24
It was two months ago that Captain Third Rank Svetlana Anna was led by a male secretary into the outer office of the Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Pavel Zhabin. Her heart raced and she imagined that other people could tell that it was about to jump out of her chest. Flustered, she ran her hand through her long chestnut colored hair, hoping it was in place to meet the number three officer in the entire Navy, although the admiral-in-command, Anatoly Stanislav was gravely ill, and his deputy, Mikhail Myshkin, had recently died, leaving Zhabin as the heir apparent.
She’d been flown out from Murmansk to Moscow in a Navy private jet, with her as the only passenger, for this meeting late yesterday, arriving at almost midnight at the hotel, with this morning’s meeting starting before many Muscovites had even awakened. The cryptic orders sending her here had said nothing except where to meet the plane, where to check into the hotel, and what time to meet the driver who would bring her to the Admiralty building.
The large mahogany doors of Zhabin’s office opened with a majestic creak, revealing the admiral himself and another person, a woman in a well-tailored business suit. Zhabin was in his sixties, balding, going to fat, but with a face so fierce that it was rumored in the fleet that he could stare a man to death. His nickname — and it was unknown whether he himself knew it — was Litso Smerti. Death Face. The woman with him was beautiful, tall, slender and elegant, with long legs, a small waist, an expansive chest somewhat disguised by her navy blue business suit. She had dirty blonde hair — probably dyed, Anna thought — cut into a chin-length bob. She looked like she’d stepped out of the society pages of Russkaya Zhizn’ magazine. Her age seemed indeterminate. She could be a mature-looking thirty-eight or a youthful-looking forty-eight. But she carried the same air of authority that Zhabin did.
“Please, Captain Anna,” Admiral Zhabin said, attempting to be gracious, which came off false with his snarling expression. “Have a seat with us here.” He waved Anna to a wing chair that faced a couch across the coffee table, on which was an elaborate sterling silver tea service. “How do you like your tea?”
“One sugar, two creams, sir,” she said. Zhabin poured and sat on the couch next to the elegant woman.
“Allow me to introduce you to SVR Chairman Lana Lilya,” Zhabin said.
Anna rose to stand to greet the director of the foreign intelligence service, but Lilya waved her back to her seat. “Please,” Lilya said in a honey-smooth voice with an elegant central Moscow accent. “Let’s be informal here, Captain. Do you mind if I call you Svetlana?”
“That’s fine, Madam Chairwoman,” Anna said.
“Please call me Lana,” Lilya said, smiling at her with movie-star perfect white teeth.
“And you can call me ‘admiral,’” Zhabin said, chuckling. “But let us proceed to business, Svetlana. I’m sure you have important matters waiting for you up at Northern Fleet.”
Anna adjusted her posture in her chair, taking a sip of tea to be polite, but she had no desire for it. Her pulse had slowed, but she still felt as if she were in deep water.
“Yes, Admiral?”
“We brought you here to brief you on a mission so secret that no one can or will commit it to writing. You and your group of ‘test wives’—that is the proper term, yes?”
Anna nodded.
“We will be ordering you to put to sea with the Belgorod. The submarine will be executing a top-secret mission that will take it around the globe, eventually to the United States east coast, to drop off and activate three Status-6 hydrogen bombs, hidden in the bays and waterways offshore of American Navy ports.”
“Sir, we’ve never deployed on submarines before.”
“Relax, Svetlana. It is not so different than a Navy surface ship sailing at night. No sunshine.” Zhabin smiled at her, or tried to, but his eyes remained cold.
“Understood, then, sir. How long is the mission?”
“Svetlana, it could be months. President Vostov has ordered that the submarine transit to the Pacific by way of the polar icecap to avoid detection by the Americans’ sonar trip wires in the North Atlantic. Then around South America. So it could take as long as four months to get in position.”
“I’ll brief my troops,” Anna said, thinking that now the meeting might end, although she wondered why the head of the foreign intelligence service was here for this somewhat unusual but otherwise straightforward mission.
“There’s more,” Chairman Lilya said. “President Vostov’s intention to hide hydrogen bombs in American territorial waters is no different than if he were to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles at American targets. It’s an act of war. More subtle than ICBMs, certainly, but no less an attack. The senior ranks of the military and intelligence agencies oppose this mission. We have all gone through channels and the chain of command. Our arguments have met President Vostov’s brick wall. So it is our intent to sabotage this mission. And this submarine. And you’re the one who has been chosen to do it.”
Anna sat back in her chair, exhaling as the wind seemed knocked out of her. Her own Navy, intent on sabotaging their own ship?
“I know,” Lilya continued. “This seems incredibly desperate and irresponsible. But we have a multi-pronged set of missions designed to stop this Status-6 deployment from happening. For obvious reasons, I can’t tell you what they are. Well, I can disclose one of them, I suppose. At the highest levels of our intelligence agencies, we’ve reached out to our opposite numbers at the American CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency — we’ve informed them about this mission and the possible date of Belgorod’s departure, and that Belgorod will be transiting under the polar icecap. And that we will place a human ‘asset’ aboard to sabotage the plan from within. That would be you, Svetlana. What the Americans do with that information is up to them, but I imagine they will send an American submarine to follow the Belgorod, quietly, to see what it is doing. In the worst case, the Americans may decide to attack it.”
Lilya filled a teacup and spooned sugar into it and drank a sip, then looked up at Anna.
“As I said, there are other plans in place that will make that eventuality unnecessary. We believe that with our other scenarios, Belgorod will be ordered to abandon the mission and return home. But, as a deep contingency, you will be aboard to stop the deployment of these Status-6 weapons.”
“Svetlana,” Admiral Zhabin said, “are you able to accept this mission? For the good of Mother Russia? And, in fact, for the fate of the world?”
“Admiral, I am an officer in the Russian Republic Navy,” Anna said. “I will follow my orders, no matter how unpleasant or dangerous.”
“Well, Svetlana,” Zhabin said, “we deeply hope that if it comes for you to do your work, it will be something that you will survive — along with the rest of the crew of Belgorod. It may come to it that the situation will degrade, and the only way to accomplish your — and our — aim is to execute progressively more radical means. In the ultimate case, you will have to cause damage so severe to the submarine that it will sink.” Zhabin paused to stare into Anna’s eyes.
“Sir, I’m not eager to die,” Anna said haltingly. “But if that is the only way to fulfil the orders, well, there is always the next life, yes?”
Zhabin smiled, with his eyes also, this time. “Excellent, Svetlana. I will be recommending you for advancement to Captain Second Rank when this is over, and a decoration for bravery in service to the republic.”