Wall of Night

by Grant Blackwood

  “If this deadline should pass without President Bulganin fully admitting the Federation’s role in the deaths of nearly two thousand Chinese citizens, as well as agreeing to allow Chinese government inspectors full access to facilities employing Chinese citizens, the People’s Republic of China is prepared to take whatever steps necessary to ensure the welfare of its people.”

  From the audience a CNN reporter shouted, “Mr. Ambassador, has your government ruled out any options? Is military force a possibility?”

  “We have not ruled out any options. That President Bulganin has so far refused to acknowledge his country’s role in these deaths is no surprise; Russia has a long history of covering up disasters.”

  “What type of military force would your government consider and when might it take place?”

  “Those are not issues I will discuss.”

  “Is an evacuation of Chinese citizens living in Russia a possibility?”

  “Again, we are not ruling out any options. We are committed to—”

  Mason muted the TV, then turned to Dutcher. “Well, what do you think?”

  “That’s how it will start: a mass evacuation,” Dutcher predicted. “They’ll call it a humanitarian mission, but it’ll be their way of getting their foot in the door.”

  Mason nodded. “From what little we know about Bulganin, I don’t see him backing down. Less than a month into his presidency, it would be political suicide.”

  “Agreed. He’s going to give the Chinese exactly what they want, and the poor bastard doesn’t even know it. What worries me is, how is he going to react once they make their move?”

  “That’s anyone’s guess.” Mason sighed. “Dangerous goddamn game they’re playing.”

  Mason’s intercom buzzed: “Mr. Director, General Cathermeier on line two.”

  “Thanks, Ginny.” Mason punched the speaker button. “Chuck, I’ve got Leland here with me.”

  “You two better get over here. We’ve got problems.”

  Dutcher and Mason found Cathermeier in the secure conference room standing before a map of Russia’s eastern coast. He turned as they entered. “We’ve lost Columbia.”

  “What?” Mason said. “When?”

  “About an hour after she launched her missiles. The message came over VLF. What little we got was garbled. They were under attack, they said.”

  “By whom?” Dutcher asked.

  “No idea, but now they’re off the air. We’ve sent a surface-for-traffic message over ELF, but we’re not even getting a signal confirmation.”

  “Which suggests her transponder is damaged or—”

  “Columbia’s gone. Destroyed.”

  Dutcher said, “Have we heard from Jurens and his team?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t expect to yet. If they know about Columbia, their doing E&E,” Cathermeier replied, referring to evasion and escape: clear the area and find another lay up. “If they don’t know about Columbia, they’re probably in transit to the pickup point.”

  “Let’s hope they know,” Mason said. “Best not to have them exposed.”

  Dutcher asked Cathermeier, “Who knows about all this?”

  “Us three and the CAC duty officer. I can’t keep it from Martin and Bousikaris for long.”

  “How far is the battle group from Columbia’s last known position?”

  “Three days. I could break away one of the subs to hunt for her, but that’ll only leave one covering the whole group. If the Russians come out to meet us in any force, we could have a problem. You know, I can’t help but wonder if this is part of China’s plan.”

  “We had the same thought: Columbia mysteriously sinks after launching a missile attack against a Russian port. More proof we’re in bed with China.”

  “Either that or another chance to pull us into the fight,” Mason said.

  The intercom came to life: “General, we’ve got secure traffic. Eyes only for you.”

  “On my way.”

  The duty officer, an army major, walked over. “Sickle on SATCOM, General.”

  Cathermeier picked up the handset and keyed the button. “Sickle this is Mace, say status, over.”

  “Mace, this is Sickle. We are intact and operational. Standby to copy sitrep in three parts.”

  Cathermeier glanced at the duty officer, who nodded. “Recorders on.”

  “Ready to copy, Sickle.”

  “Sitrep: reference my grid one-four-six-nine-two. Target is foul; birds astray; see grid for result. Break, Blade unavailable, cause unknown; request instructions. Break, Kashmiri intercepted; ID confirmed as papa romeo charlie. Copy all, Mace?”

  “Roger, copy all. Standby.” Cathermeier turned to the duty officer. “Major, match Sickle’s coordinates and check to see if we have any satellites overhead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mason said, “Okay, so they know about Columbia. What’s the rest about?”

  “Something went wrong with the launch. The Harpoons malfunctioned.”

  Dutcher said, “How could that happen?”

  The watch officer interrupted, “General, the NRO has a real-time feed from a Keyhole over the Sea of Okhotsk. The angle’s going to be a bit oblique, but it should work.”

  “Put it on the big screen.”

  The screen turned to snow, then resolved into an overhead picture of Russia’s eastern coast. “Overlay Sickle’s grid,” Cathermeier ordered.

  The screen refocused. The Bay of Vrangel appeared, bracketed by Cape Kamensky and Cape Petrovosk. The water of the bay was an indigo blue, the land mostly green with splotches of brown. In the crook of the bay was the white concrete expanse of the port.

  “What the hell … ?” Cathermeier muttered. “Major, what do you make of that?”

  “Looks like smoke, General. Lots of it. I can see ten—no, twelve smoke columns, and flames at the western end of the pier. Damn, there’s nothing left standing.”

  “Transmit those coordinates to the NRO,” Cathermeier ordered. “I want a damage analysis as soon as possible.” He turned to Dutcher and Mason. “That’s what Jurens meant. Somebody got ahold of those Harpoons and diverted them—probably right into the tank farm, judging from the damage.”

  Mason said, “That business about the Kashmiri. He’s talking about Sunil Dhar.”

  “That’s my guess,” Cathermeier said, then recited: “Kashmeran is papa romeo charlie …”

  “People’s Republic of China,” Dutcher said. “It was a setup from the start.”

  “It’s starting,” Mason said. “We’ve got to move on Martin before it’s too late.”

  Eight thousand miles away, Columbia was alive, but barely so, lying on her port side at the edge of the continental shelf.

  The torpedo should have killed them, Kinsock knew. What he would only later realize was that Jurens’s decision to push forward the missile launch had given Columbia a fighting chance at survival.

  Wary of her target’s sensors and determined to launch a killing shot at point-blank range, the attacker had for hours been closing on Columbia’s position, creeping along at three knots, riding the currents and hiding in thermal layers. Columbia’s premature rise to periscope depth caught the attacker four thousand yards out of position, giving Kinsock those vital seconds he needed for evasive maneuvers.

  After launching its torpedo, their attacker had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, slipping into the depths as Kinsock struggled to get his wounded boat pointed in-shore and away from the continental shelf and the crushing depths beyond.

  As they spiraled downward, the sonar techs kept their headphones on, ignoring the chaos around them and trying to identify the rapidly fading signature of their attacker. In the final seconds before they struck bottom, Columbia’s sonar chief managed to record an ever so faint shaft whine to their southeast. However fleeting the contact, it was enough to identify the boat as the same mysterious Kilo they’d detected soon after arriving on station.<
br />
  Kinsock stood in the wardroom and read the damage report as his department heads waited for him to finish. Throughout the control center, crewmen were running diagnostic tests and talking quietly amongst themselves. Occasionally the deck would tremble as Columbia settled into the silt.

  “What’s the plant status, Chief?” asked Kinsock.

  Columbia’s engineering officer flipped open his notebook. “Reactor’s on line, all boards are green. Same with generators and all auxiliary equipment.”

  “Hull breeches?”

  “Six minors but the pressure hull seems mostly intact. There’s nothing we can’t handle unless we go any deeper. Then things are gonna start to pop. I’ve got watches set on each of the sites and rovers looking for trouble spots. The worst is the screw: At least two of the blades are gone. The aft trim tank is holed, and we’re getting pinhole leaks near the thrust block.”

  “So, bottom line, main propulsion is out.”

  “We got the power, but no screw to put it to.”

  “Outboards?” Kinsock asked, referring to Columbia’s two retractable thrusters used for pier-side maneuvering.

  “Both are okay as far as we can tell. Skipper, you’re not thinking about—”

  “Just brainstorming, Chief.”

  “ ’Cuz those thrusters are louder than hell. If we start ’em up, we’re just asking for company. Besides, the best speed they can give us is four knots.”

  “I know that, Chief.”

  “Yeah, I guess you do. Sorry, Skipper.”

  “Forget it. Jim, how’s command and control?”

  “Not bad, all things considered. We’re still running diagnostics, but so far the only major damage is to communications. Both our VLF and ELF are out. Weapons and sensors read okay, but neither of them are much use while we’re on the bottom.”

  Kinsock nodded. “Okay, first we need to let somebody know we’re here. Next, fix our leaks so once we get moving we can get a little depth under us.” The engineer started to open his mouth, but Kinsock pushed on. “Chief, if we have to take on a little water to do it, fine. Right now, we’re sitting ducks. If we can get some sea around us, we might be able to hide until the cavalry comes. Hell, even if all we can do is get off this shelf and float at zero-bubble, our chances are a lot better.”

  Kinsock looked from man to man. “Questions?” There were none. “Jim, get a SLOT buoy ready for launch. Time to let the folks at home know we ain’t dead.”

  Nakhodka-Vostochny

  Two hours after sunrise, an MI-6 “Hook” cargo helicopter from Vladivostok set down amid a mini-hurricane of embers and disgorged its two dozen passengers, a mix of emergency medical personnel, firefighters, and soldiers. They immediately spread out and went to work, some searching for survivors while the rest began setting up a base of operations from which the relief effort would be coordinated.

  All but a few of the warehouses and storage bunkers were still burning, and every few seconds there came the groan of wrenching steel as another structure collapsed into rubble. Puddles of burning oil dotted the concrete, making the worker’s every step treacherous as they picked their way through the wreckage, calling out for survivors and tagging corpses for later recovery.

  At the port’s easternmost end, Private Vasily Tarknoy of the Federation Army was walking along the waterfront, gaping at the skeletal remains of the ships that had not yet sunk. The oil tanker that had taken the brunt of the Harpoon impact rested on the bottom with only the tip of its mast jutting from the water. Every few seconds a geyser of bubbles would erupt from the hulk and spew a cloud of oily mist into the air. Through the ash on the water’s surface, he could discern the outline of the ship. It reminded him of the pictures he’d seen of the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

  He was passing a jumble of wreckage that appeared to have been a storage shed when something caught his eye. There was a glint of glass amid the debris. He leapt across a small stream of burning oil and knelt. The metal was still hot. He pulled on his gloves and pushed aside the wreckage until he was able to reach the object.

  The object looked vaguely like one of those large scopes used by bird-watchers. There seemed to be writing on the scope. He wiped away the soot until the letters were readable.

  Tarknoy’s grasp of English was poor, but good enough. He stood up and fumbled for his radio. “Major, this is Tarknoy. I think I’ve found something you should see.”

  51

  Beijing

  Xiang marveled at Bian’s fortitude.

  Given the man’s panic when they’d arrested him, Xiang felt sure he would have confessed quickly.

  They were in their fifth hour of interrogation—the last two of which had been physical—and still Bian had revealed nothing about either Brown or the man he’d met at Guanghua Temple.

  Xiang leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette and watching impassively as the interrogator reapplied the electrode to the sole of Bian’s foot. In his writhing, Bian had proven surprisingly strong, having already dislodged the electrodes three times.

  Then again, Xiang reminded himself, intense and extended pain tends to transform people, and he wondered idly if the pain might be steeling Bian’s will. There was no mistaking the transformation Bian’s feet had undergone: Both soles were blackened and split and dripping clear, lymphatic fluid.

  They will probably have to be amputated, Xiang thought idly

  He caught a whiff of burnt flesh and took another puff on his cigarette to block it out.

  The interrogator tightened the straps around Bian’s calves, then turned to Xiang. “We’re ready. I don’t think there’s much feeling left in his feet, though.”

  “Up the voltage.”

  After another twenty minutes, Bian’s screams died away and he began mumbling incoherently.

  Better, Xiang thought. Speech was always the first hurdle. If you could get the subject talking—even nonsense—you were making progress. If this failed, Xiang knew that Bian had a daughter in Nanjing; if he were unconcerned about his own life, perhaps he would feel differently about hers.

  “… won’t catch him …” Bian murmured suddenly.

  Xiang stepped forward. “What, Bian? Did you say something? Catch who?”

  Bian’s eyes fluttered open. “You won’t catch him.”

  “Who? Your friend from Guanghua Temple? The American?” It was a stab in the dark, but Bian rewarded him with a slight shift in his eyes. “We photographed you two together. We know what he looks like, we know when he came into the country, and we know he’s an American. We’re already closing in on him. Why put yourself through this?”

  Bian shook his head.

  “Hit him again,” Xiang ordered.

  As the electrodes began sizzling, there was a knock at the door. Xiang opened it. Eng was standing there with a manila file. “What is it?” Xiang asked.

  “His medical file. Check page three; you’ll find it useful.”

  Xiang closed the door and scanned the file, pausing on the third page. According to his doctor, Bian suffered from hypertension and arteriosclerosis, which in turn had caused him ongoing problems with thrombosis and angina, both potentially lethal heart problems. The fact that the interrogation hadn’t prompted an attack said much about Bian’s resilience.

  But everyone has their limits, Xiang thought. He picked up the wall phone, explained what he needed, then hung up.

  The male nurse arrived fifteen minutes later and wheeled a cart to Bian’s side. Xiang pulled up a stool and sat down. “Bian! Bian, wake up …” Xiang slapped his face. “Wake up!”

  Bian’s eyes popped open. “What? I told you … won’t catch him …”

  “Yes, I know. Are you listening to me, Bian, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I hear you.”

  “I understand you have a heart condition. You’re taking several medications for it.”

  Bian’s head lolled to one side. “So?”

&nb
sp; “So, I have all your medications right here.”

  “Don’t need them.”

  “You will.”

  Xiang nodded to the nurse, who inserted a syringe into a vial, extracted some of the liquid, then jabbed the tip into Bian’s arm. “Ah! What is that?”

  “Epinephrine,” Xiang answered. “You probably know it as adrenaline.”

  “No! Don’t do that …”

  Xiang nodded at the nurse, who pushed down on the plunger.

  Bian began bucking against his restraints. “No, no, no!”

  Xiang grabbed Bian’s head. “Can you feel it? Your blood pressure is rising, your heartbeat is climbing, your blood vessels are constricting … Can you feel it yet?”

  Beads of sweat appeared on Bian’s forehead. His pupils contracted to pinpricks. A muscle in his cheek twitched. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a gasp. “Ahh … !”

  Xiang leaned closer. “Now you can feel the pressure—like a block of stone on your chest.”

  “Oh, God …”

  “Tell me what I want to know.”

  “No!”

  “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll help you.”

  “No!”

  “Tell me what I want to know and I won’t have to pay a visit to your daughter in Nanjing.”

  Bian’s head snapped around. “Leave … her … alone … ahhh!” He threw his head back, gasping for breath.

  Xiang nodded to the nurse. “Give him some more.”

  “Don’t!” Bian cried.

  As the nurse gave the injection, there was another knock at the door. Xiang opened it.

  It was Eng: “I think we have him.” He handed Xiang a file. “He’s traveling under the name Ben Colson; he listed his occupation as a photographer. I’m still trying to track it down, but he presented a letter of invitation at Customs.”

  “Probably a fake,” Xiang replied. China has more ministers than a dog has hairs. He flipped open the file and looked at the passport photo. “That’s him. Good work. Where is he staying?”

  “The Tingsonglou.”

  “Gather a team. We leave in ten minutes.”