“Go to radio,” Montgomery ordered. “See if their equipment is okay.”
It only took the messenger two minutes to go to the radio room and return, and he looked even more frightened. “Nothing, Mr. Monty. It’s all shut down. Bricked.”
“Don’t worry, Cresante. We’ll figure something out. I imagine right now the captain and engineer already have a plan.”
But eight hours later, nothing had been figured out. The Zumwalt continued to roll gently in the waves, completely stricken, and completely helpless.
Deputy Director of Operations Angel Menendez looked at Director Margo Allende. “Worm is two days late.”
She nodded. “But it’s here now, and in force.”
“Did it affect anything other than the Navy’s air fleet or surface ships?”
“As advertised, the Russian worm is playing nice. Not just a proportionate response, a duplicate response. A mirror image. Just to show that what we can do, they can do.”
“I’m still surprised Vostov didn’t try to do us one better, maybe infect the White House or the Pentagon itself.”
“You know, I met him once,” Allende said.
“Yeah? What did you think?”
She shook her head. “Angel, it was strange. Dmitri Vostov is the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. And I don’t mean in a diplomatic, snake oil salesman way. He was warm. He was human.”
“Wow, don’t let anyone else know you said that, Madam Director.”
She smiled at him. “That’s just one reason I appreciate you, Angel. You’ve always kept my secrets, Mr. Deputy Director.”
33
Captain Second Rank Ania Lebedev hurried the mess cooks out of the wardroom, making sure the noon meal dishes were cleared. Captain Alexeyev had been taking his meals in his sea cabin since they’d arrived at the Cape Town barrier search point, almost three weeks ago. That was the same time he’d taken to wearing a black eye patch over his right eye, that and his constant scowl making him look sinister. The supply officer, Yakovlev, had tried to inject some humor into the odd situation, saying to the captain that perhaps he needed a parrot on his shoulder to complete his pirate ensemble. Alexeyev had said nothing, just stared him down with his good eye as if he could burn a hole into the young officer.
Since that day, Alexeyev had only been visible to the crew at the daily one o’clock operational briefing for the officers and during his midnight watch senior supervisory shift in the central command post, preferring the peace of the graveyard quiet of the midwatch over the busier daytime watches. This morning, when Lebedev had relieved the captain at 6:00 am, Alexeyev had said something about “noise in his head,” as if she were supposed to understand what the hell he meant.
It was just another data point asserting that the captain was borderline autistic, she thought, living deep within whatever world existed in his mind, withdrawing from the crew completely for the better part of a month. Lebedev pondered the possible reasons. Perhaps loneliness from being away from that slutty blonde bombshell girlfriend of his, who scandalously insisted on keeping the name of the captain of the Novosibirsk and had emerged into Alexeyev’s life still sweating from the bed of the commanding officer of the Voronezh. Or perhaps something the girlfriend had written him had put him in a funk, likely that woman finding yet another submarine captain to play with. Lebedev watched the captain’s face closely when he read the intelligence summaries after every periscope depth excursion, trying to see if one of the personal emails included in their daily feed included anything that would be a cause of pain for the man, but Alexeyev seemed steady in his depressed mood.
Until today at 11:45 of this morning’s watch. When Kazan had proceeded deep from the periscope depth trip, there was something in the feed that had been marked most secret and personal for commanding officer. Usually, a message like that would be cause for celebration, Lebedev thought, because that was how orders arrived that had an exact location of their target, gleaned from various intelligence sources. Sometimes the intel came from another submarine, other times from an maritime patrol antisubmarine aircraft, an Il-114 flyover that detected the target submarine using sonobuoys or magnetic anomaly detection, and rarely from a destroyer streaming a variable depth towed array sonar that could search deep in the thermal layer. Other times the intel was scrubbed of sources, like that time Kazan had been tipped off to a submarine leaving its base in Faslane, Scotland by virtue of what could only be a pierside prostitute, one of the dozens who worked for the GRU military intelligence organization. When today’s message had been received, according to the radioman of the watch, Captain Alexeyev had cursed and thrown the pad computer onto his bed, furious.
Which meant that this afternoon’s daily briefing would be difficult for the crew. Lebedev chided herself for fretting so much over the moodiness of her captain, but the man could be brutal, screaming epithets at officers who made mistakes, in front of the crew, a mortal sin in the mind of Lebedev, who strictly believed in commendations in public and reprimands in private. She had mostly avoided Alexeyev’s screaming fits, but somehow they were still something to be feared. She looked around the room, making sure everyone was there.
“Where’s the sonar officer?” Lebedev harshly asked Navigator Svetka Maksimov, who sat in the chair to Lebedev’s right. Maksimov was yet another source of annoyance for Lebedev. Women as pretty as Maksimov would do better to go into the fashion industry, Lebedev thought, or marrying well. If she absolutely insisted on being in the military, she needed to tone down her looks — put her damned flowing black locks in a ponytail, wear less makeup, look professional. Instead, she looked like a stripper sent in as a joke, a made-up, coiffed sex-pot just temporarily stuffed into submarine coveralls. Lebedev tried to hide her dislike, but it proved a monumental task.
Maksimov lunged for the corner table phone and made a call, saying a few quiet words. “He’s on his way,” Maksimov said, nodding at the first officer.
The wardroom door opened and Sonar Officer Ilia Kovalev stepped quickly in, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry, Madam First,” he said to Lebedev, “the turnover in central took too long.”
“Why? What’s on the screens?”
“A haystack of merchant shipping, Madam First. No sign of our needle.”
“Two needles,” Lebedev reminded Kovalev. “The Panther and the escort sub, most likely a Virginia-class unit.” Lebedev grabbed the phone under the table near the captain’s station and dialed his stateroom using the buttons set into the handset.
“Captain,” Alexeyev said, sounding far away.
“Sir, the officers are gathered for the one o’clock,” Lebedev said.
“I’m on the way,” he said and hung up.
Captain First Rank Georgy Alexeyev entered the wardroom from the forward door, slid the door shut and took his seat at the end of the table, with Lebedev to his right and Engineer Alesya Matveev to his left. Lebedev glanced at him. He was still wearing that black eye patch. And was it Lebedev’s imagination, or was he developing streaks of gray in his once jet-black hair? He was freshly showered, wearing clean coveralls, but he hadn’t shaved in at least three days. The male officers had started their at-sea beards when Kazan first shoved off 29 days ago, Navy regulations allowing the relaxation of grooming standards when at sea for submariners, but still requiring beards be closely trimmed, not growing all over the place like a terrorist. Several times this run, Lebedev had scolded the electrical officer, Senior Lieutenant Anatoly Pavlovsky, for overgrowing his thick black beard, but the man was too proud of it, the beard even earning him his pirate nickname, Blackbeard. But all those relaxed grooming standards assumed the male crewmen would commit to growing and maintaining the beard, not skipping shaving for four or five days, looking constantly scruffy, like a homeless person. There was no doubt, the state of the commanding officer’s mental health was starting to become a real concern, Lebedev thought.