by Joe Buff
Meredov was astonished. “The nuclear explosions were caused by your missile shield?”
“The punishment inflicted is proportional, discriminate, appropriate, nonlethal, and nonescalatory. My government views this retaliation as entirely justified under international law.”
“Such points, I am not qualified to debate. But why has such an amazing capability been kept secret?”
“I suppose to not tempt an adversary into striking before it was ready…. Don’t evade me, Admiral. I repeat my question. Who was responsible for launching those missiles? And I don’t mean who turned the keys. I mean who made the decision, issued the authorization? If you don’t come up with some good answers soon, my commander in chief will feel righteously entitled to inflict more such pulses on Russia, beyond the tactical nuclear strike launched from Challenger, using American ICBMs. We will be protected by our special shield, while we send your whole country back to the age of the telegraph and the hot air balloon!”
Meredov’s face turned white this time. “Captain, please. There may very well have been no authorization. The missile complex is a crime scene, a battlefield, and a toxic hot spot all in one. Vladivostok told me an investigation is under way. Such things always take time.”
“Speaking of which, where’s our patch into the Hot Line? The clock is ticking, and Challenger is lurking where you’ll never find her soon enough.”
Meredov turned to the doorway. “Irina!”
She appeared in a moment. “Yes, Admiral?”
“Call Vladivostok on another line and see what’s causing the delay with us hearing from Moscow and Washington.”
“At once, sir. And I didn’t want to interrupt, but Rear Admiral Balakirev phoned you twice.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants to know if he can fly here to meet Captain Fuller, and how is the computer analysis coming since it’s been a while.”
What computer analysis?
“Tell him the analysis is on hold due to more important problems, and whether he is invited to meet with our guest is up to his superiors, not me.”
“Yes, Admiral. I would also like to speak with you in private for a moment.”
Meredov sighed and stood.
“Excuse me, please, Captain. My regrets.”
“Who’s Balakirev?”
“Rear Admiral Balakirev is my counterpart in Anadyr, covering the coast and waters around the Bering Strait.” Meredov spoke into the conference phone. “I am stepping from the room. I am muting the phone, and will return shortly.”
When Meredov left the conference room, Irina beckoned for him to follow. Puzzled, he went to her office across the hall.
She closed the door. “There’s something you need to see.”
“Yes?”
“Regarding the computer analysis, Admiral.”
“Go on. Quickly.”
She placed a false-color image, a computer printout, on her desk. He examined it. “These are the spires in the strait?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are these red and orange dots and blobs?”
“Echo returns from the ships’ and sonobuoy’s active sonars, that our supercomputer eked from all the data Anadyr sent us.”
The fuzzy colors traced the shape of a submarine in profile.
“So there was a hostile contact. It did just sit still and wait out the depth charges…. It used some sort of very effective out-of-phase ping cancellation to conceal itself.”
Malinkova nodded. “That’s what the computer center says.”
“Can they identify the class of submarine?”
“Its dimensions as revealed by the dots indicate a length of about one-hundred-ten meters, and a beam close to twelve meters.”
“That eliminates most possibilities.”
“Yes, sir. The wide diameter of the hull is key, when combined with its length as a fast-attack. It can only be USS Seawolf, USS Connecticut, or USS Challenger. And our intelligence reports say that Seawolf and Connecticut are on the other side of the world, operating near South Africa.”
“So it was in fact Captain Fuller’s ship that Balakirev’s forces pinned down temporarily?”
“Yes, sir. It appears quite certain.”
“Does he know this?”
“Rear Admiral Balakirev? No, sir. I thought you should see this first, as soon as the analysis was ready.”
Meredov started to think out loud. “And the depth charging was almost two weeks ago.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the distance from the Bering Strait to where Challenger first made contact with us by radio?”
“Less than two thousand miles, sir, even allowing for an indirect route.”
Meredov did the arithmetic in his head. “So if she were moving constantly, she’d have made an average speed of less than seven knots.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why would a vessel who’s maximum quiet speed is at least twenty-five knots move so slowly for such a long time?”
“I don’t know, Admiral. It does seem odd, unless she had some mission in our waters.”
“I won’t mention this to Captain Fuller right away, because I don’t want him on his guard before I’m ready to corner him with his own words. His being in the Laptev Sea when the missiles launched is awfully convenient. Too convenient.”
“You think it wasn’t coincidence, sir?”
“Who fired the decoy that pretended to be Challenger?”
“The real Challenger, maybe? But why?”
“I can think of several reasons, and I don’t like any of them…. All right. Very good work, Irina. Express my thanks to the analysts. Inform Vladivostok immediately by secure line, but beyond that, you and the computer center are to say nothing about this to anyone…. Something here doesn’t make sense. Something here doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Meredov folded the sheet, and put it in his jacket pocket.
When the Skat neared the Malyy Chaunskiy Strait and marshy Ayon Island, Nyurba removed the Red Cross flags, to alter the Skat’s disguise. He told the SEAL to steer north, into the open East Siberian Sea, away from Pevek. The swells were mild; the hovercraft barely lost speed. Still making fifty knots, but running low on fuel again, they reached the long-planned rendezvous point, according to the inertial navigation readout.
“All stop on propulsion engines. Full power to lift fan.”
They coasted to a halt, bobbing gently on the air cushion. He ordered two men to throw hand grenades over the sides, in groups of four, as if they were trying to kill escaping combat swimmers — a subterfuge meant for any snooping hydrophones or watching aircraft. The men hurled the grenades as far as they could, to not damage the lift skirts. Each raised a spout when it detonated. The water was one hundred thirty feet deep. The grenades were the prearranged signal for Carter. Nyurba waited.
It’s been five days. So many things could’ve gone wrong.
And if Carter is compromised, then so is Challenger—and Commodore Fuller, ashore by now, is trapped in a fabric of lies.
Suddenly, a dozen divers broke the surface at the bow, pulling coffinlike pressure-proof capsules, with built-in backboards and oxygen masks for bringing wounded through cold seawater into a submarine. Nyurba rushed to help the divers load the twelve worst stretcher cases. The divers said that Captain Harley had ordered both superstructure lockout chambers, and the trunk inside the sail, all to be used at once to save time; the top of the sail was only thirty feet beneath the surface.
After a nerve-wracking wait, the divers came back, their capsules empty. Ten more wounded were shuttled into Carter, along with the bodies of two commandos who’d, sadly, died on the ride in the Skat. Then waterproof equipment bags went, filled with digital cameras, top-secret manuals from the bunkers, and Nyurba’s hard-won pollution data and environmental samples.
The fit passengers buddy-breathed with divers, pure oxygen easing their lungs, suppressing the worst of their coughing.
The hovercraft’s crew might have somehow been useful alive, but not anymore. Nyurba shot them with his reloaded PRI. If executing prisoners is a war crime, let Russia blame Germany. The chief turned the Skat southwest, back toward the Kolyma as a ruse. Using duct tape, they fixed the rudders to hold that course. They shoved the throttles forward and taped them there. Before the Skat — horribly noisy outside — could gain speed, they jumped overboard. Buddy-breathing with two SEALs, they locked into Carter’s sail trunk, ready to decontaminate.
Chapter 29
My apologies,” Meredov said as he reentered his conference room. He unmuted the phone. “Vladivostok, I have returned.”
“What’s going on with the Hot Line?” Jeffrey pressed.
“My aide is finding out. She’ll let us know. The Kremlin was very hard hit by the twin electromagnetic pulses.”
Jeffrey had achieved his initial goals for the meeting, delivered his pointed queries and table-thumping messages, and introduced the premise of a next-generation missile shield. But he wasn’t supposed to work this as a lone wolf. And the artificial midnight deadline, meant to squeeze Moscow, was also putting a squeeze on him. Would the Kremlin, de facto, call that bluff, just by quietly, gradually running out the deadline?
“At least patch me through to my president.”
“Preparations are still being made,” that grumpy voice said over the speakerphone from Vladivostok.
While this could be true, it was also an age-old Russian excuse to stall, for their own inscrutable reasons. An uncomfortable Jeffrey saw that, in effect, they were holding him incommunicado. What’s going on behind my back, that even Meredov doesn’t know about? He let Meredov make the next move.
“I have to ask you some questions.”
Jeffrey grew more cautions. “Certain things, I can’t comment on.”
“I understand. But clarity is necessary to piece together the clues we do have about what happened at Srednekolymsk. Allow me.” Meredov stood and went to the whiteboard. He took a blue pen from the shelf and removed the cap. “I’m not sure who will centrally coordinate the investigation, Captain. For some things it might be helpful if you and I get a head start while Vladivostok listens.”
The translator leaned over to the phone and murmured that Rear Admiral Meredov was drawing a diagram for Captain Fuller.
“The more information you can provide to me, Admiral,” Jeffrey said, “the better for Russia’s sake. An appearance of procrastinating will very much displease my commander in chief. Dissuading him from a harsh response is not part of my orders.”
“The question remains, who is responsible for launching the missiles?” Meredov wrote on the board, “Who did it?”
Jeffrey nodded impatiently. Is this a delaying tactic, or is he leading somewhere? And if the latter, is he helping me or laying a trap?
“What I have been told by officials on the scene is that the group that attacked the silo complex and entered some of the launching bunkers gave every appearance of being Russians. That is, ethnic groups from the mainstream populations, such as Eastern Slav or Siberian. With equipment and language skills, even dental work assessed on initial examination of the corpses, that appear to be truly from the Russian Federation.”
“So some of the attackers were killed?”
“Yes, about thirty-five.”
Jeffrey tried to remain expressionless. “How many attackers were there?”
“Over two hundred, the few survivors of the initial firefight say. All very heavily armed. Which is consistent with the casualties they inflicted on our counterattacking forces.”
Hah! That’s triple the number of men Kurzin had…. But it also means he suffered almost fifty percent killed in action.
“Where are the others? Taken prisoner? Interrogate them!”
“None were captured. And where they went after missile liftoff is still a major mystery. They vanished amid the confusion and the casualty evacuations…. But this hits on two related questions, aside from who exactly they were or who sent them. How did they get there? And how did they escape? I suppose, come to think of it, we should make that second question present tense, since their escape is currently in progress.”
Again Jeffrey nodded, wordlessly.
“We should start with a list of possible perpetrators. Being objective and open-minded.”
“Put down Russian rogue faction,” Jeffrey said.
“Yes. Motive being to embarrass or take over the government.”
“And put down Russian government.”
“But—”
“Write it! You agreed to be objective. The Kremlin has not been ruled out! Blaming unnamed rogues for your actions is too convenient to be so lightly dismissed!”
A funny look crossed Meredov’s face. “Then also America.”
“What? What could our motive possibly be?”
Is he fishing, or does he know something?
“You are displeased with our logistics support of Germany.”
“Then put down Germany too if you put down America.” This was Jeffrey’s most critical task, to shape Russian thoughts to focus on Berlin as orchestrater of the Srednekolymsk raid.
Meredov was skeptical, even shocked at the suggestion. “What would their motive be?”
“Weaken both our countries, and then maybe attack you.”
“Why would they attack us? We’re already helping them.”
“Our intelligence knows all about the bonds they give you. Payable with plunder they intend to confiscate from the occupied countries once the fighting stops and the bonds come due.”
“You have the advantage of me on this.”
“Trust me. It’s easy enough to confirm. So greed would be a German motive. Instead of paying you, they conquer you. Or they sense they won’t win the fighting, and fear you’ll sense it too. Look. They’re evacuating North Africa as fast as they possibly can, before the Allied advance in that theater resumes.”
“This also is new information for me.”
“And also easy to confirm. So what do you think they’ll do with all those troops and tanks and aircraft once they’re removed from Africa, and they’ve had time to lick their wounds? The Axis needs to reestablish their evil empire’s outward momentum.”
“Defend southern Europe.”
“They can do that with nuclear cruise missiles alone, to make the Med impassable for Allied amphibious or airborne assaults. Cheap and effective…. I’ll tell you what they’ll do. Their main forces will turn east, and cancel their debts by canceling your sovereignty.”
“Hitler tried to conquer us, and look what happened to him.”
“Hitler was an incompetent who went completely insane, and he didn’t have tactical nuclear weapons.”
“We have strategic rockets with hydrogen bombs.”
“Which when they leave the atmosphere are exposed to our space-based missile shield. The U.S. is unlikely to sort out where the rockets are aimed before setting them off right over your own heads…. Ground-hugging German cruise missiles on mobile launchers with fission bombs are effective weapons in a counter-city or counter-industry strike. They’re an effective deterrent against you striking first from inside the atmosphere, say with cruise missiles or nuclear bombers of your own.”
“I view a German attack on us of any sort as unlikely.”
“But not implausible. And ‘not implausible’ is what counts in this context, not what’s ‘likely.’ Your conventional forces are weak, spread thin. You know it. Germany knows it.”
“Yes.”
Time to plant the seeds, and let them sprout in the minds of everyone who hears this conversation. “Once your government realizes Germany has had too many setbacks already on land and at sea, and can’t prevail against the Allies without doing something exceedingly drastic, Moscow will cut logistic support to Berlin since they’ll never get paid. They’ll refuse to deliver more Eight-six-eight-U submarines. There’d be bad consequences, repercussions, realignments sought in
Berlin as a result.”
“These are murky waters, yet there is logic to what you say. Germany would be cornered into attacking us, to grab what she can no longer buy. Provoking a limited nuclear exchange between us and America, to soften us up first, aids her cause on two fronts at once…. But German raiders could have programmed the missiles to go off over Moscow… which if true would suggest that your claimed new missile shield is in fact sheer flummery.”
Jeffrey was ready and waiting for this one. He tore into the admiral. “I dare you to test it. Launch another armed SS-27 at the U.S. See what happens to Russia.”
Meredov didn’t even blink. “Don’t taunt me…. A test appears unneeded…. If the Germans achieved armed launches at all, inflicting EMPs on Moscow squanders the missiles. It wastes the larger chance to hurt you and our joint relations, by landing warheads in America. Thus, positing the culprits were German does not imply your shield is a mere fabrication.”
“So put it down, Admiral. Write ‘Germany’ on the board.”
“And China? The war destabilizes world trade at a time that’s bad for Beijing. They’re displeased that we favor Germany in our exportation of natural gas and oil and weapons, which is also stifling China’s economic and military growth.”
“Displeased enough to frame you for nuking America?”
“I doubt it, but I’ll put them down, too.”
“Okay. That’s our list of culprits. In other words, at this point, it could’ve been almost anybody. So, what next?”
“Events suggest the attackers infiltrated by submarine.”
“Foreigners?”
“Maybe not. A rogue faction with penetration into the Northern or Pacific Fleet could have sent them.”
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“But I don’t think they were from Russia.”
Bingo. “Why not?”
“The timing and speeds and distances aren’t right. We know that a submarine penetrated the Russian side of the Bering Strait from the south and evaded attack by Balakirev’s forces, then very slowly entered the waters for which I’m held responsible…. A decoy pretending to be Challenger is an especially baffling conundrum. Why was it launched at all? To mislead, or to draw attention? Why pretend to be Challenger in particular? Why send it on the specific course it followed?”