A transit under the ice was a lonely journey for a man like Danilov. Some men enjoyed the quiet, the lack of communication, the tedium of watch standing, and the excitement of knowing that they were racing at high speed under uncountable tons of snow and ice. But Abe Danilov was not that type. The solitude, the not knowing what was happening above, the prospect of a dangerous face-off in the North Pacific — each of these became magnified in his mind. Without the steady flow of messages that he constantly reviewed when ashore, he was like a caged animal.
His only means of relaxation became Anna’s letters. He could briefly return to times he had forgotten, to memories of Anna’s over periods he’d been away from her. Danilov was reminded that he had not been present for the birth of his first son in 1962. That had been a difficult year for a young wife pregnant for the first time. Danilov had spent much of that year at sea, and when the baby was born in October he was in a submarine near Cuba. Much of his time was spent dodging American destroyers and pondering whether war would become a reality and he would die in foreign waters without ever knowing of his first child.
Anna explained in her letter twenty-five years later that for a very short time her husband was not the most important person in her life. He hadn’t been around to share the wonder of those nine months, nor the miracle of birth that ended them. During those frightening days when war with the Americans seemed imminent, her only visitor after the birth of her son had been one of the busiest men in the Kremlin. The moment Anna saw Sergei Gorshkov’s face, the youngster had been named after the commander in chief of the Soviet Navy, Sergei Danilov followed in his father’s footsteps and eventually had gone into submarines. Even today, Danilov imagined, he could be on one of those now approaching Imperator. The thought was not a pleasant one.
Anna also had reminded him of how he’d spoiled his only daughter, Eugenia. Three years after the Americans had made fools of them in Cuba, Danilov was transferred to shore duty in Leningrad — and he hated it, afraid he would be passed by. It had been a transition period for the navy as well as for Danilov. Sergei Gorshkov had the opportunity to rebuild, to turn the outdated fleet humiliated off the shores of Cuba into a blue-water navy with the largest, most powerful submarine force in the world.
Abe Danilov had been so distraught at first at being put ashore, when he had hoped to command his own submarine, that he’d turned his complete attention to his infant daughter. Eugenia was the balm to his hurt ego and Danilov attempted to become both mother and father to her. Little Sergei, in the meantime, was just old enough to be jealous, and when Anna mentioned she was afraid he might hurt his sister, Danilov was so fierce with the boy that Sergei cried in fear for hours. Anna reminded him in her neat handwriting that her husband had always seen other males as a constant challenge — even years later when he treated Eugenia’s husband with disdain. Abe Danilov created a shell around himself as he grew older, and he had never realized until then how correct Anna had been. She’d chided him:
You see, my real interest is in trying to remind you that the young heart of the old man still resides in the same place. I want to make sure that you understand that as you go off on this new mission. Search for the real Abe Danilov each night, and remember him the following day when you are approaching danger. Remember the man who loved that little girl so deeply, whenever the man in that shell who is so tough comes to the surface. Perhaps that will even save your life for me.
Abe Danilov reread her letter, then carefully folded it along the creases, replaced it in the envelope, and put the packet back in the drawer under his shirts.
The other letters had left him in tears, if not close to them, but this was completely different. Anna was searching for that part of himself that still lived in the recesses of his mind. He had stubbornly refused his blessing when his daughter married that engineer and moved to Irkutsk — Eugenia could have done better! And as he thought of that, he remembered what, so many years in the past, General Chuikov had thought of Abe Danilov.
How quickly our ideas change — how easily we forget those concepts that don’t appeal to us, he realized now. In a concise way, Anna reminded him that Snow and his Imperator were not another challenge to his maleness. It was vital that he take the time to understand what he was facing, to take the rational approach that Anna counseled in her letter — so that he might return to her, she said. Before he slept, Abe Danilov marveled at the immense luck he had experienced in finding his Anna. Here, in his old age, or at least near the end of his career, his wife was reawakening so much that he had forgotten about himself. Somehow, she had sensed that she must do this if her husband was to return to her.
Never before had the eyes of the world been riveted so intently to the north. Quite suddenly the strategic value of the arctic regions captured the imagination. Troop and equipment movements about the Kola Peninsula, hitherto an unknown segment of the Arctic only days before, became a matter of vital importance. Newscasters found themselves routinely rolling such names across their tongues as Pechenga, Polyarnyy, and Severodvinsk. Once international attention centered on the Kola Peninsula, the Russian’s circuitous routing of their prepositioned equipment was revealed overnight. While the area between Murmansk and Norway contained the greatest concentration of military might in the world, the sheer realities of numbers shocked the West. Preparation for major military movement cannot go unseen for long. There is simply too much involved in troops, tanks, artillery, and the supplies for the thousands of men and tons of equipment involved. All the disclaimers in the world would not convince observers that the Soviets were willing to negate their plans if U.S. ships would remain south of the Arctic Circle.
The Russians were just as vehement in their denunciation of American submarines ordered into arctic waters. The Kremiin knew they were approaching but it was another thing to prove. Satellite photos could not be made of their movements. For the time being, there was an advantage on the Americans’ side.
Meanwhile, negotiations continued under a cloud of despair. The reality of an invasion on the Northern Flank would force a NATO effort to relieve a beleaguered Norway, and the conflict would expand. Others would gradually be drawn into the vortex.
The unknown factor remained Imperator. The Russians were as yet unable to explain exactly what her overall impact might be in the end. The massive submarine had been quickly shielded against satellites once she departed the fishbowl, but now they knew she must either be exposed or sunk. Her very presence posed a threat to any SSBNs that lay beneath the Arctic icepack, and quite possibly to Soviet offensive plans in Norway. For them it was frustrating enough simply being unable to articulate the magnitude and meaning of this superweapon to themselves and to the rest of the world.
5
FOR A FLEETING moment, the skipper of Olympia was amused. Quite by accident, he realized his feet weren’t cold — not that they necessarily should have been. But if he’d been wandering around his house in his stocking feet, they would have eventually become cold. Aboard Olympia there were no cold decks, no drafts leaking through cracks around windows and doors. A perfect climate. Any change in that specific temperature and humidity would indicate a malfunction. So there was no reason for his feet to be cold — none except the knowledge that he was both the hunter and the hunted.