by Peter Sasgen
“Agreed that Zakayev knows too much. But I’m willing to take a risk that whether it’s us or the Russians who find him, he’ll end up dead.”
After a prolonged silence, Friedman said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“What don’t you know, Paul?”
Radford waited silently in Virginia.
Friedman stuffed his protruding cuffs back into the coat sleeves. “I don’t know what Zakayev wants.”
“What he wants,” said the president, “is to destroy the Russians, bring down their government. That’s what he wants.”
Friedman looked the president in the eye. “With respect, sir, would you, or would Karl, please tell me how? How is he going to do it? How is he going to destroy the Russians? He has no missiles, no guns, only torpedoes, and they’re only good for sinking ships. He proved that when he sank a ship filled with natural gas, sank three other ships filled with a billion dollars’ worth of cargo, killed scores of seamen, damaged a Norwegian warship, killed her captain, scared the hell out of a good part of Scandinavia and parts of Germany. Yes, Zakayev is a goddamn terrorist and he hates the Russians and he’s run us and them around like a bunch of bloody fools. But he’s not doing it for the fun of it or to prove how clever he is or that he can kick the bloody Russians in the ass any time he wants by stealing one of their goddamned submarines. He’s got something planned and I don’t know what it is, and frankly, sir, it scares the shit out of me and should be scaring the shit out of the Russians too.”
Radford smiled, hearing his own words, slightly embellished, aped by Friedman.
Friedman compressed his lips and looked away.
“And it should scare the shit out of me, too, is that what you’re trying to say, Paul?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President. I was completely out of line. I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure you did. Admit it.”
Friedman said nothing.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, Paul, Zakayev does scare the shit out of me. All the more reason Scott has to kill him before the Russians get to him.”
17
Crystal City, Alexandria, Virginia
K arl Radford looked at his watch and frowned. Downstairs a car waited. In an hour he was to deliver a speech at a breakfast meeting of the Retired Intelligence Officers Association in Arlington, and Grishkov’s appearance on the Secure Video Teleconference link to Severomorsk had been delayed.
While he waited he glanced at the computer monitor on his desk and his frown deepened. Displayed were PRs—Pending Replies—to encrypted messages transmitted to various units under SRO control around the world. The list wasn’t long; only ten units had been flagged and two were undergoing decryption even as Radford studied the list. But at the top of the list was Badger One, Radford’s code name for Jake Scott. Next to Scott’s name was a blinking red flag that meant there had been no response to the cycle of SRO transmissions broadcast from the Wisconsin ELF facility starting late last night.
Too soon to worry, Radford told himself. Weather in the Kattegat had been bad and getting worse. The attack and its aftermath had required the rerouting of some shipping into and out of The Sound and nearby ports. Satellite photos showed a traffic jam off Falkenberg, Sweden, and another south of Copenhagen. With ships jammed like logs in a river, Scott would indeed have his hands full.
A new message appeared beside Badger One. The ELF transmissions had automatically recycled to once every hour instead of every half hour. Too soon to worry, Radford told himself again.
A tone chime from the SVTC got Radford’s attention. A digital timer on the monitor counted down to zero and the screen brightened.
Radford cleared his throat and faced the screen. “Hello, Mikhail.”
Grishkov, hunched forward on his elbows, had a sour look on his face as if the cigarette he was smoking tasted bad. “Good day, General.”
Radford said, “It seems we’ve been talking on this thing—”
“I warned you not to take us for fools,” Grishkov erupted. “The K-363 torpedoed that LNG carrier, sank those ships, and almost sank a Norwegian frigate, killed her captain—no, don’t deny it. We know your Captain Scott witnessed the attack because he has been dogging the K-363 ever since she departed Olenya Bay. The Norwegians have lodged a protest with our ambassador in Oslo, and have threatened to take the issue to the UN. Our mistake was to fall for your ruse with the K-480 in the first place. But that’s over now. We have ordered our forces in the Baltic Sea to find and capture Zakayev and his terrorist friends.”
“Aren’t you overlooking something, Admiral?” Radford said frostily.
“What would that be?”
“The Germans, Poles, and Finns, to say nothing of your former republics Estonia and Latvia, which border the Baltic Sea, will want to know what you’re up to when they see all that Russian naval activity.”
“We are already a step ahead of you. Those countries have been informed that we are conducting exercises. Your president will be informed—today—of our intentions and of our displeasure with your actions. He will be told to refrain from any further actions that will interfere with our capture of the K-363, and we expect you to keep our true operations secret from the countries you have mentioned as well as others. Your president will also be informed that if Scott interferes in any way whatsoever, he will be attacked and the K-480 sunk.”
“You can’t threaten us,” Radford said.
“But we are not threatening you, General. We are simply saying that Captain Scott’s and Dr. Thorne’s presence on the K-480 no longer imparts any U.S. authority to a Russian naval vessel. If it comes to it, Scott, Thorne, and even Colonel Abakov will be treated as pirates and, if we capture them along with Zakayev, Litvanov, and his crew, arrested.”
“No one is claiming U.S. control over the K-480. But we have certain rights under international law.”
“I am not an expert on international law, General. But as a sailor I know that the law of the sea states that pirates can be hunted down and brought to trial.”
“Scott is not a pirate. And in case you’ve forgotten, it was you and Admiral Stashinsky who approved his status as an observer on one of your submarines, along with Dr. Thorne and Colonel Abakov.”
“Yes, as observers, not as agents of the United States bent on thwarting Russian plans to deal with terrorists.”
“No one’s thwarting your plans, Mikhail. We can still help you find Zakayev if you’ll let us.”
Grishkov snorted. “Let you help us when what you want is to kill Zakayev before we can capture and question him. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that the reason you commandeered the K-480?”
Radford willed himself to retain his composure. What did Grishkov know and how thin was the ice they were skating on? “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. What reason would we have to kill Zakayev?”
“Because you supported Zakayev and his terrorists in Chechnya. And you are afraid he will tell us all about it when we capture him.”
“Goddamnit, Mikhail, that’s a lie and you know it.”
Grishkov said nothing.
“You have no proof that we’ve ever supported Zakayev.”
“I have proof.”
“What proof? Where is it?”
Grishkov snorted again. He stood and, leaning on his fists, inclined toward the video camera with its wide angle lens, which distorted his face on the monitor.
“Where is it, you ask? I’ll tell you where. Out there in the Baltic Sea with your Captain Scott, hunting for the K-363. He’s all the proof I need.”
The door opened and Radford’s secretary bustled into the office to find him staring at the blank SVTC
screen. “General Radford, goodness, you’ll be late for your meeting in Arlington.”
Radford tore himself away to gather his things under her daunting gaze. “Right. I’m leaving now, Phyllis. Please have the audio summaries of my conversation with Admiral Grishkov on my desk when I return.”
&n
bsp; She helped him into his coat. “Yes, sir, you’ll have them.”
A bodyguard at the elevator ushered the admiral aboard. The doors hissed closed. The car dropped.
Radford’s stomach fluttered. He glanced at his wrist watch with four time zones displayed. He knew the president had been facing a long day of tough negotiating with the Russians in St. Petersburg. What he was going to hear would only make it worse.
Litvanov, exhausted from conning the K-363 through The Sound behind a Liberian-flagged tanker, planted his elbows on the chart of the Baltic Sea. It had been a heart-stopping passage through shallow water teeming with ships of all sizes, and with Swedish and Danish coastal patrol boats on the lookout for submerged intruders. At one point the K-363 had grounded on an underwater sandbar but worked free before almost being run down by a 200,000-deadweight-ton oil tanker.
Litvanov pushed his filthy cap to the back of his head and, tapping the chart, said heavily, “Here, the southern passage between Bornholm Island and the coast of Poland, is very wide and also deep, over two hundred feet. We have to be careful here, but we should be able to slip into the Baltic without being detected.”
“But what about German and Polish coastal patrols?”
“From Sassnitz east, the Germans leave it to the Poles to patrol the southern Baltic. The Polish Navy has modern frigates and patrol craft as well as submarines and are good at interdicting drug runners and smugglers but not the best when it comes to hunting for submarines. And anyway, all we need is another twenty-four hours. Then, even if every country touching on the Baltic initiated War Plan Red, it will be too late.”
“War Plan Red?”
“Full mobilization to deal with a seaborne threat to the region.”
Zakayev ran a hand over his mouth. “I see. And what about this submarine you think is following us?
Where do you plan to set a trap for him?”
“Here.” Litvanov pointed to an area on the chart east of Bornholm labeled Hazard. “This is an old ordnance dumping ground.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Who can say. It’s left over from World War II. Tons of chemical weapons and explosives captured from the Nazis that were loaded on ships and then scuttled. Over time the weapons casings have corroded and the poisons have leached into the sea. Now and then a fisherman puts his tackle over the side and snags a bomb and blows himself up. A good place to avoid, but also a good place for us to surprise this Russian skipper, whoever he is. And if he gets blown up by one of our torpedoes, the Bornholm fisherman’s association might think one of their members caught a big one.”
“But why bother with him?” Zakayev said. “He can’t stop us now, it’s too late.”
“Perhaps. But this one is good. Maybe too good. And because he is good it would be a mistake to ignore him. Instead we have to kill him.”
Scott waited for a southbound freighter. Toward midnight a huge container ship, battling high seas, her machinery noisy as a freight train, loomed up out of the rain.
Scott got ready to tuck the K-480 in behind the massive ship and ride her wake into The Sound. A dangerous maneuver to perform in bad weather and close quarters, he had prepared by putting a bubble in the ballast tanks to raise the K-480 and reduce her draft even though it meant her sail would be exposed.
The charts he’d studied indicated there were little more than twenty meters of water in mid-channel, slowly shelving to ten meters north of Helsingør, then running out again to more than twenty meters.
But Russian navigation charts, Scott knew, were often out of date and this one had been printed in 1981.
“Battle stations manned and ready, Kapitan,” the starpom reported.
With the crew at battle stations and the ship buttoned up in the unlikely event they collided with their trailblazer or, worse, ran aground, it was time to take the ride of their lives.
He waited a beat, heard the freighter’s giant screw ripping through the water, felt the vessel’s pressure wave against the K-480’s hull, then ordered, “Up scope!”
He saw a wall of steel rumbling by on the port side, saw the name Sea Eagle on her towering bow.
“Match speeds,” Scott commanded, “turns for ten knots.”
The K-480, drawn into the turbulence created by the freighter’s passage, began to yaw from side to side. Scott snapped orders; the K-480 swung parallel with the freighter, then slowly dropped back into her roiling wake to take up a trail position astern. He saw a Polish flag illuminated by a searchlight flying from a staff above the Sea Eagle’s sternpost. She was headed, he presumed, to Gdansk.
“Mind your depth!” Scott barked.
He’d assigned his most experienced planesmen and helmsman the task of controlling the K-480 while steaming in the Sea Eagle’s wake. At the diving station these men took a firmer grip on the joysticks.
Minutes later they entered the mouth of The Sound at Hornbæk. Scott noted the flashing lights at mid-channel and onshore, warning of sandbars, which meant tight quarters in the channel. But without incident they passed another landmark ashore, a tall commercial radio mast with a blinking red light at its tip.
Scott, at the periscope, monitored their progress to ensure they kept station on the Sea Eagle’s stern light. At first it proved difficult to balance speed and maneuver, to not creep in under her stern and into the heavy rudder post and massive thrashing propeller, or fall behind and shed the cover that the Sea Eagle’s mass and turbulent wake provided. Soon after they entered the chute and proceeded south, keeping station proved as easy as driving a car on a superhighway behind an eighteen wheeler.
“Kapitan, we’re approaching the first buoyage line,” the starpom announced. “Ålsgårde lies to starboard.”
“Very well.” Scott spun the scope toward land and saw the coastal town of Ålsgårde. Yards from shore he spotted the lit-up factory and parking lot, which on the chart, served as a point of reference to the buoyage line bisecting the channel, its string of flashing lights warning of dangerously shallow water.
Scott stepped back from the scope. “Starpom, you have the conn. Hold our position.”
The young officer hesitated for a moment, then did as he was ordered, proud that Scott had confidence in his abilities. “Aye, sir. I have the conn.”
“Keep a seaman’s eye open,” Scott said, “in case the Polski suddenly slows down. Don’t run up his ass.”
“Aye, Kapitan. I mean, no, Kapitan.”
Scott stepped to the navigation table and placed a tick mark beside the first buoyage line they’d passed.
Soon they would cross another line of buoys, then a cable crossing. After that, a pinched dogleg where the chute turned southeast at Kronborg Pynt. Several kilometers below Kronborg Pynt, they’d pick up Ven, an island off the coast of Sweden where the ship channel split into eastern and western halves.
Scott remembered from his earlier incursion into the Baltic Sea in the Chicago that during his transit around Ven, he’d had to dodge numerous ships as well as ferryboats and while doing so had almost run aground twice.
After crossing the second buoyage line a BP oil tanker, which the starpom estimated to be over 250,000
deadweight tons, churned through the adjoining channel in the opposite direction. Her sheer bulk and massive wake affected even the giant Sea Eagle, which threw her and several smaller ships and the K-480 off course.
Alex sidled up to Scott after he finished lauding the planesmen and helmsman who had fought to keep the ship under control during the tanker’s passage.
“How long will this take?” she said.
“Not long. Nervous?”
“Very. It’s worse than the reactor SCRAM.”
“Nothing’s worse than a reactor cooling problem on a submarine. But I admit, this is hairy.”
“I’m also worried about the ELF transmissions. What if they’re trying to reach us to tell us they’ve found the K-363 and that this is all for nothing?”
“They’ve been trying to communica
te with us for hours, but there’s nothing we can do until we clear The Sound and can stick up a mast. If they’ve killed the K-363, we’ll congratulate them and turn around and go home. If not, well, we’re where we need to be to do the job.”
She looked at him and for a moment he had the impression she didn’t approve of the way he’d conducted himself and the mission. But like it or not, it was the way it had to be. Later, when it was all over, there would be time to make her understand. But there was something else in her look, too, something deep and troubling.
“What is it, Alex, Botkin?”
“Yes…well, no….”
“What?”
“We need to talk. I’ve done the calculations and—”
“What calculations?”
“Radiation dispersal downwind and—”
“Kapitan!”
Scott sprang to the starpom’s side at the periscope stand.
“Kapitan, the Sea Eagle is slowing down.” The starpom turned the scope over to Scott.
Scott said, “You’ve got the conn, Starpom. Stay with it.”
“Aye, Kapitan. Helm, give me turns for eight knots. Stand by to back down emergency full on both engines.”
The K-480 slowed but maintained a safe distance from the Sea Eagle. Turbulence flowing past the submarine’s partially exposed hull and around her sail decreased, and along with it the sibilance of tumbling water.
“What’s happening?” Scott said. “Can you see anything?
Running awash in the Sea Eagle’s wake had badly degraded sonar reception. They were deaf but, with the scope up, not blind.
“A ferry is crossing ahead of the Sea Eagle…Sweden to Denmark…cutting it very close. The Sea Eagle could have run the ferry down if she hadn’t slowed.”
The starpom did a quick 360-degree sweep. When he didn’t swing back for another look at the ferry crossing to port, Scott sensed trouble.
“Something…” The starpom’s knuckles tightened on the periscope training handles. “A patrol boat…
closing from astern…. Danish, I think…..Range…under a kilometer…. Big bow wave…. He’s in a hurry…. Searchlight’s on.” He looked away from the scope to Scott. The young lieutenant’s sweaty face shimmered like polished bronze