“Captain Weiss did exactly the right thing, stopping the approach and heading us away, to the east, since the other sub is probably going west. We’ll get some distance, recover the UUVs, figure out who just crashed our party and plan our next move.”
Cavanaugh felt let down. He’d managed to prepare himself for the attack, and didn’t know what to feel right now. “We aren’t aborting the mission, are we?”
“No, not at all,” Jerry replied confidently, “but things just got more complicated.”
18
TRY, TRY AGAIN
Vasiliy Lavrov was in a foul mood. The president had issued a straightforward enough order: “Have naval intelligence do a complete check of all Western submarines. Positively confirm the location of any that are capable of reaching the Arctic.” Initially, however, the tasking came down as all American submarines, then two hours later was corrected to all nuclear-powered Western submarines — the ones that could reach the Arctic — and then to all Western submarines because some fool bureaucrat insisted that the question be answered in as complete a manner as possible. By early afternoon the extent of the effort had shifted yet again, and now a comprehensive survey of all NATO naval assets was needed. And while Lavrov saw the value of the expanded survey, no one had bothered to adjust the completion deadline to accommodate the huge increase in the scope of the work.
Given the size and immediacy of the new tasking, Lavrov had proceeded to draft every naval analyst he could get his hands on, as well as a number of mid-grade officers sitting about in the Admiralty Building. The problem wasn’t the order of battle, which was maintained on a daily basis, but positively confirming the locations of all the ships and submarines within each nation’s inventory. This was proving to be immensely difficult, as it required good quality electro-optical overhead imagery — and Russia had a small, finite number of imaging satellites. In some instances, all he had was days-old images or infrared shots that weren’t as reliable. Worse yet, the results of the preliminary analysis didn’t bode well for Mother Russia.
Glancing up at the clock, Lavrov saw that he was already late, and was getting more so with each passing moment. Shaking his head, he went back to editing the final report that was supposed to have been delivered to Admiral Komeyev… fifteen minutes ago. Rushing through each page, Lavrov carefully checked the facts — spelling and grammar were of secondary importance. He was almost finished with the final pass when his regular phone started ringing. Ignoring the bothersome electronic warble became impossible, and he jerked the handset from the phone’s body.
“Yes!” he shouted indignantly.
“Captain Lavrov?” asked the voice with hesitation.
“Yes, yes, who is this?” grumbled the captain.
“Captain Lavrov, I’m Captain First Rank Anatoly Borovich Bylinkin. Russia’s assistant naval attaché to the United States.”
Lavrov recognized the name, but he wasn’t in the mood, nor did he have the time for a friendly chat. “My apologies for the curt greetings, Captain,” he replied. “But I’m terribly busy at the moment, perhaps we could—”
“I’m aware of your urgent report for the president,” interrupted Bylinkin. “But I had to make sure you received the e-mail.”
“E-mail? What e-mail?”
“The report from our observer in New London, Captain. There was a severe thunderstorm in the area this morning and the canvas covering the graving dock at the Electric Boat shipyard has been partially stripped away. There wasn’t anything in the dock, Comrade Captain. He included photos in his account.”
Lavrov felt a sudden shiver pass down his spine. Jimmy Carter was gone? His fingers raced over the keyboard and brought up the e-mail with the photos. They were only four hours old. Blowing up one of the shots of the graving dock’s gate proved conclusively that it was empty.
“Captain, did you hear what I said?” queried Bylinkin.
“Yes, yes, I did. Thank you very much, Captain. Goodbye.” Lavrov didn’t bother to wait for Bylinkin to acknowledge the send-off.
Pulling up the U.S. submarine order of battle section, he quickly changed the Carter entry from “In EB dry dock,” to “Location Unknown.” He then modified the conclusion, adding a single short but blunt sentence. He saved the file, attached it to an e-mail and sent it directly to Admiral Komeyev, who was already in Moscow. Pausing only long enough to print out a copy of the most alarming photo, Lavrov gathered his notes and ran for the stairs.
The car with Defense Minister Aleksandr Trusov dashed down the street at high speed; he was late for the General Staff meeting with the president. In his briefcase was the report on the locations of all NATO naval assets, along with a photo of the empty graving dock at the Groton shipyard. The minister was troubled. Most of the West’s nuclear submarines were at sea. A sudden surge within the last eighteen hours had increased their deployed strength considerably… the U.S. alone had fifty-two submarines now at sea, seventy percent of their order of battle. Included in that number was the spy submarine, Jimmy Carter, that naval intelligence had repeatedly warned was likely a threat to the Drakon complex. The submarine had been seen entering a shipyard graving dock late in July, but as of five hours ago the boat was no longer there… it was missing. No one knew where it was, or when it had left the dock. The report was quite blunt in its conclusion; “Carter could be off Bolshevik Island right now, for all we know.”
As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, Trusov threw open the door. He didn’t even bother waiting for the young Presidential Regiment guardsman to open the door for him. Formalities were immaterial at this point. The defense minister broke out in an undignified run as he entered the building and started taking the steps two at a time. Even though the elderly minister was in reasonable shape, the several flights of stairs caused him to become short of breath — but it was still faster than taking an elevator.
Waving vigorously for the guard to open the door to the president’s main conference room, Trusov strode into the meeting that had already started. Fedorin saw the defense minister enter the room and scowled. He expected his ministers and commanders to be punctual. “I’m pleased to see you could finally make it, Defense Minister Trusov,” blurted the president.
“My apologies, Comrade President, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to verify some of the findings in the naval intelligence report you requested this morning.”
“Findings? What findings trouble you, Minister Trusov?” Fedorin growled. “The chief of the main intelligence directorate submitted his report several hours ago. The Americans have a higher than usual deployment of attack submarines, but not appreciably so. He attributes this temporary increase to regular combat patrol rotations.”
“I see,” replied Trusov with an icy tone. He then saw the grim face on the navy commander, Admiral Komeyev; the man looked ready to strangle someone. The intelligence chief was not an ally, and consistently tried to find ways to embarrass the defense ministry and the services in front of the president. Trusov recognized immediately that General Vanzin was up to his old tricks again.
“Unfortunately, Comrade President, in this instance I believe that Intelligence Chief Vanzin’s report was premature. A review of the most recent satellite imagery indicates that the Americans have sortied approximately seventy percent of all their submarines, including cruise missile and ballistic missile submarines.”