Countdown

CHAPTER 19

Galveston's well-trained crew reacted with drilled efficiency and a complete lack of wasted motion. Rubber masks on hoses dropped from the overhead like the emergency apparatus aboard a 747 losing cabin pressure. The control room crew calmly strapped on the dangling masks and kept to their posts as men with fire extinguishers doused the small electrical fire. The compartment's blowers were still operational, and the air cleared rapidly.

"Mr. Paulson!" Montgomery yelled, his voice muffled somewhat by his mask.

"What's our damage?"

"Nothing too bad, Skipper! Dinged the sail, port side. Fire in the aux comm circuitry, under control. Minor casualties, bumps and bruises…"

"Okay! Sonar! This is the Captain. Can you hear anything yet?"

"Still awfully fuzzy, Captain," Ekhart's voice came back. "We've got echoes off the ice and bottom. Might be fifteen minutes before we get a clear sweep. And, sir…"

"Yes?"

"Captain, I think we've lost one flank array. We're deaf to port."

"Okay. Stay on it. If anyone can hear that bastard through the crap, it's you!"

"Aye, sir."

Think like the enemy! Montgomery told himself. And who was the enemy? A sub driver, like him. A captain first rank, most likely, for one of their biggest and finest vessels, or even an admiral.

No, not an admiral. That clever bastard had dived, turned away from the Mark 48s, then suckered them into the ice, as slippery-slick as sex. The guy had balls… and the maneuver suggested he did this for a living, not as a reward for years of faithful service to the Motherland.

Okay, so he was a working captain, and he knew how to use the ice as cover against torpedo attack. He also knew he would have to find and kill the American attack sub before the attack sub was able to take another shot. The Russian's sonars would be deafened for the moment; he wouldn't know how badly Galveston's ears had been singed, so he'd assume Galveston still had fully operational sonar.

He would turn onto a reciprocal course to the torpedoes, running straight down the track toward Galveston's position. He'd be coming fast, to cover the distance before Gal could recover her hearing, and he would be skimming as close to the ice as he dared just in case she could hear him, making use of the confused echoes still bouncing back and forth between ice and bottom to mask the noise of her engines. He might dump noisemakers too, just to keep things lively.

"Diving Officer!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Make our depth two hundred feet. Helm, come to zero-zero-five. Make our speed dead slow. Just enough to maintain way."

"Two hundred feet, aye, aye, Captain."

"Coming now to zero-zero-five, speed three knots."

Montgomery took his place at the search periscope. "Up scope!"

Where is he?

That question had been weighing on Dobrynin's mind for nearly half an hour now. If the American had continued his approach at five or ten knots, the Typhoon should have met it by now. The echoes in the water were dying away at last, and the sonar officer reported clear water.

But no American sub. The bastard couldn't simply make himself invisible!

"Slow to one third," he said. "Sonar! Anything?"

"No, Comrade Captain. It is possible the American turned away after his torpedoes went active, and left the area."

"Hmm. Possible. But not likely. This American submarine captain, he is very good. He crept up on us like a wolf on a reindeer. I somehow doubt he went to so much trouble simply to loose two torpedoes, then run away again."

But Dobrynin was faced with another decision, and as he made it, he was well aware of Strelbitski's eyes boring into the back of his head from across the attack center. The man had been silent since the attack, and sullen. His arm, dislocated during the momentary turbulence after the explosions, was now resting in a sling, and his face had the pasty look of a corpse.

By now, Moscow knew that the missile had not been launched on time, that Chelyabinsk had not been incinerated. No doubt, the air above the ice was thick with coded radio messages just now, demanding that he acknowledge and explain himself.

Should he assume the American sub had left, surface, and carry out his orders? Or continue the hunt?

"Slow to five knots!" he ordered. "Ahead slow!"

Damn it, the American had to be here somewhere!

Montgomery's face was pressed against the periscope's eyepiece. Scanning forward and up, he could see the light filtering down from the surface through the ice, a white-hazy ripple of light and shadow, growing brighter as Galveston slipped beneath thin-ice leads, darker beneath the pressure ridges and thicker blocks.

There still was no sign of the enemy.

"Captain! Sonar!"

"Captain. Go ahead."

"Sir, I'm getting very faint noises to starboard, on a heading of one-zero-two. Range… hard to make out, but I think it's pretty close. A mile. Maybe a bit more."

"What kind of noises?"

"Hard to pick it out of the background, sir. We're still getting some low-frequency stuff, and the ice has been cracking apart ever since the explosion. But my guess would be something damned big on two screws."

Bearing 102… that was almost abeam of the Galveston. Montgomery walked the periscope around to the right…

And there she was, no more than a blunt-nosed shadow against the brighter ice overhead, but unmistakable. He estimated the range off the reticle markings on the periscope image, using the Typhoon's length of 558 feet as a trigonometric key. The Typhoon was now about eighteen hundred yards to starboard, just over a mile. He'd never have seen her if he hadn't gone deeper to silhouette her against the light.

"Gently now," Montgomery said, keeping the target in his sights. "Helm, come right to a heading of one-seven-five. Dead slow."

"Heading one-seven-five, dead slow, aye, sir."

The minutes dragged as Galveston slowly turned, reversing her northbound course toward one heading almost due south… and sliding gently once again into the Typhoon's baffles. As with combat between fighter planes, the combatant who first spotted the other usually had the advantage. Montgomery was not about to lose it again.

"Mr. Villiers?"

"Tubes one through four are loaded, sir. Mark 48 ADCAP. Outer tube doors are open."

"Are you tracking Mr. Ekhart's target?"

"We're tracking."

"Fire one."

"One away. Running hot and clean, positive guidance."

"Fire two."

"Two away. Positive guidance."

"Fire three."

"Three away." Montgomery saved the fourth torpedo against the unexpected. Running time for the Mark 48s at a range of one mile was just under one minute.

"Torpedoes in the water! Very close! Bearing zero-zero-three, coming in directly astern!"

"Release countermeasure decoys!"

"Decoys away!"

"Come hard left! Full speed now!"

"Coming left."

"Engineering! I want one hundred ten percent! Now!"

"Yes, Captain!"

"Captain! Torpedoes closing! Estimated range four hundred meters…"

"Move, damn you!" he screamed at the helmsman. "Put the helm hard over!

Stand the bastard on his side!"

"I knew you should have fired the missile when you had the chance," Strelbitski said. "I will see to it that-"

"You are at liberty to report me to Moscow," Dobrynin said. The deck was tilting now at an angle of nearly thirty degrees, forcing him to grab a stanchion to support himself. "Assuming we survive the next few minutes."

"Two hundred meters…"

"Release more countermeasures!"

Ekhart heard the increase in the pitch of the fast-pinging active sonar as the lead torp sprinted the last few yards to its target. He whipped off his headset. "Thar she blows!" he called as the rest of the sonar operators pulled off their earphones as well.

The first explosion rumbled through the water, louder than the blast that had rocked them earlier, but not nearly so damaging this far beneath the ice.

Galveston rocked to starboard, shuddered, then tilted back to port.

An instant later, the second torpedo struck home, the detonation thundering through the water close on the heels of the first.

The third torpedo did not detonate. Either it had been seduced by the Typhoon's noisemaker decoys, or the first two explosions had damaged it. No matter. As soon as Ekhart slipped his headset back on, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of water flooding a large, empty space, a rushing, thundering sound, punctuated by startling popping noises.

Homing on her screws, striking the Typhoon in the stern, the first ADCAP must have ruptured the seal around one of her drive shafts, sending water pouring into her engine spaces. As he continued to listen, Ekhart heard a low, eerie groan building to an almost human wail of agony as steel warped under incredible stress, not from depth ― the Typhoon was not nearly deep enough for that ― but from unbalanced loads surpassing engineering tolerances.

He was hearing the sound of the huge sub's back breaking as her after spaces flooded and started dragging her down.

"Captain, this is Sonar," he said. "Two hits. I'm picking up breakup noises."

"Pipe it over the ICS."

He flipped a switch, transmitting the death cries of the giant Russian sub throughout the boat. Ekhart had half expected the crew to break into cheering, but the Galveston remained death-silent. Now he could hear the rustle of air bubbles streaming into the void. The target was changing aspect too as it dropped away into blackness.

"Now hear this" rasped over the ICS speaker. "This is the captain speaking. All I can say, men, is congratulations to each and every one of you on a job very well done. The details of this mission may have to remain secret, but I can tell you that Washin ton had information that our target was a Russian Typhoon that had surfaced in order to launch her nuclear missiles.

Your action prevented that launch, and the country and the world owes you a very large debt.

"Sonarman First Class Ekhart, I want to extend to you a very special job well done. That was good work, picking out the Typhoon's screws from the background garbage. You may have saved the boat, and you certainly contributed to the success of our mission. I'll be writing you up in my after action report, recommending you for special commendation…"

Ekhart did not feel like he deserved commendation. His… talent, his ability to feel out an opponent in the darkness of the ocean, had just been put to the ultimate test, and 150 people had died. True, they'd been trying to kill him and his shipmates at the same time, but it was still not something he could feel proud about.

The sonarman sitting beside him clapped him on the shoulder. "Real number-one job, Rudi."

"Yeah," another said, grinning from ear to ear. "The Old Man usually ain't none too free with his 'well dones." Good work!"

Somehow, though, Ekhart had never felt more distant from his shipmates than he did at that moment. He felt both proud of his skill and ashamed of the fact that he'd just helped kill 150 men, submariners like himself.

He wished that he'd never joined the Navy.

The news that Galveston had torpedoed a Russian PLARB had everyone in the Crisis Management Group keyed to fever pitch. All expected some form of Russian retaliation, either against American submarines in the Barents Sea, or more likely, against the carrier battle force at Bear Station. Oddly, while the Kola bases remained on full alert, no new air strikes, no cruise missile attacks had been launched.

"Since that time," a military aide, a Navy captain, was saying, "there have been five additional incidents in the area. We're still checking on some of them, but it appears that at least four more Russian submarines have been sunk during the last three hours."

"What kind of subs were they?" someone in the audience asked.

"Two were PLARBs. Not Typhoons, but older models. A Yankee II and, we think, a Delta IV. We don't know that they were part of the Krasilnikov ultimatum, but they were heard to be flooding their missile tubes in preparation for launch. The other two were attack subs trying to work their way toward our task force at Bear Station."

The doors at the end of the room opened, and a close-knit cluster of men in suits and in uniforms walked in. "Ladies and gentlemen," Gordon West announced from the head of the pack. "The President of the United States!"

The people at the table stood with a rumble of pushed-back chairs.

"Be seated, please," the President said as he strode to the chair reserved for him. He took his seat as his aides and several military officers, including an Air Force colonel with an ominous briefcase chained to his wrist, took their places along the windows at his back.

My God, he looks old, Magruder thought, shocked. The President appeared to have aged years in just the few days since Magruder had seen him last. His was one job that Magruder would never want. The people on the crisis team, at least, had been managing a few hours of sleep at odd moments throughout the past three days. It didn't look like the President had been sleeping at all.

"Okay," the President said, looking at the faces around him. "I'll make this fast and to the point.

"A few minutes ago, I talked to our ambassador at the UN. This afternoon, gentlemen, in a special emergency meeting, with the Russian representative absent and China abstaining, the Security Council passed UN Resolution 984, calling on both sides of the Russian Civil War once again to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear arsenals. This time, they are authorizing military action to force compliance."

"Good Lord," Heideman said. "This could mean World War Three!"

"We may not have been able to avoid that in any case, Bob. A few moments ago, I spoke with Petrakov."

Viktor Petrakov had been the Russian ambassador to the United States under the Leonov government. Since Washington continued to recognize the Leonov government as the legitimate government in Russia, Petrakov remained America's principal diplomatic link with Russia, even if he was no longer recognized by the people currently in power there.

"Petrakov," the President continued slowly, "tells me that his government is holding their football, the nuclear codes for the Russian ICBM forces.

However, he fears that Krasilnikov's people may have cracked the codes for the missiles on at least a few of their submarines."

"God in heaven," Waring said.

"People, we cannot allow this horror to begin," the President continued.

"We must do everything in our power to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war in Russia. Resolution 984 gives us the legal authority to act. I might add that both the UN Secretary General and Ambassador Petrakov have formally requested our assistance, our intervention, to avoid a nuclear holocaust.

"I am prepared to give it."

There was silence in the room for a long moment after the President spoke. Magruder, finally, broke it. "Mr. President, are you telling us that we're about to enter that war?"

"To secure Krasilnikov's ICBM submarines in the Kola Peninsula, yes. It will be a limited incursion, and for the short term only. Why, Admiral? Why the long face?"

"I am, Mr. President, something of a student of history. I was just thinking of the last time we invaded Russia."

The President shook his head. "I don't think I understand, Admiral.

When have we ever invaded Russia? Throughout the Cold War we-"

"This was from late in 1918, Mr. President, until 1920. Right after World War I. An Allied force landed in Murmansk and at several ports in the White Sea, ostensibly to look after Western interests, in fact to lend military support to the Whites in their struggle against the Bolsheviks. The expeditionary force included British, French, even Serbian troops, but nearly half of them were Americans, straight from the trenches in France. We also had some troops in the Far East of Russia, trying to keep the Trans-Siberian Railroad out of Japanese hands."

"I suspect you and I read different history books when we were in school," the President said, but he disarmed the words with his famous grin.

"What happened?"

"They fought through a winter when six feet of snow fell on Arkhangelsk.

Most of the deaths were from frostbite or disease, but there were combat casualties as well, American troops fighting the Red Army in the heart of the Kola Peninsula. Squabbles among the Allies and a change of heart in Washington brought the rest of them home after two years."

"So what are you saying, Admiral? Are you recommending that we stay out of Russia?"

"I'm saying, Mr. President, that we'd better be damned sure about what we're getting into over there, that we'd better be crystal clear on what we're doing and why. Otherwise, sir, we'll find ourselves neck-deep in quicksand."

"I appreciate your concern, Admiral. But I assure you that we will have strictly limited goals and objectives. I'm told that the Pentagon has been working for some time on a plan for just such a contingency as this. Now, people, let me touch on some of the salient points of this operation."

As he listened, Magruder had to concede that this was not intended as a long-term mission. It was more of a raid in force, with no plans for occupation, or even for cooperation with Leonov's forces.

The only problem lay in the certain knowledge that it was going to be a hell of a lot easier getting into Russia's civil war than it would be getting out.

"Come."

Tombstone opened the door, stepped past the Marine sentry outside, and entered Admiral Tarrant's office. Tarrant had transferred to the Jefferson earlier that afternoon, at least for the time being. Shiloh was better for managing a sea battle, but the Jefferson offered better facilities for planning bigger ops, especially those involving the carrier herself.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

Captain Brandt was on a sofa in the corner of the room, but he said nothing.

"Yes, CAG. Shut the door and drag up a chair. Sorry to haul you up here so late. Drink?"

There was a crystal decanter of scotch on the Captain's desk, and Tombstone's eyebrows rose when he saw it. The Jefferson, like all Navy ships, was dry, and he knew Brandt didn't drink. Tarrant must have brought his own stock. "No, sir. Thank you."

"How's the wing holding up?"

"All right, sir. Tired, but we're keeping the CAPs aloft. Funny.

There's not been much reaction out of the Russians since we sunk their sub.

We've had two of their attack aircraft make runs at our perimeter, but those appeared to be probes sent in to test us rather than serious assaults. We turned one back and downed the other. I was expecting all hell to break loose."

In silent reply, Tarrant handed a message across the desk to Tombstone, then refilled his glass from the decanter.

It was a long one, signed by Admiral Brandon Scott himself, explaining in detail the parameters of a massive amphibious operation code-named White Storm. A U.S. amphibious task force, II MEF, was already en route to Bear Station and would be arriving sometime very early in the morning.

Scarcely believing what he was reading, Tombstone scanned rapidly through the message.

"We're… invading Russia, sir?"

"We are, and I quote, 'to secure certain key Russian naval facilities in order to prevent deployment of enemy PLARB forces." The sub bases, Stoney.

They want us to grab the sub bases at Polyamyy."

"Good Lord. How are we going to pull that off?"

Tarrant sipped at his drink, put his head back, and closed his eyes with a sigh. "God damned if I know, CAG. But you can start with this." Reaching out with one hand, he slid a stack of paper across the desk toward Tombstone.

The document was massive, inches thick and weighing several pounds. The cover page had the operational name, White Storm, and was marked top secret.

"The Pentagon has been working on this one ever since Leonov got kicked out of Moscow," Tarrant said. "It assumes we have to intervene in the Kola to stop a Russian ICBM launch by their submarine forces. They're calling it a UN peacekeeping operation. Hell, maybe they don't expect the Russians to put up much of a fight." He drained his glass and brought it back to the desktop with a sharp crack. "But fight or no fight, it's our baby. I called you here to tell you to get cracking. White Storm calls for a full Alpha Strike against all known shore positions, SAM batteries, radar sites, defensive installations, and port facilities. We're going to want to pay particular attention to the approaches to the submarine facilities on the Kola Inlet.

See my Intelligence staff for whatever maps and satellite photos you need."

"Yes, sir."

"We don't have much time. It's Sunday night now. Washington wants to be putting the Marines ashore by Tuesday morning. That's not much time to pull together an operation this complex."

"We've done it on short notice before, Admiral. We'll manage. How about UNREP? The other day we kind of went through a lot of stuff. Like AIM-54s."

"Already taken care of, CAG," Brandt said from the sofa. "An ammunition ship, the Santa Barbara, will be joining us tomorrow. She should have most of the munitions we need."

Tombstone turned back to Tarrant. "I'm afraid to ask when you'll need my op plan."

"Sorry, Stoney. Tomorrow morning, first thing."

He groaned. It would take him that long just to go through the operational orders. "Admiral, I haven't slept more than five hours in the past-"

"Save it. One thing, though. It might be an idea to lighten up on your CAP schedule. Let your people get some more rest, so that they'll be fresh."

"Or if not fresh, at least able to find their way to their airplane.

Okay, Admiral. I'll get right on it."

"Thanks, Stoney. I knew I could count on you. That's all."

Tombstone started to leave. "Stoney?" Tarrant said. "One thing more.

Morale…"

"Yes, sir?"

"How is it? I mean, after…"

Tombstone nodded, understanding. "Word about Pellet seems to have spread through the boat, Admiral. All my people know about it. They're… subdued, I guess. I can't say that it's affected their morale that badly. At least, not yet."

But how would it hit them after they had some time to think about it?

That afternoon, Pellet's body had been found in his bunking compartment by his shipmates. He'd used a length Of nylon rope to hang himself from a lighting fixture.

At least, it was assumed to have been suicide. There were signs of a struggle, blankets rooted up on the bunks, a locker knocked over. Possibly, Pellet had been murdered… but surely a murderer would have at least straightened up the furniture afterward. More likely, Pellet had done the damage himself during his death struggles. His death clearly had not been an instantaneous snapping of the neck, but strangulation. Apparently, it had taken him a while to die, and he might have changed his mind and tried to save himself.

"His death will be investigated by the CID, naturally," Tarrant said.

"Along with the Dickinson incident. That's bad enough, of course. But I'm worried about how the crew will take his death. Especially now."

"They'll do what they have to, Admiral. They'll come through. Like they always do."

He turned then and left the room.