Another strike launched at the same time would target the Japanese missile-launch facilities on the Tateyama Peninsula. Chernov knew the colonel leading that strike, although not well. The problem with the Mig-25’s, which was the reason for these meetings and conferences, was their limited range. The bombers would have to be fueled from airborne tankers several times to make this flight, one far longer that anything the Mikoyan designers had ever in their wildest fantasies envisioned for their superfast fighter. Like all Soviet fighters, the Mig-25 had been designed to defend the homeland. Getting the tankers into position to refuel the Migs prior to and after their dash was Chernov’s job. He was to escort them and defend them from Zeros. Just listening to the Moscow generals and their staffs explain the mission, annotate charts, assign frequencies and call signs, and talk about the whole thing as if it were possible — indeed, as if it were a routine military operation — Chernov didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The whole thing was ludicrous. At the very start of this exercise in military stupidity, Chernov tried to explain to the staff weenies that the Sukhois didn’t have much of a chance against semi-stealthy Zeros: “Zeros are a technological generation beyond our plane. Two generations ahead of the Mig-25,” he said. None of the brass was interested. He would do as he was told — it had all been decided in Moscow. Now Chernov sat and listened and made notes. He looked out the window and watched the second hand of the clock on the wall sweep around and around, counting off the minutes. Dawn was still several hours away. An hour before man-up time, the briefers were finished. The pilots were told to relax, make a head stop. Chernov wandered over toward the barracks and found an empty bunk.
Stretched out, trying to relax, trying to put it all in perspective, he felt the insanity sweep over him. He felt as if he were drowning. Nuclear weapons. Nuke Tokyo. Mushroom clouds. Millions dead. If any of the Migs got through, that is. And afterward, meeting the tankers, trying to get enough fuel to make it back to a Russian-occupied base … “What if the Japanese retaliate?” someone had asked the Moscow brass, only to be told, “The Japanese don’t have nuclear weapons.”
“We hope,” Yan Chernov said loudly. “President Kalugin is absolutely certain.”
“Bet he said that in a telephone call from his dacha on the Black Sea,” one of the junior pilots said, and his comrades laughed. The Moscow brass frowned, then pretended that they had heard nothing. The men weren’t happy, but they had never heard anyone in uniform suggest Japan might be a nuclear power, so the possibility of thermonuclear retaliation seemed remote. Getting to Japan was the worrisome part. Well, if the Zeros didn’t get them, the usual Russian leadership and efficiency problems would ensure this complex plan ground to a halt well before the planes landed safely back at Irkutsk. Chernov lay in the darkness, trying to relax. Sleep was impossible. Man-up time in less than an hour. His thoughts began to drift. Scenes from his youth growing up on a collective farm flashed through his mind. He had wanted something more, and so had applied himself faithfully and diligently to gain top honors in school. The work paid off. He had been noticed. So what had he gained?
His life had been a great adventure. Truly. The flying, the new and different places, the exhilaration of combat, the thrill of victory — a man would never have gotten any of that back on the collective farm, with that eternal wind always blowing, howling across the plain, scouring away seed, soil, hopes, dreams, everything. If his father and mother could only see how far he had traveled along this road. He was seized with the most powerful longing. Oh, if only he could spend another day with his parents, sitting in their tiny cottage, looking out the door at the plowed fields as his father talked about the earth. All that was over. Gone. In a few hours, he would be dead and none of it would matter.
The submarine bumped once, scraped along the seafloor for a few feet, then settled into the muddy bottom of Sagami Bay and began tilting ever so slowly to port. “Captain,” Esenin said sharply as the list passed five degrees. Even he was holding on. Six degrees … “At twelve degrees, we lift her and try another spot.”
Eight … “We are so close,” Esenin muttered. Ten degrees … barely moving … Then all movement stopped. A sigh of relief swept the control room. “Fifty-two meters,” someone said, reading the depth gauge. Suddenly Saratov realized how tired he was. He had to hang on to the chart table to remain erect. “Here we are, General. Wounded, running out of air, with exhausted batteries, and the entire Japanese NAVY searching for us. I don’t know how much time we have.”
The tense hours had taken their toll on Esenin. He had to summon the energy to speak. “You have gotten us here, Saratov. That is the critical factor. At this place, we can save Russia.”
“Right.” The sourness in Saratov’s tone narrowed Esenin’s eyes. “We leave this spot when and only when I say.” Esenin looked into every man’s face. “I am taking two divers with me. We will exit through the air lock. We will open a container and put one of the weapons onto the sea floor. Then we will come back inside and you will move the boat one mile west along the fault, where we will do it again. When the last weapon is on the bottom, you will take us out of here.”
Esenin glanced at his watch. “When will the weapons detonate?” Saratov asked. “In twelve hours. Planting each weapon will take an hour, plus an hour to move the boat — seven hours total. That will give us five hours to exit the area.”
“We don’t have seven hours,” Saratov told him. “You might have one or two. Three at most.”
“You think they’ll be on us by then?”
“I guarantee it.”
Esenin’s lips compressed into a thin line. “The warheads are armed now, aren’t they?” Pavel Saratov asked. “Do you know that, or are you guessing?”
“The box.” He nodded at the box on Esenin’s chest. “It could only be a trigger.”
“We decided that detonation of the weapons at sea would be preferable to letting them fall into enemy hands. Fortunately for us, that necessity did not arise. Still, it might. If it does, I have faith that Major Polyakov will do what has to be done. He will have custody of the box while I am outside the boat.”
Esenin took off the box and placed it on the chart table. He opened it. “As you can see, there is a keyboard for typing in a code.” He punched in a four-digit number with a forefinger. “There,” he said. “The code is entered. Now the circuitry is armed.”
Saratov stepped forward for a look. “You armed that goddamned thing?”
“It was too dangerous to sail around with the bombs armed. They are armed now.”
Esenin’s hand came up. He had a pistol in it. He jabbed the barrel against Saratov’s chest. “No closer, Captain. You have had your fun at my expense. From here on, this is my show.”
Polyakov and the naval infantry michmen also had their pistols out and pointing. The major grinned at Saratov. “I will guard the box, Captain.”
“You have brought us far, Pavel Saratov,” Esenin said, flashing his Trojan Island grin, “yet we still have far to go. You will let us down if you let anything happen to you.”
“You don’t really give a damn if you live or die, do you, Esenin?”
“Sometimes it is easier that way.”
Saratov got back onto the stool where he had spent the last twelve hours. “You people better get at it. It is just a matter of time before the Japs arrive.”
The dinner hour had passed when Janos Ilin made an evening call on Marshal Stolypin at military headquarters in Moscow. He found the old man in a sour mood. When the door closed and they were alone, the soldier said, “Fool! Incompetent! Bungler!”
“What can I say?”
“This morning he gave the order to launch nuclear strikes against Japan. He sent three planes to bomb Tokyo and three to bomb the Japanese missile facility at Tateyama. And, of course, there is the submarine with four weapons aboard trying to put bombs on the ocean floor outside Tokyo Bay. I argued against it, told him no, no, a thousand times no, and he almost sacked me. Ran me
out.”
“Oh, too bad. Too bad/h we heard anything from Admiral Kolchak?”
“Not a word. From all the intercepts of Japanese traffic, it appears Captain Saratov has gotten into Sagami Bay. Against all odds. It’s an amazing feat.”
“What does Kalugin say?”
“He doesn’t believe the Japanese have warheads on missiles that they can use as ICBMS. Refuses to admit the possibility.”
“I was hoping you had an appointment with him in the near future.”
“Umph.”
The old man sat looking out the window. He looked ten years older than he had a month ago. “You have done what you could, Marshal.”
“I should be home in my garden.” Stolypin sighed. “My legacy to Russia — I argued futilely against a suicidal course already decided upon by a dictator. Fifty years of soldiering I did, and he wouldn’t listen.”
“Perhaps it is time for the garden.”
“I just sent an aide over with a letter of resignation effective at midnight tonight. I should go home now and be done with all of this.”
Stolypin looked at his watch. “I have my last staff meeting in a few minutes. Perhaps I should sit in on it, say farewell.”
“How goes it? Truly.”
“The situation is not as bleak as Kalugin believes. We are building an army; we are equipping it, finding food and fuel and transportation. … We could whip the Japanese this winter. We will have half a million men to put against them. With air superiority, we will crush them.”
“Kalugin refuses to wait?”
“He says the UN will give the oil fields away before spring. Maybe he is right. The world has changed so.”
“I must see Kalugin tonight.”
“I tried to explain … Time is on our side. Every day that passes, we get stronger. Six months from now, they will be losing troops wholesale; we’ll be bleeding them mercilessly; the Diet will be arguing about how much money the army costs … Then we could have them!”
The telephone rang. Stolypin sat looking at it, listening to the rings, before he finally extended a hand and picked up the instrument. “Yes.” He listened a bit, then said, “Janos Ilin of the FIS is also here. He would like an audience, too. May I bring him along?”
He listened a bit more, grunted, then hung up. “One of Kalugin’s flunkies. The president wants to see me about the letter.”
“Of resignation?”
“Yes.” Stolypin ran his fingers over the desk, put the telephone exactly where it was supposed to be, and flipped off an invisible mote of dust. “They said you could come, if you wished.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. He’ll probably have me shot for treason and you for being in the same room.”
As they walked into the courtyard, Ilin put a hand lightly on the marshal’s arm and brought him to a stop. “Have you any indication that Kalugin suspects you or me of trying to kill him?”
“None. So far.”
“Kalugin will purge the bureaucracy, the military, and the Chamber of Deputies as soon as the military situation is looking up.”
“I am an old man. I am resigned to my fate. Rest assured, I will say nothing.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you or me. I was thinking of one hundred and fifty million Russians who deserve better than Aleksandr Kalugin.”
With that, Ilin walked on toward the car. The soldier holding the car door saluted the marshal, and he returned it. Stolypin and Ilin seated themselves in the limo and the soldier closed the door behind them. There was a glass between the passengers and the driver of the car. “Can he hear us?” Ilin asked.
“I want to tell Kalugin personally of some critical intelligence reports that I have just received.”
“With me there?”
“You might as well hear it now. Both Japan and the United States know of Kalugin’s determination to use nuclear weapons. The missions he has ordered may well fail.”
“How do they know? A spy? A traitor?”
“The Japanese call him Agent Ju.”
“You know this person’s identity?”
“It is someone in Kalugin’s circle, I think. Someone very close to him.” This was a lie, of course, but Stolypin didn’t know that. Stolypin goggled. “Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“Money, I think,” Janos Ilin told him. “Originally. Now, I do not know. Power? Insanity? I intend to tell Kalugin about this agent, tell him what I know. And tell him, again, that Japan has nuclear weapons.” “A traitor! In times like these!”
“Especially in times like these,” Janos Ilin replied.
The foul, stale air inside the boat was dead, unmoving. All the circulation fans were off to save the batteries and minimize noise. Each man was trapped in a cloud of his own stink. The boat had been lying on the bottom for an hour. Esenin and his two divers had gone out through the air lock twenty minutes ago. During the past hour, several ships had passed near enough to be heard without sonar. Only Saratov and the sonar operator knew more than that, because only those two wore headsets. Saratov had just concluded that there were six ships within audible range when the sonar operator whispered that there were seven. They were going back and forth near the location where the frigate had gone under, probably pulling sailors from the water. Right now Admiral Kolchak lay on the bottom six miles from that position. The number of planes was a more difficult problem because the beat of their props came and went. There had to be several, perhaps as many as four. The ships and airplanes would find the submarine before too long. Although the sub was sitting on the bottom, a MAD would go off the scale if a hunter came close enough. Pavel Saratov sat looking at Major Polyakov, who was seated on the navigator’s stool, facing the captain’s right. Without Esenin around, Polyakov had become lethargic. Saratov thought he had little imagination. He was not stupid, just unimaginative, without ambition or ideas. There are a lot of people in the world like that, Saratov reminded himself, and they seem to do all right. It is certainly not a crime to leave the thinking to others.
Given all of that, the question remained: Why would Polyakov push the button, killing himself and every man on the boat?
“You would kill yourself, would you, Polyakov?”
“I will do what has to be done for my country, Captain. I believe in Russia.”
“And you are the only one who does?”
Polyakov eyed Saratov suspiciously. Apparently he thought this some kind of loyalty test. “Of course not,” he said. “Aleksandr Kalugin loves Russia too.”
“I see.”
“I don’t want to talk about these things.”
“These subjects are uncomfortable.”
“I am a soldier. I obey my superior officers. All of them.”
“Is Esenin a soldier? A real soldier?”
“What else would he be?” Polyakov’s brows knitted. “You’ve met him before in your career, have you?”
“No. The naval infantry is a big outfit. Of course there are officers I do not know.”
“And michmen?”
“Plenty of michmen I don’t know.”
“Where are you from, Polyakov?”
“St. Petersburg, Captain. My father was a shipyard worker.”
It went on like this for several minutes. The major answered the captain’s questions because he was the captain, but his answers revealed no inner doubts. The faces of the sailors standing and sitting in the small room reflected the ordeal they had been through, and the horror of the abyss at which they found themselves. They looked at Polyakov as if he were a monster, which seemed to bother the major not at all. Esenin had chosen well. Just then, the screw noises of a ship became audible. Saratov glanced up at the overhead, as did most of the people in the compartment, including Polyakov. The noise became louder and louder. As the ship thundered directly over the sub, Pavel Saratov removed the Tokarev from his pocket and shot Major Polyakov in the head. The major toppled sideways off the stool and fell onto the deck. The box remained on the chart table
. Saratov reached for it with his left hand as he pointed his pistol at the naval infantry michman standing openmouthed facing him, his rifle in his hand. The chief of the boat reached for the michman’s rifle and pistol, took them from him. “This is where the road forks, Chief. Are you with me or not?”
“We’re with you, Captain. All the men.”
“Go disarm the infantrymen forward. Collect all the weapons and bring them in here. And send Michman Martos to me. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
The navigator swabbed the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He was near tears. “Oh, thank you, Captain. I’d rather die than start World War Three.”
“If we don’t have some luck, son, we may do both. Now take the major’s pistol and disarm the infantrymen in the engine room and battery compartment.”
“And if they won’t give me their guns?”
“Shoot them, and be damned quick about it. Now go.”
Saratov hefted the box. It was very light. He used a pocketknife to pry off the back, which was held on with just three screws. The box contained only a battery. No transmitter. It was a dummy. “Captain,” said the sonar michman. “A helo just went into a hover off our port side. He is very close. He must have dipped a sonar pod.”
23
Other Tokyo bombers took off first, three Mig-25’s, one after another. The four Sukhoi escorts, with Yan Chernov in the lead, took the runway as the last Mig lifted off. Chernov and his wingman made a section takeoff, Chernov on the left. Safely airborne, Chernov turned slightly left so that he could look back over his shoulder. Yes, the other two Sukhois were lifting off. In less than a minute, the four fighters were together and climbing to catch the three Migs, which were climbing on course as a flight of three aircraft, spread over a quarter of a mile of sky. The Tateyama strike was scheduled to follow ten minutes behind. Alas, this whole evolution hinged on successfully rendezvousing with tankers at three places along this route. The tankers had been launched from bases farther to the east hours ago. Or so a Moscow general said, after much shouting into a telephone. A coordinated strike, precision rendezvous, over a dozen aircraft moving in planned ways over thousands of miles of sky — the Russians hadn’t even attempted exercises this complicated in years. If the tankers weren’t at the rendezvous points, if the equipment in the tankers didn’t work, if the tankers or strike planes had mechanical problems, if a tanker pilot screwed up, if the Japanese attacked with Zeros — any of these likely eventualities would prevent the bombers from reaching Japan. The Moscow general with the chest cabbage didn’t want to talk of these things. The morning was cool, but the day was going to be hot. Already clouds were forming over mountain peaks and ridges and drifting over the valleys, portending rain. Here and there a cumulonimbus was growing in the thermals, threatening to develop into an afternoon thunderstorm. All these clouds were below the fighters, which were cruising at forty thousand feet. The oxygen tasted rubbery this morning. Yan Chernov sucked on it, glanced at his cockpit altitude gauge, and tried to rearrange his bottom on the ejection seat to get more comfortable. As briefed, Chernov split his flight of four planes into two sections. He stationed himself and his wingman three miles ahead and to the right of the strike formation, and the other section in a similar position on the left side. He looked at his watch. An hour and a half to the first tanker rendezvous. The major sat listening to the electronic countermeasures equipment and watching the clouds in the lower atmosphere. There were dust storms down there, opaque areas that hid the land. Amazing how good the view was from this altitude. God must see the earth like this, he thought.
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