by Mark Greaney
“What? Wait, that’s not what happened. I didn’t give you anything!”
Jack leaned forward. “Your boss might own the press in Russia, but he doesn’t own it all over the world. It won’t take any time for Volodin to learn what happened here, or maybe I should say our version of what happened. No matter the circumstances, what do you think he’ll do with you?”
Clark had been listening from across the cabin, but he stepped over for a moment and leaned down, just behind the Russian’s left ear. “No, Limonov, don’t even bother to think, because you can’t imagine it. Volodin has spent decades learning the best ways to exact payback on those who fail him, and I’m pretty certain when he finds out the U.S. has access to his money, he’s going to be a lot more pissed off than he’s ever been.”
Clark said, “Your end will be a fucking horror movie, pal. And your death will be the best thing that ever happened to you in your whole life.”
“No!”
“If you will work with us, give us the accounts and the details of your network, you will be protected. If you don’t . . . well, like I said, it’s back to Moscow for you. This time next week someone will be digging your eye out with a pair of tongs.”
Limonov just nodded slowly. “Take me to America. I’ll tell you about Volodin’s money.”
Ryan looked to the back of the plane and gave the others a thumbs-up. Nobody was going to Moscow, but the threat had served its purpose.
• • •
The USS James Greer (DDG-102) sailed south at twenty-two knots. The ship was rigged for quiet but the relatively high speed negated much of the hard work the engineering department put in to keep the vessel stealthy. The twin screws of the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer were designed to reduce noise, even when under significant power, but at twenty knots, those with ears in the ocean ahead would be able to tell something was coming.
Commander Scott Hagen knew he was taking a calculated risk with his tactics, but he thought it worth the gamble. After days patrolling Lithuanian waters, essentially taking the place of the significant portion of Lithuania’s Navy that had been sunk in a two-and-a-half-hour period earlier in the week, he had finally received approval to patrol out into the open sea. As soon as these orders came through from the Sixth Fleet commander, he sent both of his MH-60 Romeo Sea Hawk helicopters out in front of him to clear the way, and he ordered his engine room to give him the highest speed they could manage without rendering the towed array completely ineffective. Doctrine would have him picking his way a lot more slowly and carefully—as it was, the SQS-53 hull-mounted sonar’s effective range was cut by two-thirds—but Hagen saw tonight’s objective less as a typical sub search and more as a race against time, so he pushed on.
He also had a strong suspicion he knew where danger prowled in the Baltic, and it was dead ahead, out of range of his vessel, at least for a short while longer.
Thirty miles south of the James Greer, the Polish Navy was in a fight right this minute, and although the Poles seemed to think they had the upper hand, as far as Hagen was concerned, they just had a tiger by the tail.
For the first few days of the conflict the Poles had stayed in their own waters, but the northern coast of Poland lived and died on the basis of its Baltic seaports, and ever since the submarine warfare kicked off with the sinking of the Maltese cargo ship Granite, few ships of any type had dared enter the southeastern sector of the Baltic Sea. Seeing the economic imperative of opening their coast back to commerce, the Polish government ordered its navy out to ensure the safety of ship traffic.
They sent a search-and-attack unit—a collection of integrated surface vessels and aircraft with antisubmarine warfare capability—out to comb the waters west of Kaliningrad in search of the Russian submarines. An Orkan-class fast attack boat had been positioned to the east of the rest of the group. Above it, one of Poland’s Mi-14 helos with antisubmarine dipping capability had detected an undersea contact but had not been able to designate it as a threat with any confidence, so the Orkan began moving closer to join the helo in the hunt.
Without warning, a pair of torpedoes were launched from the location of the possible contact, and though the captain of the Orkan managed to avoid one of them with evasive maneuvers, the second inbound Type 53-65 blew his small boat all the way out of the water, killing every last one of the thirty-two on board.
The Poles also had another helo in the area, an SH-2G Super Seasprite. It locked on to the undersea contact, declared it hostile, and dropped a pair of Mark 46 torpedoes into the black water.
A Polish corvette received the data pulled from the integrated targeting system of the Seasprite helicopter, and it launched a pair of its own torpedoes at the target. With four weapons converging simultaneously at one target from two directions, the Kilo had little chance.
The sonar technicians on the James Greer heard the death of the Russian sub in their headsets, and even though they were still some twenty-six miles from the action, it felt like they were right there in the submarine with the doomed men.
While it was natural to empathize with the dying, every one of the sonar technicians on the Greer knew the horrific sounds in their headsets were the sounds of justice. The Russians had started this shit, after all, and they’d killed a lot of innocent people.
Commander Hagen played no part in the celebration. He stood in the CIC quietly while the overhead speakers and the digital dead-reckoning tracer table in front of him gave him the news about the kill of the Russian sub, and he thought about the other undersea threat out there, the second Kilo. In their previous attacks the two enemy vessels had worked in tandem, so he expected it was just a matter of moments before one of the two Oliver Hazard Perry–class frigates in the Polish SAU found out that the other Russian submarine was also here in the sea north of Gdańsk.
He also knew the only reason the Polish helo had detected the Kilo in the first place was that it had been moving into position, preparing to fire on the Orkan, so Hagen wanted to be close enough to detect the other Kilo’s attack when it came.
Hagen was pleased to see that his USWE, or undersea warfare evaluator, on duty, Lieutenant Damon Hart, played no part in the brief celebration in the CIC. Instead, Hart loomed over the dead-reckoning tracer table, his eyes rapidly scanning the contacts and tracks, taking in headings, speeds, directions, and even coastline features.
The commander saw Weps was as focused on finding, fixing, and finishing that other Russian sub as he was.
Hagen shouldered up next to the young man and scanned the display himself now. As NATO members and close allies of the U.S., the Poles were on the same tactical data-exchange network as the U.S. Navy, and this made coordination between the two nations’ fleets and aircraft as seamless as Hagen could possibly hope for. The Northrop Grumman Link-16 network allowed every designated track of every surface or subsurface contact—friend, foe, civilian, or unknown—to be immediately shared with every allied system in the hunt. The Polish helos and ships, the American helos and ships, all had the same near-real-time visual understanding of the battle space, and they were all rendered on the digital map on the big table.
Lieutenant Hart glanced up quickly at his captain. “That other Kilo is out there, sir.”
“I know it is, Weps. The question is, will he attack this entire SAU while he’s alone?”
Hart said, “I sure as hell wouldn’t.” He followed that with a “Sir.”
“I wouldn’t, either, unless I got a little blue communications folder from Naples ordering me to. Remember, this isn’t just about the psychology of the Russian captain, or the conventional doctrine of submarine warfare. This is about his orders. Politics is driving this fight. Not the military minds under the sea.”
Hart nodded. “The right move for him, if he is alone, would be to play it safe. If he doesn’t play it safe, if he does attack, it must mean there is another element to this fight I haven�
�t figured out yet.”
Just then, the ASW tactical air controller came over the speakers. “All stations. Casino One-Two is reporting passive broadband contact, bearing zero, zero, eight. Initial classification of contact is POSS-SUB, confidence level high.”
Hart said, “Designate Contact-Enemy Sub One-One.” A red V-shaped indicator showed up on his digital dead-reckoning tracer table a moment later, east of the Polish SAU and eight degrees off the starboard bow of the Greer. This went instantly to everyone on the Link-16 system, meaning all the Polish ships saw the contact from the MH-60 Romeo, as well. The allied vessels only had a single bearing, not enough to identify the track of the submarine.
Seconds later, Hart heard a voice in his headset. “USWE, Sonar. Polish contact designated Friendly Surface Zero Five has gone active sonar.”
“USWE, aye.” Hart looked up to his commander. “That’s one of the two Polish frigates, the Generał Kościuszko. He’s exposing himself to that Kilo.”
Seconds later the same voice said, “USWE, Sonar. Friendly Surface Zero Five has launched two torpedoes. Heading one, eight, eight.”
“USWE, aye. Are they acquiring?”
“Sonar, negative. Not yet.”
Hart and Hagen stood there, hoping like hell the Polish frigate took out the Kilo before it had a chance to fire back. Now that the frigate was actively pulsing the water hunting for echoes, the Kilo would have no difficulty launching Type 53-65s right at it.
Hart said, “The frigate is firing the fish to keep the Kilo on the defensive. We’ll be able to launch an ASROC at the same contact in three minutes, but we’re still out of effective range for now.”
Hagen just nodded.
A radio operator just feet away in the CIC spoke loudly into his mike: “All stations, I have one . . . correction, I have two undersea missile launches. Popping up on the surface. I say again, two Vampires in the air!”
It was quiet in the CIC for two seconds while this information was processed. The Russian Kilo was not known to have undersea missile launch capability. It only had torpedoes and mines.
The commander spoke calmly over Hart’s shoulder. “What bearing?”
Hart asked the question into his mike. “What’s the bearing on the launch?”
“Bearing zero, three, one.”
Hagen and Hart looked down at the display. The missile launch had come from a completely different bearing from the designated contact.
This could mean only one thing. It was a different sub.
Hart said, “Jesus Christ! What the fuck is over there?”
“Calm down, Weps,” Hagen said, then he spoke over the 1-MC net. “All stations. General Quarters. Condition Zebra. Missiles inbound off the starboard bow. Set Aegis to ready-automatic. CWIS to auto-engage. All hands prepare for impact.”
A confirmation of the orders came over the net a moment later.
Hagen looked up at one of the two big Aegis display screens on the wall. A pair of missiles were in the air, forty miles from the James Greer, but only thirteen miles from the Polish frigate that now pinged active sonar. He called over his headset. “EW, this is the captain. Can you ID those Vampires?”
The electronics warfare technician came over the net an instant later. “Captain, EW. Missiles in the air appear to be P-800s. They are not heading for us. Looks like they are going after Friendly Surface Zero Five.”
Hart and Hagen exchanged a glance. Hart said, “That has to be a mistake. The P-800 is the Oniks. The only sub that carries those is the Severodvinsk class, but the Baltic Fleet doesn’t have a—”
Hagen said, “Trust the data in our hands now, Weps. Not the intelligence reports.”
“USWE, Sonar. Passive sonar from friendly Air Zero Nine designates contact at bearing zero, three, one. Initial classification, POSS-SUB high. No cross-fix information. Evaluating acoustics now.”
“USWE, aye,” Hart said, the distraction in his voice noticeable. “We have to get close enough to get a cross fix on that target.”
“USWE, Sonar. Both torpedoes launched by Friendly Surface Zero Five failed to acquire, break. We have solid track on the Kilo.”
“Range to target Enemy Sub Zero One?”
“Range, twenty-four thousand yards.”
Hart spoke softly, not exactly to his captain, not exactly to himself. “That’s just barely in the launch window.” He took a couple of calming breaths and said, “Fire Control, USWE. Launch two ASROCs on Contact-Enemy Sub Zero One.”
A female voice replied instantly. “USWE, Fire Control. Launch two ASROCs on Contact-Enemy Sub Zero One, aye!”
On the deck of the James Greer, a hatch sprang open, and a cloud of white smoke billowed out. From within the smoke, a fourteen-foot-long RUM-139 VL-ASROC antisubmarine rocket launched into the cold night air above a pillar of flame.
Two seconds later another missile cell on the deck launched a second weapon, and it chased its teammate up toward the stars.
Inside the housing of each missile was an MK-54 torpedo, but it did not splash into the water to begin its search immediately. Instead, it lifted high into the sky, pitched over on the heading of the Kilo submarine directly off the ship’s bow, and climbed to a height of 10,000 feet. At the apex of its flight path the missile broke apart and the Mark-54 dropped in free fall toward the water above the submarine contact. Shortly before the Mark-54s hit the water, parachutes deployed from each torpedo, but the devices still hit the water hard enough to descend far below the surface from gravity alone.
Once in the sea, both torpedoes came alive, started up and ran diagnostics of their systems, reported back to the James Greer, and began searching for the exact contact they had been sent into the water to seek out.
Hart was up against two enemy submarines at the same time. As soon as he saw good start-up on his weapons targeting the Kilo, he looked back at the Aegis displays on the wall, just as the Polish frigate Generał Tadeusz Kościuszko was hit midships with an Oniks. The 550-pound warhead detonated into the side of the 444-foot-long vessel, creating a fireball that lit up the sky twenty miles away from the James Greer.
The camera on the top of the Greer’s mast broadcast the explosion to the men and women in the CIC, causing them all to stop what they were doing for a moment.
But not for long. Just as the missile hit its target, the radio operator came back over the net. “All stations, I have three missile pop-ups, bearing zero, four, two! More Vampires in the air! I think they are coming for us.”
“God almighty,” Hart said softly.
78
Marine Lieutenant Colonel Rich Belanger wiped sweat from his eyes, though it couldn’t have been thirty-five degrees here in the back of the LAV-C2 tracked command-and-control vehicle. He’d opened the hatch to let some cool air in, though the cramped conditions and the incredible stress were causing his perspiration.
He’d lost a lot of men in the past two and a half days, but his battalion had done its job. They hadn’t held any sort of a line—no, the Russian armor had been too strong and the mobile multilaunch missile batteries too accurate for Belanger’s battalion to stick to any fixed point for more than a couple of hours. But by giving ground, moving from one configuration of EARLY SENTINEL positioning points to the next all over the eastern part of Lithuania, his weapons company and his three rifle companies had inflicted a disproportionate level of damage on the Russian invasion.
They weren’t doing it alone, of course. The battalion commander realized two factors had worked in his favor in this endeavor. For one, the EARLY SENTINEL program had made it appear to the Russians that the initial breach of the border was going to be all but uncontested, to the point they’d fired only a very limited amount of rockets and artillery in advance of their movements, hoping to limit the damage to the roads, bridges, and other conveyances to keep their attack moving through the nation. This had proved to
be a disaster on the first day of the attack, as the Marines had been in position, ready and waiting, when the armor entered their sectors. In the first four hours of the attack, two dozen Russian tanks were destroyed, both by TOW rockets and air strikes, and this bottlenecked the advance both in the south and in the north. By the time the Russians began heavily assaulting Lithuanian territory with MLRVs, 155-millimeter artillery, and air of their own, the Marines and even most of the Lithuanian Land Force personnel had withdrawn a few miles, and made themselves impossible for the Russian spotters to fix.
The twisted armor blocking the highways just inside the border had created serious logjams for the Russians, logjams that were exploited by American Harriers and F-18s as well as attack helos firing from standoff distance.
After the first two days there was more damage done to the Russians inside Belarus than there had been in Lithuania.
The other component to the battle that had worked in the favor of Belanger and his men was the ferocity of the Lithuanian and Polish forces. He had not seen a single Polish aircraft himself, but his net was alive with reports of Polish F-16s striking well into Kaliningrad behind the other front, disrupting the Russian attack there and taking up more Russian air assets, reducing the threats to Belanger’s front.
And though the Lithuanians had no air to speak of, their ground units had fought heroically with their limited weapons. They’d suffered unspeakable losses, especially in the south near the E28, but they’d killed a lot of Russian armor, and by attacking into the advance, they’d provided the Marines both time and a better tactical picture of the Russian battle plan.
But the good luck the Marines had been enjoying ran out at the end of the second day, when a storm front brought little rain but black low-hanging clouds into the area, severely limiting U.S. and Polish air assets’ ability to prosecute their counterattack.
The Black Sea Rotational Force had spent the last twelve hours getting pummeled by T-90 tanks that had advanced faster and faster. 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines had repositioned; they’d counterattacked in hit-and-run operations that even included the Headquarters and Service Company calling in mortars and engaging dismounts with their M4s, but it had been nothing but small steps forward in a half-day full of large steps back.