“Colonel,” the President began, “why are you, a KGB First Chief Directorate operative, coming to brief us on this? Where is Admiral Novskoyy? Where is his staff?”
Yulenski’s meaning was clear: Who are you, his boy? Dretzski knew he would face this, though he had not been able to prepare a convincing answer.
“Sir, General Pallin and Chief Maksoy accepted Admiral Novskoyy’s invitation to monitor his exercise and serve as referee. The admiral said that a deployment such as this would alert American intelligence agencies immediately. At FED we were given the task to act as if the Northern Fleet was from a separate country—”
“It practically is,” Admiral Barisov broke in. Apparently there was little cooperation between the fleets.
“—and determine if we could detect the deployment in advance when the fleet was provisioned and maintained.”
“What were the results. Colonel?” Pallin asked, as if an encouraging attorney for the defense.
“We could not detect anything that looked like unusual activity. Not by satellites, radio surveillance, phone taps, warehouse activity, maintenance activity or even crewmember movements.”
“Very convenient,” Colonel,” Admiral Barisov said. “Novskoyy hired you to see no evil, hear no evil—”
“I will give you a more impartial account than any Northern Fleet official or officer would. I would actually like to tell you that we detected Admiral Novskoyy’s activity, but we did not. A failure for us, but a victory for our nation.”
President Yulenski took the floor, his joviality gone.
“Colonel, why were the submarines sent to the coast of America without my knowledge or authorization? Why are we threatening the Americans? What do we expect them to do when they see all these submarines off their coast?”
“Sir, the intent is to avoid detection. If the boats get to their coast undetected, then we have proved the fleet can do it and Admiral Novskoyy’s training and preparations are in order. If, however, every boat runs into defending submarines and ASW ships and aircraft, then we have learned something even more valuable, and we can fix it in case we should ever need the capability… It is an ingenious experiment—”
“So, Colonel Dretzski,” Yulenski said, “shouldn’t we give the Americans the courtesy of a phone call to tell them that our toys are wandering around practically in their territorial waters?”
Dretzski’s armpits suddenly were wet. It was crucial that the Kremlin not call the White House — it would poison the controlled information and analysis being fed to the Americans through Agent Fishhook, whose role in the plan was its weakest and yet most vital element.
“I would advise against that, sir,” Dretzski said, feeling very uneasy. “The whole point of this exercise, this experiment, is to see if an unalerted America knows we are coming. As suggested, if they do not, we have proved a capability. If they do, we have identified flaws to fix—”
“Very risky. Colonel. And Fasimov,” Yulenski said to the defense minister, “this sort of thing will never happen again without my express orders. We can’t conduct an open foreign policy if our generals and admirals are secretly playing with their toys. You people are tempting fate. I want to see Admiral Novskoyy this evening, Fasimov. Send him over, and you come also. We have some talking to do.”
“Sir,” Dretzski said, “Admiral Novskoyy is not in port.”
“Where the hell is he?”
“Sir, he is on a new attack submarine that went on sea trials under the icecap. He should be returning shortly before his fleet.”
“Why is he on a submarine under the ice? How can he monitor this exercise from there?”
Dretzski swallowed. If he said Novskoyy would surface and use Kaliningrad’s antennae, it would look too much like he had a command-and-control flagship, determining the destinies of his fleet. But if he lied and said Novskoyy couldn’t receive radio messages. Admiral Barisov would know it. A morsel of truth was needed.
“Again, sir,” Dretzski said, “Admiral Novskoyy felt that it would be best to get an unbiased opinion from an intelligence community that had no political obligations to him, someone completely impartial. That is why Naval Intelligence was not called in. The admiral wants the hard, cold truth, not a subordinate’s possible sugar-coating. He is intent on finding out any operational flaws in the fleet. He deliberately left it to keep his own opinions and biases out of the exercise evaluation and execution. He is looking for the negatives, and the KGB will help him find them.”
“Very well. Colonel,” Yulenski said. Dretzski suppressed a sigh of relief. Yulenski, it seemed, had bought the story, and with Yulenski went the others. Yulenski stood, suddenly in a hurry, the meat of the briefing over. He left the room, aides coming in to collect his briefing papers from the presentation.
As the members filed out Dretzski felt confident — until Admiral Mikhail Barisov materialized in front of him. Barisov, the Supreme Commander of the Pacific Fleet, was young for his job although he did not look it — thin to the point of gauntness, deep lines showing in his face, hair completely gray. Barisov had spent his youth in the submarine force, arriving for duty fresh out of the Marshal Grechko Higher Naval School of Underwater Navigation the same year that Yuri Gagarin had been launched into orbit. After twenty years in the submarine fleet, having commanded the VICTOR III submarine Volgograd, Barisov had cross-decked to the surface fleet and had commanded a destroyer, a cruiser and a helicopter/VTOL aircraft carrier. What followed were several dull years in the Moscow Defense Ministry, mostly spent fighting office politics, until Admiral Gorshkov had promoted him and given him command of the Pacific Fleet. Barisov stared into the eyes of this weaselly KGB officer, wondering why he was covering for Novskoyy.
“Dretzski, what’s the real story on this deployment?” Dretzski tried to look confused. Barisov began asking questions, a prosecutor doing a cross-examination. Dretzski tried to handle them calmly, all the while thinking that something might have to be done about Barisov. An aircraft accident on the way back to Vladivostok…?
Admiral Novskoyy heard a knock at his door, looked up from his decryption of the last incoming message marked PERSONAL FOR FLEET COMMANDER. Quickly he stowed the message and the attack-profile chart, then let Captain Vlasenko into the stateroom. Novskoyy turned his back on the captain and returned to the table. Vlasenko sat in front of it.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Admiral, we have been at the polynya now for two days. Isn’t it time we went forward with the sea-trial agenda?”
Novskoyy stared at Vlasenko a moment. “The sea-trial agenda is postponed. Something urgent has come up. Fleet business. We may be here another week.”
Vlasenko’s insides turned over. “Then, sir, we should shut down the turbine room. There is no sense in keeping the engines warm if we are going to sit here—”
“No, I want to be able to move quickly, I need flexibility. There is no predicting when the ice around the polynya may shift and threaten to crush us. We need to be able to run if we have to.”
Vlasenko hesitated. He could not confront Novskoyy with what he had found out. That would land him in a locked storage compartment. He reached for an alterative course. He could sabotage the radio-transmission gear at the base of the radio multifrequency antenna. Racking out perhaps five drawers and severing connections, perhaps pocketing some key components and destroying the spares. Of course, with Novskoyy on the control-compartment communications console, the tampering would be detected before he would be able to damage the gear beyond repair. There might be no way he could prevent the admiral from transmitting his message to the fleet. At least, Vlasenko was convinced, the operation was not on automatic. No one would actually launch unless Novskoyy transmitted his go-code. Otherwise, why would they be surfaced here? The ship was being used as a flagship. Which meant the only way to stop the time-on-target strike or threat of a strike… was to sequester Novskoyy. If necessary… kill him.