“But,” cut in the colonel, “General, you just finished saying you can’t transport a submarine to a lake. And their very length-”
“Midgets,” said Freeman. “That’s all I can think of. It has to be.” He turned to Norton. “Dick — young David Brentwood?”
“SAS?”
“Yes. His brother. Crackerjack sub skipper—”
“Pacific Fleet, sir.”
“Yes. Where the hell is he?”
“Haven’t got a clue, General.”
“Find out. Immediately. I need expert advice. And Dick?”
“Sir?”
“David Brentwood. Where’s he?”
Norton shrugged. “Far as I know, he’s still on Ratmanov. Or at one of the Alaskan—”
“Get him, too. No reason why we can’t make this a family affair.”
“Sir,” proffered Norton, “if it’s information about midget subs, I suggest we save time and call the Pentagon. They’ll—”
“No, no. I’ve already done that,” said Freeman, his irritability rising in direct proportion to his excitement, the men around him watching with the awe of beginning violinists realizing they were watching a maestro conducting and composing at the same time. “I’ve already got the information on that.” He seemed grumpy that Norton hadn’t made the connection. “Goddamn it! Nerpa’s a small seal, you see. Only four and a half feet long. A midget.
“Most likely candidate, the Pentagon says,” Freeman announced, “is this thing. A GST — standing for gaseous storage in a toroidal hull.” He flattened a crumpled fax. The GST was an ugly thing to look at.
“Designed,” Freeman informed his listeners, “by some Italian joker called Guinio Santi.”
The picture of the sub looked like what the Pentagon and others had described as a “Michelin tire man lying on his side.” This was before the outer, more streamlined hull, was added on. It made the GST look like a huge egg, the multiple bicycle-tube ring effect under the superstructure created by three-inch-diameter piping that, wound around and around the hull, allowed engineers to overcome the problems of making a simple, relatively cheap, nonnuclear, quiet submarine. This also meant it was a much less detectable submarine. Because of the wraparound piping, the GST, unlike the other nonnuclear subs, did not have to come up for air so often and risk disclosing its position either by showing a snorkel or by creating thermal patching, which put regular nuclear and diesel-electric subs in danger from aerial and satellite surveillance.
And so, ironically, its plans stolen from the Italian designer by Chernko’s agents, the fat, egg-shaped GST, using a constantly reusable, nonnuclear chemical-exchange-powered engine — originally scheduled by its manufacturer, the Kuznetsky Metallurgical Kombinat, or KMK works in Novokuznetsk, 180 miles southeast of Novosibirsk, to create chaos among the Allied blue water fleets — was now, following the loss of Vladivostok and other Siberian naval bases on the coast, being used not in the Pacific or Atlantic but in the inland Sea of Baikal.
But if this much was known about the midget sub, it took Captain Robert Brentwood, USN, after a gruelling ten-hour flight by chopper and jet to Hokkaido and Second Army HQ, to fully explain to Freeman and the rest of the officers in G-2 exactly why the toroidal hull was so dangerous. With a total displacement of only 250 tons against the Soviet-made Alfa’s 4,200 tons and the U.S. Sea Wolfs 10,000 tons, the toroidal-shaped hull would occupy less than 6 percent of regular attack-size submarines. Only fifty feet long, it was designed specifically to defeat the superior sound-detection technology of the United States and her allies, its exhaust gases being constantly stored and scrubbed rather than being expelled into the water. With a burst speed of twenty-five knots submerged, faster than most full-size diesel-electric subs, and a cruising speed of plus or minus fifteen knots, it could range 230 miles without coming to the surface. Except, as Brentwood pointed out, to fire its missiles. And even these would be fired subsurface, after its “pic” and/or small float-drum charges had blown a hole in the thinner ice.
“It’s a formidable weapon,” conceded Brentwood. “Compared to our subs, a GST of this type would look like a speck of fly dirt. The Iraqis were being trained for midget subs in Poland, but when the Gulf war came Hussein never got a chance to use them. Couldn’t get them through the embargo.”
“Why the hell didn’t
“Because,” said Brentwood, with elegant simplicity, “we thought we had the best.”
“How big a crew?” Freeman asked.
“Six to eight, sir,” replied Brentwood. “Essentially same controls as for any submarine. Long shifts. Probably twelve hours on, twelve off, three to four men each shift. Minimum would be captain, engineer, electronics warfare officer, and CPO or enlisted man on the rudder control. General, asked Brentwood, “do we have any wreckage of the cruise missiles used against Second Army? Any that didn’t go off?”
“They all went off,” said Freeman grimly. “Why?”
“Well, I’d guess they were using SS-21Ds — suB-1aunched, converted land-attack missiles. Twenty-one feet long, two-thousand-mile range. It’s so much like our Tomahawk, we call it the Tomahawski.”
The junior lieutenant thought it was amusing. Freeman didn’t. He was figuring that with each salvo fired on Second Army being a minimum of twenty missiles, there wasn’t just one GST out there that they had entrained to Port Baikal from wherever the hell they were making them — there were more. He put it to Brentwood.
“Once clear of the water,” said Brentwood, “missile’s jack-knife fins extend, reach Mach 1.2 in two minutes. And I’d say with ripple launch, General, and given their length, we’re looking at maybe four missiles apiece.”
“What’s this ripple launch?”
“Well, sir, you fire one missile from your starboard forward tube, the second, port aft, to counteract the rocking effect of the first missile. Then you fire port forward, then port aft.”
“How long would you say to launch?” Freeman put to him.
“Two minutes. Four minutes and they’re loafing.”
“Holy dooly!” said the young lieutenant, with a high whistle.
Freeman glowered at him then looked at Brentwood. “So how many subs do they have?”
“I think we’re looking at five, General. If I’m right about four missiles apiece. That we can’t be sure of. But if we’re talking twenty missiles a salvo, then that’s just about—”
“Yes, yes,” said Freeman impatiently.
“I should add, General, it depends on the thickness of the ice or if there’s an open space due to upwelling. They could probably launch in less time. Same thing happens when you’re in the polar ice. You can get wafer thickness or—”
“Yes, yes,” cut in Freeman, again impatiently, his mood reflecting his and G-2’s realization that if he could not take out the subs — and he couldn’t by air or missile attack because of the ice roof — he’d lose the war. “They have to be taken out,” he said, looking steadily at Brentwood, who felt his stomach roll over like an ice-encrusted ship, capsizing, top-heavy in the polar pack.
When Freeman outlined his plan, he didn’t make it an order but a request, adding, “Besides, your brother’s experienced in these matters. He’ll be a great help.” Freeman paused.”You’re the oldest, aren’t you?” Freeman made his question about Brentwood being the eldest sound like small talk at a cocktail party.
“Yes, sir,” said Brentwood evenly. “I’m the oldest.”
“I hope I don’t embarrass you, Captain, but damn, your father must be proud of you boys.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Brentwood parried.”I haven’t seen him in over a year. I’ve been at sea for so long—”
“Good! Good!” said Freeman, slapping Brentwood affectionately on the back as he steered him over to the map table. “And when this is over, we’ll see you two get special leave. Fair enough?”
Robert Brentwood looked across at General Freeman.”Fairest thing I’ve heard all day, General.”
“By God, Brentwood, that’s the spirit.” He turned to Norton. “I wish that old limey fart—” He paused. “What’s his name, Dick? At the White House?”
“Soames, sir. Brigadier Soames.”
“Yes, well I wish he was here. We’d show him American know-how. Eh, Dick?”
“General, that lake is heavily defended. Now that railhead at Port Baikal is bound to be heavily defended. Only place in the south where they could have slid a midget down slips direct from the rail tracks.”
“Defended by AA batteries, yes,” responded Freeman, “but they’re expecting fighters, bombers, Dick. Not a commando raid.”
