Seas of Crisis

the German from exiting the cap.”

“I’ll ensure that Balakirev does the same. May we fire on any undersea contact that does emerge from the pack ice?”

“Yes, until Wild Boar and Cheetah report that the battle is won. Then use your own procedures for avoiding friendly fire.”

“An excellent concept of operations. Is there more?”

The punch line, the sleight of hand, to make it make sense to Meredov and the Akula captains.

“Ask Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet to station fast attacks in a barrier line at the extreme eastern end of the Beaufort Sea. I don’t want the German evading into the maze of Canadian islands that lead toward Greenland and Norway. Any available Canadian diesel subs that aren’t blocked by the ice should also join this barrier. I want Allied subs there as an anvil, stationary, unyielding, against which my wolf pack can smash the Amethyste.”

“Understood. But what if the German turns toward the pole?”

I’m glad you asked.

“I intend to see that he doesn’t. He has a head start, but my wolf pack has higher flank speed, my ship especially. He’s outnumbered three to one. I’ll use the Alpha Ridge terrain to confine him to the Canada Abyssal Plain. In the deep water over there, Challenger’s crush depth gives decisive sonar superiority.” Jeffrey glanced out the cockpit canopy. “Admiral, I can see your icebreaker, slowed, on the horizon. Challenger will be surfacing soon, and I’ll be out of touch once we dive. So let me say good-bye, and thanks for everything.”

“Godspeed to you, Captain Fuller.”

That was the easy part. What Jeffrey had, as Meredov put it, was only a concept of operations. A myriad of details needed to be worked out. The most daunting one of all is, how the hell do I turn a live Carter into a dead Amethyste right in front of multiple Russian witnesses who’ll catch it all on sonar tapes?

Chapter 33

His Yak flight and the rendezvous completed, Jeffrey jogged along Challenger’s hull and down the ladder inside her weapons loading hatch. Bell stood there in the passageway to greet him, while crewmen hurried to inspect and tightly shut the hatch.

“Come on,” Jeffrey said, lugging his overnight bag and heading for the control room.

Bell followed. “What’s happening, sir? I got a message about some sort of combined task force with Russian subs?”

“It’s gone all squirrelly, yeah. Get Challenger submerged and under the pack ice smartly. Before you ask, permission granted to go active on ice-avoidance sonar so we don’t crash into something. Make flank speed until we’re in acoustic-link range of Carter.” Thirty nautical miles for the U.S. system. “We need to warn Harley. A pair of Akula-Twos are rushing to join up with your ship, Captain Bell, so that together we can destroy the German sub that brought the commandos who launched the ICBMs. The same German sub which you and I know is Carter.”

“I expect Harley’s people detected them. We just need to elude the Akulas, which shouldn’t be too hard, and we’re home free.”

“It’s a hell of a lot more complicated. To cement the goodwill we’ve earned with the Kremlin, save the Russian president’s domestic political backside, and avoid Moscow megahawks having a good excuse to glass Berlin, we must be seen to work with the Akulas and actually sink that Amethyste. Sink it where its hulk can be found, as positive proof of German deceit and aggression toward the Russian people and government.”

They reached the control room. Finch, as junior officer of the deck — JOOD — confirmed via photonics mast that the brow from the icebreaker was clear. Bell began barking out orders to submerge the ship and get under way at flank speed. COB and Patel got busy at the ship control station. Finch went back to being sonar officer, and another lieutenant (j.g.) took his prior role as JOOD in the aisle next to Sessions, the XO.

Jeffrey zipped open his travel bag, yanking out the waterproof packet of data disks that Meredov’s aide Malinkova had prepared for him. He gave them to Bell. “Have someone get these to the Systems Administrator. I want them up and running yesterday. Maps of Russian minefields and hydrophone nets. And specs for the undersea covert acoustic link used by our new comrades-in-arms, Wild Boar and Cheetah.”

Bell gestured for the Messenger of the Watch; he grabbed the disks and headed below to the systems administrator’s cubicle.

“Who commands the combined task force, sir?”

“I do.”

“You’re double-hatted, Commodore,” Bell said with a lopsided smile. Assigned two different naval jobs at once.

“Lucky me. I’ve got two separate task forces, which secretly overlap in the form of Carter-as-Amethyste-Two, and my task forces are at war with each other. A war to the death, except if Carter is destroyed, the end effect will be that Russia joins the Axis.”

“Can we sink the Russian subs? If we need to?”

“Aside from the fact that losing one or both in action would badly sully the Russian president’s currently shaky position? And the other fact that Russian hydrophone grids are listening in, and a very smart man who’s now a vice admiral could reconstruct events and get, to put it mildly, very pissed off?”

“You mean Meredov? Promoted?”

Jeffrey nodded. “Akula-Twos have double steel hulls, with inner and outer so widely spaced apart that they’ve got the highest reserve buoyancy of any fast-attack in service anywhere. And the inner hull has eight separate watertight compartments, right? They’re nearly indestructible, unless we go nuclear.”

“Would we?”

“Our odds of surviving a two-on-one duel like that with nukes are nil.”

“But Carter…”

“I know. She is absolutely, positively not expendable. Our orders say we are. If this thing goes tactical nuclear, with the big yields on Russian warheads, Harley needs to run, not help us, and I don’t see Carter surviving the whirlwind of shock waves and fireballs anyway. Do you?”

“No, sir.” Bell was abashed, and worried.

Challenger’s deck nosed down slightly, and the ship gained speed. As she approached her maximum, fifty-three knots, she began to vibrate — as she always did when the propulsion plant put out so much power. Things in the control room shook, squeaking and bouncing gently on their shock-absorbing mounts; mike cords hung on the overhead jiggled. The ship was making a heavy surface wake by doing flank speed so shallow, but that was the least of Jeffrey’s concerns.

He tried to think ahead. Everyone in Control had heard what he’d told Bell, and they were tense. “I need two separate acoustic link setups. One for Carter, and one for the Akulas. Get your best Ru- ling in here to handle comms with the latter.” A Russian language expert. “I think your XO should continue to manage link messages with Captain Harley.” Sessions, sitting at the command console, nodded, with what for the mild-mannered Nebraskan was the grimmest expression that Jeffrey had ever seen.

“Understood, sir,” Bell said. He issued orders.

The senior chief, who was the best onboard Russian linguist, entered Control. “Use the console I was borrowing, Chief,” Jeffrey told him. “I’ll stand.” Technicians were already installing the software needed to be compatible with the Russians’ own frequency-agile, encrypted, digital undersea communications link. That link and the one used by Challenger and Carter had totally different