Seas of Crisis

Connecticut are on the other side of the world, operating near South Africa.”

“So it was in fact Captain Fuller’s ship that Balakirev’s forces pinned down temporarily?”

“Yes, sir. It appears quite certain.”

“Does he know this?”

“Rear Admiral Balakirev? No, sir. I thought you should see this first, as soon as the analysis was ready.”

Meredov started to think out loud. “And the depth charging was almost two weeks ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the distance from the Bering Strait to where Challenger first made contact with us by radio?”

“Less than two thousand miles, sir, even allowing for an indirect route.”

Meredov did the arithmetic in his head. “So if she were moving constantly, she’d have made an average speed of less than seven knots.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why would a vessel who’s maximum quiet speed is at least twenty-five knots move so slowly for such a long time?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. It does seem odd, unless she had some mission in our waters.”

“I won’t mention this to Captain Fuller right away, because I don’t want him on his guard before I’m ready to corner him with his own words. His being in the Laptev Sea when the missiles launched is awfully convenient. Too convenient.”

“You think it wasn’t coincidence, sir?”

“Who fired the decoy that pretended to be Challenger?”

“The real Challenger, maybe? But why?”

“I can think of several reasons, and I don’t like any of them…. All right. Very good work, Irina. Express my thanks to the analysts. Inform Vladivostok immediately by secure line, but beyond that, you and the computer center are to say nothing about this to anyone…. Something here doesn’t make sense. Something here doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Meredov folded the sheet, and put it in his jacket pocket.

When the Skat neared the Malyy Chaunskiy Strait and marshy Ayon Island, Nyurba removed the Red Cross flags, to alter the Skat’s disguise. He told the SEAL to steer north, into the open East Siberian Sea, away from Pevek. The swells were mild; the hovercraft barely lost speed. Still making fifty knots, but running low on fuel again, they reached the long-planned rendezvous point, according to the inertial navigation readout.

“All stop on propulsion engines. Full power to lift fan.”

They coasted to a halt, bobbing gently on the air cushion. He ordered two men to throw hand grenades over the sides, in groups of four, as if they were trying to kill escaping combat swimmers — a subterfuge meant for any snooping hydrophones or watching aircraft. The men hurled the grenades as far as they could, to not damage the lift skirts. Each raised a spout when it detonated. The water was one hundred thirty feet deep. The grenades were the prearranged signal for Carter. Nyurba waited.

It’s been five days. So many things could’ve gone wrong.

And if Carter is compromised, then so is Challenger— and Commodore Fuller, ashore by now, is trapped in a fabric of lies.

Suddenly, a dozen divers broke the surface at the bow, pulling coffinlike pressure-proof capsules, with built-in backboards and oxygen masks for bringing wounded through cold seawater into a submarine. Nyurba rushed to help the divers load the twelve worst stretcher cases. The divers said that Captain Harley had ordered both superstructure lockout chambers, and the trunk inside the sail, all to be used at once to save time; the top of the sail was only thirty feet beneath the surface.

After a nerve-wracking wait, the divers came back, their capsules empty. Ten more wounded were shuttled into Carter, along with the bodies of two commandos who’d, sadly, died on the ride in the Skat. Then waterproof equipment bags went, filled with digital cameras, top-secret manuals from the bunkers, and Nyurba’s hard-won pollution data and environmental samples.

The fit passengers buddy-breathed with divers, pure oxygen easing their lungs, suppressing the worst of their coughing.

The hovercraft’s crew might have somehow been useful alive, but not anymore. Nyurba shot them with his reloaded PRI. If executing prisoners is a war crime, let Russia blame Germany. The chief turned the Skat southwest, back toward the Kolyma as a ruse. Using duct tape, they fixed the rudders to hold that course. They shoved the throttles forward and taped them there. Before the Skat — horribly noisy outside — could gain speed, they jumped overboard. Buddy-breathing with two SEALs, they locked into Carter’s sail trunk, ready to decontaminate.

Chapter 29

My apologies,” Meredov said as he reentered his conference room. He unmuted the phone. “Vladivostok, I have returned.”

“What’s going on with the Hot Line?” Jeffrey pressed.

“My aide is finding out. She’ll let us know. The Kremlin was very hard hit by the twin electromagnetic pulses.”

Jeffrey had achieved his initial goals for the meeting, delivered his pointed queries and table-thumping messages, and introduced the premise of a next-generation missile shield. But he wasn’t supposed to work this as a lone wolf. And the artificial midnight deadline, meant to squeeze Moscow, was also putting a squeeze on him. Would the Kremlin, de facto, call that bluff, just by quietly, gradually running out the deadline?

“At least patch me through to my president.”

“Preparations are still being made,” that grumpy voice said over the speakerphone from Vladivostok.

While this could be true, it was also an age-old Russian excuse to stall, for their own inscrutable reasons. An uncomfortable Jeffrey saw that, in effect, they were holding him incommunicado. What’s going on behind my back, that even Meredov doesn’t know about? He let Meredov make the next move.

“I have to ask you some questions.”

Jeffrey grew more cautions. “Certain things, I can’t comment on.”

“I understand. But clarity is necessary to piece together the clues we do have about what happened at Srednekolymsk. Allow me.” Meredov stood and went to the whiteboard. He took a blue pen from the shelf and removed the cap. “I’m not sure who will centrally coordinate the investigation, Captain. For some things it might be helpful if you and I get a head start while Vladivostok listens.”

The translator leaned over to the phone and murmured that Rear Admiral Meredov was drawing a diagram for Captain Fuller.

“The more information you can provide to me, Admiral,” Jeffrey said, “the better for Russia’s sake. An appearance of procrastinating will very much displease my commander in chief. Dissuading him from a harsh response is not part of my orders.”

“The question remains, who is responsible for launching the missiles?” Meredov wrote on the board, “Who did it?”

Jeffrey nodded impatiently. Is this a delaying tactic, or is he leading somewhere? And if the latter, is he helping me or laying a trap?

“What I have been told by officials on the scene is that the group that attacked the silo complex and entered some of the launching bunkers gave every appearance of being Russians. That is, ethnic groups from the mainstream populations, such as Eastern Slav or Siberian. With equipment and language skills, even dental work assessed on initial examination of the corpses, that appear to be truly from the Russian Federation.”

“So some of the attackers were killed?”

“Yes, about thirty-five.”

Jeffrey tried to remain expressionless. “How many attackers were there?”

“Over two hundred, the few survivors of the initial firefight say. All very heavily armed. Which is consistent