McNeil turned to Lloyd, who controlled the bulkhead display with a remote in his hand. A nautical chart of the Black Sea appeared, zooming in on the eastern shore. Lloyd’s brief was short and uneventful from a navigation perspective — there were no underwater features interfering with Michigan’s approach, but there was another issue to be considered.
“The launch point is twenty-five nautical miles from Novorossiysk, homeport to three Kilo class diesel submarines. Intel reported all three Kilos sortied to sea five days ago and they remain in the Black Sea; SOSUS arrays haven’t detected their transit through the Turkish Straits. Although they can refuel at most Black Sea ports, they typically return to Novorossiysk for refueling. That means one or more of the Kilos could be nearby during the mission.”
Lloyd handed the remote to Lieutenant Harrison.
“This will be a hot extraction following a failed Delta Force rescue, so the Russians will be on alert. We’ll send a squad ashore using the two Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats in the port Dry Deck Shelter. Maydwell, Mendelson, and Brown will join me in the first fire team, while Senior Chief Stone will lead the other team of Rodrigues, Rosenberry, and Stigers.”
Harrison shifted the display to a satellite image of the Black Sea coast, annotated with a red dot along the shore. “The coastline in this region is dominated by cliffs, and most points offering easy inland access are too populated for our purpose. There is one suitable spot, just north of Krinitsa, where a small river empties into the Black Sea between two bluffs. We’ll head ashore at this location.
“President Kalinin is injured and cannot travel without assistance, so we’ll rendezvous with him and Christine O’Connor at a predetermined location. They were last reported about three miles inland. We’ll contact them once we’re inbound and get an update on their position. Accounting for the terrain, I expect the ingress and egress to take about two hours each, returning to Michigan before dawn.
“Weather will be a factor,” Harrison added. “A strong front moved in today, bringing heavy rain and wind. The rain will provide additional cover, but may slow our progress. We have an extra two hours as buffer before dawn in case we get delayed.
“Any questions?”
There were a few, delving into the details, then the briefing wrapped up.
Two hours later, with USS Michigan at periscope depth, Lieutenant Jake Harrison was outfitted in a black dive suit, rubber booties, and a tank harness, plus a backpack over one shoulder. He stepped into the Missile Compartment, joining three other SEALs by Missile Tube Two: Petty Officers First Class Rob Maydwell and Richard Mendelson, and Petty Officer Second Class Wayne Brown. Although both Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) were stored in the Dry Deck Shelter attached to Missile Tube Two, Senior Chief Stone’s four-man team would enter tube One. With two RHIBs in one shelter, there’d be insufficient room for all eight SEALs. Harrison’s team would extract one RHIB while Stone’s men exited the other shelter, then grabbed the second RHIB.
Harrison and his fire team stepped through the circular hatch in the side of Missile Tube Two. Maydwell shut the hatch and spun the handle, sealing the four men inside the seven-foot-diameter tube. Harrison led the way, climbing a steel ladder two levels into the Dry Deck Shelter, bathed in diffuse red light.
The Dry Deck Shelter was a conglomeration of three chambers: a spherical hyperbaric chamber at the forward end to treat injured divers, a spherical transfer trunk in the middle, which Harrison had just entered, and a cylindrical hangar section capable of carrying either two RHIBs or a single SEAL Delivery Vehicle — a black mini-sub capable of transporting four SEALs. The hangar was divided into two sections by a Plexiglas shield dropping halfway down from the top, with two RHIBs on one side and hangar controls on the other.
The four SEALs pulled air tanks from stowage racks, then donned their fins and masks, and Harrison rendered the okay hand signal to the Navy diver operating the controls.
Dark water surged into the shelter, gushing up from vents beneath them, pooling at their feet and rising rapidly. The hangar was soon flooded down, except for an air pocket on the other side of the Plexiglas shield, where the diver operated the shelter. There was a low rumbling sound as the circular hatch at the end of the hangar moved slowly open to the latched position. Harrison and the other SEALs hauled one of the RHIBs from the shelter onto the submarine’s missile deck, then connected a tether line to it from a shelter stowage rail and activated the first compressed air cartridge.
As the RHIB expanded, Maydwell and Mendelson swam aft along the missile deck and opened the hatch to a locker in the submarine’s superstructure. They retrieved an outboard motor and attached it to the RHIB, then actuated the second air cartridge. The RHIB fully inflated, rising toward the surface. Maydwell and Mendelson followed the boat up while Senior Chief Stone’s fire team, after exiting the other Dry Deck Shelter, pulled the second RHIB from the shelter and duplicated the process.
Mendelson returned a few moments later, rendering the okay hand signal, as did a SEAL from Stone’s team. Harrison and Stone attached flotation devices to two large duffel bags carrying additional weapons. They’d be exposed on the surface during their ingress and egress, vulnerable to air attack, and had packed appropriate equipment. Harrison activated the air cartridge, making the heavy weapons neutrally buoyant, then informed the diver inside the shelter that they were proceeding on their mission. The two SEALs disconnected the RHIB tether lines from the shelter and headed toward the surface, with the two duffel bags in tow.
Harrison was the last up, climbing into the RHIB while Mendelson hauled in the duffel bag. The outboard engine was running, but barely audible above the heavy rain pounding the water’s surface. Their position updated on Maydwell’s handheld GPS display, then he shifted the outboard into gear and pointed the RHIB toward their insertion point on the Black Sea coast. Senior Chief Stone’s RHIB followed. Harrison pulled a waterproof phone from his backpack and called the number he’d been given.
55
KRASNODAR KRAI, RUSSIA
As the heavy rain deluged the forest, Christine and Kalinin tried to stay dry inside the dilapidated cabin. The ground had settled since the cabin was built, creating a slight slope in the floor, and rainwater had begun running through the front door. The initial trickle had turned into a small stream, pooling against the opposite wall as it drained through rotted sections of the cabin logs. Christine and Kalinin had moved to the higher corner of the cabin, under the intact portion of the roof. They talked only when required, using hushed voices, afraid they’d be heard by Russian soldiers searching the forest.
The cell phone on the ground beside Christine vibrated and she answered. She recognized the voice on the other end immediately; he was never far from her thoughts. The conversation was short, with Christine relaying their position after checking the smart phone map, and Harrison providing an estimated time of arrivaclass="underline" two hours.
Five kilometers away, seated in a control van parked alongside a narrow two-lane road, Colonel Savvin looked up from his console as Major Lebedev entered.
“We have an intercept,” Lebedev said. “We couldn’t listen to the conversation but we tracked the signal, pinpointing the source with an accuracy of one thousand meters.”