Cameron Poe: Red Agenda

On level three, subbasement A, located in the center of the grounds at NASA, Josh was king. All rank was thrown out, other than the usual formal initial address. After that, they treated one another as equals. Only Josh could roam the lower levels freely. Everyone else had to be accompanied by a marine with orders to shoot first. His latest visitor, Admiral Sukudo, also drew the marine with the sidearm, who waited patiently at the door.

The display room was large and dark. Screens around the room exhibited several areas of the globe. Josh bent over a small console scrutinizing what he was viewing through the lens. Sukudo stood behind him.

“How late are the transmissions?” Sukudo asked.

“Milliseconds. We got an upgrade the other month that tripled the speed in the transport and processing of data.” He flipped a few buttons and punched in a command to make the satellite transmit the thermal display. “Here,” he said, circling a hot spot on the screen. “The reactor has cooled off considerably. Control rods out, and they’re shutting her down. I could never fathom why they would dump their subs on the floor like this.”

Sukudo corrected him. “It’s a way of keeping them away from everyone and yet still accessible. They can bring them up if they really need them. Any other pictures?”

“Well, these.” Josh motioned to a pile of prints sitting on a table next to him. “They pulled out the weapons first.” With a magnifying glass, he pointed to workmen pulling nuclear missiles from a launch carriage on the sub while in dock. “Here, that’s too old school.” With the touch of a few buttons, Josh put the picture on the main screen and zoomed in on the weapons.

“They do this to every one?”

“Every one, stripped down to her panties,” said Sukudo.

Josh grabbed another picture from the pile while simultaneously bringing it up on another screen. “Here’s a picture of the water where they drown these ladies. It’s roughly five by five square miles, I estimate. See these four white dots. They’re the heat signatures of small destroyers. There are at least four and as many as ten in this ocean at one time. These waves are never unprotected.”

Sukudo’s brow furrowed. “How many have been put down?”

“I’ve counted six since we began. I believe four Alfas, as you call them, and two Typhoons. It is only in the area we’ve monitored. They could be dumping elsewhere.”

“Real old Soviet hardware.” The admiral sighed. “Christ, I probably chased a few of those boats in my day. I guess if you’re going to hide a ship, north is the place to do it.”

“They’ll be trapped under the ice most of the year.”

Josh moved to caution. “We can see that they go down there, Admiral, but that doesn’t mean they stay.”

“Explain?”

“We can’t read the Alfas after their engines cool. The crew could easily slip to another location on battery power, and ODIS would never pick it up.”

“And the Typhoons?”

“Technically we should be able read the radiation on thermal imaging even with the control rods out. Their insulation sucks. But they’ve stumped us. When they dive, we still track a mild radiation reading, even with the engines off; then poof , they’re gone. My guess is they take them under an inversion layer in the water, which masks the engine from our equipment. We’re still working on boosting the sensitivity for ODIS to see if we can solve the problem. Unfortunately, I think we need a different approach for him.” Josh often referred to ODIS as a person.

“What’s the chance of you picking up the readings again?”

“Slim. Icebergs read better than the subs, but because of the patrol routes of the destroyers, I think they’re still located in the same area.”

“How deep’s the water?” Sukudo began to rub his eyes; he wasn’t used to looking at so many monitors.

“I don’t have that data in the computer, but we have old topo maps in the other room. I’m sure there are some of the Barents Sea.”

“All this technology and you can’t call up a depth?”

“You’re the first to ask. Give me a month, and I’ll have all it plugged in.”

The other room was crowded with maps of all parts of the world. They were so large that most hung from spines attached to the ceiling. Josh sifted through those in a corner then pushed the rest back when he located the one he needed.

“Here we are,” he said. “What we see is a pretty constant depth of one hundred feet. Some deeper valleys here and there.”

The admiral muscled his way near. “There is a shelf that runs for about twelve square miles that is relatively shallow in this whole area. After the crew puts her down on the bottom, they could easily frogmen up to a rendezvous with any ship or another sub. Slow water, no doubt. Wouldn’t want those bitches to be swept away in some current. The depth is right. A hundred feet is easy to get in and out of without decompression. Minimal crew to bring her up and sneak her away. Is there any other way we might be able to locate these cunts?”

Josh took note of the admiral’s use of profanity and began to warm to him.

“No. Right now all that hardware looks as cold to ODIS as an ice-cube fart. We’d need a temperature variation to find anything.”

“But if one was fired up…” said Sukudo as he followed Josh back into master control.

“That would be bittersweet, I would think. Remember, we know where the subs are because of the patrol boats. If the boats move, then I’d worry.”

“There’s more to it than that,” replied the admiral. “The Alfas , since they run on fuel, have to come to the surface. The coldness of the water would drain their batteries. Those we can spot. The Typhoons have nuclear engines; they could get away without our knowing. They don’t need to rise above the inversion layer.”

Josh frowned. “Okay. Not good.” He flipped through the extra pictures and picked a few. “We might be able to catch up with them later. They all have to rearm.”

“They’d have to dock.”

Josh gave a strange glance. “I was under the impression that could be accomplished at sea.”

“It can in a time of crisis. Why?”

“Come with me.” Josh led the admiral back to ODIS. “When they strip those babies of their weapons, they store them on freighters and barges. I figured either to sell or for quick access. Right?”

“They’re not trucked inland and put underground?”

“No.” Josh handed him some still prints then brought up ODIS’s monitor. A few commands later and a live picture of a Russian port snapped to the screen. “Here. You see, they roll the missiles down the dock and hoist them into cargo ships every time they mothball.”

“Have they moved?”

“Not these.”

There was a small silence between them. Activity on the screen clearly revealed workmen transporting a torpedo on the dock to a barge. Then the lens came across another pier.

“There’s one,” Kenneth observed. “Another victim.”

“Let’s find out.” Josh took hold of a tiny control stick and panned the lens until a Russian sub filled the frame. “A fucking giant.” The sub was sleek, black, and tremendously long. She still bore the Soviet insignia of the hammer and sickle on her sail and patiently waited as crews dressed her down.

“Typhoon class. A little different, though,” said Admiral Sukudo. “Where the fuck have they been hiding this big sister? And what’s up with the insignia of the Soviet Union?”

“Wait for it.” Josh brought up another picture of the same port and same vessel in the same place. Only this time the submarine was covered with camouflaged tarp. “That girl has never moved since we first came across her. It’s been buttoned up for at least twenty years, easy.”