Voyage of the Devilfish

“No. Under the threat of our missiles, poised to deliver, we will restore the balance we once had. The nai’vete of our present leaders that somehow the U.S. has gone pacifist, that its military-industrial complex has actually given up and not made contingency plans to retain destructive weapons secretly is nothing but wishful thinking. What did one of their philosophers say? Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. It is to their advantage, my friend, to see us completely disarmed while they, as you yourself have said, maintain capabilities to destroy us.”

Novskoyy looked closely at Dretzski to see if his lecture was sinking in — and being believed. More than once he had asked himself if he thought his plan would work without needing to fire a shot, and had tried to convince himself that it would. But if not, well, he would deal with that contingency when and if it happened. He was a man who had already destroyed an American submarine for what he believed in. He remembered, he had never forgotten, the incident over twenty years ago under the icecap when he had commanded the Leningrad. If necessary… Dretzski felt it necessary at least to play devil’s advocate.

“Admiral, remember Contingency 12, the one we got from the spy Walker. If an American submarine commander comes to periscope depth and is convinced that his nation is the victim of a surprise attack — ongoing or potential — he is authorized to use his missiles. What about their forty submarine captains at sea—”

“We monitor their deployments with our trawlers and satellites. And there are not forty at sea at any one time.” The water in the drydock was now three-quarters of the way up the sides of the Kaliningrad, and a loudspeaker crackled across the dock: “LIFTOFF FROM THE BLOCKS. THE UNIT IS WATERBORNE.” Novskoyy gripped the handrail tightly and smiled.

“Colonel, I am beginning to worry about you. Let me remind you that nuclear weapons are your responsibility. If it ever comes out that I was able to take these weapons without your knowledge, it will not be to your advantage, to say the least. If you decide to do anything so rash as to report prematurely what I have told you, I promise you, you will regret it.” Dretzski knew the admiral was right. He was caught up in this, willingly or not. “But what if word gets out. Admiral, that the submarine fleet has departed?”

“Colonel, you know the answer to that. It is just another deployment exercise.”

“But won’t the authorities get suspicious if you don’t return in a week, at least? And it will take that long, will it not, to get your boats into position…”

“Yes, they may get suspicious. Colonel. And that is where you fit into the plan. You may not be the most popular man in the government, but it should not be too difficult for you to convince them that all is normal, routine. They will not suspect you of further endangering yourself. And in any case, once they realize, if they do, what I am doing, it will be too late. We will have the U.S. ports under siege, with the threat of destruction. What can they do in Moscow or anywhere else?”

“Still, sir, suppose Washington learns from Moscow of your deployment? Learns its real purpose. The American submarines could be waiting for you.”

“Again your job, Colonel. Your plant in the American military. Fishhook, better known as General Herman Tyler, I believe, will insist that this is an exercise, and that this is no time to show distrust of the Russians, who have been so cooperative…”

“Fishhook? But, Admiral, that would put him in danger of blowing his cover. The KGB placed him in the U.S. Air Force nearly thirty-five years ago. It seems he is a brilliant officer but a mediocre agent… stubborn and argumentative. At SAC headquarters he never produced the target list he had been put in place to provide. Eventually we even considered removing him, but decided, flawed as he was, to keep him on as a contingency. It had been a mistake, I believe. He became a general, and then incredibly was named as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and a year later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. An overwhelming and unexpected intelligence victory, you might say. But not so. If word ever leaked out that the Americans had a Russian penetration agent so high in their government they would clean house like never before, become once again paranoid as they were in the Fifties. We’ve pretty much left Fishhook alone ever since he became a general officer.”