Christine glanced at the document on her computer. She’d have to finish and send it to the president later. After grabbing the notepad from her desk, she joined Brackman and headed down the seventy-foot-long hallway and entered the Oval Office. The president was seated at his desk, and Kevin Hardison, the president’s chief of staff, occupied one of three chairs facing him. Christine settled into the middle seat while Brackman sat beside her.
The president closed the folder on his desk and looked up at Christine. “How was your trip?”
“We made a lot of progress,” Christine replied, “but there are many items left to resolve.” She spent the next few minutes briefing the president, concluding with the one item upon which the United States and Russia completely disagreed.
“For some reason, they refuse to allow inspections of their new Bulava missiles or the Borei class submarines that carry them. They want to count launchers and not warheads.”
Hardison interjected. “They want to go back to the way warheads were counted in the original START I treaty?”
“Correct. At least for their Bulava missile.”
The president frowned. “Do you think it’s because it can carry more warheads than we expect?”
“Exactly.”
The president turned to Brackman. “What do you think?”
Brackman replied, “It could be that, or because it can decoy or even destroy incoming anti-ballistic missiles.”
The president said to Christine, “Their Bulava missile must be subject to inspection. It’s not negotiable.”
“Under the New START treaty,” Hardison reminded him, “we already have authorization to inspect missiles and board their Borei class submarines once they make their first deployment.”
“That isn’t their interpretation,” Christine replied. “They maintain the treaty does not allow inspections of missiles or submarines that were not operational when the treaty was signed.”
“Peel this onion apart,” the president replied, looking at Christine. “Give me your appraisal of what we’re allowed to inspect under New START and include an intelligence analysis of the Bulava missile.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I’ll meet with ONI tomorrow.” Turning to Brackman, she said, “You should join me.” Having a former ballistic missile submarine commander accompanying her might be useful.
9
Nicholai Stepanov leaned over the navigation table next to his First Officer, examining the topography of the surrounding water. Yury Dolgoruky was two hundred kilometers under the polar ice cap, steady on a northern course. Water depth was two hundred meters, leaving only a thin column of water to operate in, made even narrower by the random ice keels. Even though the underside of the polar ice cap was mostly flat, ice keels descended at unpredictable locations. The ice cap was not a solid sheet of ice, but a piecemeal collection of ice floes jammed together by the wind, currents, and waves. Where the edges met, they frequently buckled upward, creating surface ridges, and downward, creating ice keels that could descend sixty meters.
The ice floe edges did not always meet, creating leads, narrow gaps covered by a foot of slush, within which submarines could surface. There were also polynyas, ice-free holes the size of a small lake, often large enough for two or more submarines to surface. They were rare, however, with submarines almost always surfacing in leads or punching through a thin section of ice. As a result, submarines monitored the ice thickness during their transit, annotating locations where the ice was thin enough to break through.
Although the ice above was thick, they could still receive radio messages. Stepanov had deployed Dolgoruky’s VLF — Very Low Frequency — antenna, a one-inch-thick cable trailed behind the submarine several hundred meters. But the floating wire antenna could only receive; it could not transmit. As Dolgoruky headed deeper under the polar ice cap, Stepanov recalled his operational directives. He could not go much farther north.
The topsounder operator’s report pulled Stepanov from his thoughts. “Ice thickness, ten meters.” He listened intently as the Starshina Second Class announced, “Ice thickness, twenty meters,” followed rapidly by “forty meters,” then “sixty meters.”
The ice stabilized at sixty meters, then receded. This was the deepest ice ridge they had passed; deep enough to suffice.
Stepanov addressed his First Officer. “When we detected the American submarine, you wanted to shift to the electric drive and launch a mobile decoy. I said then was not the right time. Remember?”
Pavlov nodded and Stepanov continued, “Now is the right time.” He turned to the Command Post Watch Officer. “Load a mobile decoy in tube One and man Combat Stations.”
In the fast attack submarine’s Control Room, Lieutenant Commander Sites, who had been stationed as Command Duty Officer for the midwatch, finished briefing Commander Tolbert.
“Contact is steady on course north, speed ten, range five thousand yards.”
“You are secured as CDO,” Tolbert said.
Not much had changed in the last six hours. Dolgoruky was still plodding along at ten knots, headed north. As Tolbert considered the Russian captain’s intentions, traveling so deep under the polar ice cap, he surveyed the activity in the Control Room. The Navigator was on watch as Officer of the Deck this time, along with Lieutenant “JP” Vaugh as Junior Officer of the Deck, in charge of the Section Tracking Party. It was quiet in Control, not much going on. Tolbert settled into the Captain’s chair in front of the navigation plot, preparing for a long, but hopefully uneventful day.
“All compartments report ready for combat.”
Stepanov acknowledged, and Captain Lieutenant Evanoff added, “A mobile decoy has been loaded in tube One.”
To evade the American submarine following them, Stepanov would launch one of his two mobile decoys. The decoy had a “swim-out” feature — it would propel itself out of the torpedo tube instead of being ejected. This was critical for two reasons: the swim-out capability eliminated the loud torpedo tube launch transient, which would alert the American submarine that Dolgoruky was up to something. Secondly, if the Americans detected the launch transient, it was possible they would conclude a torpedo was being fired at them and counterfire.
Captain Lieutenant Evanoff followed up, “Request decoy presets.”
“Set course one-eight-zero,” Stepanov replied, “ten knots, depth one hundred and forty meters. Set under-ice sonar transmissions — on.”
Evanoff relayed the settings to the fire control Michman, who entered the parameters into his console. Stepanov checked the clock. It had taken four minutes to man Combat Stations and load a decoy.
Stepanov made the announcement loudly, so everyone in the Command Post could hear. “This is the Captain. I have the Conn. Steersman, left ten degrees rudder, steady course one-eight-zero.” He turned to his Watch Officer. “Open muzzle door, tube One.”
“Sonar, Conn. Possible contact zig, Master One, due to upshift in frequency.”
Tolbert noted the Sonar Supervisor’s announcement, then stood and moved behind Petty Officer Tom Phillips, assigned as the Plots Operator for the Section Tracking Party. Phillips studied the time frequency plot, watching the tonal slowly increase, then steady up.
Phillips spoke into his headset, “All stations, Plots. Twenty knot upshift in frequency. Contact has either reversed course or is more broad and has increased speed. Analyzing.”