The Seventh Angel (48 page)

“
Excellent,” Zhukov said. He made eye contact with his assistant, and held it. “When the submarine reaches communications range, order the Kapi'tan to carry out
Strike Option 7
.”

Ustanov stared. “Comrade President, Strike Option 7 calls for nuclear missile attacks against …”

“
I know what the order entails,” Zhukov said. “The Americans still wish to play games with us. It’s time to teach them, my old friend. This is
not
a game. And
we
make all the rules.”

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

THURSDAY; 07 MARCH

1609 hours (4:09 PM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

“
The update should be coming through the link any time now,” Captain Bowie said. He pointed to one of the giant Aegis display screens in Combat Information Center.

Ann Roark and Sheldon Miggs stood among a group of officers and enlisted personnel, waiting for the captain to outline the latest tactical developments.

Ann suppressed a yawn. She was exhausted all the time, now. She didn’t sleep well on ships to begin with, and for the past few days, her dreams had been invaded by the faces of dead Russian sailors. Of course, the sailors on that submarine weren’t actually dead yet, but Ann and the other people gathered in this room were trying pretty damned hard to change that.

She wondered for the thousandth time how she had gotten caught up in a situation where she was actively plotting to kill other human beings. How had her ethical view of the world shifted so dramatically?

It
hadn’t
, she reminded herself. She didn’t pretend that killing the crew of the Russian submarine was an acceptable course of action. Her personal decision to carry out the plan was a hideous thing, that burned and fumed like acid at the edges of her conscience. Killing those men was an act of evil. But it was not as evil as the alternative: allowing millions of innocent people to perish in nuclear fire.

Ann was caught in a dilemma so ancient that it had become a cliché in nearly every human culture. She had been forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

The yawn she was battling decided that it was not going to be denied, so Ann gave in to it. When it had released her from its grip, she turned her eyes back to the big tactical screen.

The display was centered on a large two-color map of the Sea of Okhotsk and its surrounding land masses: Kamchatka to the east, Siberia to the north, the Russian mainland to the west, and the Kuril Island Chain to the south. The water was a strangely fake-looking shade of blue that Ann had only ever seen in video games and computer maps. The land was depicted as an almost equally unnatural shade of greenish-brown.

On the screen five rectangular symbols appeared, each with a large dot in the center, topped by a nestled pair of inverted V-shapes, like a round head wearing two dunce-caps—one cap worn on top of the other. All five of the rectangular symbols were red. Four of them were crossed out by thick diagonal lines, also in red. The fifth rectangle, at the lower right, was not.

The new symbols made no more sense to Ann than any of the rest of the strange markings on the tactical screens. They probably didn’t mean much to Sheldon either, but everyone else in the little crowd seemed to nod in response.

“
This information comes to us via the Third Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa,” Captain Bowie said. “They’re just sharing it with us now, because these coordinates were provided by a human intelligence source, whose identity is extremely sensitive. Until a few hours ago, this information was too highly classified to transmit via the link, even with full encryption and security protocols. It’s still classified above
Secret
, but it’s been downgraded far enough for transmission via link, so we’re getting it now.”

One of the female officers, Lieutenant Somebody-or-other, spoke up. Ann couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but she’d been Tactical Action Officer during the MiG attack, a couple of days earlier.

“
What happened to downgrade this info, Captain?” the lieutenant asked. “Once the big dogs decide to play poker, they’re usually pretty stingy about letting us little dogs see their cards. Do we have any idea what prompted them to let the warfighters into the game, sir?”

Captain Bowie raised an eyebrow. “Succinctly put, as always, OPS. I don’t know the whole story, but I do have some idea of how the people at flag level were thinking.”

He turned toward the big display screen. “We’ve suspected for some time now that the submarine has been using pre-staged explosives to blow shooting holes in the ice pack. We assumed that Mr. Zhukov’s rebels had prepared these positions by planting explosives in the ice at various locations around the Sea of Okhotsk.”

The captain smiled ruefully. “It turns out that our assumptions were correct. Intelligence has confirmed that there were
five
of these sites, which they refer to as ‘
launch positions
,’ prepared at different locations on the ice pack.”

He leaned over and rested his fingers on the trackball of one of the Aegis consoles. He rolled the ball, and a cross-shaped cursor scrolled across the screen to rest above the northeastern most of the rectangles. It was one of the four symbols crossed out by diagonal lines.

“
This launch position no longer exists,’ he said. “The submarine used up the explosives at this location when it launched the nuclear missile attack toward California.”

The captain rolled the trackball again, bringing the cursor to hover briefly above three of the other rectangles, all of which were also crossed out by diagonal lines. “These three launch positions were destroyed earlier today, by a pair of U.S. Marine Corps EOD teams, flown up from Okinawa. The Marine CH-53 helo we refueled a few hours ago was the transport bird for one of these teams. The helo for the other team refueled aboard USS
Albert D. Kaplan
. Each of the EOD teams was assigned to locate and disarm the pre-staged explosives at two of the launch positions.”

A short move of the trackball put the cursor over the top of the fifth rectangle, the only one not crossed out by diagonal lines. “One of the EOD teams completed both of its sites, and was extracted on schedule. The other team finished disarming their first position, but they were detected by a helicopter gunship and killed before they could move to their second assigned position.”

The captain continued talking, but Ann had tuned him out. That one word shot through her guts like a jolt of electricity.
Killed
. They had been
killed
. She suddenly wanted to sit down.

“
How many of them were there?”

It took Ann a half-second to realize that it was her own voice. She had asked the question, although she couldn’t remember deciding to speak.

Captain Bowie stopped. He had obviously moved past that part of the conversation. “How many of
who
?” he asked. “Or
what
?”

“
The Marines,” Ann said. “The ones who were killed by the helicopter. How many of them were there?”

The captain spoke softly. “Four,” he said. “The team consisted of four Marines, from the Third Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company.”

His brown eyes somberly regarded Ann for several seconds. “If it helps any, Ms. Roark, we
do
know their names.”

Ann shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just thought …” She stopped, unable to remember what she’d been about to say. “It just seemed …” She shook her head again, and felt suddenly like she might cry. “It seemed
important
.”

The captain nodded. “It
is
important,” he said. “It’s of the utmost importance.”

His brow creased slightly, not in anger or annoyance, but as though he was searching for the right words to express whatever was on his mind.

“
I never met Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Armstrong,” he said. “Nor Staff Sergeant Scot Myers, or the other two Marines on the EOD team. Chances are, no one else on this ship has met any of them either. But if we get out of this, I’ll go to their funerals. I’ll thank their families personally, and I’ll offer my help and my respect in whatever form the families will accept. And if I know my crew as well as I think I do, I won’t be alone when that day comes.”

He glanced toward the display screen, and then back to Ann. “Today, we have to finish the job those men started. The time will come for mourning our losses, but now is not that time.”

Ann nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Bowie looked at the cursor, hovering above the last rectangular symbol. “The fifth launch position remains intact,” he said. He pressed a button on the console, and an irregular white line appeared, cutting across the lower quarter of the Sea of Okhotsk at a mostly horizontal angle. “This is the estimated southern edge of the ice, based primarily on satellite imagery.”

He rolled the trackball in small circles, causing the cursor on the screen to orbit the fifth rectangle. “As you can see, the remaining launch position is close to the boundary of the ice pack. We may be able to maneuver the ship within torpedo range of this position, depending on how accurate the satellite pictures are, and the density of the drift ice near the edge of the pack. If we’re lucky, we might get in close enough to get a shot at the submarine.”

One of the junior officers raised a hand. “Two questions, Captain.”

Bowie nodded and smiled. “You don’t have to raise your hand, Dennis.”

The young officer reddened slightly, but plowed on. “Sir, you said that one of the Marine EOD teams disarmed both of its assigned positions before being extracted. Why wasn’t that team redirected to finish the remaining site? I’m sure they would have needed to refuel their helo, but we’ve got plenty of gas. They could have vectored down south, rendezvoused with us for refueling, and then flown back up to handle the last launch position. Why didn’t Third Marine Expeditionary Force modify their orders to make that happen?”

“
Good question,” the captain said. “I imagine that the higher-ups realized the cat was out of the bag when hostile helicopter gunships started showing up. An EOD team is too small and too lightly armed to shoot it out against major opposition, especially air-to-ground forces. Their only chance of pulling it off was to sneak in, do the job, and sneak out. They were depending on stealth, and complete secrecy. That may be why they didn’t let us untrustworthy Navy types in on the plan until the hard part was already over.”

The corners of the captain’s mouth came up slightly. “Everybody knows squids can’t keep their mouths shut. But the fifth launch position has constant air cover now: HIND-D attack helicopters, with frequent over-flights by MiG fighters. There’s not much chance of sneaking another EOD team in there now, and the bad guys are on to the plan. So the Marines must figure that it’s finally safe to tell the Navy.”

He smiled at his own joke. “What was your second question, Dennis?”

“
Well, sir,” the young officer said, “we know where the last launch position is, and Zhukov
knows
that we know. He knows we’ll be watching that spot closely. What makes us think he’ll let his submarine get anywhere
near
there? It seems to me that his smartest move would be to plant some new launch positions, and keep his sub as far as possible from the one that we already know about.”

“
He might well do that,” Captain Bowie said. “If he does, we’ll have to figure out an entirely new way to go after his submarine. But COMPACFLEET thinks our Mr. Zhukov is going to want to demonstrate to the world that he’s still in the game. And they think he’s going to want to do it quickly. They’re expecting something
big
, and they’re expecting it
soon
.”

The captain looked around. “Any other questions?”

No one spoke.

Bowie checked his watch. “Alright,” he said. “We’ve already turned north, toward the ice. We’ll be crossing through the Kuril islands just after sunset, a little over two hours from now. We’re going to run quiet and dark—full stealth mode, and full EMCON. We know there are MiGs and helicopter gunships operating just north of our planned search position.”

He turned to one of his officers. “Your show, XO.”

The man he had addressed cleared his throat. “Thank you, Captain.”

Ann had forgotten the man’s name, but she knew that he was the ship’s Executive Officer.

“
As the CO mentioned,” the Executive Officer said, “we’ll be operating in close proximity to hostile air cover. And because we’ll be in stealth mode, we’re going to be using passive sensors
only
. We won’t have any radar to spot the bad guys, or to dodge ice floes, for that matter. We’re going to need as many topside lookouts as we can muster, because we’re going to be depending on human eyes and ears to identify threats to this vessel. Have representatives from your divisions hoof it up to the Boatswains Locker and draw cold weather gear from our UNREP stash for anybody who needs it. It’s going to be freezing up on deck, and I don’t want any of my Sailors getting hypothermia because they don’t have the proper clothing.”

Heads nodded around the small group.

“
As the Captain just told us, we’ve got about two hours until sunset,” the XO continued. “We’re going to use that time to strip any unnecessary fittings from the topside of this ship. We’re obviously going to leave the radars, antennas, and weapons alone, and don’t mess with the life lines. We’ll need them when we’ve got Sailors standing up there in the dark. Anything else that’s not vital or protected by PCMS gets unbolted and goes below decks. Fire extinguishers, the J-Bar davits, line handling equipment, whatever. Bring it inside the skin of the ship, and find a temporary place to stow it. We’re going to shave every fraction off of our radar signature that we can.”