Faithful to Schedule-3, Galveston rose every six hours to within three hundred feet of the surface, unreeling a long antenna cable in her wake capable of receiving extremely low-frequency radio waves, or ELF. For over fifty hours, no new orders had come through, and each time, Galveston returned to her hiding place within the sheltering cone of turbulent water spun off from the Typhoon's twin screws.
Through most of that time, Sonarman First Class Ekhart had led the chase, sitting in the sonar compartment, ears encased in the sonar headset, a far-away glaze to his eyes as he followed in his mind the movements of the giant ahead. For the past hour, the target, Sierra Nine, had been probing the edge of the Barents Sea ice pack, rising gradually until her conning tower was brushing just beneath the rugged white ceiling of the ice.
Though Galveston was some ten to twelve miles south of the ice pack, Ekhart was still having to rely on every trick in the book ― and several that weren't in the book as well ― to make sense out of what he was hearing. Sound was curiously distorted beneath the ice, where sounds reflected from the surface as though from a wall, and the ice itself filled the depths with crackling, popping, and rasping noises that masked the stealthy sounds of soft-gliding submarines.
Suddenly, he snapped upright, every muscle taut. "Control room! Sonar!"
"Captain. Whatcha got, Ekhart?"
"Flushing noises, Captain, followed by ice breaking. I think Sierra Nine has just come up under a polynya."
Flushing sounds meant ballast tanks being blown. Sierra Nine was surfacing. Polynya was Russian for a lead in the ice, either an open pool or an area where the water was only thinly iced over. A ballistic-missile sub could not fire its warloads through the ice. It would have to surface first before launching.
Which appeared to be precisely what Sierra Nine was doing.
"Message from Captain First Rank Dobrynin, Comrade Admiral," the aide said, handing Karelin the message flimsy. "Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita is in position."
Karelin glanced at the message, then handed it back. "At last," he said.
"It is time."
He would have been happier if both of Admiral Marchenko's Typhoons had made it out to the open sea, but one should be enough. His principal concern was American attack submarines in the area. Russian naval planning for her nuclear missile boats called for placing them in so-called "strategic bastions," in secret regions of the Barents and White seas and in the Arctic Ocean where a few PLARBs could be protected by a large number of fast and powerful attack boats, the submarines the West called "Alfas,"
"Akulas," and "Victors."
Karelin hadn't dared work his Typhoons into regular Northern Fleet planning, however. If it had become known before the fact that Krasilnikov's faction was planning a nuclear strike against the Rodina herself, even if it was targeted against Leonov's rebels, there could have been mutiny throughout the fleet, perhaps even an attempt by dissidents to stop the Revolutsita before Dobrynin could carry out his orders. A Typhoon could be sunk by an Alfa as easily as by a Los Angeles. But Operation Curtain of Fire appeared to have been successful in blocking the Americans from the Kola Inlet approaches.
Dobrynin's message made no mention of unknown sonar contacts. He appeared to have reached his firing position midway between Spitsbergen and Nova Zemlya undetected.
Taking a notebook from his pocket, Karelin opened to a blank page and carefully printed the words "Crimson Winter Fire," tore the sheet out, and handed it to the aide. "Transmit this to the Kremlin," he said. "Priority One-One, Urgent."
Krasilnikov would receive it within minutes. Then the critical phase of Audacious Flame could truly begin.
Captain First Rank Vsevolod Nikolaevich Dobrynin leaned over Revolutsita's primary communications console, listening to the voice of Marshal Valentin Krasilnikov coming through the speakers.
"We fight for the future of our people, of our Motherland, of our revolution," Krasilnikov's voice said, faint but discernible through the blasting white noise of static. This far north, atmospherics frequently played havoc with radio broadcasts.
"Sacrifices must be made if we are to secure our place in history as saviors of the Socialist Republic, even sacrifices made in fire and blood."
Most holy God, Dobrynin thought… and he had to savagely repress the urge to cross himself. He's actually going to do it.
Dobrynin had not had a religious thought for years. He'd been a good Communist ever since his years in the Leningrad Komsomolets. He'd even been a good Communist during the hard, lean years of Yeltsin's treason, though he'd kept a low profile and been careful not to call undue attention to his beliefs.
But Krasilnikov's words had shaken him so badly that somehow the hated religious instruction pressed upon him in secret by his mother had surfaced like some broaching sea monster. He felt ashamed.
"Traitors have betrayed our Motherland, allowing her to be taken hostage and raped by foreigners and capitalist opportunists. They have taken up arms against the people and against the government which at long last offers hope and stability in a time of economic chaos and ruin. We offer you, who have taken up arms against our sovereign Motherland, one hour in which to recant your capitalist heresies, one hour to seize the traitors who have betrayed our country, Leonov and his cronies, and lay them and your weapons before the forces of the People's Red Army.
"If Leonov is not surrendered within the hour, if the forces of division and counterrevolution continue to defy the forces of lawful government, one SS-N-20 missile with six independently targeted warheads will be launched from a submarine at targets in rebellion against Moscow's authority."
One hour. Krasilnikov was giving them one hour! It was as though he wanted to incinerate Chelyabinsk ― for that was the identity of the rebel city in the orders now locked in Dobrynin's personal safe. That city of a million people in the eastern fringes of the Urals had been chosen as a demonstration site, for there were several major rebel troop and armor concentrations in the area that could also be taken out by the same strike.
"If, after the first target is destroyed, the rebel forces do not surrender the traitor Leonov, a second target will be destroyed one hour after the first."
Alma-Ata was the second target on the list, the capital of the sprawling republic of Kazakhstan. The revelation that Moscow was willing to sacrifice one of its own cities, like Chelyabinsk, would make the republics supporting Leonov eager to change sides. No one seriously believed that a second missile would need to be fired. While Chelyabinsk was still burning, Alma-Ata, Kiev, Minsk, and the rest would be scrambling to be the first to swear eternal loyalty to Moscow. Even the Baltic states might fall into line.
Just in case, though, Dobrynin's orders listed twenty targets, from Minsk in Belarus to Khabarovsk in the Far East.
For at least the hundredth time during the past sixty hours, Dobrynin examined his feelings about the orders he had sworn to carry out.
In a little over one hour, he would give an order and as a direct result, some one million of his countrymen would die, some in a single, searing instant, their shadows burned into the sidewalks and walls of their city, others in lingering pain ten years hence, as cancers rotted their bodies.
Could he possibly carry out such orders?