Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

41. CHAIN OF COMMAND

The thunder spread through the chain of command like shock waves left behind a jet passing overhead at the speed of sound. Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov and his wife had gone out to their dacha about fifty kilometers northeast of Moscow, not too far from Star City, to spend a relaxing holiday with a few friends. He didn’t drink much alcohol, unless it was required of him during state affairs. In fact, most of the time he preferred water from fresh coconuts, which he sipped through a straw.

Nevertheless, he stays up until nearly three in the morning, talking and laughing with his friends, before he finally goes to bed, after another long, exhausting day. Perhaps he is finally beginning to think about retirement. He’d been promoted to fleet admiral in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev and personally seen to the modernization of the entire Soviet navy, which was no mean feat considering the kind of money the Americans were throwing around on their nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.

On this chilly November morning even all his experience as a naval officer does not prepare him for what he will face in the coming hours when his aide, Senior Lieutenant Yevgenni Markin, scurries down the hall, taps lightly on Gorshkov’s door, and enters his bedroom.

The admiral opens his eyes, instantly awake despite the fact he’s only had one hour of sleep. He’s always imagined that the global thermonuclear war they’ve dreaded since 1945 would begin this way: a frightened aide coming to his commander with news that a nuclear missile attack had been launched against the Soviet Union.

“Da, what is it?” the admiral asks, softly so as not to disturb his wife sleeping next to him.

“No one is sure, Admiral,” Markin whispers. “But it’s possible that a mutiny may be in progress aboard one of our ships in the Baltic Fleet.”

Gorshkov sits up in bed, and by the time he tosses the covers aside and gets to his feet Markin is there with his robe and slippers.

“Would you like tea?”

“Yes,” the admiral says, and he marches out of his bedroom, down a long corridor, through a glassed-in unheated porch to his office at the back of the house. During the day it looks down a wooded slope to a small stream from which he has pulled some trout in happier times.

Mutiny. Not in his navy!

He switches on the desk light and telephones Naval Headquarters. The duty officer, a young lieutenant, answers on the first ring.

“What’s going on?” Gorshkov demands. He doesn’t bother to identify himself. It’s up to his people to recognize his voice.

The lieutenant is obviously flustered, but it is to his credit that he maintains his composure. He’s reporting directly now to arguably the third most important man in the Soviet Union behind Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Minister of Defense Andrei Grechko.

“Admiral, from what I have been able to piece together so far, a mutiny may be in progress aboard the antisubmarine vessel Storozhevoy. Apparently the zampolit enlisted the aid of several officers and a portion of the enlisted crew, arrested the captain, took over the ship, and left their parade formation mooring in Riga.”

Gorshkov closes his eyes for just a moment. This is every commanders worst nightmare. An organization, any organization, depends on an adherence to a chain of command. When that breaks down, only chaos can result. And when the breakdown occurs within a military unit, a heavily armed military unit, the chaos can turn deadly unless it is stopped.

Markin is there, unobtrusively, with a glass of tea in a filigreed silver holder, which he places on the desk at the admiral’s hand. The lieutenant lights a cigarette from a box on the desk and perches it delicately on the edge of a lage marble ashtray, a gift from the president of North Korea. Then Markin leaves, softly closing the door.

“How does this information come to us?” the admiral asks. “Tell me everything.” He will have to brief Grechko and Brezhnev, but first he needs answers.

“We’re not entirely certain that all the data is accurate, Admiral, but we’re told that a senior lieutenant from the Storozhevoy jumped ship around twenty-four hundred hours and reported to the captain of an Alpha submarine that his zampolit had mutinied.”

“Where is that officer at this moment?”

“The KGB has him in Riga.”

“What about the submarine captain?”

“He’s still aboard his boat, I think,” the duty officer says, though he’s obviously not sure. “Shall I have him arrested?”

“Not yet,” Gorshkov says. “What happened next?”

“The officer was taken ashore, where he told his story to the officer on duty, who in turn reported to the the port security people of Brigade Seventy-eight. It took a half hour for the officer’s report to be confirmed before the harbormaster was informed.”

Gorshkov closes his eyes for a second. “God in heaven,” he mutters. Was the system so bad that it created stupid men who were slow and made stupid decisions? Or were the men so bad that they had created the system? But he knew that every navy was the same, to one degree or another.

“Continue.”

“The harbormaster apparently telephoned the Riga KGB Rezident, who sent a man down to the dock to interview the officer, and to make sure that this wasn’t a hoax. Maybe the officer was drunk, or had gone samovolka.”

Brezhnev would need to be impressed, but Minister of Defense Grechko would want all the facts.

“How long did this take?”

“From what I gather, about one hour from the time the KGB Rezident was—”

“What was the upshot of his investigation?”

“Whether or not the officer was telling the truth is yet to be determined, but it has been confirmed that the Storozhevoy sailed without orders and in the process collided with his mooring buoy and very nearly succeeded in running down a gasoline tanker.”

“Then what?”

“The ship is presumably still sailing north toward the gulf—”

“How did this come to headquarters, Lieutenant?”

“From Lubyanka, sir,” the duty officer says. “The Riga KGB Rezident telephoned his boss here in Moscow, who in turn telephoned us.”

Gorshkov is about to compliment the lieutenant for acting so quickly, but the duty officer isn’t finished.

“Naturally I didn’t want to disturb the admiral with hearsay, so I conducted my own investigation.”

“Which took one hour?”

“No, sir. Forty-five minutes. And then I made the call.”

“The Storozhevoy’s crew has mutinied and the ship is gone?”

“Yes, sir,” the young duty officer says.

Once again Gorshkov closes his eyes for a second. He wants to laugh, but he cannot. If the crew of a Soviet warship has mutinied, men will die.

“Listen to me, Lieutenant, and listen very carefully,” Gorshkov says.

“Sir.”

“First, I want a reconnaissance aircraft sent to locate the Storozhevoy. When the ship has been found, no action is to be taken against him, but I must be personally informed. Immediately. Not one hour later.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want the captains of every ship and boat at anchor in Riga to be awakened and ordered to prepare to get under way within the hour on my orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will personally see to it that nothing of this incident is broadcast to anyone else for any reason. No matter who that might be. Do you understand that order?”

“Yes, sir,” the duty officer says unhappily. Like a lot of other people this morning, he is caught between a rock and a hard place and he knows it.

“Now, move it, Lieutenant,” Gorshkov says, and he slams down the telephone.

Markin appears at the door. “Will we be dressing in full uniform or civilian attire with medals this morning, sir?”

“A civilian suit. No medals.”

42. THE BRIDGE

A light northwest wind is blowing from the open gulf as the Storozhevoy passes the last sea buoy marking the river channel. The fog, which had cleared for a little while, thickens again. Stepping out onto the starboard wing, Sablin can look straight up and see stars, but dead ahead the ship’s bows are only avague outline.

Continuing at this speed out into the gulf blind is tantamount to suicide. It’ll be dawn in a few hours, but in the meantime if the Storozhevoy, with his sharply flaring, heavily armored bows, collides with another ship, there will be injuries and deaths. That is a certain fact.

Sablin’s original plan was to sail out almost due west until they cleared Saaremaa and Hiiumaa islands before shaping a course north and than back east to the narrow opening into the Gulf of Finland and from there continuing the four hundred kilometers to Leningrad, where he would broadcast his tape-recorded speech directly to the Soviet people.

But Firsov has jumped ship and has undoubtedly told the Riga harbormaster about the mutiny. The word will have reached Moscow by now and it will not be long until someone comes after them.

Sablin takes another look up at the stars, then steps back into the enclosed bridge. The two men look up, trying to gauge from the expression on his face how things are going. But he’s holding himself in check, making sure he does not show his uncertainity to his men.

“Has anyone tried to contact us by radio?”

Their navigation radar is still off, so Seaman Maksimenko has nothing to do except study the paper charts and listen for radio messages. He shakes his head. “Nothing, sir.”

“If they try to contact us, don’t answer. No matter what is said, don’t answer.”

Maksimenko and Petty Officer Soloviev are alarmed.

“Are you leaving us?” Maksimenko asks.

“Just for a minute or two,” Sablin says. “I need to get something from my cabin. If anything comes up, page me on the 1MC.”

“But, Captain, we are sailing blind,” Soloviev says from the helm. “We passed the last sea buoy, and now I am running only on the compass and the fathometer.”

The only two pieces of information that the helmsman can rely on at this point are the compass, which shows him that they are heading just slightly west of north, and the fathometer, which shows the depth of the water and that will warn them if they get too close to land. Before they can make their turn to the west to get past Saaremaa Island they must reach Kolkasrags, which is the Latvian headland at the northwesternmost point of the Gulf of Riga. It’s more than two hundred kilometers away. It will take another six or seven hours before they get there.

Sablin is thinking at the speed of light. They have passed their first two serious hurdles, taking over the ship and making it downriver to the gulf. They can do this if no one loses his head.

“You may turn on the radar set every fifteen minutes, but only long enough to make sure we’re not on a collision course with any other ship.”

Soloviev is relieved. “Thank you, sir.”

If anyone is looking for them, the moment their radar starts emitting, the game will be up. Sablin just needs his luck to hold a little while longer.

“And don’t aswer the radio, no matter who it is,” he warns.

Soloviev and Maksimenko nod their agreement, and Sablin leaves the bridge and hurries down to his cabin.

A potentially very large problem they might encounter is uncertainty about their intentions. In order to clear the islands, so that they can make the turn into the Gulf of Finland toward Leningrad, they have to sail directly toward Sweden. If a recon aircraft is sent up to find them or if they are tracked by their radar emissions, it will appear to Baltic Fleet Command that the Storozhevoy is trying to defect.

Such an act is even worse than mutiny. It is treason.

The only way that Sablin can think to prove that he is not planning on sailing to Sweden is to broadcast his message right now. Because of the damage Firsov has done to Sablin’s plan, he can no longer afford to wait until the Storozhevoy reaches Leningrad.

All of the crew not under arrest are at their posts. Sablin has called boevaya trevoga, battle station. No one wants to be hanging around their quarters this morning. Too much is happening. Everyone is too keyed up even to find Gindin’s stash of spirt.

Sablin reaches his quarters without encountering a single soul, which is spooky. The Storozhevoy is barreling up the coast toward the open Baltic Sea, his engines spooled up to top speed, and yet the corridors and companionways are deserted. No one is hanging around smoking a cigarette; no music plays from the seamen’s mess; no one is making jokes.

Once he has his safe open, he removes the taped message and retraces his steps up to the radio room, where a midshipman and an ordinary sailor are sitting in front of their radio equipment. For the first time Sablin draws a blank on their names. He knows their faces, but he cannot dredge up their names or anything else about them from his memory. And right now he is too excited, too focused, to ask.

Both men look up, alarmed by what they see in Sablin’s expression. “Are we okay?” the young midshipman asks.

“We’re perfectly okay,” Sablin replies. He hands over the tape. “This explains everything.”

“Sir?” The young officer is jumpy.

“It’s a message I taped. I want it sent out immediately on a civilian broadcast channel. The people need to know what we are doing, and why.”

The young officer holds the tape as if it were a wild animal ready to bite him. “When should we send this?”

“Right now!” Sablin fairly shouts. His nerves are finally starting to bounce all over the place. So much is at stake, and he hasn’t gotten any decent sleep or rest in the past week. He’s been too keyed up, knowing what was coming.

If only Firsov had not jumped ship!

The midshipman just sits there, a dumb expression on his face, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Now!” Sablin shouts. “Send it right now!”

“Yes, sir.” The young officer turns, shoots a look at the seaman sitting next to him, mounts the loaded reel on the recorder’s left spindle, and threads the tape through the heads to the empty twenty-five-centimeter reel on the right.

Sablin remains only long enough to see this much before he turns and hurries back up to the bridge. He has to make sure that the radar set does not remain on. Everything is coming together now. Everything is coming to a head, and yet there is so much left to accomplish.

Just a little more luck. It’s all he asks for.

Midshipman Yevgenni Kovalev has loaded the tape correctly on the machine, his hands shaking. Whatever message their zampolit has recorded will certainly be controversial.

The recording is Zampolit Sablin’s business, but a radio message from the Storozhevoy while Kovalev is on duty is his business.

The crew has mutinied; the captain was under arrest; what made you believe that it was your duty to send such a message en clair so that everyone in the Soviet Union could understand your shame?

Kovalev can hear the question now.

He flips a series of switches on his main transmitter, which will broadcast the tape to anyone with a military receiver monitoring this frequency.

But his hand hesitates at the switch that will start the message.

How will he answer the questions about his role in the mutiny? How will he defend his actions against his duties?

He hesitates a moment longer before flipping another series of switches that enables the encryption equipment to come on line. Only then does he switch the tape recorder on, and the reels begin to turn.

Sablin’s message is being broadcast from the Storozhevoy all right, but it is encrypted. No one but the navy will be able to understand what is being sent.

Sablin’s impassioned message to the people will never reach them.

43. BELOWDECKS

Gindin sits on the deck, his back to the steel bulkhead, thinking about his father. It is early morning now. In a few hours the sky to the east will begin to lighten with the dawn. But that’s topsides. Here, in the small compartment, it could be night or day, except for the numbers on their wristwatches.

Some of the others are asleep on the floor. Their situation is essentially hopeless. They are at the mercy of Sablin and his armed crewmen just outside the door. Yet they must be feeling the pinch of no water by now. Or at least Gindin hopes so.

He can see his father’s face in the dim light. It is careworn, with a hint of the illness that has just ended his life. But in happier times he was an animated, happy man.

On the day the letter came announcing that Boris has been accepted into the academy, his father was grinning ear-to-ear as he dressed in his best clothes, his holiday suit. He knotted his tie just so, polished his shoes, brushed his hair, and kissed his wife on the cheek before he left the apartment for work.

Gindin remembers looking out the window as his father started down the street. But the old man didn’t get far before he crossed the street to talk to someone he knew. Later Gindin found out that his father was bragging to everyone he met about his son’s acceptance into the military school. He was going to be an officer! A Soviet navy officer! It was a red-letter day, in more than one sense. Boris was a good Communist and he was getting his just reward.

At work his father did the same, bragging to anyone who would listen.

Pushkin was a small town, so the word spread quickly that Boris had been accepted to the academy. By the next day he had become famous, the talk of the town, a Soviet hero.

But sitting with his back against the cold steel bulkhead he doesn’t feel much like a hero. He has been racking his brain all night to think of some way out of their predicament. He’s taken apart the water pump, but beyond that he can think of nothing else.

Earlier they’d banged on the hatch to get Shein’s attention. They’d hoped that somehow they could talk him into letting them go. Or maybe they could order him to open the door and then simply step aside. But he kept telling them to keep quiet; he didn’t want to listen to their threats or orders.

Gindin looks over at the others, some of them sleeping, heads cradled in their arms. He meets Captain Proshutinsky’s eyes.

“Quite a mess, huh, Boris?”

“Yes, sir,” Gindin replies.

He keeps going over in his mind what they—he—could have done differently in the midshipmen’s mess. Maybe if he’d realized sooner that Sablin was serious, that it wasn’t some kind of a political test, Gindin could have rushed the zampolit and knocked him on his ass. It would have ended the situation then and there.

Gindin can’t help but smile, thinking about his fist connecting with a superior officer’s chin.

He looks up and catches Proshutinsky’s eye again.

“What in God’s name have you got to be smiling about, Boris?” the captain lieutenant wants to know.

But it’s gallows humor, whistling past the grave. The old Russian proverb all the brave men are in prison seems apt at this moment. But how to explain that to Proshutinsky?

“I was thinking about my dad,” Gindin says. “I wish he was here. I’d like to ask his advice.”

Proshutinsky nods. “I know what you mean. I was sorry to hear about your father’s passing. We all were.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Storozhevoy’s turbines have settled into a cruising speed, and by the feel of the ship’s motion Gindin knows that they are no longer in the river but have made it out into the open gulf. From there it is a matter of just a few hours before they will be out into the Baltic, in international waters. Then God only knew where Sablin would take them.

Sweden? Did their zampolit mean to defect to the West?

If that was the case, if Sablin tried to make a dash for the Swedish coast, the navy would not let him get that far. He would be ordered to come about or at least stop. If he refused such an order… Gindin lets the thought trail off for a few moments as he tries to figure out exactly what the Russian navy might do. Maybe the KGB would send ships after them. Or perhaps the air force would fly out.

Whatever happened, those ships and aircraft would be armed with live warshots, while the Storozhevoy had plenty of weapons but no missiles or ammunition except for the small-arms bullets.

What would his father advise? he wonders at that moment, but it dawns on him that his father wouldn’t have been able to give him much advice at all. This was a situation totally beyond the experience of a civilian.

“Pizdec,” Gindin mutters. This situation was even beyond the experience of a military officer. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen in real life.

He gets to his feet and walks back to the smaller compartment. He has to take a pee, but he can’t bring himself to relieve himself in the corner like some of the others had. It stinks in here; he doesn’t want to make it worse.

He stares at the dismantled pump, thinking that there must be something else they can do. Something! Anything!

Proshutinsky comes to the doorway. “What is it, Boris? What are you thinking?”

“They’ll have to let us out of here sooner or later,” Gindin says carefully. The ideas are coming slowly.

“Da.”

Gindin turns to face the captain lieutenant. “No matter what happens, we must force the issue. We cannot remain locked up in here.”

“Someone could get shot and killed.”

“Yes, sir, I know that. But we have to do something. If we can get free we can release Captain Potulniy, and that would be a start. With the captain free we could fight back.”

Proshutinsky nods. “First we need to get out of here.”

44. CHAIN OF COMMAND

Well before dawn Gorshkov arrives at the Kremlin, where he is passed through the Spassky Gate by the guards, who have been alerted by the admiral’s driver that he is arriving.

Brezhnev and Grechko have been notified that a matter of urgent national interest has unexpectedly come up. If the telephone calls had come from almost anyone else other than Admiral Gorshkov’s personal aide, the caller would have already been on his or her way to the prison at Lefortovo to answer questions about his or her sanity. Waking the Party General Secretary and the minister of defense at this ungodly hour is tantamount to suicide.

However, Gorshkov is not a man to be trifled with. If he were to declare that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, the Communist Party and all Soviet military forces would seriously consider resetting their clocks.

The armed, uniformed guards in front of the Council of Ministers Block come to attention and salute the admiral as he gets out of his car and enters the building, which is all but deserted this morning. Two other long, black ZIL limousines are parked in front, one of them Brezhnev’s, the other Grechko’s.

Striding down the long corridor on the third floor, Gorshkov’s footfalls sound like pistol shots, echoing off the ornate walls and vaulted ceilings. His staff have been awakened and are on their way to their offices here in Moscow. He has received confirmation that the captains of every ship, submarine, and tender in Riga have been notified to light off their engines and stand by to sail on his orders. And the commanders of the various units of the Baltic Fleet Air Wing have been rousted out of their beds as well.

All the way in from his dacha Gorshkov tried to make sense out of the situation. The zampolit of a warship had arrested his captain and some of the officers and mutinied.

Some of the officers.

In Gorshkov’s mind that can only mean that the other officers must be going along with the insanity. And since the ship actually started his engines, slipped his moorings, and headed downriver to the gulf, a good portion of the crew must also be in league with the traitor.

It beggars the imagination. What does the fool think he can accomplish? Even if the ship actually reaches Sweden and the zampolit and the officers and crew who have gone along with his scheme ask for asylum, the Swedes will never grant it. The traitors would be on their way back to Moscow within twenty-four hours of reaching Swedish waters.

Brezhnev’s personal secretary, a pinch-faced older man whom Gorshkov has never seen wearing anything other than a dark suit, white shirt, and red tie, comes out of the small conference room adjacent to Brezhnev’s office and beckons.

“The Party General Secretary is waiting for you, Admiral.”

“Da,” Gorshkov says, brushing past the man and entering the conference room where Brezhnev and Grechko are seated at the small mahogany table.

The door is closed and Gorshkov takes his seat across from the two men, who are drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Both of them appear to be hungover, and in fact Brezhnev is probably drunk. They’re both dressed in dark suits, but neither is wearing a tie.

“We’re here at your request, Sergei,” Grechko says. “What fire has got your ass?”

“We have a mutiny on our hands,” Gorshkov says without preamble.

Brezhnev’s eyes come into focus. “Mutiny?” he says. “What nonsense are you talking about?”

For the next five minutes Gorshkov explains to the Party General Secretary and minister of defense everything that he knows to this point. Neither man interrupts, but it becomes clear that both of them, especially Brezhnev, are frightened. Theirs is the same initial reaction that Gorshkov had.

Maintaining the status quo depends on a respect for the chain of command. When the system breaks down, the incident becomes like a virus that can quickly spread and destroy the entire body. The mutiny of the Potemkin, which led to the grand October Revolution in which the Soviet Union was born, is drilled into the head of every school-child; such a little thing to bring down the reign of the tsars.

“Do we know that the Storozhevoy has already reached the open sea?” Grechko asks. He has grasped the full implications before Brezhnev has.

“A reconnaissance aircraft is searching.”

“Has anyone tried to contact this fool?”

“Not yet. But that’s next.”

“So at this point we don’t know what he’s up to,” Brezhnev says. “He could be defecting, or he could just as easily be insane and plan on attacking us with his guns and missiles.”

“Either is a possibility,” Gorshkov concedes. “We don’t know yet.”

The telephone in front of Brezhnev rings, and he grabs it like a drowning man grabs at a life jacket. “Da.” He listens for a few moments, then looks up at Gorshkov. “Bring it in.”

“What is it?” Gorshkov asks when Brezhnev hangs up the phone.

“Your zampolit has broadcast a message to the people, from the ship.”

“Dear God,” Grechko mutters, but Brezhnev is actually grinning.

“But it’s in code. The idiot sent it in code on a military channel, so no one but our cryptologists can understand it.”

A moment later a young senior lieutenant with thick black hair and an impeccable uniform knocks once and enters the conference room. He walks around to Brezhnev, hands the Party General Secretary a thin file folder, then turns and leaves.

Brezhnev has the folder open and he quickly scans the first pages of the document before he looks up. He may be old, he may sometimes become befuddled or even drunk, but he is not stupid.

“Your zampolit claims here that he is no traitor,” Brezhnev says. “Interesting viewpoint, since he has arrested the legally appointed captain and stolen several tens of million rubles of state property.”

Brezhnev flips through several more pages of the decrypted message sent from the Storozhevoy, actually chuckling at one passage or another. But when he looks up at his minister of defense and Admiral of the Fleet he is not smiling.

Brezhnev lays the file on the conference table, seems to consider what he might say next, then slams an open palm on the tabletop, the sound sharp.

“Sir?” Gorshkov prompts.

“Find that ship, Sergei,” Brezhnev says, his voice low, menacing. “No matter what assets you must utilize, find the Storozhevoy.”

“Da. Then what?”

“Sink it. Kill everyone aboard.”

“Their captain is innocent; so are some of the officers.”

“No captain who loses his ship is innocent,” Brezhnev flares. He points a stern finger at Gorshkov. “You find that ship, Comrade! You find that ship and sink it. Now, this morning. The damage must be contained before the situation spins totally out of control.”

Gorshkov realizes all of a sudden that Brezhnev and Grechko are frightened. It gives him pause. Everything depends upon a respect for a chain of command. That respect does not end with him; it ends with the Party leadership. With Brezhnev.

“As you wish, Comrade,” Gorshkov says. He gets to his feet.

Brezhnev looks up at him. “Ultimately this is your responsibility, just as losing the ship is the captain’s.”

Gorshkov has served the Party too long and too faithfully to be cowed by the rantings even of a General Secretary, but he holds his tongue. Brezhnev is frightened, and frightened men are capable of incredible cruelties.

“The Storozhevoy will never reach Sweden,” Gorshkov promises.

45. IL-38 MAY-052

Lieutenant Vasili Barsukhov is flying left stick flat-out at 347 knots, less than one hundred meters above the surface of the river, in pursuit of the Storozhevoy, if such a fantastic story as mutiny can actually be believed. His copilot, Warrant Officer Yevgenni Levin, and flight engineer, Warant Officer Ivan Zavorin, monitor the navigational and engine instruments. Flying this fast and this low is inherently dangerous. All of them are dry mouthed. In this fog the slightest mistake could send them into the cold water of the river or the gulf.

The Ilyushin is an ASW turboprop aircraft, powered by four Ivchenko A1-20M engines, that operates from land bases to search for enemy submarines and either launch a torpedo attack or direct ASW surface ships, such as the Storozhevoy, where to direct their attack.

In addition to the three-man flight crew, the May-052 usually carries a complement of ten or twelve operational crew who man the airplane’s various sensors, including search and attack radars, the Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD), and a suite of Electronic Support Measures, some of which are connected to sonobuoys that could be dropped into the water and others capable of detecting and pinpointing any sort of electronic emissions, from either radio transmitters or radar gear.

This early morning only three crewmen have been mustered, because 052 is searching for a surface ship, not a submarine, which is much harder to find. One is manning the Berkut Radar; the other two man the ESM equipment. If the Storozhevoy is actually in the river or even out into the gulf they will find him.

Barsukhov keys his throat mike to speak to his crew. “We’re just crossing over the mouth of the river; anything yet?”

“Infrared, negative.”

“ESM?” Barsukhov prompts.

“Sir, I thought I was receiving nav radar emission about two minutes ago, but it was brief. Soon as I came to it, the transmissions stopped.”

“Did you manage to get a bearing?”

“Yes, sir. I’m estimating a bearing of three-five-five.”

“Are you picking up any other contacts?” Barsukhov asks.

“Numerous contacts in the Irben Channel, plus the gas tanker we passed eight minutes ago, no other military targets emitting in the gulf, but—”

Barsukhov glances at his copilot, then holds the mike a little closer to his throat. “But what, Oleg?”

“This ship we’re looking for must be in some deep shit. Looking aft, I’m seeing emissions from just about every ship at moorings.”

“I’m showing heat blooms from every power plant,” the infrared operator breaks in. “Soon as we find our target I think the whole fleet means to sail downriver for the gulf. Something’s up, Skipper.”

“Well, let’s do our job and get out of here so that they can do theirs,” Barsukhov says. “And God help the poor son of a bitch when the fleet catches up with him, whatever he’s done.”

It’s still pitch-black outside and will be for several more hours before dawn arrives. The fog is thick enough that they cannot make out anything on the surface. They are relying solely on their compass and on their navigation radar. It’s like flying over a field of cotton batting, dark gray at this hour.

“Stand by, Lieutenant. I have a possible contact, now bearing three-four-zero,” the ESM operator reports from aft.

“Can you say radar type?”

“It’s a nav radar. Definitely military, one of ours. Stand by.”

The May-052 is flying due north. Barsukhov tweaks the wheel slightly to port, adding a little left rudder, and the big Ilyushin turns gently to the left on a new heading of 340. Considering the top speed of a Krivak-class sub hunter and the Storozhevoy’s estimated time of departure from his mooring, this could be the target.

A minute later the ESM operator is back. “They’ve shut their radar down again, but I’m identifying the target as Bogey-One.”

It’s the designator for the Storozhevoy they’ve been given.

Barsukhov switches to his tactical frequency and keys his throat mike. “Ground control, this is May Zero-five-two, over.”

The ground controller at Riga’s Skirotava Naval Airfield comes back. “Roger May Zero-five-two, report, over.”

“We’re painting Bogey-One, say again, we’re painting Bogey-One, and will have a flyover in twelve minutes.”

“Say your confidence.”

“Confidence is high,” Barsukhov replies. “Target bears three-four-zero.”

“Roger, May Zero-five-two. Squawk seven-seven-zero-seven.”

Barsukhov’s copilot resets the aircraft’s transponder to 7707 and flips the send switch, radiating a signal unique to this particular aircraft. In this way his ground controller can pinpoint May-052’s position and from that locate the Storozhevoy.

Their job is nearly done. They will fly out to the actual target and attempt to get a visual verification. But for all practical purposes the ship has been found.

46. THE BRIDGE

“I think they’ve spotted us!” someone calls from the CIC, Combat Information Center. He’s at the Head net C search radar and he sounds frightened.

“Who has spotted us?” Sablin demands. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure, but when I had the radar on I thought I picked up a target aft and above us. An aircraft. As I was shutting down I got a spike, which I think was one pulse from an aircraft search radar. But I can’t be sure.”

Sablin has been dreading this moment from the beginning. “Too soon,” he says half under his breath. They need more time to get out into the open Baltic, into international waters where they should be safe. If need be, he intends to send his message to NATO. It would be nearly the same as defecting, but if it comes to that, Sablin figures he’ll need all the help he can get.

“Is it still there?” Sablin asks. He realizes now that he should have posted lookouts.

“I don’t know, sir. Not unless I turn on our radar again.”

Sablin considers the options. “Do it,” he orders.

It takes precious seconds for the radar operator to comply. “I have something!”

“What is it?” Sablin demands.

“It’s too fast for a helicopter. Probably an Ilyushin May reconnaissance aircraft.”

“Shut the radar down,” Sablin orders. His nerves are jumping all over the place. He is snapping his fingers.

The warrant officer from the communications room suddenly appears at the hatch. “Baltic Fleet is calling,” he says. He’s out of breath and clearly having second thoughts.

Sablin looks at him and then at the other two men on the bridge before he walks over to the VHF radio on the overhead to the left of the helmsman’s position and flips a switch. The radio suddenly comes to life.

“Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy, this is Baltic Fleet Command. I repeat, Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy, this is Baltic Fleet Command. Respond, over.”

Sablin reaches for the mike but hesitates. He turns back to the young comms officer. “When did they start calling us?”

“Just now.”

“Nothing from anyone else before this message?”

“No, sir.”

The Ilyushin May had spotted them and radioed their position, and now they were being hailed.

“What will we do?” Soloviev asks.

Sablin takes just another moment to gather his wits. After all, isn’t this exactly what he had planned for? Hadn’t he considered the possibility that their departure would be detected?

He pulls down the mike and presses the push-to-talk swich. “This is the Soviet warship Storozhevoy, over.”

“Roger, Storozhevoy, stand by one, for Vice Admiral Kosov, over.”

Sablin’s gut tightens. Kosov is the Baltic Fleet’s chief of staff and is a reputed son of a bitch. Sablin keys the mike. “Roger, standing by.” Now it starts, he thinks.

The admiral is on a moment later. “Storozhevoy, this is Vice Admiral Kosov speaking. Let me talk to Captain Potulniy.”

“I’m sorry, Admiral, but Captain Potulniy is no longer in command,” Sablin responds. He looks over his shoulder as Seaman Shein comes through the hatch.

“They’re making a lot of noise,” Shein reports. “They want to get out.”

“You haven’t let them out, have you?” Sablin demands. It’s like an electric prod between his shoulder blades.

“No, sir.”

“What are you talking about?” Vice Admiral Kosov shouts. “Put the captain on, immediately! That’s an order!”

“I’m sorry, sir; I cannot do that.”

“Who is this?” Kosov demands.

“Captain Third Rank Valery Sablin, sir. I am temporarily in command of the Storozhevoy.”

“Mutiny?”

“Sir, I have to announce that the Storozhevoy is no longer a part of the Baltic Fleet. This ship is now a free and independent territory, no longer under the authority of the Soviet Union.”

Soloviev, Maksimenko, and Shein are staring at Sablin.

“Now listen to me, mister!” the admiral shouts. “You will stop immediately and drop your anchor. This is a direct order. Do you understand me?”

Sablin hesitates again before he keys the microphone. Until last night and this morning he’s never disobeyed a direct order. He’s preached the Party line his entire career. He has been a good Communist. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I cannot comply with that order.”

“Report your situation, Sablin.”

“Respectfully, sir, I cannot do that, either.”

“You will do as you’re told—”

Sablin keys his mike, stepping over the vice admiral’s transmission. “Sir, since this ship is no longer apart of the Baltic Fleet, I am no longer under your command. I am no longer accountable to you. I have sent my message to the Soviet people, and now it is up to them to respond.”

“Sablin!” Vice Admiral Kosov shouts.

“Storozhevoy, out,” Sablin radios. He replaces the microphone on its bracket and turns off the VHF radio. There will be no further communications.

Soloviev disagrees. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to switch off the radio, sir,” he says.

Sablin looks at him.

“We don’t have to answer. But if someone who wants to help tries to reach us, we should be ready to acknowledge.”

Soloviev is right, of course, and Sablin reaches up and switches the radio on, but he turns down the volume.

47. CHAIN OF COMMAND

Gorshkov is seated at a desk in a small office adjacent to Brezhnev’s conference room, connected by telephone to Vice Admiral Kosov. The transmissions to and from the Storozhevoy have been patched to the telephone circuit. The Fleet Admiral has heard everything.

“It’s definitely mutiny,” Kosov says. “The man must be insane.”

“Da,” Gorshkov replies dourly. This is not like the old days, when his officers obeyed their commands without hesitation. He’s heard that the Soviet navy is trying to learn a lesson from the Americans and British. The Soviet navy is supposed to become the “thinking man’s” navy, whatever that means. It’s a mystery to him, where the time has gone, and he has to wonder if the incident now unfolding aboard the Storozhevoy is a portent of the end of the Soviet regime, just as the mutiny aboard the Potemkin signaled the beginning of the end for the tsars.

“What are your orders, sir?” Kosov wants to know.

Gorshkov thinks that this will be a big responsibility for a mere chief of staff. But in this incident at this moment in time the responsibility will be given to any officer willing to take it. “The order is to hunt for the Storozhevoy and sink him before he reaches Sweden.”

“What about the officers and crew? Surely not all of them have gone along with this insanity. Captain Potulniy is apparently under arrest. And there are others.”

“The mutineers have given up their right to our consideration, and Captain Potulniy should never have allowed his ship to be taken from him. Find the Storozhevoy, Admiral, and kill him. That order comes directly from Secretary Brezhnev.”

Kosov is momentarily taken aback. “He knows?”

“Yes, and in the next few hours half of Moscow will probably know,” Gorshkov says. “Carry out your orders, Admiral. Quickly.”

“Yes, sir,” Kosov replies, and the connection is broken.

Gorshkov puts the phone down. Now that the order has been given he could drive back out to the dacha, return to his apartment on Arbat Street, or go to his office. But if there is to be an assault on the Kremlin, he wants to be here.

For the first time he’d seen genuine fear in the eyes of the Party General Secretary, and it was disquieting. It was like this during what the Americans called the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the fear was in Khrushchev’s eyes. And the reasons were the same: Both men were afraid of making the one mistake that not only would cost them their jobs but also could cost the Soviet system its very existence.

Russians are a passionate people. It had been decades since crowds had marched in protest in Red Square, but it could happen again. A military command structure is only as good as the willingness of its officers to obey orders. And any government, even one so powerful as the Soviet Union’s, is only as strong as the confidence of its citizens in the status quo.

The young mutineer aboard the Storozhevoy meant to destroy this confidence, by seizing the ship and sending his message to the people.

Thank God it had been broadcast in code.

But Sablin could very well discover that error and retransmit the message, this time en clair. That was the major reason Brezhnev had ordered the Storozhevoy found and destroyed, before the message was sent again.

48. BELOWDECKS

It’s after six in the morning. Some of the officers are curled up on the deck, asleep, and Gindin wishes that he could be like them. He is bone weary, but he can’t shut down his thoughts about what happened last night in the midshipmen’s dining hall.

Sablin’s incredible speech, unbelievable then, is even more unbelievable now. Their only chance is to reach Swedish waters before Fleet Headquarters sends a force out here to either stop them or sink them.

Kuzmin, who’s been lying in a corner, gets up, comes over, and sits down on the deck next to Gindin. He looks just as worried as Gindin feels. “I can’t sleep,” Kuzmin says.

“Neither can I,” Gindin replies.

Kuzmin looks over at the hatch to the corridor. “It feels like we’re in the open sea.”

“I think so.”

Kuzmin nods toward the hatch. “Anything from those pricks with the guns?”

“Not for the last few hours.”

“Do you think maybe they’re gone?” Kuzmin asks. “I don’t mean from just out in the corridor, but maybe they decided to abandon ship. We could be down here all alone.”

“I don’t think so, Sergey. They’d have to slow down first, but the engines have run steady all night. Means somebody is driving the ship and some of my guys are running the engines.” It’s a bitter thought for Gindin, that the men he trained had so easily betrayed him.

“I wonder what Sablin offered them so that they would go along with the mutiny,” Kuzmin muses. It’s almost as if he is reading Gindin’s mind.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Gindin says. “My guys wouldn’t have gone along with the crazy scheme unless there was something in it for them.” Gindin shakes his head. “Not that it makes much difference to us now.”

“Maybe if we can find out what it was, we can make them a better offer,” Kuzmin suggests.

The two of them get up and go to the hatch, where Gindin places his ear against the steel door. The only sound he hears is the distant hum of the turbines. He looks up and shakes his head.

Kuzmin slams the heel of his hand against the door. Once, twice, three times, and Gindin puts his ear to the door again. Still nothing.

“You out there!” Kuzmin shouts. “Open this door! We want to tell you something!”

The other officers are waking up, because of the noise.

“What’s going on, Boris?” Proshutinsky asks.

“We’re trying to get their attention,” Gindin answers.

“Da, we can hear that. But why? They’re not going to let us out of here.”

“They might if we can find out what Sablin offered them to go along with the mutiny. Maybe we can make a better offer.”

“I don’t think so,” Proshutinsky says.

“Sir?”

“I can guess exactly what he offered the enlisted crew. The only thing they care about is getting out of the navy and going back home.”

“Sablin doesn’t have that authority” Gindin says.

“True, but those boys probably don’t know that,” Proshutinsky points out.

Kuzmin has been listening at the door. He looks up and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s out there. They’ve gone.”

He and Gindin share a glance, and each knows for a fact what the other is thinking at that moment. If the guards are no longer guarding this hatch, what will happen if the ship is attacked and sinks? No one will be down here to open the door.

They would all drown in these two tiny compartments.

49. BALTIC FLEET HEADQUARTERS, KALININGRAD

Kosov arrives at his office in a rush, not bothering to wait for his driver to open the car door for him, or return the salute from the guard at the front entrance.

Everything Kosov has done to this point has been by telephone from his house and the mobile radio in his car. He has not bothered encrypting any of his orders; there is no time for that. Party General Secretary Brezhnev has ordered the Storozhevoy found and destroyed immediately.

The first part has been accomplished, and now will come the most difficult assignment of Kosov’s long and illustrious career. In effect, his head has been placed on the chopping block. If he succeeds with this business, if the fleet actually catches up with the mutineers before they reach Sweden and if his forces actually stop or destroy the Storozhevoy, he might get a medal and a promotion. But if he fails…

He lets that thought trail off as he hurries down the fourth-floor corridor to the operations center, where most of the staff has already arrived. The fleet commander is away on holiday, which leaves Kosov the senior officer. He might wonder if it’s by chance or by design that he has been placed in such a delicate, difficult situation.

Chief of Operations Captain Third Rank Viktor Badim looks up from the plotting table as Kosov walks in. “Admiral on deck!” Badim shouts.

The eight staffers on duty stiffen to attention.

“As you were,” Kosov grumbles. He glances at the large table on which is a detailed chart of the Baltic, including all of its islands, inlets, rivers, and bases, as well as those of Sweden and other bordering nations.

Every warship that the Soviet navy is tracking is represented as a tiny wooden model on the table, and talkers, connected by headsets with the electronics sensors section, move the pieces around the table as if they were chessmen in a deadly, real game.

Kosov takes his position at the command console that looks down on the table, and one of the ratings brings him a glass of sweet tea, with one small piece of lemon, just as he likes it.

Badim comes up. “The fleet at Riga is underway,” he reports to the admiral. “But there are a lot of questions.”

“Are they clear on their orders?” Kosov demands. He’s not in a very good mood. But then that’s to be expected. No one can be cheerful when he knows that his career is on the line. God help Potulniy if he survives.

“Yes, sir,” Badim says. “They’re to catch up with the Storozhevoy and stop him by any means possible.”

“The orders have changed, Viktor. We’re to hunt down the Storozhevoy and kill him.”

Badim visibly reacts as if he’s been slapped in the face.

“I spoke with Gorshkov. The order comes from Brezhnev himself. Under no circumstances will the Storozhevoy be allowed to reach Swedish waters.”

“But, sir, according to the encrypted transmission, they aren’t defecting. They mean to lay off Leningrad and make more broadcasts. They’re fools, but they’re not defecting.”

Kosov leans forward. “Is there anything unclear about my orders, Captain? Or should I repeat them?”

Badim backs down. “No, sir.”

“Very well. Order as many units of our air wing as you think necessary to help with the hunt.” Kosov has started to spread his responsibility. The more officers under him he can commit to making decisions on their own, the more he will be insulated from retribution in the end.

Badim undersands this game as well, but there’s no countermove he can make. “Yes, sir,” he says, resigned.

“Make it happen now,” Kosov orders.

Badim goes off to order the air wing into action, as Kosov sits back with his tea and watches as the talkers push the fleet that was at anchor in Riga down the river toward the Baltic. The Storozhevoy has at least a five-hour head start, and it’s not likely that the fleet will catch up with him before the air wing does.

Sablin and his mutineers will never come within sight of Sweden before they are sent to the bottom, probably in the next few hours.

It’s too bad, Kosov thinks. The Storozhevoy was a good-looking ship.

50. TU-16 BADGER FUGHT-01

The flight of ten Badger recon/bomber aircraft from Skirotava Naval Airfield outside of Riga rose up through the fog and burst into the star-studded sky well after 0600. Flight Leader Colonel Gennadi Kabatov keyed his throat mike.

“Ground control, this is Zero-one Flight Leader at flight level five. Our ETA for formation is zero-six-twenty. Do you have an update on Bogey-One’s position, course, and speed?”

“Roger Zero-one Flight Leader. We have a visual. Target bears three-zero-five degrees, range two-one-seven kilometers, and opening at three-zero knots. Targets estimated course is now three-two-zero degrees.”

“Acknowledged,” Kabatov radioed. “Zero-one Flight Leader out.”

The big twin-engine jet bomber was more suited to long-range nuclear bombing missions or, closer to Soviet waters, could be used effectively as a strike platform for anti-aircraft carrier operations or attacks against ships much larger than the Storozhevoy.

When the alert klaxon sounded, bringing Kabatov out of a sound sleep, he’d not had any deep thoughts. He’d been trained to react first and think later. But in the pilots’ briefing room when he’d been told the target and given his flight’s orders he did a lot of wondering. The best he could figure was that someone in Moscow was shitting in his trousers to order such a massive strike force against a lone, unarmed ASW ship.

With a length of just under forty meters, the Tu-16 was more than one-third as long as the warship he was hunting. Powered by a pair of massive Mikulin AM-3 turbojets, the bomber had a maximum speed in excess of 1,000 kilometers per hour, a range of 7,200 kilometers, and a service ceiling of nearly 13,000 meters. He was capable of carrying conventional and nuclear bombs weighing as much as nine thousand kilograms and was armed with a half-dozen 23mm cannons.

Instead of carrying bombs this early morning, each aircraft had been loaded with either one AS-2 Kipper antiship missile or one AS-6 Kingfish missile.

This was more firepower than was needed to take out an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

To Kabatov’s way of thinking, this was overkill taken to a ridiculously dangerous level. American warships sometimes operated in the Baltic and, along with Swedish radar installations that had undoubtedly detected the flight as soon as it took off, would have to wonder what the hell was going on.

Wars had begun just like this, he thought. Or at least battles had.

He switched to his command frequency, not bothering to use an encrypted channel. He wanted anyone listening in to know that this wasn’t the beginning of an attack on NATO. “Flight One, this is Flight One Lead. Report, over.”

One by one the commanders of the other nine Badgers reported their positions and altitudes, inbound on Kabatov’s aircraft.

“All operators keep a sharp eye for threat radars. I want to know what’s aimed at us out there.”

“My scope is clear,” Kabatov’s own Yen-D search radar operator reported.

“Roger,” Kabatov acknowledged. He glanced over at his copilot, Lieutenant Demin, who shared the same feelings about this morning’s mission and raised an eyebrow.

“We’ve got our orders, Gennadi.”

“Da,” Kabatov said. “No matter how stupid they are, those are our guys down there. Russians.”

“Mutineers,” Demin pointed out.

“At lot of those boys are going to die before lunch if we follow our orders.”

Demin nodded. “Whatever you want to do, I’ll go along with you.”

“Could mean trouble later on,” Kabatov warned.

Demin grinned, his wide, dark eyes lighting up. “What can they do? Shoot us?”

Kabatov nodded. “They might do just that.”

51. THE BRIDGE

It’s still too foggy to see much of anything beyond their bows, so Sablin walks out onto the port wing and cocks an ear to listen. Vice Admiral Kosov has probably sent ships out after them and possibly a couple of attack aircraft from Skirotava or maybe even Mamonovo Airfield outside Kaliningrad.

But besides that, this is the open Baltic, an area normally heavily traveled by commercial ships flying flags from a dozen different countries, the occasional warship, sometimes U.S. but most often Swedish or West German, and of course KGB patrol boats.

They are blind and they are going too fast. Sablin can almost sense the presence of other ships out there, although he can’t hear anything over the noise of the 30-knot breeze blowing across the deck and sending an icy spray over the bows when they plow into a trough.

He ducks back onto the bridge. Shein is still there, and under the circumstances Sablin doesn’t think it matters if a guard is stationed below to make sure Potulniy and his officers get out. Besides, Shein looks nervous, even frightened, as well he should be.

“Turn on the radar,” Sablin orders.

Soloviev is clearly relieved, but Maksimenko isn’t sure.

“Won’t they see us?” he asks.

“The fleet already knows where we are,” Sablin says. “The moment we were overflown, our position was pinpointed down to the meter. But now we need the radar; we can’t continue blind like this. If we collide with another ship, someone will get killed. Then we would be in serious trouble, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

All three crewmen look at their zampolit as if he were crazy. How much more trouble can mutineers get into?

Maksimenko turns on the Palm Frond navigation radar and as soon as the set warms up the screen comes alive with targets.

“Eh tvoiu mat,” Soloviev swears half under his breath.

They are nearly out of the Irben Channel and around the Sörve Peninsula at the southwestern end of Saaremaa Island. From here they are about one hour from international waters, where Sablin believes they will be safe.

If they can make it that far.

“What’s out there?” Sablin demands. “Talk to me.”

It takes an agonizingly long time for Maksimenko to sort out what’s being depicted on the radar screen.

“Ahead of us is nothing but commercial traffic, so far as I can tell,” he says. “We’re not on a collision course with anything, but that’ll change in the next half hour.” He looks up, and at that moment he could be a deer at night caught in the headlights of an onrushing truck.

“What else?” Sablin prompts.

“We’re in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“A small ship is coming up fast off our starboard quarter. Less than five hundred meters out now. It’s probably a KGB patrol boat. And just coming out of the river, it looks as if every ship that was moored with us is heading our way.”

The KGB patrol craft probably couldn’t do much damage to them, and long before the fleet catches up the Storozhevoy will be out of Soviet waters. What really matters is what aircraft Fleet Headquarters has sent after them. But he does not want to call CIC again for another radar search.

The trick will be to somehow survive the next hour.

Sablin is taking it as an article of faith that the Storozhevoy will not be attacked once he reaches international waters.

52. BIG EARS

Sweden and Russia have been at war with each other for three hundred plus years by this chilly morning of November 9. True, no shots are being exchanged at this moment, and haven’t been for a very long time, but Sweden does not ignore threats.

At times during the history of these two nations, Sweden has been the dominant power, while at other times, like right now, Russia, the Soviet Union, has been the vastly superior force. So when the Russians start moving their warships and military aircraft around the Baltic the Swedes definitely sit up and take notice.

The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment, Försvarets radioanstalt, or the FRA, is responsible for signal intelligence and works closely with the Swedish intelligence service, the SI regiment. Ever since the middle of WWII, the FRA has been electronically eavesdropping on its neighbors, most especially the Russians.

The sophisticated organizations headquarters is at Lovon, just west of Stockholm, but it maintains listening posts at such places as Ostergarn on Gotland Island, which is just two hundred kilometers to the west-southwest of the mouth of the Gulf of Riga.

At this moment the Storozhevoy is about 125 kilometers away, on a heading that would appear to be taking him directly toward Stockholm.

Doris Sampsonn, a radar intecept and evaluation officer at the FRA’s Ostergarn station, suddenly sits up at her console. The room is small and dimly lit in red. A half-dozen other Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) officers man their consoles; only the murmur of the air-conditioning fan and the muted hum of low conversations mar the almost churchlike silence.

Sampsonn is receiving a strong shipborne radar signal from the southern edge of the Irben Channel, and it’s definitely a military set. A Soviet military set.

The FRA, which is a civilian organization, works under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defence. They’d been warned early this morning of some unusual activity in the Gulf of Riga, on the surface and in the air. Also, they’d been given the heads-up that the Russians were filling the airwaves with all sorts of wild, frantic messages.

Something big is in the works, and all of Sweden’s military and civilian ELINT capabilities have been placed on high alert. It’s possible, no matter how unlikely, that the Soviet Union is making its long-feared run on NATO. But they have to be sure before they sound the alarm.

Sampsonn adjusts a few controls on her console and brings up a list of Soviet warships. Each ship’s radar suite broadcasts a signal that’s different from every other ship.

She is an experienced intecept operator, but it takes her the better part of a half hour to finally come up with a positive identification and exact location.

A hotline phone connects her directly with the ELINT duty operator at FRA Headquarters at Lovon. “Sir, this is Doris Sampsonn, intercept officer at Ostergarn Station.”

“Go ahead,” the duty operator replies crisply. It’s been a busy morning.

“I’ve identified the lead Soviet ship that just came out of the Irben Channel. She’s an ASW frigate, the Storozhevoy.” Sampsonn makes another adjustment to her console. “She is on a course of three-two-zero degrees, making thirty knots.”

“The bastard is heading right at us,” the duty operator said. “What’s her present position?”

Sampsonn picked it off her screen. “Fifty-seven degrees, fifty-three minutes north latitude, twenty-one degrees, ten minutes east longitude.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. She’s just the lead ship. There are at least one dozen military sets radiating behind her, moving out of the gulf. I think the Russians are chasing after the Storozhevoy. Or maybe it’s an exercise.”

“Let’s hope you’re right about the latter,” the duty operator says. “Keep a sharp eye.”

“Will do,” Sampsonn says. It’s been a long morning already, and it doesn’t look as if the situation will ease up any time soon.

Although it’s not part of her job to listen in on Russian military communications frequencies, Sampsonn’s ELINT console is capable of not only detecting and identifying radar signals but also intercepting Russian military traffic. Anyway, one of her many talents is a near-perfect fluency in Russian. She was raised by her grandmother on her mother’s side, who was from Leningrad. From time to time Sampsonn does a little eavesdropping on the side.

She dons a set of headphones and switches to one of the main ship-to-ship channels that Baltic Fleet Headquarters uses. Normally most broadcasts are encrypted, but this morning they are broadcasting in the clear.

The channel is choked with what sounds like the frantic messages from frightened men. Sampsonn sits forward and presses the headphones a little tighter to her ears, her heart starting to accelerate.

“What the hell is going on?” she mutters.

53. THE BRIDGE

“Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy, this is the coastal patrol vessel Smirnov off your port quarter,” the VHF radio on the overhead blares. “Immediately shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

Soloviev and Maksimenko are looking at Sablin, waiting for him to respond, to say something or do something, anything.

But in Sablin’s estimation there is nothing they can say or do, except continue on their present course and speed. As soon as they reach international waters they will be relatively safe. But as soon as they can clear the Ristna peninsula on the western side of Hiiumaa Island they can start to make their turn away from Sweden and make directly for the Gulf of Finland, at the end of which is Leningrad.

Once they make it that far, no one in Fleet Headquarters or in Moscow will be able to misunderstand Sablin’s intentions.

Sablin doesn’t reach for the radio. Instead he goes over to the hatch that opens outside to the port wing, but he doesn’t go outside. Only KGB patrol boats have names; all the others merely have numbers.The navy considers it a little pretentious to name such small vessels. Such a sentiment does not bother the KGB.

The Smirnov is a Pchela-class fast-attack hydrofoil boat capable of much higher speeds than the Storozhevoy can manage. He’s only twenty-five meters on deck, with a crew of twelve, but he is armed with four 23mm cannons, with which the gunners could take out the Storozhevoy’s bridge. He’s also equipped with depth charges that could be laid out ahead of the Storozhevoy.

More important, the KGB boat has sophisticated radar and communications equipment. By now every military unit in the Soviet Union knows, or at least thinks it does, exactly where the Storozhevoy is headed: to Sweden, where Sablin and his mutineers mean to defect.

It’s galling to Sablin that he cannot make them believe he’s no traitor. But he knows that nothing he can say will convince them. He simply has to suvive long enough to make the turn toward Leningrad. But that seemes like a million light-years from here.

“Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy, this is Smirnov; respond,” the order comes over the radio.

“Maybe we should answer them,” Maksimenko suggests fearfully.

“There’ll be no further radio messages from this ship,” Sablin says, not taking his eyes off the KGB boat.

He can see the Smirnov’s skipper and two others on the bridge and several crewmen on deck, two men manning each cannon. They mean business.

“Captain, we have two more patrol boats coming up fast from astern,” Maksimenko says from the radar set.

“How soon before they reach us?” Sablin wants to know. Another KGB crewman has come up on deck. He raises a light gun and begins signaling. It’s in Morse code, something Sablin was good at in the academy.

S-T-O-R-O-Z-H-E-V-O-Y, H-E-A-V-E T-O. P-R-E-P-A-R-E T-O B-E B-O-A-R-D-E-D.

Even three small patrol boats don’t worry Sablin much. It’s the aircraft probably on their way that bother him.

He looks up into the sky, but nothing is heading their way at that moment.

Perhaps his message broadcast to the Soviet people is finally having the effect that Sablin intended. For the first time since the radio message from Fleet Headquarters, Sablin truly believes they will succeed.

It’s a heady feeling.

A couple of KGB parol boats can’t do a thing to a warship the size of the Storozhevoy, and the fleet steaming through the Gulf of Riga will never catch up with them. He wants to dance a jig or clap his hands.

Wait until Nina finds out that he has succeeded. All of the Soviet Union will thank him, but what is even more important is his wife’s approval.

54. CHAIN OF COMMAND

Brezhnev and Grechko are keeping their distance from Gorshkov. The navy belongs to the admiral; in fact, it was he who almost single-handedly invented the modern Soviet maritime force, so that’s no stretch. But Gorshkov is on his own in this situation. It’s almost as if he has contracted the bubonic plague and no one wants to help him lest they become infected, too.

He has had no time to move from the small Kremlin office adjacent to Brehznevs conference room. The general staff has answered the recall, but all Gorshkov needs is the telephone that connects him with Navy Headquarters, with KGB Headquarters, and with Vice Admiral Kosov at Baltic Fleet Headquarters in Kaliningrad.

“I have recalled the Tu-16s,” Kosov is saying.

Gorshkov knows this, because fleet communications have been patched to his phone. “Why did you give that order?” he demands, though he has a fair idea of the answer.

“The Tupolevs are not needed. They’re too big, and not accurate enough for a ship as small as the Storozhevoy.”

“What are you sending in their place? The fleet will not catch up in time before the bastards reach Sweden, and they’ve ignored lawful orders from the KGB patrol boats.”

“A squadron of Yak-28s will be taking off momentarily. They’ll reach the Storozhevoy in about fifteen minutes’ flying time.”

Gorshkov thinks for a moment about the consequences of sending so many warships and fighter-bombers out into the international waters of the Baltic. Should one of the fighters fire on the wrong ship, a civilian, commercial vessel or, God forbid, a warship from another country, the situation could spiral totally out of control.

“Who will be in charge of the flight?” Gorshkov wants to know.

“The air wing commander Sergei Guliayev is personally taking charge,” Kosov says. He has been handed the responsibility for stopping the Storozhevoy, thus easing some of the burden from Gorshkov. And in turn Kosov has transferred some of the burden to an air wing commander. It’s called covering your ass, and Soviet commanders are consummate professionals at the game.

Defense Minister Grechko walks in at that moment and sits down across the table from Gorshkov. Grechko is sweating, though the room is cool.

“Keep me informed,” Gorshkov tells Vice Admiral Kosov.

“Yes, sir.”

Gorshkov puts down the phone and looks at the defense minister.

“Is the situation under conrol yet, Admiral?” Grechko wants to know.

“Vice Admiral Kosov is a good man. He assures me that he has everything under control, and that the Storozhevoy will be neutralized within the hour.”

Grechko sits forward all of a sudden and slams his open palm on the table, the noise fast and sharp. “Not neutralized, Admiral, destroyed!”

55. THE BRIDGE

The KGB patrol boat Smirnov has used semaphore flags, international signal flags, and red flares from a Very pistol. Just now an officer is on the port deck, just below the bridge, shouting orders through a bullhorn, his voice so highly amplified that it is distorted beyond all understanding.

Sablin stands at the port wing hatch. The officer with the bullhorn and the skipper and helmsman on the bridge can see his face in the window, just as he can see theirs. Less than fifty meters separates the two vessels. And now that the fog has lifted momentarily he can see the two other KGB patrol boats trailing one hundred meters aft.

It must be frustrating for them, Sablin thinks. They have been given the job of stopping a ship, but nothing they have done has had the slightest effect. He wonders what they will eventually put in their reports and how they will answer the questions from their superiors.

“Why did you fail to stop the mutineers?”

“Where was your initiative?”

“You are trained officers of the KGB; why is it that you didn’t carry out your orders?”

In some small measure Sablin may feel sorry for the men on the three patrol boats. After all, they are good Russians, just like the Storozhevoy’s officers and crew. He sincerely wishes that there were some way for him to help absolve the patrol boats’ crews for their failure this morning. But nothing like that is possible.

“Bljad,” Maksimenko swears softly. He’s done a lot of that in the past hour.

Sablin turns away from the window. “What is it now, Oleg?”

The same kid calls from CIC: “We should surrender now, Captain,” he says.

“You turned the radar on again?” he shouts into the handset.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I had to make sure. I’m showing war planes heading our way. Very fast.”

“Can you tell what kind of aircraft these are?”

“Yak-28s.”

“I know this name,” Sablin says. “I think NATO calls them Brewer. Are they jet fighters?”

“They’re bombers. Meant to attack ships like ours. They’re coming out to sink us. We’re all going to die.”

“We’re not going to die,” Sablin says sharply. “I promise you that no one will die this morning.”

“If we don’t follow their orders, if we don’t heave to right now and let the KGB board us, they’ll drop bombs until we sink to the bottom and drown.”

“If someone was going to attack us, the KGB boats out there would already have put warning shots across our bows.” Sablin looks out at the KGB vessel alongside. “They could also put a few cannon rounds through our windows and destroy us and the bridge, but they haven’t done that, either.” He looks over at Shein. “I’m telling all of you that no Russian will fire on this ship.”

“I don’t know…” The CIC operator trails off.

“If the tables were reversed would we shoot at another Russian ship?” Sablin wants to know.

“If we were ordered to do it,” the midshipman says.

“Even if we were ordered to do it, Captain Potulniy would never pull the trigger.”

“He’s not here,” the boy says defiantly. “I say that we stop right now.”

“Well, I’m here,” Sablin retorts. “And we will maintain our course and speed.”

“What happens when the bombers arrive and start attacking us?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“Then we’ll deal with that problem,” Sablin says lamely. But he is counting on his belief that no Russian naval officer will fire on another Russian ship.

56. YAK-28 SQUADRON

Captain Yuri Zhernov is squadron leader for the flight of twenty Yak-28s based at Mamonovo. He and most of the other pilots were at first surprised and then deeply troubled at their mission briefing. They were to fly north into the open Baltic under guidance from their air-based controller aboard an Il-38 circling at flight level eighteen, find the ASW frigate Storozhevoy, and open fire.

“You are ordered to sink that ship as quickly as possible,” the boss of the Baltic Fleet Air Wing, Colonel Sergei Guliayev, told them.

Zhernov got to his feet. “Sir, shouldn’t we first order them to heave to and surrender before we open fire?”

“They’ve already been given that order, Captain, and they have ignored it. They are mutineers and traitors who are trying to defect to the West, where they will turn over their ship and his classified equipment to NATO. Do you want such a thing to happen?”

“No, sir,” Zhernov said. But he’d not been sure of anything then. And now, approaching the Storozhevoy at more than 1,000 kilometers per hour, he is even less sure.

“I have the target in sight,” his weapons officer flying second seat reports over the aircraft’s intercom system.

Zhernov hesitates.

“You are in position, Captain Zhernov,” the voice of the air wing commander suddenly comes over the tactical frequency. “Prepare to destroy the target.”

“Roger,” Zhernov replies automatically.

Still he hesitates.

57. THE BRIDGE

The Yak-28 squadron is directly overhead, coming in at a low altitude, but still no shots are being fired.

Sablin has turned down the volume on the VHF radio; there are so many voices screaming at them to stop, to heave to, to surrender, that it’s become impossible to think over the racket.

From the open bridge door to the corridor below he can hear the sounds of the morning crew coming on watch. They sound excited. Exercises were canceled for the morning, no officer showed up to conduct them, but Sablin can smell the odors of breakfast.

Sablin grabs a bullhorn from a locker and steps out onto the port bridge wing. The Smirnov is still there, and the fog is beginning to lift even more.

Overhead, the Yak-28s have passed and are making a long, sweeping turn to come back for a second run.

Sablin raises the bullhorn toward the KGB patrol boat and presses the talk switch. “Smirnov, we do not mean to fire any shots. We are not defecting. We are en route to Leningrad, where we will address the Soviet people. Do you understand?”

Several armed crewmen with grappling lines are standing by on the patrol boat’s deck.

The KGB officer raises his bullhorn. “Storozhevoy, heave to at once and prepare to be boarded.”

Sablin goes back inside, puts the bullhorn down, and calls the gunnery division. One of the midshipmen whose name he cannot recall at that instant answers. The boy was one of Vinogrodovs crew.

“This is Captain Sablin on the bridge. I want our cannons turned towad the small patrol craft that’s just off our port quarter.”

“But, sir, we have no shells.”

“I don’t care!” Sablin shouts. “Do it now!”

58. YAK-28 SQUADRON

Zhernov is lined up for his run on the Storozhevoy, and his squadron is fanned out behind him. They will make their attack in five waves of four aircraft each.

“Control, we are commencing our attack,” Zhernov radios. “Have they surrendered yet?”

“Does it look like it?” Guliayev shouts. “Follow your orders!”

“On my lead,” Zhernov radios his squadron, and he pushes the stick forward.

His aircraft is an older model, designated Yak-281, equipped with the Initiativa radar bombing system, and it still has its 30mm cannons, which have been pulled out of some of the newer Yaks. Powered by a pair of Tumansky R-11 afterburning turbojets the aircraft carries conventional bombs large enough to take out the Storozhevoy.

“I have the target,” his weapons officer reports.

“Roger,” Zhernov responds. “Report weapons lock.”

“Roger,” the weaps reports. A moment later he is back. “I have a primary weapons lock. Do I have permission to fire?”

Zhernov makes his decision at the last possible moment. He wants to frighten the stupid fools into surrendering, not kill them all. “Nyet, nyet!” he shouts. “I’m firing with our cannon on the first run. On the deck, forward of the bridge, and then aft along the weather deck.”

His controller above in the Ilyushin is shouting in his headphones, as are at least two others, one of them probably Guliayev, but Zhernov ignores them.

Two of his wingmen drop their bombs, but they have aimed wide of the mark. Purposely? Zhernov wonders.

The Storozhevoy looms large outside his canopy, and he can even imagine that he is picking out individual faces through the bridge windows when he fires his cannon, the shells tearing up the foredeck and then along the hull as he screams past, leaving the ship in his wake.

Off to port Zhernov spots a flash and sudden plume of smoke and he turns his head toward it. One of the bombs dropped by his wing-men has found a target. But the wrong ship!

It’s the fog. It’s the lousy orders.

“Break off! Break off!” he orders his squadron.

59. BELOWDECKS

When the first shots hit the deck forward of the bridge they sound like the distant blows of a jackhammer.

Gindin and the other officers locked in the compartment look up in alarm.

“They’re shooting at us,” Kuzmin says.

Almost immediately cannon shots rake the side of the ship, and this time the noise is deafening. Up close and personal. Deadly. For the first time every man in the room understands that they could die down here in a matter of a few more minutes.

Kuzmin starts pounding on the door again, and Gindin joins him.

60. CHAIN OF COMMAND

Gorshkov has switched the telephone to speaker mode so that Grechko can also hear the communications relayed from Baltic Fleet Headquarters. Both men are having trouble believing what they are listening to.

“Am I correct in understanding that your pilots refuse to drop their bombs?” Gorshkov demands.

“Three have been dropped so far,” Kosov replies. He sounds shaky.

“Has the Storozhevoy been destroyed?”

“No, sir. Two of the bombs missed their target, but the third struck the wrong ship.”

“What ship?” Grechko demands.

“One of ours,” Kosov responds. “Another Krivak class, just like the Storozhevoy.”

“Casualties?” Gorshkov wants to know.

“I have no reports yet. The situation is very confusing at the—”

“But the Storozhevoy has not been stopped. He is still sailing to the west?” Gorshkov asks.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so,” Kosov admits. “But not for long.”

Grechko suddenly switches to another line. A moment later it is answered by an aide.

“What is the nearest air force base to the Storozhevoy?” Grechko demands.

“Tukums, in the Pribaltiysk Military Region.”

“Didn’t we just send them a couple squadrons of Sukhoi attack bombers?”

“Yes, sir,” the aide replies.

“Order them into the air immediately!” Grechko shouts. “Tell them to sink that ship!”

“Yes, sir,” the aide replies as calmly as if he had been ordered to bring the minister’s limousine around to the front door.

Grechko breaks the connection. “The navy doesn’t want to shoot at one of its own ships, so now we’ll see what the air force can do,” he says to no one.

61. SU-24 SQUADRON, TUKUMS AIR FORCE BASE

Sukhoi-24 Squadron Leader Captain Ivan Makarov arrives at the pilots’ briefing room shortly after breakfast. The runner who summoned him said that something very big was in the wind, and he was ordered to “move your ass.”

Two dozen crewmen have already assembled, and even before Makarov can take his seat Air Regiment Commander Colonel Nikolai Teplov walks in and charges to the podium at the head of the room.

Everyone jumps to attention, but Teplov, who normally is a stickler for military courtesy and etiquette, waves them down.

“Your aircraft have been fueled, and ordnance is being loaded at this moment. In addition to ammunition for your cannons you will be carrying laser-guided bombs. You are to take off as soon as you can get to your aircraft. Captain Makarov will be in overall command once you’re in the air.” Teplov gives them a hard stare. “Dismissed.”

Makarov jumps to his feet as Teplov steps away from the podium and strides toward the door. “Colonel, where are we going?”

“The Baltic!” Teplov shouts. “Once you’re in the air and assembled you’ll be given the coordinates of your target.”

“Yes, sir. What target?”

“A ship, which your squadron will stop,” Teplov says. He raises a hand to silence Makarov’s next question. All the pilots are looking at Teplov, some of them with their mouths half-open in astonishment. “This is not war, I assure you. Your mission is to prevent a war, and the orders come from Minister of Defense Grechko himself. Do I make myself clear?”

Makarov nods. “Yes, sir,” he says, though Teplov’s order is anything but clear.

62. THE BRIDGE

“Sir, it looks as if all the ships that were following us have fallen back,” Maksimenko says.

“Thank God,” Sablin says softly. Like everyone else aboard, he is deeply shaken. He had convinced himself that no Russian would fire on them. Yet the foredeck and starboard side are chewed up by cannon fire from one of the Yaks. And it looks as if one of the ships trailing them was hit by a bomb.

It’s insanity. What could those pilots be thinking?

“What about the aircraft that fired on us?” he demands, and he can hear the unsteadiness in his voice.

“They’re circling overhead,” Maksimenko responds. His voice is shaky, too. “They actually shot at us.”

“It was just a warning,” Sablin assures Maksimenko and Soloviev and Shein. “If they had meant to stop us or even destroy us they could have done it easily. But they didn’t.”

“I think we should stop now and surrender,” Soloviev says.

“Are any of the airplanes or ships making an attack run toward us at this moment?”

Maksimenko shakes his head. “No, sir. But I agree; I think that we should surrender before something worse happens.”

Sablin has been trying not to listen to the garble of radio traffic they’re picking up on the VHF set. But it’s impossible to ignore. Someone who identified himself as Minister of Defense Grechko has repeatedly warned the Storozhevoy not to sail beyond the twentieth meridian or they will be attacked.

But they’re still nearly one hundred kilometers away from that position. In any event, Sablin plans to make his turn to the north and then the northeast by then, to shape his course up into the Gulf of Finland and, from there, Leningrad.

If they can survive that long. Just a couple more hours.

He walks to the port wing and steps outside. The KGB patrol vessels are somewhere behind, lost in the fog that has persisted even though the sun is up. It’s very cold, and he thinks that he can smell the odors of exploded ordnance and hot jagged steel plating where the shells hit.

No major damage has been done, but looking toward the chewed-up foredeck he knows that Potulniy will go ballistic when he sees what has been done to his ship.

One reasonably clear voice comes over the VHF radio. It is a ship, and it must be close. “Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy, this is Patrol Vessel…” The name of the ship is garbled. “…now or you will be destroyed.”

Sablin and the others look up at the VHF radio as if it were a bomb on the verge of exploding.

“This is Captain Neipert from Liepaje; stop now, or we will fire on you.”

Sablin had never heard of this captain, but Liepaje was a Soviet naval base in Latvia. Sablin takes the microphone off its bracket and keys the push-to-talk switch. For just an instant he doesn’t know what to say. But then it comes to him.

“Listen to me, my friend. We are Russians together. We are not traitors to our Rodina. We will be changing course very soon, to the north and then the northeast. We are not heading to Sweden. We are heading to Leningrad.”

“Stop now.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Then change course now.”

“I will as soon as we reach the shipping channel,” Sablin radioed.

“Bridge, CIC,” the intercom blares.

Sablin grabs the hand set. “What?”

“I’m painting at least twenty aircraft approaching at a high rate of speed. I think they might be the new Sukhoi-24s.”

Sablin replaces the microphone, ending his conversation with captain Neipert, his heart in his throat. “I don’t know this airplane.”

“I don’t, either, but I heard one of the officers talking, maybe it was Lieutenant Firsov, saying that the navy might get the new jet.” Maksimenko looks up. “They’re ship killers.”

A shiver runs up Sablin’s spine. He turns to Soloviev. “What is our present course?”

“Two-nine-zero, sir.”

That’s almost directly toward Stockholm. But it’s still too soon to make the turn to the north. He has to make a decision, and make it fast, before those jets reach them.

Russians might shoot up their foredeck or even fire a few cannon shells into their side. But no Russian will destroy a Russian ship and kill fellow Russians.

It is an article of faith that will soon be put to the test.

“Steady on that course,” Sablin orders.

63. SU-24 SQUADRON

Captain Makarov glances over at Lieutenant Aleksandr Ryzhkov, his copilot/weapons officer flying right seat. This mission is totally impossible, and Makarov can see that Ryzhkov feels the same way.

Ten minutes ago they received their final orders. They were given vectors to the Storozhevoy heading toward Sweden. When they reached the ship they were to bomb him and send him to the bottom with all hands.

Even if the crew had mutinied and was trying to defect to the West, it would only be a matter of a few hours before the Swedes would send the ship home. If the Storozhevoy could somehow reach the United States it might be a different story. But Sweden would never go head-to-head with the Soviet Union.

“They have ship-to-air missiles,” Ryzhkov said on the way out. “What happens if we’re targeted and they shoot at us?”

“It won’t happen,” Makarov had replied gruffly.

“Da, Ivan, but what happens if they do?”

“In that case, we would have to drop our bombs. We wouldn’t have a choice.”

“Do we have a choice now?” Ryzhkov asks.

64. THE BRIDGE

Although Sablin can see the blue sky straight overhead, the dense fog near the surface of the water persists. It must make it difficult for the aircraft pilots circling above them. Mistakes have already been made, and more are likely.

He’s gone back out on the port wing, and he can see the thick column of smoke rising up into the sky from well back. It was the ship hit by mistake. He sincerely hopes that there were no casualties, although he doesn’t know how that is possible.

It astounds him that Russians could fire on fellow Russians. It has seriously shaken his belief that they have a chance of pulling this off, and for the first time since this morning he is seriously considering stopping and surrendering.

He has been considering what sorts of arguments he can use so that he will be the only one punished. But he has come to the sad conclusion that everyone will be blamed for the mutiny, even Potulniy for losing his ship.

It’s the Soviet way.

“Captain!” Maksimensko calls from the inside. He sounds even more shaken up than he has all morning.

Sablin goes back onto the bridge. “What is it now?”

Soloviev nods toward the VHF radio. “Listen, sir.”

For several seconds Sablin has a hard time separating individual voices from the garble. But then it starts to become clear that he is hearing transmissions between the Su-24s and their controller back at Tukums Air Force Base, and between the squadron leader in the air and the pilots of the other aircraft.

“…leaving one thousand meters. We have to get lower; from up here we can’t tell one ship from the other.”

“You are cleared for low-altitude flight operations at your discretion,” another voice comes clear.

“Able Section, we go first, acknowledge.”

Several aircraft respond in rapid order.

“Control, Squadron Leader, request permission to release weapons.”

“Squadron Leader, Control, you have permission to release your weapons.”

“Able Section, arm your weapons. We have permission to release.”

Maksimenko’s eyes are as wide as saucers. “They’re going to attack us for sure this time.”

Sablin is at a loss as to what to do.

“Captain, what are your orders?” Soloviev asks. He, too, is frightened.

65. SU-24 SQUADRON

“Listen to this,” Ryzhkov says excitedly. He’s momentarily switched to Baltic Fleet’s tactical channel.

Makarov is about to push his stick forward to commence the attack run when he hears someone identifying himself as Minister of Defense Grechko.

“Storozhevoy, you will stop immediately. Do you understand?”

The squadron is approaching the point where Makarov must either start his attack run or do a fly-by and come around.

The Storozhevoy does not answer.

“Storozhevoy, this is Minister of Defense Grechko. You will stop immediately. Acknowledge.”

There is no answer from the ship.

“Captain Makarov, can you hear me?”

Makarov keys his helmet microphone. “Yes, sir.”

“You have my authorization to begin your attack run. Do it now!”

“Acknowledged,” Makarov says, and he slams his stick forward and to the right, sending his aircraft into a steep turning dive.

66. THE BRIDGE

“They’re attacking us!” Maksimenko shouts, stepping away from the radar set.

Sablin has heard the radio messages, as well as the warning and orders from the minister of defense, with his own ears, yet he still cannot accept what is about to happen. Russians attacking Russians goes against everything he has ever believed.

Attacking traitors or officers guilty of treason is something completely different from what is happening here. The Storozhevoy is unarmed. He has no ammunition and no missiles with which to defend himself. The crew is helpless.

All Sablin wants is to send his message to the Soviet people and let them decide their future. Is that too much to ask the Kremlin? One voice among millions. Nothing more than that.

Something hits the starboard side of the ship with a tremendous bang that nearly knocks Sablin and the others off their feet.

Almost immediately more sledgehammer blows hit the ship, this time on both port and starboard sides.

Sablin looks up in time to see at least six jet aircraft bracketing either side of the Storozhevoy, bright pinpoints of lights coming from beneath the aircraft as they fire their cannons. The shells slam into the ship now so fast that it becomes impossible to think, let alone issue an order.

As the jets roar past just a few meters above the level of the bridge the banshee scream of the jet engines all but blots out even the noise of the incoming shells impacting against the ship’s hull.

“They’re attacking!” Soloviev shouts, needlessly.

Sablin wants to get on the radio to tell the pilots that they are making a dreadful mistake. But he cannot move.

The jets were so low and close that he was certain he could see the faces of the crew. Two men in each cockpit.

But the jets are gone now, and the shooting has ceased.

“Is it over—,” Makismenko starts to ask when a tremendous explosion slams into the ship somewhere aft.

This time the blow is so massive that Sablin is actually knocked off his feet.

“It was a bomb!” Maksimenko cries. “Captain, they’re bombing us!”

More jets appear out of the fog, shooting their cannons into the Storozhevoy’s hull, the ship actually shuddering with each hit as if he were a mortally wounded animal.

The ship suddenly begins to turn to the left. Soloviev is fighting the wheel, but it’s having no effect.

Sablin scrambles to his feet. “Come back on course!” he shouts.

“I can’t,” Soloviev says. “I think the rudder has jammed.”

“Captain, we need to stop and surrender before it is too late!” Maksimenko shouts. “We’re going to die here!”

“Nobody’s going to die!” Sablin shouts back, and he reaches for the radio as a second laser-guided 250-kilogram bomb hits the stern, shoving the ship twenty meters off his track.

67. BELOWDECKS

Gindin and the others locked in the sonar compartment can smell smoke coming through the ventilators. Besides cannon fire, the ship has taken at least two indirect hits by bombs somewhere toward the stern.

They suddenly made a turn to port but have not straightened out. The rudder has probably been hit and put out of commission. They are like sitting ducks now.

None of them has any doubt that word has gotten to the Kremlin and the order is to find the Storozhevoy and send him to the bottom with all hands.

“We have to get out of here!” Proshutinsky shouts over the din of the bombs and cannon shells slamming into the ship.

Gindin and Kuzmin have found a couple of screwdrivers and wrenches, and they are desperately trying to dismantle the hinges on the hatch to the corridor. But it’s no use. The job is impossible. What they need is an acetylene torch.

“Can you get the hatch open?” Proshutinsky demands.

Gindin turns to him and is about to shake his head when they hear someone out in the corridor. It sounds like someone shouting something, but Gindin can’t make out what he’s saying over the noise of the attack.

Gindin pounds on the hatch. “Let us out!”

Kuzmin also slams an open palm against the hatch.

Something heavy, maybe a pry bar, falls away and clatters on the deck out in the corridor. The dogging wheel begins to turn.

“Watch out; they probably have guns,” Proshutinsky warns.

At this point Gindin doesn’t care. If the attack continues, the Storozhevoy will sooner or later be struck a mortal blow and sink to the bottom. He’d rather face a few men with pistols than remain locked up down here to drown.

He and Kuzmin step back and prepare to launch a charge the moment the hatch is opened.

“Good luck,” Kuzmin says.

“Da,” Gindin replies as the hatch swings open.

There are three men there, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kopilov and two seamen. Gindin launches himself out into the corridor, slamming into the petty officer and knocking the man backward against the bulkhead.

Kuzmin is right behind Gindin at the same moment another tremendous explosion comes from somewhere aft. The ship is violently shoved sideways.

Kopilov is just a kid and obviously frightened out of his skull. “You have to help us, before he kills us all,” he shouts. “They’re attacking us. We’ll all be killed.”

The other officers and midshipmen are scrambling out of the sonar compartment. “First we need to release the captain,” Proshutinksy orders.

Kopilov leads the way forward to the other sonar compartment. The hatch has been braced shut with a large piece of dunnage, a heavy wooden beam fifteen or twenty centimeters on a side and two or three meters long. It takes Gindin and the sailors to prise the beam away from the hatch and pass it back to the others.

“Captain, it’s Boris; we’re opening the hatch for you!” Gindin shouts. He undogs the hatch and yanks it open.

Potulniy is right there, his face screwed up into a mask of rage. Gindin doesn’t think he’s ever seen a man so angry.

“I’ll kill the bastard!” the captain shouts. He looks at the others, mentally cataloging the faces of everyone with him. “Do we have any weapons?”

Kopilov pulls a Makarov pistol from his belt under his tunic and hands it to Potulniy.

“I’m going to the bridge to put an end to this,” the captain tells them. “The rest of you get to one of the the armories and see if you can find some other weapons. I want half of you to cover the ship from somewhere aft and the other half to go forward. But be careful; I don’t want you getting shot up.”

“I’ll take the stern,” Proshutinsky volunteers.

“Good,” Potulniy says. He turns to Gindin. “Get down to the engine room, and see what you can do to talk some sense into your men. We’re probably going to have company real soon, unless they mean to sink us.”

“Captain, I don’t think Captain Sablin is a traitor,” Gindin says. “I think he somehow got his head up his ass. He’s naive, not a criminal.”

“Naive or not, the bastard’s going to get us all killed.”

Another bomb hits somewhere aft, and the ship shudders from stem to stern.

“Go!” Potulniy orders, and he turns on his heel and heads for the bridge as fast as he can move.

Heading down to the engineering spaces, Gindin has to think, God help anyone who tries to get in the captain’s way now. And God help Sablin.

68. THE BRIDGE

On the way up from deep within the ship, Potulniy encounters a half-dozen sailors but no officers and no one with any guns. The kids are all clearly frightened and have no idea what they’re supposed to do.

The murderous rage continues to build inside him. He wants very badly to lash out at someone, something, for what is being done to his ship. But not these kids.

“Return to your duty stations,” he orders.

The attacks seem to have stopped, at least for the moment, when Potulniy reaches the bridge deck. He pulls up short just around the corner from the open hatch. From where he’s standing he can see one of the seamen by the radar set and can hear Sablin talking frantically on the radio, but it’s difficult to make out who the zampolit is talking to or what he’s saying. But he sounds just as frightened as the rest of the crew.

As well as the bastard should be, Potulniy thinks. Naive, my ass.

His own naval career is finished. He will never be able to explain to a court-martial board how he came to lose command of his ship. Or why he wasn’t able to stop the destruction of his vessel.

But Sablin has another reason to be afraid. Potulniy means to kill him. Right now.

The captain thumbs the pistol’s safety catch to the off position and steps around the corner and onto the bridge.

The seamen at the radar set and the two standing at the now useless helm all look up, first in alarm and then in relief.

“Captain,” Soloviev says.

Sablin begins to turn as Potulniy raises the pistol, his finger tightening on the trigger. But then the man holding the microphone is just Valery, married to Nina, with a son, Misha. Sablin is a fellow officer, misguided, foolish, and, da, naive, but not a criminal.

“Captain—,” Sablin blurts.

Potulniy lowers his aim and fires one shot, catching the zampolit in the left leg, just above the knee.

Sablin cries out in pain and falls to the deck. He reaches for the pistol in his belt holster, but Potulniy gets to him and takes the gun away.

For a long moment the two men stare at each other across a chasm of more than just a meter or so. What Sablin has done is treason. It goes against every fiber of Potulniy’s being.

He wants to ask why, but he knows that if Sablin tries to convince him that the mutiny was the right thing to do, he might fire again and this time kill the zampolit.

“Eb tvoiu mat,” Potulniy swears softly. “Take this bastard to his cabin and see that he remains there,” he tells the seamen. “If he tries anything, kill him.”

All three of them jump to it immediately. They help Sablin to his feet and between them hustle him out the hatch and belowdecks to his cabin, leaving Potulniy alone on the bridge of his wounded ship for the moment.

He looks out the window and can see dozens of jets circling overhead like angry bees. A group breaks off from the swarm and starts its final attack run.

Potulniy snatches the handset for the ship’s comm from its cradle and calls Engineering.

“Boris, are you there?” he shouts. But there is no answer.

69. ENGINE ROOM

Gindin has managed to arm himself with a pistol as he races belowdecks to his engine room. He can actually see daylight coming through a series of baseball-sized holes in the hull from the cannon fire.

Sailors are everywhere, running down corridors and up companion-ways like ants boiling out of their disturbed nests. But nobody notices the officer with the pistol racing past. Sometimes he has to shove his way through a knot of frightened kids, but even then no one tries to stop him.

He slams open the hatch and barges into the engineering space where the main control panels are located.

Five of his crew are there, running the engines, checking the control panel, and Gindin’s blood boils. He trained these men. He stood up for them when the captain complained about missing potatoes, when they didn’t want to get out of bed, and when they got Dear John letters from their girlfriends. He even got them early leaves when they finished installing the five new diesel engines at the last refit.

This is how they have repaid him.

He raises his gun and points it at the ones near the control panel.

At this point he is drenched with sweat, and he thinks that it won’t take much of a push to start him firing.

“Get away from the panel!” he shouts over the din of the turbines.

All the sailors look up when they hear his voice.

“Get away from the panel!” Gindin shouts again. “Over by the wall. Move it!”

All five immediately follow his orders, with relief, now that an officer is in charge again, mixed with fear.

As soon as they are standing facing the wall, Gindin leaps to the control panel and starts shutting down the engines. Immediately the whine of the turbines begins to decrease and the deafening noise winds down.

Keeping the pistol trained on his five sailors, he snatches the ship’s comm handset from its bracket. “Bridge, Engineering.”

Potulniy answers immediately. “Is everything okay down there?”

“Captain, I’ve shut down the engines.”

“Any casualties?”

“No, sir,” Gindin says. “Not yet. What about Captain Sablin?”

“He’s been neutralized, and I’m in command again.”

“Have you contacted Fleet Headquarters yet?”

“There’s no time! We’re under attack!”

“You have to call them, Captain!” Gindin shouts. “Before it’s too late!”

“Stay at your post, Boris,” Potulniy orders. “I may need the engines in a big hurry.”

“Yes, sir,” Gindin replies, and he replaces the handset.

He’s in a quandary just then. He can’t run his engines without the help of his crew, yet he can’t trust them. They’ve stabbed him in the back.

He wants to lash out with frustration. Like Potulniy, he suspects that his naval career is over. There’s nothing any of them can do now to change what has happened.

Gindin glances toward the overhead. He hopes that the captain can convince the fleet that he’s back in charge and to stop the attack.

Potulniy is their best hope for survival.

70. SU-24 SQUADRON

“Do you mean to sink him?” Ryzhkov asks.

Makarov looks over at his copilot/weapons officer and nods. “We have our orders.”

They’re flying low and slow, a few hundred meters above the waves, at around 400 knots. They cannot miss. The Storozhevoy is on fire and circling to port a couple of miles to the west. Perhaps the ship is slowing down, but at this speed and angle it’s hard for Makarov to be sure. Anyway, what he’s told his weaps is true; they do have their orders to stop the traitors.

If it means sinking the ship and killing the officers and crew, then so be it. The air force did not create this situation.

Makarov keys his helmet mike. “Unit Three, on my lead, let’s finish this.”

They are the next wave of attack jets that have not dropped their laser-guided bombs.

This time the Storozhevoy has no chance whatsoever to survive. Within a few minutes he and his crew will be at the bottom of the Baltic.

“Fighter squadrons attacking the Storozhevoy, this is Captain Anatoly Potulniy.”

Makarov slams his stick hard right and full forward, ignoring the urgent voice in his headset, and his jet peels off to starboard in a steep dive toward the ship he means to kill.

In thirty seconds it will be mission accomplished.

71. THE BRIDGE

It’s obvious that the commander of the strike force heading toward the Storozhevoy either didn’t receive Potulniy’s radio message or has chosen to ignore it. Either way, five Su-24s are heading right at his bows and will be in a position to release their bombs in a matter of seconds.

His rage toward Sablin has been replaced with fear for his ship. Not fear for his own life but a genuine concern for the Storozhevoy and all who’ve sailed him—including the mutineers.

He keys the VHF radio again. “Baltic Fleet Headquarters, this is Captain Anatoly Potulniy. The mutiny has been put down. Cease fire; cease fire! I am in command of the ship!”

“Who is this?” the radio blares.

Potulniy recognizes the voice of the chief of staff. “Admiral Kosov, it’s me: Potulniy. Can you recognize my voice?”

The radio is silent for several ominous seconds. Potulniy is staring out the windows, the jets looming ever larger.

“Report your situation,” the admiral demands.

“The mutiny has been put down, and I have regained command,”

Potulniy says in a rush. “My engines have been shut down and we are slowing to a stop. Call off the attack!”

Again the radio is ominously silent.

The jets are less than one hundred meters out.

72. SU-24 SQUADRON

“Break off the attack! Break off the attack!” a voice is shouting in Makarov’s headset.

“Ready for weapons release,” Ryzhkov reports.

Seconds.

“Break off the attack!” The same voice is in Makarov’s headset.

He keys his mike. “This is Sukhoi-24 Squadron Leader Captain Makarov. Identify yourself,” he demands.

“This is Vice Admiral Kosov. Break off the attack now!”

They have reached the Storozhevoy. Makarov can see a man on the bridge, looking up at him.

“Weapons release now possible,” Ryzhkov reports.

“Nyet,” Makarov replies. “Unit Three, Unit Three, break off. I repeat, break off.” He hauls the heavy jet hard over to starboard and pulls back on the stick, sending them climbing into the crystal-clear blue sky. They have accomplished their mission. Time now to go home.

73. THE BRIDGE

The Storozhevoy finally comes to a complete halt in the middle of the Baltic, nearly all the way to Swedish waters. It’s a little past 10:30 in the morning, local time, and a sudden hush has descended on the warship.

Once the jets broke off their attack, Potulniy had time to study the images on the radar screen. It looks as if the entire Russian navy has them surrounded.

Now it begins, he thinks.

He keys the VHF radio. “This is Captain Potulniy. We are standing by to be boarded. Which side do you prefer?”

“Port,” the terse reply comes back.

Potulniy gets on the 1MC. “Attention, all hands, this is the captain speaking. If you have weapons, put them down. We will be boarded in a couple of minutes. Anyone caught with a weapon will be forcibly disarmed and placed under immediate arrest.”

“Bridge, Acoustics,” Proshutinsky calls on the ship’s comm.

“Yes, Nikolay?” Potulniy replies. At the moment Proshutinksy is the second-ranking officer aboard.

“Shall I order a damage control party?”

“Nyet,” Potulniy says. “That will be up to the KGB when they come aboard.” Even as he speaks the initials a chill comes over him. It’s unknowable how this will all turn out. But it will not end well for any of them.