So with all of this “supposed” perestroika and glasnost since the 1980’s I’m confused:
What I’ve been ordered to do could start World War III.
My mission is clearly the strangest I’ve ever been given:
“Alaska? But why?” I asked.
Admiral Victor Perchinkov, is my boss and the new Minister of Defence. He is a cautious, slender, grey haired man in his sixties that makes no moves without the blessings of his president.
My friend, the admiral, is also a close business and government loyalist. All submarine orders would now be given directly from the admiral who will now work from the president’s office! This is highly unusual, as all prior orders had always come from naval command.
In addition, my old friend, the admiral, had been given as his first task: Sack fifty of my friends, all naval commanders in the Northern and Baltic Fleets. These men are all very well respected commanders.
Why?
For refusing to follow the president’s direct orders:
Harass NATO and the Americans whenever and wherever you can!
Today, each and every one of those loyal Russians cannot find work anywhere in Russia as they’ve been blacklisted.
I’m old enough to remember, not revisionist history, but our true history.
Stalin created a state security service called:
The Ministry of State Security.
Ironically, our beloved president has resurrected that very name and looks to be putting the old KGB back together.
Stalin also famously purged hundreds of military leaders who weren’t willing to murder anyone standing in his way to fulfill the greater glory of Rodina (The mythical Motherland)!
As a loyal Russian soldier, you were required to do anything for Rodina.
Turned out to be: Do anything the tyrant at the top demanded of you!
Death!
Murder!
Whatever!
You did it all in furtherance of the godhead.
Sorry, I’m on a tangent, back to the admiral.
If you wanted to keep your job, the admiral was not someone with whom you questioned.
So I had my orders and, as far as the admiral was concerned, that was that.
However, as my admiral friend should’ve known by now and contrary to what many would think of a Russian commander, I am also a rebel deep down, so I persisted in my questioning:
“Loads of strange unmarked suitcases, twenty-five scientists, twenty-two civilian women with covered heads, a GRU Spetsnaz Team (Russian Special Forces), and parts of my own sub are off limits to me?” I was bordering on insubordination and, truth be told, wanted to be sacked at that point.
However, “my friend” the admiral, had other plans for me.
The admiral reassuringly said, “This is for your own safety, Valentin.”
“My own safety?” I interrupted.
“If those scientists are doing something dangerous on my ship, I must know.”
Admiral Perchinkov, didn’t agree. “We will be in touch.”
The Admiral started to leave, then stopped.
“Remember, Valentin, this ship is now our Red October.”
With that, my old friend, the admiral left my submarine. I didn’t appreciate such vagaries but the admiral knew I loved reading Tom Clancy novels and, except for the ending of the novel, The Hunt for Red October, so did the admiral.
So my sub, with 125 souls on board, departed from a covered port at Severodvinsk, Russia shipyard under the cover of darkness.
We are pulling the old matryoshka doll switch on the West.
Nothing in Russia is exactly as it appears on the surface. Even when you dig deeper and things appear identical, they generally are not.
Russian nesting dolls are those children’s toys that have a large hollow outside with several more, increasingly smaller, identical hollow dolls hidden inside. And hiding inside one of those, when everyone else had given up looking, was our Trojan horse.
My Typhoon class sub looks like two submarines sitting side by side. The original Proyekt (Project) Number was 941. However, with the complete remodel, this sub is practically brand new. There is one huge, Top Secret, sound suppressing, skin on the outside hull that covers five separate, watertight, interior hulls. All five hulls have been hollowed out and totally redesigned.
Trouble is: One of the hulls has rooms that are entirely off limits to me!
Unacceptable!
Anyway, while the NSA with COMINT/SIGINT (U.S. Communications intelligence/Signals intelligence) satellites were watching what they thought was TK-20 slowly being dismantled from a satellite 25,000 miles in space, it was only a fake shell of my TK-20, much like the matryoshka, children’s toy.
My TK-20 had spent the last five years, nearby, covered in secrecy, being retrofitted. There are several Top Secrets aboard this ship, but only one of which I knew about at this time:
The caterpillar drive!
The new, ultra-quiet propulsion system made famous in Tom Clancy’s noveclass="underline" The Hunt for Red October. Anyone with “real knowledge” knew this was just the work of science fiction, right?
Wrong!
Friends of mine have quietly been working on this system for over thirty years. And with the help of several Western scientists and Russians in Skolkovo (Russia’s Silicon Valley) we had made Phase I of Proyekt (English: Project) 239 a reality. How was this done?
Boatloads and boatloads of cash!
With billions of rubles from President Ivan Mironovich our scientists had done the impossible: We made the world’s first propulsion drive without any moving parts!
Not an easy task. Now this is something about which I can get excited!
Kapitan-Leytenant Casmerov, third rank, repeats his question to me. This shook me back to reality.
“What should be our depth, sir?”
I curtly answer, “Hold steady at thirty meters.”
Kapitan-Leytenant Casmerov answers, “Yes, sir.”
“What’s the depth under the keel?” I ask.
“One hundred ten meters,” said Casmerov.
Today the air temperature is a warm -1 degrees C, above the icy waters around the Kola Peninsula.
But that didn’t matter as we are already underwater, shadowing a new Borei class submarine, Knyaz Vladimir.
This old Russian maneuver was a bait and switch tactic to hide the true intentions of my Severstal.
My Russian Typhoon class Severstal (TK-20), the largest submarine ever built, was supposed to be pulled apart on a dry dock at Severodvinsk, Russia and then shipped to Sayda Bay piece by piece.
Instead, in direct violation of the New START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia, TK-20 was secretly enhanced and ordered to head west, just in case Western satellites or surveillance had picked up our movement.
They hadn’t.
No one had.
I’m upset, as I helped come up with the greatest invention since electricity. I had been promised: This will be used for protection and peaceful purposes. Instead it looks like to me like I’m driving my young crew and myself right into World War III!
As I stared at the navigation console, I am no longer thinking about the mission but rather I was rather thinking about my wife.
I hadn’t told the love of my life that my mission was open-ended. Meaning there was no date given where I would be home. This would always worry my dear wife so, instead, I left her a note that simply read,
On another mission,
Love, Valentin.
This nuclear ballistic missile submarine could stay submerged for four months if needed and we are loaded with enough supplies to do just that, and far more.