War Plan Red

by Peter Sasgen

  A torrent of water shot from the valve and over Botkin and the reactor vessel. Surprised, Botkin almost dropped the tool into the snake pit below the grates but held on and, fighting through billowing clouds of steam, threw himself on top of the water-slickened reactor dome.

  He found the quench plate mechanism and flipped up the cover protecting the lockout device. He scrabbled at the interlock with a gloved hand, the fingers like thick silver tubes that refused to bend. He felt around for the two hex bolts on the quench plate release clips and positioned the socket over the first one and, his arm a blur, cranked it open as fast as he could.

  It took less than half a minute to open the clips and drop both plates into the core. A moment later he heard the reactor safety interlocks lift and felt the system wind down. He thought he saw the emergency lights flicker as the power grid stepped over to battery, but he wasn’t sure. Exhausted, sick, he slid down the side of the reactor, trying not to drop the tool into the pit, and landed on hands, knees, and forehead.

  Lungs bursting, he tore the hood off and gulped air heavy with water, steam, and radioactive contaminants. He heard the airlock bang open and someone calling him. But the voice was too far away to identify. And besides, he didn’t give a damn anymore. He’d saved the ship and that was enough.

  “Nothing.” Captain Bayer held on to the ship-to-ship radio handset a moment longer than necessary, as if unwilling to concede defeat, then cradled it. “Narvik says they have nothing.”

  Executive Officer Dass looked equally perplexed. “Well, we definitely had something, sir. Whatever it was is gone.”

  Garborg agreed.

  “Not gone, Mr. Dass, misplaced,” Bayer said, looking across a freshening sea at the trim gray profile of the Narvik keeping station on the Trondheim. What Bayer didn’t say was that he’d been had twice. By a Russian, he was sure.

  His white teeth flashed in the gloom. “Let’s get a signal to Stavanger. Tell them what we have and ask permission to shift our area south. At the very least they’ll want to know what may be coming their way. Then you may signal Narvik, tell her we’re folding our tent here and that she should haul in on VDS.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Dass. He turned to follow Bayer’s orders but stopped and said, “Gutsy bastards, aren’t they, sir?”

  “And damned good too.” Bayer put his 7x50s to his eyes, looked south and said, “Trouble is, their boats are as quiet at the American 688s. Put a determined skipper at the helm and they can just about go anywhere, do anything they want.”

  “Sea’s making up, Kapitan.”

  “Bad for them, good for us,” Litvanov said. “Rough weather degrades their sonar.”

  “Ours too?” Zakayev said.

  “Yes, but we’re not hunting, we’re listening.”

  The submarine rocked slightly from side to side from the wave action overhead. Zakayev, feeling queasy, had heard that submariners sometimes got seasick because they spent their lives submerged and weren’t used to sailing in rough weather.

  “Watch your depth,” Litvanov commanded. “Careful we don’t broach.” The K-363 inched toward the surface with Litvanov’s seaman’s eye planted on the depth readout. Satisfied, he commanded, “Raise the ESM mast.”

  A deep-seated fatigue had weakened Zakayev. The tension, the claustrophobic living conditions, the discomfort of life in a submarine, was something he hadn’t anticipated. The girl was also drained, her pretty face thin and drawn, her short black hair greasy and matted against her head. Yet, she hadn’t complained.

  Litvanov, Zakayev had marveled, was in his element. It had almost become a game for him, and Zakayev wondered if, when the moment came for it all to end, Litvanov would regret his decision, perhaps even change his mind. Not likely, he thought, as Litvanov had from time to time reminded his crew of their responsibility to carry out what they had vowed to do. Meanwhile the game they were playing with the Norwegians kept them alert and their minds off what they would soon face.

  “How will he do it?” the girl had asked Zakayev.

  “Explosive charges,” he had answered.

  “Will they blow up the ship?”

  “No, just the important parts.”

  “Will it take long after that?”

  “An hour, maybe less.”

  She nodded acceptance.

  “Are you frightened,” he’d asked.

  “I won’t be if we’re together.”

  Together, he thought. But it would not be pleasant, and he didn’t dissuade her from believing it would be like going to sleep. However, he was prepared to help her if it came to that.

  “Kapitan, ESM contact!” brought Zakayev back to the present in the CCP. “I read four X-band commercial ship search radars and two land-based. And a Decca TM radar, probably an Oslo-class frigate.”

  “ESM down. Sonar?” Litvanov queried.

  “Radiated noise levels are heavily degraded, Kapitan. But I, too, have four contacts, perhaps a fifth.

  The four are definitely single-screw commercials.”

  Litvanov noted with satisfaction that the contacts had already been entered into the fire control system as Alpha One through Five.

  “How much water under the keel?”

  “Sixty meters, Kapitan,” Veroshilov sang out.

  “Make your depth thirty meters. Easy, and don’t overshoot.”

  “Aye, Kapitan, thirty meters.”

  “Those four contacts are merchantmen heading into and out of Stavanger,” Litvanov said to Zakayev.

  “There’ll be more of them as we work south, and we’ll use them to mask our entry into the Skagerrak.

  In the Kattegat, we can pick up a southbound merchantman and tuck in behind, follow him right through The Sound into the Baltic. And maybe shake those damned Norsk frigates they keep sending out.”

  Zakayev recalled what he’d seen on a chart: two narrow bodies of water between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and a strait with an hourglasslike shape between Denmark and southern Sweden called The Sound. During their planning sessions in St. Petersburg, Litvanov had cautioned that to transit The Sound without being detected would be difficult and dangerous. Litvanov had said that he suspected that The Sound was sown with static sonar devices and other defenses to warn the Danes and Swedes of incursions by foreign submarines. “Can you do it?” Zakayev had asked. “Of course I can,” Litvanov had bragged.

  Now Litvanov commanded, “Double the sonar watch. We’re closing up on Swedish waters. Starpom, you have the conn. I’ll be in the wardroom.”

  “He’ll die if we don’t get him ashore,” Alex said. She put a cool hand on Botkin’s forehead. “Feel him.

  He’s on fire. He needs proper medical attention.” His face was red from radiation burns and swollen with edema.

  Scott felt Botkin’s skin but said nothing. What could he say? Botkin had known the danger he faced before he entered the reactor compartment.

  “Jake, did you hear what I said?” Alex insisted.

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Alex, Jake is right,” said Abakov, slumped in the doorway to sick bay. The air was very bad and getting worse, and Abakov, like everyone else, showed the effects. “There’s nothing we can do for Botkin except make him comfortable.”

  “We can’t just let him die,” Alex said.

  “What’s the standard treatment for radiation sickness?” Abakov said.

  “Transfusions to bring up the white cell count, and in serious cases bone marrow transplants. But he’s also got thermal as well as radiation burns, and that can lead to infection and death.”

  “Do we have medicine aboard? Morphine?” Abakov said.

  She turned to the radio technician petty officer, who also doubled as the ship’s doctor.

  “Not much morphine, sir: just a half-dozen syrettes,” said the petty officer, a youngster with bad skin and teeth. “That’s all they allow on our submarines. We have antibiotics and burn salves. I’ll do what I can for him.”

  “Sorr
y, Alex,” Scott said. He motioned to the petty officer. “Give him morphine as he needs it, until it’s gone.”

  “Aye, Kapitan.”

  Scott said, “Excuse me.”

  “Where are you going?” Alex asked.

  “Aft to the reactor control compartment, then the CCP to keep track of the Norwegians.”

  “May I tell you something? You look like hell. You need some rest.”

  “We all do. But there isn’t time.”

  “Let the engineers worry about the reactor,” Alex said. “There’s nothing you can do, and anyway, it hasn’t been damaged.”

  “We had a damn close call, but the repair gang performed magnificently. I’ve asked for hourly reports from the chief engineer on the reactor’s condition—just in case.”

  “Okay, but what about your condition?”

  “It’s nothing a fresh atmosphere wouldn’t cure.” He jammed a Russian Navy cap on his head and went forward.

  Alex’s shoulders sagged. She looked at Abakov. The policeman said, “We have to follow his orders.

  Jake is the kapitan now.”

  The watch stirred when Scott entered the CCP. The starpom came to attention, something not required by Russian or U.S. Navy regulations.

  Scott said, “Your report, Starpom?”

  “Watch Condition Two set throughout the ship, sir. Steering course one-seven-zero. Speed ten knots.

  Depth three-zero meters. Reactor normal, both turbines on line. Battery charge to finishing rate and float. At fifteen thirty both targets retracted their towed sonar arrays and reversed course to one-six-eight. Target bearings are one-five-zero and one-five-nine. Speeds are twenty-eight knots. Range fifteen kilometers and opening out.”

  “Outstanding,” Scott said.

  “Thank you, Kapitan.”

  Though there were no secrets aboard a submarine, Scott had toured the ship to inform the crew of Botkin’s condition and of his actions, which had prevented a disaster. And to praise them for fixing the coolant leak and preventing a disaster. He soon noticed that a profound change had come over the crew.

  No longer sullen and indifferent, they were eager to prove themselves capable of turning in a good performance for their American skipper. Their undisguised scorn for Botkin had evaporated, too, his heroics evoking their respect and, in some men, a sense of awe.

  “Maintain present course and speed for another twenty minutes, until we’re sure both targets are over the hill. Then we’ll go ahead full on both engines.”

  “Aye, Kapitan.”

  “Chief electrician.”

  “Sir?” The chief electrician, a sailor in his late twenties and one of the oldest men on board, was standing watch at the main electrical control panel in the CCP.

  “Any luck fixing the CO scrubber?”

  2

  “I put two men on it, Kapitan. They think they can repair the burned-out element. Maslov is making what you call a ‘jury-rig.’ ”

  “Excellent.”

  The electrician gave Scott a lopsided grin.

  Scott exited the CCP, feeling for the first time since leaving Olenya Bay, that he had a crew and a better than-even chance of nailing the K-363.

  At SOSUS Control, Stavanger, Norway, Petty Officer Niles Horve listened closely to the threshing machine–like sounds of ships’ propellers coming through his headphones from the Skagerrak. He heard the familiar sounds made by ore carriers, container ships, fishing vessels, and ferry traffic steaming in and out of Kristian sand, a port city on the southern tip of Norway. But he also heard something else: a faint three-hundred-hertz tone. A moment later it was gone.

  To neutralize interference and make a positive ID on the whisper, Horve keyed extra layers of filtration and modulation into the acoustic spectrum analyzer, then replayed what he’d just heard. Though the Norwegian SOSUS network, modeled on the U.S. Navy’s version, used powerful computerized signal processors, it still required a sonar expert like Horve to identify a specific target from among the scores that daily crisscrossed Sector Five in the Skagerrak.

  Horve hunched over his console and, with eyes closed, pictured the SOSUS arrays on the sea bottom.

  Each array consisted of a bundle of twenty-four hydrophones sealed in a tank. Each tank—there were dozens in the Skagerrak and Kattegat—had hardened links to submarine cables that transmitted data to the collection point ashore to which Horve and other technicians like him were assigned. The system was old, and even though parts of it had been shut down to save money when the Cold War ended, it still worked.

  After isolating the short sound segment that had gotten his attention, Horve began the process of comparing its generated signal to the center’s recognition file by merging them in the computer. As the information collected underwent instantaneous processing and updating, simple triangulation and a calculation of the time required for the sound waves to travel between individual arrays provided the target’s speed and base course. The computer sped through its process and in less than a minute had a match, which it displayed as a box filled with numbers and symbols on Horve’s monitor. Horve gave a start: a Russian Akula. Moving northeast at seven knots. In Norwegian territorial waters!

  Horve reached for the red phone that connected him to the watch commander.

  Captain Thore Jacobsen swiped his encapsulated pass through the lips of a verification terminal under the flinty gaze of the security officer on duty outside the SOSUS control node. The facility was layered with electronic sensors and a heavily armed response force. The proper authorization code appeared and the terminal peeped once. Lock bolts flew back; the door to the control node opened on silent hydraulic actuators; and Jacobsen, the SOSUS control station’s commanding officer, entered the node.

  The watch commander greeted Jacobsen and led the way to a small conference room equipped with computer terminals and media drives to which Chief Horve had uploaded the material he’d analyzed and identified earlier.

  “Yes, definitely an Akula,” Jacobsen said, after he’d listened to the audio and viewed the signal merge.

  The watch commander said, “We ran it through a dual phase and it came up positive. Awfully quiet, those Akulas. Horve was very lucky to find her, what with the noise of the weather making up.”

  “Good work, Chief,” Jacobsen said, stepping back from the bank of computer gear.

  “Thank you, Captain. I’m only sorry we couldn’t snatch a longer segment to analyze.”

  “Couldn’t pick her up again?”

  “I tried but she was gone and I couldn’t reacquire. I’ve run the tapes from Sectors Five through Eight, even into the Göteborg area, but heard nothing.”

  “Any chance the Russian turned back?”

  “I’d have heard him if he had.”

  “In that case we’ll see what our Swedish colleagues have to say.”

  “I have the message traffic you wanted from Captain Bayer, sir,” the watch commander said. “We’ve also seen an increase in U.S. P-3 overflights.”

  “Thank you.” Jacobsen scratched his cheek. “Seven knots. The Russian’s a creeper, and in littorals at that. He’s definitely trying to avoid us. What’s he up to?”

  Jacobsen flipped through Bayer’s reports on recent contacts in the north with an elusive target. “What it means,” Jacobsen said, answering his own question, “is that earlier, Bayer made contact with this same Russian. Have you run those tapes for matches, Chief?”

  “Yes, sir. Thermocline degrades. No positives.”

  Jacobsen nodded his understanding. “That Russki’s been hugging the coast all the way south. Up to no good, I’d say.” He turned to the map on the wall. “Show me where you think he is now, Chief.”

  Horve got up and pointed to a spot on the Norwegian coast near Bergendal. “Right here.”

  “Very well. Put a twenty-four-hour watch on Sectors Five through Eight. Feed what you have directly to me.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Meanwhile we’ll get Bayer and his g
roup down here. What else is available that I can recommend to ComInC?”

  The watch commander said, “We have two new Norsk-class frigates on training standby in Stavanger.

  They could be activated.”

  “Very well.” Jacobsen, dismayed, shook his head slowly. “The damned Russians. The Cold War’s over and we still can’t trust them. But maybe we can blow them to the surface and teach them a lesson.”

  15

  East of Stavanger, Norway

  “H ow is he?” said Scott.

  Botkin’s skin had blistered badly and the edema had spread. His face was so swollen that he was almost unrecognizable.

  “Not good,” Alex said hoarsely. “He’s not going to make it.”

  Scott refused to feel guilty. “He’s on an IV. That’ll help some. And he’s doped up so he’s not in pain.”

  Alex slumped forward against the upper bunk in which Botkin lay. She lowered her forehead to the back of both hands gripping the bunk’s side rails. She stood like that for a long moment until Scott touched her and she lifted her head. She looked exhausted.

  “Let Doc spell you.”

  “No, I’m all right,” Alex said. Though it wasn’t necessary, she adjusted the blanket covering Botkin and checked his IV.

  “We’ve been picking up Norwegian and Swedish signals activity on ESM. Some not too far away.

  Thought you’d want to know.”

  “They’re looking for us?”

  “They know a submarine’s in the area. They may not know there’s two of us. Not yet, anyway.”

  Alex turned around and leaned against the bunk, a thumb hooked in the pocket of her coveralls. She looked at Scott, then looked away. With her free hand she tried to do something with her hair. “I’m sorry I look so awful.”

  “I like the way you look.”

  “Like this? Please. When this is over, I’m going to sit in a banya for a week.” She meant the steam bath favored by Russians. “Do all submarines smell as bad as this one?”

  “Did you ever hear the term pigboat?”

  “I think so.”

  “In the early days of submarines it was an apt description of what sailors endured. It went out of favor during World War II, but I suppose it describes our present situation.”