Northern Fury- H-Hour

by Bart Gauvin

  His eyes passed over a sheet detailing the performance of the small Antonov An-2 transport aircraft, so useful for putting special purpose troops down in remote areas. He paused as he looked at the black and white photo that accompanied the data sheet.

  The distinctive high-top wing of the Soviet biplane triggered a memory, reminding him of something. The angle of the photo, the single engine, the aircraft’s ability to land just about anywhere. He snapped up the paper, The German boy! The complete thought finally formed in his mind. Five years ago the newspapers had been filled with the story of an idiot German youth, What was his name? Khitrov wracked his brain. Rust? The boy had flown his rented Cessna airplane from Helsinki straight through what was supposedly the most sophisticated air defense network on earth, and landed right in Red Square, literally in the shadow of the Kremlin, Khitrov remembered with amusement. Unconventional indeed.

  He picked up the receiver of a green telephone on his desk and dialed a number from memory. If Marshal Rosla is so keen on that new jump jet of his, perhaps I should profit from its technology as well, he thought through the static of the special-secure line connecting to Dzerzhinsky Square. The call rang through and buzzed just once before a woman’s voice answered, “First Chief Directorate.”

  “Da,” he said without salutation, “this is Khitrov. I need information.”

  He heard shuffling as the person at the other end of the line grabbed pen and paper. These requests had become routine between him and KGB headquarters. The clerk at the other end of the line knew the drill by now.

  “Please proceed,” the woman’s voice said.

  “Flight regulations in the west,” he went on for several seconds, detailing the information he wanted.

  When he was finished the voice said, “Yes, Colonel. Will there be anything else?”

  “I will call you with further requests when I have them,” Khitrov said and hung up.

  He picked the receiver up again and dialed a second number, this one to a line here in the ministry building. A male voice answered, “Naval aviation.”

  “This is Khitrov. I need some information on that new Yak-141 fighter of yours. The one that can take off vertically? Yes. I need to know about its sensor capabilities.” He explained for a moment. He hung up when he was sure the young naval officer on the other end of the line understood.

  Khitrov was most of the way towards solving this problem, one of hundreds he had wrestled with over the past few weeks. Every team infiltrating countries in the west, whether it be the United States, Norway, Australia, Japan, or Spain, needed to employ an ingress method different from every other team as part of the colonel’s plan for maintaining secrecy. In most cases the agents wouldn’t know what their mission was until they arrived at their destinations and linked up with their equipment, which itself would have arrive via a unique, roundabout route. Some of the Soviet covert teams were literally circumnavigating the globe, changing papers and identities at every stop, essential to avoid detection by western intelligence services. Every problem required a bespoke and innovative solution, and Khitrov thrived on the all-absorbing work. He jealously guarded his responsibilities from would-be interlopers who he knew would do their best to muck it all up. Every piece of his intricate puzzle was elegantly simple, like the single stroke of a brush, but together they would come together into a masterpiece.

  The colonel stood, meaning to make his way to the first floor for another pack of smokes, when he heard a knock at his door. He stopped, annoyed, and answered, “Da?”

  The door opened, and Marshal Rosla’s naval aide, Ivanenko, entered the cramped office and shut the door behind him. From the look on the other man’s face, Khitrov knew that this was not a friendly visit. Not this man again, his mind groaned. They had been butting heads ever since Khitrov began to appropriate naval resources for his operations. Beginning to feel tense as the nicotine of his last cigarette wore off, he asked, “What is it, Ivanenko? I am busy.”

  “I am sure you are,” the naval officer said. “You are doing an excellent job of unraveling our strategy for countering American naval power and protecting the Rodina.”

  This argument again, thought Khitrov, his impatience growing. He decided to play coy. “How am I endangering the motherland today, Captain?”

  “You know what I am speaking of, Khitrov,” said Ivanenko angrily. “This plan of yours for our submarines.”

  “Which submarines? You have so many,” answered Khitrov, egging Ivanenko on.

  “You know very well which submarines! The ones we need to sink the American aircraft carriers. You are frittering them away with this scheme of yours!”

  “Frittering?” Khitrov asked, feigning surprise. “Please, Captain, elaborate.”

  “We have discussed this before, Colonel,” said Ivanenko, voice rising. “You know that our doctrine for dealing with the American carrier battle groups relies on careful coordination between our surface fleet, our naval aviation, and our—”

  “—submarines. Yes, yes, yes,” Khitrov interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “So why are you here now?”

  Ivanenko paused, visibly calming himself, resolving to rely on reason with this infuriating man. He began to explain, “The defenses of the American carrier groups are very strong. To overcome them will require close coordination to mass our missiles against them, and even then, we will require luck to be successful.”

  “Why?” Khitrov delivered the question with the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.

  Ivanenko was taken aback. “Why what?”

  “Why must you sink an American aircraft carrier?” The question was delivered in a mildly disinterested tone.

  The captain looked dumbfoundedly at Khitrov, his mouth slightly agape, as if he could not comprehend how someone could ask such a bizarre question. After a moment he stammered, “Why? Because, well, it is self-evident isn’t it? Everyone understands. The carriers are how the Americans can bring attack aircraft within range of our country, threaten our fleet bases, attack the Rodina.” Ivanenko was gaining steam on this track, “If the American carrier groups are allowed a free hand, they will hunt down our strategic missile submarines!”

  “You mean the submarines that carry the atomic weapons that our president has pledged repeatedly not to use?” Khitrov prodded.

  “That is not the point, and you know it, Khitrov!” Ivanenko almost shouted. “You are putting our strategic deterrent at risk! This scheme of yours could lose us the war!”

  The smirk on Khitrov’s face remained unchanged, but the small step he took towards the naval officer communicated menace, stopping the other man’s rant in its tracks. The two were face to face now, Ivanenko surprised that he was suddenly short of breath, staring into the wolfish face of a killer. The smirk grew slightly at Ivanenko’s obvious discomfort.

  After a moment, the former Spetsnaz officer spoke. “You are mistaken, Ivanenko.” He glanced down at the navy man’s shirt, spying something desirable in the other man’s breast pocket. He reached out and delicately plucked a cigarette from the pack in Ivanenko’s uniform shirt, putting the smoke in his mouth while he continued to talk around it, enjoying how easily he could intimidate this small-minded man. “Yes, mistaken,” Khitrov said again. “I have looked at the navy’s analysis. Even your most optimistic projections say that you will be able to destroy, what? Two? Three, American carriers? They have twelve more! What will it accomplish?”

  “The aircraft carriers are great symbols of American power,” Ivanenko replied more calmly, choosing to ignore the minor theft just committed by his adversary. “If we can destroy one or two, their people will lose the will to fight. Look at how they are already responding to this silly mess in Somalia last week? They lose a mere eighteen soldiers in a battle and you’d think they’d lost a war! How will they respond when we sink a ship carrying five thousand?”

  “You have much to lea
rn about violence and psychology, my friend,” responded Khitrov, patting the other man on the shoulder with false warmth. “Their people are upset at those minor losses because they do not see the reason for them. They will see a reason to sacrifice in the coming war with us. That is why we cannot attack symbols. We must attack things that force their people to act in the way we want them to act, to change how they live their lives, to understand the things we want them to understand.”

  Ivanenko tried again. “If we can sink the first carriers that come north, we will have opened up our ability to interrupt the Americans’ lines of communication across the sea to the central front during the critical early days of the war.”

  “Your thinking is too conventional, Ivanenko,” Khitrov lectured, as if speaking to a particularly dull pupil. “Why do you insist on attacking the enemy’s ships when they are the most heavily defended, clustered in convoys and guarded by warships?” Khitrov shook his head, like the schoolmaster. “My plan will accomplish your objective before the Americans even know that the ships need guarding. Besides,” he turned and walked away from the other man, “I thought that one of the points of delaying the beginning of hostilities was that the American carriers will not even be present at the outset. Correct?”

  “But the cruise missiles!” Ivanenko spluttered, “The submarines’ missiles will have all been used up by the time the carriers arrive! They can only be reloaded in port,” the navy man asserted, trying to regain composure.

  “Then I suggest,” responded Khitrov, slowly, lowering himself into his seat and snatching a pawn off of his chessboard, “that you begin planning how and where to reload them in the most expeditious manner possible.” He retrieved a lighter from the clutter to one side of his desk and lit the stolen cigarette, blowing the first puff of smoke in Ivanenko’s direction through fingers that held both the pawn and the smoke.

  “You are wrong, Khitrov. You are dangerously diluting the strength of our fleet at the critical hour.” Ivanenko said it like it was a proclamation.

  Why must I deal with such imbeciles, thought Khitrov, his lip curling with disgust. “Very well, Captain,” he said coolly, the smirk gone from his face. “If you feel so strongly about this, perhaps you and I should go see Marshal Rosla and ask his opinion?”

  “Marshal Rosla is not a navy man! He does not understand the complexities of naval warfare.”

  “Excuse me, Ivanenko,” Khitrov interrupted as he placed the pawn into an impossible position on the board, “but did I hear you impugn the defense minister’s intelligence?”

  The naval officer blanched. “No, of course not, I simply meant—”

  “You simply meant that he, and the president as well, are foolish to entrust such planning to me, a mere Spetsnaz officer, da? Let us go to them and see if they will realize the error of their ways.” Khitrov moved for the door as if he meant to walk to the marshal’s office down the hall right now.

  “No, Khitrov,” the man said, biting off what he really wanted to say. “You win.”

  The colonel stopped and turned. That’s better. “Then I suggest,” Khitrov said with ice in his voice, “that you get back to work implementing this plan of mine to win us the war and stop wasting my time with your dead-end doctrines!”

  Ivanenko glared into Khitrov’s wolfish face, brave for just a moment, then spun on his heel and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Glad to be done with the distraction, Khitrov went back to work, savoring his stolen cigarette. He knew Ivanenko wasn’t completely wrong. The Soviet Navy would have to deal with the American big deck carriers in the North Atlantic eventually. That was the brilliance of Marshal Rosla’s Plan Boyar. It allowed the Soviets to alter the terrain, the strategic geometry of the engagement, before the Red Banner Northern Fleet came to grips with the American battle groups. If all went as planned, And nothing ever does, Khitrov reminded himself, they would be able to deal with the American task forces one at a time as they raced north, rather than as a single, massive fleet as the US Navy would prefer.

  To create such a serendipitous situation required imagination, imagination that people like Ivanenko lacked. Medvedev has it, the colonel reflected. I saw it in him two years ago at the White House. Rosla does as well, though not to the same degree. They have the ability to see things differently, to judge how others will respond. The marshal’s war plan was certainly creative, but they needed him, Khitrov, to drive it through to success.

  He drew out the last tendrils of smoke from the cigarette and shifted his attention to another problem, a map of Iceland, tacked up on the back wall. This one will be fun, he thought.

  CHAPTER 16

  1600 MSK, Wednesday 24 November 1993

  1100 Zulu

  Severomorsk Naval Base, Murmansk Oblast, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

  PRESIDENT PAVEL MEDVEDEV braced himself against the icy wind sweeping down the fjӧrd from the north as he strode along the worn concrete pier, trailing his older son by a half step. The breeze—It would have been called a windstorm down in Moscow, reflected the older man—cut through his fur-lined coat and cylindrical fur shapka cap that covered his thick white hair. The cold did not seem to faze Sergei, who hurried out along the pier with uncharacteristic haste. The boy has never been this excited, thought Pavel with a smile as he lengthened his stride to keep up.

  Sergei Pavlovich Medvedev was no longer a boy and had not been one in many years, but his demeanor right now was a good approximation of how one would have looked on Christmas morning. He stopped two thirds of the way down the long, empty pier and turned to look his father full in the face, his expression beaming with pride. “Here he is!” Pavel’s oldest son swept his arm expansively towards one of the dark gray-painted ships tied up alongside the pier.

  Pavel looked at the vessel his son was indicating. In truth, he could not tell the difference between this boat and the half dozen others that occupied berths along the many piers here in the harbor of the Red Banner Northern Fleet’s main base. This ship was important to the young man, though, and Pavel knew why.

  “This is your boat?” the president asked.

  “Ship, father, we call him a ship,” Sergei said with a smile as he turned to take in the sight. Pavel continued to look at his son. He truly is a younger copy of me, thought the president. Only the boy’s jet-black hair, hidden under his equally black uniform shapka, adorned with the insignia of an officer of the Soviet Navy, set the younger man apart. Whereas Misha, the younger son, favored their mother’s slighter frame, Sergei was thick-chested and, like his father, thickening at the waist. Too many sedentary days at sea, thought Pavel. Also, like his father, Sergei had been a wrestler in his youth, displaying his inherited ruthlessness and determination in his knack for finding an opponent’s weakness and exploiting it with a fury that rarely failed to produce a victory. Sergei’s face possessed the same bear-like quality that made Pavel so striking on television and in photographs. Pavel’s chest swelled with pride as he took in his son’s black uniform jacket with its rows of colorful ribbons and brand-new shoulder boards displaying the four stripes and five-pointed star of a captain (second rank) in the Soviet Navy. He is the right person for this command, decided Medvedev, satisfied that the strings he’d pulled with Rosla to secure the captaincy for his son would not be wasted effort.

  “His name?” asked the president. Senior Captain Ivanenko, Marshal Rosla’s naval aide, had briefed him on the ship, but Pavel did not want to take this moment away from his son.

  “The Admiral Chabanenko,” Sergei said, as if announcing the name of a firstborn son. “He is a Project 1151.1 anti-submarine destroyer. The best in the fleet. We call this a Fregat-class ship. The Americans call him an Udaloy, but they are in for a surprise if things ever get hot. This ship is far more capable than our older Project 1151s, and he’s mine!” That Christmas morning look returned to Sergei’s face.
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  The older Medvedev turned and really looked for the first time at the ship his son would command. The president admitted to himself that he knew next to nothing about naval affairs, something that had been driven home to him in an uncomfortable conversation with Captain Ivanenko on their flight to Murmansk. Even to his untrained eye the Russian president could tell that the Admiral Chabanenko was a lethal ship of war. It looked the part. He, Pavel reminded himself, remembering that such traditions as personifying a warship correctly were important to naval men.

  The second of two ships alongside this pier, his son’s new destroyer possessed a long bow that sloped backwards with a grace that exuded both speed and strength. Two long side-by-side gun barrels protruded from a single globe-like turret, squatting just in front of the ship’s superstructure. The gun turret was flanked on either side by two long rectangular boxes, each pointed forward and canted slightly upwards at the front. Medvedev correctly took these to be missile launchers, each box holding four large weapons. The destroyer’s bridge sat low, the wings hanging over the armaments. Like a rifleman pulling his weapon into his shoulder, Pavel thought. Behind the superstructure, two squat smokestacks gave way to a hangar and helicopter landing pad at the ship’s stern. Altogether the ship’s appearance communicated lethality, and Pavel knew from the briefing that he could not even see the ship’s most lethal feature: the sixty-four vertical launch missile cells built into the destroyer’s deck.

  “I congratulate you, my son,” the Soviet president said warmly. “He’s a handsome ship. Even I can see that. Your command of him is well-earned.” Pavel was proud of his son’s service and accomplishments, but he was also honest enough with himself to know that it was his name that had earned Sergei this ship.