Northern Fury- H-Hour

by Bart Gauvin

  I’m getting too old for these early winter mornings, he told himself, wishing he had a coffee to warm his insides. He pulled a manila envelope out of his jacket and began trudging towards the line of trucks parked against the nondescript warehouse at the port’s main dry goods terminal.

  He was scanning for the license plate indicated in the instructions. Normally he was dispatched directly from the trucking company office, but this morning’s job wasn’t ordinary. His manager had called him at home the night before and told him that a customer had requested him by name to make a special delivery the next day. His manager hadn’t known where or why, but the customer promised double the normal fee for a rare Sunday delivery, and he would get Monday off as compensation. Sorensen couldn’t complain.

  Spotting the license plate, he walked towards the two-ton box truck emblazoned on its sides with inviting pictures of pastries, teas, and coffees. The typed instructions stated that the cargo was intended for a catered event this afternoon at the Storting, Norway’s parliament building. As he walked around to the driver’s side he noticed that the truck was riding very low on its rear axle. That must be some load of pastries, he thought. He settled onto the cold padded bench seat and started the engine, cranking up the heat as he blew into his cold fists.

  As the cab warmed, Sorensen pulled his instructions from the envelope and read. He knew how to get to the capital district, but his parking directions were specific. Well, he thought, that makes sense, maybe the prime minister will be at the event. Maybe even the King! The thought made him proud. The monarchy was extremely popular in Norway. The current King’s grandfather had earned the everlasting love of his people by the dignified defiance he’d shown to the Germans during the Second World War. This love had been transferred easily to his heirs. Sorensen was pleased by the possibility of serving his monarch directly in some small way.

  He shifted the truck easily into gear and pulled away from the warehouse, then turned and motored across the parking lot and onto the E18 northbound. As he did so he fiddled with the radio knobs until he tuned into his favorite morning news station. In the gray dawn he didn’t notice the nondescript sedan pulling onto the highway several dozen meters behind him.

  The news on the radio dismayed the old driver. The hosts were excitedly discussing the stunning cancellation of the Olympic Winter Games. Sorensen had planned to watch the opening ceremony last night, but turned the television off after much confused commentary by the sports anchors as to why the lighting of the torch and the parade of nations had both been delayed. He wasn’t particularly interested in the pageantry, anyway. He was old enough to remember when Norway was the poorest country in Europe, and he was proud of how far his nation had come. Like most Norges he was anticipating a strong showing in the winter sports competitions. We’d dominate biathlon whether or not our team marched around in some silly circle, he thought, but cancel the Games? What idiot made that decision? The radio hosts were speculating that it had something to do with the chaos going on in Poland. That country has been in chaos for the last five years. So what?

  The eastern heights were casting a gloomy shadow across the fjӧrd as the delivery truck exited the highway onto Kong Hakon’s Gate towards the city center. Sorensen glanced to his left and idly noted that over on the far side of the harbor nearly every window in the Ministry of Defense building at the Akershus Fortress was ablaze with light. In fact, the whole complex was lit up like a Christmas festival. Those buggers are working early…or late, and on a Sunday too. Probably earning double overtime pay in those cushy government jobs.

  Sorensen easily navigated his ungainly vehicle through the empty early morning streets of the capital district. The Storting, was now in view at the end of the Nedre Vollgate. He drove right up to the south face of the yellow brick and granite structure and looked out the passenger side window. Sorensen was mildly surprised to see that the arrangements promised in his instructions had all been carried out. The traffic bollards that normally blocked access to Wessels Plass, the compact pedestrian park on the south side of the Storting, had been removed and the snow banks had been cleared all the way up to the yellow brick wall of the building.

  The delivery man turned slowly onto Wessels Plass and, following his specific instructions, inched the vehicle up to the side of the building to just beyond where the bollards had been, centering the truck on the south wall of the nineteenth century structure just short of the large, wooden side door. He had parked so close that after he killed the engine, engaged the parking brake, and turned off the headlights, he was compelled to slide across the bench seat and exit out the passenger side door. As he did so, a dark colored sedan drove slowly by on Akersgata Street and disappeared behind the eastern back wall of the parliament building.

  Following his neatly typed instructions, Sorensen locked the cab of the truck and ensured the cargo area in the back was also secure. With that final check complete he walked across the Wessels Plass plaza, dropped the truck keys into a pre-addressed envelope, sealed it and, at the far end of the plaza, found a mailbox where he deposited the envelope. Job done.

  Well, almost. I still need to get paid, he thought as he started towards the pre-arranged rendezvous with the job’s client, the nearest McDonald’s restaurant located a little over half a kilometer away on Storgata Street.

  Since he had some time to spare, Sorensen walked around the front of the Storting, taking some time to admire his country’s legislature building before turning right to walk down Karl Johans Gate, quickening his pace as the cold, gloomy dawn brightened slightly into a cold, gloomy day. He continued several blocks down the mostly deserted boulevard, passing the seventeenth-century Oslo Cathedral with its spare stone walls, imposing belfry, and sculptures warning sinners passing by of the fate that awaited them. Sorensen had never been particularly religious, but this part of the capital’s architecture always struck him as darkly ominous. He hurried on to the left around the cathedral and turned up Storgata Street.

  The McDonald’s was located in the corner of one of the nineteenth century row buildings that typified downtown Oslo and most other northern European cities, and the delivery man reveled in the warm sanctuary it provided. He looked to the counter with its brightly colored menu, but before he could step forward a man in a dark coat tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Mr. Sorensen?” the man asked in English. Like most Norwegians, Sorensen spoke fluent English, but he couldn’t place this man’s accent. He wasn’t Norwegian.

  The delivery man turned until he was looking down into the smiling angular face of a short but athletic middle-aged man with a receding hairline, the effect of the man’s pinched smile mimicking a badger, or a weasel. He was holding a brown paper bag in one hand and an insulated paper cup in the other.

  “Yes?” answered the Norwegian.

  “You made the delivery as agreed?” asked the man. When Sorensen nodded, the short man continued, “I took the liberty of buying you a cup of coffee and some breakfast. You must be chilled after a morning like this. Consider it some small thanks for your help in our enterprise.” He handed over the items and motioned to one of the tables as another customer entered.

  As they sat, Sorensen thanked him for the meal, but the hot coffee was what he really wanted. He was chilled, and the warm cup felt heavenly against his aching hands. He lifted the paper vessel to his lips and savored the bitter taste of the dark liquid. There was an odd flavor to the drink, but then, it was McDonald’s coffee, after all. He didn’t usually go for fast food and wondered what was inside the paper bag.

  When he looked up, he noticed the other man watching him intently, making him slightly uncomfortable. “Do you have the payment?” he asked, more brusquely than he’d intended.

  “Of course, of course,” the weasel-faced man burst out as if he’d completely forgotten. He reached into his coat and pulled out a white letter envelope, then handed it over. Sorensen peeked inside
just enough to note that the proper number of paper Kroner appeared to be present. “It’s all there,” the man assured him in a jovial voice, again with that odd accent.

  Feeling sheepish, Sorensen took another sip of the coffee before looking into the paper bag. As he pulled out a wrapped sandwich, he tried to soften his earlier outburst with some small talk. “What was this delivery for, anyway?” He noticed a corner of the man’s smile turn down at this inquiry.

  “Oh, nothing important,” the he said with a dismissive wave, “there is to be a reception later in the day, catered by our company. We simply need our food and equipment properly positioned. We couldn’t get any of our normal catering drivers to make the delivery so early in the morning,” he added quickly. It seemed a reasonable explanation, even if it didn’t explain why the instructions were so exacting. Looking the man over, Sorensen noted that he was meticulously dressed, with each layer of his suit in perfect order, just like the instructions.

  “Thank you again for the meal,” Sorensen said as he bit into the sandwich. “Can I ask your name?”

  “Kinnunen,” the man answered quickly. He seemed uncomfortable now. “I’m Finnish.”

  Sorensen’s coffee was now cool enough that he could take a more satisfying drink. He saw his Finnish companion’s expression relax as he washed the sandwich down with several sips. As he finished the meal, Sorensen realized that he was starting to feel a headache coming on. The coffee should help that, he thought, as he took another sip.

  The other man, Kinnunen, was watching him closely again. “Is there something wrong?” Sorensen asked.

  “You don’t look well.”

  Suddenly I don’t feel well. The delivery man was starting to become short of breath.

  “Do you have a history of heart attacks in your family?” Kinnunen asked softly as the Norwegian opened his jacket and loosened his shirt, trying to draw in a full breath.

  “No…” Sorensen answered between increasingly rapid breaths. “I…I think…I may need a…a doctor,” he said in a voice that weakened by the second. His face was turning bright red as well.

  “Yes, my friend,” Kinnunen answered, “let me go get someone.” The other man stood and gingerly took the envelope of Kroner from the tabletop in front of Sorensen.

  KGB agent Anatoli Skorniak, alias Kinnunen, walked past the struggling truck driver and over to the front counter where he mentioned to the girl taking orders that the man at the table back there seemed to be in some difficulty. She looked and saw that he appeared to be having trouble breathing. When she looked back, Skorniak was already out the door and getting into a dark sedan. That was when Sorensen lost consciousness, slipped off his chair and fell heavily to the floor. His heart had already stopped, forever.

  It would take hours for Sorensen’s employer to be notified about his death. Even then, no one would be able to trace his steps back to his delivery, parked flush against the south wall of the Storting.

  CHAPTER 40

  1120 MSK, Sunday 13 Feb 1994

  0820 Zulu

  HMS Trafalgar (S107), northern edge of X-Ray Station, 300 miles northwest of Murmansk

  COMMANDER EDWARD DAVIES, captain of Her Majesty’s Ship Trafalgar, sipped his third cup of black tea. The mornings on X-Ray Station were colder than he could have imagined, even in the climate-controlled compartment of a submarine. His command, the lead ship of her class, had been on station here in the frigid far north for more than three weeks now, meaning that the supply of shelf-stable milk for his morning brew had run out days ago, leaving the captain “a bit peeved,” as he liked to say with typical English understatement. At this moment, however, his thoughts were distant from the deficiencies of the steaming liquid. Rather, his thoughts were thirty-five miles to the north, to be exact.

  “Con, this is sonar,” the young officer in the nearby sonar room reported in very proper Queen’s English, “I am not yet able to distinguish the various contacts in the group at bearing zero-three-zero. There are certainly more than a dozen, warships and amphibious transports. They are in the first convergence zone, thirty-five miles from us, the center of mass of the formation is a very tight group. They appear to be following a similar course to the one that Sov surface action group followed a few hours ago.”

  Davies nodded. His sleep had been interrupted in the early hours of the morning when a surface action group consisting of a Soviet Kresta-class cruiser, accompanied by three destroyers, had transited north of his boat at a rapid twenty knots. That had been unusual enough to pull him out of bed, where he’d only spent a short amount of time since the NATO Alert State 2 warning had arrived earlier in the night. But this, he thought, this is truly irregular.

  “Very well,” he ordered with his usual politeness, “helmsman, bring your course to three-three-zero, speed five knots. We’ll see if we can’t let our towed array sort them out over the next few minutes, shall we?” The towed sonar array was a system of hydrophones attached to a long cable stretching from the rear of Trafalgar. The array allowed the submarine’s crew to monitor sonar contacts at a greater distance and with more accuracy than more constrained hull-mounted sensors.

  A few minutes later the sonar room reported again.

  “Con, sonar,” came the young officer’s voice, “we are starting to get a better picture. Seems one of the heavies is an Ivan Rogov-class amphibious landing ship. We can also make out at least two Alligator-class landing ships, and perhaps four,” a pause, “No, six of their newer, smaller Ropucha-class. Possibly a freighter or two as well, sir.”

  “Bloody hell,” muttered the boat’s executive officer, standing next to Davies as he thumbed through the control room’s red ship identification binder, “the only Ivan Rogov in the Northern Fleet is the Mitrofan Moskalenko. She can carry about a battalion of naval infantry, fifty to sixty armored vehicles, four helicopters. With all those other landing ships up there we’re looking at enough lift for an entire Soviet naval infantry brigade, at least!”

  “As far as the escorts, sir,” the sonar officer was continuing, “I’m still having trouble classifying some of them, but it appears to be a rather large contingent. At least one Kresta-class, and I believe we can hear an Udaloy and a Kashin. We’re losing the sound of several others on the far side of the landing ships. The whole lot are moving along at a rather good clip, sir. Sixteen knots, at least.”

  What the devil is an entire Soviet naval infantry brigade doing transiting the wastes of the central Barents Sea in the dead of winter? wondered Trafalgar’s skipper. Is this related to that warning from the Yanks earlier? Without delay he berated himself, Of course it is, you fool! There’s only one real explanation, isn’t there? Davies did not like the conclusion he came to, did not like it in the least. First things first, he reminded himself. Observe and report.

  “XO,” the captain said, addressing his second-in-command, “we will come shallow and send a report on these contacts back to Fleet, then I want to reel in the towed array, go deep, and spend a few hours sprinting ahead of this group at,” he did some quick mental math while looking at the chart before him, “twenty-two knots. We’ll get ahead of them to have a closer look. I have a feeling those Russian landing ships may be intending to make a, shall we say, unscheduled port call somewhere warmer than here, and I don’t doubt the admiralty will want us to determine where that might be.”

  The XO looked stunned for a moment as he processed what his commander had just said. There was going to be a war, and the troops in those transports to their north were troubling proof.

  “Seriously, Captain? Are you having a laugh?” the officer asked, a note of incredulity slipping into his voice.

  “Deadly serious, Tom,” Davies said. “Though I hope to God I’m wrong.”

  CHAPTER 41

  1228 MSK, Sunday 13 Feb 1994

  0928 Zulu

  TAKR Baku, Barents Sea

 
CONTRA-ADMIRAL IVANENKO SURVEYED the gray, windy surface of the Barents Sea through a large set of binoculars. From his perch on the flag bridge, he could see the dark gray, knife-like shapes of his task group’s escorting warships arrayed in a broad circle around the flagship. Beyond the ships, Ivanenko could just make out the flitting shapes of a screen of ASW helicopters, their over-under coaxial rotors and squat, bulbous fuselages making them look for all the world like enormous bumblebees. These extended the reach of his search as the contra-admiral prosecuted his mission of locating the lurking American submarines. The crew of one these helicopters had just given Ivanenko’s task force its first break in the twenty-four hours they had been at sea.

  Ivanenko was beginning to wonder if the enemy submarines were really there when the report from the southern margin of the Baku group’s perimeter arrived, stating that he had lowered his dipping sonar almost directly atop what sounded like an American Los Angeles-class submarine. Two other helicopters quickly converged on the location and a third took off from the carrier deck below, and they hammered the enemy submarine with active sonar pings, giving a precise if fleeting position on the American boat.

  Ivanenko turned his attention to the nautical chart at the center of Baku’s flag bridge. Grease pencil marks on the Plexiglas-covered map showed the progress of the search operation. It is truly amazing that we haven’t found any American submarines until now, he thought bitterly. Black grease marks indicated the long lines of sonobuoy sensors that now crisscrossed the southern Barents like a net. Ivanenko had never seen an effort like this, with literally dozens of maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters combing the waters off the Kola Peninsula with every sensor they could bring to bear. Just as I planned.

  A crewman was finally adding a blue X to mark the contact. The first of many, Ivanenko told himself as he scanned the rest of the chart, refreshing his understanding of the evolving situation. A red mark to the chart’s northwest indicated the position of Baku’s sister ship, the carrier Kiev, which, with her escorts, had transited his patrol area at high speed several hours before. That group had been unable to locate any enemy during their passage, but, Kiev’s objectives lay farther to the west and north. Elsewhere on the chart were the locations of Ivanenko’s three hunter groups, slowly trawling through the sanitation area in an attempt to ambush any lurking NATO submarine.