Cold Choices jm-2

by Larry Bond

  “What?” Brewer was surprised at the idea of an American aircraft in these waters. But an American destroyer was part of the rescue group. It could have come from that ship. What did they want?

  Jonson maintained course and speed, and the helicopter circled them twice, first from a distance, then closer in, only a few hundred yards away. As it circled, Brewer studied the craft, wondering if this one was armed. Jonson had the same thought, and reported, “No weapons. Those pods on each side are drop tanks.”

  Finally, it came up on their port side, only a hundred feet up and not much farther away. The radio came to life. “Norwegian fishing vessel, this is a U.S. Navy helicopter. You are inside a maritime exclusion zone established during a rescue operation. Turn around immediately and head southwest.”

  Jonson looked at Brewer who shook his head violently. “Do not answer. As long as we don’t answer, they can’t say we received their transmission. This is just like the other one. It’s unarmed.”

  The helicopter repeated its message, and when it didn’t receive a reply, it changed position, dropping aft and closing. Brewer knew they were looking for the vessel’s name on the stern, but he’d had the captain cover it with a fender. He hadn’t been able to talk Jonson into taking down the Norwegian flag.

  “Norwegian fishing vessel, you are violating international law. You are approaching an area where rescue operations are underway. If you do not come about, you will be arrested on your return and fined.”

  Brewer quickly said, “INN will pay the fines and any other expenses.”

  Johnson looked unconvinced. He scratched his blond beard thoughtfully. “What if I lose my license?”

  Brewer answered lightly, “If they’re going to arrest us when we go back, let’s go back with the story. INN will be more interested in backing you up if you help us.”

  The fisherman looked dubious, but Brewer said, “Look, you’re working for me. I’ll take the heat, and all they ever do to a journalist is kick us out. I’m trying to do my job.”

  Jonson looked over at the first mate, who said nothing for a long moment. Finally, he gave a slight nod, and Jonson said, “All right. I will not pay any fines. Your bosses will pay them.”

  They pressed on. The helicopter climbed and took station behind the fishing boat; steering large, slow figure eights to stay in position. Every ten minutes the aircraft would call them, but never received a response. Brewer wondered how long the aircraft’s fuel would last.

  At sunset, the helicopter was still in position, its navigation lights marking its position long after its shape had blended with the night sky. Brewer knew the helicopter could track them with radar. They’d used radar to find Stavanger in the first place. There was no way to evade detection or slip in. He was just going to call their bluff.

  They were having an early dinner when the lookout’s excited call brought Brewer and the captain up to the bridge. The third mate pointed to the radar, mounted in front of the ship’s wheel. “Twenty kilometers,” Jonson commented, “about eleven miles.”

  The second mate was standing in the companionway, and Johnson barked orders in Norwegian. The second took the helm, while the third fastened his cold-weather gear and picked up a pair of binoculars.

  Jonson studied the scope for a minute, then took a second range reading. “He’s coming fast,” the captain remarked. “About thirty knots.”

  “Could it be a commercial ship?” Brewer asked.

  Jonson snorted. “In these waters? At this time of year? At that speed? No, mister reporter, that is a warship.” Several emotions quickly played across the captain’s face — frustration, disappointment, then resignation.

  Brewer went through a different set of emotions. He would have thought they had more important things to do than chase a harmless fishing boat, but he was ready for them.

  The position of the lights didn’t change, but the shape they marked grew steadily larger. With only a quarter moon and a partly cloudy sky, it was virtually invisible, even with Brewer knowing where to look.

  Then, at one mile’s distance, the ship suddenly flashed into visibility. They’d turned on their exterior lights. In the pitch darkness it almost floated somewhere between the dark sky and the darker sea.

  “Norwegian fishing vessel, this is a U.S. Navy destroyer USS Churchill. Identify yourself.” The voice sounded like a Brit.

  Confused, Brewer shook his head again, and half-reached out as Jonson walked toward the radio. The captain ignored him, and instead handed Brewer the glasses, pointing toward the ship as he picked up the microphone.

  Brewer looked though the binoculars at the warship. He recognized it as an Aegis destroyer. He’d bought several books in the U.S. and studied them on the flight. It was a gray thing, all angles and shapes. It looked huge, even a mile away.

  “This is motor vessel Stavanger, out of Alesund.”

  Brewer studied the ship. It was exciting, seeing a warship like this, in its element. He wasn’t worried, even when he saw the gun on the bow pointed in their direction. This was an American ship.

  “Stavanger; what is your business?”

  “Tell them we have been chartered by Marine Salvage. We are bringing supplies to Halsfjord,”

  Jonson gave Brewer a strange look, but shrugged and repeated the claim, in English.

  Churchill rogered for the explanation, then said nothing more. She slowed and took position a mile off their port side. Above and behind Stavanger, the helicopter continued to fly lazy eights.

  As the minutes passed, Brewer began to believe the explanation had worked. After all, the Russians had declared the exclusion zone. The U.S. hadn’t honored it earlier. Now, here they were headed northeast with an American destroyer alongside.

  “Stavanger; this is Churchill. Marine Diving and Salvage and Halsfjord both deny any knowledge of your charter. Halsfjord expects no vessels. Heave to immediately and stand by to be boarded. If you do not cut your engines, we will fire.”

  “They can’t mean it,” Brewer protested.

  Jonson reached for the throttles. “They mean it. No bluff.”

  Stavanger slowed quickly, the boat rolling unevenly as it drifted and turned to face the wind. Brewer watched Churchill slow as well, and take position upwind a hundred yards away. Her forward gun stayed trained on them, and Brewer could see sailors manning other weapons on her decks.

  The destroyer lowered a boat on her lee side and it bounced through the waves to Stavanger’s side. Brewer could see men in the boat. Several of them were armed. At Jonson’s orders, a boarding ladder was waiting for them. The first man over the side was not armed, but the second and third were, and took covering positions on the deck while the rest of the group climbed aboard. Jonson and his first mate stood quietly until the leader introduced himself.

  “I am Leftenant Keith Figg, Royal Navy. Who is master aboard?”

  “I am. Captain Jonson.”

  “Captain, what is your business in these waters?” Brewer noticed that as Figg asked his questions, another sailor was videotaping the proceedings— making a legal record.

  “I am under charter by INN to carry a reporter and his men to the rescue location.”

  “Were you aware that you entered an internationally recognized exclusion zone?”

  Jonson didn’t answer immediately, and Figg said, “All mariners are required to know of any exclusion zones.” After a moment, he added, “And the Russians haven’t kept this one a secret.”

  Finally Jonson nodded. He’d rather admit to a violation than ignorance. “Yes, I was aware of the exclusion zone.”

  “Where are your charters?”

  “Here,” Brewer replied. “Harry Brewer, INN.” Reflexively, he offered Figg a business card, then realized the absurdity of the act, standing on a heaving deck in the middle of the night to men with guns pointed at him. “May I ask why a British officer is on a U.S. warship?”

  Figg ignored the question and took the card, but didn’t look at it. “Did Capt
ain Jonson inform you of the exclusion zone?”

  “Actually, I informed him. I didn’t want to deceive him about where we were going.”

  “And you deliberately entered the exclusion zone.”

  “As I said, I’m with INN. We’re here to cover the rescue of Severodvinsk’s crew. I’ve got equipment that will let us send the images worldwide, in real time.”

  Figg shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. Captain Jonson, what is your best speed?”

  “Twelve knots.”

  Figg spoke into a handheld radio, then turned back to the two men. “Captain Jonson, Mr. Brewer, you are in violation of Article Twenty-five of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. We are confiscating all recording devices aboard — cameras, tape recorders, cell phones, all of it.” Brewer started to protest, but Figg cut him off. “It will all be logged and carefully handled. After your case is disposed, if the Russians choose, they can return your equipment to you.”

  “The Russians?” A shocked Brewer started to ask a question, but Figg’s radio barked and he listened for a moment.

  “Captain Jonson, you will steer course one nine seven for Severomorsk harbor, where your boat will be impounded by the Russian authorities. At a speed of twelve knots, you are expected to arrive by 1830 tomorrow evening. Senior-Lieutenant Andreyev and Warrant Officer Babochkin of the Russian Federation Navy will remain aboard as liaisons.”

  Brewer exploded. “You can’t turn us over to the Russians!”

  Figg answered, “This is a legally declared military exclusion zone to effect the rescue of a Russian submarine. You’ve knowingly violated an official announcement by the Russian Federation government, with a senior Russian naval officer in command of the operation. You’re trespassing on their estate. Who did you think you’d be dealing with?”

  Figg ordered his team, “Search the boat.” Johnson motioned for his first mate to go with them as Brewer looked on in complete amazement. A pile quickly developed on the aft deck, although it took almost half an hour to find not only the INN video equipment, but also personal cell phones and even a crewman’s personal camera.

  While the contraband was loaded into Churchill’s whaleboat, Figg warned Jonson, “If you do not reach Severomorsk by 1830 tomorrow evening, your boat will be confiscated. You will be tracked by aviation assets and from shore until you arrive. If you have difficulties, we will be monitoring the standard international distress frequencies.”

  Jonson nodded silently.

  Brewer made one last plea. “This is insane. Nobody was hurt. Why can’t we just turn around? We’ll go back to Alesund.”

  “You ignored warnings from two different aircraft, and lied to us about your business here. Be grateful it was an American vessel that intercepted you. And by the by, there is a formal billet for a Royal Navy officer on board USS Churchill as a tribute to Sir Winston. Have a good day, sir.”

  27. SECOND TRY

  12 October 2008

  0815/8:15 AM

  Rescue site, Barents Sea

  Borisov and Lindstrom had agreed to wait until it was light to move the cables from the buoys to the tugs. In spite of the urgency, there was no rush to perform this step. The limiting factor, especially after the loss of AS-34 Priz, was still the number of dives needed to lay the line charges and attach the last cables to Severodvinsk. The two Norwegian ROVs had held up so far, which meant they were still on schedule for the second attempt early that afternoon.

  Halsfjord’s two vehicles would keep working during the transfer, both laying the charges that would break the Russian sub free of the bottom. On the surface, the salvage tug Altay backed carefully until it was only meters from one of two buoys, each a checkered orange and white sphere almost ten meters in diameter. Cables from Severodvinsk curved up out of the water to huge padeyes on the sides of the buoy. Those cables would be transferred from each buoy to one of the tugs.

  A workboat passed close alongside Altay. A crewman on the back of the tug tossed a “monkey fist” to the men in the boat. Nothing more than a ball wrapped with cord, it trailed a thin line. The men on the boat started pulling on the line while the men on the tug payed it out. After a dozen meters, the line became cord, then after another interval rope, then after a longer span, a nylon hawser over an inch in diameter.

  Motoring over to the buoy, the workboat’s crew attached the line to the cable, passing it through the six-inch loop on the end. It was difficult work, with the boat and buoy moving in the swells, sometimes banging into each other hard enough to break bones, if anyone was careless enough to get in the way.

  The final step was to unscrew the heavy padeye, allowing the cable end with the hawser attached to drop free. As it hit the water, a winch on Altay started up, pulling the hawser in toward the tug’s stern. Once the hawser had pulled the cable aboard, it was slipped over a bollard at the stern. With the cable safely attached to the tug, the workboat went back to get the next cable.

  Each tug would pull three cables, going to Severodvinsk’s bow, midsection, and stern. It was important to have the tugs doubling up. With each tug pulling on Severodvinsk’s bow, middle, and stern, there would be fewer problems in synchronizing their pulling power. It also provided a safeguard against a cable parting, or, God forbid, an engine failing on one of the tugs.

  But it meant that the cables had to be different lengths, carefully calculated and cut, and once the tugs took the cables aboard, they were stuck to that one spot in the ocean where their three cables came together.

  Five were already laid out to Severodvinsk, and with the arrival of the tugs, the last one would be attached directly to Pamir.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, on the seabed, Halsfjord’s two remotes worked carefully, laying fifteen-kilogram charges as far under the hull as possible. It was a time-consuming process because the mud and silt had to be cleared away before each charge was emplaced. In fact, the charges were being placed where the mud was thickest, as much as two meters. The explosions had a much better chance of freeing the sub if they went off inside the mud, next to the underlying rock, instead of just resting on top.

  Another complication was that the charges would be detonated by electrical signals over wire, instead of by an acoustic signal, as they were the first time. The speed of sound in water was slow enough that a fraction of a second would pass between the nearest charges getting the signal and the ones farther away. Instead, the detonation signal would be sent over wires carefully cut to an exact length so that they went off in a staggered sequence, a ripple effect from stem to stern.

  The web of detonation wires and cables required the remote vehicles to steer a careful path each time they approached the downed submarine, and as they ascended. It all took time.

  * * *

  After connecting the last cable to Severodvinsk’s hull from Pamir, the ROV did not immediately ascend to the surface. Instead, it rose just a little and turned to “face” the sub. Powerful lights illuminated the hull as it glided above the hull toward the bow. It slowed to almost a crawl, then followed the streamlined curve of the sail. Finally, embedded in the middle of the sail, the grayish outline of the rescue chamber’s panels came into sight.

  The operator, sitting in Halsfjord, brought the ROV to a stop. “There it is,” announced Lindstrom. He told the operator, “Get as close as you can, then circle it.”

  A Russian observer aboard Halsfjord, a qualified submariner, studied the image closely. The picture was also broadcast to Petr Velikiy, Rudnitskiy, and to Churchill.

  USS Churchill

  Aboard Churchill, a TV monitor in CIC displayed the underwater image sent by Halsfjord. Patterson, Russo, and Baker had the front-row seats, while the rest of her group and many of the crew clustered behind as closely as rank would permit. The grayish boundary of the escape chamber stood out clearly from the black anechoic coating.

  One of Churchill’s officers, on watch, asked, “Isn’t it a little late in the game to be checking the escape c
hamber?”

  Russo shook his head. “This isn’t the first inspection, it’s the last. We examined the chamber’s exterior panels on the very first dive from Halsfjord. This is a final check to make sure that we haven’t created an obstruction. We have to make sure the cables won’t snag the chamber when it detaches, or that some piece of debris hasn’t jammed it in place.”

  Patterson and some of the others watched over his shoulder, but after the allotted twenty minutes, two complete circuits around the sail showed no obstruction. Everything looked like it was falling into place, adhering to Lindstrom’s intricate plan.

  USS Seawolf

  Jeff Palmer found Jerry in his rack, relaxing with a trashy paperback he’d borrowed from Chief Hudson. Boredom wasn’t usually a problem for Jerry, but with Seawolf simply waiting and watching, he had even managed to get caught up with all his paperwork.

  He looked up at the knock, then put down the book and rolled onto his side when he saw Palmer’s expression. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing right now, thankfully,” Palmer answered, “but I’ve been doing the math again. Severodvinsk will have used up most of the chemicals we delivered yesterday and that will leave them hanging if this attempt fails. Shouldn’t we start preparing Maxine for another supply run?”

  Jerry immediately shook his head. “We can’t. We need her to watch when they try to raise Severodvinsk. She has sensors that the Norwegian ROVs don’t.”

  Palmer nodded quickly, but pushed his point. “Of course, but there are things we could do to prepare — bring over more cassettes from Rudnitskiy, for instance. And my guys think they can even precut some of the packing material. It would shorten the time we need to get more supplies over to them — just in case.”

  Jerry thought about Palmer’s suggestion and seriously wondered if it was a good or a bad idea. There was a downside to making the preparations. The Russians might see it as a negative attitude. And while everybody acknowledged the possibility of failure, nobody wanted to think about it. Jerry certainly didn’t.