Seas of Crisis

“This is actually operational, now, deployed on your subs?”

“Nine-seven-one-As, our Bars-Threes, what you call the Akula-Twos, do have them.”

“I wouldn’t want to be hit by such a weapon.”

“That’s why I’m informing you. You’ll need to be careful with your underice tactics. Very careful. A friendly fire accident between a Bars and Challenger would spoil everything we’ve worked so hard for. Not to mention sinking your ship.”

I must warn Harley somehow, pronto. Were Carter sunk, she’d surely be identified. Blame would instantly shift back to America. Everything achieved today would be lost, in a way Meredov can’t imagine.

Chapter 32

Jeffrey was strapped in the front seat of the Yak, flying north at five hundred knots to land on one of Meredov’s icebreaker-cruisers. The icebreaker and Challenger were already rushing toward each other at flank speed for a rendezvous.

Jeffrey was still under tremendous stress to act out a part, which was suddenly far more complex. Helping Carter escape, forever unidentified as who she really was to maintain the masquerade of German guilt, remained as critical as ever — but wasn’t nearly enough. The President of Russia had to stay in power, amid unanticipated rough-and-tumble Moscow dirty politics set off by the missile launches and EMP. Otherwise a fulminating Kremlin might use hydrogen bombs against Germany after all, or a pro-German faction might seize control and reverse every one of Jeffrey’s and Kurzin’s achievements. The key to preventing an ouster or coup was to swiftly deliver what the Russian president personally demanded for revenge and closure: a sunken German Amethyste-II. Jeffrey had to do this while faking cooperation with Akula-IIs whose captains would keenly watch his every move.

The dead Amethyste’s wreckage must be real, and verifiable. The Russians have deep-submersible minis that can inspect any hulk and debris on the bottom well past ten thousand feet down.

Just like when Meredov confronted him with imagery of Challenger hiding against the Bering Strait spires, he needed a convincing answer when there seemed to be no answer at all.

And then he remembered. He knew one and only one place in this theater where an Amethyste hulk did exist: in the Canada Basin, where Bell and Harley recently blew one to pieces. Because of the timing of that engagement relative to satellite overflights, the restricted geography, the terrible acoustic conditions, and the known lack of unfriendly hydrophone grids nearby, he was confident that the Russians knew nothing.

But he realized something else. Meredov was too smart. He could turn from back-channel friend into deadly enemy, if those fickle Kremlin winds indeed shifted drastically again. Jeffrey needed to get out of his jurisdiction, quickly, to keep open some plausible deniability if Meredov ever did change loyalties.

“Sir,” the Yak’s pilot said over the intercom, “the admiral is on for you. A translator is at his end in case required.”

Jeffrey, expecting the call, used the headset in his flight helmet. “Admiral, we have an agenda to resolve without delay.”

“Concur,” Meredov said. “State the agenda.”

Radio reception was much better, eighteen hours after the distant EMPs. “What submarines are available for the wolf pack?”

“Two Akula-Twos. K-One-five-seven and K-Three-three- five. Their names are Wild Boar and Cheetah.”

“Both have the gravimeter-homing torpedoes.”

“Yes.”

“High-explosive, or nuclear?”

“Some of each.”

“Where are they now?”

Meredov gave coordinates. They were charging toward near the place where Challenger would meet the icebreaker, Cheetah coming from northwest and Wild Boar from north, most of the time at their flank speed — thirty-five knots. They were using sprint and drift to not be blindsided by the supposed German, and to make a tactically safe linkup with Jeffrey’s submarine. They’d all come together close to where Jeffrey knew Harley would be aiming for the end of the shallow continental shelf, which lay far northeast of Pevek, way up under the cap. And Meredov’s hydrophone nets were catching whiffs of the Amethyste II — the actual Carter—enough to localize her general area.

Challenger, after dropping Jeffrey off at the initial meet with an icebreaker, had snuck east while Jeffrey claimed that Bell was lurking to make a nuclear strike. The plan had been for Challenger to stealthily escort Carter, bearing the commandos, safely home in the final phase of the mission. This plan had gone out the window, except Harley didn’t know it yet and ELF was much too slow to send him a meaningful update. Jeffrey was glad the Yak pilot and Meredov couldn’t read his face.

Jeffrey had to do things that made total sense to Meredov, but which somehow herded the pseudo-German sub toward the central Canada Basin. And he had to accomplish this without Carter getting unmasked or destroyed on the way.

How?

“Good, Admiral.” Jeffrey spoke into his flight helmet mike, winging it — literally. “The Amethyste will certainly detect the three-ship wolf pack making so much noise. Given where the wolf pack units presently are and how they’re converging, the Amethyste can best be driven east. That’s my intention.”

“You insist on command of the wolf pack?”

“I have the most experience fighting German submarines.”

“Concur. Arrangements will be made. Messages will be sent to Wild Boar and Cheetah via Northern Fleet.”

Jeffrey thought very fast.

“We need rules of engagement. Only I may go nuclear, at my own discretion. Akula-Twos may go nuclear only upon my specific order via acoustic link.”

“I’m sure our commander in chief will agree, and will dictate such edicts at once.”

“Have Rear Admiral Balakirev’s forces seal the Bering Strait. Have the U.S. naval attache in Tokyo contact Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor so he’ll know to do the same.” Moscow was still a disaster scene, U.S. embassy comms a shambles.

“Immediately. We can’t allow the Amethyste to break out into the wide Pacific. She may have a covert tender hiding somewhere, for support, among neutrals.”

Good, he bought that part.

“I want her confined under the ice cap, where the new gravimeter torpedoes give us the technical edge, and surprise.” Jeffrey had an ulterior motive. Under ice, Akulas couldn’t use their SS-N-16 Stallions, torpedo-tube- launched missiles that leaped from the water, transited many kilometers at high speed, and dropped an antisubmarine torpedo — or nuclear depth charge.

“How can my own forces serve you?” Meredov asked.

He needs a good role, to share in the “victory,” so I keep him as a friend — and he can throw a bone to his pal Balakirev. “Use your surface and airborne units to patrol the marginal ice zone and the open waters south. The edge of the solid pack ice will be our line of demarcation. My wolf pack stays under the cap, and your aircraft don’t fly over it.” Overflights increased ambient noise; sonobuoys dropped through polynyas could be counterproductive. “Set off depth charges, and torpedo some icebergs at random, to make sounds to discourage