CHAPTER 5
'The Americans!' Marchenko looked up from the papers. 'You believe they will interfere with Operation Audacious Flame?'
'It is possible. The Military Council in Moscow believes that once there is a clear threat of a nuclear exchange in our civil war, American intervention in our affairs is a certainty. Already they move to blockade our fleet from the open sea.' Karelin pulled a set of maps from among the papers, spreading them out on the desk. His finger came down on a group of symbols clustered off the Norwegian coast north of the Arctic Circle. 'Here.
Eisenhower and her battle group.' His finger traced the coastline south to Denmark. 'The Kennedy. Blocking our access from the Baltic.' The finger moved once more, coming to a group of symbols east of Iceland. 'And the Jefferson, returning to the Norwegian theater after her battle damage repairs and refit in the United States. Other American battle groups are reported to be on the way as well, some to the North Sea, others to the Mediterranean.'
'What can they do?' Marchenko scoffed. 'Even the Americans, with their vaunted technology, cannot shoot down an ICBM in flight. They abandoned their Star Wars program years ago.'
'Perhaps they cannot shoot down our missiles,' Karelin countered. 'But they can dog our PLARBs with antisubmarine aircraft and with the Los Angeles attack submarines attached to their battle groups. They can blockade our ports and challenge our submarine forces as they deploy. They could even track our PLARBs to their strategic bastions, moving quietly and unobserved, with orders to open fire should they hear the missile tube hatches on our submarines open. If they think it in their interests to prevent a launch, they will not hesitate to fire first in such a confrontation.'
'Are… are we at war with the Americans then?'
'Bah!' Karelin made a dismissive gesture. 'What does it matter?
Officially, no, we are not at war. Not since the last units of our Scandinavian expeditionary force surrendered and the Blues invited the UN bastards to occupy our cities. But then, if you examine the record, you will find that we were not officially at war with the Americans when we invaded Norway either. The entire episode was characterized in the UN as an 'incident,' a 'Peace-keeping action.' The Western governments, you see, fear even the admission that a state of war exists between East and West. Oh, there have been threats from Washington and the various Western puppets since Marshal Krasilnikov's coup, of course, the bellows and head-tossings of angry bulls. But no decisive action… beyond this threatening deployment of these carrier groups of theirs.
'It is our plan,' he continued, 'to attack first, to hit them before they can hit us.'
Marchenko drew in his breath with a sharp hiss.
Karelin looked up sharply. 'This frightens you?'
'It occurs to me, Comrade Admiral,' Marchenko said with great deliberation, 'that one reason the Fascists lost the Great Patriotic War was their decision to attack Russia while still fighting England. Later, at the moment the Hitlerites were getting their first taste of General Winter, they added the United States to their list of enemies.'
'Be careful, my friend. Your words could be seen as dangerously revisionist.' Even yet, senior Red Army officers did not admit that the Rodina had received substantial help from the West during the Second World War. Still, Karelin was impressed, and pleased. He'd not pegged Marchenko as one who would venture any opinion contrary to the Party line. Perhaps there was hope for the man yet.
'I only state the obvious, Comrade Admiral.' His shoulders slumped, and he turned in his chair for a moment to stare through his office window at the bustling work in the shipyard below. 'I wonder if future historians might regard our decision to attack the United States while we are fighting the Blues as, ah, somewhat less than tactically sound.'
'It is a gamble certainly. But you must remember that while the Americans like to make big noises, they will be unwilling to involve themselves deeply in our internal problems.'
'They fought willingly enough in Norway.'
'An entirely different case. There, they came to the aid of an old ally.
As it was, they sent but a single carrier battle group, and that was very nearly too little, too late. I assure you, they will look at our civil war, and their politicians will remember Vietnam… another civil war within the living memory of most Americans. They will recognize the fact that they cannot possibly intervene on one side or the other with any hope of success.'
'But for us to deliberately attack them-'
'Calm yourself,' Karelin said. 'So far as Washington is concerned, our nation is disintegrating into anarchy and civil war, yes? They see dozens of factions, and the possibility of renegade officers, rebels, dissidents. That, after all, is why they fear our nuclear forces. When we strike them, it will be in such a way that they will be unable to fix the blame. Perhaps one faction mistook the approaching American carrier group for a rival Russian group.' Karelin spread his hands, and shrugged. 'In the fog of war, regrettable mistakes happen.
'In any case, believe me, Viktor Ivanovich, when I say that the Americans have no stomach for a lengthy or expensive involvement in our war. They will harass, even sink our submarines if that is in their best interests, but they will not risk a major war. ESpecially a nuclear war now, as their news media likes to put it, that the Cold War is over.'
'What will we do, then?'
Karelin shuffled through the papers, producing another map. This one showed the Kola Peninsula, from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland in the west to the landlocked waters of the White Sea in the east. The region was peppered with military bases ? airfields, SAM sites, command control centers, radar installations. And, of course, the major naval facilities at and around Polyamyy, Severomorsk, and Murmansk.
'Our intelligence indicates that one of the American carrier battle groups ? either Eisenhower or Jefferson ? will enter the Barents Sea within the next few days. They are expected to take up a patrol station within easy observation range of our submarine facilities at Polyamyy.' He picked up a red pencil on the desk and circled an area two hundred kilometers north of the narrow border between Norway and Russia's Kola Peninsula. 'Approximately here.'
'Close enough to project ASW patrols beyond Polyamyy Inlet,' Marchenko observed, 'while maintaining the option of sheltering within the Norwegian fjords.'
'Exactly. They can also draw on additional air support and ASW assets land-based in Norway. We intend to strike before they can take up their patrol station.
'Moscow has named the operation Ognevoy,' he continued. The Russian word meant Curtain of Fire, and Karelin thought it apt. 'Primary responsibility is being handed to Frontal Aviation units deployed from these airfields ? Zapolyamyy and Pechenga near the border. Kirovsk, Alakurtti, Vaga Guba, Monchegorsk inland. Overall control will be exercised through the district command facility at Kandalaksha. None of these airfields, you will notice, lies closer than one hundred kilometers to our naval facilities here at Polyamyy.'
'So that the Americans, if they retaliate, will not attack our submarine bases.'
'Correct. Moscow will disavow any connection with the attack, claiming that it was mounted by a small clique of anti-military Blues seeking to discredit the legal government. If the Americans retaliate, it will be against the airfields where the attack originated.
'In the meantime, you will have both of your Typhoons, Lenin's Invincible Truth and Glorious October Revolution, ready to put to sea at an instant's notice. If possible, you will deploy them under cover of bad weather, but the key factor will be to get them out of Polyamyy Inlet while the Americans are still shocked and disoriented by our strike against their battle group.'
'How will I know when-'
'I will inform you. I will be at the Kandalaksha Command Center. When I see that the attack has been successful, that the American carrier is sunk or, at the least, that the enemy forces are concentrating their attention on their own defense, I will send you a coded signal. Upon receipt of that message, you will deploy the Typhoons at once. At once. It is imperative that you keep both of them ready to leave at a moment's notice.'
