NOW HERE HE WAS, MEETING her in a private restaurant.
You’ve been speaking to that cold bitch Marcia.” Yana glared at him.
He frowned. “How did you…”
“I watched it,” she said.
Yuri nodded. “We must get our point over, the Black Sea…”
She put her hand on his. “Not now Yuri. Let’s not talk about that.” She slid and stroked her hand over his several times and squeezed it. “Now,” she gave him an alluring smile, “let’s talk Yuri,” she sighed.
“If we must.”
YANA CARRIED THE TWO glasses of wine over to her bed; the bedside light was turned low. She’d left it on, so he’d see her shapely naked body as she slinked slowly across her apartment floor. Yuri gave her a gentle smile and looked her up and down. His eyes were filled with desire. She set down the wine, he took his glass and sipped it.
“You’re not drinking yours?”
“Not yet.” She laid face down on his legs, then pulled down the sheets. It stood proud and she teased it by stroking it with her long hair.
“You can talk, Yuri. I know you like to.”
He started to lift her onto him.
“Not yet. There’s time for that.” Yana took her place, her lips just inches from his hardness, she let her hair fall over his man stick and kissed it gently.
“You can tell me Yuri, what have you been up to.” She kissed it again.
“The fools are starting to believe us. Can you imagine? Can you?”
Yana kissed it again and this time lingered and stroked her lips up and down his shaft. “What am I imagining, Yuri?”
“We will soon make our dream come true. The greater Russia. First Ukraine then… Jesus Yana.”
She looked up at him.
“Sorry. You make me greedy, go on.”
“They can’t see. Don’t want to see. We’re nearly there, we… Yana, good God girl.”
She bobbed her head above his groin, bringing him close to it; then lifted her head away. “What were you saying? Tell me.”
“This is just part one. Ukraine first then the… Oh… Yana… next will be…”
She lowered her head onto him, slid her tongue around and listened. Taking her time. Keep him talking, give him just enough.
It wasn’t just her listening, in her apartment were several microphones, they listened too. The cameras watched. Yana hated it. She knew that at this very minute CIA personnel watched her at work. Watched her pleasuring him.
But most of all she hated him, the pig. But Yana knew it had to be, her homeland needed her. She wouldn’t let them down.
ON BOARD THE DESTROYER USS Wabash, the Air Warfare Officer’s eyes stared in disbelief at his radar screen. Red indicators flashed. Warning tones sounded.
“Battle stations, battle stations. Air raid warning red!” shouted the Air Warfare Officer.
“Missiles incoming, low from the north. Kh-31 identified.”
“Deploy Chaff. Jamming and Countermeasures on,” commanded Hillson.
“Range to enemy birds?”
“Sir, they’re incoming at Mach one point five. Impact one minute 30 seconds.”
“CIWS active, now.”
“All ahead, come to the north.” Props turned, and the ship pulled away. The Destroyer would present as small a target as possible.
On deck, the multi barrel Vulcan CIWS poured lead at a rate of thousands of rounds a minute towards the incoming missiles. The missiles descended to an altitude of 15 feet from the waves and raced in at 1,400mph. One ran into the wall of supersonic lead and erupted in a rolling stream of flame, tumbling into the sea. More radar-controlled blasts of lead hurled into the Kh-31’s flight paths.
The two warships shot down three of the missiles, but five hit their targets. Kh-31s detonated their 200 pound warheads. These exploded, ripping superstructures away and punching gaping holes in the ship’s walls. The USS James K Lankusi sank within five minutes, her magazine was struck, and secondaries exploded. The USS Wabash was crippled. Her damage control teams battled to save the ship and small launches were sent to recover any survivors from her sister ship.
Chapter 12
THERE WAS A KNOCK ON the door, and a Petty Officer entered.
“Sir. Captains Hailey and Bruch are here.”
“Let them in, Perez.”
Commander US 6th Fleet, Vice Admiral Rebecca G Marino stood smiling, she shook the two men’s hands.
“Sit, please gentlemen.” She pushed over the desk a communication she’d received. The two men read the communication and the Action document attached. It had the Chief of Naval Operations’ authorisation.
“So there we have it, Ivan’s on the move. We knew that of course and, after the loss of the James K Lankusi along with Wabash limping home, it’s getting worse. He’s building up his forces. How are we placed to respond? And what do we do about it?”
Captain Hailey opened up his brief and ran his eye over the documents.
“Sir, The Black Sea Fleet is deploying from Sevastopol and Novorossysk in large numbers. Both surface and subsurface units. The New York City has seen action against both. We have the 24th MEU located to the north of Istanbul. Our intel tells us that the Russians intend to break out through the Bosporus and into the Med. Fort Mead reports that the 56th Brigade of the airborne VDV at Kamyshin, north of Volgograd in the Southern Military district, have been mobilised. They’re about 900 miles from Istanbul. We can expect parachute drops and airborne reinforcements into Ataturk airport and others in the area. The Pentagon tells us that VDV deployments will signal the start of their push through the Bosporus.”
Captain Bruch grunted. “Yeah, that’s what the tea leaves are telling them.”
“Who’s looking at this info from Fort Mead?” asked Admiral Marino.
“They have guys from the 101st and the 82nd pouring over the satellite pictures. Their view is that the VDV could move anytime they want.” Hailey flipped the page. “We have everything that floats either in the Aegean or on its way. Resupply is coming in by air. USAF assets are redeploying from the US. Turkish defense forces are mobilizing too, of course.”
“Are preparations getting underway for this Operation VOROTA?”
“Sir, when I heard that plan cooked up by some sewer pipe sailor, I thought he was breathing some shit down there. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Well?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’ve got deployments on the way. Sir, can you see it happening?”
She nodded. “It might. We have to be ready. I’ve been on to NATO HQ in Brussels to see what they’re up to.”
“Shooting the shit over a claret and bratwurst probably,” said Bruch.
“You’re probably not far off. It’s no surprise the Portuguese and the Brits are the most active. They’re mobilising now.” She sipped her coffee. “They’ll both have hulls in the Med soon and the Brits have air assets flying to their base at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.”
Admiral Marino sat back and sighed. “We didn’t want this shit but remember, we’re at DEFCON 3 for a reason. Let no one say the 6th wasn’t ready.”
ALTHOUGH HE SAT AT his station in the USS NYC’s control room, Nosey lived in another world right now. It helped if he sat with his elbows on the console, palms covering his eyes. Sound. It was his world, the sound of the sea. Her fish, her whales, her tiny plankton and krill. The smallest of creatures made some of the loudest noises, because of their numbers. More distant were the sounds of men. Of engines and props spinning. Some of these he could hear hundreds of miles away. Thanks to the sophisticated sonars, he could tell if a ship was going into the port of Constanta in Romania or Varna in Bulgaria by the different returns due to the deeper waters at Varna. The boat had a number of sonar types. The Large Aperture Bow sonar array. Next was a wide aperture lightweight fiber optic sonar array consisting of three flat panels mounted low along either side of the hull and two high frequency active sonars mounted in the sail and bow. The chin-mounted and sail-mounted high frequency sonars supplemented the main sonar array, these provided better operations in shallow areas like a coastline and provided better under-ice navigation. They also helped in underwater combat against other submarines. The conformal array was mounted on both sides of the boat’s sail.