Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

Starpom Veroshilov poked his head into the room and looked around.

“Konstintin! Tell him.”

“Tell him what, Kapitan?”

“Tell him how dedicated you are to this mission.”

“Of course, Kapitan. We all are. The general knows that. We are professionals. We do what we say we'll do. For our families. For our country.”

“See, what did I tell you?” Litvanov said.

“Kapitan…” Veroshilov said. “We’re picking up something on ESM. Possibly a U.S. Navy P-З Orion.”

“Not a coincidence,” Litvanov said. “The Americans were sure to have their noses into this. I’m surprised it took them so long. We’ve been picking up ZEVS transmissions every hour on the hour. Moscow is frantic to reach someone. Can you guess why? I can.”

Litvanov staggered to his feet and reached up to brace against the overhead storage cabinets filled with books and instruction manuals.

“They’re shitting their pants in the Kremlin because of us. You can bet on it.”

“Orders, Kapitan?” said Veroshilov.

Litvanov ran a paw over his stubbly face. “Did you monitor CNN?”

“Yes. They said that the U.S. president left Andrews Air Force Base for St. Petersburg at fifteen hundred this afternoon U.S. time.”

“I hope he has a nice flight. That they all have a nice flight.”

Litvanov, to get his bearings, glanced at the compass and pit log repeater on the bulkhead. “Only one contact on ESM?”

“So far.”

“Well, let’s not hang around here. Rig for ultraquiet and shape course for Navfjord. We'll pull in there and wait out those P-3s.”

“Aye, aye, Kapitan.” Veroshilov moved to carry out his orders.

“What is Navfjord?” the girl asked.

“A deepwater fjord north of Bergen,” said Veroshilov. “The Americans and their P-З Orions won’t find us there.”

“What about the Norwegians?” said Zakayev.

“What about them? Do you think they’ll expect to find a Russian submarine parked in their backyard?”

“Perhaps Moscow alerted them,” Zakayev said. “Maybe that’s why we encountered those two frigates.”

“No, even if Fleet Headquarters has discovered by now that we're not in the Barents Sea, and even if they know our plans, they would never tell the Norwegians to look for us. That would be too embarrassing. And the Norwegians won’t say anything to Moscow about a mysterious sonar contact.

It’s the Americans who have a stake in the outcome, but Moscow won't want them interfering, either. Imagine if the tables were reversed and Moscow wanted to hunt for an American sub in the Caribbean, or off the east coast of the U.S. Impossible.”

“But the American president is on his way to St. Petersburg,” the girl said. “If they know about us, why haven’t they canceled the summit?”

“My guess, little beauty, is they don't want to set off a panic,” Litvanov said. “Plus, it would look bad if Washington or Moscow appeared worried.”

Zakayev nodded his agreement.

“Who is Moscow frantic to reach?” the girl asked as Litvanov squeezed past.

“What?”

“You said they were signaling every hour.”

Litvanov rested against the doorframe. “There’s another submarine out there.”

“Which one?” Zakayev asked, looking slightly alarmed.

“The one they sent to kill us.”

“Periscope up,” Litvanov ordered.

The portside search scope snatched in its carriage and rose.

He had dared fire a single ping from the Fathometer to confirm that the fjord was deep enough to enter and discovered almost eight hundred meters of black water beneath the keel.

Now he grasped the rising periscope handles and came upright. The scope swept across the fjord and a forest of conifers growing to water’s edge. At the narrow end of the fjord, walls of living rock formed a steep-sided canyon. To Litvanov, viewing it from a low perspective, the canyon resembled a raw, prehistoric fracture in the earth’s surface.

He made a careful inspection of the near shoreline for houses or roads but saw nothing to indicate there were people ashore watching the periscope head sticking up out of the middle of the fjord like a pole. On the tip of the small island guarding the mouth of the fjord, he saw a stone ruin. High-magnification revealed little more than a pile of cut rock and a partially collapsed wall. He swept past the ruin and stopped when he saw three Arctic deer crash out of the forest and suddenly freeze, their tails and ears perked up, gaze planted squarely on the fjord’s shimmering waters.

Litvanov allowed himself a smile. “Periscope down. Engage hovering system. Maintain periscope depth.”

“Periscope depth, aye,” Veroshilov replied from the diving station. “Rigging ship for hover.”

Litvanov waited until he received confirmation that the K-363 had been properly trimmed and that the submarine, hove to, lay suspended twenty meters beneath the surface of the fjord. “Raise the LSM mast,” he ordered. “Let’s see if that nosy P-З is in the area.”

A brief hum of hydraulics sounded in the CCP.

“Contact, Kapitan. Narrowband spectrum. Identify as U.S. Navy type APS-118 search radar. Bearing zero two-zero, moving left. Signal strength Five.”

“Amerikanskis?” Zakayev said.

“Yes, probably out of Keflavik.” Litvanov said. “They’re flying a north-south search leg.”

The girl stood beside Zakayev, her big eyes on Litvanov.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “They’ll soon get bored and go back to their movies and television programs. Then we can head south.”

Karl Radford looked at the haggard face of Rear Admiral Grishkov. The color adjustment on the videoconference screen in Radford’s Crystal City office looked slightly off: As well as looking haggard, Grishkov also looked green.

“Good morning, Mikhail,” said Radford.

“Good morning to you, Karl,” said Grishkov. “Thank you for setting up the conference on such short notice. This won’t take long.”

“Take as much time as you need, Mikhail. I know this isn’t a social call.”

Grishkov, in Severomorsk, where it was three A.M.. hunched forward and, puffing on a cigarette while looking into a glass of steaming tea on his desk, said, “No, this is not a social call.”

“What can I do for you, Mikhail?” Radford asked.

“Admiral Stashinsky does not know that I'm talking to you, Karl. Nor will he, I hope.”

Radford didn't show surprise. “This is a secure network. It can’t be recorded or penetrated.”

“Thank you.”

Radford waited, toying with the Scotch and water he habitually drank at the end of his workday.

Grishkov lifted his gaze from the tea and looked directly into the video camera on his end. “Can you tell me, please, Karl, what you’ve done with Captain Scott and the K-480?”

A brief hesitation and Radford said, “I don’t know what you mean. We haven’t done anything with them. I know that you recalled them. Haven’t they confirmed your order?”

“No. We’ve been trying to raise the K-480 via ZEVS, but they don’t respond. I thought perhaps you might know why.”

“This is news to me, Mikhail. You aren't suggesting that something has happened to them, are you?”

Smoke from his cigarette made Grishkov squint. “You would know that better than I. You have sources we don’t have.”

“We’ve had no casualty reports. But then, as you know, our SOSUS in that region is on standby only, not active.” “I was referring to your new laser satellites.”

‘They’re not currently deployed in that region.”

“In other words you don’t know why Scott won't respond to our signals.”

‘‘Perhaps he can’t.”

‘‘Yes, I’ve considered that they may have a communication problem. But it seems a remote possibility.” ‘‘Then I don't know what to tell you, Mikhail. I wish I could help.”