THE BRUTUS LIE

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  He had to let go, to release her. His mouth found her ear. "I'll be back. Two to three weeks, no more. We'll have time together, then."

  She looked up to him, her eyes glistened. "Yes. Make sure you come back."

  They heard a whistle from topside. Lofton quickly kissed Bonnie on the tip of her nose, then both cheeks, and led her topside.

  The rope dangled near the casing. Lofton fashioned a sling under Bonnie's arms. "Keep your feet against the piling, it'll go easier. Here." He stuffed her glasses in her parka.

  Her head jerked in a nod.

  Lofton whistled and slack went out of the rope. He patted Bonnie on her rump as Kirby heaved. She caught a piling neatly with her feet and Kirby had her up and over in ten seconds.

  He heard another whistle and grabbed the hose. It no longer vibrated. Full tanks, he hoped, as he bolted down the ladder. Underway in two minutes. He stepped to the pilot station and checked the "Power" CRT:

  JP‑5: 3566 - 95%.

  Good enough. He stepped aft, disconnected the fuel hose, and whistled through the hatch. The hose snaked out of Brutus. Lofton followed it topside and ran for the bow line.

  He stooped at the cleat and was unwinding the line when something caught his eye. The hose had dropped to water level, the nozzle swung back and forth, grazing little wakes across the viscous surface. Lofton stood and looked at the wharf. He gave a short whistle. Nothing.

  He whistled again. A gull shrieked and a diesel fired up in the bulk-loading terminal. A subtle gray hued the eastern sky. The port of Long Beach was waking up.

  The Ford started above him, its engine raced, and it clanked into gear. The fuel hose snapped up and sprang over the wharf.

  Lofton looked to his mooring lines. Something was wrong. He jumped for the piling, shinnied up quickly, found the top, and stood. Bonnie and Kirby were stepping from the jeep Cherokee with raised, awkward hands. The black truck had nosed into the jeep's rear bumper, a hand protruded through the window, it held a pistol.

  Lofton squinted. Underwood! He crouched, yanked out the .38 and chambered a round. With a two‑handed grip, he aimed and fired. The bullet slammed through the top of the truck's door.

  Underwood's pistol clattered to the asphalt. His head whipped around. He grit his teeth and the Ford's transmission clanked.

  Kirby ran around the jeep and pulled Bonnie to the pavement as the truck backed away.

  Lofton yelled, "Walt!"

  The truck jerked to a stop facing Lofton, then bounced ahead, the clutch going in and out as the engine raced. Underwood was searching for the proper gear.

  "Back in the jeep! Now! Go!" Lofton backhanded his arm toward Panorama Drive. Kirby and Bonnie ran for the jeep as the truck roared and picked up speed. The Ford tore at him; seventy, sixty, fifty feet away. Underwood was crouched behind his wheel. Lofton saw his hunched shoulders, his eyes.

  Underwood wanted Lofton. He didn't care if the truck pitched over the wharf. Renkin's agent could jump and save himself, not realizing the Ford would crash onto Brutus.

  Lofton turned right and ran. Bollards, enormous cleats flashed by. The fuel truck snarled closer as Lofton sobbed with frustra­tion. A ten foot chain link fence stood to his left. The wharf was only ten feet across at this point and the moored fuel barge lay to his right.

  Underwood had him.

  One thing left. He stopped, turned, pulled out his .38 and took aim. A grinning Underwood slid down, knowing the engine would protect him.

  Lofton snapped off four rounds. The windshield starred near the top of Underwood's head. He dropped his aim slightly and sent two more rounds through the top of the hood toward the dash­board. Fifteen feet; the truck's engine sputtered but still rushed him.

  He lowered the .38, found the right front tire, fired his last round, and sprang for the chain-link fence. The tire popped and hissed. The truck swerved violently to the right, barely missing Lofton in midair.

  The engine coughed and died as the truck slowed. The right front wheel, its tire now flat, caught a huge cleat. The wheel ripped away as the truck lurched to its right. The Ford drunkenly pirouetted off the wharf and crunched loudly onto the fuel barge, its nose buried in a fuel bunker. The Jet "A" tank dislodged, smashed through the truck's cabin, and came to rest, its seam split.

  Lofton ran to the edge and peered over. Fumes! Jet "A"!

  He dashed for Brutus.

  Sirens. Someone from the bulk loading terminal had probably seen the wreck and given the alarm. Making sure the jeep was gone, he edged over the piling and onto Brutus. Racing, he tore off the bow and stern lines, recessed the cleats, jammed the lines in their lazaret.

  Shouts wafted from Panorama Drive as he dropped through the hatch. A truck, more trucks, screeched to a stop above him. Jet "A" fumes, heavier than air, found his nostrils just before he clunked the hatch shut. Spinning the wheel, he lurched forward. How much fuel was left in that tank? He wondered, as he jammed himself in the pilot's chair and kicked the right bow thruster pedal. Twenty--thirty--gallons of Jet "A" sloshing around now, maybe mixing with the barge's fuel oil? More than enough.

  Nothing happened. He kicked the right bow thruster pedal again. My God. Reconnect power. His fingers flew over the electrical panel. The CRTs blinked on, status boxes winked from red to green. He kicked the pedal again. Brutus's bow nudged away from berth 209.

  His thumb found the flood button on top of the joystick. Brutus settled as the ballast tanks roared and accepted seawater. The bow dipped and Lofton jammed on full throttle, kicking in left full rudder. He'd taken on stores and a full load of fuel but there hadn't been time for a trim dive. Paying the price, he fought the controls as Brutus bucked between ten and thirty feet.

  "Just don't broach," he urged.

  He managed to catch the minisub at fifteen feet and slowed to five knots. Deciding to take a chance, Lofton raised his periscope and peered aft.

  Brutus was in the middle of basin six when the fuel barge exploded, vaporizing Special Agent Kevin T. Underwood, along with much of the Ford. Flames roiled three, then five hundred feet in the air. Chunks of the truck and whole sections of the barge flew in every direction. The tug rolled on its beam, then miracu­lously righted itself, strangely devoid of her superstructure. Flames raced through her exposed length.

  The shock wave quivered past Brutus's periscope as igniting fuel oil spread from the barge. Creosoted pilings caught fire, an isolated blaze leaped from the roof of the banana terminal. Its windows were blown out. One of its rail cranes had been flung off the tracks and leaned crazily against the building.

  The carnage disappeared behind a promontory as he cleared the basin six entrance and eased in right rudder for the Long Beach outer harbor. Something there! He flicked the stick right and dropped the periscope. Two fire boats flashed toward him, were soon overhead and gone. Their twin screws buzzed furiously.

  He raised the periscope again. All clear. Almost daylight and almost time to swing left and head for Queen's Gate. He checked in the distance. A thick column of black smoke rose over the receding warehouses. He adjusted his focus and watched for a moment.

  Something caught his eye on the basin six promontory, now about four hundred yards aft. He flipped the lens to hi‑power and found a jeep Cherokee silhouetted by the early dawn and towering black smoke. Two figures leaned against the front fender, their heads swivelled from the smoke to the basin six channel. The taller figure's hands were jammed in its pockets. Its gaze swept over Brutus's camouflaged, almost wakeless periscope, then back to the smoke again.

  Lofton chewed a thumbnail. They didn't know if Brutus had escaped. He quickly twirled the periscope through 360 degrees. Nothing close by, although a bow wave charged directly toward him about a mile east. Probably another fire boat from the Queen Mary area, he supposed. He pulled hard on the joystick, hoping it would be enough. Large red letters blinked on the "master: CRT:

  BROACH - BROACH - BROACH

  Brutus lurched to the surface; he could stay there
for only ten seconds or so with his near‑negative buoyancy, it was all the exposure he could afford. The two figures' heads kept turning as they receded in his lens.

  Here I am. Hurry up, not much time left.

  Brutus wallowed and lost speed. Lofton shoved the stick forward and added power.

  There! The taller figure nudged an elbow, pointed toward him, and jabbed an extended thumb in the air. The shorter figure waved both arms over its head furiously as Brutus swam back to periscope depth.

  Lofton watched as long as he dared, then swung the periscope to Queen's Gate and put Brutus on course. Seventeen minutes to the entrance at five knots, he remembered. Time enough to set up a track to Kamchatka.

  He punched the keyboard and watched the NAV CRT scroll through the "Alpha Select ‑ Sailing Directions" program.

  He let the cursor illuminate Poluostrov Kamchatka and found a subtable for Mys Mayachnyy, a cape that guarded the entrance to Petropav­lovsk harbor. The fifty-third parallel, he noted, bisected the city's downtown section. Biting his thumbnail, Lofton sat back for a moment. What kind of track should he take and how long would it be?

  He leaned over his keyboard again and slewed a linear cursor across a Pacific Ocean gnomic projection. It wouldn't be a true great circle route. Hmmm. He checked the closest points of approach to land masses from the computer's projected track. Clear the west end of Catalina by six and one half miles. OK, it's deep there. Then clear the west end of San Miguel Island, Point Bennett, by twenty‑six miles.

  Good. Clear Rat and Near islands in the Aleutians by ninety miles to the south. OK. Finally, clear Komandorskiye Ostrova by one hundred thirty‑five miles to the south, then zap toward Petropav­lovsk on final course 274.5. And the hell with fuel efficiency; he had plenty on board now. He needed speed and punched in thirty knots.

  Lofton switched the program to the master CRT:

  WAY POINT CS DIST. TIME ETA‑Z

  d hr m m d hr

  1. Long Beach Buoy ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ 09 14 1222

  2. San Pedro Ch. Dogleg 226 10 ‑ ‑ 19 09 14 1241

  3. 33 40'.0 N ‑ 121 00'.0 W 272 137 ‑ 04 34 09 14 1715

  4. 50 00'.0 N ‑ 180 00'.0 W 309 3145 4 08 50 09 19 0205

  5. Mys Mayachnyy 287 935 1 07 10 09 20 0915

  4227 5 20 53

  SPD = 30.0

  DEPTH = 1000

  He sighed, then checked his periscope. Brutus was almost to the Long Beach entrance. He looked at the projected track again. Almost six days. Time enough to locate PARALLAX and PITCHFORK, then run south and disarm the CAPTORs before the Truman nosed through Chetvertyy Kuril'skiy Proliv. He jabbed "Set" on his computer and locked in the NAV program.

  Queensgate passed abeam. He took a last look at the thick, black smoke column rising over Long Beach.

  Exhaustion swept through him. With the back of his hand, he shoved the periscope to its overhead bracket and punched "Auto." Brutus accelerated smoothly to thirty knots.

  Lofton's head fell to his chest.

  PART TWO

  Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

  In a strange city, lying alone

  Far down among the dim west,

  Where the good and the bad and the worst

  and the best

  Have gone to their eternal rest.

  Edgar Allan Poe,

  The City in the Sea

  CHAPTER NINE

  Karlskrona, Sweden, 1981

  Karlskrona, one of Sweden's four major naval bases, guards the southern approaches to the Baltic Sea. Malmö lies 170 statute kilometers to the southwest and dominates the Danish Straits, which provide access to the Kattegat and Skagerrak. Stockholm, which lies on Sweden's eastern coast, is approximately 390 kilometers north of Karlskrona.

  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' landmass, directly across the Baltic, begins only 220 kilometers east of Stockholm. And Leningrad, home port to the Twice-Honored Red Banner Baltic Fleet, is situated another 510 kilometers into the Gulf of Finland. The USSR's view of Sweden, her neutrality notwithstanding, borders on paranoia. In time of "national emergency," Soviet fighting and essential support units could be bottled up in the Baltic, denied access to Western Waters, and worse, destroyed by Swedish air and naval forces. Thus, strategic planners of the Twice-Honored Red Banner Baltic Fleet lose more sleep than they care to admit when it comes to hard choices on how to deal with Sweden's offensive and defensive capabilities, particularly their substantial submarine capability. And Karls­krona is a major submarine base.

  Hard information, indeed, on-site reconnaissance is in constant demand for Soviet strategists. In other words, how can the Swedes' strike capability be quickly neutralized? How can Soviet access be guaranteed to the North Sea, then to the Atlantic? How can the Central Committee be assured that the Baltic Fleet, which represents 16 percent of the Soviet Union's naval forces, will not end up on the bottom?

  Karlskrona is favored by an archipelago just offshore that parallels the coast and provides a secure, natural defense for hardened submarine pens. Many of the islands are bases for secret naval activities, and the whole area is highly restricted. Ashore, "No Aliens" signs are posted in the partly wooded, low rocky hills and on navigable channels outside the archipelago. The rocky beaches, cliffs, and headlands are heavily patrolled by aircraft, elite troops, dogs, and electronic surveillance equipment. The seaward approaches are covered by observation posts on the strategic larger islands, which coordinate patrol boat and heli­copter activity. An interesting network of bottom mines is controlled from various shore stations.

  Reconnaissance, therefore, is the food, the main ingredient that allows Soviet planners to make their hard choices.

  The Voyenno Morskoy Flot Podvodnaya Lodka (PL) 673 was one of 236 variations of the Pskovskiy class attack submarine built in the 1950s. Known by the NATO code word Whiskey, most of the class had been scrapped except for forty units that had been handed over to "client" navies. Rendered obsolete by advanced nuclear designs, remaining submarines of the Pskovskiy class were workhorses; they were still useful for coastal defense work, training, and recon­naissance.

  The 673 typified the class appearance with her World War II German U-boat's general dimensions and silhouette. She didn't carry a deck gun and the lack of other topside clutter gave her a submerged speed of thirteen knots. Her surface speed hadn't improved over her predecessors, though: seventeen knots. At periscope depth, a snorkel fed air to her two 4000 horsepower diesel-electric engines, which were coupled to twin screws. And she sported four 533 millimeter torpedo tubes forward and two aft. She usually hauled a full warload of ten standard and two nuclear-tipped torpedoes.

  Until six months ago, white figures had proudly announced hull numbers on her conning tower. However, the 673's assignment required full stealth advantage. The large numerals contrasted too brightly. The numbers were obliterated, covered in black to match the rest of her conning tower and topside surfaces.

  Captain Second Rank Vladimir Zuleyev stood on his cold, cramped bridge as the 673 crept on the surface under an overcast nighttime sky toward the Karlskrona Archipelago. He peered into blackness and wondered about stealth. With the gyrocompass acting up who cared if the damned numbers were on the conning tower or not? The moon would rise in another two hours but that didn't matter now. He shook his head and again checked the red illuminated gyro repeater. The compass card drifted fifteen degrees either side of their intended course.

  They were under strict emission control, radar was prohibited, and without a gyro they couldn't navigate accurately.

  "That's it." Zuleyev cursed softly and threw up his hands. " We're lucky. Five kilometers to go, it could have been worse. I'm not going in there without a gyro. Not in this." He ordered left full rudder and, steering course 165 by magnetic compass, dashed for the Swedish territorial twelve-mile limit at flank speed. When they crossed into international waters, Zuleyev submerged to thirty meters and made turns for five knots. He kept his boat on course 165, stood down f
rom action stations, and set the regular watch.

  Anton Pavel Dobrynyn sat in the officers' mess, empty now except for two junior officers who, exhausted from the previous night's midwatch, snored in bunks jammed to the port bulkhead. Dobrynyn's black coveralls bore the military insignia of captain, equivalent to the naval rank of captain lieutenant. He and Ullanov had just removed their equipment and scuba gear lay stacked about.

  It sounded as if the pressure was off. He'd heard the quarter­master report to the captain that an immediate gyro repair was unlikely. Zuleyev told him to try anyway.

  The Zampolit, finally happy for something to do, rubbed his hands together and went to work. He commandeered Zuleyev's stateroom just aft of the officer's mess, summoned Ullanov, and drew the green curtain. Dobrynyn insisted on being there but Captain Third Rank Pyotr Kapultichev, a superior officer, ordered him to stay put. He was to be interrogated next. Dobrynyn had been through this sort of thing before with Ullanov, who usually handled himself well with political officers.

  As he waited, Dobrynyn realized he was alone for the time being, a rarity on a submarine. His thoughts drifted again to the letter, the one that had come just before they shoved off. He'd already picked through it five times in the last two days. Like a volatile substance, it fascinated him. It seemed a missive of morbidity; a chronicle of perpetual damnation. A summation.

  He ran a hand through his dark full beard and chewed a thumbnail. With a sigh, he reached into his ditty bag and pulled out the smudged envelope. Cheap paper crackled in his hands. He thumbed the torn flap open, then hesitated as Kapultichev's voice bellowed through the corridor.

  "Sergeant! Brace yourself to attention. Don't look at me. Look at that bulkhead."

  "Sir!"

  Dobrynyn heard Junior Sergeant Josef Ullanov clamp his heels together. His feet would be at the precise forty-five degree angle. Ullanov's thumbs would be jammed along the seams of his black overalls. His face, Dobrynyn knew, would settle to the unfocused, totally subordinate expression of a military recruit. But when he stood before Zampolits, Ullanov's eyebrows would be slightly knit upward. And his eyes would glisten. Ullanov would weave slightly; his whole powerful stature would be an exquisite portrayal of "up yours, sir."