Seas of Crisis cjf-6

by Joe Buff

  “Sink it!” the president commanded. “Do that and I’ll have everything I need to deal with the upstarts in Moscow. Sink the submarine that brought the raiders and kill every person aboard! This is justifiable retaliation of the sweetest kind! Direct punishment in hot pursuit as they try to escape!”

  “The punishment fits the crime, sir,” Jeffrey said. “It carries a symbolic value that some indiscriminate atrocity against the German populace would lack.”

  “Captain Fuller, you certainly have a way with words. Can you get back aboard Challenger as quickly as possible and work in cooperation with Russian submarines in the area? Form a wolf pack to hunt down this German and destroy her. I can think of no better way to begin to build a partnership with America than that! An act of self-defense, short of outright war, fits the current situation extremely well.”

  “Yes, sir. Certainly. Then I need to get moving at once.”

  “One other thing before I end the call. Rear Admiral Meredov, for your vigilance and dedication throughout this difficult time, I’m promoting you to Vice Admiral.”

  Meredov grinned broadly. “Thank you, Mr. President!”

  “You deserve it. I’ll put the formalities in motion. You rate a more senior aide now, of course, so I’ll promote yours to captain, first rank…. Captain Fuller, good luck to you, and good hunting.” The president’s image vanished. Meredov and Jeffrey glanced at each other, amazed, but still mutually wary.

  “I need to get a message to Washington for them to send an ELF to Challenger telling her to raise a mast and signal her location to us, and once the mast is up inform her of the wolf pack concept. And I need transportation back to her. I also need the specs for your underwater acoustic communication systems, so I can speak to the Russian captains and make sure we coordinate and distinguish friend from foe. A map of any minefields. And of bottom-moored and under-ice hydrophone nets.”

  “Irina!”

  The admiral’s aide appeared at once. He told her she’d just been made Captain, First Rank Malenkova, by her commander in chief himself. She practically jumped up and down with glee. He ordered her to put everything in motion, messages and data disks.

  “There’s one other matter we need to discuss,” Meredov said as Malenkova left the room.

  “Yes?” Jeffrey was made apprehensive by Meredov’s manner.

  “All I can do is inform you now but give you no help later.”

  “Well, Vice Admiral Meredov, then inform me.”

  “Our latest-model UGST torpedo includes a new target homing sensor. Something specifically designed for use against nuclear submarines under the ice cap.”

  Jeffrey began to get worried. “Go on.”

  “The common tactic of hovering between ice keels to suppress radiated noise and avoid giving an echo to hostile active sonar?”

  “I’m familiar with the concept.”

  “This new warhead has a miniature gravimetric gradiometer. Optimized to detect and attack the density discontinuity from the reactor compartment of a stationary nuclear submarine.”

  “This is actually operational, now, deployed on your subs?”

  “Nine-seven-one-As, our Bars-Threes, what you call the Akula-Twos, do have them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be hit by such a weapon.”

  “That’s why I’m informing you. You’ll need to be careful with your underice tactics. Very careful. A friendly fire accident between a Bars and Challenger would spoil everything we’ve worked so hard for. Not to mention sinking your ship.”

  I must warn Harley somehow, pronto. Were Carter sunk, she’d surely be identified. Blame would instantly shift back to America. Everything achieved today would be lost, in a way Meredov can’t imagine.

  Chapter 32

  Jeffrey was strapped in the front seat of the Yak, flying north at five hundred knots to land on one of Meredov’s icebreaker-cruisers. The icebreaker and Challenger were already rushing toward each other at flank speed for a rendezvous.

  Jeffrey was still under tremendous stress to act out a part, which was suddenly far more complex. Helping Carter escape, forever unidentified as who she really was to maintain the masquerade of German guilt, remained as critical as ever — but wasn’t nearly enough. The President of Russia had to stay in power, amid unanticipated rough-and-tumble Moscow dirty politics set off by the missile launches and EMP. Otherwise a fulminating Kremlin might use hydrogen bombs against Germany after all, or a pro-German faction might seize control and reverse every one of Jeffrey’s and Kurzin’s achievements. The key to preventing an ouster or coup was to swiftly deliver what the Russian president personally demanded for revenge and closure: a sunken German Amethyste-II. Jeffrey had to do this while faking cooperation with Akula-IIs whose captains would keenly watch his every move.

  The dead Amethyste’s wreckage must be real, and verifiable. The Russians have deep-submersible minis that can inspect any hulk and debris on the bottom well past ten thousand feet down.

  Just like when Meredov confronted him with imagery of Challenger hiding against the Bering Strait spires, he needed a convincing answer when there seemed to be no answer at all.

  And then he remembered. He knew one and only one place in this theater where an Amethyste hulk did exist: in the Canada Basin, where Bell and Harley recently blew one to pieces. Because of the timing of that engagement relative to satellite overflights, the restricted geography, the terrible acoustic conditions, and the known lack of unfriendly hydrophone grids nearby, he was confident that the Russians knew nothing.

  But he realized something else. Meredov was too smart. He could turn from back-channel friend into deadly enemy, if those fickle Kremlin winds indeed shifted drastically again. Jeffrey needed to get out of his jurisdiction, quickly, to keep open some plausible deniability if Meredov ever did change loyalties.

  “Sir,” the Yak’s pilot said over the intercom, “the admiral is on for you. A translator is at his end in case required.”

  Jeffrey, expecting the call, used the headset in his flight helmet. “Admiral, we have an agenda to resolve without delay.”

  “Concur,” Meredov said. “State the agenda.”

  Radio reception was much better, eighteen hours after the distant EMPs. “What submarines are available for the wolf pack?”

  “Two Akula-Twos. K-One-five-seven and K-Three-three-five. Their names are Wild Boar and Cheetah.”

  “Both have the gravimeter-homing torpedoes.”

  “Yes.”

  “High-explosive, or nuclear?”

  “Some of each.”

  “Where are they now?”

  Meredov gave coordinates. They were charging toward near the place where Challenger would meet the icebreaker, Cheetah coming from northwest and Wild Boar from north, most of the time at their flank speed — thirty-five knots. They were using sprint and drift to not be blindsided by the supposed German, and to make a tactically safe linkup with Jeffrey’s submarine. They’d all come together close to where Jeffrey knew Harley would be aiming for the end of the shallow continental shelf, which lay far northeast of Pevek, way up under the cap. And Meredov’s hydrophone nets were catching whiffs of the Amethyste II — the actual Carter—enough to localize her general area.

  Challenger, after dropping Jeffrey off at the initial meet with an icebreaker, had snuck east while Jeffrey claimed that Bell was lurking to make a nuclear strike. The plan had been for Challenger to stealthily escort Carter, bearing the commandos, safely home in the final phase of the mission. This plan had gone out the window, except Harley didn’t know it yet and ELF was much too slow to send him a meaningful update. Jeffrey was glad the Yak pilot and Meredov couldn’t read his face.

  Jeffrey had to do things that made total sense to Meredov, but which somehow herded the pseudo-German sub toward the central Canada Basin. And he had to accomplish this without Carter getting unmasked or destroyed on the way.

  How?

  “Good, Admiral.” Jeffrey spoke into his flight helmet mike, w
inging it — literally. “The Amethyste will certainly detect the three-ship wolf pack making so much noise. Given where the wolf pack units presently are and how they’re converging, the Amethyste can best be driven east. That’s my intention.”

  “You insist on command of the wolf pack?”

  “I have the most experience fighting German submarines.”

  “Concur. Arrangements will be made. Messages will be sent to Wild Boar and Cheetah via Northern Fleet.”

  Jeffrey thought very fast.

  “We need rules of engagement. Only I may go nuclear, at my own discretion. Akula-Twos may go nuclear only upon my specific order via acoustic link.”

  “I’m sure our commander in chief will agree, and will dictate such edicts at once.”

  “Have Rear Admiral Balakirev’s forces seal the Bering Strait. Have the U.S. naval attaché in Tokyo contact Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor so he’ll know to do the same.” Moscow was still a disaster scene, U.S. embassy comms a shambles.

  “Immediately. We can’t allow the Amethyste to break out into the wide Pacific. She may have a covert tender hiding somewhere, for support, among neutrals.”

  Good, he bought that part.

  “I want her confined under the ice cap, where the new gravimeter torpedoes give us the technical edge, and surprise.” Jeffrey had an ulterior motive. Under ice, Akulas couldn’t use their SS-N-16 Stallions, torpedo-tube-launched missiles that leaped from the water, transited many kilometers at high speed, and dropped an antisubmarine torpedo — or nuclear depth charge.

  “How can my own forces serve you?” Meredov asked.

  He needs a good role, to share in the “victory,” so I keep him as a friend — and he can throw a bone to his pal Balakirev. “Use your surface and airborne units to patrol the marginal ice zone and the open waters south. The edge of the solid pack ice will be our line of demarcation. My wolf pack stays under the cap, and your aircraft don’t fly over it.” Overflights increased ambient noise; sonobuoys dropped through polynyas could be counterproductive. “Set off depth charges, and torpedo some icebergs at random, to make sounds to discourage the German from exiting the cap.”

  “I’ll ensure that Balakirev does the same. May we fire on any undersea contact that does emerge from the pack ice?”

  “Yes, until Wild Boar and Cheetah report that the battle is won. Then use your own procedures for avoiding friendly fire.”

  “An excellent concept of operations. Is there more?”

  The punch line, the sleight of hand, to make it make sense to Meredov and the Akula captains.

  “Ask Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet to station fast attacks in a barrier line at the extreme eastern end of the Beaufort Sea. I don’t want the German evading into the maze of Canadian islands that lead toward Greenland and Norway. Any available Canadian diesel subs that aren’t blocked by the ice should also join this barrier. I want Allied subs there as an anvil, stationary, unyielding, against which my wolf pack can smash the Amethyste.”

  “Understood. But what if the German turns toward the pole?”

  I’m glad you asked.

  “I intend to see that he doesn’t. He has a head start, but my wolf pack has higher flank speed, my ship especially. He’s outnumbered three to one. I’ll use the Alpha Ridge terrain to confine him to the Canada Abyssal Plain. In the deep water over there, Challenger’s crush depth gives decisive sonar superiority.” Jeffrey glanced out the cockpit canopy. “Admiral, I can see your icebreaker, slowed, on the horizon. Challenger will be surfacing soon, and I’ll be out of touch once we dive. So let me say good-bye, and thanks for everything.”

  “Godspeed to you, Captain Fuller.”

  That was the easy part. What Jeffrey had, as Meredov put it, was only a concept of operations. A myriad of details needed to be worked out. The most daunting one of all is, how the hell do I turn a live Carter into a dead Amethyste right in front of multiple Russian witnesses who’ll catch it all on sonar tapes?

  Chapter 33

  His Yak flight and the rendezvous completed, Jeffrey jogged along Challenger’s hull and down the ladder inside her weapons loading hatch. Bell stood there in the passageway to greet him, while crewmen hurried to inspect and tightly shut the hatch.

  “Come on,” Jeffrey said, lugging his overnight bag and heading for the control room.

  Bell followed. “What’s happening, sir? I got a message about some sort of combined task force with Russian subs?”

  “It’s gone all squirrelly, yeah. Get Challenger submerged and under the pack ice smartly. Before you ask, permission granted to go active on ice-avoidance sonar so we don’t crash into something. Make flank speed until we’re in acoustic-link range of Carter.” Thirty nautical miles for the U.S. system. “We need to warn Harley. A pair of Akula-Twos are rushing to join up with your ship, Captain Bell, so that together we can destroy the German sub that brought the commandos who launched the ICBMs. The same German sub which you and I know is Carter.”

  “I expect Harley’s people detected them. We just need to elude the Akulas, which shouldn’t be too hard, and we’re home free.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot more complicated. To cement the goodwill we’ve earned with the Kremlin, save the Russian president’s domestic political backside, and avoid Moscow megahawks having a good excuse to glass Berlin, we must be seen to work with the Akulas and actually sink that Amethyste. Sink it where its hulk can be found, as positive proof of German deceit and aggression toward the Russian people and government.”

  They reached the control room. Finch, as junior officer of the deck — JOOD — confirmed via photonics mast that the brow from the icebreaker was clear. Bell began barking out orders to submerge the ship and get under way at flank speed. COB and Patel got busy at the ship control station. Finch went back to being sonar officer, and another lieutenant (j.g.) took his prior role as JOOD in the aisle next to Sessions, the XO.

  Jeffrey zipped open his travel bag, yanking out the waterproof packet of data disks that Meredov’s aide Malinkova had prepared for him. He gave them to Bell. “Have someone get these to the Systems Administrator. I want them up and running yesterday. Maps of Russian minefields and hydrophone nets. And specs for the undersea covert acoustic link used by our new comrades-in-arms, Wild Boar and Cheetah.”

  Bell gestured for the Messenger of the Watch; he grabbed the disks and headed below to the systems administrator’s cubicle.

  “Who commands the combined task force, sir?”

  “I do.”

  “You’re double-hatted, Commodore,” Bell said with a lopsided smile. Assigned two different naval jobs at once.

  “Lucky me. I’ve got two separate task forces, which secretly overlap in the form of Carter-as-Amethyste-Two, and my task forces are at war with each other. A war to the death, except if Carter is destroyed, the end effect will be that Russia joins the Axis.”

  “Can we sink the Russian subs? If we need to?”

  “Aside from the fact that losing one or both in action would badly sully the Russian president’s currently shaky position? And the other fact that Russian hydrophone grids are listening in, and a very smart man who’s now a vice admiral could reconstruct events and get, to put it mildly, very pissed off?”

  “You mean Meredov? Promoted?”

  Jeffrey nodded. “Akula-Twos have double steel hulls, with inner and outer so widely spaced apart that they’ve got the highest reserve buoyancy of any fast-attack in service anywhere. And the inner hull has eight separate watertight compartments, right? They’re nearly indestructible, unless we go nuclear.”

  “Would we?”

  “Our odds of surviving a two-on-one duel like that with nukes are nil.”

  “But Carter…”

  “I know. She is absolutely, positively not expendable. Our orders say we are. If this thing goes tactical nuclear, with the big yields on Russian warheads, Harley needs to run, not help us, and I don’t see Carter surviving the whirlwind of shock waves and fireba
lls anyway. Do you?”

  “No, sir.” Bell was abashed, and worried.

  Challenger’s deck nosed down slightly, and the ship gained speed. As she approached her maximum, fifty-three knots, she began to vibrate — as she always did when the propulsion plant put out so much power. Things in the control room shook, squeaking and bouncing gently on their shock-absorbing mounts; mike cords hung on the overhead jiggled. The ship was making a heavy surface wake by doing flank speed so shallow, but that was the least of Jeffrey’s concerns.

  He tried to think ahead. Everyone in Control had heard what he’d told Bell, and they were tense. “I need two separate acoustic link setups. One for Carter, and one for the Akulas. Get your best Ru-ling in here to handle comms with the latter.” A Russian language expert. “I think your XO should continue to manage link messages with Captain Harley.” Sessions, sitting at the command console, nodded, with what for the mild-mannered Nebraskan was the grimmest expression that Jeffrey had ever seen.

  “Understood, sir,” Bell said. He issued orders.

  The senior chief, who was the best onboard Russian linguist, entered Control. “Use the console I was borrowing, Chief,” Jeffrey told him. “I’ll stand.” Technicians were already installing the software needed to be compatible with the Russians’ own frequency-agile, encrypted, digital undersea communications link. That link and the one used by Challenger and Carter had totally different formats and protocols, so neither could detect or interfere with the other. The Ru-ling reconfigured his keyboard to represent the Cyrillic alphabet.

  “Sir,” Lieutenant Torelli said from by the weapons systems consoles, “we have the overlay of hostile minefields and hydrophones uploaded now.”

  “Perfect.” Jeffrey walked over to look at them on a fire-control technician’s console.

  “I sure hope Russian spies haven’t stolen the specs to be able to detect and listen in on our comms link,” Bell said. “And that Germans didn’t nab the specs and hand them over to Russia.”

  Jeffrey remembered the mole, still on the loose somewhere in America’s submarine warfighting personnel structure.