Countdown km-2

by David Hagberg

  Kurshin’s jaw tightened. No one on this earth had ever called him Arkasha except for Baranov. No one. It was everything he could do not to kill this bastard here and now. But again he forced a tired smile. “I appreciate Your understanding, Niki. I really do”

  “Just so, II makayev said. “The lockout chamber has been recycled and is ready for us”

  “Yes”

  “Good. Go forward then and fill up your suit. We won’t have much time to get free of the boat before she accelerates to a dangerous speed, She could drag us down with her. II Kurshm hesitated, searching the other man’s eyes for some hidden purpose. But with Makayev, he suspected, what you saw was what you got. It was why he was always in trouble. He did not know how to play the political game so important for survival in the Soviet Union. He did not know how to hide his true feelings, his real intent. “Don’t be long”

  “I won’t be, believe me”

  The five-man lockout chamber was just forward of the conning tower.

  Kurshin had donned his hooded emersion suit and had filled it with compressed air which would give him enough buoyancy and breathing air to reach the surface. Suddenly the Indianapolis shuddered and began to move at a down angle.

  A few seconds later Makayev showed up on the run, and Kurshin helped him with his suit, filling it with air even as the captain was closing the lower hatch, and seawater began to rise above their knees.

  The boat was already going very fast by the time the pressure inside the lockout chamber had been equalized and the outer hatch opened. Kurshin was about to suggest they slow the boat down when Makayev bodily shoved him out the hatch. The burbling water slammed his body up against the conning tower, and then he was tumbling end over end with absolutely no idea which way was up. Something grabbed at his left arm, and he looked down as the submarine slid below them, the prop wash again tumbling him end over end.

  Makayev was beside and slightly above him, and gradually Kurshin realized that they were rising toward the surface, and he had to remember to force himself to breathe regularly lest he get an embolism m his lungs. He raised his head to look up, but couldn’t see anything at first. The water all around them was pitch-black. Gradually ‘ however, he was able to see a dark bulk off to the left. It would be the hull of the Stephos. And then they were on the surface, only a light chop bobbing them in the waves. Kurshin pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and flashed it twice. Immediately they could hear the sound of a small outboard motor, as a rubber raft headed toward them. He yanked his hood off and breathed deeply of the fresh night air, the smells of the sea and the nearby Greek coast pure and wonderful after the confinement of the submarine. Makayev had pulled off his hood and he swam over to Kurshin. “That was very close” he said. Kurshin looked at him. “I suppose you saved my life” Makayev said nothing. “Thank you, Comrade”

  Kurshin said as he thought about when the time would be best to kill the man.

  USS RATON ROUGE

  Fifty miles southwest of the island of Crete, the attack submarine Baton Rouge was in her drift mode on a heading of two-six-five, submerged at three hundred feet beneath the surface. Far to the north, in the Aegean, her sister boat the USS Phoenix was keeping close tabs on the approaches to the Dardanelles. They had been taking part in OPERATION LOOKUP with the CVN Nimitz when they had received orders to search for the Indianapolis. At all costs, their orders had specified, the Indianapolis was not to be allowed anywhere near the Dardanelles. “Top priority is communications. If the Indianapolis does not respond, and if she continues to make an attempt to reach the Black Sea, she is to be considered hostile, and is to be killed” commander Richard Keyser had surfaced his boat for clarification, and when it had come his orders had seemed no less incredible than before.

  He knew JD. Webb. They were friends. If JD. was attempting to steal his boat, there was a gun pointed at his head. Or he was dead. Keyser would have bet anything on it.

  A few minutes earlier their sonar had picked up what very Possibly was a submarine far off to their south. They had run at high speed for five minutes, and then had shut down to drift again.

  “Conn, sonar” the comms speaker blared. “Conn, aye” Keyser said. “I have a definite fix on that target. Range eight thousand meters, bearing thin-six-zero. It’s changing left to right. I I The other submarine was directly ahead of them and was moving almost due south. “Is it the Indianapolis, Randy” The comms was silent for a beat. “Yes, Skipper, I’d be willing to bet anything on it, unless there is another Los Angeles-class boat in the area. “NO” Keyser said. “No chance it’s Russian”

  “Not a chance, Skipper. She’s definitely an LA. class”

  “What’s she doing”

  “That’s the part that threw me at first. She’s not making more than ten knots, but she’s diving, on a constant angle. “How deep”

  “Sir, a thousand feet … belay that. She’s passing eleven hundred feet now, and the angle of her dive has increased. I I Keyser looked at his exec at the chart table across the control room. “What’s it look like, Dean? Are they heading for the bottom”

  “Just about ten thousand feet here, Skipper. But they’ve probably picked us up; they may be trying to duck under a diermocline”

  “Then we’re going after her. Give me turns for full speed” Keyser turned back to the comms. “Sonar, keep a sharp watch, I want to know when she levels out”

  “She’s still going down, Skipper”

  “She’ll level off. She has to” The Baton Rouge accelerated smoothly, the angle on her planes down five degrees as she turned on an intercept course. The Los Angeles-class boats had a service depth of around fifteen hundred feet, though they were considered reasonably safe a few hundred feet deeper than that. It had always been one of their problems whenever they came up against the Russian Alfa-class boats that were constructed of welded titanium. The Alfas were not only faster, they could dive to nearly three thousand feet. Keyser hit the comms switch three minutes later as the Baton Rouge began to level off at one thousand feet. “Sonar, conn. I I “Sonar, aye. “What’s she doing”

  “Skipper, she’s passed eighteen hundred feet and her angle hasn’t changed. I’m starting to pick up hull compression noises”

  “Christ” Keyser swore. “Go active, ping him once, Randy, let him know we’re, here”

  “Aye” Chief Petty Officer Randy Sparkman replied. Monts later they all heard the single pong. MAnything” Keyser radioed. “Negative. I’m getting more hull compression noises. Skipper, she’s just passed two thousand feet. I think … wait Keyser turned on his heel and hurried aft to the sonar control center. Sparkman looked up and shook his head.

  “She’s breaking up, Skipper” Keyser donned a set of headphones. It took him a moment or two to sort out just what it was he was hearing. But it was there. The Indianapolis was definitely breaking up. “Give me another range and bearing” Sparkman hit the active sonar, the pong reverberating throughout the boat. “It’s a scattered target, Skipper.

  She’@ losing all her air. Same range and bearing, but she’s going down now. Straight down”

  “Oh, Christ” Keyser swore again, ripping the headphone! off. He hit the comms switch. “Dean, surface the boat. Emergency practices”

  “Aye, Skipper.

  MV STEPHOS

  A billion points of light sparkled on the deep blue of the Mediterranean as the Motor Vessel Stephos raced east into the rising sun. She was a French-built hydrofoil, and when she rose up out of the water on full plane she was a sight to see. Capable of speeds approaching fifty knots, at this moment she was doing nearly that, leaving behind a creamy but curiously flat wakeshe was beautiful, her lines sleek, her hull and superstructure all white except for the huge red crosses on her port and starboard sides. Her expansive forward deck, however, was cluttered with what appeared to be big crates, all marked LEBANESE RELIEF ORGANIZATION. In actuality, the crates were a sham; they served to hide the Tomahawk missile securely cradled to her hastily
assembled launching rack.

  “Within ten minutes” Kurshin had been assured by KGB Captain Ivan Akhminovich Grechko, who skippered the Stephos. “We can have the crates stripped away, the missile raised and fired”

  “You have done a fine job” Kurshin said. Kurshin, Grechko, and Makayev had gone below to the captain’s cabin where they sat around a low coffee table on which was spread a chart depicting the entire eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Israel. Grechko stabbed a blunt finger on the chart at a point fifty miles north of Crete. They were just passing the eastern end of the island.

  “We’ll make the Carpathos Strait just south of Rhodes within the next ninety minutes. Puts us out in the open Med for the run to the north side of Cyprus” Kurshin had been intently studying the chart. He looked up. Grechko and Makayev were watching him. “What time”

  “We should be around the island Cape Andreas late this afternoon, and in position off the Syrian coast before nightfall”

  Kurshin thought about it a moment. “We’ll reduce speed later today, perhaps around noon” he said. “But I’ll leave that up to you. The point is I don’t want to close with the coast before nightfall”

  “That makes sense” Grechko nodded his agreement. “And then what, Comrade Colonel” Makayev asked. “We launch the missile, scuttle this boat, and take the auxiliary to the coast just north of Jeble where we’ll be picked up and flown immediately to Tbilisi”

  “Why Georgia” Grechko asked.

  “There isn’t much there except for peasants, factory workers, and old women. “Because we’re going to have to be hidden”

  “For how long”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps for a long time” “Because of the target” Makayev asked. “Yes, Niki, because of the target”

  “Where” Kurshin sat back. He decided that it was going to be a pleasure killing this bastard. “What if I said Tel Aviv” The color drained from Makayev’s face, but Grechko was grinning. “That would teach those Jews a lesson” the KGB captain grunted. He was a roughshod man, with absolutely no class. He was ex-navy, though, and knew what he was doing here. “But you can’t be serious, Comrade Colonel” Kurshin had kept his eyes on Makayev. He shook his head. “We are not going to hit a civilian target”

  He sat forward again and drew the chart a little closer.

  “Here” he said, pointing. “En Gedi”

  “What is there” Makayev asked.

  “Israel’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

  Their only nuclear weapons” Makayev licked his lips. “They’d be deep underground. Beyond the damaging power of that missile, I think”

  “You’re correct. But the nuclear blast will contaminate the surface for a lot of years to come, rendering their weapons inaccessible. Grechko was grinning again, his face like a death’s head. “Destroyed by an American weapon. That is rich” “But there’s more, isn’t there” Makayev said. “What do you mean” Kurshin asked. “There are some politics involved “

  “You are a naval officer, Captain Makayev. Let’s just keep it at that, shall we”

  “I don’t like this”

  “I don’t care” Kurshin said coldly. “What time do we launch” Grechko asked softly. “Midnight. We’ll set it and the scuttling charges on a timer, giving us enough time to get clear. The missile will launch, and within sixty seconds the charges in the hull will blow and the Stephos will go to the bottom” Along with all but one of her crew, Kurshin thought.

  SOSUS CONTROL CENTER, CRETE

  Two miles west of the city of lrdkiion, on Crete’s north coast, the US. Navy’s SOSUS control center was housed in a low cement-block building, adjacent to a small paved airstrip.

  Normally only a dozen men were stationed at the tiny station, but that number had more than tripled with the arrival of the CINCMED, Admiral Delugio, and his staff. An hour ago, McGarvey and an intensely worried Trotter had flown down from Rome. They stood now, facing the admiral, his intelligence officer, Malcolm Ainslie, and Frank Newman, the lieutenant the Pentagon had sent out, across the situation table.

  “That’s it, thendelugio said heavily. The flash message from the Baton Rouge had just been relayed through Gaeta. He passed it across the table to McGarvey. “God only knows what happened out there, but it looks as if your job is done”

  “Are they sure it’s the Indianapolis” McGarvey asked as he quickly scanned the message. But then he had the answer. “Yes” Delugio said.

  300638ZJUL TOP SECRET FM: USS BATON ROUGE TO: COMSUBMED

  A. INDIANAPOLIS BROKE UP BELOW 2500 FEET AT 0449 Z THIS DATE. LAT. 35–40.1 N, LON. 22–11.8 E.

  B. SONAR DETECTED LOS ANGELES-CLASS FOOTPRINT DIVING ON A COURSE OF 183.

  C. SONAR DETECTED NUMEROUS SOUNDS OF HULL COMPRESSION FAILURE.

  D. DEBRIS ON SURFACE DEFINITELY CAME FROM USS INDIANAPOLIS.

  DESCRIPTIONS AND SERIAL NUMBERS TO FOLLOW TEXT.

  E. IT IS BELIEVED THAT ALL HANDS WERE LOST.

  McGarvey looked up from his reading. “She was headin south? Any possibility the Baton Rouge was wrong”

  “No” Delugio said. “But at least you were correct in one thing, McGarvey. The Indianapolis was definitely not heading for the Black Sea” “Nor Israel” Ainslie said. “Admiral, how long before we can have the Pigeon On station” Lieutenant Newman asked.

  “Two days before we’ll know anything. But it doesn’t matter now The politics are for the president to sort out. But the crew of the Indianapolis are all dead”

  “There were only six of them” McGarvey said. “Plus Kurshin”

  “It’s the proof Washington needed. And with that small a crew it’s no wonder they lost control of the boat” Delugio shook his head. “The bastards. At least they lost”

  “I wonder ” McGarvey muttered half under his breath as he studied the map board that formed the surface of the situation table. The others were talking, but their words flowed around him.

  The Indianapolis had been tracked by the SOSUS network as she emerged from the Malta Channel about forty hours ago, and then she had disappeared. It had given her plenty of time to pass Crete and come very near Israel, though from what he had been told about the ship’s nuclear missiles they could have been fired from nearly anywhere in the Mediterranean. The Tomahawk had a range of more than seventeen hundred nautical miles. From the spot where she had been hijacked off the coast of Italy to En Gedi was barely twelve hundred miles. Kurshin would have had plans for his escape once the missile was fired. It had taken them this time to get ready But the Indianapolis had been heading south, not east, and she had been diving. A mistake on the Russian crew’s part? Or, as the admiral suggested, had the boat simply gotten away from them?

  it’s not like driving a car. Running a boat of that size takes a well-trained, experienced crew” Lieutenant Newman had said.

  Baranov was a man who left nothing to chance. And Kurshin was good. The very best. They were not stealing the boat, trying to get it into the Black Sea. They only wanted one of the missiles. The target was En Gedi.

  He ran his finger north along the chart from the position where the Indianapolis went down, and suddenly it came to him.

  Trotter had been watching him. “What is it, Kirk” McGarvey looked up” Kurshin is not on that submarine” he said. Delugio and the others were looking at him. “They killed the crew and took the boat here, to the Gulf of Lakonia or the Bay of Messini where they hid on the bottom for twelve hours or so”

  “Why? What are you saying” Trotter asked. “Kurshin wanted one of the Tomahawk missiles. It’s my guess they shoved it out a torpedo hatch, set the submarine on a southerly course, with a down angle on her planes, and got out through an escape hatch, Is that possible” Admiral Delugio was nodding. “But why”

  “Could a Tomahawk be launched from the deck of a surface ship”

  “Yes ” Delugio started to say, but then he had it too. “Christ. They had a mother ship waiting for them. They’ll launch the missile and then get the hell out of t
here”

  “Not off the Greek coast” Megarvey said. “They’re heading east”

  “Where” Trotter asked. “Someplace where they have friends. They’re not out to commit suicide. They want to launch that missile … on En Gedi … and then have the chance to get away” McGarvey was studying the chart.

  “Syria or Lebanon would be my guess” They can’t have

  “That’s a long ways across open water. mad, et it yet” Ainslie said, his eyes bright.

  Onight” McGarvey replied. “They’ll launch sometime after dark”

  “Then we’ve got them” Ainslie blurted. “It’s not so easy to hide a missile that size. And they’ll need launching equipment. A ramp”

  “It’ll be hidden. Have we any satellites watching this end of the Mediterranean”

  “I don’t know” Delugio barked. “But we’ll damned well find out”

  “We’re looking for any boat big enough to handle the missile, heading east” McGarvey said. “There’s a lot of traffic out there” the admiral said, “some of it Russian Navy”

  “The missile won’t be aboard a Soviet ship. The Russian Navy has nothing to do with this. It’ll be a civilian ship. Something that moves fast, something that would not be challenged … something completely unrely”

  “We don’t have the ships to check every vessel. Too much water out there, McGarvey” the admiral said. “Bring me the pictures. I’ll know it when I see it”

  “I’ll talk to Murphy” Trotter said. “The Israelis will have to be notified”

  “Yes” McGarvey said, again looking down at the chart. “The problem is going to be approaching that boat. If we get too close, he just may say the hell with it and launch the missile anyway”

  “What the hell sort of a bastard is he” Delugio snarled. “I don’t know yet” McGarvey said. “But I’m learning. He looked up. “Get those pictures”

  MV STEPHOS

  They had reached the western coast of Cyprus by early afternoon, and Captain Grechko had slowed the boat down, bringing her off her hydrofoils so that she operated as a conventional craft. In this mode she was capable of speeds around twenty knots, but they would still reach their launch position off the Syrian coast sometime around eleven, giving them plenty of time to set up for the shoot and get free. The motion aboard was not so comfortable now as it had been before. The Stephos tended to wallow at times in the heavy swells coming from the southwest across the entire fetch of the Mediterranean, but no one was complaining; in less than twelve hours they would be on their way home.