Seas of Crisis (33 page)

“When I’m ready. Things are too unstable now.”

“Germany didn’t try to frame you, or the Kremlin per se, sir. From the context as I understand it, the launches were definitely unauthorized and no one now questions that. This gives you the potent argument that the Germans tried to frame outcasts, rebels, rogues. So nobody can claim their scheme struck at the heart of your influence and authority.”

“That’s too abstract, and too arguable. You’re a smart and clever man, Captain Fuller, but remember I have to deal with callous infighting bureaucrats, unsavory yes men, people who shift allegiance without the slightest compunction or warning.”

“The strongest argument I can think of is to not nuke German soil so as to not cause massive slaughter among the Allied civilians they’re holding as human shields in all their high-value target areas. That would gravely anger the Allied powers, and put Russia in a difficult position for her ongoing relations with neutrals, too.”

“But you’re asking me to give in to the German human-shield strategy, which is itself a war crime.”

“Killing the hostages is not the best way to solve a hostage crisis, sir. Recent Russian history ought to show you that botched rescues where hundreds of innocents died did lasting damage to your country’s reputation and credibility. You can’t regain the superpower status you covet while showing such abject disregard for human lives. And remember, these hostages would not be your own citizens. They’d be Americans, British, and so on. You’d also kill many German civilians who are every bit as much victims of Axis repression as the people in the countries the Axis occupies. It would be calculated mass murder.”

“And I suppose there’d be the problem of fallout knowing no borders or boundaries. We certainly took a battering in public relations after the Chernobyl plume hit half of Europe.”

“Historians say that’s one factor that brought down the Soviet Union. . . . Furthermore, if you made such an attack, other countries including mine would start to think the supposed German launches had been done by the Kremlin after all, as a manufactured excuse for a preemptive strike on Germany whom you wanted a justification to invade. . . . Restraint is much better statesmanship than retaliation, sir.”

“Good. This is the ammunition I needed. The specter of causing countless innocent deaths in Russia and other countries, making us become a weak pariah instead of a respected superpower, an abhorrent aggressor instead of a victim aggrieved. The resultant danger of a complete implosion of the Russian Federation, into dozens of fragments, with civil wars, or worse.”

“A grim picture. But an accurate one, Mr. President.”

“All right. I had these thoughts myself, but your independent confirmation is invaluable. I know what
not
to do. It’s my job to convince my opponents and the fence-sitters.”

Someone knocked hard on the thick conference room door, then came in. It was Meredov, breathless with excitement all over again. “Mr. President, I must interrupt. We’ve identified their egress route! The German raiders!”

“Explain,” the president insisted. The translator returned to the room in Meredov’s wake, since he only spoke Russian.

“We found a hovercraft drifting, abandoned, out of fuel, its crew shot in the head. Bloodstains indicate there had been many people aboard, some of them wounded. We were able to reproduce the hovercraft’s route with an analysis of hydrophone recordings. The Germans escaped from Srednekolymsk down the Kolyma at high speed, and transferred to a submarine northwest of Pevek. The submarine appears to have then headed under the pack ice. Acoustic data suggest the vessel is an Amethyste Two.”

“What are your intentions?” Jeffrey asked, stonefaced, knowing who was really on that supposed German Amethyste.

“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

J
effrey 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, winging 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?