Blackmail

7 VLADIVOSTOK SEVEROMORSK

Vladivostok, with jagged snow-capped mountains rising in the background, is the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean. Off-limits to foreigners for thirty-five years during the Soviet era, the city is often envisioned by Westerners as an ice-coated military outpost in the Russian Far East. The reality is contrary, with harbor cranes rising skyward along the shores, titanic merchant vessels anchored in the emerald-blue water, and sleek white yachts rocking gently at their moorings. Vladivostok, which translates to “Ruler of the East,” is also home to the Russian Pacific Fleet.

This morning, with the green knolls to the west shrouded in a light morning mist seeping down toward the coast, Admiral Pavel Klokov, commander of the Pacific Fleet, was seated at the head of a conference table on the second floor of Pacific Command headquarters, flanked by members of his staff as they delivered the morning briefing. The only noteworthy news, Klokov thought, was that the Truman carrier strike group was departing the Sea of Oman and headed east, ostensibly to replace the Roosevelt strike group, which was headed to the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for repairs.

On the matter of repairs, K-295 Samara, the newest Akula II in the Pacific Fleet, had just completed its sea trials after a midlife overhaul and modernization. Samara, along with seventeen other guided missile and attack submarines in the Russian Pacific Fleet, was fully operational. Although the United States had shifted the bulk of its Atlantic Fleet submarines to the Pacific after the devastating losses during its war with China, there were only fifteen operational American submarines in the Pacific. Russian submarines outnumbered the Americans’.

Klokov’s morning briefing was interrupted by his Operations Officer, entering the conference room with a message clipboard. Klokov read the message. The Pacific Fleet warships were being sortied to sea. However, the destination coordinates were unusual. What would the Pacific Fleet’s task be, so far from home?

It was still dark along the shore of the Murmansk Fjord when Admiral Leonid Shimko entered the headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet. Awakened by a phone call from the duty officer an hour ago, Shimko was informed that a rare Priority One message had been received. A car had been dispatched to his residence, and during the short drive to his headquarters, Admiral Shimko mentally reviewed the status of Russia’s most formidable fleet. Scattered among a half-dozen bases on the Kola Peninsula were twenty-five submarines, numerous surface ship combatants, and Russia’s only aircraft carrier.

The aircraft carrier Admiral Flota Sovetskovo Soyuza Kuznetsov, commonly referred to as Admiral Kuznetsov, was the flagship of the Russian Navy. Although described as an aircraft carrier by the West, the Russian classification of heavy aircraft — carrying missile cruiser was wordier but more accurate. Carrying Su-33 and MiG-29K air-superiority fighters and Ka-27 helicopters for anti-submarine warfare, Kuznetsov was also capable of offensive operations on its own, carrying a dozen P-700 Granit Shipwreck missiles, 192 surface-to-air missiles, and sixty RBU-12000 rockets with various payloads for anti-submarine warfare.

When Admiral Shimko arrived at his office, the lights were already on and coffee was brewing in the Admiral’s mess. Not long after he took his seat, a steaming cup was delivered to his desk, along with the message he’d come in early to read. He read the directive as he sipped his coffee, then put the cup down. Every Northern Fleet warship was being sortied to sea. Although the destination wasn’t surprising, the application of so much force was.

Shimko lifted the message up, reading another Priority One message, this one directed to the Pacific Fleet, copy to Admiral Shimko. Russia’s two most powerful fleets were setting sail.