Fortunes of War

22

Jack Innes slipped up behind the president as he sipped his after-dinner coffee and whispered the news from Sagami Bay in his ear. President Hood made his excuses to the people around the table and stood up. He followed Innes out of the room. “A destroyer and a submarine — he torpedoed them both. Only a few dozen men from the destroyer survived. The sub was lost with all hands.”

“What is he trying to do?” Hood asked the question in such a way that Innes knew the president didn’t want an answer. Finally Hood said, “Better get the Joint Chiefs over here. And the Secretary of State.”

The two men walked to the Oval Office. After Innes called the duty officer, Hood said, “Is this the same skipper who blew up Yokosuka?”

“Apparently so. CIA says the Russians have only one boat left, a Kilo-class named Admiral Kolchak.”

“What was the skipper’s name?”

“Pavel Saratov.”

“One obsolete old boat …”

“He’s a fox, he’s in shallow water, and he’s been damned lucky.”

“What is he trying to do?”

“I don’t know, sir.” An hour later, Hood asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff that question. “What is he trying to do?”

Everyone had a guess. Hood waved the guesses away. “Why haven’t the Japanese found this guy? It’s an obsolete dieselstelectric boat.”

The CNO answered. “It may be old and have limited capabilities, sir, but battery boats are very quiet. In shallow water they are extremely difficult to detect quickly. The computers have a devil of a time with the bottom echoes.”

“Quickly?”

“They have to snorkel every day or two, Mr. President. Given a couple days, trained hunters will find them every time.”

“Gentlemen, to get back to it, the question we must answer is this: What trouble can Pavel Saratov cause with his little submarine?”

“Obviously, he can sink a lot of ships,” someone said. “He could have done that without going into the lion’s den.”

With the help of computer graphics, they reviewed the military situation. “Whatever Captain Saratov hopes to accomplish, sir,” the CNO said, summing up, “he had better hurry. He sank that destroyer three hours ago right there.” He used a laser pointer. “Even if he dashed away at fifteen knots — and that is a real juice-draining dash — he’s within forty-five miles of that position. The Japanese have four destroyers closing that area and they are flying in sonar-dipping helicopters from other naval bases. Regardless of what Pavel Saratov intends, he and his crew are rapidly running out of time.”

“Gentlemen,” the president of the United States said, “I think Captain Saratov intends to deliver a nuclear weapon. How he will do it, I don’t know. My concern is that Japan may be tempted to retaliate if they have nuclear weapons.”

They sat in absolute silence as the president looked from face to face. “We have given Japan all the information we possess on Captain Saratov’s submarine. I wish we could do more.”

“Perhaps, Mr. President,” General Tuck said, “we should threaten both Russia and Japan with nuclear retaliation by the United States if they use nukes on each other.”

Dead silence greeted that suggestion. President Hood rubbed his temple. “I don’t have what it takes to push the button,” he said finally. “I couldn’t do it. Kalugin and Abe might have the stuff, but I don’t. They would know we were bluffing. My daddy always told me, Never point a gun at a man unless you’re willing to shoot.”

Saratov was bent over the chart of Sagami Bay, measuring distances to Esenin’s fault, when the sonarman said, “Helicopter, Captain. He’s hovering, I think.”

A hovering helo could only mean one thing: a sonar-dipping ASW chopper. “Pass the word— back to silent routine. Tell the torpedo room to stop reloading the tubes. Absolutely no unnecessary noise.”

Saratov glanced at the depth indicator, which registered twenty-five meters. Here in the shallow water of the bay, that was as deep as he could go. At least the water was noisy. There were fishing boats, ships, pleasure craft, high-speed ferries, all roaring back and forth here in Japan’s inland waters. Pavel Saratov donned the headphones and closed his eyes so he could concentrate better. A cacophony of screw noises smote his ears, some of them quite loud. On the other hand, he had those four damned bomb containers welded to the deck topside. Even at two knots, those things had to gurgle. Not to mention the missing anechoic tiles. The chopper was there all right, barely audible. The sonarman had good ears. “Start a plot,” he told the michman, slapping him on the back. “I already have, Captain.”

“It will take us about an hour to get over the fault. Once we are on the bottom, we will be tougher to find.”

The michman didn’t answer. He knew a great deal about this business and wasn’t buying happy propaganda. “Helo has moved to another location. A little closer.”

“Say the bearing.”

“Two six five relative.”

“Two six five relative,” Saratov repeated to the navigator, who drew a line on the chart. “One rotor or two?” Saratov asked the sonar michman. “One, I think.”

That meant the helo was relatively small. Perhaps it didn’t carry any weapons. Five minutes went by. No one in the control room said anything. They stared at a gauge, a control wheel, a lever, something, but not at one another. Saratov thought it strange, but in tense moments, they seemed to avoid eye contact with one another. And they listened. What they wanted to hear, of course, was nothing at all. “He’s breaking hover, fading. Sound is being masked by a speedboat. There is also a freighter going into the bay. He’s about a mile from us.”

“Turn the sensitivity down,” Saratov suggested. “It is down, sir. It’s just damned noisy out there.”

“Okay, okay.”

Esenin was looking at his watch, now looking at nothing, obviously thinking big thoughts.

The air in the boat was foul. Saratov could smell himself, and he smelled bad. “Uh-oh. He’s right on top of us. He put his sonar pod in the water right over us.”

“One knot,” Saratov told the chief of the boat. He said it so quietly that he had to hold up one finger to ensure the chief understood. Several of the sailors were holding their breath. The beating of the rotors, a mechanical rhythm, pounded against Saratov’s ears. The helicopter was very near. Now he broke hover and moved a bit, not very far. “He’s got us, I think,” the sonarman said, biting his lip. “Listen for a destroyer. He’ll be coming at flank speed.”

After a few minutes, the helo moved again, to the other side of the boat. “He’s got us,” the sonarman said disgustedly, his face contorting. “He really does, Captain.”

“Listen for the destroyer.”

The sonarman nodded morosely. “XO, how old were those missiles you loaded in the sail launchers?”

“Twenty years, Captain.”

“Much deterioration?”

“Some corrosion on the bodies of the missiles, but all the electrical contacts were good.”

Another five minutes passed. The helo moved again. The tension was excruciating. “Where is he now?”

“Starboard rear. He’s dunked his thing in all four quadrants.”

“Take us up, Chief. Periscope depth. Sonar, get the radar ready. We’ll stick the sail up, shoot at this guy and put him in the water, then dash over to the general’s fault.”

“How quiet do you want to go up?” the chief asked. “I agree with Sonar — the jig is up. Let’s do it fast, before this guy gets out of range.”

As the boat hit periscope depth, Saratov brought up the periscope for a quick sweep. He wasn’t interested in the chopper — he knew where it was — but other ships in the vicinity. He walked the periscope in a complete circle, pausing only once for a second or two, then ordered the scope down. “Okay, gang. He’s up there. And we have a destroyer or frigate on the way. He’s bow-on to us. We stick the sail out and kill the chopper, then go back to periscope depth and shoot at the destroyer.”

“Why are you engaging this ship?” Esenin demanded.

“I’m trying to buy you some time, you goddamned fool. Now shut up!” To the chief, he said, “Surface. Let’s go up fast, hold her with the planes, shoot, and pull the plug.”

“You heard the captain. Surface.”

As the sail cleared the water, the sonar michman fired off the tiny radar on its own mast. He knew the quadrant where the chopper was, and that is where he looked first.

“He’s running dead away from us.”

“Radar lock!” the sonarman called. “Fire a missile!”

The antiaircraft missile went out with a roar, straight up, then made the turn to chase the chopper. Being a man of little faith, Saratov fired two more missiles before the sub slid back under the waves.

“I think we got a hit, Captain,” the sonarman said, pressing his headphones against his ears.

“Level at periscope depth, Chief. Flood tubes five and six and open outer doors. New course zero four five. Lift the attack scope and stand by for a bearing.”

“Helo just went in the water. I can hear the destroyer.”

“We’ll wait until the destroyer is closer.”

“Down the throat?” Askold asked, his brow furrowed deeply. “We have two fish loaded. We hit with one of them or we die.”

“Destroyer is echo-ranging, Captain.”

Everything happens slowly in antisubmarine warfare. In this life-or-death duel, the charging destroyer seemed to take forever to close the distance. The men in the control room wiped their faces on their sleeves, checked their dials and gauges, eyed the captain, wiped the palms of their hands on their filthy trousers…, and prayed.

“Up scope.”

Saratov snapped off a bearing, focused the scope, and then dropped it into the well. The scope had been out just five seconds. As it was going down, the XO read the range off the scope’s focus ring.

“Five thousand one hundred meters.”

“He’s going to start shooting, Captain,” said one of the junior officers.

“Quiet. Control yourself. Sonar, does he have us?”

“It’s hard to tell. He’s hasn’t focused his pings yet. I think the shallow water is bothering him. Or all the civilian traffic. And he is going too fast.”

“Let’s pray he doesn’t slow down. He won’t hear the fish until they are right on him.”

“He should be about three thousand meters, Captain.”

“Up scope.”

“Bearing and range, mark. Down scope.” Five seconds. “He’s coming off the power, Captain.”

“Two thousand meters.”

“Fire tube five!”

“Tube five fired.”

One mile. The torpedo was doing forty-five knots, the destroyer slowing…, maybe twenty. Fifty-five knots of closure. The torpedo would be there in a few seconds more than a minute. Twenty seconds, thirty … “Up scope.”

Saratov grabbed the handles as the scope came out of the well. “He’s turning to our left. Bearing fifteen left on tube six.”

“Fifteen left, aye.”

“Tube six, fire. Down scope.”

Aboard ASW frigate Mount Fuji, the combat control center crew was well aware that the submarine in front of them was armed and dangerous. They had received a data link from the helicopter before it was shot down and knew the location, even though they hadn’t yet located the sub on sonar.

The decision not to focus the echo-ranging signals was a conscious attempt to make the submarine skipper think he was still undetected. Mt. Fuji’s captain ordered the ship slowed to enable the sonar to hear better. As Saratov surmised, the sonar operators were having great difficulty picking the submarine out of the background noise.

When the sonar chief petty officer called, “Torpedo in the water,” the tactical action officer ordered the antisubmarine rockets fired.

They rippled off the launcher as the frigate turned right, to Saratov’s left, to avoid the oncoming torpedo. The ship turned quicker than the torpedo, which missed.

When he was firing his last fish, Saratov saw the rockets” muzzle blast and knew the moment was at hand.

As the scope went into the well, he ordered, “All ahead flank; come right ninety degrees.”

He looked at the faces staring at him. “Antisubmarine rockets,” he said as the sonarman called the splashes. The second torpedo went off under the frigate’s keel, tearing the bow off. The noises of the sea rushing in and bulkheads collapsing were audible in the sub even without a headset. The men just started to cheer when the submarine shook under a hammer blow. “Starboard side, Captain. It hit the outer hull. Yes, and holed it.”

The chief started giving rapid-fire orders. The holed tank was quickly identified and air pumped into its mates in an attempt to preserve buoyancy and keep the sub from impacting the bottom of the bay. While all this was going on, Saratov consulted the chart. He used a ruler to plot the course he wanted to the fault, then ordered the rudder over.

The odor of feces was quite noticeable. Someone had lost control of his bowels. Maybe several people had. Hanging on to the bulkhead, General Esenin never took his eyes off Pavel Saratov. “It could have been worse,” Askold said philosophically. Amid the confusion, the sonarman said to no one in particular, “We’re going to die.”

A squalid, shoddy monument to bureaucratic stupidity and inefficiency, the city of Irkutsk in central Asia nevertheless stunned first-time visitors by the spectacle of its setting. The extraordinary waters of Lake Baikal, on whose shores the town sat, were a dark blue, almost black under the shadows of drifting clouds. The lake was so deep that it was once thought to be bottomless. In truth it was a huge inland sea 375 miles long, containing one-fifth of the planet’s fresh water. The surface stretched away until it merged with the horizon. Towering along the western shore of the lake was a range of high mountains, still snowcapped from the previous winter. More rugged, craggy blue mountains lay to the south and east. Since arriving in Irkutsk, Yan Chernov had not taken the time to admire the view. He spent every minute in meetings with generals and colonels who had flown in from Moscow. “You will escort a strike on Tokyo,” he was told. Amid the transports with Aeroflot markings at the base sat a half-dozen Mig-25’s, elderly Mach-3 single-seat interceptors. These planes, Chernov was told, would actually carry the bombs. Of all the planes the Soviets had built through the years, which the Russians had inherited, only Mig-25’s had a chance against Zeros. Mig-25’s could use their blazing speed to outrun the Japanese interceptors — dash in, drop their weapons, and dash away before the Zeros could shoot them all down. A Moscow general with an amazing display of chest cabbage held up one finger. “Only one,” he said. “Only one has to get through.”

Another strike launched at the same time would target the Japanese missile-launch facilities on the Tateyama Peninsula. Chernov knew the colonel leading that strike, although not well. The problem with the Mig-25’s, which was the reason for these meetings and conferences, was their limited range. The bombers would have to be fueled from airborne tankers several times to make this flight, one far longer that anything the Mikoyan designers had ever in their wildest fantasies envisioned for their superfast fighter. Like all Soviet fighters, the Mig-25 had been designed to defend the homeland. Getting the tankers into position to refuel the Migs prior to and after their dash was Chernov’s job. He was to escort them and defend them from Zeros. Just listening to the Moscow generals and their staffs explain the mission, annotate charts, assign frequencies and call signs, and talk about the whole thing as if it were possible — indeed, as if it were a routine military operation — Chernov didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The whole thing was ludicrous. At the very start of this exercise in military stupidity, Chernov tried to explain to the staff weenies that the Sukhois didn’t have much of a chance against semi-stealthy Zeros: “Zeros are a technological generation beyond our plane. Two generations ahead of the Mig-25,” he said. None of the brass was interested. He would do as he was told — it had all been decided in Moscow. Now Chernov sat and listened and made notes. He looked out the window and watched the second hand of the clock on the wall sweep around and around, counting off the minutes. Dawn was still several hours away. An hour before man-up time, the briefers were finished. The pilots were told to relax, make a head stop. Chernov wandered over toward the barracks and found an empty bunk.

Stretched out, trying to relax, trying to put it all in perspective, he felt the insanity sweep over him. He felt as if he were drowning. Nuclear weapons. Nuke Tokyo. Mushroom clouds. Millions dead. If any of the Migs got through, that is. And afterward, meeting the tankers, trying to get enough fuel to make it back to a Russian-occupied base … “What if the Japanese retaliate?” someone had asked the Moscow brass, only to be told, “The Japanese don’t have nuclear weapons.”

“We hope,” Yan Chernov said loudly. “President Kalugin is absolutely certain.”

“Bet he said that in a telephone call from his dacha on the Black Sea,” one of the junior pilots said, and his comrades laughed. The Moscow brass frowned, then pretended that they had heard nothing. The men weren’t happy, but they had never heard anyone in uniform suggest Japan might be a nuclear power, so the possibility of thermonuclear retaliation seemed remote. Getting to Japan was the worrisome part. Well, if the Zeros didn’t get them, the usual Russian leadership and efficiency problems would ensure this complex plan ground to a halt well before the planes landed safely back at Irkutsk. Chernov lay in the darkness, trying to relax. Sleep was impossible. Man-up time in less than an hour. His thoughts began to drift. Scenes from his youth growing up on a collective farm flashed through his mind. He had wanted something more, and so had applied himself faithfully and diligently to gain top honors in school. The work paid off. He had been noticed. So what had he gained?

His life had been a great adventure. Truly. The flying, the new and different places, the exhilaration of combat, the thrill of victory — a man would never have gotten any of that back on the collective farm, with that eternal wind always blowing, howling across the plain, scouring away seed, soil, hopes, dreams, everything. If his father and mother could only see how far he had traveled along this road. He was seized with the most powerful longing. Oh, if only he could spend another day with his parents, sitting in their tiny cottage, looking out the door at the plowed fields as his father talked about the earth. All that was over. Gone. In a few hours, he would be dead and none of it would matter.

The submarine bumped once, scraped along the seafloor for a few feet, then settled into the muddy bottom of Sagami Bay and began tilting ever so slowly to port. “Captain,” Esenin said sharply as the list passed five degrees. Even he was holding on. Six degrees … “At twelve degrees, we lift her and try another spot.”

Eight … “We are so close,” Esenin muttered. Ten degrees … barely moving … Then all movement stopped. A sigh of relief swept the control room. “Fifty-two meters,” someone said, reading the depth gauge. Suddenly Saratov realized how tired he was. He had to hang on to the chart table to remain erect. “Here we are, General. Wounded, running out of air, with exhausted batteries, and the entire Japanese NAVY searching for us. I don’t know how much time we have.”

The tense hours had taken their toll on Esenin. He had to summon the energy to speak. “You have gotten us here, Saratov. That is the critical factor. At this place, we can save Russia.”

“Right.” The sourness in Saratov’s tone narrowed Esenin’s eyes. “We leave this spot when and only when I say.” Esenin looked into every man’s face. “I am taking two divers with me. We will exit through the air lock. We will open a container and put one of the weapons onto the sea floor. Then we will come back inside and you will move the boat one mile west along the fault, where we will do it again. When the last weapon is on the bottom, you will take us out of here.”

Esenin glanced at his watch. “When will the weapons detonate?” Saratov asked. “In twelve hours. Planting each weapon will take an hour, plus an hour to move the boat — seven hours total. That will give us five hours to exit the area.”

“We don’t have seven hours,” Saratov told him. “You might have one or two. Three at most.”

“You think they’ll be on us by then?”

“I guarantee it.”

Esenin’s lips compressed into a thin line. “The warheads are armed now, aren’t they?” Pavel Saratov asked. “Do you know that, or are you guessing?”

“The box.” He nodded at the box on Esenin’s chest. “It could only be a trigger.”

“We decided that detonation of the weapons at sea would be preferable to letting them fall into enemy hands. Fortunately for us, that necessity did not arise. Still, it might. If it does, I have faith that Major Polyakov will do what has to be done. He will have custody of the box while I am outside the boat.”

Esenin took off the box and placed it on the chart table. He opened it. “As you can see, there is a keyboard for typing in a code.” He punched in a four-digit number with a forefinger. “There,” he said. “The code is entered. Now the circuitry is armed.”

Saratov stepped forward for a look. “You armed that goddamned thing?”

“It was too dangerous to sail around with the bombs armed. They are armed now.”

Esenin’s hand came up. He had a pistol in it. He jabbed the barrel against Saratov’s chest. “No closer, Captain. You have had your fun at my expense. From here on, this is my show.”

Polyakov and the naval infantry michmen also had their pistols out and pointing. The major grinned at Saratov. “I will guard the box, Captain.”

“You have brought us far, Pavel Saratov,” Esenin said, flashing his Trojan Island grin, “yet we still have far to go. You will let us down if you let anything happen to you.”

“You don’t really give a damn if you live or die, do you, Esenin?”

“Sometimes it is easier that way.”

Saratov got back onto the stool where he had spent the last twelve hours. “You people better get at it. It is just a matter of time before the Japs arrive.”

The dinner hour had passed when Janos Ilin made an evening call on Marshal Stolypin at military headquarters in Moscow. He found the old man in a sour mood. When the door closed and they were alone, the soldier said, “Fool! Incompetent! Bungler!”

“What can I say?”

“This morning he gave the order to launch nuclear strikes against Japan. He sent three planes to bomb Tokyo and three to bomb the Japanese missile facility at Tateyama. And, of course, there is the submarine with four weapons aboard trying to put bombs on the ocean floor outside Tokyo Bay. I argued against it, told him no, no, a thousand times no, and he almost sacked me. Ran me out.”

“Oh, too bad. Too bad/h we heard anything from Admiral Kolchak?”

“Not a word. From all the intercepts of Japanese traffic, it appears Captain Saratov has gotten into Sagami Bay. Against all odds. It’s an amazing feat.”

“What does Kalugin say?”

“He doesn’t believe the Japanese have warheads on missiles that they can use as ICBMS. Refuses to admit the possibility.”

“I was hoping you had an appointment with him in the near future.”

“Umph.”

The old man sat looking out the window. He looked ten years older than he had a month ago. “You have done what you could, Marshal.”

“I should be home in my garden.” Stolypin sighed. “My legacy to Russia — I argued futilely against a suicidal course already decided upon by a dictator. Fifty years of soldiering I did, and he wouldn’t listen.”

“Perhaps it is time for the garden.”

“I just sent an aide over with a letter of resignation effective at midnight tonight. I should go home now and be done with all of this.”

Stolypin looked at his watch. “I have my last staff meeting in a few minutes. Perhaps I should sit in on it, say farewell.”

“How goes it? Truly.”

“The situation is not as bleak as Kalugin believes. We are building an army; we are equipping it, finding food and fuel and transportation. … We could whip the Japanese this winter. We will have half a million men to put against them. With air superiority, we will crush them.”

“Kalugin refuses to wait?”

“He says the UN will give the oil fields away before spring. Maybe he is right. The world has changed so.”

“I must see Kalugin tonight.”

“I tried to explain … Time is on our side. Every day that passes, we get stronger. Six months from now, they will be losing troops wholesale; we’ll be bleeding them mercilessly; the Diet will be arguing about how much money the army costs … Then we could have them!”

The telephone rang. Stolypin sat looking at it, listening to the rings, before he finally extended a hand and picked up the instrument. “Yes.” He listened a bit, then said, “Janos Ilin of the FIS is also here. He would like an audience, too. May I bring him along?”

He listened a bit more, grunted, then hung up. “One of Kalugin’s flunkies. The president wants to see me about the letter.”

“Of resignation?”

“Yes.” Stolypin ran his fingers over the desk, put the telephone exactly where it was supposed to be, and flipped off an invisible mote of dust. “They said you could come, if you wished.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. He’ll probably have me shot for treason and you for being in the same room.”

As they walked into the courtyard, Ilin put a hand lightly on the marshal’s arm and brought him to a stop. “Have you any indication that Kalugin suspects you or me of trying to kill him?”

“None. So far.”

“Kalugin will purge the bureaucracy, the military, and the Chamber of Deputies as soon as the military situation is looking up.”

“I am an old man. I am resigned to my fate. Rest assured, I will say nothing.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you or me. I was thinking of one hundred and fifty million Russians who deserve better than Aleksandr Kalugin.”

With that, Ilin walked on toward the car. The soldier holding the car door saluted the marshal, and he returned it. Stolypin and Ilin seated themselves in the limo and the soldier closed the door behind them. There was a glass between the passengers and the driver of the car. “Can he hear us?” Ilin asked.

“I want to tell Kalugin personally of some critical intelligence reports that I have just received.”

“With me there?”

“You might as well hear it now. Both Japan and the United States know of Kalugin’s determination to use nuclear weapons. The missions he has ordered may well fail.”

“How do they know? A spy? A traitor?”

“The Japanese call him Agent Ju.”

“You know this person’s identity?”

“It is someone in Kalugin’s circle, I think. Someone very close to him.” This was a lie, of course, but Stolypin didn’t know that. Stolypin goggled. “Why, for Christ’s sake?”

“Money, I think,” Janos Ilin told him. “Originally. Now, I do not know. Power? Insanity? I intend to tell Kalugin about this agent, tell him what I know. And tell him, again, that Japan has nuclear weapons.” “A traitor! In times like these!”

“Especially in times like these,” Janos Ilin replied.

The foul, stale air inside the boat was dead, unmoving. All the circulation fans were off to save the batteries and minimize noise. Each man was trapped in a cloud of his own stink. The boat had been lying on the bottom for an hour. Esenin and his two divers had gone out through the air lock twenty minutes ago. During the past hour, several ships had passed near enough to be heard without sonar. Only Saratov and the sonar operator knew more than that, because only those two wore headsets. Saratov had just concluded that there were six ships within audible range when the sonar operator whispered that there were seven. They were going back and forth near the location where the frigate had gone under, probably pulling sailors from the water. Right now Admiral Kolchak lay on the bottom six miles from that position. The number of planes was a more difficult problem because the beat of their props came and went. There had to be several, perhaps as many as four. The ships and airplanes would find the submarine before too long. Although the sub was sitting on the bottom, a MAD would go off the scale if a hunter came close enough. Pavel Saratov sat looking at Major Polyakov, who was seated on the navigator’s stool, facing the captain’s right. Without Esenin around, Polyakov had become lethargic. Saratov thought he had little imagination. He was not stupid, just unimaginative, without ambition or ideas. There are a lot of people in the world like that, Saratov reminded himself, and they seem to do all right. It is certainly not a crime to leave the thinking to others.

Given all of that, the question remained: Why would Polyakov push the button, killing himself and every man on the boat?

“You would kill yourself, would you, Polyakov?”

“I will do what has to be done for my country, Captain. I believe in Russia.”

“And you are the only one who does?”

Polyakov eyed Saratov suspiciously. Apparently he thought this some kind of loyalty test. “Of course not,” he said. “Aleksandr Kalugin loves Russia too.”

“I see.”

“I don’t want to talk about these things.”

“These subjects are uncomfortable.”

“I am a soldier. I obey my superior officers. All of them.”

“Is Esenin a soldier? A real soldier?”

“What else would he be?” Polyakov’s brows knitted. “You’ve met him before in your career, have you?”

“No. The naval infantry is a big outfit. Of course there are officers I do not know.”

“And michmen?”

“Plenty of michmen I don’t know.”

“Where are you from, Polyakov?”

“St. Petersburg, Captain. My father was a shipyard worker.”

It went on like this for several minutes. The major answered the captain’s questions because he was the captain, but his answers revealed no inner doubts. The faces of the sailors standing and sitting in the small room reflected the ordeal they had been through, and the horror of the abyss at which they found themselves. They looked at Polyakov as if he were a monster, which seemed to bother the major not at all. Esenin had chosen well. Just then, the screw noises of a ship became audible. Saratov glanced up at the overhead, as did most of the people in the compartment, including Polyakov. The noise became louder and louder. As the ship thundered directly over the sub, Pavel Saratov removed the Tokarev from his pocket and shot Major Polyakov in the head. The major toppled sideways off the stool and fell onto the deck. The box remained on the chart table. Saratov reached for it with his left hand as he pointed his pistol at the naval infantry michman standing openmouthed facing him, his rifle in his hand. The chief of the boat reached for the michman’s rifle and pistol, took them from him. “This is where the road forks, Chief. Are you with me or not?”

“We’re with you, Captain. All the men.”

“Go disarm the infantrymen forward. Collect all the weapons and bring them in here. And send Michman Martos to me. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

The navigator swabbed the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He was near tears. “Oh, thank you, Captain. I’d rather die than start World War Three.”

“If we don’t have some luck, son, we may do both. Now take the major’s pistol and disarm the infantrymen in the engine room and battery compartment.”

“And if they won’t give me their guns?”

“Shoot them, and be damned quick about it. Now go.”

Saratov hefted the box. It was very light. He used a pocketknife to pry off the back, which was held on with just three screws. The box contained only a battery. No transmitter. It was a dummy. “Captain,” said the sonar michman. “A helo just went into a hover off our port side. He is very close. He must have dipped a sonar pod.”