Commander-in-Chief

69

Russia’s next move on Lithuania took place not on land, but over water. With the sinking of the Maltese-flagged oil-products tanker Granite the previous day, Lithuania’s tiny navy had come out of its harbors and littorals and up to the edge of its maritime borders, a show of force against any potential Russian incursion into its territory.

This meant the Lithuanians did exactly what the Russians wanted them to do. Vilnius did not understand that the sinking of the Granite was conducted simply to draw out as many Lithuanian naval vessels as possible into international waters so they could be destroyed without Russian submarines risking detection inside Lithuanian waters.

The first boat to fall prey to a Russian Varshavyanka — their name for the advanced version of the NATO designated Kilo-class sub — was the Kuršis, a Hunt-class mine-countermeasures boat the Lithuanians had purchased from the United Kingdom five years earlier. At 196 feet in length, it was an impressive-looking vessel, and it did have an older-generation but functioning sonar for detecting submarines, but other than mini-guns and machine guns on its deck, it had no real firepower, and nothing at all on board to combat an undersea threat.

But the Kuršis was sent out to show the Russians that Lithuania meant business, and in so doing it was promptly torpedoed just three hours after beginning its patrol southwest of Lithuania.

At nearly the same time the Kuršis was sunk, the Lithuanian ship Žemaitis was targeted by the other Russian Kilo. Unlike the Kuršis, the Flying Fish — class fast patrol boat the Lithuanians had purchased from Denmark did have significant antisubmarine capabilities, including modern sonar and advanced MU90 torpedoes. But the crew of the Žemaitis, distracted by the attack on the Kuršis, positioned itself to attack the sub that killed their countrymen, and this proved to be a fatal error.

The Žemaitis detected the Varshavyanka that destroyed the Lithuanian minesweeper, and it focused its attention on the identified contact, preparing to launch a torpedo over the side down the heading of the launch. But before the captain could give the order to fire, his sonar technician screamed a warning that two new torpedo contacts had been detected going active, and they were heading on a bearing that indicated they had been fired from out in international waters.

In the direction of the Žemaitis itself.

The Žemaitis had some torpedo countermeasures on board, and the captain had been trained to create large and confusing wake patterns to bewilder the Russian Type 53s’ wake-homing sensors, but the torpedoes’ electronic brains sorted out the attempt at misdirection. The first of the two torpedoes raced under the hull of the 175-foot-long fast patrol boat, and the ensuing explosion ripped the Žemaitis in two, and the second torpedo detonated under the fresh wreckage, ensuring that not a soul survived.

By five a.m., four Lithuanian naval vessels — two old minesweepers, the Flying Fish — class fast patrol boat, and a Storm-class fast patrol boat — were all resting on the sandy bottom of the Baltic Sea. The two advanced Varshavyankas had fired eight torpedoes between them, killed eighty-four men, and left another fifty-seven to be rescued, many with grave injuries.

And while all this took place in the Baltic just to the northwest of Kaliningrad, due west of the oblast, far out in international waters, Russia’s secret weapon waited two hundred twenty feet below the surface. The Severodvinsk-class submarine Kazan, having just arrived on station from the Northern Fleet, had been ordered to sit to the side of the action on the first day of combat so that it could save itself for the bigger fish.

The sonar technicians on board the Kazan tracked and classed dozens of active contacts, but they were concerned with only a few of them. To the south of their position, the Navy of Poland lingered not far from its territorial waters. Two larger Oliver Hazard Perry — class frigates and a Kaszub-class corvette were all significant threats to Russia’s Baltic Fleet, but so far they had not made any aggressive movements toward Kaliningrad, so the Kazan waited silently and patiently.

Poland also had a submarine that could potentially pose a danger, but the GRU, Russian military intelligence, had recent pictures of it entering dry dock for a month of repairs.

The captain of the Kazan had come all this way for a fight, and he was looking forward to the challenges ahead, but he did not find himself disappointed at all that he had been held in reserve while the older Varshavyankas of the Baltic Fleet earned the glory today in the largest naval battle in decades.

No, not at all. Because he knew the real challenge would come in the form of the American surface Navy, as well as American antisubmarine aircraft in the sky above. He was saving himself for the Poles and the Americans, and if he did his job correctly, no one would know he was here until it was too late for either nation to do anything to stop him.

The Varshavyankas of the Baltic Fleet would die in this war, he had no doubt in his mind. But he had every intention of surviving this and bringing his Kazan to port in Kaliningrad with a heroes’ welcome as soon as the West sued for peace.

Jack Ryan, Jr., passed through Belgian immigration after getting his passport stamped, then walked by the luggage carousels without stopping. He’d only brought a roll-aboard and a backpack along for the trip, so he shaved twenty minutes off his arrival.

He was relieved to make it through customs without getting his bag searched, although it was loaded with only a few surveillance devices, like FLIR cameras, NVGs, and high-end binoculars. He figured any real check of his belongings would have pegged him as some sort of a nut, but nothing he had with him was in any way illegal, so he’d not been terribly worried. Still, he wanted to get started with his surveillance here, so he was glad to make it through without delay.

Outside the arrivals hall, Jack smiled the biggest smile he’d displayed in two weeks. Dom and Ding were waiting for him, both standing next to a new black Audi Q3 SUV. Jack hadn’t seen either man in six weeks, so there was an energetic round of embraces and back slaps, then all the men loaded up into the Audi with Chavez behind the wheel, and they left the airport.

“When did you guys arrive?” Jack asked.

Caruso said, “Just long enough ago to pick up the wheels and unload at the safe house. We had some excitement getting out of Lithuania.”

“How bad was it?” Jack asked.

Ding replied, “Let’s put it this way. The G550 is grounded here till six bullet holes in the horizontal stabilizer get patched.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Russian Spetsnaz attacked the airport in Vilnius just as we were getting out of there.”

Again, Jack felt the pain of not being with his mates when they needed him. It was similar to how he was feeling about Ysabel now. She was less than 120 miles away from him in a hospital, but he had no plans to go see her until this entire affair was over.

She wasn’t safe around him, after all.

Jack recovered and said, “Well, this op will probably be a little boring to you guys, considering what you just went through. We’re going to follow a smack addict around in the hopes he meets with some assholes I ran into last week in Luxembourg.”

Chavez said, “We don’t mind a little quiet surveillance. Sherman rented us a place just a few blocks south of where Salvatore is staying at the Stanhope Hotel. We just have eyes on the front of the building from our poz, but of course Gavin still has us tied in to the hotel’s security camera. We’ve been monitoring him on a laptop while waiting for you to land, and we’re recording everything for playback, just in case something is missed.”

“What’s he up to today?”

“He hasn’t left his room.”

Jack said, “Yeah, he was out late last night. I watched him on the plane for a while. Drinks in the lobby bar, then he went out the front door around ten. Don’t know what time he got back to the room.”

“Three a.m.,” Chavez said. “But he wasn’t operational last night.”

“How do you know that?”

“The bastard staggered in drunk. He was just boozing it up in a bar somewhere. Whatever he’s doing over here, apparently it involves him waiting around a lot. If he’s here to take pictures of some celeb, my guess is that celeb isn’t here yet. And if there is some bigger reason for his visit, he’s just in a holding pattern. Waiting on instructions, maybe.”

Once they were all in the third-floor walk-up apartment they were using for a safe house, the three men sat around a table. Chavez said, “We want to know what you’ve been up to, and we have some stories to tell you about what happened in the Baltic, but my read of this op gives me the impression we don’t really know what our timeline is here. For that reason we need to save the chitchat and get down to work.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. Salvatore has reserved his room at the hotel for three more days, but whatever he’s up to could happen anytime. We need to act before he goes operational. I have no idea when that will be, but I want to be able to track him. I have a GPS tracker and a RAT to put on his phone so we can listen in to his calls and read his texts.”

Chavez asked, “You know how you want to get that on him?”

“I thought about a direct approach. Confronting him about Rome, slipping the RAT and the GPS beacon on him while I did it. The only problem is—”

Chavez finished the sentence. “That your presence here might scare him enough to get him to blow off his mission. In which case we’d lose the chance to find out what he’s up to.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “I might be able to strong-arm him into giving me the intelligence I need, but there’s a chance he won’t talk, or he’ll just lie.”

Caruso said, “I have an idea, but we’ll have to wait for his next drink binge.”

Chavez replied, “We’ll use today to get set up. Tell us your plan.”

Salvatore drained the last of his Stella Artois into his mouth and wiped foam from his lips; then he picked up his backpack off the floor and slung it onto his shoulder. He slid off the barstool and headed out the door of the little bistro.

He leaned against a signpost on the curb, looking at the large selections of brasseries, wine bars, beer pubs, Italian eateries, and even hamburger joints in view, trying to decide where to go next. It was just eleven p.m., so the Italian thought he’d hit one more bar, or perhaps two, here in the European Quarter of Brussels before returning to his room.

He realized he needed to relieve himself, so he turned into the next bar he saw, a rustic place on a pedestrian-only strip. He stepped inside, saw a few old men at the bar and a bunch of empty tables, and he passed them all, following a sign directing him downstairs to the men’s room.

He took a narrow masonry staircase down to the basement, followed a turn around stacked kegs of beer, and pushed open the accordion door to the tiny men’s room. He stepped up to the one dirty toilet, unzipped his fly, and closed his eyes.

He didn’t hear any noise until the accordion door opened behind him. The restroom was large enough for only one person, so he started to tell the other man to fuck off, but before he could even see who was behind him the light flipped off and he was shoved past the toilet and up against the wall.

He felt the knife against his lower back.

The man whispered angrily into his ear, but it was something in a foreign tongue he did not understand. Salvatore said, “English? English?” and the man quickly barked at him again.

“Your money! Give me your money!” the man said.

Salvatore couldn’t believe he was being mugged at knifepoint. He felt his wallet pulled from his pants, his pack ripped from his back, and he heard the sound of someone rifling through his belongings. He kept his eyes slammed shut, he didn’t say a word, and he fought the urge to piss down the wall he was pinned against.

And then, as quickly as the man had appeared, he was gone. First Salvatore felt the pressure of the man holding him against the wall removed, and then his wallet was tossed in the basin of the sink on his right. Last, the knife was pulled away from his back. Before Salvatore could even think about turning around to look, he heard the noise of his backpack being dropped to the ground in the basement outside the bathroom.

A minute later he left the bar with his backpack over his shoulder. He’d not complained to the manager and he surely hadn’t reported the robbery. He was here in town for reasons that precluded his filing police reports.

Twenty minutes later, when he was sitting back in his hotel room, he checked his wallet and saw all his money was indeed gone. But his credit cards were there, as well as his Italian driver’s license. He opened his backpack and saw that he’d been relieved of a few euros he’d kept in an outer pocket, but his cameras were still there, as was his mobile. This would have comforted most people, but the Italian didn’t care as much about either of these things as he did the other item in his bag. Frantically his hand fought his way to the bottom of his pack, and he pulled out his bag of smack. He breathed his first sigh of relief since the mugging when he saw his heroin had not been touched.

Dom Caruso ran a thirty-minute surveillance-detection route after his operation to plant the tracker on Salvatore’s backpack and the surveillance software on his mobile phone. His route took him past both Chavez and Ryan, who each sat alone in outdoor late-night cafés drinking beer.

Once the team was convinced Dom was in the clear, they all returned to their safe house on Rue du Commerce.

Dom said, “It’s not the most understated way to plant a bug on someone, but it will work. I had him convinced I was just a street criminal who had followed him into the john.”

Chavez said, “You made a good call and did a good job.”

“Thanks,” Dom said, then held up a wad of euros. “And I scored sixty-five euros. Do we need to tell Gerry, or can I order us a couple of pizzas for dinner tomorrow?”

It was a joke, at which Chavez laughed, but Jack was already watching Salvatore’s position on his laptop. “He’s back in his room at the Stanhope.” He then checked the app on his phone that informed him of any use of the man’s mobile. “The RAT did its job. We’ve got visibility on both audio and text messaging, but he hasn’t used either yet.”

“What about photos, e-mails, that sort of stuff?” Chavez asked.

Jack looked at all the apps on Salvatore’s phone, visible now on Jack’s laptop. “There’s not a single picture on his phone from Brussels. But he’s got cameras with him, so that doesn’t mean he’s not up here doing some sort of recon. And he doesn’t even have an e-mail app on this thing. Either he’s one hell of a Luddite—”

Dom said, “Or he’s practicing operational security.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “He didn’t impress me with his tradecraft at all in Rome, but this might be a different kind of op. We’ll just have to keep watching him to see what he gets himself into.”