Christine headed down the starboard side of the compartment, past eight missile tubes, until she reached another open watertight doorway. As she stepped through, her flashlight illuminated electronic equipment on each side of a narrow passageway. She continued forward, finding a ladder, which she followed down to a berthing level filled with several rows of bunks. A search of the crew’s lockers produced coveralls, underwear, socks, and shoes. Still shivering, she shed her wet apparel and donned two sets of clothing and a pair of shoes, then used a blanket to dry her hair.
Having temporarily staved off hypothermia, she evaluated the prospect of being rescued. The PRM had almost certainly been destroyed, and she wasn’t aware of a replacement. Refusing to concede defeat until the air gave out or she froze to death, she decided to put her time aboard Dolgoruky to good use. She headed aft into the missile compartment, where the missile tubes and associated equipment resembled that aboard USS Michigan, and searched for the Russian version of Missile Control Center.
There wasn’t one at either end of the compartment, so Christine returned to Compartment Four, stopping in the passageway lined with equipment. On the inboard side of the passageway was a door with a five-button cypher lock. She pushed the cypher lock buttons, hoping by sheer laziness the combination was something simple, like 1-2-3 or 1-2-3-4, but each attempt failed. The door remained locked.
An ax. If she could find one, maybe she could break through the door. A search of the missile compartment produced fire hoses and extinguishers, but no ax. With her hope of gaining access to Dolgoruky’s Missile Control Center fading, she headed forward to check Compartment Four.
As she passed by the missile tubes, her flashlight beam reflected off a small circular window in the side of a missile tube. She stopped and scraped the ice from the glass with her flashlight, then peered inside. To her surprise, the tube appeared empty.
There was an access hatch on the side of the tube. She wedged the flashlight between a piping run, then twisted the hatch ring open slowly, in case the tube was flooded. The hatch cracked open, and after no water came out, she spun the handwheel and pulled the door back, then peered inside.
There was no missile. She looked down and spotted a lead ballast can instead. She moved to the next missile tube, clearing the ice from the portal. It too appeared empty, and an inspection of the tube produced the same result. She checked the next missile tube and the next. Neither contained a missile; only lead ballast.
She leaned back against the missile tube.
So this is Russia’s big secret?
The United States had been worried about the warheads carried by the new Bulava missile, and especially the possibility it carried advanced anti-ballistic missile countermeasures. But that wasn’t what Russia was hiding. The problems plaguing the Bulava missile had not yet been solved, and with the last Typhoon and remaining Delta submarines reaching their end of life, Russia had been left with no survivable leg of their nuclear triad. Dolgoruky’s deployment had been a ruse, designed to fool America into believing the Borei class submarines and their new ballistic missiles were operational.
Christine had no idea how long she leaned against the missile tube, but decided it was prudent to get moving again. The excitement of uncovering Russia’s secret was wearing off, and she was starting to feel lethargic. She could no longer smell the stale air, but she could tell the carbon dioxide concentration was high; her head was pounding. Still, the greater threat was the low temperature. Despite the dry clothing, she was shivering more violently than before. Finding a heat source was critical.
She decided to head aft to the auxiliary machinery compartment. Upon entering the reactor compartment passageway, she slowed, hoping to sense heat from the bulkheads. They were cold. She continued into the next compartment, pausing at the walkway running across upper level. As she examined the equipment, she wondered why she was bothering to look for a heat source. There was no power to run anything, and it wasn’t like she was going to find a stack of firewood, kindle, and a match to light it with. Even so, she decided to check lower level. After finding a ladder near the aft bulkhead, she climbed down, and another search with her flashlight produced the same result. Nothing but machinery.
Christine started climbing the ladder to the upper level, but pulling herself up was more challenging than the descent. Her hands were numb and she had difficulty gripping the metal rungs, and had to resort to wrapping an arm around the ladder before moving each foot up. The going was slow and her strength was fading, but she finally reached the upper level and pulled herself onto the walkway. She rolled onto her back and caught her breath for a moment, her exhale turning to white mist in the frigid air. As she wondered if she would freeze to death aboard Dolgoruky, she realized she wasn’t shivering anymore, and knew it was a bad sign.
Pulling the flashlight from her coverall pocket, she examined the compartment again. She was back where she started, beside the watertight door she and Brackman had shut. She pushed herself to a sitting position with her back against the bulkhead and pulled her knees to her chest. After considering her options for a moment, she wrapped her arms around her legs, placed her head on her knees, and closed her eyes. There were no options.
She could hear the subconscious screams — if she fell asleep, she would never wake up. A surge of adrenaline lifted her head and she opened her eyes, examining the cold, dark compartment again. The flashlight on the deck was already starting to fade, a fitting analogy for her life. Death wasn’t something she feared; it was unavoidable. But this wasn’t how she had envisioned her life ending. As a child, she pictured herself as an old woman, spending the last moments of her life in bed surrounded by her family, holding the hand of her granddaughter. But she had no family. Only regrets.
Regrets for the missed opportunities; for the poor decisions she’d made throughout her life; guilt for what she had done moments earlier in this very compartment. There was no fear, only regret. And fatigue. Her eyelids began drifting shut. She placed her head on her knees again, closed her eyes, and yielded to the inevitable.
101
Near the bottom of the Barents Sea, a bright shaft of light descended through the darkness. Inside the Atmospheric Diving Suit, Navy Diver Roy Armstrong peered through the murky water as the light affixed to the cage he was in panned back and forth. He’d been descending for fifteen minutes, lowered by a cable attached to the ADS Launch and Recovery System. The topside controllers had informed him he would reach the bottom any time now, and through the bulbous vision dome of his diving suit, the bottom of the Barents Sea came into view.
Armstrong called to the LARS atop the ice, communicating with personnel through the umbilical attached to the top of his suit, that the bottom was in sight. The cage Armstrong was descending in came to a halt twenty-five feet above the bottom. Armstrong powered up his thrusters and the light on his right shoulder, and after topside lowered the crotch support, he flew down and out of the cage. After several thruster adjustments, he landed gently on the ocean bottom.
He checked his compass. Based on his earlier trip to Yury Dolgoruky before commencing rescue operations, the ballistic missile submarine lay on a bearing of one-seven-eight. He rocked the right foot pedal inward, activating the lateral thrusters attached to the back of his suit, and he turned slowly until he was headed south. Directly ahead, the outline of Yury Dolgoruky’s propulsor appeared in the distance, illuminated by the light on his suit. He leaned forward on the right and left foot pedals, activating the thrusters, and he began gliding toward the Russian submarine.