The burden Of Derzkiy Plamya, Operation Audacious Flame, would of necessity rest entirely on Marchenko's blocky shoulders.
"This plan is certainly audacious," Marchenko said, leafing through a binder filled with loose-leaf pages, each marked SOVERSHENNO SEKRETNO at top and bottom. He looked shaken. "To deliver nuclear fire upon our own cities, our own people…"
"To deliver 'nuclear fire,' as you call it, on traitors, dissidents, and rebels. In war, especially in a war such as this that shall determine the character and heart and mind of this nation for the next thousand years, there is no room for half measures. Besides, if Leonov and his cronies take us seriously, there will be no need for an actual launch."
Karelin was surprised at how calmly he could sit in this office, sipping tea as he discussed the use of nuclear weapons ― or at least the threat of nuclear weapons ― in Russia's worsening civil war.
As the battle lines were drawn between neo-Soviet forces in the north and the so-called democrats in the south, it had become increasingly clear that the bulk of the former Soviet Union's ICBMs, including the vast missile fields of Kazakhstan and Ukraine, would eventually fall into rebel hands. Most were still under the control of Strategic Rocket Force commanders loyal to Moscow, but they were isolated and under siege. Worse, the rebels now held the launch codes for the land-based, long-range ICBMs.
But Moscow still controlled a number of short- and intermediate-range missile batteries, and perhaps most telling of all, she controlled the Northern Fleet… including the eight Typhoon submarines based near Polyamyy.
Those eight Typhoons alone carried unimaginable potential firepower, 160 ICBMs, mounting a total of over twelve hundred warheads of one-hundred-kiloton yield apiece.
The deadly threat posed by a single Typhoon, Moscow believed, would be enough to cow the rebels. They would dare not launch a nuclear strike of their own, even if they had managed to come up with the necessary codes, not when a launch would devastate the entire country. The leaders of the military command in Moscow believed, frankly, that while they could afford to vaporize cities like Samara or Tashkent, Leonov could not possibly contemplate the destruction of Moscow or Leningrad, the combined heart and central nervous system of the entire Russian empire.
And if Leonov did not surrender, if it proved necessary to launch, then it would be "Audacious Flame" indeed, an audacious, cleansing flame scouring the rebels from the earth, leaving a purified remnant once again under the order and discipline of a unified and central authority.
Everything depended on the Northern Submarine Fleet ― in particular upon the eight Typhoon submarines hidden in their shelters along the Polyamyy, Sayda, and Kola inlets. Nearly one hundred ballistic-missile submarines were deployed with the fleet, from the Typhoons themselves to thirteen aging, diesel-powered relics the West called Golf-IIs. Another seventy-odd attack submarines carried as their primary warloads cruise missiles mounting nuclear warheads. But of that entire number, perhaps a third were in Black Sea or Far East ports, and the loyalties of their captains and crews were suspect. Over half of those in the Northern Fleet were laid up for repairs or maintenance, or were waiting for deliveries of supplies. Many of the rest were at sea, maintaining Russia's posture of strategic defense.
Those in port and combat ready were standing by, but Karelin was convinced that a single Typhoon would be enough to do the job. Typhoon was the very image of the fleet's nuclear strength. The mere thought of one loosing its nuclear payload at the rebel forces would be enough to bring about their utter capitulation.
"Will it work?" Marchenko asked at last. "Can it possibly work?"
"Moscow believes so, yes," Karelin told him.
"But if their belief is wrong. If Leonov is able to arm even a few missiles and retaliate…"
"The rebels have everything to lose through a nuclear exchange. And nothing to win. We have only one immediate problem."
"Yes. The possibility that Leonov is crazy enough to consider launching missiles of his own!"
"Leonov is a Politician, Comrade Rear Admiral, not a madman. He will not seriously contemplate the destruction of the Union's industrial and transportation infrastructure. No, our problem, Viktor Ivanovich, is the Americans. As always."
CHAPTER 5
"The Americans!" Marchenko looked up from the papers. "You believe they will interfere with Operation Audacious Flame?"
"It is possible. The Military Council in Moscow believes that once there is a clear threat of a nuclear exchange in our civil war, American intervention in our affairs is a certainty. Already they move to blockade our fleet from the open sea." Karelin pulled a set of maps from among the papers, spreading them out on the desk. His finger came down on a group of symbols clustered off the Norwegian coast north of the Arctic Circle. "Here.
Eisenhower and her battle group." His finger traced the coastline south to Denmark. "The Kennedy. Blocking our access from the Baltic." The finger moved once more, coming to a group of symbols east of Iceland. "And the Jefferson, returning to the Norwegian theater after her battle damage repairs and refit in the United States. Other American battle groups are reported to be on the way as well, some to the North Sea, others to the Mediterranean."
"What can they do?" Marchenko scoffed. "Even the Americans, with their vaunted technology, cannot shoot down an ICBM in flight. They abandoned their Star Wars program years ago."
"Perhaps they cannot shoot down our missiles," Karelin countered. "But they can dog our PLARBs with antisubmarine aircraft and with the Los Angeles attack submarines attached to their battle groups. They can blockade our ports and challenge our submarine forces as they deploy. They could even track our PLARBs to their strategic bastions, moving quietly and unobserved, with orders to open fire should they hear the missile tube hatches on our submarines open. If they think it in their interests to prevent a launch, they will not hesitate to fire first in such a confrontation."
"Are… are we at war with the Americans then?"
"Bah!" Karelin made a dismissive gesture. "What does it matter?
Officially, no, we are not at war. Not since the last units of our Scandinavian expeditionary force surrendered and the Blues invited the UN bastards to occupy our cities. But then, if you examine the record, you will find that we were not officially at war with the Americans when we invaded Norway either. The entire episode was characterized in the UN as an 'incident,' a 'Peace-keeping action." The Western governments, you see, fear even the admission that a state of war exists between East and West. Oh, there have been threats from Washington and the various Western puppets since Marshal Krasilnikov's coup, of course, the bellows and head-tossings of angry bulls. But no decisive action… beyond this threatening deployment of these carrier groups of theirs.
"It is our plan," he continued, "to attack first, to hit them before they can hit us."
Marchenko drew in his breath with a sharp hiss.
Karelin looked up sharply. "This frightens you?"
"It occurs to me, Comrade Admiral," Marchenko said with great deliberation, "that one reason the Fascists lost the Great Patriotic War was their decision to attack Russia while still fighting England. Later, at the moment the Hitlerites were getting their first taste of General Winter, they added the United States to their list of enemies."
"Be careful, my friend. Your words could be seen as dangerously revisionist." Even yet, senior Red Army officers did not admit that the Rodina had received substantial help from the West during the Second World War. Still, Karelin was impressed, and pleased. He'd not pegged Marchenko as one who would venture any opinion contrary to the Party line. Perhaps there was hope for the man yet.