The Marine ran in again, winded and sweating. “Ma’am, sir, you have an urgent videolink request with the Pentagon, and the president is on his way down.”
Pacino looked at Allende. “What now?”
The videolink screen lit up to the left of the chart flatpanel. The screen showed a calm view of the sea, another overhead shot from the Predator. Suddenly two gigantic mushroom clouds exploded from the formerly placid sea at exactly the same time. The detonations looked like they were many miles apart, perhaps ten nautical miles. Admirals Rand and Catardi came up on either side of the video clip, the clip looped to keep repeating.
Rand spoke first. “Madam Director, Admiral Pacino, we think the Vermont just lobbed two nukes into a position east of them in the Arabian Sea.”
About fucking time, Pacino thought.
K-579 Second Captain History Module Deck Log:
1121M: This Unit detects an aircraft engine approaching from the west. It is a single jet engine, and close, because it is easily detected on the MGK-600 spherical array. The bearing to the aircraft rapidly changes from west to north and then to east as the aircraft flies overhead rapidly. Sonar data is fed to battlecontrol. Assuming the unit is subsonic, from the lack of a sonic boom, the bracket of possible speeds is between 450 knots and 500 knots, which if true, means it passed very close to K-579 and This Unit, within one kilometer. This Unit wonders if the aircraft can see This Unit. This Unit is at 200 meters keel depth.
1122:08M: This Unit detects a second aircraft engine, also approaching from the west. But this aircraft doesn’t fly by. Instead, its bearing seems to freeze at 269 degrees true and it becomes fainter. This seems incongruous. How could it stay at that bearing when it had been so close, then fade? Is it possible the aircraft decided to pull up and climb for the sky? For the sounds and bearings to correlate to that, it would have to have flown almost straight upward. But then, Russian cruise missiles used to have what the designers called a “pop-up” terminal run, where they would climb to the sky and then dive straight down on their target.
1122:10M: But this can’t be true, because the noise of the jet engine has stopped. All is silent again.
1122:12M: But wait, there is a splash, directly ahead, very close, although very faint. This Unit waits, but nothing happens.
1122:20M: This Unit attempts to make sense of the odd sounds and the strange behavior of the two aircraft.
1122:23M: This Unit detects another splash, this one heavier, almost directly in front of K-579’s course, right at the bow. This splash was much louder, as if whatever fell into the sea was heavy.
1122:25M: Whatever splashed into the water forward of K-579 has descended and it struck the hull just aft of the sonar dome. Could it be a meteorite? Or something associated with that aircraft?
1122:25M: Wait, could it be that the splash and the impact were the result of a depth charge dropped by—
Weapons Officer Captain Lieutenant Irina Trusov had the morning watch, and her stomach was growling. She’d only had tea and a piece of toast for breakfast, and the thing about a submarine was that the aroma from whatever the cooks were making for the next meal in the galley wafted throughout the entire boat, making the sixty-five members of the crew suddenly hungry. Especially if the meal happened to be a favorite. Trusov took in the air in the room through her nostrils with her eyes shut. It had to be pelmeni, the thin and crusty pastry shell covering a delicious minced beef with spices, with sour cream on the side. But there was more, perhaps the companion dish made for those who didn’t like pelmeni — a beef stroganoff with homemade noodles. Trusov shook her head. She’d gain ten pounds on this damned voyage, she thought, promising herself that after she finished digesting this feast she’d work out extra hard down in the crew recreation area.
Trusov sat at the position three command console, the farthest starboard position. The position one station was occupied by Captain Orlov, who wasn’t really needed as senior supervisory watch, but he’d sent Navigator Dobryvnik on his way and volunteered to take the morning watch instead. She glanced over at Orlov, the captain’s jaw clenched, his blonde hair shorter than yesterday — one of the ship’s barbers must have had a go at his previously overgrown hair. She smiled just slightly — he looked good, she thought. He was in shape, and sometimes in the crew recreation room he’d lift weights while she ran on the treadmill, and she’d been sneaking glances at him then too, his muscles rippling under his sleeveless T-shirt. He looked great for an older man, she thought, and she’d never been interested in men near her age. For instance, that pig TK Sukolov, the drunkard communications officer. Or even the older engineer, Chernobrovin or the navigator, Dobryvnik. They may be older than Sukolov, but maturity seemed to elude both of them, those two always snickering over something they thought funny, or slobbering over one of the female members of the crew like the sonar officer, Arisha Vasilev. There was no doubt, being a woman in the heavily dominated male submarine force was not for the faint of heart.
Trusov forced her mind back from thinking about what Orlov would look like naked, and what the noon meal would taste like, back to her duties. She rotated her screens through the notifications, which were mostly clear, to the navigation plot. They still had 275 kilometers to go before they’d be in position. That was five-and-a-half hours from now, so they’d be on station during the afternoon watch, a little after 1700 Moscow time. The original time-on-station time had been 1800, so the current must be helping them, or they were doing better than their calculated 28 knots. She checked the electromagnetic log, the speed-through-water indicator, and it read 28.4 knots. So they were making good time, with a slight boost from the current.
All that meant Orlov would call for battlestations at 1700, which would postpone the evening meal. Trusov smiled. That gave her all the more excuse to fill up on the noon meal — and perhaps that was why the cooks were going all-out to make the noon meal special, because the only thing to eat between when they reached the search point and combat would be biscuits and some passed-around caviar. Trusov crinkled her nose. She hated caviar.
Suddenly her screen flashed red and rotated to the notifications screen just as Sonar Officer Arisha Vasilev turned.
“Watch Officer, Captain! I have a detect on an aircraft engine! Bearing two-eight-two, bearing rate is starting to increase. It’s getting closer.”
Trusov grabbed her larger headphones and put them on, Orlov doing the same at his position. She brought up the sonar display and moved her cursor to the broadband trace of the aircraft engine, now at 302 degrees true, then changing rapidly to bearing north, then to 040 when its bearing became steady.
“Captain! That’s a cruise missile!” Trusov said, her voice loud. “The only way bearing on a jet engine freezes is if it is doing a pop-up maneuver! We’ve got to go to maximum speed and a direction away from bearing zero-four-zero!”
“Boatswain!” Orlov shouted, “Engine ahead maximum! Thirty-five knots! Make your depth six hundred meters, steep angle! Left five degrees rudder, steady course two-two-zero!”