Dominic Conlon - Silent Warpath

Natasha pinched his cheek. ‘Don’t be so ungrateful, you old fogey.’

‘So — we know who has taken over the sub, we know where it’s gone and we know what it’s going to do when it gets there. Is there anything else I should add to this bloody crock of shit?’

Louis certainly knew how to break the ice. ‘You forgot one thing’ Sean replied. ‘We don’t know how to stop it, even if we can find it.’

‘And you’re expecting me to tell you, I suppose?’

Sean grinned. ‘That’s about the size of it. Any ideas?’

Louis shook his head.

‘You do realise it may already be too late?’ said Sean. ‘The deadline’s in an hour.’

Lomax took Sean to one side. ‘There’s been no report of a confrontation so far — and we would know. The Russians have been informed and the first thing they would do is complain to the Yanks if anyone attacked their boat.’ Lomax glanced at the group to ensure no-one could overhear. ‘What they did say was that if any of their naval vessels were attacked, they would take that as an act of war.’

‘Bloody hell’, said Sean in a subdued voice. ‘Even after it has been explained that Cetus is out of control?’

Lomax looked sombre and gave a slight inclination of the head.

‘So what’s the plan now?’

‘We’re flying out to the Carl Vincent carrier group and then on to the task force that are trying to locate Cetus. They’ve been hunting the sub for the last couple of weeks. Two days ago one of their submarines had a near miss. We passed on the location data that DD found and they’re regrouping in the Barents. The carrier group have been ordered to join them.’

Sean glanced over at DD. ‘What about him — is DD OK?’

‘He’s OK. The President insisted we all go and I’m tagging along to look after you.’

Sean thought the comment ironic. Lomax was not fit enough to fly, let alone look after Sean.

A military jet brought them from Otis to the Naval Station at Norfolk Virginia. They were taken to one of the many briefing rooms on the campus and an instructor issued G-suits with helmets and oxygen masks. While they helped each other climb into the suits, the instructor took them through the safety procedures for their flight out to the carrier group.

He left them briefly to consult the readiness of the crew. A few minutes later he came back and escorted them to the airport apron where they met the pilots. They were to be flown in two EA-6B Prowler support strike aircraft. From there they would get a helicopter lift to the task group in the Barents. Sean and Louis were taking the place of two electronic warfare officers in one of the Prowlers and Natasha and DD were flying in the other.

Thirty minutes away from the USS Carl Vincent, Louis thumbed his mike.

‘I think I have an answer to that last question.’

‘Which question?’ asked Sean, perplexed.

‘How to stop the bloody thing in its tracks.’

Natasha’s aircraft landed safely, brought up abruptly by the arresting wire. A few minutes later Natasha and DD were escorted to the command centre that rose some 150 ft above the deck. She took off her helmet, but had to immediately put her fingers in her ears to muffle the loud roar of an incoming jet. Her hair whipped into her face in the strong wind and the smell of engines and machine oil was pungent.

She watched as Sean’s jet made its approach. This was so exciting!

Natasha waited for Louis, DD and the crew to join them. She noticed for the first time Louis’ slow and difficult gait across the metal apron. He should be back in hospital she thought sadly.

The ride in the jets was a doddle compared to the two hundred mile trip by helicopter out to the task force. The journey took nearly three hours and all the while they were buffeted by strong winds. At times the whole craft was shoved sideways and sometimes it fell sharply for what seemed like ages before it recovered, staggering to gain height. Natasha learned the best way to cope was to grit her teeth, hold on tight and look at Sean seated across from her.

Eventually they approached the task group. The pilot spent a good five minutes following instructions from his wing man, who was watching the man on deck coordinate the aircraft’s movements.

Natasha could not get out quick enough. But as soon as her feet touched the ground she realised the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was almost dusk now, but she could see low dark clouds scudding quickly, driving pockets of rain horizontally across the deck. At least the cold wet rain on her face had the effect of waking her up.

Two seamen appeared. One clipped a safety line to the helicopter and the other motioned them to hold on to the line and follow him. The first waited until they were all moving and brought up at the rear.

When they reached the end of the line they were escorted up a companion-way and along several corridors. The first seaman knocked gently and opened the door to announce the party. They trooped in, closing it against a sudden downpour.

Cetus was nearing the end of its mission. Delayed by its encounters with the Astute and the USS Cheyenne, it tried to make up time by sprinting north towards the arctic.

Now it could sense an enormous object over ten kilometres away riding at shallow depth. Cetus collated data from its sonar array and fed it directly to the on-board identification database. The object was approximately 175 metres long, 23 metres across the beam and its underwater displacement came out at around 40,000 long tons. Its electronic package matched the sonar profile of the Kougar , the largest nuclear ballistic submarine in the Russian navy.

Cetus had found its target.

Sean looked at his watch. ‘It’s an hour past the deadline Admiral. What do we know about the Kougar ?’

McIver called the steward to fetch a copy of ‘Jane’s fighting ships’ and a couple of other reference works. ‘I remember it was a big boat, one of the early Typhoons. There were only six built and they like to patrol under the ice.’

McIver flipped the pages and stopped to read the information. ‘One of the Typhoons was called Kougar , designated TK-51.’ McIver looked over at Sean and Natasha. ‘It’s a Russian built Strategic Ballistic Nuclear submarine developed under project 941 in the 1980’s. According to the catalogue only one is still on active service: the Dmitriy Donskoy .’

‘What happened to the Kougar ?’ Sean enquired.

‘Of the six that were built, three were scrapped and two were put in reserve. Following this, one of the reserves — the Arkhangelsk — was cannibalised for parts to keep the Dmitriy Donskoy a going concern. But I’ve no idea why the Kougar is still in active service.’ McIver pushed the books away. ‘There is one other possibility. Kougar is still in active service because the Russians have secretly kept it going.’

‘Has the Kougar been informed about Cetus?’ Sean asked.

Captain Armstrong looked at McIver. ‘We’ve gone through all the channels’ he said simply. ‘But whether they passed on the information to the captain of the Kougar , I can’t say.’

For a moment everyone tried to absorb the news.

‘I know the Russians have said that if they are attacked, they will take it as an act of war’ said Lomax gravely.

McIver turned to Lomax. ‘We have to find Cetus and stop it before it attacks. But how we are going to do that?’

‘We know the area that Cetus is heading for’ said Sean. ‘Did the Russians tell us the location of the Kougar ?’