Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

“In the middle of the Baltic. Yes. Very strange. Perhaps we can do something about that.”

“What?”

“Find a place more conducive to rekindle an old friendship.”

“We were never friends, Yuri. Colleagues.”

“Still, it would be good to talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about.”

“But there is much to talk about. We may be able to settle a few things we both have on our minds. Perhaps we could even strike a mutually agreeable deal.”

“There are no deals to be struck. No compromises. I suggest you tell that to your handlers in the Kremlin.”

“The Kremlin. Pah! This is between you and me….” Abakov’s voice started to break up and fade. “Can you hear me, General?”

“I hear you. Between you and me, eh? And the Russian Navy.”

“We can call off the Russian Navy if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“So? Have they made you the captain of the K-480, Yuri?”

“No, not quite. The captain is an American.”

Silence.

“Ali?”

“An American…?”

“Yes, it’s true. Captain Jake Scott, U.S. Navy.”

“I knew it,” Litvanov said, and reached for the mike. “Let me talk to him.” Zakayev pulled the mike away from Litvanov.

“Put Captain Scott on Nina,” said Zakayev.

A short crackling silence on the Nina, then, “This is Captain Jake Scott,” he said in Russian.

“So, Captain Litvanov guessed right,” Zakayev said. “He said an American had command of the K- 480. Is the Russian Navy so desperate that they put Americans in charge of their ships?”

Scott said, “Tell Kapitan Litvanov that I respect his expertise as a sub driver. He’s as good as any American sub driver I’ve ever met.”

“He heard you, Captain Scott. And so you’ve been trailing us for a long time.”

“Since you sailed from Olenya Bay.”

“And who else is aboard the K-480 with you, Captain Scott? An official from the Kremlin?”

“Dr. Alexis Thorne, first science attaché, United States Embassy. She’s an expert on spent nuclear fuel and the effects of radiation poisoning. But let’s not waste time, General. We know that you plan to blow the reactor aboard the K-363 and I’m not going to give you a lecture about what that will do to the Northern Hemisphere. You already know all that. As Yuri said, maybe we can find a way out of this—if you’re willing to talk.”

“What about?” Zakayev said. “The Russians arc just like you Americans: They make promises they have no intention of keeping. I helped the Americans when they needed leverage against the Russians, and when our collaboration became a liability they decided to kill me. Isn’t that true?”

Scott didn’t hesitate. “Yes, that’s true.”

“And your Admiral Drummond led you to me?”

“No, you did. When you sent your people to kill Frank Drummond and the sailor from your boat and make it look like they'd committed suicide. And when you killed Ivan Serov in Murmansk. It all added up after we discovered the K-363 was missing.”

A long, humming silence over the Nina.

“Tell me this,” Zakayev said. “Was it because of Admiral Drummond that the Russians sent you out in one of their submarines to track us down? So you could have your revenge?”

“No. We and the Russians thought you had cruise missiles aboard and planned to attack St. Petersburg from the Barents Sea. We offered to help them track you into the Barents, but it didn’t take long for us to figure out you weren’t there. And when the Russians realized you had no cruise missiles to fire, they wanted to capture you. That’s when we were ordered to track you south.”

“And kill us.”

“Yes.”

Litvanov, moving around the CCP, stripped a work jacket off one of the men on watch, and covered Veroshilov. He looked around the CCP, his eyes flitting between the sonar repeater and navigation plotter, the men at their stations watching him.

“Do the Russians know what we plan to do?” Zakayev asked Scott.

“No one knows but us, which may be to your advantage if you are willing to reconsider.”

“Why haven’t you told them?”

“We’ve been too busy dodging your torpedoes.”

“And if we try to escape?”

Litvanov looked at the fire control console, at the panel’s settings. A hand to his head came away sticky with blood. He looked at his hand but didn’t seem to comprehend. He appeared to be in a trance.

“You won’t get far,” Scott said. “U.S. and Russian planes arc over the Baltic. And you’ve heard the PCs just as we have. There’s no escape. And if you still think you can blow the reactor, we’ll torpedo you before you can melt it down. It’s your call. Kapitan Litvanov’s an excellent skipper and is no fool. He knows it’s over.”

Zakayev threw a look over his shoulder, turned around to face a dull-eyed Litvanov.

“Georgi, did you hear that, he says—”

Litvanov’s fist slammed into Zakayev’s gut like a piston. Zakayev doubled over and Litvanov brought both bunched fists down on the back of his neck. The little general collapsed at Litvanov’s feet. Litvanov snatched the pistol from Zakayev’s hand and whirled around to show it to the men in the CCP, and that he was once again in control of the ship.

Silence rumbled over the Nina, then: “General…General Zakayev…?”

Before his men could register shock or surprise, Litvanov snapped an order: “Sonar! Echo range active sonar. One ping!”

A split second later a pulse of pure sound like a cry from hell struck the K-480’s hull and rebounded. Aboard the K-363, targeting computers captured the range and bearing data, shot it down the line to two torpedoes waiting in their tubes. The next sound was Litvanov roaring, “Fire one!”

“Fire one!” Scott commanded.

The sea erupted with the roar of submarine engines, whining torpedoes, and chattering decoys. There was no need to hide anymore; speed, not stealth would decide the outcome.

The sonar screens lit up with blips and flashed warnings.

“Kapitan, torpedo in the water! Starboard side!”

Scott saw it on the monitor: a heavy red line streaking away from the target blip that was the K-363.

After painting the K-480 with sonar and shooting, Litvanov had sheered off the firing point. The torpedo Scott had fired at the K-363 showed up on the monitor as a heavy green line streaking toward the K-363. A moment later two thin red lines signaled the launch of paired decoys from the K-363.

The K-480 accelerated fiercely. She was as deep as she could go without suffering a collapse of the damaged tunnel inside the sail, and without the escape trunk splitting open and flooding the ship.

Scott knew that the two torpedoes would search in a widening spiral until they found their targets or, confused by sound-reflecting thermal layers, homed in on the decoys. If the K-363’s torpedo went for the kill instead of the decoy, Scott wasn’t sure that the K-480 could outrun it.

As Scott watched, a white blossom erupted on the monitor at the point where the thick green line and one of the thin red lines had converged.

The sonarman flinched. “Shit! Our torpedo, their decoy.”

The thunder of an exploding warhead rippled through the K-480 ahead of the shock wave, which, like the hand of an unseen giant, gave the boat a hard shove.

“Can you hear his inbound fish?” Scott said.

The sonarman had to wait for the turbulence to clear, for the blast bubble to collapse and gas to disperse. Even so, and with their own sonar degraded by the K-480’s high-speed dash, the sonar screens were lit with a confusing tangle of overlapping lines, blips, and waterfalls. Scott knew the picture would be just as confusing aboard the K-363, a slight advantage he might utilize.