He gritted his teeth, inwardly shaking his head before it moved outwardly. Then he spoke aloud, to himself, to anyone who might hear it around him, and to time itself.
“To hell with that!”
“Sir?” Rodenko looked over at him.
“Mister Nikolin,” said Karpov firmly, ignoring Rodenko for the moment. “Signal the KA-40. Tell them the mission is aborted, and they are to return to the ship immediately. This is an emergency.”
They were up over the Sea of Okhotsk when the message came in, approaching the large desolate island of Bolshoy Shantar. Fedorov was in the co-pilot’s chair, looking over some charts. Orlov was behind him in the second row of the forward cabin with Troyak to his left. A group of five Marines were in the rear compartment.
Orlov was there because Fedorov had personally asked him to join the mission. He had come across him earlier that day, moody and disgruntled, as always, but it was the pistol he was wearing in a side holster that caught his eye. Fedorov was smart enough to put two plus two together, and he knew he did not want to leave Orlov on the ship with Karpov—not with the mood that was on the Chief that day, and not with Orlov carrying that sidearm. The best thing, he thought, would be to get him off the ship. He could take Orlov with him, and then leave him on the Zeppelin when they made the rendezvous with the Irkutsk. That was the ship they were meeting for the flight to Ilanskiy. Karpov’s other self would meet them there.
The Pilot, Sherenski, saw the comm-link light up and toggled a switch. Nikolin’s voice soon played over the overhead speaker.
“Mother One to Black Hawk, this is an emergency action message. Mission abort—I repeat. Mission abort. You are to return to the ship immediately—come back. Over.”
The pilot looked at Fedorov, who had a puzzled expression on his face, but the light of understanding was slowly growing in his eyes. He raised a hand, indicating that Sherenski should take no action.
“I’ll handle this,” he said, reaching for the radio handset. “Black Hawk to Mother One. What is the problem? What emergency? Over.”
“Black Hawk, Black Hawk—Mission abort. Repeat. Mission Abort. This is an order. Acknowledge on compliance. Over.”
Fedorov had a frustrated look on his face. “Mother One—Nikolin—is the Admiral on the bridge? Put him on. I wish to speak with him directly.”
Back on the bridge of Kirov, Karpov shook his head. He expected this, but there was no time to lose now. There was too much at stake.
“Rodenko,” he said sharply. “Range to contact?”
“Sir? They are 314 kilometers out, approaching the island of Bolshoy Shantar.”
“You have a telemetry link?”
“Yes sir, our link is good.”
“Feed that to the CIC.” Karpov spun about, his eyes finding Samsonov. The helo was slipping away. “Mister Samsonov. Key up an S-400. Target that helo and fire.”
The Weapon’s Chief gave him a blank look, hesitating, but not saying anything.
“Samsonov! Now! Now! This is imperative!”
“Aye sir!” Samsonov’s hands were a blur. “Sounding missile warning—forward deck. S-400 40N6 keyed for action. Waiting on system…”
“Go Samsonov. Fire!”
“Sir, this is the long range ballistic trajectory missile. It was not on ready alert status and will need time to prep for action. It’s the only missile we have with the range to get out that far.”
“Damn!”
“Waiting on system… Waiting…” The time seemed eternal. “Sir, I have the ready light. Firing now.” The reflex was well honed, the order, the movement, the missile on its way in a billow of white smoke and yellow fire. The P-400 was so named because this version, the 40N6, had that range in kilometers, but it had a long way to go before its own internal systems would detect and lock on to the KA-40. Yet it was very fast, and it was going to get there very quickly, climbing to high altitude, and then tipping over to make a target approach from above, whereupon its active radar would switch to seek and destroy mode. It’s speed in that climb would reach Mach 7 at the apex, but as it tipped over and dove, it would accelerate to near Mach 12. At that speed it would be moving four kilometers per second.
The tension on the bridge was thick. Karpov was trying to kill the KA-40, with Fedorov, Orlov, Troyak and others aboard. The bridge crew was clearly shocked, some with eyes wide, not knowing what was happening or why. Samsonov had done his job, but his brow was wet with sweat, and he seemed clearly upset. Rodenko’s pulse was up. As senior officer on the ship now under Karpov, he felt he needed to speak up here.
“Admiral, sir, what are we doing?”
“Don’t worry, Rodenko. That goes for the rest of you. This is merely a warning shot. I need to reinforce my order. That mission must abort!”
“You mean you will self-destruct this missile? Sir, it will acquire in another minute. Time on target is 120 seconds!”
“I am well aware of that, Mister Rodenko. Calm yourself. Nikolin. Repeat my order. Tell them if they do not abort and assume a homeward bound heading immediately. They will be shot down.”
“Missile warning!” Sherenski looked at Fedorov, a mix of shock, surprise and fear in his eyes.
“That bastard!” said Orlov. “He’s trying to kill us all this time.”
If that were true, thought Fedorov, then it was sloppy, and not like anything Karpov would have premeditated. They were almost beyond missile range. If Karpov wanted them dead, he should have fired long ago, when his missiles would have a much better chance of hitting them. No, something had happened. Something was wrong. But what?
Fedorov thumbed the handset hard. “Karpov! What in God’s name are you doing? Explain this!”
All that came back was Nikolin again, repeating Karpov’s order.
“Should we turn?” Sherenski looked at him.
“They can’t be seeing us on the Fregat system this far out. They have to be relying on our transponder to fix our position. Turn it off, Shut down all radar and dive! Get down as low as you can. Take evasive maneuvers and be prepared to fire any ECM we have.”
Survival first.
There was a fast killer out there, and it had already acquired their position. There was another killer behind that weapon, and what could have possessed Karpov to fire on them rather than simply getting on the radio was now something that left Fedorov feeling very cold.
This is exactly what I did when we thought Orlov was escaping on the KA-226, thought Fedorov. We’re slipping away. Another few minutes and he won’t have anything that can hit us this far out. But what is he thinking? We might only have another minute left.
The KA-40 was a nice fat target, easy to see on radar, and it was not agile. The S-400 had already crossed half the distance to its target before the radars on the KA-40 even acquired it and sounded that missile warning. Now it was coming on like a runaway train, hurtling down from the apex of its long range flight path, its engine roaring in its wake, radar eyes searching… searching….
Chapter 32
The helo plummeted down, the missile lock warning barking, jangling raw nerves as instinct took hold and they all struggled for hand holds to keep from being thrown about. Sherenski, toggled three switches, pushed hard and sent the KA-40 into a steep dive, accelerating as he did to full military throttle on the engines.