Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

Litvanov rolled the empty glass between his fingers. He looked at the girl, her deep-set eyes now seemingly bigger than ever, then at Zakayev. “I’m not convinced he’s a Russian.”

“What are you talking about?” Zakayev said. “Of course he’s a Russian.”

Litvanov kept rolling the glass, his gaze planted on the girl as he spoke. “He doesn't track like a Russian skipper. He sprints and drifts, dodges and weaves, runs silent, and above all doesn’t spin on his heel—what the Amerikanskis call our ‘Crazy Ivan’—to clear baffles. Those are the tactics of an American skipper, not a Russian.”

Zakayev felt his patience slipping away. The man was drunk and talking nonsense. The pressure had gotten to him and Zakayev wondered if it had gotten to the crew as well. If so, the mission was doomed. For a brief moment he considered killing Litvanov. But he realized Veroshilov might not take orders from him and he'd have to kill Veroshilov too. After that, where would it stop? Even if he killed them all, he could probably set the charges but wouldn’t know where to put them. And who would drive the submarine?

“How could he be an American?” Zakayev said.

Litvanov said nothing.

“Not in a Russian Akula,” Zakayev said, and got to his feet. “Impossible.”

Still Litvanov said nothing.

“We’re running out of time, Georgi. I’m giving you an order. Prepare your crew; tell them we are going to blow the reactor.”

Litvanov nodded.

“Who will set the charges?”

“The starpom,” Litvanov said. “He volunteered.”

“Very well, then get Veroshilov started on it. Anything else?”

Litvanov moved in slow motion. He stood, fists on the table, looking at the girl. “Perhaps I should marry you two. A ship’s captain can do that, you know.”

The girl looked at Zakayev, then Litvanov. “We’re already married, Kapitan,” she said with mock cheer.

“I didn’t know that. Congratulations.” Litvanov pulled his cap down over his brow and departed.

She was almost nothing in his arms. So utterly light and fragile. She clung to him like a child—like the child she still was.

“I brought this along,” she said, taking her arms from around his neck. “It’s all I have left.” She unwrapped her parents’ wedding album from the oilcloth and held it on her lap so Zakayev could see.

“I remember,” he said. “It’s very beautiful.”

Inside were color photographs of a tall, handsome man in a square-cut suit and a slender, lovely woman in a traditional wedding dress holding a bouquet of flowers, posing for the photographer. The girl’s hands caressed the photos, her fingers lingering on the faces, drawing their outlines, perhaps feeling their warmth against her hand.

Zakayev sat down beside her, their bodies touching. She seemed different, no longer a wife but a daughter. What they had shared was gone, and, he sensed, so was she. There were more pictures to see, though he’d seen them all before, knew everyone’s name, their stories, and the places where they’d been taken. Friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Children of friends. Cousins. A friendly black-and- white dog taught to shake hands, holding up a paw.

She closed the book and leaned her head on his shoulder. “May I stay here with you, Ali?’’

“Of course. I want you to.”

“I’m glad it’s almost over. Arc you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re angry at Litvanov.”

“Not angry, disappointed.”

“You don’t trust him, do you?”

“A man doesn't willingly chose to die,” Zakayev said. “But even if he does, he’s entitled to change his mind.”

They both fell silent listening to the faint, faraway noises made by the K-363.

At length the girl curled up on the bunk and Zakayev covered her with a rough wool blanket. He put the album by her side so it would be there when she awoke. He brushed a few strands of hair off her check and kissed her.

He changed into a pressed cammie shirt and matching pants that he'd stowed in his tourist suitcase on wheels. He laced up a pair of scarred boots and put on a canvas web belt. Then he stuck the H&K P7 automatic inside his shirt into the waistband of his cammies.

Zakayev thought about what he’d told the girl: A man doesn’t willingly chose to die. But even if he does, he’s entitled to change his mind. Zakayev felt the pistol’s cold steel against his belly. In case Litvanov changed his mind, he’d be prepared.

The men on watch in the CCP expressed silent surprise at Zakayev’s change of dress, Litvanov especially, who looked him up and down but said nothing.

“Veroshilov is preparing the charges,” Litvanov said without prompting. He motioned to the men in the CCP watching, and also pointed fore and aft. “The men said they want you to know they are ready to do what they swore to do.”

“Excellent,” said Zakayev. “It’s been an honor to serve with them. And with you, Georgi.”

“Thank you, General,” Litvanov said. “There’s one more thing to do: monitor the hourly CNN broadcast at thirteen hundred for an update on the party going on in St. Petersburg. Also, we have a fix on the patrol boats to the north. I think they’re Grishas, but it’s raining and we have degraded sound conditions. There are at least four of them, perhaps as many as six, all with active sonars. They’re moving south at ten knots. It’s hard to tell how much time we have before they arrive in this area. It depends on how thorough they are.”

“What about the submarine?”

“Nothing. That worries me. He’s out there, somewhere. I know he is. He’s not invisible but almost.” “Kapitan—broadcast in five minutes,” a michman advised.

Rain lashed an angry gray Baltic. Visibility, Litvanov estimated, extended less than a kilometer, the horizon invisible. He spun the scope through 360 degrees, saw something, and froze. A four-engined plane, its props shimmering silver disks, had punched through the curtain of rain and zeroed in on the K-363’s periscope. In the split second it took Litvanov to react, he saw the plane’s open bomb bay and a falling object strike the water.

“Emergency dive! Full down-angle on the planes! Engines ahead emergency speed!”

Pandemonium erupted in the CCP. Litvanov lost his footing as the K-363 nosed over at a frighteningly steep angle—more than thirty degrees. He grabbed a stanchion to keep from tumbling into Veroshilov at the diving station behind the men at the controls, who had slammed their yokes forward against the stops.

The K-363 accelerated, burrowing into water only 160 meters deep.

Zakayev held on tight to a railing but had to dodge loose gear—tools, books, a clipboard—tumbling down the slanted deck and against the legs of men at their stations and into comers and under equipment. He wondered if the girl had been tossed from her bunk and, if so, hoped she’d not been injured.

“Ease your bubble,” Litvanov ordered. He was down on one knee and watching the depth gauge register ninety-six meters, the pit log fifteen knots and climbing. “One of ours—I think. A May. Came in almost on the surface. Must have had a MAD contact—”

“Torpedo. Active sonar! Starboard side!”

Litvanov shot to his feet, bellowing, “Rudder full left! Fire a decoy!”

The submarine heeled left like a plane in a wingover. A sudden rise in air pressure and a whoosh signaled ejection of a noisemaker in the opposite direction of her turn.

“Torpedo bearing one-seven-eight. Active sonar.”

“Fire another decoy!”

Another pressure pulse and discharge of air.

“Rudder amidships.”

Zakayev took a deep breath.

The K-363 heeled right and leveled out while still nosing down.

“Where’s that torpedo?”