George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

“Here are your orders, Captain. Open them after you submerge, which you will do as soon as possible, before you reach the mouth of the Murmansk Fjord.” He slid the fat envelope across the desk. “There are no American satellite overflights tonight, but we expect an American submarine is out in the Barents Sea doing what they so arrogantly call a ‘gatekeeper mission.’ You will slip past him without being detected. Is everything understood?”

It was obvious the briefing was over. Andropoyov stood, saluted, and answered crisply, “Yes, sir! Gepard will not fail you, nor the Rodina .”

“Yes, I know. You will give your all.”

Even the man’s words seemed cold, detached, as unfeeling and aloof as the wind off the Barents Sea.

Andropoyov lifted the envelope, surprised by its heftiness, turned on his heel, and marched out of the office. He was happy to have a mission for his new boat, but still thrown a bit off balance by the odd demeanor of his admiral.

Now, as they pulled away, he looked out the Zil’s side window, back toward the headquarters building, toward Admiral Durov’s window. His breath fogged the glass and the squatty gray building was lost in the blowing snow before he could get it wiped clear.

Admiral of the Northern Fleet Alexander Durov watched the old Zil pull away from the curb. He turned abruptly from the window and stared hard at the other man who now sat in his office.

“There he goes, the impertinent little ass. Are you ready for your mission?” Durov asked.

Captain Second Rank Igor Serebnitskiv set the crystal glass of vodka down hard onto the priceless Louis XIV table. Trickles of condensation ran down onto the ancient shellac, ruining the surface, but Serebnitskiv paid no attention. He took his feet down from where they were resting on the polished wood of the admiral’s desk and rose to stand at the window, beside the older man.

“ Da , I am ready. Volk will sail as soon as I am back on board. I think I will take special pleasure in ridding the world of Sergei Andropoyov. I have suffered enough of his arrogance. Ever since Stalingrad, I have been forced to absorb—”

Durov held up a hand to cut him off and cracked a rare smile. “Just don’t be too eager, nephew. Much more is at stake here than your own personal vendetta against our Captain Andropoyov. You must be patient, make sure the American is in place first. Andropoyov is a sacrificial lamb. His loss will be the impetus we need to overcome those weak-kneed old men in the Dumas .” The admiral flushed red, his eyes narrowing. “Their cowardice is robbing the Rodina of our rightful place as the world’s leader. Their stupidity will send our beloved motherland right back to medieval times. You will be the catalyst that drives them from the Kremlin.”

Serebnitskiv stiffened. “I will not fail you, Uncle. Now I must go to my ship.”

Durov gave an offhand wave of dismissal, but then grabbed his nephew’s shoulder in what had to be a painful pinch. The younger man refused to flinch.

“Remember the old Roman warriors’ saying: ‘Return either with your shield or on it.’ If you fail me… if you fail our union… it would be far better that you not return at all.”

Serebnitskiv summoned all the confidence he could muster, nodded, and strode from the room, closing the heavy wooden double doors behind him.

Durov listened as his nephew’s steps echoed down the hallway and through the door to the outside. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed the telephone stored there. He dialed a number and waited for the clicks that signaled the encryption device was engaged. He began talking as soon as he was sure of the voice on the other end of the line.

“They sail this evening. All is going well. Our part of the plan is in motion. There is no turning back now. We must meet to discuss your progress. The dacha at Sochi the day after tomorrow. We will expect a full report of your progress on the New York front.”

He returned the phone to the drawer and leaned back in his chair. By the time Serebnitskiv did his work, Durov would be on the warm beaches of the Black Sea. If anything went wrong, deniability would be more plausible if he was far away.

He could feel the excitement pulse in his veins. All the gears of this complicated machine were in motion. It was something he desperately needed. A military man required action in order to maintain life. Years of careful planning, of clandestine meetings, of nurturing the relationships with the Organizatsiya, the Russian Mafia, were culminating in a glorious series of events.

He returned to the window, sipping the cold black tea without tasting it, gazing off into the distance where the wind whipped white tops on the fjord’s surface.

Soon he would no longer need to swallow his pride like bitter bile. Soon he and his nation would achieve the glory they had so long been denied.

How fitting that it would all be set in motion out there, beneath the surface of that dark, icy sea.

The vicious storm raged out of the north, hundred-knot winds lashing the sea, churning waves to the height of a ten-story building before crashing back down with the awesome force of tons of seawater. Wind-driven spray froze into hard bullets that whipped across the maelstrom. Deep gray sky and gunmetal-colored sea blurred into one, the horizon obliterated by the dense fog of driving ice and snow.

Deep beneath the surface of the punishing Barents, the American submarine rocked as gently as a porch swing on a calm summer night. The easy motion was a quiet reminder of the terrible winter storm that raged three hundred feet above. The officers of the USS Miami , SSN 755, were seated around the wardroom table, taking their time finishing their dessert and coffee. The remains of dinner had been cleared. The men still present discussed the day’s events and plans for the next. The sub’s navigator and engineer half listened as they played cribbage at the far end of the table.

Commander Brad Crawford pushed away an empty ice-cream bowl and leaned back in his chair, stretching mightily.

“So, how is the whale watching going, Doctor? Figured out what they’re saying to each other yet?”

Dr. David Croley, lost in his thoughts, looked confused when he glanced up from his own dessert dish. He pushed his reading glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, smoothed down a few wild strands of what was left of his hair, and gave a carefully considered answer to the captain’s offhand question.

“The taping is going very well, Commander. Of course, in the strictest sense of the word, we are not trying to determine the content of their communications, only the modality of the interchange.”

The tall, balding scientist was the lone non-Navy person at the table. Dr. Croley headed a small team of oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, on board Miami to study the migration patterns of narwhals. While the animals’ summer travels were well documented, little was known about the winter activities of the Arctic-dwelling whales. Few people could see these vocal, sociable, tusked whales during the colder months, the horrible weather up on the surface a prime reason why. The Navy and the Miami were assisting Dr. Croley, allowing him to track the mammals across an entire Arctic winter.

Commander Crawford held up his hands in mock surrender and laughed. “Doc, I just wanted to know how it was going. Are the narwhals cooperating?”

“Of course, of course. I understand,” Croley responded. “We are getting some excellent tapes. I think we have found at least six new pods. It is very exciting, doing research out here, being in the same waters with the Monodon monoceros . We could never do this type of research without your submarine. Why, just this afternoon we taped and identified several new types of communications sounds, an especially curious manifestation of harmonic—”