“We will be ready and on time, Colonel. Am I dismissed?” asked the commander.
“Yes, Commander”, replied his direct commanding officer, the Admiral.
While Commander Vitaly was making his way towards the door, Rear Admiral Ilya Leonov tapped Captain Yashin’s shoulder with his hand.
“Gentlemen, this is Captain Yashin, commander of Nuclear Assault Submarine K-219, Navaga class. The Captain is one of the best sons of our beloved Soviet Union.”
The Captain looked about 40 years old, handsome, with a narrow face and blond hair combed back. He had an athletic build and his navy blue uniform gave him a distinguished look. He chose not to respond to the compliments he had just received, and remained seated in his chair, upright and silent.
As the person closest to the submarine commander’s occupation, it was only natural that Dimitri was the one to start a conversation with him.
“Captain Yashin, your mission will be quite simple, because it is largely passive. Tomorrow, at 0800 hours, some of our people will be sailing out aboard the trawler to a firing range that you know. When they are ready to execute the test there, your submarine will be exactly 47 kilometers north of them. Of course, you will receive a precise location point.”
Dimitri again opened the brown envelope, and removed the contents that he had glanced at only a few minutes earlier.
“Please excuse me for a moment “, he said.
He stepped aside, going through the papers which he held on his knees and, a few minutes time later, he put the papers back in the envelope and rejoined the group.
“Back to our subject; your submarine will be at the same location at a depth of two hundred and ninety meters exactly. Colonel Yevgeni and I will join you aboard your vessel There is no need for any special equipment or any particular specialist, as your full regular crew is sufficient for this mission and we will be working with them. Is everything clear, Captain?”
The submarine commander nodded and pulled his shoulders back.
“There is nothing to understand, Colonel. You are asking us to do nothing”, replied the submarine commander.
“This is true”, Dimitri said. “It may be said that I need your submarine almost as inert metal at the right place, at the right time and at the right depth, but its presence there is crucial to the mission. Colonel Yevgeni and I cannot operate this monster all by ourselves. But I have something else to tell you, Captain Yashin, something very important. Nobody in the submarine, but nobody, should know that there is a vessel in the perimeter of the range or that their submarine is involved in any kind of test. We must check and see if, and what, your operators aboard the submarine discover about an explosion taking place in their range, but without them knowing anything of this ahead of time. This is a critical point, and this alone will determine if the test is successful or if it is a waste of time and resources. Please inform everyone from your deputy down that we are guests from Moscow, from the Ministry of Defense, or you can tell them that we are tourists, or you can tell them anything. That’s it as far as tomorrow. Is everything clear so far?”
Captain Yashin nodded.
“From tomorrow”, Dimitri continued, “After we return, your submarine will not sail anywhere. It will remain here at the port on a sea-mission alert, with a six-hour advance notice. At the moment, I cannot tell you how long it will last. On the day that we sail out to our operation, your submarine will escort the trawler. You will follow it by periscope. Before going out to sea, you will receive an envelope from me with another top secret mission. You will be allowed to unseal this envelope only after our trawler reaches its destination and drops anchor there. That’s all, Captain. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
The submarine commander rose up, bowed his head slightly to the Admiral, and hurried out the door. Yevgeni looked at Dimitri and smiled ironically.
“What’s so funny?” Dimitri asked.
“I don’t think you’ll end up as good friends, you and the submarine commander. No matter, the most important is that we’ll be in good hands tomorrow. Say, maybe you should go alone? It simply doesn’t seem natural to me to enter an iron pipe and even dive in it. It may be more suitable for unhealthy people, I mean, not right in the head. Well, I think we’ve exhausted the subject. Let’s go visit our Kazakh friend. That poor fellow hasn’t had a second of sleep in forty-eight hours.”
“Thank you, Rear Admiral Leonov”, Yevgeni said.
“The best of luck, Colonel”, the Admiral said, remaining at his desk, and the four team members left the room.
Lieutenant Alexey led the four team members on the paths leading to the vast hangars of the ordnance section, where they were to meet Colonel Nazarbayev. Yevgeni stopped the group near a small and derelict-looking hangar. He opened its door and looked inside.
“Follow me”, he called out to his teammates. “Lieutenant Alexey, please remain out here. Make sure that no one disturbs us.” “Will do, Sir”, Alexey replied.
Predictably, it was Vladimir, whom Yevgeni and Dimitri had dubbed “the sixth fellow”, who must secretly represent military intelligence, who first questioned Yevgeni.
“Colonel Yevgeni, what are you doing?” “Follow me and you’ll all see”, replied Yevgeni.
The four walked into a small hall that looked like a welding workshop. In the center of the workshop stood an iron table with remnants of sheet metal and iron bars. Yevgeni motioned to his friends to join him around the table.
“Dimitri”, Yevgeni said, “you can open the envelope here. The contents of this envelope are the heart of the matter, and here we can assume that there are no hidden microphones or cameras and that nothing will leak out. Do you understand me now, Vladimir, my friend?”
Vladimir watched Yevgeni without expression and did not say a word.
Dimitri opened the envelope which, to his teammates’ surprise, contained only two pages appearing at first glance, to be photocopies of documents taken under less than optimal conditions. At the top of each page, the U.S. Navy emblem was printed, and in each center, a golden eagle, with its wings spread, held an anchor in its talons, with the writing: “The Second Fleet — Norfolk”. Dimitri let out a whistle, admiring the document.
“I thought sailors weren’t allowed to whistle”, said Yevgeni.
“Yes, but only at sea”, Dimitri said.
Dimitri continued to look at the pages. He looked mesmerized.
“What is Norfolk?” asked General Okhramenko.
“It’s the largest naval base in the world and it’s in Virginia, the United States, on the Atlantic coast”, Dimitri replied and continued his thorough examination of the papers. “The truth is, I took a look at the pages earlier during our meeting, but I focused on the map and missed the description on the other side. I swear, our guys in Washington are really good. Correction; they are the best.”
“So this is what we have here”, continued Dimitri in an admiring tone. “This is the navigation training program of the American nuclear assault submarine fleet in the Atlantic Ocean for the month of November 1981. Stunning. Simply stunning.”
“I see a map on this page, and the second page has tables”, Yevgeni said. “Can you tell us briefly what this data means?”
“The map shows the navigation route from their base on the East Coast of the North American continent, more or less towards the north of Norway, and then they turn south”, Dimitri said, tapping on the map with his finger.
“These triangles along the route are reporting points. The submarine must report home when it arrives at any such point along the route. Of course, we will catch it between two reporting points, and I think that will be here.”
Dimitri tapped his finger on a certain point on the map.
“Exactly here, northwest of Norway, approximately two hundred nautical miles south of this not very small island called Svalbard. From this place they turn south on their navigation route and sail away.”
“And what are these tables?” Yevgeni asked again.
“This is their duty roster, their work schedule. It says which submarine goes out to sea for navigation and when, and their times of arrival at the reporting points. This is simply perfect. I think we have just received the most important brick in the wall that we are about to build.”
Yevgeni motioned for his colleagues to leave the derelict hangar. I think I have good reason to contact the Minister of Defense and to report to him on the great headway that we have made, Yevgeni thought. This is the first time that the conversation between us is on my own initiative, but maybe it will be better to wait until the end of the test tomorrow. Who can guarantee that the results will meet expectations? Yevgeni continued to walk besides his teammates as these thoughts raced in his mind.
In a hangar at the ordnance section, Nazarbayev received them with his broad smile. But the Colonel’s face showed signs of fatigue; he hadn’t had any sleep for two days and nights.
“My friend the Colonel”, Yevgeni said to him. “I need you strong and alert tomorrow morning. Have you finished your work here?”
“Yes, I can say that we have finally completed the work. Here, the bomb is ready, and in one or one-and-a- half hours it will be loaded on to the boat. Don’t ask me what we went through tonight. We dismantled the bomb, but we couldn’t empty it of the explosive, as it was really corroded inside. If I’d used your idea and welded the cone to its top, half of the base would have been demolished in an explosion.”
“But I see that the steel cone is installed on the top of the bomb”, Yevgeni said quizzically.
“Yes, you see it is connected, not welded. We used special adhesives for metal that I hadn’t known existed. They are as strong as welds”, Colonel Nazarbayev explained.
Yevgeni approached the Colonel and gave him a brief hug.
“Well done. Come with us. We are going to see the trawler and then you can go and catch a few hours’ sleep. We are finished here”, said Yevgeni.
Lieutenant Alexey led the team, which was now joined by Colonel Nazarbayev, to an out-of-the-way pier almost hidden from view, where the trawler was moored. The boat was painted black, with a diagonal white stripe adorning its prow. On its stern, its name was printed in Cyrillic letters, and in Latin letters underneath; its name was “Zlatoya Klatzo”, meaning “Golden Ring”.
Dimitri approached Yevgeni.
“Listen, I’m pleasantly surprised. This is quite a new boat and it looks in very good condition. I also see that it has a modern radar. The Minister’s letter has worked wonders. By the way, isn’t more fitting to name it Fire Ring rather than Golden Ring?”
Commander Vitaly Dobrinin, whom Marshal Budarenko’s team had met just a short time ago, greeted them on the trawler’s gangplank like old friends. General Okhramenko took the lead and led them to the communications room, where a few technicians were still working. The General ordered them to leave the room and shut the door behind them. The team members saw four metal cabinets, each the size of an average washing machine.
“Now”, the general said, “they are finalizing their link to the antennas that they installed at dawn, and we will be ready for tomorrow.”
Yevgeni motioned Dimitri to come closer to him and the General.
“Tell me, Dimitri”, Yevgeni said, “When a submarine arrives at the reporting point, to those triangles on the map, you said that they report to their home base on the East Coast of the United States. Is that correct?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“General Okhramenko”, Yevgeni said quite severely, “we have not finished our work. Please get a receiver or a listening device from the intelligence section here for those strangely low frequencies that Dimitri mentioned. I can’t be sure that the American submarine will navigate exactly according to the schedule printed in the tables here. Perhaps the data is erroneous, and perhaps it is fabricated, and in any case, it can be changed at any time when the submarine is at sea. We must hear for ourselves, with our own ears, the real-time reports from the submarine. Isn’t it obvious that this instrument is not sufficient for our needs?”
The General, who was clearly not comfortable being managed by a Colonel, especially one who looked like a university professor, was quite impatient.
“I don’t understand you, Colonel; what is not enough for you?”
“Who will operate this instrument? Your communication people or your electronic warfare people?” Yevgeni countered with his own questions. “There must be an intelligence officer here who knows how to listen to naval messages in English. Our friends from Naval Intelligence know exactly who should sit here. It is important that this person is in position during the test tomorrow, even though it is not an integral part of the test.”
Yevgeni and Dimitri left the radio room, followed by the General. Yevgeni seemed preoccupied. He looked at Dimitri.
“Tell me, do you think that everything is ready for tomorrow and we aren’t forgetting something? It’s going too smoothly. I am not supposed to be calm in such situations, and it worries me.”
Dimitri was quite confident. “It is only because you are an incurable pessimist”, he said.
“You know what the definition of a pessimist is”, Yevgeni answered. “A pessimist is an optimist with experience. By the way, do you think we should initiate a call to the Marshal today and keep him updated about our progress?”
“I see that you miss our daily meetings with him. No, don’t call him, for two reasons. The first is that tomorrow we will be much wiser, and the second is that our friend, the sixth man, is probably reporting to Moscow every few hours. Forget it. Don’t call him today.”
“Yes, you’re right”, concluded Yevgeni. “Let’s wait for tomorrow.”