by Joe Buff
Chapter 28
In minutes the Yak landed at a base in the foothills of the snowcapped Cherskiy Mountain Range. A group of naval officers stood there to meet Jeffrey, led by a tall and bearlike figure, easily recognized from his photos, the unsmiling Elmar Meredov.
Meredov loped toward the Yak idling on the airstrip, trailed by his senior staff including a translator. He welcomed Jeffrey curtly, cautiously. Jeffrey insisted on carrying his overnight bag, hugging it in his lap in the van that took everyone on a short ride through the base. He chided himself immediately: the gesture with the bag was meant to establish antagonism and distance, but it was coming across as plain defensive. He sat there in stern silence, and no one else spoke a word.
A ceremonial honor guard of naval infantry, holding rifles with gleaming fixed bayonets, very smartly snapped to attention flanking the last part of the road to the headquarters building. Jeffrey wasn’t sure if this was a courtesy to him, or a show of force, or both. A platoon of Army Spetsnaz troops arrived by helicopter a minute after the Yak, and followed the van in two trucks. They grimly established close-in perimeter security — terrorists, rogues, insurgents, or assassins could be anywhere in this crisis of unknown, imponderable dimensions. Again Jeffrey wondered. Was this a precaution, needed from the Russians’ perspective to protect him and Meredov? Or was it to confine him, while Russia and the U.S. followed a path toward atomic war?
In Meredov’s office, Jeffrey eyed the meter-long model of a NATO code-name Typhoon displayed on a bookcase. He reminded himself that Meredov once walked the decks of such a sub as assistant captain. During nuclear deterrent patrols, he’d been ready if ordered to help unleash wholesale Armageddon on America.
Jeffrey loosened up, for the first time in hours, when Meredov showed him a photo of his wife and their three grown sons. Meredov’s pleasure at displaying his family to a professional peer — Jeffrey — was clearly genuine, and infectious. This man has natural charisma. His staff draws strength from his calming influence. Inside, he’s probably as nervous as I am. He seemed an ideal role model of leadership based on compassion, self-confidence, and proven experience.
Other physical tokens of that experience festooned Meredov’s uniform jacket. Russian practice was to give a separate medal for each award of the same decoration; the man’s chest held rows of them. Jeffrey recognized five copies of the Medal for Courage, but he didn’t know what most of the others meant. He was glad he’d worn his dress uniform with his own medals, including the five-pointed bronze medallion of the Medal of Honor on a ribbon around his neck. We’ve got parity in the clothing department. This is a diplomatic face-off. Dress codes matter.
Obliged to reciprocate, Jeffrey pulled out his wallet, showing Meredov pictures of his parents, and of his two older sisters with their husbands and kids. Meredov admired them, with apparent sincerity. He also admired Jeffrey’s Medal, and, seeing the fourth ring on his sleeves, congratulated him on his recent promotion. He complimented Jeffrey on his Russian. Meredov didn’t speak En-glish, beyond a few basic phrases learned from TV.
Enough with the pleasantries. Both our families could go up in mushroom clouds soon if things are delayed or mishandled.
Meredov seemed to read his thoughts, which Jeffrey found unsettling. Meredov suddenly turned dour. “Come into my conference room, Captain Fuller. Let us get down to the urgent business, shall we?”
Maybe he didn’t feel nervous inside after all. Maybe Meredov was incapable, at this point in his life within such an alien culture as Russia, of ever being made nervous. Jeffrey realized that he’d already shrewdly, smoothly, seized the mental edge. This concerned Jeffrey in a bigger context. Why was he playing, so soon, for such an edge? It made sense, given the political risks to his career, for Meredov to begrudge the role of unwilling back-door emissary — but even so he ought to want to tone down conflict, not raise it, for his own country’s sake.
He also appeared to be very good at donning different masks from one moment to the next. Jeffrey wondered which of these personas was the real Meredov. Then it occurred to him that this might be the wrong point of view. Maybe they were all parts of the real him? If so, he was a complicated guy, unpredictable to someone who didn’t know him well, a tough customer to deal with.
And Meredov had another advantage in this strange, developing confrontation. His best weapon was probably to tell the simple, honest truth as he saw it. Jeffrey, in contrast, had to constantly lie.
Nyurba’s Skat, still going all out, began to run low on fuel. They reached the harbor, Ambarchik, at the Kolyma’s outlet to the sea. Nyurba, smeared with gore, talked to the fueling-pier workers. He scrawled an illegible signature on the requisition forms. They hurried, but the transfer of thousands of liters of gas via hoses used valuable time. The Skat took off again, heading east along the shore, passing promontories with lighthouses, and cliffs. They aimed for narrow Malyy Chaunskiy Strait, between the mainland and big Ayon Island, leading into huge Chaunskaya Bay, fifty miles from the Pevek naval base.
“Sir,” the Army Ranger shouted, “we’re being called on the radio.” The Skat was so old that the control cabin’s soundproofing didn’t work very well. The whining drone of the engines and props made conversation difficult.
“Don’t transmit!” Nyurba ordered hoarsely. “Who’s calling?”
“I don’t know what their call sign means.”
“How’s reception?”
“One by one.” Poor signal strength, poor message clarity.
“Don’t transmit.” The distant EMP’s broader, persistent effects could’ve spoiled local surface ducting, and sea surveillance radar resolution could be messed up. “They may have no way to tell where we are.”
“Hydrophones can still track us,” the SEAL Chief corrected sardonically. Nyurba was none too happy at the reminder. He had another worry as the Skat’s engines continued to strain: How long before they broke down and the group was stranded?
Meredov’s conference room was windowless, shielded against electronic eavesdropping. He didn’t seem too concerned about that, since he left the thick door from his office open. He took the seat at the head of the table, so that through the doorway he could see his senior aide, a stocky woman, Captain, Second Rank Irina Malenkova, sitting at his desk and handling phone calls for him on less pressing matters.
In the middle of the table was the traditional plate of zakusi, a selection of various Russian appetizers that Jeffrey thought of as Slavic antipasti. Coffee, tea, and bottled water were arrayed on a sideboard; there was no alcohol. Jeffrey poured himself black coffee — it was several hours after midnight here, and many more hours than that since he’d last slept. Meredov, who also looked tired, preferred tea.
Jeffrey intentionally took the seat at the foot of the table, opposite Meredov, and picked only lightly at the food, to reestablish an adversarial atmosphere. Near the zakusi platter was a conference phone, with the lights implying the connection was live and the phone wasn’t muted. There was another, regular telephone within Meredov’s reach on the sideboard. The translator, a captain, third class — lieutenant commander — sat against a wall, being unobtrusive. That wall held a map of the Russian Federation and surrounding waters and countries. Another wall held a whiteboard with eraser and colored markers; faint streaks indicated the board was used, perhaps often. A third wall held a big, blank computer flat-screen display.
“Communications with Vladivostok have been tested,” Meredov said, “and from there across the Pacific through the United States to Washington. The Hot Line to Moscow is still under repair but is hoped to be operational soon, Captain. Once that’s done, we’ll be patched into the discussion between our presidents. In the meanwhile, what do you want?”
“Who’s on the other end of this conference call?”
“Senior admirals in Vladivostok who gave me permission to meet with you, and who want to listen in. They’ve told me they wish to keep their participation to a minimum. Also, I’m instructed
to inform you that they’re recording this discussion, to replay it for the Kremlin once communications are restored.”
Typical. Centralized control is everything to these people.
“Zdrastvuti,” Jeffrey said tentatively into the conference phone. Hello.
After a long pause, a gruff old man on the other end answered with a grudging “Hello.” His gravelly, unfriendly voice was a good conversation killer. He came through clearly and crisply, though, presumably by a fiber-optic trunk line, which led in the opposite direction from the pancaked area far to the west; Vladivostok would have been untouched by the EMP.
Jeffrey made a procedural arrangement with the translator. If he didn’t understand something Meredov said, or didn’t know a word in Russian himself, he’d raise his thumb. The translator would help while Meredov waited. The young man, thin and serious, said in English that he followed what Jeffrey meant. His English was accented but fluent. His voice was oddly nasal. Maybe he has a cold, or just always talks that way?
Jeffrey remembered Colonel Kurzin’s advice from what seemed like ages ago, to not rush himself or be rushed, to set a steady and even pace and stick to it. He wondered how Kurzin’s team was doing now, and if they were even alive. He cleared his throat.
“As representative of the aggrieved party, I believe I have the right to insist that you speak first, Admiral, and make your country’s position plain.”
“I have no experience in acting as a military emissary to a foreign state. I’m informed that you’ve done so before, successfully, in South America. But I’m not clear why you’ve come to me personally.”
“You’re a naval officer, qualified in submarines in fact, so you and I have important traits and attitudes in common. There’s a potential rapport which I would not share with someone from your army or air force, and certainly not from your Strategic Rocket Forces arm. Your base happened to have been the closest one to my ship when this crisis erupted, and my ship happened to be the closest American nuclear sub to Srednekolymsk when back-channel discussions, as we call them in my country, became necessary. Your rank, as rear admiral, is not too senior to mine yet senior enough to give you… how do you say it… clout. And yet you in turn are sufficiently junior in the broader context that your statements can be treated by Moscow as deniable at a later date if necessary. That’s the recipe for us meeting, alone, you and I, specifically, here and now, given the disturbing events at Srednekolymsk and their troubling potential aftermath. I’m sure those in Vladivostok follow my logic.”
And they understand how to cover their asses by keeping safely separate from me, the foreign influence, the hot potato.
The conference phone stayed silent.
Meredov nodded. “Then I suggest that we leave rank aside right now, and I request that you, Captain, establish a proper framework for what we must cover.”
“I am here as an unofficial envoy, to resolve for better or worse the many questions raised by the SS-27 launches. Causes, intentions, who is responsible, and what retribution by my country is justly called for.”
Meredov winced. “I think there is more. You have come, America’s greatest submarine ace, as a personified demonstration of your nation’s power and prowess in tactical nuclear combat. I believe you also serve as a high-value trip wire, a significant test of Russian goodwill. If you are harmed, your president will learn of it soon, and will judge his next actions accordingly.”
Meredov was to some extent playing to the audience on the conference phone — some of those men were his bosses. Jeffrey knew that, ultimately, because of the recording being made in Vladivostok, both of them were playing to the Russian president. They also circled one another, verbally and nonverbally, still sizing each other up. It was time for Jeffrey to move in, hard.
“Your headquarters is under the guns of my ship, in the hands of my capable executive officer, who is in constant receive-only extremely low-frequency contact with Commander, U.S. Strategic Command. Challenger’s nuclear Tactical Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles can devastate this base and most of the rest of your assets, from Tiksu to Pevek, if the situation should so dictate.”
“I presumed as much,” Meredov responded dryly.
“There’s more. My commander in chief has set a deadline for adequate resolution of the outstanding issues. The question of proper retaliation for Russia’s attempted ballistic missile H-bomb strike at the U.S. homeland is serious indeed. What does the doctrine of flexible response mean in this situation?”
“What does it mean to your president?”
“My executive officer already has the emergency-action message and the target list. He also has the launch window. The timing has been set for midnight tonight, your local time. If the United States of America has not received sufficient explanation and agreed compensation by then, my executive officer, with Challenger hiding in the marginal ice zone, will launch a dozen cruise missiles at places within range. These places include not only your regional bases, Admiral, but also Anadyr, Vladivostok, and the cities of Yakutia and Magadan. The yield of each warhead is twenty-five kilotons.” This supposed prearranged strike was a total lie, part of the script, but Russia had no way to find that out unless they dawdled. Jeffrey’s purpose was to establish a frightening deadline, to motivate the Kremlin to get to the bottom of the SS-27 launches, yet not allow them — or the Germans — time to think too much.
Meredov’s face turned red. “This is outrageous! Your nation has not been harmed and yet you’d attack our innocent cities? Call off this deranged order!”
“America not harmed? Not harmed with no thanks to you and your treacherous government. Challenger’s tactical nuclear strike will not be called off unless we find satisfaction. Her cruise missiles will surely reach most of their targets, given the confused state of your nationwide command and control.”
“But if you nuke this base while you’re here you’ll be killed!”
Jeffrey forced a nasty smile. “You said I was a trip wire. I am, in fact, much more than that. Think of me as a walking dead-man’s switch. No good news by midnight, which gives you less than twenty-four hours by the way, then the strike occurs regardless of my personal situation, what I say, and whether or not my government is even in contact with me.”
Meredov jumped up from his chair. “Such a strategy by Washington is utterly reckless! It’s madness!”
Jeffrey stayed seated, feigning calm. “You also said I’d come to test your good faith.”
Meredov hesitated. “Yes?”
“I am here, given my value to my country and my experience, to demonstrate my government’s resolve. I come in hopes of helping achieve a positive resolution to the murderous actions attempted but thwarted at Srednekolymsk. In order to avoid a full-scale nuclear exchange between our countries, if need be I’m prepared to give my life. Aren’t you, Admiral?”
“I’ve always been prepared to give my life for the Motherland.”
Jeffrey stared at Meredov. “Do we understand each other?” He glanced at the clock on a wall. “You have until midnight.”
Meredov sat down and let out a long breath. “Yes. We understand each other.”
“So who launched those missiles and why?” Jeffrey banged the table with a clenched fist. The translator was startled. Meredov looked pained.
“We do not yet know. It might have been rogues or invaders. I’m told this is being actively investigated.”
“As far as my country is aware, and as far as my president sees it, Russia attempted a first strike against America. Your country, with the authorization of your commander in chief, and the rest is all lies!”
“But—”
“Verbal excuses will carry no weight! How can you possibly explain this?” Jeffrey reached into his bag and pulled out the transcript of the Hot Line call, before the SS-27s lifted off.
Since it was in English, Meredov gave it to the translator. “Read it aloud in Russian,” he ordered, pointing at the conference phone.
Mer
edov’s face turned crimson as he started to understand what the transcript said. “I myself am puzzled. I do not think my commander in chief would mislead yours intentionally, on topics of such importance, when the likelihood of deception being found out was so great. Perhaps he was misled by intermediate-level commanders, who were confused or who sought to protect themselves.”
“Between nations, Admiral, the whole is held responsible for the actions of its parts.”
Meredov nodded reluctantly.
Jeffrey leaned forward. “Listen carefully, you and those in Vladivostok, and in Moscow when they hear this as a recording…. If extremists launched those missiles, in some analogy to the attempted provocation by the Golf-class sub in nineteen-sixty-eight, and other suspect events since then, the Kremlin is answerable. Answerable for failing to adequately safeguard its own thermonuclear missiles during a time of terrible international strife. And answerable for failing to maintain adequate internal security as to conspiracies and splinter groups within the Kremlin’s own power structure. If we did not have our stealth space-based missile shield in place, tragedy would have occurred. Instead of us sitting here talking, our two countries would be busy fighting a strategic nuclear war! Do you grasp how serious things are?”
“What is this missile shield? I thought Russian rogues created the electromagnetic pulses over Moscow on purpose, or the missiles were aimed at America but detonated early due to some error in fusing inputs or a hardware or software fault.”
This is the critical moment. To make it real, I need to keep it tight, almost as an afterthought, and sound blasé. Overexplaining or going verbose would only cast doubt.
The Hot Line would be used to convey its technical details — that part of the script wasn’t Jeffrey’s job, unless pressed.
“The shield’s very existence is classified. I was informed by radio only because I had a need to know, as part of my tasking to meet with you. It has the capability to make enabled, unlocked hydrogen bombs on ballistic missiles launched against America detonate prematurely in the vacuum of space, after their boost phase is complete, to inflict punishment on the aggressor and discourage further provocation or escalation.”