At Heathrow Airport, he remained in the crowds for safety. He considered a direct flight to Dulles but found out the next departure didn’t leave for ten hours. His only option was an Execu-Jet airline flight that catered to rich business people. It left in thirty minutes for New York and was only half-full. He paid the $7,000 and was surprised that the ticket agent didn’t think twice about the large amount of cash.
The good thing was that it would be an opportune time to peg his tail, if he had one. If he was being followed, the person would have to try to buy a ticket, and all George had to do was wait. No one came to the counter after him.
He waited until the entire plane had boarded and the attendants pushed him in. Only then did he know that he was not being followed. He drew some comfort from this and could relax somewhat on the eight-hour trip. After that, a connecting flight to Dulles and a drive to the headquarters in Pennsylvania to meet with his operation’s officer — a person whom he had never met before in his life.
Admiral Sukudo and Josh once again found themselves studying recent screenshots from ODIS. In the back of the room, a large screen had been installed, and Josh had an Italian porno channel broadcasting on it.
“You’re going to have to turn that off.” Sukudo motioned to the viewing screen.
Josh punched a few buttons, and the screen dropped to black. “Just running a test. That’s my new LCS monitor. A test to make sure the picture is as sharp as the techno geeks say it is.”
“Is that your own test?” Sukudo grinned.
“No, the nerd brains showed me that one. If you can count the pubic hairs on the snatch, then the screen is working well. But I’ve never found any reason to count. It looks fine to me.”
“The toys you guys play with…”
“It gets boring down here, Admiral. The marines need something to pass the time.” Josh motioned to the two stone-faced security guards.
Sukudo shook his head in mock disbelief. “I guess so…”
Josh shifted gears. He hadn’t known Sukudo long, but he felt reasonably comfortable with him.
He pulled up the pictures of the Saratov while she sat in port. Then the ones of the Saratov diving in the Gulf of Finland. “I’ll admit that I don’t know shit about submarines, but I do know that this one is different. I compared it to other photos and found that there are some major design variations.”
“Hit me with it.”
“Okay. Off the top.” Josh zoomed in on the screen of the sub at dock. “They unload the armaments from this one in a very odd way. The bow of the ship unfolds like the gull-wing doors on an old Mercedes sports car — except upside down.”
Sukudo’s face twisted in contemplation. “They’ve stacked their torpedoes in what looks like a giant clip for a gun.”
“Well, look at this…” Josh pulled up another picture. “Here are the torpedoes sitting on the dock.” The picture showed five torpedoes stacked one on top of the other, sitting in a giant metal cage. There were several such cages.
“Huge clips loaded with bullets for an oversize cannon.” Sukudo didn’t like what he was seeing. “It would seem to allow them to load several at a time. Quite a bit more efficient than our ships.”
“More efficient and faster. They can load five at once. That’s less time she sits in dock. I also have a picture of the warheads. They don’t fit regular specs, either. They’re thin, stubby toothpicks compared to the regular missiles the rest carry.” Josh stood back and let the admiral form an opinion.
Sukudo was transfixed. He took the mouse and ran it over the picture, clicking and blowing up each frame to examine the weapons.
“What about the storage facility for these weapons?”
“Yeah. I found it. You’ll see a small freighter in the upper right. Only the armaments that come off this sub go to that ship. It contains no others as far as I know.”
“The redheaded stepchild.” Sukudo laid the glass down and stretched the kink in his neck. “We’re going to have to get a better look at this one.Could you identify it in the book?” He referred to the navy handbook on the schematics of Russian ships and submarines. In it was listed the size and dimensions of many Russian (or Soviet) fleet vessels. Josh had a copy in the room.
“No match on the books. Computer listings didn’t come up with anything, either. I did capture it, though, and it’s waiting for intelligence to assign it some status.”
“They won’t get to it for a while. Especially if it’s at the bottom of the ocean.”
“There is something else I wanted to show you.” Josh rummaged for another picture. He brought up a shot of the Saratov submerging in the Gulf of Finland. “See when she blows her tanks to dive — for a second, the water around the sub is disturbed enough for us to get an idea of how long she really is.” He circled an area around the ship where large pockets of air exploded to the surface. “It would seem that there is considerably more length to this one than first assumed. Not typical.”
Sukudo compared the gulf picture to the dock picture. “She’s sitting low in the water when she’s docked. Just enough out to allow them to do their work.”
“Twenty years in salt water?”
“Grease,” answered Sukudo. “Low-tech but effective if applied liberally over the years. I bet she is as new as the day she was outfitted. Just sitting there, ignored.”
Remarkably, the vessel clearly indicated that the Soviet Union might have discovered a better weapon — yet too late. Who knows, it could have escalated the Cold War. Then where would we be? It was ironic to the admiral that the poor performance of the Soviet economy was what had carried the submarine to its grave. “Could you register a footprint?”
“Yes.” Josh brought up a thermal imaging picture of the Gulf of Finland to the screen. It was black except for the sickly red glow of the sub’s engine, which was the main source of heat and radiation. He zeroed in on the registration. “She’s well insulated. Most of them burn white-hot at this point. She’ll be a tough one to find, even assisted by the computer. If we have to look for her blindly, it will be next to impossible to locate. Back to this point — again we see that the nuclear engines are set farther back than most.” Josh circled the complete vessel and highlighted the more prominent areas.
Sukudo had nothing to say. He was a navy man and understood his vessels, but he was no engineer. His common sense told him not to brush this one off, even if the Russian government was mothballing it. The sub was too unique. Too advanced.
“How’d you like to come with me to Groton, Connecticut?”
A loud beeper sounded, like a pager in the room.
“Sure, Admiral, but first you’ll have to see this.” Josh sat at his console and typed away, sending ODIS some new signals. The LCS came alive with the image of a Russian destroyer in the Barents Sea. The destroyer was gliding to a stop and came to rest in unusually calm waters. “Here we go.” He split the screen, one side showing a clear picture, and the other half registering the thermal signature. The destroyer burned brilliant white on the thermal side as it drifted. Within moments, the red signature of the Saratov slowly appeared one hundred yards off the destroyer’s bow. It wasn’t moving, only rising. “See that. I estimate that she’s only fifty feet down and coming up. We’re just picking her up now. She can hide very effectively; just keep her in the cold.”
“We can’t find her submerged, can we?”
“Not without magical upgrades, and we don’t have a magic wand for that right now.”
The Saratov’s sail peeked through the surface. It rose six more meters and settled in the water, letting the waves lap against its side. Small, inflatable zodiacs ran from the ship to the sub, ferrying wet suits and air tanks to the crew. Other small items were sent back to the destroyer for storage. Then the hatch shut, and the Saratov submerged. Watching the thermal screen, Josh and the admiral observed the sub’s signature fade and expire beneath the cold current. The whole event took half an hour.