AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

A man in dress blues then appears at the side door on the USS Zumwalt. I quickly recognize the admiral bars.

“Admiral Kenneth Baker, United States Navy, welcome to: The Gulf of Alaska Yacht Club.”

That’s funny, but no one, including me reacts.

“You must be Captain Vasili. Welcome to America. And on behalf of the President of the United States he says, thank you.”

Vasili’s not impressed.

However, he is impressed by the commander’s opening joke.

“So that was a joke then? Yacht Club?”

The admiral smiles, “Yes, that was a joke, captain.”

Vasili smiles.

The admiral teasingly then says, So, how long do you intend to visit the United States, captain?”

“Visit? I intend to stay!” says Vasili. He continues, “You think any of us can go back to Russia after giving you a billion-dollar secret sub? Every Russian sub is probably on its way here, right now.

This concerns me as I know there is at least one other Typhoon lurking out there somewhere.

Admiral Baker seems totally unconcerned. “We now know what your unique caterpillar signature looks like and we know the closest Typhoon has just turned around under the Arctic and is headed back to Russia.”

Vasili looks a bit sad.

Admiral Baker tries to cheer him up: “Looks like the three people I’m standing in front of right now single handedly avoided a nuclear war. I salute you lady and gentlemen.”

Jennifer looks to have some sense of satisfaction. She said she never, ever received that when she was in the Navy.

Suddenly there is a commotion coming from the front hatch. Armed sailors on the Zumwalt train their weapons on TK-20.

A Russian sailor is trying to pull Stone out of the front hatch.

“Damn it, I’m too fat to get out of this one too!”

The armed U.S. sailors still have their weapons trained on Stone as the rest of us laugh.

I say, “That is one large target.”

Admiral Baker says to his men,

“Stand down, sailors. That may be a threat but not to us!”

Jen and I smile at each other again for a long time before we realize the admiral may be on to us too.

Vasili clearly didn’t see or get much of that, saying,

“I’m concerned about my three missing officers, they’re real fighters, especially my second in command. He will fight to the death.

The admiral starts to say, “I deeply regret the actions…”

Vasili interrupts, “Try to take him alive. His father and the president of Russia are close friends.”

“We will do everything to take him and your other two officers alive but they have already wounded several FBI agents.

I have my wounded arm covered up with a shirt Vasili gave me.

Behind us, many of TK-20’s crew are being taken off the boat.

The admiral notices Vasili is seeing this and again looks very sad.

Admiral Baker tries to cheer him up again saying, “Can we not talk any more shop? I’ll bet you haven’t had breakfast. What would you like to eat, captain?”

“Ham and eggs?” quickly replies Vasili.

“Ham and eggs it is!” just as quickly replies the admiral.

* * *

A short time later the admiral, Jen and I, along with Captain Vasili, two Russian officers, Stone and Tony sit together in one long table in the officers’ mess eating breakfast.

Considering the situation, the mood seems light and airy among the Americans.

However, the two Russian officers look long faced and quiet.

The Admiral directs his fire to Jennifer,

“So commander, I’m glad you returned to commanding submarines but you did you really have to defect to a Russian sub to do it?”

The Americans laugh but the Russians don’t.

Vasili translates this into Russian for them.

Now the Russians laugh.

Jennifer is still not laughing.

“Do you miss it?” asks the admiral.

After pondering the question Jennifer answers,

“I do.”

She pauses thinking about this and the admiral sees he’s hit a painful subject and goes back to eating. Everyone goes back to eating, following the admiral’s lead.

Stone chimes in, “I’m just glad you didn’t drop a bomb on my fucking head!”

All silence in the room as Admiral Baker looks at this guy up and down.

“So you’re the foul mouth Pinnacle has been cussing and swearing about?”

“Damn straight!”

Admiral stands.

Everybody freaks out, standing, not knowing what will happen next.

Admiral Baker says,

“On behalf of the President of the United States thank you for putting that foul-mouth at NORAD in his place!”

Everyone laughs!

Even the Russians laugh.

(Which still puzzles me to this day!)

Stone stands and returns the salute.

“Thank you, general.”

Everyone in the room looks at the admiral realizing Stone has likely never served a day in the military, as he can’t tell the difference between an admiral and a general.

Jennifer looks over at me and, after making sure no one else is looking, she smiles again.

I’m afraid all may have caught on to these romantic signals so I try to change the subject.

“So why is the 7^th Fleet so nearby?” I ask.

“As you know, that information is classified, son. However, since our cover has already been blown, I’ll just say a friend of the commander here, Tom Watson, tipped us off to the unique signature of these new Russian Typhoons.”