His own naval career is finished. He will never be able to explain to a court-martial board how he came to lose command of his ship. Or why he wasn’t able to stop the destruction of his vessel.
But Sablin has another reason to be afraid. Potulniy means to kill him. Right now.
The captain thumbs the pistol’s safety catch to the off position and steps around the corner and onto the bridge.
The seamen at the radar set and the two standing at the now useless helm all look up, first in alarm and then in relief.
“Captain,” Soloviev says.
Sablin begins to turn as Potulniy raises the pistol, his finger tightening on the trigger. But then the man holding the microphone is just Valery, married to Nina, with a son, Misha. Sablin is a fellow officer, misguided, foolish, and, da, naive, but not a criminal.
“Captain—,” Sablin blurts.
Potulniy lowers his aim and fires one shot, catching the zampolit in the left leg, just above the knee.
Sablin cries out in pain and falls to the deck. He reaches for the pistol in his belt holster, but Potulniy gets to him and takes the gun away.
For a long moment the two men stare at each other across a chasm of more than just a meter or so. What Sablin has done is treason. It goes against every fiber of Potulniy’s being.
He wants to ask why, but he knows that if Sablin tries to convince him that the mutiny was the right thing to do, he might fire again and this time kill the zampolit.
“Eb tvoiu mat,” Potulniy swears softly. “Take this bastard to his cabin and see that he remains there,” he tells the seamen. “If he tries anything, kill him.”
All three of them jump to it immediately. They help Sablin to his feet and between them hustle him out the hatch and belowdecks to his cabin, leaving Potulniy alone on the bridge of his wounded ship for the moment.
He looks out the window and can see dozens of jets circling overhead like angry bees. A group breaks off from the swarm and starts its final attack run.
Potulniy snatches the handset for the ship’s comm from its cradle and calls Engineering.
“Boris, are you there?” he shouts. But there is no answer.
69. ENGINE ROOM
Gindin has managed to arm himself with a pistol as he races belowdecks to his engine room. He can actually see daylight coming through a series of baseball-sized holes in the hull from the cannon fire.
Sailors are everywhere, running down corridors and up companion-ways like ants boiling out of their disturbed nests. But nobody notices the officer with the pistol racing past. Sometimes he has to shove his way through a knot of frightened kids, but even then no one tries to stop him.
He slams open the hatch and barges into the engineering space where the main control panels are located.
Five of his crew are there, running the engines, checking the control panel, and Gindin’s blood boils. He trained these men. He stood up for them when the captain complained about missing potatoes, when they didn’t want to get out of bed, and when they got Dear John letters from their girlfriends. He even got them early leaves when they finished installing the five new diesel engines at the last refit.
This is how they have repaid him.
He raises his gun and points it at the ones near the control panel.
At this point he is drenched with sweat, and he thinks that it won’t take much of a push to start him firing.
“Get away from the panel!” he shouts over the din of the turbines.
All the sailors look up when they hear his voice.
“Get away from the panel!” Gindin shouts again. “Over by the wall. Move it!”
All five immediately follow his orders, with relief, now that an officer is in charge again, mixed with fear.
As soon as they are standing facing the wall, Gindin leaps to the control panel and starts shutting down the engines. Immediately the whine of the turbines begins to decrease and the deafening noise winds down.
Keeping the pistol trained on his five sailors, he snatches the ship’s comm handset from its bracket. “Bridge, Engineering.”
Potulniy answers immediately. “Is everything okay down there?”
“Captain, I’ve shut down the engines.”
“Any casualties?”
“No, sir,” Gindin says. “Not yet. What about Captain Sablin?”
“He’s been neutralized, and I’m in command again.”
“Have you contacted Fleet Headquarters yet?”
“There’s no time! We’re under attack!”
“You have to call them, Captain!” Gindin shouts. “Before it’s too late!”
“Stay at your post, Boris,” Potulniy orders. “I may need the engines in a big hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” Gindin replies, and he replaces the handset.
He’s in a quandary just then. He can’t run his engines without the help of his crew, yet he can’t trust them. They’ve stabbed him in the back.
He wants to lash out with frustration. Like Potulniy, he suspects that his naval career is over. There’s nothing any of them can do now to change what has happened.
Gindin glances toward the overhead. He hopes that the captain can convince the fleet that he’s back in charge and to stop the attack.
Potulniy is their best hope for survival.
70. SU-24 SQUADRON
“Do you mean to sink him?” Ryzhkov asks.
Makarov looks over at his copilot/weapons officer and nods. “We have our orders.”
They’re flying low and slow, a few hundred meters above the waves, at around 400 knots. They cannot miss. The Storozhevoy is on fire and circling to port a couple of miles to the west. Perhaps the ship is slowing down, but at this speed and angle it’s hard for Makarov to be sure. Anyway, what he’s told his weaps is true; they do have their orders to stop the traitors.
If it means sinking the ship and killing the officers and crew, then so be it. The air force did not create this situation.
Makarov keys his helmet mike. “Unit Three, on my lead, let’s finish this.”
They are the next wave of attack jets that have not dropped their laser-guided bombs.
This time the Storozhevoy has no chance whatsoever to survive. Within a few minutes he and his crew will be at the bottom of the Baltic.
“Fighter squadrons attacking the Storozhevoy, this is Captain Anatoly Potulniy.”
Makarov slams his stick hard right and full forward, ignoring the urgent voice in his headset, and his jet peels off to starboard in a steep dive toward the ship he means to kill.
In thirty seconds it will be mission accomplished.
71. THE BRIDGE
It’s obvious that the commander of the strike force heading toward the Storozhevoy either didn’t receive Potulniy’s radio message or has chosen to ignore it. Either way, five Su-24s are heading right at his bows and will be in a position to release their bombs in a matter of seconds.
His rage toward Sablin has been replaced with fear for his ship. Not fear for his own life but a genuine concern for the Storozhevoy and all who’ve sailed him—including the mutineers.
He keys the VHF radio again. “Baltic Fleet Headquarters, this is Captain Anatoly Potulniy. The mutiny has been put down. Cease fire; cease fire! I am in command of the ship!”
“Who is this?” the radio blares.
Potulniy recognizes the voice of the chief of staff. “Admiral Kosov, it’s me: Potulniy. Can you recognize my voice?”
The radio is silent for several ominous seconds. Potulniy is staring out the windows, the jets looming ever larger.