Padorin took a deep breath. He’d been waiting for this. “Comrades, we have another man aboard Red October, unknown to either Putin or Captain Ramius, an agent of the Main Political Administration.”
“What?” Gorshkov said. “And why did I not know of this?”
Alexandrov smiled. “That’s the first intelligent thing we’ve heard today. Go on.”
“This individual is covered as an enlisted man. He reports directly to our office, bypassing all operational and political channels. His name is Igor Loginov. He is twenty-four, a—”
“Twenty-four!” Narmonov shouted. “You trust a child with this responsibility?”
“Comrade, Loginov’s mission is to blend in with the conscripted crewmen, to listen in on conversations, to identify likely traitors, spies, and saboteurs. In truth he looks younger still. He serves alongside young men, and he must be young himself. He is, in fact, a graduate of the higher naval school for political officers at Kiev and the GRU intelligence academy. He is the son of Arkady Ivanovich Loginov, chief of the Lenin Steel Plant at Kazan. Many of you here know his father.” Narmonov was among those who nodded, a flickering of interest in his eyes. “Only an elite few are chosen for this duty. I have met and interviewed this boy myself. His record is clear, he is a Soviet patriot without question.”
“I know his father,” Narmonov confirmed. “Arkady Ivanovich is an honorable man who has raised several good sons. What are this boy’s orders?”
“As I said, Comrade General Secretary, his ordinary duties are to observe the crewmen and report on what he sees. He’s been doing this for two years, and he is good at it. He does not report to the zampolit aboard, but only to Moscow or to one of my representatives. In a genuine emergency, his orders are to report to the zampolit. If Putin is alive—and I do not believe this, comrades—he would be part of the conspiracy, and Loginov would know not to do this. In a true emergency, therefore, his orders are to destroy the ship and make his escape.”
“This is possible?” Narmonov asked. “Gorshkov?”
“Comrades, all of our ships carry powerful scuttling charges, submarines especially.”
“Unfortunately,” Padorin said, “these are generally not armed, and only the captain can activate them. Ever since the incident on Storozhevoy, we in the Main Political Administration have had to consider that an incident such as this one was indeed a possibility, and that its most damaging manifestation would involve a missile-carrying submarine.”
“Ah,” Narmonov observed, “he is a missile mechanic.”
“No, Comrade, he is a ship’s cook,” Padorin replied.
“Wonderful! He spends all his day boiling potatoes!” Narmonov’s hands flew up in the air, his hopeful demeanor gone in an instant, replaced with palpable wrath. “You wish your bullet now, Padorin?”
“Comrade Chairman, this is a better cover assignment than you may imagine.” Padorin did not flinch, wanting to show these men what he was made of. “On Red October the officers’ accommodations and galley are aft. The crew’s quarters are forward—the crew eat there since they do not have a separate messroom—with the missile room in between. As a cook he must travel back and forth many times each day, and his presence in any particular area will not be thought unusual. The food freezer is located adjacent to the lower missile deck forward. It is not our plan that he should activate the scuttling charges. We have allowed for the possibility that the captain could disarm them. Comrades, these measures have been carefully thought out.”
“Go on,” Narmonov grunted.
“As Comrade Gorshkov explained earlier, Red October carries twenty-six Seahawk missiles. These are solid-fuel rockets, and one has a range-safety package installed.”
“Range safety?” Narmonov was puzzled.
Up to this point the other military officers at the meeting, none of them Politburo members, had kept their peace. Padorin was surprised when General V.M. Vishenkov, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, spoke up. “Comrades, these details were worked out through my office some years ago. As you know, when we test our missiles, we have safety packages aboard to explode them if they go off course. Otherwise they might land on one of our own cities. Our operational missiles do not ordinarily carry them—for the obvious reason, the imperialists might learn a way to explode them in flight.”
“So, our young GRU comrade will blow up the missile. What of the warheads?” Narmonov asked. An engineer by training, he could always be distracted by technical discourse, always impressed by a clever one.
“Comrade,” Vishenkov went on, “the missile warheads are armed by accelerometers. Thus they cannot be armed until the missile reaches its full programmed speed. The Americans use the same system, and for the same reason, to prevent sabotage. These safety systems are absolutely reliable. You could drop one of the reentry vehicles from the top of the Moscow television transmitter onto a steel plate and it would not fire.” The general referred to the massive TV tower whose construction Narmonov had personally supervised while head of the Central Communications Directorate. Vishenkov was a skilled political operator.
“In the case of a solid-fuel rocket,” Padorin continued, recognizing his debt to Vishenkov, wondering what he’d ask for in return, and hoping he’d live long enough to deliver, “a safety package ignites all of the missile’s three stages simultaneously.”
“So the missile just takes off?” Alexandrov asked.
“No, Comrade Academician. The upper stage might, if it could break through the missile tube hatch, and this would flood the missile room, sinking the submarine. But even if it did not, there is sufficient thermal energy in either of the first two stages to reduce the entire submarine to a puddle of molten iron, twenty times what is necessary to sink it. Loginov has been trained to bypass the alarm system on the missile tube hatch, to activate the safety package, set a timer, and escape.”
“Not just to destroy the ship?” Narmonov asked.
“Comrade General Secretary,” Padorin said, “it is too much to ask a young man to do his duty, knowing that it means certain death. We would be unrealistic to expect this. He must have at least the possibility of escape, otherwise human weakness might lead to failure.”
“This is reasonable,” Alexandrov said. “Young men are motivated by hope, not fear. In this case, young Loginov would hope for a considerable reward.”
“And get it,” Narmonov said. “We will make every effort to save this young man, Gorshkov.”
“If he is truly reliable,” Alexandrov noted.
“I know that my life depends on this, Comrade Academician,” Padorin said, his back still straight. He did not get a verbal answer, only nods from half the heads at the table. He had faced death before and was at the age where it remains the last thing a man need face.
The White House
Arbatov came into the Oval Office at 4:50 P.M. He found the president and Dr. Pelt sitting in easy chairs across from the chief executive’s desk.
“Come on over, Alex. Coffee?” The president pointed to a tray on the corner of his desk. He was not drinking today, Arbatov noted.
“No, thank you, Mr. President. May I ask—”
“We think we found your sub, Alex,” Pelt answered. “They just brought these dispatches over, and we’re checking them now.” The adviser held up a ring binder of message forms.
“Where is it, may I ask?” The ambassador’s face was deadpan.
“Roughly three hundred miles northeast of Norfolk. We have not located it exactly. One of our ships noted an underwater explosion in the area—no, that’s not right. It was recorded on a ship, and when the tapes were checked a few hours later, they thought they heard a submarine explode and sink. Sorry, Alex,” Pelt said. “I should have known better than to read through all this stuff without an interpreter. Does your navy talk in its own language, too?”
“Officers do not like for civilians to understand them,” Arbatov smiled. “This has doubtless been true since the first man picked up a s
tone.”
“Anyway, we have ships and aircraft searching the area now.”
The president looked up. “Alex, I talked to the chief of naval operations, Dan Foster, a few minutes ago. He said not to expect any survivors. The water there’s over a thousand feet deep, and you know what the weather is like. They said it’s right on the edge of the continental shelf.”
“The Norfolk Canyon, sir,” Pelt added.
“We are conducting a thorough search,” the president continued. “The navy is bringing in some specialized rescue equipment, search gear, all that sort of thing. If the submarine is located, we’ll get somebody down to them on the chance there might be survivors. From what the CNO tells me it is just possible that there might be if the interior partitions—bulkheads, I think he called them—are intact. The other question is their air supply, he said. Time is very much against us, I’m afraid. All this fantastically expensive equipment we buy them, and they can’t locate one damned object right off our coast.”
Arbatov made a mental record of these words. It would make a worthwhile intelligence report. The president occasionally let—
“By the way, Mr. Ambassador, what exactly was your submarine doing there?”
“I have no idea, Dr. Pelt.”
“I trust it was not a missile sub,” Pelt said. “We have an agreement to keep those five hundred miles offshore. The wreck will of course be inspected by our rescue craft. Were we to learn that it is indeed a missile sub…”
“Your point is noted. Still, those are international waters.”
The president turned and spoke softly. “So is the Gulf of Finland, Alex, and, I believe, the Black Sea.” He let this observation hang in the air for a moment. “I sincerely hope that we are not heading back to that kind of situation. Are we talking about a missile submarine, Alex?”
“Truly, Mr. President, I have no idea. Certainly I should hope not.”
The president could see how carefully the lie was phrased. He wondered if the Russians would admit that there was a captain out there who had disregarded his orders. No, they would probably claim a navigation error.
“Very well. In any case, we will be conducting our own search and rescue operation. We’ll know soon enough what sort of vessel we’re talking about.” The president looked suddenly uneasy. “One more thing Foster talked about. If we find bodies—pardon the crudity on a Saturday afternoon—I expect that you will want them returned to your country.”
“I have had no instructions on this,” the ambassador answered truthfully, caught off guard.
“It was explained to me in too much detail what a death like this does to a man. In simple terms, they’re crushed by the water pressure, not a very pretty thing to see, they tell me. But they were men, and they deserve some dignity even in death.”
Arbatov conceded the point. “If this is possible, then, I believe that the Soviet people would appreciate this humanitarian gesture.”
“We’ll do our best.”
And the American best, Arbatov remembered, included a ship named the Glomar Explorer. This notorious exploration ship had been built by the CIA for the specific purpose of recovering a Soviet Golf-class missile submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. She had been placed in storage, no doubt to await the next such opportunity. There would be nothing the Soviet Union could do to prevent the operation, a few hundred miles off the American coast, three hundred miles from the United States’ largest naval base.
“I trust that the precepts of international law will be observed, gentlemen. That is, with respect to the vessel’s remains and the crew’s bodies.”
“Of course, Alex.” The president smiled, gesturing to a memorandum on his desk. Arbatov struggled for control. He’d been led down this path like a schoolboy, forgetting that the American president had been a skilled courtroom tactician—not something that life in the Soviet Union prepares a man for—and knew all about legal tricks. Why was this bastard so easy to underestimate?
The president was also struggling to control himself. It was not often that he saw Alex flustered. This was a clever opponent, not easily caught off balance. Laughing would spoil it.
The memorandum from the attorney general had arrived only that morning. It read:
Mr. President,
Pursuant to your request, I have asked the chief of our admiralty law department to review the question of international law regarding the ownership of sunken or derelict vessels, and the law of salvage pertaining to such vessels. There is a good deal of case law on the subject. One simple example is Dalmas v Stathos (84FSuff. 828, 1949 A.M.C. 770 [S.D.N.Y. 1949]):
No problem of foreign law is here involved, for it is well settled that “salvage is a question arising out of the jus gentium and does not ordinarily depend on the municipal law of particular countries.”
The international basis for this is the Salvage Convention of 1910 (Brussels), which codified the transnational nature of admiralty and salvage law. This was ratified by the United States in the Salvage Act of 1912, 37 Stat. 242, (1912), 46 U.S.C.A. §§ 727–731; and also in 37 Stat. 1658 (1913).
“International law will be observed, Alex,” the president promised. “In all particulars.” And whatever we get, he thought, will be taken to the nearest port, Norfolk, where it will be turned over to the receiver of wrecks, an overworked federal official. If the Soviets want anything back, they can bring action in admiralty court, which means the federal district court sitting in Norfolk, where, if the suit were successful—after the value of the salvaged property was determined, and after the U.S. Navy was paid a proper fee for its salvage effort, also determined by the court—the wreck would be returned to its rightful owners. Of course, the federal district court in question had, at last check, an eleven-month backlog of cases.
Arbatov would cable Moscow on this. For what good it would do. He was certain the president would take perverse pleasure in manipulating the grotesque American legal system to his own advantage, all the time pointing out that, as president, he was constitutionally unable to interfere with the working of the courts.
Pelt looked at his watch. It was about time for the next surprise. He had to admire the president. For a man with only limited knowledge of international affairs only a few years earlier, he’d learned fast. This outwardly simple, quiet-talking man was at his best in face to face situations, and after a lifetime’s experience as a prosecutor, he still loved to play the game of negotiation and tactical exchange. He seemed able to manipulate people with frighteningly casual skill. The phone rang and Pelt got it, right on cue.
“This is Dr. Pelt speaking. Yes, Admiral—where? When? Just one? I see…Norfolk? Thank you, Admiral, that is very good news. I will inform the president immediately. Please keep us advised.” Pelt turned around. “We got one, alive, by God!”
“A survivor off the lost sub?” The president stood.
“Well, he’s a Russian sailor. A helicopter picked him up an hour ago, and they’re flying him to the Norfolk base hospital. They picked him up 290 miles northeast of Norfolk, so I guess that makes it fit. The men on the ship say he’s in pretty bad shape, but the hospital is ready for him.”
The president walked to his desk and lifted the phone. “Grace, ring me Dan Foster right now…Admiral, this is the president. The man they picked up, how soon to Norfolk? Another two hours?” He grimaced. “Admiral, you get on the phone to the naval hospital, and you tell them that I say they are to do everything they can for that man. I want him treated like he was my own son, is that clear? Good. I want hourly reports on his condition. I want the best people we have in on this, the very best. Thank you, Admiral.” He hung up. “All right!”
“Maybe we were too pessimistic, Alex,” Pelt chirped up.
“Certainly,” the president answered. “You have a doctor at the embassy, don’t you?”
“Yes, we do, Mr. President.”
“Take him down, too. He’ll be extended every courtesy. I’ll see to that. Jeff, are they sear
ching for other survivors?”
“Yes, Mr. President. There’s a dozen aircraft in the area right now, and two more ships on the way.”
“Good!” The president clapped his hands together, enthusiastic as a kid in a toystore. “Now, if we can find some more survivors, maybe we can give your country a meaningful Christmas present, Alex. We will do everything we can, you have my word on that.”
“That is very kind of you, Mr. President. I will communicate this happy news to my country at once.”
“Not so fast, Alex.” The chief executive held his hand up. “I’d say this calls for a drink.”
THE TENTH DAY
SUNDAY, 12 DECEMBER
SOSUS Control
At SOSUS Control in Norfolk, the picture was becoming increasingly difficult. The United States simply did not have the technology to keep track of submarines in the deep ocean basins. The SOSUS receptors were principally laid at shallow-water choke points, on the bottom of undersea ridges and highlands. The strategy of the NATO countries was a direct consequence of this technological limitation. In a major war with the Soviets, NATO would use the Greenland—Iceland—United Kingdom SOSUS barrier as a huge tripwire, a burglar alarm system. Allied submarines and ASW patrol aircraft would try to seek out, attack, and destroy Soviet submarines as they approached it, before they could cross the lines.
The barrier had never been expected to halt more than half of the attacking submarines, however, and those that succeeded in slipping through would have to be handled differently. The deep ocean basins were simply too wide and too deep—the average depth was over two miles—to be littered with sensors as the shallow choke points were. This was a fact that cut both ways. The NATO mission would be to maintain the Atlantic Bridge and continue transoceanic trade, and the obvious Soviet mission would be to interdict this trade. Submarines would have to spread out over the vast ocean to cover the many possible convoy routes. NATO strategy behind the SOSUS barriers, then, was to assemble large convoys, each ringed with destroyers, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The escorts would try to establish a protective bubble about a hundred miles across. Enemy submarines would not be able to exist within that bubble; if in it they would be hunted down and killed—or merely driven off long enough for the convoy to speed past. Thus while SOSUS was designed to neutralize a huge, fixed expanse of sea, deep-basin strategy was founded on mobility, a moving zone of protection for the vital North Atlantic shipping.