Seas of Crisis

“Nyurba,” he snapped. On the TV screens, flames continued to blast forth from each of bunker two’s silos, like three blowtorches reaching hundreds of feet into the air. Near one camera, on a display, he saw a big chunk of burning fuel literally melt its way through solid concrete and the steel rebars underneath. Waves of heat rippled above the hole it made for itself, and more dirty yellow fumes belched out to mingle with the fog of fumes that was blanketing the complex. Then the chunk of fuel hit permafrost, and a gigantic steam explosion burst out of the hole. As more chunks burned through elsewhere, geyser after geyser of steam and scalding water and shattered concrete or asphalt was added to the flames and fumes. Even distorted hunks of metal from the missiles burned; magnesium flared a brilliant white. Nyurba felt as if he were watching a silent movie — except in color with modern special effects.

A horror movie. Dante’s Inferno has nothing on this.

“Sir,” someone gasped over the intercom, his voice so muffled by a gas mask that Nyurba couldn’t tell who it was. “The fumes are getting through our masks. We need respirators. Let us inside or we’ll die.”

“Get hold of yourself! Wait one.” Nyurba turned to Ildarov. “How many emergency respirators are in the bunker?”

Ildarov told the interrogators to find out, and learn where they were kept.

The answer came back: eight. One for each man in a silo crew.

Nyurba had an awful thought. Each incinerated missile had carried a one-megaton nuclear warhead. Radioactive plutonium and tritium, and other deadly isotopes, were drifting amid the smoke and fumes. He looked at the TV screens. Lumps of fuel that had landed on asphalt set the asphalt on fire before melting through. Big swaths of the defoliated strip were also burning, sometimes cooking off mines among what was left of the fence barrier. Parts of the forest around the complex had caught fire.

Ildarov’s men were carrying the eight respirator packs toward the door, that thick slab of steel which separated the bunker from the nightmarish scene outside. The Russian labeling said their pure oxygen supply was good for one hour. Then it would be back into gas masks, come what may, for the commandos on the surface — the respirators came with no spare tanks.

“Major, call bunker two and tell them to mimic our actions. Get their rear guard to contact bunker three’s medics via radio. Medics are to barricade bunker three’s stairs with backpacks and duct tape to keep out the fumes. Bunker three rear guard will have to make do with gas masks.” The Russian silo crew in bunker three was still taking cover within, laying low, not interfering.

“Understood, sir.” Ildarov called bunker two.

“Chief,” Nyurba ordered. “The environmental controls. Raise air pressure in the bunker to one point two atmospheres.”

The Seabee chief acknowledged. Nyurba’s ears crackled. He gave thanks that the emergency backup diesel generator, in its hardened containment with its filtered air supply, continued functioning. He knew the bunker had a large battery bank that would last several days if the generator broke down and couldn’t be fixed, or it ran out of fuel.

He spoke into the intercom. “Have your men come into the decontamination chamber. I’m going to give you all the respirators we have. Hold your breath before taking off your gas masks. Don’t inhale until you have the respirators on. The air around you is radioactive. If there aren’t enough of the packs to go around, you’ll have to share them and buddy-breathe.”

“Understood. We’re going in.”

“Call me on the intercom in there.”

In a second the intercom warbled.

“Nyurba.”

“We’re all by the door.”

“I’m going to crack the door and toss out the respirators, then reseal the door. Expect a gush of wind, I’ve overpressured the bunker to keep out contaminants. But I can’t let you in. I need you to stand guard just in case any Russian soldiers are still alive and in a mood to fight up there.”

“Understood. We’ll be ready for them.”

“Good man. Nyurba, out.” He hung up. “Major, crack the door.”

The gush of air almost sucked the respirators out on their own. Nyurba had to be careful not to be sucked out with them.

“Shut it!”

The door closed and locked.

“What’s interior pressure now?”

“One point zero five bars, sir,” the Seabee said. Bar was the metric equivalent of one atmosphere — all the Russian readouts were calibrated in the metric system.

“Keep it there, just in case. How’s the environment in our missile silos?”

“Temperature, pressure, humidity are nominal.”

“Major, how are the missiles?”

“Electronic checkouts of missiles and warheads all read as nominal,” Ildarov said, “safed against arming and launch.”

“How much longer until we’ll be able to do that last part?”

“The missiles use ring-laser gyros so there’s no time required to spool them up. A lot depends on what the silo inspection teams find, or don’t find, or miss finding, while they’re sanitizing the missiles and silo machinery. We have the targeting coordinates ready for the missile flight profiles we want, and we have the codes and procedures to set and prearm the warheads to go off exoatmospherically. We have both launch keys.”

Chapter 25

Challenger hovered at periscope depth in an area of thin, flat annual ice that had begun to break up and melt. Both photonics masts were raised, one aimed toward where ICBMs from Srednekolymsk were expected to become visible if all went according to plan. Jeffrey stared at the screen display on his borrowed console in the rear of the control room. His concentration kept wandering, from worry and lack of results. The other photonics mast scanned constantly for airborne threats that might be maintaining radio and radar silence — Russian antisubmarine aircraft could rely on their observers alone, to seize the element of surprise by avoiding detection on an opponent’s electronic support measures equipment. Jeffrey had enough respect for Rear Admiral Meredov by now to expect that his planes sometimes did this. But both photonic displays showed only featureless ice and empty sky.

The ESM heads on Challenger’s photonics masts did pick up occasional weak signals from Tupolev 204s in the distance, to the east and the west, but none so far were approaching this part of the cap in mid — Laptev Sea. It was only a matter of time, though, before their standard search patterns brought them much too near.

Challenger had deployed her trailing wire antennas, unreeling them in a line downcurrent to float up against the underside of the pack ice. Her sonar towed array wasn’t deployed. When things started to happen, they’d happen fast — there’d be no time to retract the array, and Bell didn’t want to have to jettison it. Jeffrey concurred. The antenna masts were also raised, to grab what information they could in the meantime, and not waste a moment when the big show began.

He felt awfully exposed to Russian sensors while keeping this lookout post, but his orders required it. Soon, satellites would have to shut down to avoid being fried, and Jeffrey needed to be available as his President’s eyes and ears. World War III with Russia could break out if things went awry, and Challenger might well be the best, or only, operating early-warning platform America had.

If I see many more than three ICBMs, I’ll know that Armageddon has started. I’ll need to violate radio silence, so the U.S. knows what’s on the way, for all the good that would do.

Jeffrey dearly missed the information from Carter’s previous tap of the fiber-optic cable. What the NSA teams in Challenger’s radio room and ESM room were catching via