“Okay,” Boris Andrews said very quietly, staring at a small square instrument he had taped inside his guidebook. “This is it. Let’s go.”
He bounded across the grass and slid through the undergrowth into the wood, followed by his three companions. Nurse Dubranin was hurrying along behind them, trying to remove her wig. They moved with swift, sure steps, guided by their leader, who now had his GPS in his hand, leading them to the last way point he’d entered several weeks previously.
It was darker in here than it had been on the road because of the dense foliage above them. But in the gloom of these critical minutes, Messrs. Andrews, Nichols, Maklov, and Rabovitz ceased to exist. And the four US Navy SEALs, looking ridiculous in their old-man disguises, moved swiftly, easing branches and bushes aside as they ran. Edith Dubranin, running fast, with the trained skill of the CIA field officer Angela Rivera, followed in their wake.
They reached the rising ground just below the big straggly bush they sought, and the light appeared brighter in front of them now as the mile-deep wood prepared to give way to open farmland. They arrived, silently, tearing off their disguises with relief, and placed them in a neat pile.
Ray Schaeffer was under the bush like a ground-hog, scrabbling for the shovel, which he found in twenty seconds flat. He and Rick Hunter grabbed the bush and heaved it out of the ground. The Lieutenant Commander ordered young Jason, the late Mr. Rabovitz, to stand guard. “Patrol around us…if you see anyone, warn us with two owl-hoots, and hide. Let him come on in if he must, then take him out with this combat knife, instantly. Right now we have zero margin for error.”
Rick Hunter handed over the knife. “Start digging right there,” he ordered the late asthmatic Sten Nichols, who he now referred to as Harry, “…not deep…the canister doors are right on top, no more than a coupla feet below the surface.”
It took less than five minutes to uncover and open the door. Lieutenant Commander Hunter took charge of the unloading of the first canister, while Petty Officer Harry started digging for canister number two. Inside, Rick found four sets of wet suits carefully packed in sealed plastic bags, each one containing a numbered pair of flippers—the white painted number each SEAL had been awarded on the day he passed his BUD/S course, the number that would follow him throughout his career in the elite Navy corps.
Angela took over now, arranging the packs in a line and then placing on top of each one a SEAL’s Draeger Mk V, the underwater breathing apparatus that leaves no bubbles behind and no noise to betray the presence of the combat swimmers to an alert sentry. The cylinder holds thirteen cubic feet of oxygen at two thousand pounds per square inch. A trained SEAL, breathing steadily, has four hours of air in his Draeger, but stress and adrenaline can empty the oxygen supply in half that time. The equipment is a hefty thirty-five pounds on dry land but is virtually weightless underwater.
Already packed, in with the wet suits, was each SEAL’s modern, commercial scuba-diving mask, which fit perfectly, but such masks are apt to be manufactured in fluorescent greens, oranges, and reds to attract attention. Each SEAL had, naturally, taped or black painted his personal mask, and each one had been carefully checked and wrapped by the instructors back at Coronado.
Beneath the underwater equipment Rick Hunter found four SEALs attack boards—the small, two-handed platforms that contain a compass, depth gauge, and watch right in front of the swimmer’s eyes as he kicks forward. It keeps the swimmer straight and keeps him on time; it helps him check his likely oxygen consumption; and keeps him cool and steady with all the information he needs effortlessly at hand. Two SEALs usually share one board, but Rick Hunter thought they should have one each for this mission, since they would be traveling subsurface all the way there and back, and would have to separate under the barges.
At the bottom of the first canister were two light machine guns—Soviet designed RPD’s, with six ammunition clips each. Rick grunted, as he dug for the door of canister two, “The guns are for Ray and me. There’s gonna be pistols for all five of us.”
The second door came open, and inside there were two old canvas bags containing obvious street clothes for the SEALs—jeans, shirts, and sport jackets, socks and Topsiders. Beneath them were four packages of Semtex explosive, 160 pounds of the stuff grouped into sets of eight charges, each one weighing five pounds, and each with a separate timing device, and a separate magnetic clamp.
Ray had the third canister open by now, and he pulled out more explosives and timers, plus five Sig SAUER 9mm pistols with ammunition clips. There were also five sheathed Kaybar combat knives, and the standard medical and survival supplies, plus ground sheets and ponchos they might need should they have to take to the hills and walk out. On the floor of the canister was a flashlight, a pair of powerful binoculars, ten chocolate bars, and five large bottles of fizzy water. Plus another hunk of Semtex fixed to a wooden board designed as a booby trap, with a battery detonator.
They dumped their disguises into the underground canisters, pulled on their wet suits, and prepared to walk to the lake. They would carry flippers and Draegers by hand, with the two rifles, pistols, knives, and explosives strapped and clipped on their cross belts. It took no more than five minutes for each man to become battle-ready.
Angela cleared up as they went, organizing what was now their home base. The plan had been reviewed over and over. They were to make their way back here afterward and get rid of as much stuff as they could before heading off across the fields to the main road, which ran north-south, one mile to the west. Angela wore a loaded pistol at her side, and a Kaybar handily strapped to her belt close to her right hand. It was agreed that she would make her way to the shore of the lake in one hour and wait on the edge of the wood in case there should be an observant passerby. She knew if someone came along at the wrong time, she would have no option but to kill instantly.
They shook hands silently, and the SEALs set off in the twilight of the wood, arriving at the outer edge of the trees, gazing out from the undergrowth to the still light waters of the lake. It was 0145 exactly. They stood quietly, to make certain the coast was clear, then slipped across the dirt road. Crouching low, they made their way into the long grass that grew in the shallow lake water, listening for any unusual sounds above the sigh of the summer wind in the reeds, and the constant whine of mosquitoes.
But there was something else. Something that sounded like a ship’s engine. They peered out through the bulrushes, looking along to the Andropov, moored with lights blazing a half mile to the south. The sound was nearer now, a steady buzzing from the other direction. This was bad news, and it was arriving at the worst possible time. Jason, unaware, was trying to return Rick Hunter’s sheathed hunting knife, and he tossed it forward to the SEAL leader. But he tossed it too far, and to his horror it missed Rick’s outstretched hand, hitting the water with a significant splash five feet beyond the edge of the bulrushes where Rick stood.
“Fucking HELL!” snapped Schaeffer. “This is an outboard motor, about fifty yards away. One of the ship’s little inflatables…I guess the one Pieter said he takes passengers out on for a dollar a ride. FUCK. He’s coming this way. THERE’S SOME BASTARD WITH HIM, RICK…he must have seen the knife splash…he can’t miss us. They’ll probably start fishing right here.”
“Get your stuff off,” Lieutenant Commander Hunter snapped immediately. “Stand up and greet them, keep only your knife handy. Get rid of everything else. Jason, get over and help him. Ray…call them over in Russian. Smile and wave.”
The SEAL leader moved forward into deeper water, sliding under the surface with his heavy equipment. The noise of the outboard was louder now, and in the shallows Rick could see that Ray was standing bareheaded in his wet suit, shoulders out of the water.
“Hi there, Pieter,” he called, in the elderly voice of Andre Maklov. “There’s good fish in here. Come and see…help me catch him…we grill for breakfast on the barbecue back there.”
Rick heard the young Russian answer quizzi
cally, in the hesitant words of a man who recognized someone but on the other hand had not seen the person before. “Who’s that, Mr. Maklov? Okay? Where’s Mr. Andrews?”
The boat drew nearer, slowing right down as it came up alongside Lieutenant Schaeffer. The SEAL now recognized Pieter’s companion as Torbin, the head waiter from the ship, and he greeted them both warmly, ignoring the fact that he was no longer disguised as a seventy-six-year-old. Rick heard the Andropov steward speak again. “Do I know you…?”
Rick then came to the surface. His feet found the bottom, and he shoved the rubberized hull upward with all of his strength. Pieter, standing, overbalanced and pitched forward, not quite out of the boat.
Ray Schaeffer grabbed the Russian’s blond hair and heaved him into the water, plunging his long Kaybar combat knife between the fifth and sixth ribs, cutting clean through Pieter’s pounding heart.
His friend, still hanging from the rear seat, was about to cry out when Harry Starck vaulted off the bottom and into the boat. His right hand found the Russian’s windpipe, crushing it from behind. He simultaneously slammed his Kaybar right through the head waiter’s back, stopping his heart as abruptly as Schaeffer had stopped Pieter’s. With the boat now upside down, the engine, starved of air, also died.
“You drag the boat, Ray, I’ll bring the bodies,” said Lieutenant Commander Hunter. “Get ’em inshore, dump ’em in the water, facedown. Get the engine off, deflate the boat over on top of ’em, and weight it down with the outboard. Could be weeks before anyone finds anything in the middle of these fucking weeds.”
The exercise took six minutes. The two SEALs then returned to where Harry and Jason waited. For the umpteenth time Rick went over the plan. He glanced at his watch, which now read 0210. “We’ll delay for a couple more minutes while your adrenaline settles down,” he said. “Otherwise we might run out of air…meanwhile, you all know what to do…take a bearing on the middle barge and head straight for it…deploy underwater one man for each vessel…attach the eight charges at fifty-foot intervals down the starboard side of the front two, starting fifty feet from the bow. That’s Harry and Jason. Ray, you know you’re taking the rear barge—the separate one—and placing your charges on the port side, same distance apart, starting a hundred feet from the bow. Timers are set and synchronized for twenty-four hours from the time of the first charge, right?”
“Right, sir.”
“Jason, remember now…measure your distance. Each kick takes you ten feet, that’s five between charges. Breathe slowly and carefully. Look for the bilge keel and get them clamped up behind it. I’m not sure of the depth or the clarity of the water. But stay deep anyway. We’re looking at forty minutes to get out there, forty minutes under the barges, and forty minutes back. If you are not back here in two hours and fifteen minutes, I’ll assume you’re dead, and come out to replace you myself.”
It was now 0220. Rick Hunter, the strongest swimmer, would stay behind, sitting in the shallows, watching the barges through the binoculars. If one of his men were still missing at 0435, he would immediately swim out there himself and check out the barge that had been worked on by the missing man. He would, if necessary, attach his own charges to the bottom, and then search for his missing colleague.
Each of the SEALs nodded curtly. Ray announced he felt no adrenaline running right now, and that he was ready to go. Lieutenant Commander Hunter nodded. “That’s it, guys. Go do it.”
Lieutenant Ray Schaeffer and his men slipped silently under the water, each kicking forward with their attack boards held in front of them at arm’s length, the compass bearing set on 044, one tick light of due northeast. Rick had calculated the barges were around three-quarters of a mile offshore, which at 4,500 feet meant the SEALs must kick 450 times to reach them, a little more than eleven kicks a minute…their rhythm would be steady KICK…one…two…three…four…KICK…one…two…three…four…Kick and glide, kick and glide, all the way to Admiral Zhang’s submarines.
The SEALs would not come to the surface. The first they would know of their proximity to the Kilos would be from the darkness in the water. The key was to stay on bearing. They swam together silently, three jet black figures running deep, twelve feet below the surface, so as to leave no ripples.
After twenty minutes Ray Schaeffer had counted to 240—ahead of schedule—and on either side of him he could see his two colleagues, both moving effortlessly through the water like the SEALs they were. The compass bearing remained on 044, and they were more than halfway. At the thirty-minute mark, he had counted to 340 exactly. They were slowing down, but still just ahead of schedule. The final ten minutes would be the worst. The trick was not to press, not to force anything, otherwise they would kill their oxygen supply prematurely.
Deliberately, Ray slowed just a little. There was now a pain in his upper thighs, right in the place where it always hurt on a long swim. But he could fight through that. The lactic acid buildup was not that bad. Not as bad as it had been the night they had carried the canisters. One hundred and ten kicks more, that was all he needed. No sweat. He could make that on willpower alone.
But they all received an unexpected bonus right here. Lieutenant Rick Hunter had slightly overestimated the distance as three-quarters of a mile. After only thirty-six minutes of swimming they were suddenly overwhelmed by the darkness just above them; darkness that could only mean they had entered the waters beneath the gigantic Tolkach convoy, which carried the three brand-new submarines ordered by the Navy of China.
Ray stuck out his right arm as agreed. They would swim down the hull until they reached either the giant iron link on the articulated double barge in front, or, alternately, the clear water between the two separate vessels. Either way they would then know where they were, which, right now, they did not.
As it happened they were bang on the middle barge. When they reached the open water at its stern, it was obvious that Ray alone would proceed through the empty water and make for the six-hundred-footer to the rear. Jason and the Petty Officer would head back along the starboard side of the middle barge and part company at the coupling joint. Jason would then count his five kicks back and go deep in search of the bilge keel. Harry would go farther for’ard and attend to the lead barge. They would not see each other again until they reached the shore, returning on bearing 224.
Ray Schaeffer was first into position. He kicked ten times down the port side of the rear Tolkach, right next to the straight-sided hull. He then went deeper, sliding his hand down the great ship’s plates until he came to a thick iron ridge, protruding by about six feet at a forty-five-degree angle. This was the bilge keel, a kind of giant stabilizer. Ray knew he had to get up under it, on the inside, closer to the central keel in order to clamp on his explosives.
He pushed out to the end of the ridge, and to his horror found he was standing. There was only three feet of water below the keel, and he thanked God there was no falling tide up here at the northern end of Lake Onega. He dived down, headfirst, kicking to get right under the barge. Then he stood again on the sandy floor of the lake, running his hands across the inside of the bilge keel, working his way up to the point where it joined the hull right above his head. It felt awfully rough, like the underside of a rock, full of barnacles and weeds. This was not good news. Worse yet, he was now working in the pitch dark.
He took out the first five-pound pack of explosive and screwed in the magnetic clamp, tight. Then he fixed the timer, with its small glowing face showing a twenty-four-hour setting. He placed it against the hull, but as he suspected, it would not stick to the rough surface. So he held it in his left hand and drew his Kaybar for the second time that night. He scraped a small spot clean on the hull and then felt the powerful magnet pull, and then lightly thud home, hard on the bottom of the ship.
He elected to stay on the inside of the bilge keel and swam on, proceeding down the port side of the hull to his next stop. There he repeated his process and, checking the time, saw that it was taking him six
minutes to make each connection. He had six more to go. He was more or less safe down here, and his bigger worry was young Jason. He wondered how the kid was getting along as he adjusted each timer to run for 360 seconds less than the previous one.
Lieutenant Schaeffer wrapped up his project at 0340. It had taken forty-eight minutes exactly. He now swam out from under the bilge keel, into the light. He unclipped his attack board from his belt, grabbed it with both hands, and kicked straight along bearing 224. Breathing slowly, he wondered where the others were.
All the way back, he kicked, counted to four, and kicked again. During the final fifteen minutes he was murderously tired, and his upper legs throbbed. But he kept going, kicking and counting, fighting the pain barrier, repeating his little prayer. No one, he thought, could have done this faster.
He was truly amazed when he finally surfaced and saw Rick Hunter still sitting in the bulrushes, chatting with Jason and Harry.
“Where the hell have you been?” asked the SEAL leader. “I was just beginning to wonder if you might be dead.”
“Well, I’m not,” snapped Ray, unnecessarily. “It was just the bottom of that rear barge. It was so dirty…nothing would stick. I had to clean every spot free of fucking barnacles before the clamp would go on.”
“Oh, right,” said Harry. “Ours was completely clean, probably been in refit. I was whipping those babies on there in three minutes. So was Jason. We both adjusted the timers for 180 seconds. By a fluke we finished at the same time. Came back together.”
“Short straw again,” said Ray. “I probably ruined my knife scraping the bottom…just hope I’m not asked to assassinate anyone else tonight.”
“No, I hope not anyway,” said Rick. “But right now it’s going to start getting lighter by the minute…we have to get back across the road and into the woods…Angela, by the way, has gone, as planned…we’ll catch up with her later.”
Kilo Class Page 25