Black Sea Affair

CHAPTER 19

The Alexander Popovich

The Black Sea

Captain Batsakov stepped out from the superstructure in the rear of Alexander Popovich onto the main deck of his ship. He saw Masha Katovich, in white shorts, a light green sweater, and wearing sunglasses. She stood near the starboard gunwale about one hundred yards away with her arms crossed, watching those children of hers play a stupid game of volleyball with Aleksey.

He could shoot her from here, but he would have twelve little talking witnesses. And he could not toss the little rats overboard with her, not with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine waiting for them.

Batsakov needed to think this through.

He looked at his watch. It was just past two o'clock.

He would distract the little rats by throwing them a big ice cream party tonight. Perhaps Aleksey could dress as a clown or something. They would be told that Masha was sick, that she would join them back at the orphanage.

He would instruct the ship's chef to fill their ice cream with powder from sleeping pills taken from sick bay. Because the powder had no taste, they would not know they were being drugged. They would be told that if they finished the first bowl, the second bowl would have chocolate on top!

The first bowl would make them drowsy. The second would knock them out like sleeping dogs.

They should be completely groggy in the morning from their ice-cream induced hangovers. So groggy, hopefully, that no one would mention the absence of Masha Katovich.

His only worry was the little rat they called Dima. The hideous-looking scarback seemed to cling to her like she was his mother or something.

He would shoot Katovich and toss her overboard. And then, he would have Aleksey bring Dima to the back of the ship where no one could see. They would toss the little rat overboard too, and then tell the others that Dima was seasick and Masha was taking care of him.

Yes, that would most certainly work, especially since Masha and Dima were always together. Then they would report this tragedy to the authorities. Poor Dima, who was at play on the deck, was running, got too close to the edge, and fell into the sea. Masha, a wonderful and heroic woman who would give her life for her children, dived into the sea after him. They circled the area looking for survivors, but found no one.

Yes, that would be the perfect alibi. That would work.

Now was the time.

"Miss Katovich!"

She looked up at him and waved.

He motioned her toward him. "Come over here! I need to see you for a moment."

She started walking toward him. Something was odd about her walk. She seemed to be scratching her back.

She approached to within a few feet of him. "I was watching the children play the American game called volleyball."

"Yes, I can see." He nodded toward Akelsey, who still had the rats occupied. "Listen, Masha, something important has come up."

"Dah?" She kept scratching her back.

"We have received a radio transmission from Sebastopol about the children."

"About the children?"

"Dah. Walk with me, please." He led her back onto the small deck-way surrounding the superstructure in the rear of the ship. They kept walking. They were almost near the stern now.

Batsakov looked around.

They were out of sight of anyone else on board.

He reached inside his coat and felt for the pistol.

The USS Honolulu The Black Sea

Torpedo tubes one and four are flooded, sir, " the OOD said. "Awaiting your orders!"

"Range?"

"Range to target – twelve hundred yards, sir."

"Easy, " Pete said. "Just a little closer."

"Are you going to fire both torps, Captain?" the XO asked.

"One torpedo should do the job, don't you think, XO?"

"On a Russian freighter, I should think so, Skipper."

"I say we save torp four." He glanced at Frank. "We may need it."

Frank did not respond for a couple of seconds. "You got that right, Skipper."

"Range to target?"

"Range now eleven hundred yards."

Pete raised his finger. "On my mark, prepare to fire torpedo one."

"Range now one thousand yards."

"Fire torp one!"

"Fire torp one!"

A powerful swoosh rocked the Honolulu.

"Torp's in the water!"

Tension filled the control room. There was no turning back now.

"Range to target?"

"Torpedo is at eight hundred yards and closing, Captain."

Pete checked his watch.

"Now seven hundred yards."

"Six hundred yards to target and still closing."

"Time to impact?"

"Time to impact fifty seconds, Captain. Now five hundred yards."

Pete checked his watch again.

"Range four hundred yards. Time to impact forty seconds."

The Alexander Popovich The Black Sea

The wind whipped hard around the stern of the ship. A sudden surge of cool air in her face and hair emboldened her to the task at hand.

She knew this was the time.

It was either him or her.

She held her hand in place behind her back to avoid revealing the knife until the last second.

"Something wrong with your back, Miss Katovich?"

"I think I pulled a muscle, that is all. What did you want to see me about?"

"It is about the children." He pulled a black pistol from his jacket. "I am sorry to have to do this to such a beautiful woman."

"Emergency! Emergency!" A voice boomed over the ship's loudspeakers. "Torpedo in the water! Torpedo in the water! Brace for impact!"

The captain looked up. She dived at his midsection, lunging at him with the knife. A deafening explosion rocked the ship, spraying columns of seawater high into the air. The explosion knocked Masha off her feet. The ship rolled and listed in the water.

Masha pushed herself up and saw the captain writhing on the back deck, just in front of the Russian flag that flew off the stern. The knife was plunged deep into his midsection just below his sternum. Blood gushed around the knife. The captain moaned. "My ship! Oh, my ship!"

The gun had fallen on the deck near his outstretched hand. Adrenaline shot Masha's hand toward the gun. When she grabbed it, the thought hit her.

Dima!

The USS Honolulu The Black Sea

Contact! Contact! We got 'em, Captain!" Cheers erupted in the Honolulu's control room. Officers and enlisted men high-fived each other.

"Quiet! Quiet in the conn!" Pete held his palms down. His men responded to his call for silence. "I understand your exuberance, gentlemen, but we've still got work to do."

"Conn. Sonar."

"Go ahead, Sonar!"

"Captain, we're picking up sounds of explosions coming through the water."

"Any other contacts in the area?"

"That's a negative, Captain. Not yet, anyway!"

"Notify me when we make first sonar contact." Pete looked at his OOD. "Lieutenant McCaffity. Up scope."

"Up scope, aye, sir." McCaffity pushed the button to raise the Type 2 attack periscope. A few seconds later, Pete brought his eyes to the scope again. The powerful blast of the Mark 48 torpedo had broken the freighter into two sections. The torp had exploded under the keel, just as it was designed to do, essentially breaking the ship's back.

Thick black smoke billowed from the forward section, which was listing badly, and had floated about one hundred yards from the aft section. As bad as it was listing, the bow section might have another five minutes before slipping under the surface.

Pete hit the magnification button. This brought the whole wreckage into a close-up view.

The back section was also floating, but listing. Pete could see people scrambling around on the deck of the back section. They looked like… Children?

No. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Pete squinted and looked again. Whoever he saw running on the deck of the sinking freighter was gone.

It was time to get out of here.

"Down scope."

"Down scope, aye, Captain."

"Five degrees down bubble, make depth one-five-zero feet."

The submarine dropped another ninety feet in the water from a depth of sixty feet to a depth of one hundred fifty feet.

"Float VLF buoy, " Pete said. "I want to monitor any low frequency radio waves for a while."

The submarine released its very low frequency buoy, designed to float to the surface to monitor for radio signals emanating from sources on the surface.

"Chief of the Boat, how far to our rendezvous point with the Volga River?"

"Approximately two hundred miles, south-southeast, Captain."

"Set course for one-seven-zero degrees. All ahead one-half. Let's get out of here."

The Alexander Popovich The Black Sea

We need the captain! We must find the captain!" the helmsman shouted in a panic.

"I am in charge on the bridge!" First Officer Joseph Radin snapped. "The captain may be dead! We have no time. Get our radio up and running or we will all go down and never be found."

"I have a connection, Mr. Radin!" the communications officer announced. "We have a broadcast frequency!"

"Give me that microphone!" Radin took the microphone in hand. "Mayday! Mayday! This is the Russian freighter Alexander Popovich. We have been struck by torpedo! Location: Black Sea. Ninety miles west of Sevastopol. We have children on board. We are sinking!

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the Alexander Popovich. We have children on board and we are sinking!"

"Mr. Radin!" the helmsman screamed. "We must leave now! We are sinking!"

Masha pulled herself up off the deck, trying to keep her balance. The ship was tilting to the left, forcing her to toss the gun back down to the deck and hang onto a rope that was strung between the walkway. She grasped the rope tightly as she walked back around the deck toward the ship's midsection.

The smoke and flames resembled the special effects in an American science fiction movie. The bow section of the ship had broken off and was standing on its end in the sea, perhaps a hundred yards away from the rest of the ship.

Masha froze in her tracks, paralyzed by the sight of it all. A great creaking sound, then twising metal, then almost a moaning came from the bow section.

The bow section stood up higher in the water, then higher. Now about a hundred feet off the surface of the water, the tip of the bow pointed up toward the sun, like a skyscraper standing erect in the water.

For a few seconds more twisting sounds followed. The sea grew strangely calm, and then the bow of the ship began slipping down into the water, disappearing into a huge whirlpool.

A loud explosion rocked the back of the stern section. Masha looked back. Flames lapped into the sky from behind. The heat intensified. The air was warming, almost like an oven.

The front of the stern section was angling down, slightly at this point, into the water. Waves lapped onto the deck in front of her. Behind her, the flaming rear section was rising into the sky, as if the floating hulk was turning into a flaming seesaw.

Masha had seen clips on the internet of the World Trade Center Towers falling. The sinking bow died in the same surrealistic manner. Now the stern section would soon do the same.

"Masha! Masha!" Sasha's voice screamed across the tilting deck. Crouching to avoid falling from the tilt, she walked across and embraced him. Katya was crying beside him. "We are going to die! We are going to die!"

"No! No! We are not going to die!" Masha looked around for her children. They lay all over the deck. Screaming. Wailing. Crying. "We're sinking! We're sinking!"

"We are going to be okay!" She frantically tried to comfort them all. Some were bruised and bleeding. Many had black smut on their faces.

"Dima! Dima!" She looked around everywhere for him. Please God, let him be alive.

"Masha! Get over here!" Aleksey was behind her, leaning over the side of the ship.

Masha pried the children's arms from around her and ran to the side of the ship. Aleksey was slowly uncoiling the rope from a winch. She looked over the side. A wooden lifeboat was slowly descending down to the water.

"Masha! Look in the box just to your right. There is a rope ladder. Get it out. We need to get the children off the ship!"

"Where are the rest of my children?"

"Some are in the water already! I threw them flotation devices! Hurry!"

Masha ran for the rope ladder, and together they unrolled it over the side.

"You must go now!" Aleksey Anatolyvich screamed at Masha.

She looked over the side of the ship, down into the water at the empty lifeboat. "I am not going without my children!"

"Masha, I will send your children down one by one! I need you at the bottom to help them into the boat! Do what I say, or all of them will die!" She looked down at the boat, then back up at Aleksey. "Okay."

She reached for his hand, then stepped her foot over the side of the sinking ship.

"Now put your foot on the rope."

The rope was wobbly. Shaking, she stepped down one step. Then another. Then another. Finally her foot reached for the side of the life boat. It bobbed in the water. She felt for it, and then dropped into the bottom of the lifeboat.

She looked up. The kids were climbing down the ladder. The first one to reach the bottom was Katya. After Katya came Anatoly. Marina and Ekaterina climbed down. And then, Masha looked up. Sasha was hanging onto the rope ladder about halfway down the side of the ship.

"I am afraid. I no want to go, " he was saying.

"Sasha, come down, we must hurry!"

"Go, Sasha, " Aleksey yelled from above.

"I am afraid." His little legs were trembing. "I want to go back up."

"No, Sasha!" Masha yelled.

"Sasha, go down!" Aleksey yelled even louder.

The boy took his foot, stepped out of the rung, and then reached for the next rung. The rope ladder began wobbling. A look of stricken panic crossed his face. The ladder swayed from the left to the right.

The world shifted to slow motion.

The boy lost control of his grip. He fell through the air.

"Sasha!"

He splashed into the water about twenty feet from the boat.

He did not come up.

The USS Honolulu The Black Sea

Conn. Radio." "Go ahead, Radio."

"Captain we're receiving a VLF radio transmission in Russian. Most likely a distress signal from Alexander Popovich. "

Pete looked at Lieutenant Jamison. "Ready to go to work, Mr. Jamison?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Radio. Conn. Patch that message over the loudspeaker."

"Yes, sir, Captain."

A few seconds later, the sound of someone speaking Russian was broadcast into the sub's control room. Lieutenant Jamison made notes on a legal pad. A curious look crossed his face. The message ended.

"Well, Lieutenant."

Jamison looked at his captain. "Sir, it was a mayday. They say they were hit by a torpedo, they are sinking, and that they have children on board."

"Talk about lowlife Russian propaganda, " the chief of the boat said. "I've heard that the Russians are the world's worst for this sort of thing."

"Lying slimeballs, " came another voice.

A cramping beset Pete's stomach. "Mr. Jamison, read the message verbatim."

"Aye, sir." Jamison held up the legal pad.

"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the Russian freighter Alexander Popovich. We have been struck by torpedo! Location: Black Sea. Ninety miles west of Sevastopol. We have children on board. We are sinking! Mayday! Mayday! This is the Alexander Popovich. We have children on board. We are sinking!"

"That's odd, " Frank Pippen said. "Why would they include a reference to children?"

"To try to get rescuers out here faster, that's why, " the OOD said.

"Or maybe they really did have children on board, " Pete mumbled.

"Sir?" This was the chief of the boat.

"When I viewed the wreckage on the attack scope, I saw people running around on the deck. At first I thought I saw a bunch of kids. I looked again and they were gone. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me."

Dead silence pervaded the control room. Pete felt tormented. To have a chance to survive, which was a slim chance, he needed to get the Honolulu out of the area as fast as possible. Besides, even if children were on board, what could he do?

Should he further jeopardize the lives of his brave men for a hap-penchance rescue of some children who might already be dead?

But these were children.

Deep in his gut, he now knew it was true. Somehow, some way, children wound up on that freighter. What a colossal intelligence failure. But that wasn't the point.

He thought of Hannah and Coley. Suppose his own children had been on board that ship. Who would reach out a hand to save them? But even if he disobeyed orders and surfaced, the chances of a rescue at this point had to be slim-to-none.

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead. Never had the weight of command felt so burdensome. He had not been paralyzed by the decision to volunteer for this mission. He had never had qualms about sacrificing his own life.

He prayed silently. God give me wisdom. Give it to me fast. He remembered a verse from the Bible. Jesus said, "Bring all the little ones to me." Then another verse flashed into his mind. "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."

"Make course three-four-zero degrees. Alert SEAL team. Be on standby for rescue effort. Prepare to surface."