Flame Out

CHAPTER 10

It was an opulent room, with wood paneling and a thick carpet, heavy brass lamps gleaming with polish, masterpieces hanging on each wall. The inner sanctum of the Kremlin was a place of power, a sharp contrast to the dirty streets and impoverished, hungry people beyond the ancient stone walls.

General Vladimir Nikolaivich Vorobyev wasn’t listening to the GRU colonel who was finishing the summary of the situation in Scandinavia and the Norwegian Sea. He had seen the report before the meeting convened. Vorobyev was concerned now not with information but with analysis … a quick judgment of how his colleagues might react to the latest news. The coalition of military, KGB, and hard-line party men who had asserted control over the Soviet Union in the wake of the assassination in Oslo was fragile at best. Most of the ten men in the lavish conference room hated most of the others … and each one had his own agenda, his own plans for how to isolate the others and consolidate power.

That was neither unusual nor alarming. It was rivalries and hatreds that supplied the checks and balances that had kept the system running for many long years. He knew how they felt about each other, about him. Everything was factored into his plans.

Let them hate me, so long as they fear me. He remembered that the saying was reputed to have been a favorite phrase of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Inwardly Vorobyev smiled. What would his good Communist ministers think if they knew he was comparing himself to a Caesar?

“Again and again we were assured that the Americans would not become involved!” That was Ubarov, the newly “elected” President, a stolid, unimaginative man who looked and sounded like Khrushchev but had more of the personality of a Chemenko, a compliant mouthpiece who would do as he was told. Ubarov was being surprisingly vocal today. Perhaps he feared the West more than he feared Vorobyev. Or perhaps one of the other power brokers in the room had primed him beforehand.

That was a mistake Comrade President Vasily Fyodorovich Ubarov would make only once.

The GRU man looked unhappy and glanced toward Vorobyev, but the general merely leaned back in his seat and watched the others thoughtfully.

“If the military had played its part properly, they would not have become involved.” Aleksandr Dmitrivich Doctorov favored Vorobyev with an oily smile. He was the head of the KGB and thus the closest thing to an ally the general had in this room. The KGB had regained much of the power that had been stripped away from the organization in the wake of the failed coup against Gorbachev by the “Gang of Eight,” and Doctorov wielded considerable power. His role in the elimination of Ubarov’s late unlamented predecessor had been crucial, but the army and the KGB still needed each other while the new regime was consolidating its power base. Still, old rivalries ran deep, and the alliance would last no longer than absolutely necessary. “Perhaps we should be concerned with the judgment of our good Admiral Khenkin?”

Vorobyev toyed for a moment with the idea of following Doctorov’s lead and making Red Banner Northern Fleet’s commander in chief a convenient scapegoat. But the navy was still too important to Operation Rurik’s Hammer to risk the turmoil Khenkin’s disgrace would cause. They needed Khenkin to make the plan work.

But of course if Vorobyev backed Khenkin now and there were more failures, Doctorov would have the general neatly boxed in. That was an accepted part of the game of politics in the Kremlin, and Doctorov was a master player. The KGB chief was the sort of man who paid far more attention to his personal position and security than he did to trifling issues of victory and defeat. It was that kind of mentality that had hamstrung the Politburo throughout most of the Cold War and made the reforms of Gorbachev inevitable. But the cures embraced by the reformers had been worse than the disease they were meant to combat, and Vorobyev was willing to tolerate Doctorov as long as the Union could be returned to its old status as a superpower.

“I think the admiral can be considered blameless in this matter,” Vorobyev said smoothly. “This looks more like an accidental escalation. Khenkin’s predictions are rarely wrong, but no one can allow for the tensions of the moment. The Americans fired … but we have no way of knowing if it was premeditated or simply a tactical miscalculation.”

“Surely you are not suggesting we ignore the matter?” Foreign Minister Anton Ivanovich Boltin looked shocked. “Whether the cause was an error or some deliberate Western policy, shots have been fired. The Americans will not ignore that. Not this time.” He paused. “This is not so much a military failure as one of intelligence, though. Surely there were signs that the Americans might be pushed into action.”

Vorobyev studied the Foreign Minister thoughtfully. He had been a reasonably loyal member of the old cabinet, compliant with hard-line policies but apparently close to the President. He was known as a good Party man, but first and foremost as a survivor. Now he seemed to be siding with the military against the KGB, and when a skilled fence-sitter came out clearly on one side or another of a Kremlin power struggle, it was a good indication of where the power lay. There were many lingering resentments between the Party and the KGB. It was hard to forget the days when the KGB had allowed the reformers to consolidate power and outlaw the Party altogether.

“I did not say that we would ignore the situation,” Vorobyev said, carefully ignoring the barbed comment about intelligence failures. He was glad to know the military was still on top in the new power structure, but he didn’t intend to allow rivalries to come out in the open just yet. “Obviously, with tensions as high as they are now there is no question of trying to smooth this matter over with the Americans. Their neutrality would not have lasted much longer in any event. Norway is an old ally of theirs and we were lucky to get as much time as they have given us.”

Boltin nodded thoughtfully. “True enough. In that much, at least, the KGB’s predictions were accurate.” He favored Doctorov with a venomous look, and there were scattered nods around the table from some of the other politicians.

“Yes, we all owe the Committee for State Security a vote of thanks for their masterful analysis of the West’s situation,” Vorobyev interjected quickly before the KGB chief could react to Boltin’s thinly veiled insult. He needed Doctorov’s good will more than the Party’s, at least for now, and they couldn’t afford to waste time or effort in internal squabbles. The new government’s control over the Soviet Union was still tenuous at best, though the mobilization against the “possible spread of Western anarchy” was rapidly allowing the Red Army and the KGB to deploy enough strength to dominate key areas. “We always knew that there were risks involved in Rurik’s Hammer, that there were some elements we would not be able to control. Neither the KGB nor Admiral Khenkin can be held responsible for what the Americans choose to do.”

“But what do we do?” Ubarov demanded. “War with the Americans was never a part of the plan.”

“Not an all-out war, no.” Vorobyev smiled. “It is in no one’s interest for the nuclear missiles to fly. I believe the Americans will feel that as strongly as I do. The important thing now is to hold them at arm’s length while we complete the conquest of Scandinavia. At that point they will be in the unenviable position of choosing between an unacceptable escalation or a stalemate. While we, on the other hand, will be poised to dominate Europe from our new flanking positions.”

“Hold them at arm’s length,” Doctorov mused. “Then you mean to strike at the carrier battle group? No other American force is in a position to intervene.”

“There is one other that must be cleared in order to isolate the battle group,” Vorobyev said. “In fact, a determined strike on this target could well discourage them from further adventures within our exclusion zone.” He smiled. “I am recommending that we introduce Plan North Star immediately. At the same time it would be wise to begin harassing the American ships … perhaps a few of our attack submarines would be well employed in this. After North Star has been resolved we will evaluate the situation and decide what else needs to be done.”

He saw heads nodding across the table, and his smile broadened. They had a tiger by the tail in Scandinavia. Rurik’s Hammer had to succeed if the Soviet Union was to regain power in Europe. This time it would be the Germans and the British who would have to come begging to Moscow for the very right to survive! Every one of those men knew that there was no going back now.

And as long as Rurik’s Hammer was in motion, they needed Vorobyev. While Doctorov maneuvered and Ubarov trembled and the rest tried to predict the outcome and make the right political choices, it would be the army that solidified its power base and made sure that the Rodina would never again be humbled by the West.

The S-3B Viking banked left and settled onto a new heading, but as far as Magruder was concerned it might as well have been holding steady on an endless flight to nowhere. Outside was the same monotony of cloud and sea, with little prospect of a break in the routine. It was a common belief among fighter pilots that the men who flew ASW missions slept through their flights and returned home with numb asses, and Tombstone was beginning to believe it.

For a Tomcat pilot, Tombstone told himself, a desk job at the Pentagon was a taste of Hell … but the cockpit of an S-3 was Purgatory, pure and simple.

The Viking was an amazing aircraft. That much he was willing to concede. Handsome, high-winged, with fine lines and an aerodynamic design that made it a dream to fly, the S-3 had only one thing in common with the F-14 he knew so well. Both were dedicated weapons platforms, mounting sophisticated equipment and electronics all concentrated on fulfilling one purpose and one purpose only.

In the case of the Viking that purpose was submarine hunting, a job the aircraft performed splendidly. Magruder couldn’t argue with the versatility of the machine or with the skill and dedication of the three other men aboard, all experienced sub-hunters from the VS-42 squadron, the King Fishers.

Tombstone’s complaint was with the job itself. The temperament and skills that made a good fighter pilot were the antithesis of what made a Viking crewman tick. The aircraft was designed to remain aloft for long periods of time, burning fuel at about a sixth the rate of the thirsty Tomcats. And these extended flights required nothing so much as patience, a skill few fighter jocks cultivated.

“Want to take her for a while, Commander?” the pilot asked over the ICS. Commander Max “Hunter” Harrison was CO of the King Fishers, a soft-spoken black man whose pride in his squadron was evident in everything he said. He had elected to come on the mission this morning as the Viking’s pilot as soon as he’d learned that the Deputy CAG was going out. Tombstone could see that much, at least. Back when he’d been a squadron leader he had tried to be on hand anytime CAG or his staff were around.

“What’s my course?” Magruder asked. “This game’s a little out of my regular line of work.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harrison said with a chuckle. “The computer’ll tell you where to steer.” He pointed to a display screen on the instrument panel. “Keep lined up on this and everything’ll be great.”

Magruder nodded. His training on the Viking was coming back slowly. The computer accepted instructions from the plane’s Tactical Coordinator, or TACCO, who designated where he wished to deploy sonobuoys as part of an overall search pattern. The computer marked the spot and guided the pilot there. On reaching the chosen position the number and type of sonobuoys selected for that location were ejected automatically from the rack in the belly of the aircraft.

“Right,” he said. He grasped the stick. The Viking was the only jet aboard the carrier which had duel flight controls. That allowed a pilot and copilot to divide up the flying duties on a five-hour patrol. There were other controls at his station in the cockpit besides the regular flight instruments, since the copilot was also expected to assist the TACCO in the sub-hunting part of the plane’s work. In fact Magruder was filling the slot of COTAC, although his knowledge of the electronics was limited. “I’ve got her!”

It felt good to be doing something at least, even if this wasn’t the most challenging flying he’d ever been called upon to attempt. The S-3’s mission was to range out beyond the screen of frigates and destroyers masking a battle group and crisscross the ocean in search of enemy submarines. The sonobuoys were the key to that. Each one was a floating module containing a sonar transducer and a radio. Once deployed, they sent out pulses of sound which were reflected back by obstacles — the sea bottom, whales, schools of fish, and the occasional submarine. The radios relayed the results of the sonar searches back to the Viking, where a crewman known as the Senso was responsible for translating the arcane data into an approximation of what was in a given stretch of ocean, and where.

The Senso had other tools at his command as well, from magnetic-anomaly detectors to electronic-surveillance gear that monitored radio traffic to FLIR, Forward-Looking Infrared Radar, which could detect the heat emissions of ships and subs lying at or near the surface. But the sonobuoys were the first and most important tool in the ongoing search for enemies lying beneath the waves.

Harrison slumped in his seat, looking completely relaxed. “What d’you think, Spock? Are we going to have anything to show our VIP this time out?”

From the rear compartment of the plane Lieutenant Commander Ralph Meade, the TACCO, gave a cautious answer over the ICS. He was a tall, spare man who bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor Leonard Nimoy, and that together with his precise, measured way of speaking had earned him his running name. “Hard to say, Skipper. SOSUS showed at least five subs filtering out in the past week, but there’s no telling if they’re still hanging around here or if they’ve moved on by now.”

That, Magruder thought bitterly, was the real problem with the sub-hunting business. The arcane art of ASW work was at least as much an art form as it was a science. Aircraft like the Viking had to fly long, complicated patrol patterns searching for enemy submarines because as yet no one had developed a reliable way to keep tabs on subs from a distance. The first line of defense was SOSUS — for Sonar Surveillance System — a line of permanent underwater microphones strung along the sea floor all the way across the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom) gap. The technicians in the SOSUS control center back in Norfolk swore they could detect any sub that tried to cross the line, but once a submarine had passed through the network of microphones there was no way to keep further tabs on them except through dedicated ASW ships, planes, and helicopters. Frigates like the Gridley, helicopters off Jefferson and her escorts, the two submarines attached to the battle group, even P-3C Orion aircraft out of Keflavik in Iceland, all played a part in the ongoing hunt for the weapon most carrier skippers feared above all others. But it was the Viking that was the real backbone of the whole effort.

Yet with everything they could set to hunting they still couldn’t cover all the bases. Too much ocean, not enough people. A losing proposition, if viewed strictly from the technical side of things.

But it was possible to improve the odds a little. The ASW coordinator back on the Jefferson did his best to think like a sub skipper and deploy sub-hunting assets where they would do the most good. And Meade, the TACCO, was supposed to do the same thing on a smaller scale from his station in the windowless rear cabin of the S-3. Looking for submarines was like a chess game, with a variety of standard moves and gambits, but in the long run it was up to the individual players to make things happen.

ASW work was often regarded as the forgotten stepchild of the carrier air wing, at least by the pilots who flew the more glamorous missions. But the close-knit fraternity who flew the Vikings and the Sea Stallion ASW helicopters regarded themselves as every bit as important as any other element in the Air Wing. From what Magruder had seen so far they were as much masters of their arcane art as any fighter pilot was of the mysteries of air combat maneuvering.

He didn’t envy them their jobs. Harrison was a pilot, but nothing like the glamorous men who flew the Tomcats or the Hornets or even the Intruders. The other two were more technicians than aviators, with Meade, as TACCO, trying to outguess veteran sub commanders.

Then there was AW/1 Mike Curtis, the Viking’s Senso for this run, and the only enlisted man aboard. It had always surprised Magruder that ratings served in the plane crews of the Vikings and the Hawkeyes. The popular stereotype, which even life in the Navy didn’t fully dispel, was of aviation as a game for officers only.

But the special skill it took to handle the electronics aboard a plane as complex as the Viking was a great leveler. The men in the Antisubmarine Warfare military-occupation-specialty category were the high-tech elite of the carrier crew. Though they were often scorned by their own kind, who claimed that the AW stood for “Aviation Weights”—naval slang referring to someone who didn’t carry his load of shipboard duties — they earned their special place in the carrier’s hierarchy. Men like Curtis went through two full years of specialty training to get their jobs, while the typical enlisted man learned his specialty in a few short months. Aboard their aircraft, Magruder had heard, there were few distinctions between AW ratings and the officers they flew with, and good AWs had little trouble earning commissions and rising to the TACCO position.

He wondered what sort of a man could fill the demanding job. Curtis had been quiet throughout the flight except for responses given strictly in the line of duty. Was he naturally withdrawn, or overawed by the presence of the Deputy CAG?

“Well, how about it, Curtis?” he asked. “Don’t I get a show? Or maybe you at least have some words of wisdom for the rookie?”

“I don’t get paid for philosophy, sir,” Curtis said over the ICS. “That’s for officers to do. Me, I just sit back here and play the most expensive goddamned video game anybody ever saw.”

He smiled at that. “And what’s the score?”

“I haven’t been beaten yet,” Curtis said. Then, softly, he went on. “But I’ve never had to hunt ‘em for real, you know, sir? I don’t know if that’s going to be the same.”

Magruder remembered the first time he’d flown in combat, back in Korea. All the flying time, all the Top Gun practice, still hadn’t prepared him for the realities of combat.

But the word from the Jefferson said Coyote’s squadron had already traded shots with the Russians. All too soon Curtis might have his chance to find out what a real sub hunt, a hunt to the death, was really like.

“It isn’t the same, Curtis,” he said softly. “It’s never the same.”