Commissioned in 1975, was she?”
Nikolin paused, then said: “Oldies but goodies, and we’ve sang quite a few tunes in our day. Fact is we’ve been out here since you were a babe in arms, Captain. That says it all. We know what we’re about. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen anything in the way of a serious fight, but I have. I’ve beat on Iraqi’s and Iranians and Afghans too. I’ve been the government’s muscle out here for a good long while. Rustle my feathers and I can fill the sky with fire and brimstone. This is the Fifth Carrier Strike group, and I lean heavily on the word strike. Do you get my message now, sir?”
“Loud and clear, Captain. Well let me say this to you. You have an expression about the dilemma of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Yes? Well you have already laid claim to the latter… I’m the former. I don’t have feathers, just nice thick scales, a pointy tail, and two red horns. I am not a man you wish to trifle with here, and advise you not to underestimate the capabilities of the Russian Navy.”
“That so? Well I guess your target practice last month has got you all hot and bothered. Look, Karpov, enough of these word games. I’ll give it to you right in the clear. I’m standing off the coast of Japan for one reason-I was ordered here by the United States government-and nobody else is going to darken my shadow. You stay up north with your babushkas and I have no quarrel with you. Point your bow south and cross 43 degrees and I have to figure you’ve got bad manners after hearing this, and bad intentions to go with them. Do that and I’ll darken your skies and ruin your morning. Are we understood?”
Karpov didn’t like that, but he thought for a moment before he answered. “Something tells me the skies will be darkening soon in any case, Captain, and not only here. You and I may have something to do with that if we want to continue on like this. You have your orders; I have mine. You’re here to keep an eye on me. I’m here to keep an eye on you. It’s that simple. We’ve been at it for eighty years, and this is no different. But things do tend to get a little out of hand when this much metal puts to sea. So let me be equally frank with you. If I see anything even vaguely resembling a strike package within 200 nautical miles of my position and heading my way I’ll have to interpret that as an attack. Are we clear on that, Captain? Do you get my message? You want to fly around and chase a few seagulls, that’s your business. Head my way and we’ll have our next conversation with missiles. I wanted to have this little chat to see if we could avoid that. Any thoughts before you go back to your morning coffee?”
Nikolin waited. “He’s thinking, sir…” There was a long pause on the channel before he began translating again. “I think we understand one another, Captain Karpov. You just remember those 43 degrees. Yes, I’ll chase a few gulls down here. It’s a favorite pastime for a carrier Captain. But I hear the birds up north are pretty sparse.”
It was a subtle way of telling Karpov the Americans had no intention of pressing the issue. Both sides were clearly ‘showing the flag’ and the muscle behind it, but neither Captain wanted this to go any further than it had to.
“Haven’t seen so much as a seagull this morning,” Karpov replied. “And I have also heard the waters south of 43 degrees are a still polluted by that old reactor at Fukujima. Yes, Captain Tanner. I think we do understand one another. I suppose we can only hope that our respective governments can come to a similar understanding. Enjoy your coffee. Karpov out.”
Captain Tanner scratched his head, a bemused look on his face. Karpov had quietly stated his intention to say above the 43rd parallel and pose no threat unless his fleet was approached to within 200 nautical miles. His carrier aircraft would have to get inside that to launch their Harpoons. With their Block II AGM-84Ls they could fire at 150 nautical miles.
The Russkies still like to hang tough, but it had been a long time since they could walk their talk. This battlecruiser out there was a capable ship, no doubt about that, but it didn’t have much company. I’ve got 5th and 8th Carrier Strike Groups out here armed to the teeth with nearly 200 aircraft and this guy thinks he can still thumb his nose at me? The devil incarnate, is he? My ass. He had read the file on this Karpov, and he didn’t see much that impressed him at all. The man had probably never fired a missile in anger at a real target in his miserable life. Who in hell did he think he was laying down law to the United States Navy?
Tanner had a mind to get up north and call this man’s bluff, and send those rust buckets he called the Red Banner Pacific Fleet home to Vladivostok and Kamchatka where they belonged. Yet his better judgment intervened and told him their ‘understanding’ would be much preferred to a battle at sea here. He didn’t have to sit on that thought too long, for ten minutes after his little radio parley with the Russians he had a priority one Flash Z message in hand, and was looking at the confirmation code being handed him by his XO. A Flash Z message was reserved for the most urgent operational combat messages, trumping all other traffic on the wire and to be taken as an immediate and first priority order.
“FLASH — FLASH — FLASH,” he started to read aloud, then kept the rest. Holy mother! Someone’s got a hair up his ass on this one. He was just ordered to find and sink the battlecruiser Kirov, at any and all costs, and to do so immediately.
He was going to have to renege on the little gentlemen’s agreement he had just negotiated with this Russian Captain up north. Now the sudden change of orders that put him here instead of the East China Sea and the hasty advance of the Nimitz group to the west suddenly made sense. The suits back in DC must be drinking some real strange cool-aid, he thought. Apparently they wanted the Russians to know the US meant business and was willing to put the best they had at the bottom of the deep blue sea to make sure the message stuck. But what didn’t add up was why this ship?
He looked at his XO. “Flash Z on this one, Skip. Better tell the Air Boss to double up on those strike packages. I want the Maces and Snakes ready to dance in thirty.”
“Aye, sir.” Skip Patterson had a troubled look on his face. “You figure it was that ASAT hit, sir?”
“Could be, but Intel indicates the Chinese were behind that. PACOM says they launched three Red Arrows and also fired lasers early this morning. They took down two GPS navigation satellites and a couple of our Intel birds over their territory. I suppose they’ll claim the space above China is theirs too, but that’s where it stands. Somebody starts scratching your eyes out and you damn well do something about it. We’ll probably hit them with our new Skybolts today to even the score, but this is quite an escalation if they’re pissed off about the satellites. DC wants to drop a hammer on someone. But why the battlecruiser? Going after the Russians is just going to get butt ugly, and real fast. And why Kirov as opposed to some snot nosed Russky sub out there that gets a little too nosey? We’ll have to take on that whole Surface Action Group now.”
“It’s the best they have, sir. Put Kirov down under and the Russians can pretty much go home and leave us with the football.”
“What about the Admiral Kuznetsov?”
“We can handle him, sir. Suppose we give the Russians a two for one special this morning.”
Tanner looked at his coffee cup, knowing it was stone cold by now. “There’s a lot of dead metal on the bottom of this ocean,” he said, a forlorn tone in his voice now. I guess Davey Jones has room in his locker for a little more. Let’s just hope old that we aren’t included.”
Half a world away another Russian naval commander was about to deliver message himself, in one of those snot nosed Russian submarines that was getting a just little too nosey. A tiger was on the prowl in the Gulf of Mexico. The Tigr, was hovering on the turbulent waters of the gulf, though 200 feet above the seas were raging with the fury of a hurricane Victor. Tigr was an improved Akula class nuclear submarine, sleek and dangerous like the animal it was named for, with 8 big torpedoes and 40 fish to go with them. Fast at well over 30 knots submerged, it was also very quiet for an older boat, among the best the Russians had aside from their three new Yasen class boats.
But Tigr was not quiet enough that morning as it moved slowly through the oil blighted waters of the gulf. It had been picked up off the northern coast of Cuba by a fiery senator from Virginia, the SSN John Warner, among the very best attack subs in the US Navy, and a boat that trumped anything the Russians had. Dan Phillips had the boat that day, and he was keeping a steady ear on the Tigr in his pond, and his hand on the trigger. What was it up to? With events in the Pacific wound up so tight, it was a bold and provocative move for the Russians to send an Akula into the Gulf Of Mexico, and a most unwise decision insofar as Phillips was concerned.
His sonar man had a passive fix on the Russian sub, and it did not seem that the other side even knew he was there. He had two torpedoes up and primed, and then he heard the one thing that he dreaded every moment he had ever sailed at sea.
