Kirov (7 page)

“But
Admiral, we saw it, felt it!” Gennadi Orlov, the ship’s Chief of Staff seemed
to side with Karpov on the matter. ”There was a detonation of some kind.”

“Yes,
I felt that as well. The shock wave nearly threw me against the bulkhead. My
first thought is that something had happened to
Orel
, and the fact that
we have no fix on her position now leads me to think Rudnikov may have had more
of a problem than he was letting on. Yet if one of his warheads went off we
should still see it well above the surface.”

“You
think one of his missiles exploded, sir?”

“It
has happened before,” said Admiral Volsky. “Do you forget what happened to the
Kursk
?”

“I
remember only too well what happened to the
Kursk
,” said Karpov, his
voice laden with sarcasm. “It was attacked by an American submarine. Then the
families were paid off with blood money shipped over from Washington.”

Volsky
frowned. Many in the navy knew the real reason
Kursk
had sunk, but few
would have been brazen enough to state it as Karpov had. The Admiral shook his
head. “That aside, what happened to the weather? I have known conditions in the
Arctic seas to change suddenly, but never like this.”

“Clearly,
we need more information, Admiral.” Karpov folded his arms, a worried look on
his face, his eyes darting this way and that as he considered. The logic of
what the Admiral had asserted was plain to him, but it made no sense.

“There
has to be something wrong with the ship’s sensors,” said Orlov. “This was no
ordinary explosion. It was very energetic, and we may have sustained damage. Yes,
I feel it may have been a nuclear detonation, sir. Perhaps there is nothing on
Rodenko's screen because his systems are all whacked up.”

“Perhaps,
but I do not need the Rodenko’s radar system to tell me what the weather is
like,” said Volsky. “We will get the equipment sorted out, but for now we will
proceed to rendezvous with
Slava's
last known position. It may be that
Orel
was damaged herself, and is not able to communicate, perhaps she has even
suffered a more grievous fate. We will not know that anytime soon. But what we
do
know is that the cruiser
Slava
should be south of our position towing
targeting barges, easy enough to find.”

“Then
why can't we see her on radar, sir?” said Karpov.

“It's
the equipment, I tell you.” Orlov was adamant. “There was an electromagnetic
pulse of some kind. It may not have been strong enough to disable our systems,
but there could be damage.”

Orlov
was a practical man, big, rough hewn, and easily irritated. Yet he held his
emotions tightly in hand in spite of the obvious danger inherent in the
situation. Something had exploded. Something was wrong. His was a mind and hand
that would first reach for a wrench or spanner to fix the problem. Afterwards
he would find out who was responsible and grill them to a hard char. His thick
woolen cap was pulled low on his forehead, heavy brows frowning as he spoke.
And when he mentioned possible damage, the Admiral could also perceive just a
hint of blame in his voice, as if Orlov was already running down the system
maintenance roster in his mind, looking to single out an unfortunate
mishman
,
or midshipman, to goad and blame for the mishap.

“Very
well,” the Admiral intervened. “Initiate full, ship-wide systems checks. Every system,
every component. Then, until we hear from Severomorsk, we will continue south
to rendezvous with
Slava's
last known position. If there was such a
pulse as you describe, Orlov, then she may have sustained damage as well. This
would account for the radio silence.”

“But
it could be an attack, Admiral.” Karpov still had a nervous, anxious look on
his face.

“A
single missile? A single torpedo? Perhaps, Karpov, but would you attack in such
a manner?”

“With
nuclear weapons, one is enough, sir.”

“True,
but to miss by a margin sufficient to leave us afloat? This is very unlikely.
And no follow-on attack? You are assuming that the enemy sensors are damaged as
well, and that they do not know we are still here, steaming quietly at 10 knots
with active sonar pinging away just a moment ago?”

Karpov
raised his eyebrows. It didn't make sense. And when things did not fit into his
carefully ordered perception of the world he was soon at his wits end. If the
ship were his to command he would be on an alternate evasive heading at thirty knots.
“Have you considered the possibility that
Slava
may have been destroyed
as well, sir?”

“I
am considering every possibility, Captain. And I take your concerns under
advisement. That is why we will investigate this matter further. If
Slava
is there, then we will find her, or at least the targeting barges she was
towing. If this was an attack, I do not think the enemy would have any interest
and sinking them.”

“But
what if
Slava
was also targeted with a nuclear warhead, sir? The barges
would have been destroyed as well.”

“Time
will tell. And to shorten the wait, let's get the KA-226 up immediately. It
will be over
Slava's
position in 10 minutes.”

He
was referring to the KA-226 scout helicopter carried on the aft quarter of the
ship. It was ideal when used in an extended reconnaissance role like this.

 “See
to it, Karpov. Let us answer your questions once and for all. Tell them to rig
radiation detection sensors and drop sonar and infrared detection buoys if they
make no visual contact with
Slava
after they reach her last plotted
position. If this was an attack, then it should be obvious to us very soon.
Even if
Slava
were sunk, we should still be able to detect the wreckage
on the seafloor, particularly on infrared. In the meantime, the ship is at
action stations and we will complete our systems diagnostics to assure
ourselves we can function should it come to a fight. At the moment we have no
targets, gentlemen. So there is nothing more to be done. Now, get that helicopter
into the air at once.”

Twenty
minutes later they got their first report, yet even the radio transmission
seemed distant, distorted and almost garbled at times. This merely added to
Karpov’s suspicion that the atmosphere was still experiencing effects of a
recent nuclear detonation. And when the KA-226 reported no sign of the
Slava
,
or of any of her towed barges, the Captain was even more certain that the task
force had been attacked. He paced anxiously on the bridge, his eyes searching
the thickening fog ahead of them as if he expected to see incoming missiles at
any moment.

Yet
the Admiral sat calmly on his chair, his eyes narrowed with that vacant look of
inward thought that so clearly signaled to the others that he was not be
disturbed at the moment. What had happened to the rest of his task force? There
were 465 men aboard
Slava
, and another 100 on
Orel
. Where in god’s
name were they? The feeling that had bothered him all morning was back again. He
had a clear sense that something profound had happened, but he could not
discern what it was. What if Karpov was correct and this was war?

Would
NATO launch a surprise attack like this, perhaps from a stealthy submarine that
had been lurking undetected in the region?
Orel
and
Slava
were
gone, yet his ship, the only real threat in the task force, was untouched. The
more he considered this the more he began to feel that this had been another
accident. Yet if
Orel
had suffered an accident, where was
Slava?
She was farther away from the sub’s position than
Kirov
and should have
been well outside the effect radius of a 15 kiloton explosion. These odd
incongruities frustrated and blocked his thinking, like pieces of a puzzle that
would simply not fit, no matter how hard he tried to force them into a coherent
picture.

The
rest of the bridge crew sat silent at their posts, watchful, wary, and somewhat
on edge. Tasarov had a pained, worrisome expression on his young face. He was
checking and rechecking his system, adjusting settings, listening intently, his
hand running through his hair at times as he adjusted his equipment. His brow
was heavy with concentration, and it was clear that he felt somewhat
responsible for the situation. If the ship had been attacked by a torpedo, why
didn’t he hear it?

Rodenko,
the soft spoken Ukrainian, was equally disturbed. He was the eyes of the ship,
where Tasarov was its ears. The fact that he could not even detect the weather
front he had been monitoring was most unsettling.

Nikolin
sat at his cubicle on communications, flipping through a code book and checking
his radio gain and reception bands. All his normal communication channels
seemed strangely quiet, and the silence out of Severomorsk was very odd. He had
sent coded emergency flash signals, and there should have been an immediate
response.

Some
of the junior officers seemed lost in their spacious Russian souls. They leaned
over their stations, eyes glazed with the milky luminescence of the screens and
systems lights, their thoughts running with the old fairy tale hero,
Yemelya
,
the great idler. Life at sea was often endless and dull for them. They could
sense that something was amiss, but had not been privy to much of the
discussion among the senior officers, and so they watched the interminable
sweep of their radar scopes, tuning and adjusting their equipment. Some seemed
lost, others alert and curious, their eyes watching the senior officers
closely, as recent events had put them on edge.

The
remote helicopter reported no sign of radiation, however. And nothing
whatsoever was detected by the sonar buoys—no sign of wreckage on the seafloor
at all. They even patched the data through to Tasarov, so his better trained
eye and ear could verify the findings. There was just nothing there. Infrared
sensors, which would have easily detected heat from a ship that had recently
endured combat damage sufficient to sink her, reported nothing unusual.

Then
Nikolin seemed encouraged as the signal strength from the KA-226 improved
dramatically. He had much more clarity, and instinctively looked at Rodenko,
who smiled as he reported. “I have a clear reading on the KA-226 now,” he said.
“The interference is gone.”
Kirov's
systems seemed to be in perfect
working order, the telemetry being received from the helicopter on Tasarov's
panel was pristine. There was simply nothing else there to be seen, so Admiral Volsky
ordered the helo to return. He stared out the forward viewports, noting the
color of the sea had dimmed and blanched to a sallow gray again.

“Any
response from either ship? Severomorsk?” He broke his reverie, turning to his
communications officer Nikolin.

“No
sir,” said Nikolin. “I have sent encrypted traffic using normal wartime
protocols, but I received no response.”

Karpov
drifted to the Admiral’s side, his arms clasped firmly behind his back as he
leaned slightly to one side and spoke in a quiet tone of voice, as if to
prevent the other members of the bridge crew from hearing him. “What if
Severomorsk was also attacked, sir? We could be at war.”

The
Admiral gave him a serious look, but said nothing.

Part II

The Fog Of War

“God
sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions
exist side by side…”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chapter 4

The
fog
around them
was
so thick now that you could barely see from one end of the ship to the other. The
sea was calm and still, and the gray white mist of an ice fog slowly enfolded
ship. Soon the gilded masts, radars and antennas were fringed with a hoary
white frost, which also settled on the upper decks and superstructure of the ship
until she appeared like a great pale white ghost ship silently sliding through
the glassy sea.

Kirov
was still steaming slowly south
by southwest at 10 knots, her sensors keenly scanning the surrounding ocean and
airspace for any sign of an enemy of vessel or plane. They seemed to have
perfect clarity, but only out to a range of about 30 kilometers, and Rodenko
noted that radius slowly increasing. Tasarov’s sonar was clearing up as well,
but he still had no contact on the
Orel
.

Admiral
Volsky had been trying to decide whether to continue the investigation or
return to Severomorsk. He considered what Karpov had been arguing, that this
was indeed a surprise attack by Western forces upon his nation. Both
Slava
and
Orel
were suddenly missing and, seen in that light, the explosion
Kirov
had experienced might have been a near miss attempt to destroy her as well. The
fact that Severomorsk did not respond on normal naval message frequencies could
mean many things. The base could be observing radio silence, or they could have
sustained damage preventing communications. Then again, the base could have been
destroyed as well. It was homeport of the Russian North Seas fleet, surely a tempting
and vital target in any first strike scenario.