Kilo Class (1998)

by Patrick Robinson

  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.”

  The SEALs emerged from the water, crouched, and observed the empty road. Then they bolted across, free now of their forty-pound weights of explosive, and, clinging to their attack boards and flippers, they jogged through the woods to the spot where the canisters were buried. Angela had left one uncovered, with their new street clothes, chocolate, and water right on top.

  They stripped off their wet suits and Draegers, and placed them with the two machine guns, ammunition clips, and attack boards inside the canister. Then they dressed in socks, shoes, jeans, shirts, and jackets. They each ate some chocolate, drank some water, and piled everything else inside the last canister. Rick Hunter set the incendiary booby trap and placed it inside, against the door handle, and closed it carefully. If anyone in the next fifty or so years ever found that canister and tried the door, it would blow to smithereens with everything in it. Right now, Ray Schaeffer shoved the old bush back into the loose earth and took the last shovel and covered the disturbed area with soil and dead leaves. He and Rick twisted and turned the bush back into place, and the four of them left, carrying the last shovel and armed with their Kaybars and pistols.

  They did not head back to the dirt road but went farther west, walking softly along the edge of the wood in the early morning light. They found the highway after one mile and hid on the steep bank that led up to it from the forest. A couple of hundred yards to the right, they could see an old Russian peasant woman wearing a shawl, sitting on the roadside, awaiting a lift, and they too waited.

  At 0655 an old Volkswagen bus pulled up, collected her, and then drove on to a spot right above their hiding place. Angela’s face peered out from under the shawl, through the passenger seat window…“Okay guys,” she said, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The SEALs came up off the bank like bullets and hurled themselves and their surviving shovel into the vehicle. Angela Rivera spoke freely. “This is young Vladimir,” she said, nodding at the driver. “He’s a colleague of mine, works for us in Moscow. All our clothes, papers, and passports are here. Vladimir will take us straight down to the M18, then south all the way to St. Petersburg. For the record, in case we’re stopped, we all work for a citrus-growing outfit in Florida…you all know the cover…go through it all in your minds one more time.

  “Vlad’s taking us straight to St. Petersburg airport…then we’re going by private corporate jet to London. Everything’s fixed. The Russians never bother with commercial executives on private planes these days. Specially Americans.”

  “Beautiful,” said Lieutenant Commander Hunter.

  “By the way, did you fix the Kilos?”

  “Sure did,” said Ray Schaeffer.

  9

  CAPTAIN VOLKOV MOVED THE KILOS NORTHEAST across Lake Onega at 0830 on June 11. This was the regular departure time for cargo moving at five knots. The journey to the White Sea was one of approximately twenty-four hours, the 0830 departure would see them comfortably into the canal by 1030, and to Belomorsk for refueling just as the port came to life the following morning.

  The big Tolkach freighters always pulled out at this time after their overnight stop, and there were no surprises in Fort Meade shortly after 0200 when the satellite photographs showed them doing exactly that.

  Admiral Morgan was pleased. No communication had been received from the SEALs by midnight, which meant everything had gone according to plan. Arnold Morgan was even courteous to Charlie as they made their way back to Washington from Fort Meade in the small hours of the morning. A thin smile played around the edges of his mouth as he contemplated the mayhem due to erupt in both Moscow and Beijing around seven o’clock (EDT) that evening.

  “You’re driving beautifully, Charlie,” he observed. Which almost caused his nerve-racked chauffeur to run straight up the back of a Greyhound bus.

  It was 1300 local time when Lieutenant Commander Hunter and his men, having changed clothes during the journey, arrived at the St. Petersburg airport. They disembarked the van, leaving Vladimir to get rid of the clothes, combat knives, and pistols, which he would do at the US Consulate, on Petra-Lavrova Street

  .

  By 1500 the SEALs were on board the American Learjet, ready to take off for London. Five hours later they would be traveling business class on the American Airlines 747 making its daily flight to New York. Rick calculated they ought to be somewhere over the coast of Maine when the barges blew up in the narrow northern reaches of the Belomorski Canal.

  Pieter, the steward, and Torbin, the head waiter, were not due to report for duty on board the Yuri Andropov until lunchtime. When they failed to show up, the matter was reported to the Captain and to Colonel Borsov. The senior officers ordered a thorough search of the ship, which took almost two hours, and at 1400 the executives decided the two men were undoubtedly missing.

  The ship was heading south down Lake Onega now, and the Captain couldn’t decide whether just to inform the nearest police, or whether to return to the Green Stop. It was hard to imagine that anything had befallen the men in that lonely rural area. But the search had revealed that one of the ship’s rubber inflatables from the upper deck was also missing—several people knew it to be the very one Pieter had been using to take passengers on late-night sightseeing excursions.

  Colonel Borsov decided something was a foot. He ordered the Andropov to come about and headed right back to the Green Stop, where all members of the crew would be expected to assist in the search for their lost colleagues.

  The four old gentlemen from Minnesota and their nurse, Edith Dubranin, were also missed at lunchtime. Their table was empty; they had not been in for breakfast, and no one had seen them. Colonel Borsov himself had noticed they were not at lunch and ordered a steward to go to the upper deck and check the two suites.

  The steward used his master key and found the rooms intact, but found no sign of the old gentlemen. Colonel Borsov suddenly understood that the Andropov had somehow left seven people at the Green Stop, which was precisely when he ordered the ship to come about.

  All day long, Captain Volkov pushed north at his normal slow speed. There would be no more stops before the White Sea, and he always found the 120-mile journey laborious. He had made the trip many times before, in various ships, but the presence
of submarines completely blocked his forward view, and the trip seemed endless as a result. He just had to sit and keep the engines steady, driving forward and relying on his son to steer from the wheelhouse on the bow of the lead barge. Young Ivan was good at that.

  By sundown, or what passes for a sundown in the season of the White Nights, he was running through the long wide lakes toward the town of Segeza. They reached the town around midnight, and then turned into the narrow inland canal that begins south of Nadvojcy. It was a four-hour run on this very slow stretch up to the next lake, and the master of the Tolkach was glad both he and Ivan had slept for most of the evening while the first mate and the navigator had taken over the helms.

  At 0258 on June 12, lit by the bright glow in the northern sky, the Kilos were just four and a half miles south of the lake, and six miles south of the town of Kockoma. The water was flat, there was no breeze and little traffic when Captain Volkov sensed a long and distant rumble beneath the keel. He had heard such a noise before, and he knew what had happened. “FUCK!” he shouted. “WE’RE AGROUND…”