Darke Mission (46 page)

“What is the keel depth of this submarine?”

After a moment's hesitation, and a little embarrassed, O'Neill replied. “Well, I don't know, precisely.”

“I do. It's 32ft and 10in,” she announced.

“Is that important?” O'Neill asked.

“It depends,” retorted Carolyn.

“On what?” O'Neill countered swiftly.

“On whether or not you want to remain invisible from the surface, Commander. In particular, I see that your route involves crossing the Suez Canal. I guess you will not be asking the permission of the Suez Canal Authority. Fair enough, those Egyptian turncoats have no idea whose side they are on. However, I do know that the Suez Canal is shallow, very shallow. You need to get one of your team to check whether this sub with this keel depth can cross safely while it is submerged.”

Mark O'Neill was more than somewhat taken aback. “Yes ma'am,” was all that he could utter as he left the conn in urgent search of Evan Harris, to whom he was going to give this measuring task. Once Lieutenant Harris had done his research, he would discover that the even depth of the Suez Canal was now 79ft, much deeper than the original 26ft in place on its initial construction in 1869. The team on board this Borei had two pieces of outright luck in its favour. First, the sonar system of the Borei was so sensitive that it could sail smoothly under water only a few feet above a sea bed provided that the sea bed had no sharp or large objects protruding from it. The bottom of the Suez Canal was smooth. Secondly, the sail on the Borei was of an advanced aqua-dynamic design, longer than most submarine sails but also shorter in height. Once all the calculations had been done, O'Neill, Harris and Reynolds concluded that they could navigate the Suez Canal but that the tip of the submarine's sail would be only 6-10ft below the surface. An eagle-eyed observer on a sunny day may spot the Borei's shadow but it was a chance they had to take. The canal would present the sub's drivers with more challenges. It was essentially a one lane waterway and on a typical day only one northbound convoy would get through. The Borei would need to tag onto the tail end of such a convoy and remain undetected. This was achievable given the Borei's stealth augmentation, courtesy of Sunwoo Chung, deceased. There was a precise schedule to both north and southbound convoys. The northbound ones began at 06.00 hours from Suez, used bypasses built into the canal, and would normally take at least eleven or twelve hours to navigate the entire length of the canal, travelling at a restricted speed of eight to ten knots. That would require maximum concentration from the Borei's entire crew, especially its drivers, Fairclough and McCoy.

None of this would have been known to Commander O'Neill and team if Carolyn Reynolds had not first questioned rhetorically the keel depth of the Borei. Carolyn was pleased with herself and Mark O'Neill was even more partial to the NGA officer than he was before. When this mission was over he was definitely going to pluck up the courage to ask her out. As Mark O'Neill was mulling over this happy prospect, Evan Harris came hotfooting it onto the conn.

“Mark,” began Harris with a stern expression in tow. “We've got one big fucking problem.”

“What's up?”

“Joe Franks, with his one fucking leg, was having a lie down in his bunk just outside of the area we have partitioned for the NGA women. He was a bit dozy when he woke up, forgot he had a busted leg, fell on the ground and sent his makeshift crutches spinning into the partitioned area. There was no one there so he crawled along the deck to retrieve his sticks. As he was doing it, he came across this,” announced Harris, holding aloft an unauthorised satellite phone. O'Neill looked horrified. The phone was clearly active.

“Turn it the fuck off Evan and destroy it, it must be emitting a signal that can be used to track us,” he hollered. Evan turned the phone off, ripped its innards apart and returned his gaze to his team leader.

“Where exactly did Joe discover this?” asked O'Neill still not of clear mind.

“Attached magnetically under one of the NGA women's beds,” he replied.

“Which one?” asked O'Neill, fearing the worst and feeling sick to his gut.

“Reynolds,” replied Harris. Maybe there was a face which launched a thousand ships, but at that instant, for Mark O'Neill, one word had sunk a thousand dreams.

* * *

Yuri Menkov was fast. When he was a student at Moscow University he could do the one hundred metres in 11.50 seconds. This didn't compare with his hero's time of 10.14 seconds in winning the 1972 100 metres Olympic crown in Munich, but Valery Borzov was special. He was a Ukranian who competed for the Soviet Union and then eventually returned to Ukraine and had a successful political career. As Menkov bounded up the one flight of stairs, two at a time, that separated his work station from Igor Kruglov's office, hurtled past the Deputy Direcrtor's secretary and sped straight to his boss's desk, Yuri Menkov felt this may be his moment to be special.

“Deputy Director, Sir, sorry for barging in, but agent Ivanovna's signal has stopped transmitting.”

Kruglov looked startled. This was not good, not the plan, not what was needed to rescue $1bn of Russian naval hardware nor his deep desire to be SVR Director.

“How long ago did it stop?” asked Kruglov with deep urgency.

“About fifteen seconds ago,” detailed Menkov, checking his chronograph. He was glad he had decided to deliver the bad news in person. Had he dialled Kruglov's extension, had to negotiate the firewall that was his hard-nosed secretary and explain why he needed to speak with the Deputy Director that would have taken way more than fifteen seconds. Kruglov knew that to have any hope of neutralising the captured Borei he would need to be fast too.

“Menkov, do you have the exact co-ordinates of Ivanovna's last signal?”

“Yes Sir,” responded Menkov. “Latitude of 26˚ 13ˈ North and longitude of 127˚ 42ˈ East.”

“Where is that, Yuri?” added Kruglov.

“Close to Naha, Okinawa in the East China Sea, Sir, just north of the Tropic of Cancer,” replied Menkov, satisfied that he had full details at the tip of his tongue.

“Good work, Yuri. Take a seat. I need to make a call,” said Kruglov. Kruglov dialled Admiral Chirkov's number, gave him his instructions, and hung up, hoping, waiting, praying for a result.

Captain first rank Sergei Kargin and the
Admiral Vinogradov
had just passed through the Korea Strait and entered the East China Sea. As he was admiring the view, his first Lieutenant handed him a cable with the heading VOR, it was from Chirkov. It read:

Kargin understood his orders and would not question them. Admiral Chirkov was Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy, he knew what he was doing. Kargin instructed his first Lieutenant to prepare all missiles to fire. A precise target would follow. The
Vinogradov
had been on manoeuvres but it still had eight Silex anti-submarine missiles on board in 2x4 formation and two SS-N-22 Moskits. The Moskits were rocket-propelled, radar guided and could travel at 50km per minute. If Kargin got the co-ordinates right the enemy submarine would be toast. The captain had a few calculations to do. Six minutes had elapsed since Chirkov's timed position for the submarine. It would take a further four minutes, including the time to read Chirkov's orders, issue his own and to have the
Vinogradov's
missiles ready to fire. Provided the enemy sub had stayed on the course Chirkov indicated it would have travelled a further five nautical miles or nearly nine kilometres. Kargin plugged the data into the
Vinogradov's
advanced computer system and gave the order to fire all missiles. The Moskits would hit first, in approximately 115 seconds. Their underwater blast radius is twenty-five to thirty metres. The eight Silex missiles would take over five minutes to hit. Kargin had taken that into account in his programmed input. A direct hit by any of the
Admiral Vingradov's
ten missiles would either destroy the submarine or render it ineffective and force it to surface. Even if they all missed, and a bulls-eye was a bit of a long shot since the target was moving and stealth protected, the total potential area of damage was nearly three kilometres. If Chirkov's initial information was even remotely accurate the enemy submarine would not escape. Kargin had done his job and now the
Admiral Vinogradov
was full speed ahead to the missile detonation site.

* * *

Just as Yuri Menkov had burst into Igor Kruglov's office, Commander Mark O'Neill had instructed Evan Harris to bring Carolyn Reynolds to the goat locker and to ensure that none of the crew interrupted them.

“Is this yours?” O'Neill asked of Reynolds, who was already not pleased at being roughly frog marched by Harris to the Commander's quarters.

“No, what is it, it looks beat to death,” said Carolyn.

“It's a satellite phone, Officer Reynolds,” answered O'Neill suppressing all romantic thoughts and needing to get to the bottom of this. “It was found attached to a panel directly underneath your bunk.”

“Well it's not fuckin' mine, O'Neill,” hollered Reynolds. “I've never seen it before, I don't own a satellite phone and I don't keep my phone in that dilapidated condition.”

“You would say that, bitch!” interrupted Evan Harris, who was now holding Reynolds' right arm extremely tightly.

“If you don't let my arm go frog features, I'm going to gouge your fuckin' eyes out,” ranted Carolyn, wriggling free from Harris's grip.

O'Neill signalled to Harris to let her be. The Commander so wanted the traitor not to be Carolyn. He was smart enough to realise that if she was a double agent then her cover was absolutely brilliant. American educated, CIA trained, NGA officer, a Scottish dad for fuck's sake. It didn't add up and if it did, it was devastating.

“Look Reynolds,” said O'Neill. “I don't want it to be you. For sure it's no one in my SEALs team. I've known them personally for years and the ones I haven't are known to Harris and I trust them totally.”

“My guys are good and totally loyal, as are yours, Mark,” said Harris, unnecessarily. Carolyn could see that this was not good. She had calmed a little since being released by Harris. Time to get her brain working rather than her adrenaline flowing.

“Take fingerprints off the phone, Commander. I've never seen it before so I haven't touched it. The only prints on there will probably be the owner's, yours and whoever destroyed it,” stated Carolyn.

Harris interjected. “We're not fucking 5-O Reynolds. We're SEALs, at sea, in a submarine, underwater. We don't have the facilities to take fuckin' fingerprints.”

“Maybe you do, tosser!” came Carolyn's unwieldy reply.

“What do you mean, Reynolds?” asked O'Neill, keen to get on and to break up the simmering conflict between his number two and his desired paramour.

“You've got a medic on board, right?” asked Carolyn.

“Yes,” replied O'Neill.

“Then he'll have some sort of powder and possibly some kind of sellotape to keep bandages in place. We dust the phone with the powder, there will be latent fingerprints on it, due to sweat, dirt or whatever. Once dusted we blow the excess powder off and use the sellotape to lift the print. We need to ensure the tape is flat, no bubbles. Once that's done, lift the print out and put it on a piece of white card or something similar.”

“How do you know this stuff?” asked Harris, unconvinced.

“I'm CIA trained, remember, idiot,” replied Carolyn, still showing Harris no verbal mercy whatsoever.

“OK, but what do we do once we've got the print on a card?” asked O'Neill. “We still don't have a method of checking whose it is.”

“You do,” responded Carolyn. O'Neill and Harris were still bemused. Since her credibility and freedom were at stake, she thought she'd help them out. “Look you two. I noticed that Barry Minchkin had a state-of-the art tablet. The high definition on that screen has a pixilation of 1,900 x 1,200. He can take a clear camera shot of the fingerprint, it will be sharp enough to have it checked.”

“Checked against what?” asked O'Neill.

“Checked against the bleedin' CIA or NGA personnel files, for god's sake. On joining either agency you need to have your fingerprints taken. Get Henry Michieta at the NGA or John Adams at the CIA to dig them out, send them a picture of the print or prints from the phone and see if they match mine. They won't by the way,” said Carolyn, looking confident and feeling calmer. O'Neill pondered for a moment.

“Evan, go get Gary and ask him to bring his medical kit with him. Relieve Barry of his tablet and get back here. Don't mention what's going on to anyone. Reynolds, you're staying here with me,” ordered O'Neill.

“Whatever,” snapped Carolyn as Harris set about his task.

Only a few minutes had passed since officer Reynolds had been hauled into the goat locker. Unbeknown to her or the SEALs, Captain Sergei Kargin was absorbing Admiral Chirkov's orders at the same moment. Harris returned swiftly with Whitton and Minchkin's tablet. The young medic did indeed have some anti-rash powder with him, very often useful if SEALs had been in sea water for any length of time or on a long training hike. He had sellotape as well. Whitton dusted the phone, under instruction from Reynolds, using a small amount of powder and one of the NGA woman's unused make-up brushes to gently distribute the powder so that the ridges of the fingerprints were visible. The medic took a bottle of iodine out of its packaging, dismantled the small cardboard box that it was in and used the plain inside surface to collect the fingerprints from the tape. It was the best he could do. Then he took two digital photographs with Minchkin's tablet.