EndWar e-1 Page 6

  “Why don’t you get a team in here to do a professional sweep?”

  “I’m too embarrassed. When I’m off the base, I never talk about anything anyway. Everything he learned about me was personal, not professional.”

  “You want to go sit in my car?”

  “No. I’m okay.”

  “Alice, what can I do to help?”

  She shrugged. “Give me my birthday present.”

  He fetched the gift, handed it to her.

  “It’s a book, and you know I don’t have any time to read,” she began.

  “This one you might find interesting.”

  She peeled away the wrapper to reveal the title: Russian Myths and Folklore.

  “Dad?”

  He nodded. “Yesterday, the general and I played eighteen holes, and when I asked him how my daughter was doing, his reply was, ‘Excellent, though she’s obsessed with Russian folklore at the moment.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but for the daughter who has everything, I thought what the hell, you might like this, if you don’t have it already.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said, thumbing through the pages.

  “So, is this a new hobby, or does it have something to do with…” He trailed off, gesturing to the disaster that was her living room. “Or do you not want to talk here.”

  “Maybe we will take a walk outside.”

  She tucked the book under her arm, and they headed out, into the backyard, and moved down to the dock and the shimmering, still waters of the canal.

  “And sweetheart, the book isn’t your only gift. I’ve placed a little something in the card. And I want you to use them, all right?”

  “More plane tickets? Dad, I can’t take the time off right now. I mean, the entire world is—”

  “Not your responsibility. We all need downtime — and it looks like you do more than ever now.”

  “I’ll be all right. Soon as I find out who Snegurochka is.” She rapped a knuckle on the book. “Snegurochka is the snow maiden in Russian fairy tales. In one story, she’s the daughter of Spring and Frost. She falls in love with a shepherd, but when her heart warms, she melts. In another story, falling in love turns her into a mortal human who will die. And then there’s another one where she’s the daughter of an old couple who make her out of snow. She hangs out with some girlfriends, leaps over a fire, and melts.”

  Her father snickered. “The Russkies love their happy endings, huh?”

  “Well, she’s known to kids now as the granddaughter and helper of the Russian Santa.”

  “So you’ve already read the book.”

  “Not this one. Thank you.”

  “Well, it seems to me you already know who the snow maiden is.” He was implying she should let it go. She’d heard that tone a thousand times before.

  “I think Snegurochka is the code name for a Russian operative working for the GRU. And that operative must be a woman.”

  “So how many women do they have at that level? There can’t be many.”

  “Exactly eleven.”

  “So narrow it down.”

  “I already have.”

  “And?”

  “And I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the most likely candidate is a Colonel Viktoria Antsyforov.”

  “So study her. See if she’s the one.”

  “I found out yesterday that she’s dead.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Dennison sighed in frustration. “Pretty damned sure.”

  “So maybe that’s a loose end the Russians took care of. Don’t pursue that anymore.”

  “Or maybe they want us to think that. You know what’s really crazy, Dad? I’ve been obsessing on this so hard that I’m beginning to believe that I’m the snow maiden.”

  “What? The cold career bitch who never got married because she’d melt? Come on, Alice.”

  “I know. We don’t feel sorry for ourselves. Never have before, even after Mom died. We’re strong. I guess it’s just the stress. You know, thinking that someone’s been watching me all this time.”

  “I want a team in there to sweep the place, and then if you want to put the house on the market, let’s do it. You’ll get another place.”

  “No, I won’t let them win. I’ll get the sweep.”

  “Good.”

  “Dad, thanks for coming. Sorry I dumped all this on you.”

  He grinned, moved in for another hug. “That’s what fathers are for.”

  On the way back into the house, her cell phone rang. She reached into her robe’s pocket, answered. They needed her back at the command post.

  TEN

  The USS Florida’s sonar team had quickly switched from the BQQ-10’s broadband to narrowband and had isolated two of the Russian ship Varyag’s SSTGs (ship’s service turbo generators).

  Identifying, isolating, and tracking “tonals”—pure sound sources — was the equivalent of an acoustic fingerprint.

  And thanks to Andreas’s skilled men, the enemy command and control ship could now be identified by any U.S. sub, anywhere in the world, solely by those two discreet frequencies.

  By filtering out extraneous noise, it was now possible to trail the surface group at a comfortable five-mile distance using Varyag’s SSTGs as a homing beacon.

  The ship and her consorts transited the Dolphin and Union Strait, entered the Coronation Gulf, and set a course toward Hepburn Island, situated in the gulf’s southeastern corner; all the while, the Florida followed, undetected as it sliced through the icy cold waters.

  The Russians passed the southwestern tip of Hepburn, spread out, then proceeded to anchor in the shallow waters.

  Andreas and his men watched as the combatants spaced themselves two miles apart, pointed their bows seaward, and dropped stern and bow anchors.

  “Keeps them from swinging around on the bow hook and interfering with each other when the tide shifts,” Andreas said aloud in the control room.

  The oiler and the ammunition ship anchored three miles away to the east.

  “Let’s move in and get some good beam-on shots for the Harpoons to use — assuming we get that OPORDER,” said Andreas. “And, navigator, get an exact — and I do mean exact—GPS fix on Varyag, Ulyanovsk, and Rogov’s anchorage position.”

  “What about the oiler and the ammo ship, Captain?” queried the navigation officer.

  “They don’t represent a threat like the combatants, although I do plan to take them out with the Mark 48s.” Andreas wriggled his brows. “The pyrotechnics should be spectacular, don’t you think?”

  His navigation officer smiled.

  Once the beam-on digital photographs were taken, and it was apparent the Russians were settled in, Andreas took his boat northeast into the Dease Strait and then continued on as far as the ten-mile gap between the northeast tip of Kent Peninsula and Victoria Island.

  Global warming had produced huge areas of open water nearly year-round, but there in the narrow gap, the ice had accumulated. A combination of snow, reduced seawater salinity, and the natural choke point had allowed the ice to become nearly fourteen feet thick. The submarine could handily pass under it, but there was no way the two icebreakers could plow through to the open waters of the Queen Maud Gulf beyond.

  Andreas began to draw some conclusions, and he voiced them to his men. “That admiral’s just a taxi driver.”

  “What makes you say that, sir?” asked the XO.

  “This is that GRU general’s show. No self-respecting northern fleet admiral would box himself in this way.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “What do you think they’re up to?” asked the navigation officer.

  “Oh, we’ll find out. Trust me.”

  In the back of Andreas’s mind sat an important fact: they were long overdue for a position check to update the SINS (ship’s inertial navigation system) and a GPS check. Above the Arctic Circle, SINS was often unreliable. Fortunately, GPS solved the problem of getting a reliable corroborating fix.

  Once bac
k in the Coronation Gulf, Andreas brought the sub to periscope depth and raised one of the photonic masts, which was followed immediately by the BRA-34 antenna mast. He forced himself to wait a full sixty seconds, allowing the BRA-34 antenna to dry, hoping to improve the reception of any “burst” broadcast traffic from the satellite.

  An ELF message would precede specific operational orders. While anxious to engage the Russians, Andreas knew his initial SITREP to the Commander of the Pacific Fleet (COMPACFLT) had to move up to the National Command Center and then back down to CENTCOM, SOCOM, and finally the JSF. He just needed to be patient.

  “That’s strange,” he said to the XO.

  “I know. No broadcast traffic. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Check the antenna.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  The broadcast provided routine administrative notices such as promotions, personnel transfers, and, more important, personal e-mails for the crewmembers. Andreas knew Petty Officer Second-Class Ramirez was waiting to hear from his wife about the birth of their first child. As the ship’s morale officer, Andreas was acutely aware of how much these broadcasts contributed to the smooth functioning of his submarine. He regretted that the upgrade to the new OE-538 multifunction mast got pushed back during the Florida’s last overhaul.

  “The antenna looks fine,” reported the XO. “And the GPS signal came through five by five, but I’ll have them check all the gear again. What do you think?”

  Andreas was about to venture a few guesses when the ECM operator called out, “Sir? I have encrypted UHF chatter and shipboard air-search radar emissions originating from the Russian task force.”

  With a nod, Andreas answered, “Well, well, well. They’ve finally broken radio silence. As soon as we get a match between the SINS and GPS we’ll swing back down there and take a look.”

  “It’s a Top Plate, Captain,” added the operator.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, sir.”

  Top Plate was the old NATO designation for a Russian MR-710 Fregat-M, 3D air search radar, a model normally found onboard Slava class cruisers.

  “Well, then either the Russian Army’s hogging all those petrodollars or somebody in the Navy’s skimming big-time. They’re cannibalizing their ships.”

  By now, a steady stream of Kamov Ka-29 helicopters with one to three crew members and hold capacities of up to sixteen troops were beginning to leave the Ulyanovsk, landing on the Ivan Rogov’s flight deck, on-loading troops, then taking off, heading south into the Canadian interior.

  “Gentlemen, I’m stumped,” Andreas said with a snort. “If this is a Russian invasion, it’s analogous to a flea crawling up an elephant’s leg with intentions of rape.”

  “Well, this can’t be some kind of exercise,” the XO said. “This must be part of—”

  “Sir,” the officer of the deck interrupted. “Flashing light between the Varyag and the oiler, and it’s plain language: FROM VARYAG TO KALOVSK: MAKE MY PORT SIDE 0500 HOURS TOMORROW FOR REFUELING.”

  “We can take out two ships with one missile,” Andreas said. “XO, set up another slot buoy. Admiral Stanton needs to see this…”

  ELEVEN

  President Becerra listened intently to Chief of Staff Hellenberg, who was briefing him regarding the recent Motorola-Iridium deal.

  Iridium Satellite of Bethesda, Maryland, had established a LEO (low earth orbit) communication satellite network consisting of sixty birds, some in polar orbit, at an altitude of five hundred miles.

  The system provided cell phone — voice and data — communication anywhere in the world. It did this by building in satellite-to-satellite transfer capability among all of its birds.

  General Rudolph McDaniel, United States Air Force and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recommended that Becerra contact the CEOs of Motorola and Iridium and ask them for total control of the network in the name of national security. McDaniel had confirmed with the Navy that the USS Florida did have at least six Iridium 9505A satellite phones onboard.

  “Well, the network is ours,” said Hellenberg.

  “Have they made contact with the sub yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s the holdup now?”

  “Sir, when the Navy tried to reactivate the Michigan ELF transmitter, the only site capable of communicating under the polar cap, they found that two of the underground diesel fuel tanks had rusted out and ruptured. The fuel in a third tank was contaminated and unusable. Remember, that equipment has been sitting there for more than ten years, unused.”

  “What now?”

  “The Navy says they need all six diesel generators online to produce enough power to push an ELF signal down through the underlying bedrock. Right now they have four eighteen-wheeler fuel tankers heading to that transmitter site in the middle of the wilderness. They’ll implement a direct hookup between the trucks and the diesel generators.”

  “Let me know when we’ve reestablished.”

  “Yes, sir. And right now it looks like General Kennedy is on three.”

  “Route it to my screen.”

  After a second, the monitor before Becerra flickered into the image of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Laura Kennedy, United States Army, her blond hair pulled into a tight bun, her expression grave. “Hello, again, Mr. President.” She immediately glanced down at her notes.

  Here it comes, Becerra thought. He’d never asked for a war during his presidency. But this… he could have never imagined this…

  “The Joint Chiefs have reviewed the data we’ve gathered from the ISS and from the satellite debris fields, as collected by NASA and the ESA, along with real-time, long-range imagery. It’s our conclusion that the ISS is, in fact, under Russian control, that they’ve violated the 2019 treaty regarding use of the station, and that a portable, tactical high energy laser-based weapon was fired from that platform. The station is now maneuvering again.”

  “I understand.”

  “We recommend that this threat to national security be eliminated immediately. General McDaniel informs us that he can shift one of our live-fire prototype ANGELS satellites to within striking distance.”

  Autonomous Nanosatellite Guardian Evaluating Local Space (ANGELS) were cylindrical devices no larger than a wastepaper basket used primarily to monitor other satellites. However, during the last four years the JSF had piggybacked at least a dozen new ones aboard other communication satellites with the future mission of converting those ANGELS into low-power laser weapons and orbiting bombs.

  “General, I’m wondering if there’s a way we can neutralize the threat without destroying the station.”

  “Sir, we’ve considered every possibility. We could cut off their life support, force them to go to the suits. But they might reach their next target before exhausting their oxygen. We can’t send up astronauts in time. And if you open this up to debate with the other nations involved, the Russians will achieve their goals before the representatives even sit down.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that, General.”

  “Mr. President, I will say this. If the weapon is clearly identifiable on the station, perhaps attached to one of the Russian modules, we’ll make every attempt to destroy it first, then see how they react. They might decide to take the ISS on a suicide run to destroy other orbital platforms, maybe even Freedom Star — in which case we’ll have the ANGEL attach itself to the station and self-destruct.”

  “General, stand by for one moment please.” Becerra put her on hold, then tapped another screen, bringing up Roberta Santiago, his national security advisor. “Roberta, you’ve been listening in.”

  “Yes, sir. And my God, sir. They want you to authorize the destruction of the ISS.”

  “Do we have a choice? They will attempt to take out the weapon first.”

  “I do have another thought.” Santiago’s tone darkened. “Why do we need to take full responsibility? Why can’t we turn this situation around? We’re the victi
ms here and we should remain victims. Striking back, killing those two innocent researchers… that’s—”

  “Roberta, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that within an hour I can have video released to the media. The Green Brigade Transnational will take full responsibility for the ISS’s destruction. And the ironic part is, Green Vox won’t dispute the lie. It’ll surprise him, but he’ll be happy to take full credit. He’d blow up the ISS himself if he could. That’s a fact.”

  An icy feeling crept into Becerra’s spine as he considered how cunning and clever such a ploy might be—

  And how it might backfire. This could be his Water-gate, his Monica Lewinsky, his war in Iraq.

  He leaned forward and steeled his gaze. “Roberta, I won’t do that. I’m going to authorize the destruction attempt and I’m going to stand behind it. The ISS is an ongoing threat to national security. There is collateral damage in every war, and that’s terrible and unfortunate. But as president, my first responsibility is the defense of the United Sates of America. This will be an unpopular decision — but we have to make it. And we have to be willing to take the international heat. Roberta, are we absolutely clear on this?”

  She pursed her lips. “Yes, Mr. President. I understand.”

  He switched back to the chairman’s line. “General Kennedy, you have my authorization to take whatever steps are necessary to neutralize the threat.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. We’ll act immediately. And I’ll update you as soon as we know anything.”

  Becerra tapped off the call, closed his eyes, and imagined the news stories to follow, pretty graphics beside the words BECERRA ORDERS DESTRUCTION OF ISS.

  TWELVE

  The Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Donald Stanton, called Admiral Charles “Chuck” Harrison, Commander Submarine Forces Pacific, regarding a most intriguing loss of communication up in the Arctic.

  Stanton was in his office at COMPACFLT Headquarters in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, staring at a computer screen showing him the bio and military service record of the USS Florida’s current commander.