Arctic Gambit

by Larry Bond

  “Jerry, I want to sit in on your meeting tomorrow.”

  He quickly suppressed his initial response—“What?”—and after a very short pause, substituted the more measured, “Is that a good idea?” He knew she was referring to the Jimmy Carter’s mission debrief. Jerry wasn’t surprised that she knew about it. And come to think of it, classification wasn’t really an issue, either. Joanna had been President Myles’s national security advisor. When her husband Lowell had been elected, she’d had to resign, but she remained well connected. She’d handpicked her successor, Bill Hyland, of course.

  But she had difficulties with the transition. Emily and Jerry had spent more than one evening talking about what it must have been like to go from being one of the most powerful people in the U.S. government to someone who was supposed to host social events and encourage children’s environmental programs. And to be completely on the outside of whatever was going on in the world.

  “What does David think of the idea?” he asked carefully.

  “He’s against it, of course. And I can see his point,” she admitted. “But this is very important to me, as well.”

  “Why?” Jerry asked, trying to stall, as well as understand. He didn’t fly cross-country to get caught in a disagreement between the president and the first lady.

  “I need to be there,” she insisted.

  “Mrs. Jennings, I’m trying to understand why,” Jerry repeated.

  “Because it was my responsibility,” she replied sadly. “In my old job, I remember signing off on the … tasking. I didn’t pick who did the work, but I was the one who endorsed the job.”

  Jerry made the connection. As national security advisor, Joanna had recommended approving a CIA request to send a sub north to investigate Bolshevik Island. No wonder she was so distressed.

  Jerry could relate, but he wasn’t moved. “This afternoon, I met the person who thought of the task. He feels pretty bad, too. And I’ll bet the person who actually made the decision to execute probably feels really bad, as well. But I don’t hold them, or you, responsible for what happened.”

  “That’s what David said as well, but…”

  Jerry understood how hard it was for her to let go of something she was so intimately involved with. “I don’t think we’ll arrive at any final answers tomorrow,” Jerry offered. “We’ll probably end up just asking new questions. And you are completely off the wiring diagram now. Even if they broke the rules and let you sit in, you couldn’t ask any questions yourself.”

  She didn’t answer right away. Jerry asked, “Won’t you be there when they fill David in on what happened?”

  “Of course,” she admitted.

  “Then you can ask the briefer all the questions you want,” he pointed out.

  “As long as David’s sitting next to me!” Joanna fumed. “But I guess that’s all I’m allowed.”

  “I think your new job is harder than your old one,” sympathized Jerry.

  “I should go,” she said finally. “Give my love to Emily and Charlotte.”

  “And please tell David we’re all behind you both.”

  She broke the connection, and Jerry relaxed.

  10 July 2021

  0930 Eastern Daylight Time

  The Pentagon

  Arlington, Virginia

  * * *

  Jerry took the Metro to the Pentagon, one more navy captain in a sea of uniforms passing through security and navigating the miles of painted concrete corridors. He found the office where he’d been briefed yesterday afternoon without a problem, but had wondered about the keypad. He assumed that there was an intercom, or at least a doorbell of some sort. But the gray metal door was propped open, with two armed sailors guarding the door and checking in all arrivals. Captain Mitchell’s name was indeed on the list, and after carefully examining his ID, they let him pass.

  The hall that was so empty yesterday was now filled with people in uniform, mostly navy, with a sprinkling of business suits. The conference room where he’d been read into the Tensor compartment seemed far too small for this many people, but the other doors appeared to lead to offices, so Jerry followed the crowd.

  The conference room was nearly filled with people, and was clearly not the venue for the mission debrief, but in true navy tradition, had been furnished with two coffeemakers and numerous boxes of donuts, which showed signs of attrition.

  A table at one end of the room had a large model of an Improved Los Angeles–class sub, while framed pictures in front of the model showed the crew of Toledo at different sporting events and group photos. It was a nice touch, Jerry thought, but it did make the briefing seem a little more like a wake.

  He scanned the crowd. Dr. Perry was speaking with a two-star admiral while Abbott hovered nearby. Searching each knot of conversation in turn, he finally spotted Commander Louis Weiss, CO of Jimmy Carter, with SUBRON Twelve’s commander, Captain Dorr. Weiss was almost as short as Jerry, thus hard to find in a crowd.

  Fortunately, they were standing next to one of the coffeemakers, which saved time. Both saw Jerry’s approach and by the time he’d reached them, Weiss was offering his commodore a just-filled cup.

  Jerry shook hands with both, then gratefully sipped while he congratulated Jimmy Carter’s skipper. “Lou, you did a five-oh job up there. You’re out here, so I’m guessing you’re all prepped and ready to go.”

  Weiss nodded, but for someone who could maneuver a nuclear submarine close to the Russian border, he looked a little nervous. “Most of the submarine chain of command is going to be in there. Putting together the brief was easy, but I keep on worrying that my dolphins are on upside down.”

  Dorr reassured him. “I’ve checked twice, Lou. You’re fine. And I don’t blame you,” the commodore observed. “The whole Navy wants to know what happened to Toledo.”

  “They aren’t going to like the answer,” Weiss replied grimly.

  “I think it’s more accurate to say they aren’t going to like what the answer implies,” Jerry added.

  LCDR Travis appeared next to the three. “Gentlemen, the CNO’s party is on their way down.” That was the signal to find a chair, and Travis added, “Right and down the hall.” He told Jerry, “You’re in the second row.”

  A much larger conference room, almost an auditorium, looked tailor-made for debriefs. As Jerry entered, he could see that seats were being filled quickly. Neatly lettered index cards marked each chair, and Jerry found himself sitting between Commodore Dorr on one side and a civilian he didn’t recognize, who turned out to be one of the deputy undersecretaries of the navy.

  Weiss was at the podium, while Perry helped make last-minute equipment checks. The incoming stream thinned, but increased in rank. Jerry recognized two other east coast squadron commanders, who must have also flown in, then SUBFOR, a three-star who was responsible for every submarine in the U.S. Navy.

  Travis called “Attention on deck!” as Secretary of Defense Richfield came in with the National Security Advisor, Bill Hyland, closely followed by the Secretary of the Navy, Clifford Gravani, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Bernard Hughes. The quartet was followed by a gaggle of aides and assistants. The instant all four were seated, the lights dimmed and Commander Weiss began speaking.

  After introducing himself, Weiss quickly reviewed receiving his new orders and Jimmy Carter’s voyage to the designated search area. The trip had been routine, and without incident, but procedure demanded at least a summary. He then described the two unmanned underwater vehicles the submarine carried, their capabilities and limitations.

  He spent more time on the search plan, especially since it had taken his UUVs within spitting distance of Russian territorial waters. There had been a contingency plan that actually extended the UUVs’ sensors across the border, but this had required the remotes to maneuver right up to the edge of Russian waters, within what Weiss had described as the “control margin.” Luckily, that was unnecessary.

  The slide they’d all waited for a
ppeared next.

  It was impossible to get all of Toledo into a single photograph, but someone in the crew with very good graphics skills had created a mosaic of the UUVs’ close-in shots. The viewpoint was almost directly overhead, but showed the boat on her starboard side, the sail half-buried in the mud. She lay on a slight slope, with the bow down and the screw, stern planes, and rudder well clear of the bottom.

  A wave of sadness passed through Jerry, and he heard softly spoken comments from those around him. The most common was “Rest in peace.” The image made it all too real. Then he took a mental breath and pushed his feelings to one side. He had to focus on the how and why, rather than who.

  Carter’s captain gave the audience a moment to take it in, then added a symbol marking the location of the torpedo hit. A Los Angeles–class submarine was 360 feet long and 33 feet in diameter, and the opening marked by the small red circle didn’t look all that lethal. Of course, neither did a bullet hole in a corpse.

  Weiss was explaining what they believed was the sequence of events. “We believe the hit flooded the forward compartment very quickly, but it appears the forward reactor compartment bulkhead was weakened by the blast and eventually gave way as well, so over half of the submarine’s interior was flooded within minutes.

  “She impacted the bottom very hard. Note the crushed sonar dome, and the impression along the seabed suggests the hull bounced two, possibly three times before coming to a stop. The propeller shaft was badly bent, which means the engine room probably also flooded, albeit the rate of flooding would have been slower. No one on board could have survived for any significant length of time, and she was too deep to attempt an escape. I had the UUVs listen carefully along the engine room, just in case; there were no indications of survivors.”

  Weiss’s words were chilling and comforting at the same time. This was every submariner’s nightmare, and the only mercy could be that it was over quickly. Toledo was far too deep to ever be raised, but they were no longer lost. The navy would be able to tell the crew’s loved ones where they lay.

  The next image zoomed out from the sub, including more of the surrounding seabed. A new circle appeared, some distance away from the hull. “We evaluate this debris as the rear section of an MPT-1 Kolibri torpedo, based on measurements of its diameter—324 millimeters.” A close-up showed a crumpled cylinder with a tapered end and two propellers. “This torpedo is a copy of an early U.S. Mark 46 and is currently only used in the PMK-2 moored, propelled warhead mine and the 91R and 92R ASW missiles.”

  Another debris symbol appeared, closer to the hull. In the detail photo, it turned out to be a cylindrical object, even smaller than the torpedo remains. One end was damaged. Jerry recognized it instantly as a SATCOM buoy. It was designed to be launched from a submarine’s signal ejector, float to the surface, and transmit an encrypted message via satellite. It allowed submarines, who did their level best to stay hidden, to transmit messages without revealing their location. The satellite would relay the recorded message to nearby ships or planes, or back to shore, as needed. It even had a timer so the sub could be well away from the place before the buoy started sending. After transmitting, it would sink to the bottom.

  From the damage, it appeared that Toledo’s buoy had never reached the surface, instead striking the underside of an ice floe. Even in June, the ice cap never disappeared completely at that latitude, instead turning into a mush of broken ice. Pieces ranged in size from a breadbox to a small town, and constantly crashed into each other, creating smaller pieces and enough noise to seriously interfere with sonar detection.

  “Our UUV Walter successfully recovered the buoy, and our techs were able to download the information from the magnetic media.”

  Jackpot! Jerry felt excitement displace the sadness. That fact had not been in the earlier reports. In fact, Weiss’s message hadn’t even mentioned the buoy. It had probably taken Carter’s information techs several days of careful work to download the buoy’s information.

  A nautical chart of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans appeared on the screen. “This shows Toledo’s track from Groton into the Arctic Ocean.” The scene shifted to a close up of the northern part. “Here’s her last twenty-four hours of movement.” Toledo’s course arrowed directly toward Bolshevik Island and the Prima Polar Station. Initially, she closed to within twenty miles off the Russian border. Toledo then settled into a back-and-forth racetrack, paralleling the border. Each leg brought the sub slightly closer to the twelve-mile line that marked Russia’s territorial waters.

  The final leg almost merged with the Russian border. “It was shortly after turning onto a southbound leg, at one four zero degrees, that Toledo triggered the PMK-2 mine. At that time, the boat was inside a thousand yards of the border, and even at creep speed, and with the high background noise from the ice, was within the detection range of the mine’s passive sonar.”

  Weiss answered one question before it was asked. “We saw nothing in Toledo’s logs about her using her own mine avoidance sonar.” Mounted in the sail, the high-frequency active sonar was useless for general search, but could see small objects, like floating mines or underwater obstacles, at very short ranges. Nodding toward Admiral Gold, he said, “The investigating board will have to make the final determination, but Captain Berg had no reason to expect a mine or any type of barrier at the very edge of Russian territorial waters. Using active sonar, even the high-frequency set, would have increased the risk of detection, which he was trying very hard to avoid.

  “Our analysis of Toledo’s sonar logs was limited by time, and the equipment aboard Carter, which while quite good, is not as extensive as that available ashore.”

  The commander pressed a key and a series of yellow lines appeared, all starting from some point on Toledo’s track and pointing toward to a single area, marked with a bright yellow circle. “After starting her back-and-forth approach, she would periodically go shallow enough to use her electronic surveillance mast. The logs note several aborted attempts because of the ice, but she detected several surface search, navigation radars that all seemed to be concentrated off the northwest coast of the island.

  “As she got closer, her sonar started making passive detections at just under eighteen nautical miles from the coast. The noises were mostly transients, but definitely man-made. As she closed, they became steadier, more mechanical, but still showed no pattern. It wasn’t until she’d approached within a few thousand yards of the CTML that they could be classified at all. To Carter’s very experienced and skilled sonarmen, they sound like metal clanging on metal, random but definite. They heard other more regular sounds. The frequencies they produced are consistent with electric motors and pumps. There were also occasional bursts of more common diesel propulsion, typical of diesel ships.”

  Weiss paused dramatically, and smiled. “In one case, we were able to correlate the engine noises to a specific vessel, a new Project 22220 Arktika-class icebreaker.” He tapped the keyboard again and a photograph of the ship appeared, taken through a periscope.

  Jerry could only smile, although it still hurt. Lenny had gotten close enough to use the periscope! He heard a murmur, and someone actually clapped. The vessel had a black hull with a high bow, typical of an icebreaker, and a bright red superstructure. A large crane mounted amidships was lowering an equally large cylinder into the water. Another barge tied alongside held similar cylinders.

  “There were six images in the buoy’s memory. This is the clearest of them. Two were taken at an earlier time, and then four in this sequence show this vessel supporting some sort of underwater construction.”

  And getting in close to take those photos is probably what triggered the mine. Jerry tried to guess at the cylinder’s size and purpose. Fuel tanks? Pipes? Or launch tubes? They could confirm it with measurements from the photos, but he was willing to bet his dress uniform that a Status-6 torpedo could be fitted inside.

  Weiss finished his brief with a burst of organizational and procedural infor
mation, and while the audience did not clap, Jerry could hear a murmur of approval as the chief of naval operations rose, shook CDR Weiss’s hand, and took his place at the podium.

  “Captain, well done! Thanks to your efforts, Toledo’s mission was not in vain. You brought home vital information that the crew of Toledo gave their lives to collect. Information that we now have to put to good use.” Admiral Hughes had started out smiling broadly, but his expression became grimmer as he spoke. “However, as with most important tasks, processing the data is just the first step.”

  Nodding toward the national security advisor, Hughes ordered, “Our most urgent priority will be to make recommendations to NSA Hyland about Russia’s responsibility for the loss of Toledo. We need to determine if this minefield is inside Russian territorial waters, or outside, in international waters. If it’s the latter, then this is a violation of international law, of course. But is it a new policy? Are there other such minefields we should be concerned about near Russian military facilities?

  “Our response to the Russians ties in with my responsibility to inform the families of Toledo’s crew. We are obligated to give them as much information as possible, consistent with security needs. Reconciling those two requirements will not be simple.

  “And thirdly, we have to continue to investigate Russian activities at the Prima Ice Base. I won’t be able to relax until we have a much clearer idea of what they’re up to.”

  Jerry thought, Which means we won’t get to relax, either.

  6

  GROWING CONCERNS

  10 July 2021

  2000 Local Time

  The Admiralty Building

  St. Petersburg, Russia

  * * *

  Captain Lavrov was not a happy man when his mobile phone buzzed. He had barely managed to slip away from his office when he received the urgent call to hurry back. Despite the inconvenience, the call was justified. It took him only a few minutes to review the latest satellite imagery, and with renewed energy he got back to work. An hour later, Lavrov phoned Captain First Rank Drugov.