“I have the target,” his weapons officer reports.
“Roger,” Zhernov responds. “Report weapons lock.”
“Roger,” the weaps reports. A moment later he is back. “I have a primary weapons lock. Do I have permission to fire?”
Zhernov makes his decision at the last possible moment. He wants to frighten the stupid fools into surrendering, not kill them all. “Nyet, nyet!” he shouts. “I’m firing with our cannon on the first run. On the deck, forward of the bridge, and then aft along the weather deck.”
His controller above in the Ilyushin is shouting in his headphones, as are at least two others, one of them probably Guliayev, but Zhernov ignores them.
Two of his wingmen drop their bombs, but they have aimed wide of the mark. Purposely? Zhernov wonders.
The Storozhevoy looms large outside his canopy, and he can even imagine that he is picking out individual faces through the bridge windows when he fires his cannon, the shells tearing up the foredeck and then along the hull as he screams past, leaving the ship in his wake.
Off to port Zhernov spots a flash and sudden plume of smoke and he turns his head toward it. One of the bombs dropped by his wing-men has found a target. But the wrong ship!
It’s the fog. It’s the lousy orders.
“Break off! Break off!” he orders his squadron.
59. BELOWDECKS
When the first shots hit the deck forward of the bridge they sound like the distant blows of a jackhammer.
Gindin and the other officers locked in the compartment look up in alarm.
“They’re shooting at us,” Kuzmin says.
Almost immediately cannon shots rake the side of the ship, and this time the noise is deafening. Up close and personal. Deadly. For the first time every man in the room understands that they could die down here in a matter of a few more minutes.
Kuzmin starts pounding on the door again, and Gindin joins him.
60. CHAIN OF COMMAND
Gorshkov has switched the telephone to speaker mode so that Grechko can also hear the communications relayed from Baltic Fleet Headquarters. Both men are having trouble believing what they are listening to.
“Am I correct in understanding that your pilots refuse to drop their bombs?” Gorshkov demands.
“Three have been dropped so far,” Kosov replies. He sounds shaky.
“Has the Storozhevoy been destroyed?”
“No, sir. Two of the bombs missed their target, but the third struck the wrong ship.”
“What ship?” Grechko demands.
“One of ours,” Kosov responds. “Another Krivak class, just like the Storozhevoy.”
“Casualties?” Gorshkov wants to know.
“I have no reports yet. The situation is very confusing at the—”
“But the Storozhevoy has not been stopped. He is still sailing to the west?” Gorshkov asks.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so,” Kosov admits. “But not for long.”
Grechko suddenly switches to another line. A moment later it is answered by an aide.
“What is the nearest air force base to the Storozhevoy?” Grechko demands.
“Tukums, in the Pribaltiysk Military Region.”
“Didn’t we just send them a couple squadrons of Sukhoi attack bombers?”
“Yes, sir,” the aide replies.
“Order them into the air immediately!” Grechko shouts. “Tell them to sink that ship!”
“Yes, sir,” the aide replies as calmly as if he had been ordered to bring the minister’s limousine around to the front door.
Grechko breaks the connection. “The navy doesn’t want to shoot at one of its own ships, so now we’ll see what the air force can do,” he says to no one.
61. SU-24 SQUADRON, TUKUMS AIR FORCE BASE
Sukhoi-24 Squadron Leader Captain Ivan Makarov arrives at the pilots’ briefing room shortly after breakfast. The runner who summoned him said that something very big was in the wind, and he was ordered to “move your ass.”
Two dozen crewmen have already assembled, and even before Makarov can take his seat Air Regiment Commander Colonel Nikolai Teplov walks in and charges to the podium at the head of the room.
Everyone jumps to attention, but Teplov, who normally is a stickler for military courtesy and etiquette, waves them down.
“Your aircraft have been fueled, and ordnance is being loaded at this moment. In addition to ammunition for your cannons you will be carrying laser-guided bombs. You are to take off as soon as you can get to your aircraft. Captain Makarov will be in overall command once you’re in the air.” Teplov gives them a hard stare. “Dismissed.”
Makarov jumps to his feet as Teplov steps away from the podium and strides toward the door. “Colonel, where are we going?”
“The Baltic!” Teplov shouts. “Once you’re in the air and assembled you’ll be given the coordinates of your target.”
“Yes, sir. What target?”
“A ship, which your squadron will stop,” Teplov says. He raises a hand to silence Makarov’s next question. All the pilots are looking at Teplov, some of them with their mouths half-open in astonishment. “This is not war, I assure you. Your mission is to prevent a war, and the orders come from Minister of Defense Grechko himself. Do I make myself clear?”
Makarov nods. “Yes, sir,” he says, though Teplov’s order is anything but clear.
62. THE BRIDGE
“Sir, it looks as if all the ships that were following us have fallen back,” Maksimenko says.
“Thank God,” Sablin says softly. Like everyone else aboard, he is deeply shaken. He had convinced himself that no Russian would fire on them. Yet the foredeck and starboard side are chewed up by cannon fire from one of the Yaks. And it looks as if one of the ships trailing them was hit by a bomb.
It’s insanity. What could those pilots be thinking?
“What about the aircraft that fired on us?” he demands, and he can hear the unsteadiness in his voice.
“They’re circling overhead,” Maksimenko responds. His voice is shaky, too. “They actually shot at us.”
“It was just a warning,” Sablin assures Maksimenko and Soloviev and Shein. “If they had meant to stop us or even destroy us they could have done it easily. But they didn’t.”
“I think we should stop now and surrender,” Soloviev says.
“Are any of the airplanes or ships making an attack run toward us at this moment?”
Maksimenko shakes his head. “No, sir. But I agree; I think that we should surrender before something worse happens.”
Sablin has been trying not to listen to the garble of radio traffic they’re picking up on the VHF set. But it’s impossible to ignore. Someone who identified himself as Minister of Defense Grechko has repeatedly warned the Storozhevoy not to sail beyond the twentieth meridian or they will be attacked.
But they’re still nearly one hundred kilometers away from that position. In any event, Sablin plans to make his turn to the north and then the northeast by then, to shape his course up into the Gulf of Finland and, from there, Leningrad.
If they can survive that long. Just a couple more hours.
He walks to the port wing and steps outside. The KGB patrol vessels are somewhere behind, lost in the fog that has persisted even though the sun is up. It’s very cold, and he thinks that he can smell the odors of exploded ordnance and hot jagged steel plating where the shells hit.