Vlasenko continued forward through the main shaft, past the galley and messroom on the port side to the officers’ lounge, a large parlor with video equipment, books and easychairs. Vlasenko remembered how cramped the Leningrad had been by comparison. Well, these officers were a different generation, raised on peacetime, however uneasy the peace. He felt more than years separated him from them. He had seen more combat than he’d ever wanted. Witnessing the sinking of the American submarine… the Stingray… under the icecap by the Leningrad had been a shock. He had been the Weapons Officer under this same Admiral Novskoyy. He himself had actually pressed the firing key that sent the torpedoes out to the American vessel that day far in the past but never forgotten. He had tried to rationalize it… Novskoyy had ordered it, backed up with the threat of his service pistol… It never quite worked. He still had nightmares. And now, decades later, Novskoyy once again was a presence looming over him. As he was about to leave the lounge he was outraged to note that the door to the captain’s stateroom suite that opened into the lounge had been stitch-welded shut. A brand new submarine and this man comes onboard and welds a door shut. Why?
Vlasenko reentered the main shaft, turned left to go forward, passing the other door to Novskoyy’s stateroom. He couldn’t help trying the knob. Locked. What the hell was Novskoyy hiding? He moved to the forward bulkhead of the second compartment, a watertight boundary between the compartments. One compartment could flood and still allow the ship to survive; if two compartments flooded it was more serious but the ship might still survive. The second compartment was designed to be the most survivable — no weapons that could explode, no seawater pipes that could rupture, no oil lines or tanks that could catch fire, no heavy equipment that could jump out of their foundations. And so it was chosen to contain the huge main escape pod. Vlasenko ducked to pass through the automatically closing watertight hatch to the first compartment — the weapons spaces. He inhaled, relishing the smell of the ozone from the electrical cabinets in the first compartment’s upper level that housed cabinets of electrical and computer gear for the communications and navigation equipment. It was the high-voltage cabinets that spewed ozone, with a smell particular to a submarine since the ventilation system could not quickly disperse it.
Vlasenko now doubled back to the hatch to the second compartment, where a narrow, steep stairway led to the middle deck. He climbed down, and the whole environment changed. This was the middle level torpedo-tube space, the home of the three 100 centimeter tubes and the Magnum nuclear-tipped torpedoes. The immense size of the weapons was a shock. The torpedoes were the size of the minisubmarines used in World War II by the Japanese, and they were the fastest underwater weapons in the world, able to go nearly 110 kilometers per hour. With their huge girth, they also had tremendous endurance; they could go on at attack-velocity for over an hour, covering over 100 kilometers. No submerged adversary on earth could outrun a Magnum. The Magnum torpedoes were painted glossy black, gleaming and deadly in the bright lights of the compartment. Over the red-taped barricade warning of the nuclear torpedoes’ radioactivity, Vlasenko reached out and put his hand on the smooth cool surface of the topmost weapon. Immediately a cold pistol barrel nudged his neck.
“Turn around very slowly and put your hands behind your head.” Vlasenko did, and stared into the face of Warrant Officer Dmitri Danalov, chief of security aboard, his heavy mustache nearly obscuring his upper lip.
“Captain!” he said, lowering his pistol and holstering it in his wide shiny black leather belt. “No offense, sir, but no one touches one of the nuclear weapons without me knowing about it.”
Vlasenko waved off Danalov’s apology. “No, no, what you did was proper. I commend you for it.”
“The admiral wouldn’t agree, sir…”
“The admiral? Novskoyy was here?”
“He was looking over the Magnum an hour ago.”
“Did he say anything? About the Magnum?”
“Yes, in fact, he did. He said he hoped the scientists who designed them knew what they were doing.”
Vlasenko stored the comment. “Warrant, I’m going to the lower level. Want to come?”
“I’d better. Captain. I don’t want my torpedo officer killing you if you surprise him.”
They made their way to the ladder to lower level, the area with the six 53-centimeter tubes. Following Vlasenko down the stairs, Danalov was impressed at how fit Captain Vlasenko looked at forty-eight, then remembered he had been a champion wrestler at Marshal Grechko Higher Naval School of Underwater Navigation.
The men now reached the base of the stairs, where young Senior Lieutenant Vasily Katmonov, the Torpedo Officer, came to attention.
“Is there something I can do for you. Captain?”
“No, just wandering the ship.” Vlasenko looked around at the space. It was clean and fresh looking. The lower-level compartment was the home of the six 53-centimeter conventional tubes and their 53-centimeter torpedoes. The weapons lay on two large racks with hydraulic rams to maneuver them into the tubes. These torpedoes were painted a dull black, as sinister looking as the Magnums above.
Vlasenko complimented Katmonov on the lower two levels of his compartment, adding he was especially pleased with security. “Warrant Officer Danalov here is an asset to this vessel.”
Katmonov and Danalov shared a quick look. “That is not what the admiral said,” from Danalov.
“What did he say. Lieutenant?”
“He wanted me to demote the Warrant Officer. He said Danalov should be disarmed. It seems Danalov put a pistol to the admiral’s head when the admiral was looking at the weapons. I don’t like the idea of an officer carrying a loaded pistol, sir. Neither did Danalov. But Admiral Novskoyy refused to hand over his weapon, a serious violation of Fleet Regulations, sir, particularly in the weapons spaces. I don’t know what I should do, sir. How do I tell an admiral he’s violating Fleet Regs?”
“You don’t. Lieutenant. You tell me, I handle it.”
He left them and made his way back to the second compartment’s main shaft and again stared at Novskoyy’s locked door. It occurred to him that he knew where there was an extra key to the door, but dismissed the thought. Don’t provoke the man on this trip — the admiral would soon be gone and the boat would again be his.
Vlasenko turned away from the door and went to the ladder to the lower level, where he found Captain 3rd Rank Vladimir Ivanov standing ten meters aft in the passageway outside his stateroom door. Ivanov, normally the Operations Officer, was responsible for Weapons, Communications, Sonar and the ship’s tactics, but on this run he also became Acting First Officer when the second in command of the Kaliningrad took sick.
Ivanov motioned to him, and Vlasenko walked aft down the passageway.
“Good morning, sir. We have a problem. Two problems.”
Ivanov was in his mid-thirties but seemed younger. He could drink vodka all night and was unofficially the ship’s number-one bachelor, usually not one to take life too seriously, but ever since he had assumed the duty of Acting First Officer when the ship had pulled out of Severomorsk he had seemed agitated and tense.
“Go on, Ivanov.”