War Plan Red

by Peter Sasgen

  The president turned away from the window and crossed the ornate room. He loosened his tie and dropped into a baroque armchair upholstered in red and gold silk damask. A fleshy Fragonard nude cavorting with a pair of adoring nymphs gazed down at the president from over a gargantuan carved marble and gold fireplace.

  “Hand me my drink, would you, Paul? Thanks. At any rate, I thought we should talk before the others arrive to discuss the Russian IMF proposal. Things are about to boil over. The President was polite and didn’t bring up Grishkov’s accusation about our connection to Zakayev. But it hung in the air all the same. Also, they don’t buy that we’ve lost contact with Scott. Nothing I said convinced them it was true.”

  Friedman shook his head.

  The president’s face showed signs of stress. “Paul, they’re on a hair trigger. Subitov wants to hit the Chechens now, not wait until they’ve captured Zakayev.”

  Friedman’s eyebrows shot up. “Hit them how?”

  “He didn’t spell it out, but as you know, he’s been itching to use nuclear weapons in the Caucasus.”

  “He’s mad.”

  “He has his supporters, Paul.”

  “They’re mad too.” Friedman made notes as he talked. “Does anyone around the Russian president, not in thrall to Subitov, still think they can capture Zakayev?”

  “Stashinsky thinks they can. But what will it matter if Subitov has his way? They’ve been looking for an excuse to finish the job they started in Chechnya, and this may be it. On the other hand, if they could capture Zakayev, it might change the picture, make them less likely to act rashly.”

  “I tend to agree with Ellsworth, that it’s going to be impossible to capture him.”

  “I’m with you, Paul. And I’d feel better if I knew what Scott was up to and whether or not he’s even in the picture anymore. What can Karl do for us on that score?”

  “Not much, sir, I’m afraid. Weather has been poor over the Baltic and SRO satellites haven’t picked up a thing, even on MAD. Gordon put some P-3Cs into the Baltic, but we have to be careful we don’t go head-to-head with the Russians on this. They’ve redeployed two Be-12s, three Il-38s, and an unknown number of Mi-14 ASW choppers shifted from the Barents operation. The Baltic is over 163,000 square miles in area, and finding a pair of subs in a sea that vast is not going to be easy. Identifying which one is Scott’s is another matter altogether.” Friedman hesitated, tapped a pen against his front teeth.

  “What’s on your mind, Paul?”

  “I was thinking that if the Russians find one or both of them before we do, they may not be inclined to sort things out.”

  “You mean they may shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “Something like that.”

  The president got to his feet and glanced up at the enigmatic Fragonard nude and her cavorting nymphs. “You’re assuming nothing bad has happened to Scott,” he said to the nude. Then, to Friedman:

  “He told Ellsworth that that damned sub he was on was a junker, or something to that effect.”

  “Karl believes he’s okay and so does Ellsworth.”

  The president, working off nervous energy, went back to the window overlooking the Neva. “I’m glad they’re such optimists. I wish I could be.”

  “Ellsworth says it’s a communications problem,” Friedman said, turning around in his chair to speak to the president’s back. “Karl agrees.”

  “So we wait and see if they’re right.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And even if it is a comm problem, Scott can still find and kill Zakayev.”

  “Ellsworth says Scott’s a survivor.”

  “He had better be if the Russians find him before we do and think he’s Zakayev.”

  Zakayev faced Litvanov across the wardroom table.

  “Have some.” Litvanov pushed a bottle of vodka toward Zakayev.

  Zakayev grabbed the bottle and put it out of Litvanov’s reach. “I told you, you drink too much.”

  Litvanov, unshaven, dirty, his greasy cap pushed back on his head, stared at Zakayev. At length he said,

  “And I told you that it makes no difference because”—he swept a hand in the air—“I—all of us—will soon be dead.”

  Zakayev watched Litvanov’s eyes flick to the girl. He knew what Litvanov saw, that she looked haggard, that her eyes were dull, her skin sallow, that she had lost weight. He knew that they all, the crew included, had undergone similar changes. Looking death in the face could do that. Better to have it over now, he had decided.

  Zakayev said, “We’ll never make it to St. Petersburg. I want to blow the reactor now, before the Russian patrol boats in the north get here and before that submarine finds us again.”

  Zakayev held Litvanov’s gaze, daring him to say otherwise.

  “He’ll find us all right,” Litvanov said wearily. The attack and counterattack had depleted him and it showed. “He’s probably less than forty kilometers away. He’ll find us.”

  “You’re obsessed with him. Admit it. What you really care about is killing this skipper in the other submarine. You don’t want to destroy Russia; instead you want to destroy him. That’s your new cause.

  Perhaps you’ve also changed your mind and want to return to Russia and make a clean breast of it, apologize for stealing their submarine.”

  Litvanov eyed the bottle of vodka, then Zakayev. “Is that what you think, General?”

  “It’s what I see. The longer you toy with him, the longer you can put off doing what you swore to do.

  What your men swore to do.”

  Litvanov’s hands on the table balled into fists. “Are you calling me a coward?”

  “Prove to me you aren’t.”

  Litvanov half rose from his seat as the girl pushed the bottle of vodka in front of him. “Here,” she said.

  “I swore to blow up the reactor in St. Petersburg, not in the middle of the Baltic.”

  Zakayev hadn’t moved an inch. “Whether we do it here or in St. Petersburg, the Russians will suffer the consequences, be blamed for it. That’s good enough.”

  Litvanov ignored the bottle and sat down again. “You think we can just blow up the reactor, don’t you.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Poof, and it’s over.”

  “You said we could. I believed you. Now you say we can’t?”

  “No,” Litvanov protested, and grabbed the bottle. “What I’m saying is that unless we can eliminate that submarine closing in on us, we stand a good chance of being torpedoed before we can set the charges and destroy the reactor. He’ll hear the charges go off and know exactly where we are. He’ll think something happened to us and he’ll be right, and he’ll be here in no time and won’t stop to ask if he can help us. Instead, he’ll see us on the surface and attack before the reactor runs away. I told you, it will take two hours for it to melt down through the hull. We don’t have that much time because he’s less than an hour away from us.”

  “How do you know where he is?” Zakayev said.

  Litvanov poured another drink. He pushed the cap farther back on his head with a thumb under the bill, then threw the drink down his throat. “Do you think,” he said, eyes watering, “that we scared him away like a dog running with its tail between its legs? This man, whoever he is, is not afraid of us. It’s as if he knows exactly what we intend to do.”

  “Then you are wasting time,” Zakayev said. “Do it now. Blow the reactor, and if this Russian shows up, torpedo him. But do it now.”

  Litvanov rolled the empty glass between his fingers. He looked at the girl, her deep-set eyes now seemingly bigger than ever, then at Zakayev. “I’m not convinced he’s a Russian.”

  “What are you talking about?” Zakayev said. “Of course he’s a Russian.”

  Litvanov kept rolling the glass, his gaze planted on the girl as he spoke. “He doesn’t track like a Russian skipper. He sprints and drifts, dodges and weaves, runs silent, and above all doesn’t spin on his heel—what the Amerikanskis call ou
r ‘Crazy Ivan’—to clear baffles. Those are the tactics of an American skipper, not a Russian.”

  Zakayev felt his patience slipping away. The man was drunk and talking nonsense. The pressure had gotten to him and Zakayev wondered if it had gotten to the crew as well. If so, the mission was doomed. For a brief moment he considered killing Litvanov. But he realized Veroshilov might not take orders from him and he’d have to kill Veroshilov too. After that, where would it stop? Even if he killed them all, he could probably set the charges but wouldn’t know where to put them. And who would drive the submarine?

  “How could he be an American?” Zakayev said.

  Litvanov said nothing.

  “Not in a Russian Akula,” Zakayev said, and got to his feet. “Impossible.”

  Still Litvanov said nothing.

  “We’re running out of time, Georgi. I’m giving you an order. Prepare your crew; tell them we are going to blow the reactor.”

  Litvanov nodded.

  “Who will set the charges?”

  “The starpom,” Litvanov said. “He volunteered.”

  “Very well, then get Veroshilov started on it. Anything else?”

  Litvanov moved in slow motion. He stood, fists on the table, looking at the girl. “Perhaps I should marry you two. A ship’s captain can do that, you know.”

  The girl looked at Zakayev, then Litvanov. “We’re already married, Kapitan,” she said with mock cheer.

  “I didn’t know that. Congratulations.” Litvanov pulled his cap down over his brow and departed.

  She was almost nothing in his arms. So utterly light and fragile. She clung to him like a child—like the child she still was.

  “I brought this along,” she said, taking her arms from around his neck. “It’s all I have left.” She unwrapped her parents’ wedding album from the oilcloth and held it on her lap so Zakayev could see.

  “I remember,” he said. “It’s very beautiful.”

  Inside were color photographs of a tall, handsome man in a square-cut suit and a slender, lovely woman in a traditional wedding dress holding a bouquet of flowers, posing for the photographer. The girl’s hands caressed the photos, her fingers lingering on the faces, drawing their outlines, perhaps feeling their warmth against her hand.

  Zakayev sat down beside her, their bodies touching. She seemed different, no longer a wife but a daughter. What they had shared was gone, and, he sensed, so was she. There were more pictures to see, though he’d seen them all before, knew everyone’s name, their stories, and the places where they’d been taken. Friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Children of friends. Cousins. A friendly black-and-white dog taught to shake hands, holding up a paw.

  She closed the book and leaned her head on his shoulder. “May I stay here with you, Ali?”

  “Of course. I want you to.”

  “I’m glad it’s almost over. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re angry at Litvanov.”

  “Not angry, disappointed.”

  “You don’t trust him, do you?”

  “A man doesn’t willingly chose to die,” Zakayev said. “But even if he does, he’s entitled to change his mind.”

  They both fell silent listening to the faint, faraway noises made by the K-363.

  At length the girl curled up on the bunk and Zakayev covered her with a rough wool blanket. He put the album by her side so it would be there when she awoke. He brushed a few strands of hair off her cheek and kissed her.

  He changed into a pressed cammie shirt and matching pants that he’d stowed in his tourist suitcase on wheels. He laced up a pair of scarred boots and put on a canvas web belt. Then he stuck the H&K P7

  automatic inside his shirt into the waistband of his cammies.

  Zakayev thought about what he’d told the girl: A man doesn’t willingly chose to die. But even if he does, he’s entitled to change his mind. Zakayev felt the pistol’s cold steel against his belly. In case Litvanov changed his mind, he’d be prepared.

  The men on watch in the CCP expressed silent surprise at Zakayev’s change of dress, Litvanov especially, who looked him up and down but said nothing.

  “Veroshilov is preparing the charges,” Litvanov said without prompting. He motioned to the men in the CCP watching, and also pointed fore and aft. “The men said they want you to know they are ready to do what they swore to do.”

  “Excellent,” said Zakayev. “It’s been an honor to serve with them. And with you, Georgi.”

  “Thank you, General,” Litvanov said. “There’s one more thing to do: monitor the hourly CNN

  broadcast at thirteen hundred for an update on the party going on in St. Petersburg. Also, we have a fix on the patrol boats to the north. I think they’re Grishas, but it’s raining and we have degraded sound conditions. There are at least four of them, perhaps as many as six, all with active sonars. They’re moving south at ten knots. It’s hard to tell how much time we have before they arrive in this area. It depends on how thorough they are.”

  “What about the submarine?”

  “Nothing. That worries me. He’s out there, somewhere. I know he is. He’s not invisible but almost.”

  “Kapitan—broadcast in five minutes,” a michman advised.

  Rain lashed an angry gray Baltic. Visibility, Litvanov estimated, extended less than a kilometer, the horizon invisible. He spun the scope through 360 degrees, saw something, and froze. A four-engined plane, its props shimmering silver disks, had punched through the curtain of rain and zeroed in on the K-363’s periscope. In the split second it took Litvanov to react, he saw the plane’s open bomb bay and a falling object strike the water.

  “Emergency dive! Full down-angle on the planes! Engines ahead emergency speed!”

  Pandemonium erupted in the CCP. Litvanov lost his footing as the K-363 nosed over at a frighteningly steep angle—more than thirty degrees. He grabbed a stanchion to keep from tumbling into Veroshilov at the diving station behind the men at the controls, who had slammed their yokes forward against the stops.

  The K-363 accelerated, burrowing into water only 160 meters deep.

  Zakayev held on tight to a railing but had to dodge loose gear—tools, books, a clipboard—tumbling down the slanted deck and against the legs of men at their stations and into corners and under equipment. He wondered if the girl had been tossed from her bunk and, if so, hoped she’d not been injured.

  “Ease your bubble,” Litvanov ordered. He was down on one knee and watching the depth gauge register ninety-six meters, the pit log fifteen knots and climbing. “One of ours—I think. A May. Came in almost on the surface. Must have had a MAD contact—”

  “Torpedo. Active sonar! Starboard side!”

  Litvanov shot to his feet, bellowing, “Rudder full left! Fire a decoy!”

  The submarine heeled left like a plane in a wingover. A sudden rise in air pressure and a whoosh signaled ejection of a noisemaker in the opposite direction of her turn.

  “Torpedo bearing one-seven-eight. Active sonar.”

  “Fire another decoy!”

  Another pressure pulse and discharge of air.

  “Rudder amidships.”

  Zakayev took a deep breath.

  The K-363 heeled right and leveled out while still nosing down.

  “Where’s that torpedo?”

  “Turning right—going after the decoys.”

  Zakayev exhaled.

  “Maybe that’s all he—” Litvanov said, only to be contradicted.

  “Another torpedo! Active sonar! Port bow! Very close!”

  “A bearing! Give me a bearing!” Litvanov exploded.

  “One-one-two, Kapitan. Steady rate.”

  “Bastard,” Litvanov hissed. “He’s not giving up.” He lurched forward. “Fire two decoys!” He spun toward the depth repeater and saw 110 meters. They were running out of water. “Level her out at one-twenty.”

  “Kapitan, I’ve lost the first torpedo.”

  “Never mind that one, where’s
the other one—?”

  A thunderclap and the K-363 leaped sideways. Litvanov collided with the main blow manifold and crashed to the deck on his back. Zakayev went down, too, but not before he saw a sheet of insulation fly off the hull on the port side of the CCP and shatter on deck. A moment later the CCP went black.

  Zakayev, dazed, looked up and saw blue haze hanging in the air, smelled burning insulation, and heard the pop and fizz of a live cable arcing inside an electrical cabinet. The emergency battle lamps had cycled on.

  He saw smoke. No, CO A sailor crunching over debris played a fire extinguisher over a sparking panel 2

  of gauges. Another sailor slammed tripped circuit breakers back into their seats with the heel of his hand. Somewhere, rushing water filled a void. Were they sinking? He didn’t think so. His cammies and skin were dotted with bits of cork hull insulation and flakes of paint knocked off bulkheads and equipment.

  “Report damage!” Litvanov, standing, rubbing his backside, bellowed into the SC1.

  Zakayev scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off. The pistol in his waistband had gouged his groin, but he ignored it. He pushed past sailors working to restore order and make repairs. He staggered forward, out of the CCP, into the narrow, smoky passageway in Compartment Three off which were the officers’ state rooms. He made way for two sailors rushing aft with tools. He heard someone shout.

  Then it was quiet.

  The lights flickered, went out, then came on again. The acrid smell of smoldering rubber and phenolic resin stung Zakayev’s nostrils. He wiped his eyes and coughed into a fist. For a moment he thought he had gone too far but then realized he was facing the door to his state room.

  He slid the door open on its track and stepped inside. A blade of light from the passageway knifed into the darkened room. He felt around on the bunk, still warm but empty. Heart hammering in his chest, Zakayev fumbled for the light switch over the small desk. He was terrified. And he had the memory. He saw his children in the garden in Grozny, their little bodies bled white, shredded by bullets from Russian PKMs. His wife, Irina, raped, beaten to death with rifle butts, her face unrecognizable. And he saw the girl scrabbling over the rubble in Grozny, clutching the album in one hand, reaching for his with the other. She had been crying, tears streaking her dirty cheeks.