The small safe opened, and at the bottom was an envelope with a single key. The key to the captain’s stateroom. No question in Vlasenko’s mind now— after what he had seen… or rather not seen… he had to get in and find out what Novskoyy was up to.
Admiral Novskoyy stared at the room’s door after Captain Vlasenko left, eventually shrugged and returned to his study of the deployment of his submarines. They would dictate the disarmament of the U.S. Dictate and if necessary force… Excitement, exhilaration over the plan now moving to fruition mingled with a wash of exhaustion. It was a heady feeling, one he had not known since twenty years ago when the USS Stingray went to the bottom…
Vlasenko sat at the polished oak foldout table, hating his situation, being deprived of his ship. He had been with the Kaliningrad through its five years of construction, since the first beam of structural titanium had arrived from the west by railcar. He was there when the beam was rolled into a ring, at the first hoop of framing, when the keel had been laid. He had watched the gigantic hull grow, module by module, deck by deck. And every day of those five years he had waited for the moment when she would submerge under the waves, with Vlasenko in command. He had devoted thirty years of his life to the Navy, almost all of them at sea. He had never married, never made love to a woman, unless you counted the Severomorsk and Vladivostok prostitutes. When he died his name would die with him. He had given it all up for the submarine force. Not to be Novskoyy’s errand boy.
Vlasenko shut his eyes, let his mind wander, hoping it would somehow take him away from the pain. Instead, it returned to the epicenter of the hurt. Clear as day he saw himself some twenty-five years earlier, the day he had pulled in on that run under the ice, the run when Novskoyy had shot and destroyed the American attack submarine…
It was December of 1973. It had been blowing wet snow the entire ride in. The waves were violent, spraying cold seawater onto the shivering officers and men on the bridge, coating them with its gritty salt.
At the time a senior lieutenant, Yuri Vlasenko had been Deck Officer. Normally he would have been proud to drive the new attack submarine into the Polyarnyy piers, but this time he was exhausted and overcome by a deep unease. As the Leningrad’s lines were thrown over to the men on the pier, a long black Zil limousine drove up to their berth. Twin red flags fluttered on the fenders, each flag displaying five stars — the limo of Fleet Admiral Konalev, commander of the entire Red Banner Northern Fleet. The car skidded to a halt on the ice-coated pier, and Vlasenko put down the bullhorn, the line handlers having finished securing the ship. He called down to the control room to have nuclear control parallel into shorepower and shutdown the reactor.
Captain Novskoyy looked ready to leave the bridge. Vlasenko decided to speak his mind, cautiously.
“Captain…” Vlasenko began.
Captain Novskoyy frowned. “What is it, Vlasenko? The admiral is waiting for my report.”
“Sir, I was just wondering… what are you going to tell the admiral?” His meaning was clear. Would the captain tell the admiral he’d sunk an American submarine without any real provocation, only because the American had been trailing them for a time, actually risking a nuclear conflict with the Americans?
Novskoyy’s face seemed to grow as dark as the storm that blew around them.
“Vlasenko, you are impertinent. However, to enlighten you… I will tell Admiral Konalev the truth.”
“The truth?” The words escaped Vlasenko’s lips before he could stop them.
Novskoyy stared clear through him, his expression now blank, controlled. He leaned over until his gray eyes were within centimeters from Vlasenko’s.
“The truth. Lieutenant, is that the American submarine ambushed us with an offensive salvo of torpedoes. We fired back to save ourselves. After we outran the American weapon our torpedoes sent the enemy to the bottom, which he deserved.”
Novskoyy continued to stare down at Vlasenko. A bead of sweat dripped down Vlasenko’s chin in spite of the cold. He was, by too long conditioning, literally frozen in place. Novskoyy finally broke off his stare, opened the tunnel hatch to the control room below and went through. If he had stopped and looked back up at Vlasenko, he would have seen a lieutenant standing stiff at attention. If he had looked into the man’s soul, he would have seen profound hatred, smothered below layers of fear. It would take years to peel them away…
Admiral Richard Donchez walked into the conference room and shut the door.
“Attention on deck!” someone shouted. The room’s officers came to attention. Donchez waved them to their chairs and sat at the head of the table.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Today at zero nine hundred Greenwich Mean Time our Bigbird II reconnaissance satellite passed over the Kola Peninsula and the Russian northern-coast submarine bases. The Bigbird satellite found all the piers empty. Empty. The previous pass, approximately four hours before, showed all 120 nuclear attack submarines in port. SOSUS hydrophones reported a large number of submarines under way in the Barents Sea. They seem to be heading in the direction of the North Atlantic. Toward us…”
“This remarkable deployment, we suspect, may well have to do with the commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral Alexi Novskoyy. Last night Novskoyy was reported by intelligence assets to be embarked aboard the new OMEGA-class attack submarine Kaliningrad, which left Severomorsk for the Arctic yesterday, supposedly for sea trials. And meanwhile his fleet is deploying with speed and precision. Novskoyy is now at an undetermined location under the polar icecap.”
Donchez let the news sink in.
“What he is up to is anyone’s guess. The DIA, CIA and NSA are on the case. But they don’t ever have to face an opponent at sea. We do. Therefore, I am ordering the immediate deployment of the east-coast attack-submarine force. I want repairs accelerated until every vessel is underway submerged. Unfortunately, that is only sixty-seven ships, which means each one of ours will have to trail two of theirs. The classification for this information is TOP SECRET THUNDERBOLT. Any leaks and I guarantee the leaker will spend the rest of his career in Leavenworth Military Prison. That is all. Dismissed.”
The mid-afternoon sun gave little warmth as Squadron Seven’s leader Commodore Benjamin Adams, shivering in a light khaki jacket, stepped off the long sloping gangway of the Hercules, Squadron Seven’s tender ship. The diesel engines of Pier Seven’s four cranes rumbled as they removed shorepower cables and gangways. Two of the squadron’s submarines were in the channel already and one was taking in her lines now.
Adams walked down the pier to the berth of the Billfish. From the sub’s flying bridge Captain Toth saluted Adams, who returned the salute and gave him a thumbs-up. The tugs pulled Billfish away from the pier and towed her to the center of the channel at the pier’s end. Tossing off the tug lines, Toth ordered ahead standard, the wake boiled up around Billfish’s rudder and she surged forward.
Ben Adams watched the same scene played out for the Spadefish, the Archerfish, the Whale, the Barracuda, the Pargo, the Sturgeon and the Piranha. When the sun set, Pier Seven was empty except for the tender ship Hercules.
Bill Sweeney, commodore of Squadron Twelve, joined Adams on the pier. “Can you believe this?”
“Did you get everyone under way?” Adams asked, ignoring the question.
“All but the Charleston,” Sweeney told him. “She was blowing resin in drydock. Word has it they’re throwing her engine room and reactor compartment back together, sending her to sea with no resin refill.”