Voyage of the Devilfish

“Colonel,” the President began, “why are you, a KGB First Chief Directorate operative, coming to brief us on this? Where is Admiral Novskoyy? Where is his staff?” Yulenski’s meaning was clear: Who are you, his boy? Dretzski knew he would face this, though he had not been able to prepare a convincing answer.

“Sir, General Pallin and Chief Maksoy accepted Admiral Novskoyy’s invitation to monitor his exercise and serve as referee. The admiral said that a deployment such as this would alert American intelligence agencies immediately. At FED we were given the task to act as if the Northern Fleet was from a separate country—”

“It practically is,” Admiral Barisov broke in. Apparently there was little cooperation between the fleets.

“—and determine if we could detect the deployment in advance when the fleet was provisioned and maintained.”

“What were the results. Colonel?” Pallin asked, as if an encouraging attorney for the defense.

“We could not detect anything that looked like unusual activity. Not by satellites, radio surveillance, phone taps, warehouse activity, maintenance activity or even crewmember movements.”

“Very convenient,” Colonel,” Admiral Barisov said.

“Novskoyy hired you to see no evil, hear no evil—”

“I will give you a more impartial account than any Northern Fleet official or officer would. I would actually like to tell you that we detected Admiral Novskoyy’s activity, but we did not. A failure for us, but a victory for our nation.” President Yulenski took the floor, his joviality gone.

“Colonel, why were the submarines sent to the coast of America without my knowledge or authorization? Why are we threatening the Americans? What do we expect them to do when they see all these submarines off their coast?”

“Sir, the intent is to avoid detection. If the boats get to their coast undetected, then we have proved the fleet can do it and Admiral Novskoyy’s training and preparations are in order. If, however, every boat runs into defending submarines and ASW ships and aircraft, then we have learned something even more valuable, and we can fix it in case we should ever need the capability… It is an ingenious experiment—”

“So, Colonel Dretzski,” Yulenski said, “shouldn’t we give the Americans the courtesy of a phone call to tell them that our toys are wandering around practically in their territorial waters?” Dretzski’s armpits suddenly were wet. It was crucial that the Kremlin not call the White House — it would poison the controlled information and analysis being fed to the Americans through Agent Fishhook, whose role in the plan was its weakest and yet most vital element.

“I would advise against that, sir,” Dretzski said, feeling very uneasy. “The whole point of this exercise, this experiment, is to see if an unalerted America knows we are coming. As suggested, if they do not, we have proved a capability. If they do, we have identified flaws to fix—”

“Very risky. Colonel. And Fasimov,” Yulenski said to the defense minister, “this sort of thing will never happen again without my express orders. We can’t conduct an open foreign policy if our generals and admirals are secretly playing with their toys. You people are tempting fate. I want to see Admiral Novskoyy this evening, Fasimov. Send him over, and you come also. We have some talking to do.”

“Sir,” Dretzski said, “Admiral Novskoyy is not in port.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“Sir, he is on a new attack submarine that went on sea trials under the icecap. He should be returning shortly before his fleet.”

“Why is he on a submarine under the ice? How can he monitor this exercise from there?” Dretzski swallowed. If he said Novskoyy would surface and use Kaliningrad’s antennae, it would look too much like he had a command-and-control flagship, determining the destinies of his fleet. But if he lied and said Novskoyy couldn’t receive radio messages. Admiral Barisov would know it. A morsel of truth was needed.

“Again, sir,” Dretzski said, “Admiral Novskoyy felt that it would be best to get an unbiased opinion from an intelligence community that had no political obligations to him, someone completely impartial. That is why Naval Intelligence was not called in. The admiral wants the hard, cold truth, not a subordinate’s possible sugar-coating. He is intent on finding out any operational flaws in the fleet. He deliberately left it to keep his own opinions and biases out of the exercise evaluation and execution. He is looking for the negatives, and the KGB will help him find them.”

“Very well. Colonel,” Yulenski said. Dretzski suppressed a sigh of relief. Yulenski, it seemed, had bought the story, and with Yulenski went the others. Yulenski stood, suddenly in a hurry, the meat of the briefing over. He left the room, aides coming in to collect his briefing papers from the presentation.