“I’ll be all right. Soon as I find out who Snegurochka is.” She rapped a knuckle on the book. “Snegurochka is the snow maiden in Russian fairy tales. In one story, she’s the daughter of Spring and Frost. She falls in love with a shepherd, but when her heart warms, she melts. In another story, falling in love turns her into a mortal human who will die. And then there’s another one where she’s the daughter of an old couple who make her out of snow. She hangs out with some girlfriends, leaps over a fire, and melts.”
Her father snickered. “The Russkies love their happy endings, huh?”
“Well, she’s known to kids now as the granddaughter and helper of the Russian Santa.”
“So you’ve already read the book.”
“Not this one. Thank you.”
“Well, it seems to me you already know who the snow maiden is.” He was implying she should let it go. She’d heard that tone a thousand times before.
“I think Snegurochka is the code name for a Russian operative working for the GRU. And that operative must be a woman.”
“So how many women do they have at that level? There can’t be many.”
“Exactly eleven.”
“So narrow it down.”
“I already have.”
“And?”
“And I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the most likely candidate is a Colonel Viktoria Antsyforov.”
“So study her. See if she’s the one.”
“I found out yesterday that she’s dead.”
“You’re sure?”
Dennison sighed in frustration. “Pretty damned sure.”
“So maybe that’s a loose end the Russians took care of. Don’t pursue that anymore.”
“Or maybe they want us to think that. You know what’s really crazy, Dad? I’ve been obsessing on this so hard that I’m beginning to believe that
“What? The cold career bitch who never got married because she’d melt? Come on, Alice.”
“I know. We don’t feel sorry for ourselves. Never have before, even after Mom died. We’re strong. I guess it’s just the stress. You know, thinking that someone’s been watching me all this time.”
“I want a team in there to sweep the place, and then if you want to put the house on the market, let’s do it. You’ll get another place.”
“No, I won’t let them win. I’ll get the sweep.”
“Good.”
“Dad, thanks for coming. Sorry I dumped all this on you.”
He grinned, moved in for another hug. “That’s what fathers are for.”
On the way back into the house, her cell phone rang. She reached into her robe’s pocket, answered. They needed her back at the command post.
TEN
The USS
Identifying, isolating, and tracking “tonals”—pure sound sources — was the equivalent of an acoustic fingerprint.
And thanks to Andreas’s skilled men, the enemy command and control ship could now be identified by any U.S. sub, anywhere in the world, solely by those two discreet frequencies.
By filtering out extraneous noise, it was now possible to trail the surface group at a comfortable five-mile distance using
The ship and her consorts transited the Dolphin and Union Strait, entered the Coronation Gulf, and set a course toward Hepburn Island, situated in the gulf’s southeastern corner; all the while, the
The Russians passed the southwestern tip of Hepburn, spread out, then proceeded to anchor in the shallow waters.
Andreas and his men watched as the combatants spaced themselves two miles apart, pointed their bows seaward, and dropped stern and bow anchors.
“Keeps them from swinging around on the bow hook and interfering with each other when the tide shifts,” Andreas said aloud in the control room.
The oiler and the ammunition ship anchored three miles away to the east.
“Let’s move in and get some good beam-on shots for the Harpoons to use — assuming we get that OPORDER,” said Andreas. “And, navigator, get an exact — and I do mean
“What about the oiler and the ammo ship, Captain?” queried the navigation officer.
“They don’t represent a threat like the combatants, although I do plan to take them out with the Mark 48s.” Andreas wriggled his brows. “The pyrotechnics should be spectacular, don’t you think?”
His navigation officer smiled.
Once the beam-on digital photographs were taken, and it was apparent the Russians were settled in, Andreas took his boat northeast into the Dease Strait and then continued on as far as the ten-mile gap between the northeast tip of Kent Peninsula and Victoria Island.
Global warming had produced huge areas of open water nearly year-round, but there in the narrow gap, the ice had accumulated. A combination of snow, reduced seawater salinity, and the natural choke point had allowed the ice to become nearly fourteen feet thick. The submarine could handily pass under it, but there was no way the two icebreakers could plow through to the open waters of the Queen Maud Gulf beyond.
Andreas began to draw some conclusions, and he voiced them to his men. “That admiral’s just a taxi driver.”
“What makes you say that, sir?” asked the XO.
“This is that GRU general’s show. No self-respecting northern fleet admiral would box himself in this way.”
“Ah, I see.”
“What do you think they’re up to?” asked the navigation officer.
“Oh, we’ll find out. Trust me.”
In the back of Andreas’s mind sat an important fact: they were long overdue for a position check to update the SINS (ship’s inertial navigation system) and a GPS check. Above the Arctic Circle, SINS was often unreliable. Fortunately, GPS solved the problem of getting a reliable corroborating fix.
Once back in the Coronation Gulf, Andreas brought the sub to periscope depth and raised one of the photonic masts, which was followed immediately by the BRA-34 antenna mast. He forced himself to wait a full sixty seconds, allowing the BRA-34 antenna to dry, hoping to improve the reception of any “burst” broadcast traffic from the satellite.
An ELF message would precede specific operational orders. While anxious to engage the Russians, Andreas knew his initial SITREP to the Commander of the Pacific Fleet (COMPACFLT) had to move up to the National Command Center and then back down to CENTCOM, SOCOM, and finally the JSF. He just needed to be patient.
“That’s strange,” he said to the XO.
“I know. No broadcast traffic. Absolutely nothing.”
“Check the antenna.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
The broadcast provided routine administrative notices such as promotions, personnel transfers, and, more important, personal e-mails for the crewmembers. Andreas knew Petty Officer Second-Class Ramirez was waiting
