by Tom Clancy
When the door closed behind the Soviet ambassador, Dr. Pelt opened a side door to the Oval Office. Judge Moore came in.
“Mr. President, it’s been a while since I’ve had to do things like hide in closets.”
“You really expect this to work?” Pelt said.
“Yes, I do now,” Moore settled comfortably into a leather chair.
“Isn’t this a little shaky, Judge?” Pelt asked. “I mean, running an operation this complex?”
“That’s the beauty of it, Doctor, we’re not running anything. The Soviets will be doing that for us. Oh, sure, we’ll have a lot of our people prowling around Eastern Europe asking a lot of questions. So will Sir Basil’s fellows. The French and the Israelis already are, because we’ve asked them if they know what’s happening with the stray missile sub. The KGB will find out quickly enough and wonder why the four main Western intelligence agencies are all asking the same questions — instead of pulling into their shells like they’d expect them to if this were our operation.
“You have to appreciate the dilemma the Soviets face, a choice between two equally unattractive scenarios. On the one hand, they can choose to believe that one of their most trusted professional officers has committed high treason on an unprecedented scale. You’ve seen our file on Captain Ramius. He’s the Communist version of an eagle scout, a genuine New Soviet Man. Add to that the fact that a defection conspiracy necessarily involves a number of equally trusted officers. The Soviets have a mind block against believing that individuals of this type will ever leave the Workers’ Paradise. That seems paradoxical, I admit, given the strenuous efforts they expend to keep people from leaving their country, but it’s true. Losing a ballet dancer or a KGB agent is one thing — losing the son of a Politburo member, an officer with nearly thirty years of unblemished service, is quite another. Moreover, a naval captain has a lot of privileges; you might call his defection the equivalent of a self-made millionaire leaving New York to live in Moscow. They simply will not believe it.
“On the other hand, they can believe the story we planted through Henderson, which is also unattractive but is supported by a good deal of circumstantial evidence, especially our efforts to entice their crewmen to defect. You saw how furious they are about that. The way they think, this is a gross violation of the rules of civilized behavior. The president’s forceful reaction to our discovery that this was a missile submarine is also evidence that favors Henderson’s story.”
“So what side will they come down on?” the president asked.
“That, sir, is a question of psychology more than anything else, and Soviet psychology is very hard for us to read. Given the choice between the collective treason of ten men and an outside conspiracy, my opinion is that they will prefer the latter. For them to believe that this really was defection — well, it would force them to reexamine their own beliefs. Who likes to do that?” Moore gestured grandly. “The latter alternative means that their security has been violated by outsiders, but being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of their own governing philosophy. On top of that we have the fact that the KGB will be running the investigation.”
“Why?” Pelt asked, caught up in the judge’s plot.
“In either case, a defection or a penetration of naval operational security, the GRU would have been responsible. Security of the naval and military forces is their bailiwick, the more so with the damage done to the KGB after the departure of our friend Andropov. The Soviets can’t have an organization investigating itself — not in their intelligence community! So, the KGB will be looking to take its rival service apart. From the KGB’s perspective, outside instigation is the far more attractive alternative; it makes for a bigger operation. If they confirm Henderson’s story and convince everyone that it’s true — and they will, of course — it makes them look all that much better for having uncovered it.”
“They will confirm the story?”
“Of course they will! In the intelligence business if you look hard enough for something, you find it, whether it’s really there or not. Lord, we owe this Ramius fellow more than he will ever know. An opportunity like this doesn’t come along once in a generation. We simply can’t lose.”
“But the KGB will emerge stronger,” Pelt observed. “Is that a good thing?”
Moore shrugged. “Bound to happen eventually. Unseating and possibly killing Andropov gave the military services too much prestige, just like with Beria back in the fifties. The Soviets depend on political control of their military as much as we do — more. Having the KGB take their high command apart gets the dirty work done for them. It had to happen anyway, so it’s just as well that we can profit by it. There’s only a few more things we have to do.”
“Such as?” the president asked.
“Our friend Henderson will leak information in a month or so saying that we had a submarine tracking Red October all the way from Iceland.”
“But why?” Pelt objected. “Then they’ll know that we were lying, that all the excitement over the missile sub was a lie.”
“Not exactly, Doctor,” Moore said. “Having a missile sub this close to our coast remains a violation of the agreement, and from their point of view we have no way of knowing why she was there — until we interrogate the crewmen remaining behind, who will probably tell us little of value. The Soviets will expect that we have not been completely truthful with them on this affair. The fact that we were trailing their sub and were ready to destroy it at any time gives them the evidence of our duplicity that they’ll be looking for. We’ll also say that Dallas monitored the reactor incident on sonar, and that will explain the proximity of our rescue ship. They know, well, they certainly suspect, that we have concealed something. This will mislead them about what it was we really concealed. The Russians have a saying for this. They call it wolf meat. And they will launch an extensive operation to penetrate our operation, whatever it is. But they will find nothing. The only people in the CIA who know what is really going on are Greer, Ritter, and myself. Our operations people have orders to find out what was going on, and that’s all that can leak out.”
“What about Henderson, and how many of our people know about the submarine?” the president asked.
“If Henderson spills anything to them he’ll be signing his own death warrant. The KGB deals severely with double agents, and would not believe that we tricked him into delivering false information. He knows it, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on him in any case. How many of our people know about the sub? A hundred perhaps, and the number will increase somewhat — but remember that they think we now have two dead Soviet subs off our coast, and they have every reason to believe that whatever Soviet sub equipment turns up in our labs has been recovered from the ocean floor. We will, of course, be reactivating the Glomar Explorer for just that purpose. They’d be suspicious if we didn’t. Why disappoint them? Sooner or later they just might figure the whole story out, but by that time the stripped hulk will be at the bottom of the sea.”
“So, we can’t keep this a secret forever?” Pelt asked.
“Forever’s a long time. We have a plan for the possibility. For the immediate future the secret should be fairly safe, what with only a hundred people in on it. In a year, minimum, more likely two or three, they may have accumulated enough data to suspect what has happened, but by that time there won’t be much physical evidence to point to. Moreover, if the KGB discovers the truth, will they want to report it? Were the GRU to find out, they certainly would, and the resulting chaos within their intelligence community would also work to our benefit.” Moore took a cigar from a leather holder. “As I said, Ramius has given us a fantastic opportunity on several levels. And the beauty of it is that we don’t have to do much of anything. The Russians will be doing all the legwork, looking for something that isn’t there.”
“What about the defectors, Judge?” the president asked.
“They, Mr. President, will be taken care of.
We know how to do this, and we rarely have a complaint about the CIA’s hospitality. We’ll take some months to debrief them, and at the same time we’ll be preparing them for life in America. They’ll get new identities, reeducation, cosmetic surgery if necessary, and they’ll never have to work another day as long as they live — but they will want to work. Almost all of them do. I expect the navy will find places for them, paid consultants for their submarine warfare department, that sort of thing.”
“I want to meet them,” the president said impulsively.
“That can be arranged, sir, but it will have to be discreet,” Moore cautioned.
“Camp David, that ought to be secure enough. And Ryan, Judge, I want him taken care of.”
“Understood, sir. We’re bringing him along rather quickly already. He has a big future with us.”
Tyuratam, USSR
The reason Red October had been ordered to dive long before dawn was orbiting the earth at a height of eight hundred kilometers. The size of a Greyhound bus, Albatross 8 had been sent aloft eleven months earlier by a heavy-lift booster from the Cosmodrome at Tyuratam. The massive satellite, called a RORSAT, for radar ocean reconnaissance satellite, was specifically designed for maritime surveillance.
Albatross 8 passed over Pamlico Sound at 1131 local time. Its on-board programming was designed to trace thermal receptors over the entire visible horizon, interrogating everything in sight and locking on any signature that fit its acquisition parameters. As it continued on its orbit and passed over elements of the U.S. fleet, the New Jersey’s jammers were aimed upward to scramble its signal. The satellite’s tape systems dutifully recorded this. The jamming would tell the operators something about American electronic warfare systems. As Albatross 8 crossed the pole, the parabolic dish on its front tracked in on the carrier signal of another bird, the Iskra communications satellite.
When the reconnaissance satellite located its higher flying cousin, a laser side-link transmitted the contents of the Albatross’ tape bank. The Iskra immediately relayed this to the ground station at Tyuratam. The signal was also received by a fifteen-meter dish located in western China which was operated by the U.S. National Security Agency in cooperation with the Chinese, who used the data received for their own purposes. The Americans transmitted it via their own communications satellite to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. At almost the same time the digital signal was examined by two teams of experts five thousand miles apart.
“Clear weather,” a technician moaned. “Now we get clear weather!”
“Enjoy it while you can, Comrade.” His neighbor at the next console was watching data from a geosynchronous weather satellite that monitored the Western Hemisphere. Knowing the weather over a hostile country can have great strategic value. “There’s another cold front approaching their coast. Their winter has been like ours. I hope they are enjoying it.”
“Our men at sea will not.” The technician mentally shuddered at the thought of being at sea in a major storm. He’d taken a Black Sea cruise the previous summer and become hopelessly seasick. “Aha! What is this? Colonel!”
“Yes, Comrade?” The colonel supervising the watch came over quickly.
“See here, Comrade Colonel.” The technician traced a finger on the TV screen. “This is Pamlico Sound, on the central coast of the United States. Look here, Comrade.” The thermal image of the water on the screen was black, but as the technician adjusted the display it changed to green with two white patches, one larger than the other. Twice the large one split into two segments. The image was of the surface of the water, and some of the water was half a degree warmer than it should have been. The differential was not constant, but it did return enough to prove that something was adding heat to the water.
“Sunlight, perhaps?” the colonel asked.
“No, Comrade, the clear sky gives even sunlight to the entire area,” the technician said quietly. He was always quiet when he thought he was on to something. “Two submarines, perhaps three, thirty meters under the water.”
“You are certain?”
The technician flipped on a switch to display the radar picture, which showed only the corduroy pattern of small waves.
“There is nothing on the water to generate this heat, Comrade Colonel. Therefore it must be something under the water. The time of year is wrong for mating whales. It can only be nuclear submarines, probably two, perhaps three. I speculate, Colonel, that the Americans have been sufficiently frightened by the deployment of our fleet to seek shelter for their missile submarines. Their missile sub base is only a few hundred kilometers south. Perhaps one of their Ohio-class boats have taken shelter here and is being protected by a hunter sub, as ours are.”
“Then he will soon move out. Our fleet is being recalled.”
“Too bad, it would be good to track him. This is a rare opportunity, Comrade Colonel.”
“Indeed. Well done, Comrade Academician.” Ten minutes later the data had been transmitted to Moscow.
Soviet Naval High Command, Moscow
“We will make use of this opportunity, Comrade,” Gorshkov said. “We are now recalling our fleet, and we will allow several submarines to remain behind to gather electronic intelligence. The Americans will probably lose several in the shuffle.”
“Quite likely,” the chief of fleet operations said.
“The Ohio will go south, probably to their submarine base at Charleston or Kings Bay. Or north to Norfolk. We have Konovalov at Norfolk, and Shabilikov off Charleston. Both will stay in place for several days, I think. We must do something right to show the politicians that we have a real navy. Being able to track on an Ohio would be a beginning.”
“I’ll have the orders out in fifteen minutes, Comrade.” The chief of operations thought this was a good idea. He had not liked the report of the Politburo meeting that he’d gotten from Gorshkov — though if Sergey were on his way out, he would be in a good place to take over the job…
The New Jersey
The RED ROCKET message had arrived in Eaton’s hand only moments before: Moscow had just transmitted a lengthy operational letter via satellite to the Soviet fleet. Now the Russians were in a real fix, the commodore thought. Around them were three carrier battle groups — the Kennedy, America, and Nimitz—all under Josh Painter’s command. Eaton had them in sight, and had operational control of the Tarawa to augment his own surface action group. The commodore turned his binoculars on the Kirov.
“Commander, bring the group to battle stations.”
“Aye.” The group operations officer lifted the tactical radio mike. “Blue Boys, this is Blue King. Amber Light, Amber Light, execute. Out.”
Eaton waited four seconds for the New Jersey’s general quarters alarm to sound. The crew raced to their guns.
“Range to Kirov?”
“Thirty-seven thousand six hundred yards, sir. We’ve been sneaking in a laser range every few minutes. We’re dialed in, sir,” the group operations officer reported. “Main battery turrets are still loaded with sabots, and gunnery’s been updating the solution every thirty seconds.”
A phone buzzed next to Eaton’s command chair on the flag bridge.
“Eaton.”
“All stations manned and ready, Commodore,” the battleship’s captain reported. Eaton looked at his stopwatch.
“Well done, Captain. We’ve got the men drilled very well indeed.”
In the New Jersey’s combat information center the numerical displays showed the exact range to the Kirov’s mainmast. The logical first target is always the enemy flagship. The only question was how much punishment the Kirov could absorb — and what would kill her first, the gun rounds or the Tomahawk missiles. The important part, the gunnery officer had been saying for days, was to kill the Kirov before any aircraft could interfere. The New Jersey had never sunk a ship all on her own. Forty years was a long time to wait.
“They’re turning,” the group operations officer said.
“Yep, let’s se
e how far.”
The Kirov’s formation had been on a westerly course when the signal arrived. Every ship in the circular array turned to starboard, all together. Their turns stopped when they reached a heading of zero-four-zero.
Eaton set his glasses down in the holder. “They’re going home. Let’s inform Washington and keep the men at stations for a while.”
Dulles International Airport
The Soviets outdid themselves getting their men away from the United States. An Aeroflot Illyushin IL-62 was taken out of regular international service and sent directly from Moscow to Dulles. It landed at sunset. A near copy of the British VC-10, the four-engine aircraft taxied to the remotest service area for refueling. Along with some other passengers who did not deplane to stretch their legs, a spare flight crew was brought along so that the plane could immediately return home. A pair of mobile lounges drove from the terminal building two miles to the waiting aircraft. Inside them the crewmen of the Red October looked out at the snow-dusted countryside, knowing this was their final look at America. They were quiet, having been roused from bed in Bethesda and taken by bus to Dulles only an hour earlier. This time no reporters harassed them.
The four officers, nine michmanyy, and the remaining enlisted crew were split into distinct groups as they boarded. Each group was taken to a separate part of the aircraft. Each officer and michman had his own KGB interrogator, and the debriefing began as the aircraft started its takeoff roll. By the time the Illyushin reached cruising altitude most of the crewmen were asking themselves why they had not opted to remain behind with their traitorous countrymen. These interviews were decidedly unpleasant.