Deep State (Anton Modin Book 1)

by Anders Jallai

  “On our immediate agenda now is reinstating our efforts to locate this submarine,” Modin said. “Especially with Loklinth and Special Ops out of commission, temporarily at least, we have a real opportunity to make good progress here. I would like us to get out on the open sea again as soon as possible. For that reason, I have asked Sture to join us today. I would appreciate it if we all refrained from mentioning what played out last night. This is for his sake, but also for our own.”

  “What will be the consequences if we, against all odds, find this wreck?” Axman said.

  “Well, we will once again get our fifteen minutes of fame, and we won’t have to pay for our beer for quite some time,” Bill Bergman said, who had perked up considerably.

  “Yeah, that is one thing,” Modin said. “But provided we succeed, this will also constitute the single most important maritime discovery in modern Swedish history, more important even than finding the flagship Wasa or the DC-3. The discovery of this mini sub will turn modern history on its head.”

  “How do you mean?” Nuder said.

  “If we find a Soviet submarine in Swedish waters that was secretly sunk by the Swedish Navy, everyone in this country, and I mean every frigging Joe Schmoe, will realize that the supposed political neutrality our authorities have been claiming over the years is nothing but a story. It will be like a graduation test for an overprotected population. The myth about the stable and secure welfare state will be shattered. Or at least that is what I am hoping for.”

  “You sound like a frigging right wing politician,” Bergman said.

  “A conservative politician, perhaps, my friend. Do you have a problem with that?” Modin stopped for a few seconds, glaring at Bergman until he lowered his glance.

  “What we are about to accomplish here has nothing to do with right wing politics,” he continued. “I can only tell you that there are a lot of people who want us to succeed. Few have dared to venture into an operation like this, but hopes are high. Look at us as modern crusaders with the Truth—with a capital ‘T,”mind you—guiding us. We will literally bring it to the surface and end those cover-ups once and for all. Fuck, it is going to be nice to see the expression on Matti Svensson’s face when we steam into Grisslehamn harbor, with a Soviet submarine covered in tong and seaweed in tow.”

  “Yeah, what do you think the reaction will be if we cannot only show pictures proving that there actually were Soviet mini subs in Swedish waters, but we can also produce the actual wreck?” Axman asked.

  “First of all, our government will vehemently deny it. Second, they will do all they can to get their hands on the evidence and transport it to somewhere safe and secure. And third, I am sure they will do everything in their power to discredit us, the messengers, and our story. Special Ops, for instance, will not give in without a fight. Lucky for us we not only have the strong support of Amelia Carlson and her empire, but also from other officials in the Swedish business community. We as a nation usually lay down flat for Russia, just to protect our national security and in the end our lives as free citizens. We’re done with that. I am, anyway, but, I do not have the energy to preach anymore. Seriously, Axman, you will have to buy me a beer at The Rock sometime if you want to hear the whole story.”

  Modin threw himself on Axman’s couch and closed his eyes.

  “I will buy you a whole case if we find this mini sub,” Nuder said. “That I can promise you.”

  “Do not forget the peanuts,” Bergman said with a smirk as he leaned back in his chair, hands behind his neck.

  The doorbell rang. It was Sture Hultqvist.

  CHAPTER 58

  “Please clear the table,” Sture said as he entered the room.

  He put a big plastic tote box containing computer equipment at the center of the dining room table before looking around the fancy apartment. The interior and decoration was a bit on the feminine side for his taste, but otherwise, the apartment represented a nice open space. In addition, the view out over the water was gorgeous. A faint smell of paint as if from an art gallery reached his nostrils and made the sides of his nose quiver slightly.

  “I brought some donuts for the coffee,” he said and put a brown paper bag on top of the tote box. “You have a really nice place here, John.”

  John Axman grabbed the paper bag and went into the kitchen. It was time for a new pot of coffee. He put the donuts on a plate while he was waiting for the coffee maker to sputter through its process.

  “Now we have to start getting down to business,” Sture said. “Let’s talk about mini subs.”

  Clearly, Sture was entirely focused on the mission. He brought up a nautical chart on his laptop, where certain areas were highlighted in red, green, and blue.

  “I have marked up the chart with the location of our hits with the magnetometer. All together, it detected metal on the seabed at a total of seven positions. Those seven positions are all highlighted in blue, as you can see here on the nautical chart. Other areas, which I suspect are in the range of a jamming device, are marked in green. Finally, the area where Axman and I spotted the oil slick while you guys where sunbathing on Market Reef, is marked in red. I have applied an Optimal Search Theory algorithm on the whole thing, just about the same way you did with the DC-3, and by that narrowed the probable location down to these three circles.”

  All four of them immediately noticed the position where the three circles intersected. But before they had a chance to start commenting on it, Sture changed the image on the laptop.

  “What you see here is a zoom on the area where the circles intersect. I have done a series of probability calculations, which point to the area with the oil patch as the most probable position, closely followed by the area where the interfering signal is strongest. Looking closely, you can see that there are two magnetometer indications in this particular quadrant. One is at a depth of 400 feet and the other one at 470 feet.”

  “How reliable are those indications and your calculations,” Bergman asked with eyes wide open.

  “We know for a fact that the area is supposed to be electronically jammed. For that reason alone, I would rank it as one hundred percent, or a one-point-zero on the probability scale. We also know that the object we are looking for is at least partially made out of metal. Also, that ranks it as one-point-zero on the same scale. In my view, the oil slick has the lowest value of probability, maybe somewhere around point-five, but that can always be debated. If we sum up these three values, we end up with two-and-a-half, which we then divide by a number of measures, in our case three, at which point we end up at 0.833. That means there is a little more than eighty-three percent chance that our object can be found where all three circles intersect.”

  “Eighty-three percent,” Modin said. “So, beyond any reasonable doubt, that is where it is.”

  “Not entirely, there is still an ounce of doubt, remember that,” Sture said as he removed his glasses and started polishing them.

  “Well, it is pretty certain, and that is good enough for me,” Modin said. “I have been fighting academic scientists like you all my life. I have yet to figure out how you masochists work.”

  The sharpened tone in Modin’s voice made Sture stare down at the floor for a second. In a convoluted way, and clearly with an answer on the tip of his tongue, he put the glasses back on his nose again. The comeback waltzed around in his pallet; he pulled a finger until his knuckle made a cracking noise, but he could not bring himself to deliver his response.

  “Okay, so that is it,” Bergman said in an attempt to diffuse the situation that had started to build. “How the hell do we ride the bull or whatever they say over in the U.S.A.?”

  “How do you ride a bull?” Harry Nuder said and was seeking eye contact with Sture.

  “Roughly how big of an area are we talking about?” Modin said sounding unruffled.

  “Approximately nine hundred by nine hundred feet,” Sture said. “Not that bad.”

  “Well, that is bad if we are to dive at the c
rushing depth of 470 feet,” Bergman said. “We cannot dive at both locations at the same time. We have to pick one of them.”

  “In that case, let us do the deeper one first,” Modin said with a smile as if there was not a worry in the world. “That location is also outside of Swedish territorial waters. That adds an extra few percent in probability, right Sture?”

  Sture chose not to comment.

  “Go figure,” Bergman said. “I should never have opened my big mouth. Man, 470 feet down…”

  CHAPTER 59

  GRISSLEHAMN, TUESDAY, JULY 29

  In the afternoon, Bergman and Nuder drove the Hulk out to Grisslehamn and moored it at Modin’s landing dock. The RIB boat seemed grotesquely big with its three 350-horsepower outboard motors, especially here in such a narrow strait framed by reed.

  Miss Mona scurried in under the boathouse and would not come out, although they called and coaxed her repeatedly.

  Bergman was packing the boat while Nuder was filling air cylinders over in the diving shed. The old 1980s hit You’re Gonna Get It by the Swedish band Trance Dance blasted from a boom box that someone had put on the grass halfway down to the boat.

  Harry Nuder carried the newly filled air tanks down to the boat, one twin pack in each hand. He was the only one capable of doing that since each twin set weighed close to a hundred pounds.

  Bergman carefully folded up his wetsuit and put it in the bag with his scuba fins on top and the scuba mask in one of the side pockets. On top of it all, before zipping up the bag, he put a clean towel. He was concerned about the upcoming dive. For so many reasons. He knew he had to inform his contact about their mission tonight to hold up his end of the bargain that would keep his daughter safe. But he was worried about the implications for his friends. What would happen? Were they in danger? Should he quit? Tell the others he has become sick? Tell the others that he had become a spy? Fuck! He had no way out.

  John Axman arrived in his BMW.

  “Modin and Sture will be here shortly,” he shouted. “They are riding in separate cars.”

  Axman grabbed his air cylinders from the backseat and brought them over to the diving shed where the air compressor was humming along. Bergman told him how they had just purchased a new hypermodern gas mixing unit, which Sture had installed a couple of weeks ago. It had capacity for both Trimix-helium mixed with air-and for Nitrox-oxygen-induced air for the decompression phase.

  Nuder was also carrying air cylinders containing pure oxygen down to the boat; the Hulk was slowly filling up.

  “We are lucky this boat is so big,” he said. “We got to make sure there is room for us, too. At least this time around, we do not have to bring the bulky search equipment, which is a good thing. The only things we need are the two GPS coordinates, which Sture has already programmed into the chart-plotter.”

  Nuder cracked open a can of Coke and sat down on the landing dock. When Modin and Sture finally showed up around six, Modin immediately started unloading his car. Sture, whose job was mainly done, took on a spectator role. He was duly impressed by the determination and structured procedure with which the group went about their preparations.

  Modin noticed how Sture lugged a large, orange buoy down to the boat.

  Nothing wrong with the energy and the motivation in this group, Modin thought at the same time as he brought his Diving Unlimited International dry-suit and packed it away in the Hulk. He loved that suit, although it was over ten years old and had been patched several times. It also had a certain sentimental value since it had been with him for many of his famous diving projects in the past. The first time he had used it was when they dove down to the champagne wreck Jönköping in the summer of 1997. One of the framed pictures on the wall in the diving shed showed Modin wearing that suit with Champagne bottles in each hand. At his side stood Bergman with a big smile, his best friend all these years. Fuck!

  As they were about to wrap up, they sat down on the landing dock, just waiting for the last twin pack of Trimix to fill up. It was now around eight o’clock, and the sun was low on the horizon, creating glare on the surface of the small inlet. It was a balmy 73 degrees and completely calm.

  Modin went and grabbed four bottles of beer from the refrigerator by the sauna. He handed them out, and after having raised a toast to what was to come, they all drank their beers in silence.

  “I suggest you all go to bed and get some rest. I will wake you up around one o’clock in the morning,” Modin said and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Estimated time of departure around two o’clock with the first dive an hour later, at three. The plan is to be back here, at home, before dawn breaks around five. What do you think?”

  “You guys hit the sack, I’d rather stay right here for a little while,” Bergman said and squinted toward the intense evening sun at the end of the bay, creating and orange glare on the surface. “Have you got any more beer, Modin? You know everything could stop right here and right now, and I would be happy. This is just perfect.”

  Axman was about to say something, but Modin silenced him with a stern look. Axman leaned back again and adjusted his folding chair so he was facing the sun.

  “Yeah, things could definitely be a lot worse than this,” Nuder said contentedly and took a good swig from his bottle.

  He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a little while.

  Suddenly Bergman’s cell phone rang. He jerked when looking at the display, and the expression of content vanished from his face. Modin and Axman exchanged a look while Bergman hurried over to the diving shed, where the noisy compressor was humming along, before accepting the call.

  Axman shrugged his shoulders and appealed to Modin: “Modin, please.”

  “No, not now,” Modin stood up. He looked at Bergman for a long time and then left for the main house. Nothing more was said.

  • • •

  Meanwhile in Grisslehamn, a navy surveillance vessel moored at the dock right beneath the restaurant, The Rock. Commander Larsen, who had reached the respectable age of 57, went ashore along with a younger officer somewhere in his thirties. Larson had received and accepted this special assignment straight from the Chief of Staff at navy headquarters. They had set out from the naval base at Muskö in the morning. Onboard were live ordnance and depth charges in addition to a handpicked crew from a special operations unit within the navy.

  The order had been issued by the Highest Supreme Commander, His Majesty the King of Sweden, and effectuated by the Navy Chief of Staff.

  Commander Larsen had been a sonar operator onboard the patrol boat Hugin, which had sunk the Russian submarine over twenty-four years ago. This was not a known fact among his crew members. His career had stalled after that incident in 1982, until he finally managed to land a desk job at Navy Headquarters, responsible for coordinating SWEDINT, the branch in charge of planning and carrying out international missions.

  The two naval officers dressed in dark blue sweaters with shoulder straps and the navy-blue service cap, stepped up onto the deck of The Rock and were greeted by Joint, who was dressed all in white. They shook hands and exchanged a few words, all with concerned looks on their faces.

  The surveillance vessel was solemnly idling, engines humming, where she was moored in the harbor beneath the restaurant.

  Two young boys on bicycles stopped by to check her out. There was an aura of urgency in the air. The level of activity onboard was higher than usual, and the two boys took notice. They stood for a while, watching the whole spectacle. Attached to the aft deck of the vessel was a yellow diving vehicle, a submersible capsule they had never seen before, with a giant spool of yellow fluorescent cable attached to its side.

  The dull pounding of an approaching helicopter filled the air. It had the word ‘Navy’ painted on both sides of its fuselage, and after hovering for a little while, it set down in the parking lot right outside the hotel. The helicopter pilot remained on full alert. The two boys had no way of knowing that his orders were to be able to t
ake off again with only minutes of advanced notice.

  Summer tourists and recreational boaters ran their usual errands scurrying back and forth across the harbor yard on their way to restaurants and shops. Except for the two boys on their bicycles, nobody paid any particular attention to the two unusual crafts.

  On the other end of the Baltic Sea, at the inlet of the Gulf of Finland and just south of Hangö, a Russian ocean survey vessel was steaming westward. Following underneath and slightly behind her were two Russian Kilo-class attack subs, each a length of 220 feet. Their course was set for the Sea of Åland.

  Map of Northern Europe/Scandinavia

  CHAPTER 60

  GRISSLEHAMN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1:00 A.M.

  “Wake up, one of the navy’s surveillance ships is anchored up in Grisslehamn harbor,” Nuder hissed into Modin’s ear.

  Modin woke up with a start. He looked at his wristwatch. It was midnight, and he had slept for only two hours. He was looking straight up into Nuder’s dark eyes. They were drowsy.

  Nuder threw his arms out.

  “Someone has been talking!” he said. “I just received a text message from my sister, who is a receptionist at the hotel. A couple of navy officers with crews from both the ship and a helicopter checked in last night. The ship is moored right by The Rock. This is no coincidence.”

  “Calm down, Nuder. Please wake up the other guys. I need some time to think.”

  Modin sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took a couple of deep breaths and then put on his jeans. He grabbed a gray sweater and, still barefoot, went down the stairs into the kitchen, where he started to make coffee.

  After a couple of minutes, Axman came down, fully dressed.

  “What was that all about?” he said. “What is going on?”

  “Apparently there is full racket down in the harbor. One of the navy’s vessels arrived with one of their helicopters. It simply has to be us they are planning to watch. I cannot see any other reason why all of a sudden naval forces would be deployed to this remote area. I will check with my contact at Security Service.”