Red Storm Rising

6. The Watchers

Intentions was a small second-floor office normally occupied by four officers. Shoehorning Toland in there was difficult, mainly because all the classified material had to be covered up while the civilian movers got the desk in place. When they finally left, Bob found he had just about enough space to get into and out of his swivel chair. The office door had a cipher lock with five rocker switches concealed in a steel container. Located in the northwest comer of CINCLANT headquarters, the office's barred windows overlooked a highway and little else. The drab curtains were closed anyway. Inside, the walls might have been painted beige once, but the plaster had whitened from underneath to give the office the sort of pallor expected in a yellow-fever ward.

The senior officer was a Marine colonel named Chuck Lowe, who had watched the moving-in process with a silent resentment that Bob only understood when the man got to his feet.

"I may never make it to the head now," Lowe grumped, sticking his cast around the comer of his desk. They shook hands.

"What happened to the leg, Colonel?"

"Mountain Warfare School out in California, day after Christmas, skiing on my own Goddamned time. The docs say you should never break the tibia close to the bottom," Lowe explained with an ironic smile. "And you never get used to the itching. Should have this thing off in another three or four weeks. Then I have to get used to running again. You know, I spent three years trying to break my ass out of intel, then I finally get my Goddamned regiment, and this happens. Welcome aboard, Toland. Why don't you grab us both a cup of coffee?"

There was a pot atop the farthest filing cabinet. The other three officers, Lowe explained, were giving a briefing.

"I saw the writeup you gave CINCLANT. Interesting stuff. What do you think Ivan's up to?"

"It looks like he's increasing readiness across the board, Colonel-"

"In here, you can call me Chuck."

"Fine-I'm Bob."

"You do signal intelligence at NSA, right? You're one of the satellite specialists, I heard."

Toland nodded. "Ours and theirs, mostly ours. I see photos from time to time, but mostly I do signals work. That's how we twigged to the report on the four colonels. There has also been a fair amount of operational maneuvering done, more than usual for this time of year. Ivan's been a little freer with how his tankers drive around, too, less concern about running a battalion across a plowed field, for example."

"And you're supposed to have a look at anything that's unusual, no matter how dumb it seems, right? That gives you a pretty wide brief, doesn't it? We got something interesting along those lines from DIA. Have a look at these." Lowe pulled a pair of eight-by-ten photographs from a manila envelope and handed them to Toland. They seemed to show the same parcel of land, but from slightly different angles and different times of year. In the upper left comer was a pair of isbas, the crude huts of Russian peasant life. Toland looked up.

"Collective farm?"

"Yeah. Number 1196, a little one about two hundred klicks northwest of Moscow. Tell me what's different between the two."

Toland looked back at the photos. In one was a straight line of fenced gardens, perhaps an acre each. In the other he could see a new fence for four of the patches, and one patch whose fenced area had been roughly doubled.

"A colonel-army-type-I used to work with sent me these. Thought I'd find it amusing. I grew up on a corn farm in Iowa, you see."

"So Ivan's increasing the private patches for the farmers to work on their own, eh?"

"Looks that way."

"Hasn't been announced, has it? I haven't read anything about it." Toland didn't read the government's secret in-house publication, National Intelligence Digest, but the NSA cafeteria gossip usually covered harmless stuff like this. Intelligence types talked shop as much as any others.

Lowe shook his head slightly. "Nope, and that's a little odd. It's something they should announce. The papers would call that another sure sign of the 'liberalization trend' we've been seeing."

"Just this one farm, maybe?"

"As a matter of fact, they've seen the same thing at five other places. But we don't generally use our reconsats for this sort of thing. They got this on a slow news day, I suppose. The important stuff must have been covered by clouds." Toland nodded agreement. The reconnaissance satellites were used to evaluate Soviet grain crops, but that happened later in the year. The Russians knew it also, since it had been in the open press for over a decade, explaining why there was a team of agronomists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture with Special Intelligence-Compartmented security clearance.

"Kind of late in the season to do that, isn't it? I mean, will it do any good to give 'em this land this time of year?"

"I got these a week ago. I think they're a little older than that. This is about the time most of their farms start planting. It stays cold there quite a long time, remember, but the high latitudes make up for it with longer summer days. Assume that this is a nationwide move on their part. Evaluate that for me, Bob." The colonel's eyes narrowed briefly.

"Smart move on their part, obviously. It could solve a lot of their food supply problems, particularly for-truck-farm. stuff, I guess, tomatoes, onions, that sort of thing."

"Maybe. You might also note that this sort of farming is manpower intensive but not machinery-intensive. What about the demographic aspect of the move?"

Toland blinked. There was a tendency in the U.S. Navy to assume that since they made their living by charging into machine-gun fire, Marines were dumb. "Most of the kokolzniki are relatively old folks. The median age is in the late forties, early fifties. So most of the private plots are managed by the older people, while the mechanized work, like driving the combines and trucks-"

"Which pays a hell of a lot better."

"— is done by the younger workers. You're telling me that this way they can increase some food production without the younger men…of military service age."

"One way to look at it," Lowe said. "Politically it's dynamite. You can't take away things people already have. Back in the early sixties, a rumor-wasn't even true-got started to the effect that Khrushchev was going to reduce or eliminate the private plots those poor bastards get. There was hell to pay! I was in the language school at Monterey then, and I remember the Russian papers that came through the language school. They spent weeks denying the story. Those private plots are the most productive sector of their agricultural system. Less than two percent of their arable land, it produces about half of their fruit and potatoes, more than a third of their eggs, vegetables, and meat. Hell, it's the only part of the damned agricultural system that works. The bigshots over there have known for years that by doing this they could solve their food shortage problems, and still they haven't done it for political reasons. They couldn't run the risk of State sponsorship for a whole new generation of kulaks. Until now. But it appears they've done it without making a formal announcement. And it just so happens that they're increasing their military readiness at the same time. I never believe in coincidences, even when I'm a dumb line officer running across a beach."

Lowe's uniform blouse hung in the comer. Toland sipped at his coffee and surveyed its four rows of decorations. There were three repeat pips on his Vietnam service ribbon. And a Navy Cross. Dressed in the olive-green sweater affected by Marine officers, Lowe was not a big man, and his Midwest accent gave evidence of a relaxed, almost bored outlook on life. But his brown eyes said something else entirely. Colonel Lowe was thinking along Toland's lines already, and he was not the least happy about it.

"Chuck, if they are really preparing for some action-action on a large scale, they just can't mess with a few colonels. Something else will start showing up. They'll have to do some work at the bottom, too."

"Yeah, that's the next thing we have to look for. I sent a request into DIA yesterday. From now on, when Red Star comes out, the attach, in Moscow will send a photo-facsimile to us via satellite. If they start doing that, it'll sure as hell turn up in Kraznaya Zvesda. Bob, I think you've opened a very interesting can of worms, and you're not going to be alone examining it."

Toland finished his coffee. The Soviets had taken an entire class of fleet ballistic missile submarines out of service. They were conducting arms talks in Vienna. They were buying grain from America and Canada under surprisingly favorable terms, even allowing American hulls to handle 20 percent of the cargo. How did this jibe with the signs he had seen? Logically it didn't, except in one specific case-and that wasn't possible. Was it?

The crashing sound of the 125mm tank gun was enough to strip the hair off your head, Alekseyev thought, but after five hours of running this exercise, it came through his ear protectors as a dull ringing sound. This morning the ground had been covered with grass and dotted with new saplings, but now it was a uniform wasteland of mud, marked only with the tread marks of T-80 main battle tanks and BMP armored infantry fighting vehicles. Three times the regiment had run this exercise, simulating a frontal assault of tanks and mounted infantry against an enemy of equal strength. Ninety mobile guns had supplied fire support, along with a battery of rocket launchers. Three times.

Alekseyev turned, removing his helmet and earmuffs to look at the regimental commander. "A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? Elite soldiers of the Red Army? These tit-sucking children couldn't guard a Turkish whorehouse, much less do anything worthwhile inside of it! And what have you been doing for the past four years commanding this rolling circus, Comrade Colonel? You have learned to kill your whole command three times! Your artillery observers are not located properly. Your tanks and infantry carriers still can't coordinate their movements, and your tank gunners can't find targets three meters high! If that had been a NATO force holding that ridge, you and your command would be dead!" Alekseyev examined the colonel's face. His demeanor was changing from red-fear to white-anger. Good. "The loss of these people is no great penalty for the State, but that is valuable equipment, burning valuable fuel, shooting valuable ordnance, and taking up my valuable time! Comrade Colonel, I must leave you now. First I will throw up. Then I will fly to my command post. I will be back. When I come back, we will run this exercise again. Your men will perform properly, Comrade Colonel, or you will spend the rest of your miserable life counting trees!"

Alekseyev stomped off, not even acknowledging the colonel's salute. His adjutant, a full colonel of tank troops, held open the door and got in behind his boss.

"Shaping up rather well, eh?" Alekseyev asked.

"Not well enough, but there has been progress," the colonel allowed. "They have only another six weeks before they have to start moving west."

It was the wrong thing to say. Alekseyev had spent two weeks chivvying this division toward combat readiness, only to learn the day before that it had been allocated to Germany instead of toward his own as-yet incomplete plan to descend into Iraq and Iran. Already four divisions-all of his elite Guards tank units-had been taken away, and each change in CINC-Southwest's order of battle forced him to restructure his own plan for the Gulf An endless circle. He was being forced to select less-ready units, forcing Alekseyev to devote more time to unit training and less time to the plan that had to be completed in another two weeks.

"Those men are going to have a very busy six weeks. What about the commander?" the colonel asked.

Alekseyev shrugged. "He's been in this job too long. Forty-five is too old for this kind of command, and he reads his fucking parade manuals too much instead of going out in the field. But a good man. Too good to be sent counting trees." Alekseyev chuckled heavily. It was a Russian saying that dated back to the czars. People exiled to Siberia were said to have nothing to do but count trees. Another of the things Lenin had changed. Now people in the Gulag had plenty to do. "The last two times they did well enough to succeed, I think. This regiment will be ready, along with the whole division."

"Bridge, sonar: we have a contact bearing zero-nine-four!" announced a voice on the bulkhead-mounted speaker. Commander Morris turned in his elevated swivel chair to watch his officer of the deck respond.

The OOD trained his binoculars to the direction of the contact. There was nothing there: "Bearing is clear."

Morris got up from his chair. "Set Condition I-AS."

"Aye aye. Battle Stations," the OOD acknowledged the order. The boatswain's-mate-of-the-watch walked to the announcing system, and blew a three-note whistle on his bosun's pipe into the speaker. "General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations for anti-submarine warfare." The alarm gong came next, and a quiet forenoon watch ended.

Morris went aft, down the ladder to the Combat Information Center, or CIC. His executive officer would take the conn at the bridge, allowing the captain to control the ship's weapons and sensors from her tactical nerve center. All over the ship, men were running to stations. Watertight doors and hatches were dropped into place and dogged down to give the ship full watertight integrity. Damage-control parties donned emergency equipment. It took just over four minutes. Getting better, Morris noted as the "manned and ready" calls were relayed to him by the CIC talker. Since leaving Norfolk four days before, PHARRIS was averaging three GQ calls per day, as ordered by Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic. No one had confirmed it, but Morris figured that his friend's information had kicked over an anthill. His training routines had been doubled, and the orders for the increase of activity were classified as high as anything he had ever seen. More remarkably, the increased training tempos would interfere with maintenance scheduling, something not lightly set aside.

"All stations report manned and ready!" the talker finally announced. "Condition Zebra set throughout the ship."

"Very well," the tactical action officer acknowledged.

"Report, mister," Morris ordered.

"Sir, the navigation and air-search radars are in stand-by and the sonar is in passive mode," replied the TAO. "Contact looks like a schnorkeling submarine. Came in clear all at once. We've got a target-motion-analysis track going. His bearing is changing fore-to-aft, and pretty fast, too. A little soon to be sure, but it's shaping up like he's on a reciprocal heading, probably no more than ten miles out."

"Contact report off to Norfolk yet?"

"Waiting for your say-so."

"Very well. Let's see how well we can run a hold-down exercise, mister."

Within fifteen minutes, Pharris's helicopter was dropping sonobuoys on the submarine, and the frigate was lashing it with her powerful active sonar. They wouldn't stop until the Soviet submarine admitted defeat by coming back to schnorkeling depth-or until he evaded the frigate, which would put a large black mark in Morris's copybook. The objective of this non-lethal exercise was nasty enough: to break the submarine captain's confidence in his vessel, his crew, and himself.

They were a thousand miles offshore, heading northeast at twenty-five knots. The crew was decidedly unhappy, though they'd all been through this before. What should have been a three-week layover at Norfolk had been cut short at eight days, a bitter pill after a long first cruise. Trips and vacations had been interrupted, and some minor maintenance work supposed to have been done by shoreside technicians was now being done round the clock by her own crew. McCafferty had announced his sealed orders to the crew two hours after diving: conduct two weeks of intensive tracking and torpedo drills, then proceed to the Barents Sea for further intelligence gathering. It was important, he told them. They'd heard that one before, too.