K-363 COURSE

SPEED AND POSITION IF KNOWN/ UPON CONTACT ENGAGE AND DESTROY REPEAT

ENGAGE AND DESTROY.

2. REPORT OWN POSITION IMMEDIATELY/ UPDATE AT FOUR HOUR INTERVALS IF

POSSIBLE.

4. SRO ADVISORY//RUSS NORFLT DEPLOYMENT KALININGRAD ASW OPS VS K-363/

NORFLT FORCE SIZE AND STRUCTURE UNKNOWN/APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS

ADVISED.

5. NCA REVIEWING STATUS BADGER ONE AND WILL AMPLIFY WHEN POSSIBLE.

6. END MESSAGE/RADFORD///

“Our only advantage now is that Zakayev and Litvanov may be distracted by the Russians moving into the Baltic,” Scott said.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Abakov said. As you said, he’ll likely do everything he can to reach their objective, even if it means attacking them and us.”

Alex turned from Abakov to Scott. “Does he know we’re here?”

“I’ve assumed that all along,” Scott said, scratching out a message on paper.

“What are you going to do?” Alex said.

“Fill Washington in.”

“Will they believe it?”

“Can they afford not to?”

“I hear him.”

Litvanov huddled with his sonarman. Green tendrils of captured sound at three hundred hertz from the K-480, designated Target Alpha, crawled down the monitor. Another contact, a plodding container ship heading north, had been designated Target Beta and ignored.

“He’s working his way out of the northern passage, south of Bornholm,” Litvanov said.

“Do you think he hears us?” Zakayev asked.

“If he does, we’d have seen him react. He’s being cautious; perhaps he smells something.”

“How far away is he?”

“Range, ten kilometers, General,” answered Fire Control. “I make his speed ten knots.”

“He’ll walk right into our torpedoes,” Veroshilov said gleefully.

Litvanov commanded, “Fire Control—target acquisition. Flood tubes three and four.”

“Kapitan…”

Litvanov swiveled to the reserve sonarman working shoulder to shoulder with the senior man. “What is it?”

“I’m getting a slow bearing rate contact astern—pinging now, sir.”

“Shit. A Russian patrol boat, I’d bet on it. Bearing.”

“One-nine-one. I’ve got another one, sir. Same slow bearing rate. Fading. Thermal distortion.

“Range?”

“Twenty kilometers,” reported Fire Control.

Litvanov watched the new contacts’ tendrils move down the monitor. “They’ll have to wait, but keep an eye on them. Now, let’s get our friend in the Akula. Stand by to fire torpedoes.”

“Sonar?” Scott barked.

“Nothing, sir, except a container ship. Very poor conditions. Very cluttered sound picture….” He held up anopen hand.

“What?”

The sonarman clamped the earphones to his head with both hands. “Pinging. Pinging to the north.”

“Russians. They didn’t waste any time. All right, let’s move it. Come to periscope depth. We’ll poke up a mast and send.”

“Aye, Kapitan, periscope depth.”

“Will the K-363 pick up our radio burst?” Alex asked.

“They will if they have an antenna up and are listening. I don’t reckon they will.” Scott glanced at Alex watching the depth repeater now at thirty-one meters. Despite the sheen of perspiration and grime on her face, she was still lovely and desirable. He remembered their lovemaking in Moscow and how vulnerable she’d seemed. But reality intruded and he wondered what the reaction in Washington would be when the message that she had unraveled Zakayev’s plan landed on the desks of men who had the president’s ear. He had no idea what had transpired between Washington and Moscow but sensed that something had gone very wrong. Alex had gotten it right: He was their garbage man and would have to clean up this mess too.

“Approaching periscope depth, sir,” said the starpom.

“A transient!” The senior sonarman spun around in his seat to face Scott. “A transient! Torpedo tubes flooding! Bearing zero-one-zero!”

Almost dead ahead.

“It’s the K-363,” Scott said, then commanded, “Both engines ahead flank, right full rudder. Take her down, sixty meters. Stand by decoys! Bastard’s got the drop on us.”

The K-480 accelerated hard. As she clawed for depth, the deck dropped away underfoot like an out-of-control elevator.

“Torpedo fired! I hear the launch.” A moment later. “Pinging. It’s hunting for us.”

The Russian TEST 71-M torpedo, inbound at forty knots, had gone active.

“Both engines slow,” Scott commanded. “Fire a decoy!”

A blast of air and rise of pressure against eardrums signaled that the decoy had burst from one of the K-480’s bow tubes and sped off at a right angle to the submarine’s course.

“Left full rudder, both engines ahead full!” Scott ordered. The screw bit in, propelling the K-480 left and away from the decoy and inbound torpedo. Scott knew that if he jumped off their present track, leaving behind both a knuckle in the water and a decoy to seduce the inbound torpedo, they would have a chance to escape.

“Sonar,” Scott said, moving across the CCP. “I want the position of the K-363—now…”

“Aye, Kapitan.”

“…and stand by tubes one and two.”

“He hears it, Kapitan. He speeded up and turned—ah! Decoy in the water!”

“Range to target?” Litvanov demanded.

“Under three thousand meters…. He cut his engines. Drifting. I’ve lost him, sir.”

“Our torpedo is still active?”

“Still active, Kapitan.”

“Do you have a bearing on his decoy?”

“Three-three-one but rapid drift to the north.”

“While our target is moving south.”

“Torpedo is turning north, I think chasing the decoy…. Yes, Kapitan, definitely chasing the decoy.”

“Wasted. We’ll turn south, find him and try another shot—”

The sonarman bolted upright. “Kapitan—a torpedo!” He was almost indignant. “He’s fired at us.”

Litvanov didn’t hesitate. “Decoy—fire!”

Alex had sought cover beside Abakov. Scott wanted to tell her there was no place to hide but was too busy trying to evade the K-363’s torpedo. He recognized naked fear on her face—on Abakov’s face too.

On the faces of the men in the CCP. His mind, struggling to understand the tactical situation, made his own fear bearable.

The busy picture he had was of two submarines engaged in a dance of death with two torpedoes in the water hunting for a target and two noisemakers designed to draw them off. Even so, one of the torpedoes might get lucky and find its target.

“Transients. Flooding tanks. High-speed cavitation, Kapitan. Target’s running east.”

“Away from our torpedo.”

When the noisemakers died, both torpedoes would continue to hunt for targets until they either found one or their batteries ran flat.

“Sonar, where’s the torpedo fired by the K-363?” Scott said.

“Bearing zero-one-zero, drifting right. Opening out.”

Scott looked at Alex and Abakov. “You can relax. It’s moving away from us. Let’s hope it doesn’t find that container ship.”

“It was close, eh?” Abakov said, his face pale gray.

“Our decoy drew it off. His decoy will probably do the same to ours.” He said to Alex, “Are you all right?”

“I can handle it,” she said. “What about the message? Can we send it?”

“Not with the K-363 firing torpedoes at us.”

“Jake, we can’t wait any longer. They’ve got to know.”

The sonarman broke in. “The K-363, Kapitan, she’s turned due north.”

“Where’s our fish?”

“I’ve lost it, sir.”

“The message will have to wait. Let’s get after the K-363.”

18

St. Petersburg

T he president stood by a gilt window in the north façade of the Winter Palace and gazed out over the Neva, gold in the setting sun, and at a pair of empty cruise boats moored below the Palace Embankment.

“Must be killing their business,” the president said.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” said Paul Friedman.

“The FSB closed the river to traffic for the summit. The Moyka too. No tourists. Those cruise boat owners must be feeling it.”

“I imagine so. But the rivers will be reopened when the summit concludes.”

“I sympathize with them, Paul. There are still three days to go, and like them, I’ll be glad to have this business over with.”

Friedman nodded, though he wasn’t sure what business the president would be glad to have over, the summit or the hunt for the K-363 in the Baltic Sea. Both, he suspected.

The president turned away from the window and crossed the ornate room. He loosened his tie and dropped into a baroque armchair upholstered in red and gold silk damask. A fleshy Fragonard nude cavorting with a pair of adoring nymphs gazed down at the president from over a gargantuan carved marble and gold fireplace.

“Hand me my drink, would you, Paul? Thanks. At any rate, I thought we should talk before the others arrive to discuss the Russian IMF proposal. Things are about to boil over. The President was polite and didn’t bring up Grishkov’s accusation about our connection to Zakayev. But it hung in the air all the same. Also, they don’t buy that we’ve lost contact with Scott. Nothing I said convinced them it was true.”

Friedman shook his head.

The president’s face showed signs of stress. “Paul, they’re on a hair trigger. Subitov wants to hit the Chechens now, not wait until they’ve captured Zakayev.”

Friedman’s eyebrows shot up. “Hit them how?”

“He didn’t spell it out, but as you know, he’s been itching to use nuclear weapons in the Caucasus.”

“He’s mad.”

“He has his supporters, Paul.”

“They’re mad too.” Friedman made notes as he talked. “Does anyone around the Russian president, not in thrall to Subitov, still think they can capture Zakayev?”

“Stashinsky thinks they can. But what will it matter if Subitov has his way? They’ve been looking for an excuse to finish the job they started in Chechnya, and this may be it. On the other hand, if they could capture Zakayev, it might change the picture, make them less likely to act rashly.”

“I tend to agree with Ellsworth, that it’s going to be impossible to capture him.”

“I’m with you, Paul. And I’d feel better if I knew what Scott was up to and whether or not he’s even in the picture anymore. What can Karl do for us on that score?”

“Not much, sir, I’m afraid. Weather has been poor over the Baltic and SRO satellites haven’t picked up a thing, even on MAD. Gordon put some P-3Cs into the Baltic, but we have to be careful we don’t go head-to-head with the Russians on this. They’ve redeployed two Be-12s, three Il-38s, and an unknown number of Mi-14 ASW choppers shifted from the Barents operation. The Baltic is over 163,000 square miles in area, and finding a pair of subs in a sea that vast is not going to be easy. Identifying which one is Scott’s is another matter altogether.” Friedman hesitated, tapped a pen against his front teeth.

“What’s on your mind, Paul?”

“I was thinking that if the Russians find one or both of them before we do, they may not be inclined to sort things out.”

“You mean they may shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Something like that.”

The president got to his feet and glanced up at the enigmatic Fragonard nude and her cavorting nymphs. “You’re assuming nothing bad has happened to Scott,” he said to the nude. Then, to Friedman:

“He told Ellsworth that that damned sub he was on was a junker, or something to that effect.”

“Karl believes he’s okay and so does Ellsworth.”

The president, working off nervous energy, went back to the window overlooking the Neva. “I’m glad they’re such optimists. I wish I could be.”

“Ellsworth says it’s a communications problem,” Friedman said, turning around in his chair to speak to the president’s back. “Karl agrees.”

“So we wait and see if they’re right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And even if it is a comm problem, Scott can still find and kill Zakayev.”

“Ellsworth says Scott’s a survivor.”

“He had better be if the Russians find him before we do and think he’s Zakayev.”

Zakayev faced Litvanov across the wardroom table.

“Have some.” Litvanov pushed a bottle of vodka toward Zakayev.

Zakayev grabbed the bottle and put it out of Litvanov’s reach. “I told you, you drink too much.”

Litvanov, unshaven, dirty, his greasy cap pushed back on his head, stared at Zakayev. At length he said,

“And I told you that it makes no difference because”—he swept a hand in the air—“I—all of us—will soon be dead.”

Zakayev watched Litvanov’s eyes flick to the girl. He knew what Litvanov saw, that she looked haggard, that her eyes were dull, her skin sallow, that she had lost weight. He knew that they all, the crew included, had undergone similar changes. Looking death in the face could do that. Better to have it over now, he had decided.

Zakayev said, “We’ll never make it to St. Petersburg. I want to blow the reactor now, before the Russian patrol boats in the north get here and before that submarine finds us again.”

Zakayev held Litvanov’s gaze, daring him to say otherwise.