Barracuda 945 am-6

by Patrick Robinson

  But right now it was not joined to anything, though in winter the pack-ice shelf sweeps right down to its seaward shores, but the North Cape Stream just manages to keep the tides flowing to the south.

  Captain Vanislav's two-hundred-mile-a-day journey passed without incident until they came toward a ten-mile-long ice field still floating, months after it had broken off the Arctic cap. The Ural's Ops Room judged it still to be three to four feet thick, one hundred miles east of Novaya Zemlya.

  Ravi and Ben both watched from the bridge as the icebreaker headed straight for the outer edge of the ice floe, and then drove right up onto the floating skating rink. Her reinforced bow rode up, almost one hundred feet beyond the water, and suddenly there was an almighty, echoing crack in the clear silent air, and then another, then six more, as the ice split asunder, forward and sideways, crushed beneath 23,500 tons of solid steel.

  Into this newly created bay, the Ural drove forward until she reached the end, and once more forced her way up onto the ice, her twin propellers ramming the stern forward another one hundred feet. Again there was the thunderous crack as a zillion tons of four-foot-thick ice split in half, causing a rift almost a quarter of a mile long.

  "Christ," said Ravi Rashood, staring in amazement at the sheer brute power of the Ural. "One more of those and we're through." He picked up his binoculars and stared ahead. The icebreaker seemed to be steaming through a bay now, with the floes splitting off on all sides.

  He watched fascinated, as the Ural repeated her crushing assault on the remainder of the ice field, pulverizing the last couple of hundred yards seemingly without breaking stride, ramming the baby icebergs aside with that iron-fisted bow; cleaving the way for the Barracuda and her consorts to reach the East Siberian Sea and on to the Bering Strait.

  Clear of the ice pack, they rounded the seaward headland of Novaya Zemlya. They were due north of the estuary of Russia's longest river, the 3,362-mile River Ob', which rises in the hilly borders of Mongolia and then flows north right across the Siberian Plateau, east of the Urals, under the Trans-Siberian railroad bridge, and on into the icy depths of its fifty-mile-long hook-shaped estuary, twenty miles wide, all the way.

  The end of Novaya Zemlya signaled the end of the Barents Sea, and now they entered the Kara Sea, which stretches another five hundred miles miles into the Sever-naya Zemlya island group, two days away. There were no more ice floes, but well-charted shoals along the Central Kara Rise kept them well south, inshore, leaving the Nordenshel'da Archipelago to starboard as they made their easterly swerve through the narrow Strait of Vil'kitskogo, south of the Severnayas.

  Which was where U.S. Surveillance first saw them clearly on photographs taken by "Big Bird" as it passed silently overhead.

  7 a.m., Thursday, August 9, 2007

  National Security Agency

  Fort Meade, Maryland

  Lieutenant Ramshawe liked satellite photographs. However similar, however grainy, however routine they were, he looked forward to keying in through his computer to Intelink, the National Reconnaissance Office's private Internet system of secure and encrypted cable networks. Jimmy could pick up surveillance photographs taken from anywhere in the world on the NRO-built constellation of satellites that endlessly circled the globe.

  He always scrolled down to find anything of interest in the China Sea, and habitually had a look in the Bering Strait and along the Kamchatka Peninsula where the big Russian Pacific Fleet operates. He rarely, if ever, found anything worth researching, but that never stopped him looking. Ramshawe was one of the most natural-born Intelligence officers ever.

  In summertime he always checked out any Naval activity in the seas to the east of the Severnayas. Up to that point the ocean was essentially Russian. They patrolled it, ran Navy exercises, and tested ships all along that coastline from way back in Murmansk for more than one thousand miles to the east of the Kola Peninsula.

  Sometimes there were halfway interesting pictures, perhaps showing a new Russian warship, but mostly Jimmy found himself looking at the routine functions of a near moribund Navy. East of the Severnayas, however, was the place to spot fleet transfers, and it was important that the United States knew precisely where big Russian warships were stationed. Essential, in fact.

  Today Jimmy was taking serious note of a four-ship convoy pushing along the north coast of Siberia. He zeroed in close, and then pulled right back. "Shit," he muttered. "That Siberia's a bloody big place. Gotta be the biggest place in the world."

  He was right too. Siberia represents one-twelfth of the entire land mass of the planet earth. It might be cold, and it might be lonely, and it might have a somewhat chilling history. But small, it's not.

  Jimmy stared hard at the three ships, pulling up a square overlay that would tell him the identities of the four Russian ships moving east from the Barents to the Bering.

  "Here we go," he said to himself, as the insert caption box flashed up onto his screen. One good-sized frigate, the Neustrashimy. 9,000-tonner, guided missiles… one bloody great icebreaker… this big bastard out in front, right? One Akula II nuclear submarine. One Sierra Type nuclear submarine, believed to be one of two Barracuda Class ships. Hunter-killers. Type 945… All on the surface… nothing secret… routine summertime fleet transfer, Northern Fleet to PacFleet. No problem.

  The Lieutenant knew about Russian Akulas and he knew about Sierras. Barracudas were a mystery. With only one operational, there was really only one Type 945 ever seen in open water. For the past five years, the entire term of Jimmy Ramshawe's service in Fort Meade, the ship had only been out a half dozen times, so expensive was she to run.

  He keyed in one of his most highly classified CD-ROM pages, and pulled up the details, noting the high speed and deep diving depth of the Russian's most pricey attack submarine, first-in-class, named the Tula. He also noted they were planning, in a halfhearted way, to fit her with cruise missiles with a 1,600-mile range. But apparently not for another year.

  He pulled up the picture and looked at the shot of her, running through cold, calm seas, a clear white bow wave breaking up over her deck and splitting at the sail, to form two swirling vortices on both sides of the hull.

  "Looks like a bloody dangerous piece of work to me," he muttered. "Wonder where they keep the other bugger."

  He scrolled back the page to the operational section, and noted there was some doubt whether the second hull was ever completed. If it wasn't, he read, it's probably in the Northern Base at Araguba, possibly in a covered dock. If it did get as far as Sea Trials, we never saw it.

  "Funny name, Barracuda, for a bloody Russian," he said to his empty office. "That's a big, vicious warm-water fish, never found far beyond the tropics. I've seen a picture of my dad catching one in the Caribbean. Barracuda! Up there in the arse end of nowhere, north of the bloody tundra, inside the Arctic Circle. Doesn't make bloody sense. It's like the Jamaican Navy calling their bloody ships Walrus or Polar Bear. Like Nelson Mandela being elected President of Iceland.

  "Where's the national identity? Silly bastards. There's never been a bloody barracuda within a thousand miles of Russia. Ought to be Sturgeon Class, or Killer Whale. Or Sea Lion. Fancy having your best attack submarine, in icebound Arctic waters, named after an overgrown tropical goldfish."

  He wandered out to find a cup of coffee, and then wandered back, still wondering about the Barracuda. "I think I'm right," he said. "Don't wanna clobber the old Ruskies for nothing, though. I'd better check it out… "

  He hit the keys, pulling up barracuda, the fish not the warship. He clicked the mouse onto "game fish." Then he found Gamefish of North America, written by the greatest writer about fishing there's ever been, A. J. McLane, author of the Encyclopedia of World's Fishing.

  "Here we go," he said. "Page 240. There's a whole section on 'em, right before the bloody sharks."

  He scanned the pages and swiftly found out he was right.

  Barracudas do not venture into cold water, and the illustrations were
beautiful. He decided to read a little from the opening paragraph, and found out that this fish has a diabolical set of teeth, two lines of a razor-sharp gnashers, and, wrote A. J., the disposition of a cornered wolf… its bite can be poison… the mere sight of it can nearly induce cardiac arrest.

  So, indeed, could the subtle prose of Mr. McLane. Almost. Because the next paragraph, right there on page 240, halfway down the text, contained the sentence… yet in shallow water, old razormouth has the speed of a rocket. And that very nearly did send the young Intelligence Officer directly into cardiac arrest.

  OLD RAZORMOUTH! When did he last hear that? Jimmy's mind raced, but his heart stopped. It always did when he thought he was on to something. He took a deep slug of coffee, and exited the barracuda section of Game Fish. He hit the keys for his secret file, logged into the index.

  Christ! It was nearly a year ago. September 2006.

  Here we are… OLD RAZORMOUTH 600 AFFIRMATIVE. Signal sucked off the Chinese Navy satellite — original source: U. S. SIGINT listening station in the underground bunker at Kunia, Hawaii. Rock solid.

  Lieutenant Ramshawe considered the unlikely possibility that some Chinese Admiral had landed six hundred barracudas, as forecast. Six hundred. Affirmative. That last word implied a clear suggestion that the subject had been mentioned before. Otherwise, thought Jimmy, old Admiral Tai Mai Hook would have sent a signal that read: "Holy shit! I've just caught half the world's population of barracudas."

  No. Affirmative meant something that had been expected. Or half expected. And it was not a netful of fish. Old Razormouth, the barracuda, on a Navy satellite, had to be code for Russia's most dangerous attack submarine. But what about 600? The Russians only have one operational. I suppose the number could refer to anything — depth beneath the surface… hours running time… a radio band… stockpiles of torpedoes… miles from home base… missile range… or even dollars… maybe the Chinese have bought the bloody thing.

  Lieutenant Ramshawe decided he had better things to do than try to connect a year-old, four-word Chinese satellite signal with a perfectly innocent-looking Russian Naval Fleet Transfer along the Siberian coast.

  "Nonetheless," he muttered. "I'll be keeping a weather eye on those four little bastards creeping through the frosties. 'Specially Old Razormouth."

  August 14, 2007

  73' N 138' E

  South of the New Siberian Islands

  They were at the eastern end of the Laptev Sea now, still hugging the coast, having already passed the 5,600-square-mile delta of the River Lena, which, like the Ob', flows clean across Siberia from the center of Asia. Ahead of them was the fifty-mile-wide strait between the northern headland and the southernmost island, the gateway to the East Siberian Sea.

  Out in the lead, the Ural was still making on average 200 miles a day. Both submarines remained on the surface holding a regular speed of nine knots, a constant watch kept from the bridge for smaller ice floes, which could damage a submarine if hit hard enough head-on. The fact that it was only dark for an hour each day made this task somewhat easier.

  Ravi Rashood had spent much of his time with the Commanding Officer and Ben Badr. But he had served regular four-hour watches in the navigation area, the sonar room, and the radar room. He joined the two other Iranian officers, plus an interpreter, talking with the planesmen. He spent two entire days with CPO Ali Zahedi in the propulsion area. This coupled with a day in the reactor room with Lt. Comdr. Mohtaj gave General Rashood a hard grounding in the way a nuclear submarine moves through the oceans.

  He knew the screens to watch, the dials to check, the location of the electronic circuits and their breakers. He was now well versed in all emergency procedures, and he used all of his spare time talking with Ben Badr. In this particular nuclear submarine, dealing with any kind of problem, any possible kind of hitch or failure, there was an excellent chance that these two disparate military characters, from opposite cultures, religions, and upbringing, would arrive at the correct solution.

  All that remained for both of them to study was a crash course in firing procedures for the big RADUGA cruise missiles. Commander Badr was probably 50 percent proficient. Another Lieutenant Commander from Bandar Abbas had been working almost exclusively for nine months right through the system's overhaul in Araguba. And an outstanding Chief Petty Officer from Ravi's home province of Kerman had completed a degree course, with an interpreter, in cruise-missile technology and guidance systems.

  Ravi had some catching up to do. And he would spend much of the fall in Petropavlovsk attaining the level of mastery in the subject any submarine Commander must have.

  Meanwhile, they pushed on through the southern strait of the New Siberian Islands, and the wind began to back around to the south, bringing a soft warmth to the air. There were few discernible signs left of the terrible Siberian winter, but snow still marked the dark and distant summer shores of Russia's vast, sleeping land.

  It was a 1,000-mile five-day run down to the Chukchi Sea and then into the Bering Strait, where the little convoy would steam within a half mile of U.S. waters. All the way down to the Strait, they would hug the inshore waters, and Captain Vanislav ordered the required course change to east-south-east as they entered the East Siberian Sea, right in the wake of the Ural. He called the swing to starboard — Conn-Captain… steer one-one-two… advise Ural immediately.

  Still running through smooth water, they pushed ever more southward, away from the deep thrust of the permanent ice field that lurked back over the port side horizon, flat lethal solid all the way from the North Pole and at this point within 100 miles of the Siberian coast.

  However, it had been a mild summer in this northeasterly corner of Russia and their passage was relatively simple. They saw no ice floes, and they kept the speed down to nine knots, night and day, cleaving through the dark blue waters watching the surface up ahead.

  All this time, the Iranians became more and more efficient. General Rashood himself was not, of course, ready to take command of the ship in the high-tech manner of a seasoned nuclear Captain. But Commander Badr most certainly was, and he was building an extremely capable afterguard to sail with him. General Rashood had already shown himself to be the ideal Special Ops Commander, and the long days of study in the submarine meant he was well able to conduct any mission he wished, with this ship's company and, particularly, in this ship.

  If Commander Badr had dropped dead, General Rashood, with his Iranian officers and crew, could have successfully avoided capture and brought the ship home. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that this SAS-trained officer was a man they could follow to gain any objective. Even without Ben Badr, Ravi could probably manage. With Ben Badr, they would form a competent combination.

  The five-day run down to the headland of Cape Uelen that guards the Russian side of the Strait was completed in solitude. They passed the high cliffs and the little trading post on the Dezhneva Peninsula sighted about twenty-five miles inshore, and in the distance they did see some local activity, small fishing boats, and a barge. But they never saw an oceangoing ship from anyone's Navy, and the only eyes watching them belonged to faraway Jimmy Ramshawe, who was checking out the satellite shots every couple of days from 7,000 miles away, still wondering why the hell Old Razormouth was any concern of the Chinese.

  They steamed out of the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Strait in a cold gusting wind, right on the Arctic Circle. The seas were getting up now, the temperature had returned to zero, and long Pacific swells caused the Barracuda to ride up slowly and then pitch into the trough. Captain Vanislav ordered them to periscope depth, which made the journey a little more comfortable, but not much. He would have preferred to take her down 100 feet out of the weather, but the waters of the Strait are notoriously shallow and, all submarine captains believe, badly charted.

  They pushed on, with snow dusting the surface and the swells still making the big underwater ship rise and fall. Captain Vanislav ordered a course change to the southwest right
off Lavrentiya Point, straight along the dividing line in the ocean that separates Russia from the United States, west of St. Lawrence Island, forty miles off the most easterly stretch of Siberian coast. Where the Barracuda ran, it was around 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 21. Three miles to port, across the international date line, it was still Monday, same time. Ramshawe was looking at photographs before they were taken. In a way.

  Ravi continued his studies, spending time in the reactor control room, and especially with the sonar officer, an English-speaking Chinese officer, who had worked on the PLAN'S Kilo program. Ravi had a natural affinity for the precise yet creative thinking required in the Sonar Room, and this was also true of Ben Badr. As always they had much to discuss.

  On across the 300-mile-wide entrance to the Anadyrskiy Sea they ventured, with its steep gray cliffs and circular summer currents. The tides were still flowing here in late August, but in a few short months these northern parts of the Bering Sea would freeze over completely.

  Two days later, they began the long voyage down the Koryakskoye Nagorye, a wild, desolate Eastern Siberian landscape containing a vast mountain range stretching for 500 miles, north to south: great snowcapped peaks visible from the ocean, sheer rock faces reaching right down to the sea. With the weather still rough, the ship's company in the Barracuda could, of course, see nothing, and for three more days, they never saw daylight, as they ran south at periscope depth, along one of the most remote coastlines in the world.

  Eventually the land begins to narrow and at the Gulf of Karaginskij it develops into a thin isthmus, which joins to the Siberian mainland the 500-mile-long, shillelagh-shaped Kamchatka Peninsula. The mountains go straight through the isthmus and cleave through the center of the peninsula, Russia's Rocky Mountains. Their most spectacular peak is the volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka, at 15,500 feet, the highest mountain in Siberia, fifty miles inland, and 120 miles north of Petropavlovsk.