Fortunes of War

by Stephen Coonts

  The first problem the Americans faced was parking their planes. The base was beyond the tactical range of Zeros flying from Khabarovsk, which was cold comfort since the Japanese now had planes at Zeya. And if they used a tanker, they could strike this base anytime they wished from almost anywhere, including Japan. With that in mind, the F-22’s were dispersed all over the field. The revetments were full of obviously abandoned fighters, some of them old Mig-19’s and Mig-21’s. Some of these antiques had flat tires, oil leaks, sand and bird’s nests in the intakes. The Americans pushed and pulled the Russian iron out of the revetments and put the F-22’s in. Then they rigged camouflage nets. Some of the best spots, concrete revetments completely hidden by large trees, were already taken by Sukhoi-27’s, which looked ready to fly. The Sukhois were attended by grubby, skinny Russians who smelled bad and didn’t speak English. The Americans passed out candy bars and soon made friends. While the candy was eaten eagerly, the Russians really wanted cigarettes, which the Americans didn’t have. Now that he was on the ground, Cassidy thought the Chita area was a bit like Colorado. The base and the small town huddled around the railroad station a few miles away were in a basin, surrounded by snow-covered mountains to the north, west, and south. The air was crystal-clear: From here, it was a long way to anywhere. At least the communications were first-rate: The Americans had brought their own com gear, portable radios that bounced their signals off a satellite, which meant that the operators could talk to anyone on the planet. Cassidy got on the horn immediately. He used the cryptological en-coder, set it up based on the date and time in Greenwich, then waited until it phased in. When he got a dial tone, he called the Air Force command center in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado Springs. “All quiet, Colonel. They haven’t stirred much today.”

  Bob Cassidy breathed a sigh of relief. By the following morning, the defenses here would be ready, but not quite yet. Everything was a problem, from berthing to bathrooms. The pilots got an empty ramshackle barracks and the enlisted got two. The bathrooms were appalling. Each building had one solitary toilet without a seat to serve the needs of the eighty people who would be bunked in that building.

  “If my mother saw this, she’d faint dead away. She always wanted me to join the NAVY, live like a gentleman,” Bob Cassidy told a little knot of junior officers he found staring into a dark, filthy barracks bathroom. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I used to get seasick taking a bath.”

  “You’ve certainly come to the right place, Colonel. You won’t have to take baths here.”

  “Fur Ball, you and Foy Sauce go dig a hole for an outhouse. Scheer, you take these others and tear down that old shack across the road for wood. Get some tools from the mechanics and watch out for rusty nails. And build one for the enlisted troops, too.”

  When Cassidy disappeared, Hudek said disgustedly, “Outhouses!

  We’ve come halfway around the world to build outhouses.”

  “Glamour,” Foy Sauce muttered. “High adventure, fame … I am so goddamn underwhelmed, I could cry.”

  That evening everyone ate in an abandoned mess hall. The stoves used wood from the nearby forest. The doctor who had accompanied the group from Germany refused to allow anyone to drink the water from the taps, so bottled water was served with the MRES— meals, ready to eat. The’ MRES were opened, warmed somewhat on the stoves, and served. Later that evening, Maj. Yan Chernov came looking for the commanding officer. He had a translator in tow. After the introductions, he told Cassidy, “My men need food. We came here from Zeya two weeks ago. The base people have no extra food.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Sixty-five.”

  Cassidy didn’t hesitate. “We’ll share, Major.” He caught the supply officer’s eye and called him over. After a brief conversation, he told the translator, “Dinner for your people will be in twenty minutes.”

  “We have no money. Nothing with which to pay.”

  “Zeya is down the valley, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. East. The Japanese attacked. I shot down a few.”

  “With Su-27’s?”

  “Yes, good plane.”

  “My first name is Bob.” Cassidy held out his hand. “Yan Chernov.”

  “Let’s have a long talk while you eat. I want to know everything you know about the Japanese.”

  The sea was calm, with just the faintest hint of a swell. The boat rocked ever so gently as it ghosted along on its electric engines. Fog limited visibility and clouds blocked out the night sky. A gentle drizzle massaged Pavel Saratov’s cheeks as he stood in Admiral Kolchak’s tiny cockpit atop the sail. He took a deep breath, savoring the tang of the sea air, a welcome contrast from the stink of the boat. Alive. Ah, how good it was. Unconsciously he fingered the lumpy new scar on his forehead, a jagged purple thing that came out of his hairline and ran across above his left eye, then disappeared into his hair over his left ear. The fragments of the Japanese shell that struck the bridge had torn off half his scalp. The corpsman had sewn the huge flap of skin back in place, and fortunately it seemed to have healed. The scar was oozing in several places — an infection, the corpsman said. He smeared ointment on the infected places twice a day. Every morning he used a dull needle to give Saratov an injection of an antibiotic as the crew in the control room watched with open mouths. Saratov always winced as if the needle hurt mightily. He had inspected the bottle of penicillin before the first injection. The stuff was grossly out of date, but since it was all they had, he passed the bottle back to the corpsman without comment and submitted to the jabs. An hour before midnight. Here under the clouds, amid the fog, it was almost dark, but not quite. A pleasant twilight. At these latitudes at this time of year the night would not get much darker. At least the clouds shielded the boat from American satellites. He wondered if the Americans were passing satellite data to the Japanese. Perhaps, he decided. Saratov didn’t trust the Americans. Behind Saratov, the lookout had the binoculars to his eyes, sweeping the fog. “Keep an eye peeled,” Saratov told him. “If the Japanese know we are here, we will have little warning.”

  As his wound healed, Saratov had ordered the boat northward, keeping it well out to sea. He lay in his bunk staring at the overhead and eating moldy bread, turning over his options. He refused to make a radio transmission on any frequency. The danger of being pinpointed by radio direction finders was just too great. One evening the boat copied a message from Moscow. After it was decoded, Askold delivered it to the captain, who read it and passed it back.

  “Captain, Moscow says to go to Trojan Island. I have never heard of it.”

  “Umm,” Saratov grunted. “It’s not on the charts.”

  “It is a submarine base, inside an extinct volcano, near the Kuril Strait. It was a base for boomers. Abandoned years ago.”

  “What will we do, Captain?”

  “Hold your present course and speed. Let me think for a while.”

  Trojan Island. After several days of thought, Saratov decided to try it, because the other options were worse. Now he spoke into the sound-powered telephone on his chest. “XO, will you come up, please?”

  When the executive officer was standing beside Saratov in the cockpit, he said, “The island is dead ahead, Captain. Four miles, if our navigation is right.”

  “I haven’t been here in twelve years,” Saratov muttered. “I hope I haven’t forgotten how to get in.”

  “Amazing,” the XO said. “A sub base so secret that I never heard about it.”

  “You weren’t in nuclear-powered submarines.”

  “What if there is nothing there anymore?”

  “I don’t know, Askold. I just don’t know. It’s a miracle the P-3’s haven’t found us yet. Sooner or later they will. I thought about stopping a freighter, putting all the men aboard and scuttling the boat. We have an obsolete submarine, the periscope is damaged, we’re running low on fuel and food, and we have only four torpedoes left. We’ve done about all the damage we can do”" “Yes, s
ir.”

  The XO concentrated on searching the fog with binoculars. They heard the slap of breakers on rocks before they saw anything. Probing the fog with a portable searchlight, Saratov closed warily on the rocky coast at two knots. At least the sea was calm here in the lee of this island. He finally found rocks, rising sheer from the sea. It took Saratov another hour to find the landmarks he wanted, mere fading gobs of paint smeared on several rocks. He was unsure of one of the marks — there wasn’t much paint left — but he kept his doubts to himself. After taking several deep breaths, Saratov turned the boat, got on the heading he wanted, then ordered the boat submerged. In the control room, he ordered the michman to take the boat to a hundred feet, then level off. While this was going on, he studied the chart he had worked on for an hour earlier that day. “I want you to go forward on this course at three knots for exactly five minutes, then make a ninety-degree right turn. If we go slower, the current will push us out of the channel.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “If we hit some rocks at three knots we’ll hole the hull,” one of the junior officers said, trying to keep it casual. “This is a dangerous place to get into,” the captain replied, trying to keep the censure from his voice. Now didn’t seem the time to put junior officers in their place. “Sonar, start pinging. Give me the forward image on the oscilloscope.”

  As the submerged boat approached the island, the hole in the rock became visible on the scope. Pinging, afraid of going slower, Saratov aimed for the tunnel. Around Saratov, everyone in the control room was sweating. “This is worse than Tokyo Bay,” the XO remarked. No one said a word. All eyes were on the oscilloscope. As the sub entered the hole, Saratov ordered the speed dropped to a knot. He crept forward for a hundred yards, watching the scope as the sonar pinged regularly. The chamber ended just ahead. With the screws stopped, the chief began venting air into the tanks. The sub rose very slowly, inching up. When the boat reached the surface, Saratov cranked open the hatch dogs, flung back the hatch, and climbed into the cockpit. The boat lay in a black lagoon inside a huge cavern. That much he had expected. What Saratov had not expected were the electric lights that shone brightly from overhead. A pier lay thirty meters or so to port. Standing on the pier were a group of armed men in uniform: Russian naval infantry. Saratov gaped in astonishment. One of the men on the pier cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “Welcome, Captain Saratov. We have been waiting for you.”

  17

  Several of the armed naval infantrymen, Russian marines, on the pier were officers. As the submarine was secured to the pier, Saratov saw that one officer wore the uniform of a general. When the soldiers had pushed over a gangplank, the general skipped lightly across like a highly trained athlete. He didn’t bother to return the sailors” salutes. Saratov didn’t salute, either. The general didn’t seem to notice. He stood on the deck, looking up at the dents and scars on the sail and the twisted periscope. “How long will it take to fix this?” he asked, directing his question at Saratov. “If we had the proper tools, perhaps two days for this damage. The missing tiles will take several weeks to repair, and the new ones may come off again the first time we dive.”

  The general climbed the handholds to the small bridge. “My name is Esenin.”

  “Saratov.”

  “Shouldn’t you be saluting or something?”

  “Should I?”

  “I think so. We will observe the courtesies. The military hierarchy is the proper framework for our relationship, I believe.”

  Saratov saluted. Esenin returned it. “Now, General, if you will be so kind, I need to see your identity papers.”

  “We’ll get to that. You received an order directing your boat to this base?”

  Saratov nodded. The general produced a sheet of paper bearing the crest of the Russian Republic. The note was handwritten, an order to General Esenin to proceed to Trojan Island and take command of all forces there. The signature at the bottom was that of President Aleksandr Kalugin. “And your identity papers. Proving you’re General Esenin.”

  “Alas, you have only my honest face for a reference.”

  “Oh, come on! A letter that may or may not be genuine, a uniform you could acquire anywhere? Do I look like a fool?”

  “We also have weapons, Captain. As you see, I am armed and so are my men. If you will be so kind as to observe, they have your sailors under their guns as we speak.”

  The soldiers were pointing their weapons at the sailors, who were busy securing the loose ends of the lines. “All personnel at this base are subject to my authority, including you and your men,” General Esenin concluded.

  “I didn’t know there were any personnel here.”

  “There are now.”

  Saratov handed the letter back. He leaned forward, with his elbows on the edge of the combing.

  “I congratulate you on your victory in Japan, Captain. You have done very well.”

  Saratov nodded.

  “By order of President Kalugin, you have been promoted to captain first class.”

  “My men are owed five or six months’ pay. Can you pay them?

  Most of them have families to support.”

  “Alas, no one will be mailing letters from Trojan Island.”

  Saratov turned his head so that the general could not see his disgust. “How long will it take to ready your boat for sea?”

  “The periscope…, if there is another in the stores here, that will take several days. The radar is out of action. We have several cracked batteries. If the people here have the parts and tools and food and fuel and torpedoes, perhaps a week.”

  The general nodded abruptly. “We will repair your boat as speedily as possible, refuel and reprovision it; then you and your crew will take me and a special warfare team back to Tokyo.”

  Saratov tried not to smile. “You look amused, Captain.”

  “Let’s be honest, “General.” This boat will never get into Tokyo Bay a second time.”

  “I know it will be difficult.”

  Saratov snorted. “For reasons we can only speculate about, the Japanese left the door open the first time. We grossly embarrassed them. I assume you know the Asian mind? They lost a great deal of face. They will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that we do not succeed in embarrassing them again. By now they have welded the door shut.”

  “No doubt you are correct, but I have my orders from President Kalugin. You have your orders from me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just so that we understand each other, Captain, let me state the situation more plainly: this boat is going back to Tokyo Bay. If you do not wish to take it there under my orders, we will give you a quick funeral and your executive officer will have his chance at glory.”

  Saratov bit his lip to keep his face under control. Esenin glanced his way and smiled.

  “You find me distasteful, Captain. A common reaction. I have an abrasive personality, and I apologize.” His smile widened. “Then again, perhaps distasteful is an understatement. Perhaps, Saratov, like so many others before you, you wish to watch me die. Who knows, you may get lucky.”

  Esenin flashed white teeth.

  Saratov tried to keep his face deadpan. “I hope you are a tough man,” he told Esenin. “When they weren’t expecting us, the Japanese almost killed us. Next time, they’ll be ready. Dying in one of these steel sewer pipes won’t be pleasant. There is just no good way to do it. You can be crushed when the boat goes too deep and implodes, maybe die slowly of asphyxiation when the air goes bad. If we get stuck on the bottom, unable to surface, you’ll probably wish to God you had drowned.”

  Esenin’s smile was gone.

  “We might die together, Saratov,” he said. “Or perhaps I shall watch you die. We will see how the game goes.”

  The general climbed down the rungs welded to the sail to the deck. He paused and looked up at Saratov. “You have five days and nights to get ready disfor sea. Make the most of them.”

  The next day Bo
b Cassidy took off leading a flight of four. He had slept for exactly two hours. According to the people at Space Command in Colorado Springs, two Zeros had their engines running at Zeya, five hundred miles east. Ready or not, the Americans could wait no longer.

  This morning Paul Scheer flew on Cassidy’s wing. The second section consisted of Dick Gvelich and Foy Sauce.

  Cassidy swung into a gentle climbing turn to allow the three fighters following him to catch up. Joined together in a tight formation, the four F-22’s kept climbing in a circle over the field. They entered a solid overcast layer at eight thousand feet and didn’t leave it until they passed twenty thousand.

  In the clear on top, they spread out so that they could safely devote some time to the computer displays in their cockpits. The first order of business was checking out the electronics.

  The F-22 acquired its information about distant targets from its own onboard radar, from data link from other airplanes, or via satellite from the computers at Space Command in Colorado Springs. In addition, the planes contained sensors that detected any electronic emissions from the enemy, as well as infrared sensors exquisitely sensitive to heat. The information from all these sources was compiled by the main tactical computer and presented to the pilot on a tactical situation display.

  The airplanes shared data among themselves by the use of data-link laser beams, which were automatically aimed based on the relative position of the planes as derived from infrared sensors. Each plane fired a laser beam at the other and updated the derived errors in nanoseconds, allowing the computers to fix the relative position of both planes to within an inch. In clouds or bad weather, the data-link transfer was conducted via a focused, super-high-frequency radio beam.