Voyage of the Devilfish

“Bentson,” Donchez barked, “open the SAS safe. Get the operational authenticator for today. I want the military put on alert. DEFCON ONE” Bentson ran off, grabbing an officer with the combination to the inner safe.

“Senior Chief,” Donchez said to Carter, “send a flash message to the submarine fleet offshore: Anyone in trail watch for any sign of launch transients. Any false moves, the trailing unit is to sink their contact. If a submarine is not in trail then by God get in trail. Get a flash message to the Allentown off Severomorsk. Tell them to stay at periscope depth and be in UHF satellite reception at all times. Second, prepare to fire a twelve-missile salvo of Javelin cruise missiles at targets on my order.” Carter read back his notes, got a nod from Donchez and disappeared. Donchez reached for a secure phone, and ordered the operator to patch him into the White House Situation Room. He reeled off the OPREP-3 details, had them read it back to make sure the President got the straight story, hung up and dialed Admiral McGee. Thirty seconds later Donchez had a helicopter on the way to McGee’s house.

“How we doing on time, Kodiak?” Donchez asked.

“Four minutes since the launch, sir.”

“We got planes up yet?” Kodiak had a radiotelephone handset screwed into one ear.

“The Enterprise had an EA-6B on standby just in case. Admiral McGee’s orders, sir. The EA-6 is airborne, about two-hundred miles northeast, and should be reporting in on possible radar contact on the missile.”

“Well, that’s all just fine but it’s useless unless we can get an attack plane to shoot the bitch down.”

“Yes sir, we’ve got an F-14 that was doing night-landing quals at Oceana Naval Air Station just a few minutes ago.”

“Good.”

“But, sir, he needs a missile loadout. The F-14 is taxiing in now at the Oceana squadron hangar. The duty weapons crew is outfitting him with some Mongoose heatseeking missiles. He should be ready any minute.”

“Dammit, Kodiak, tell them to move. That missile is coming in at 650 miles an hour. We got nine, ten more minutes tops.”

“Yes sir, I’m in contact with Oceana’s tower now.” Chief Carter called to Donchez from across the room.

“Sir. Admiral. The President’s on Secure One.” As Donchez reached for the secure phone he gave Kodiak another order.

“Lieutenant, get that F-14 airborne. It’s the only game in town.” He put the phone to his ear. “Donchez here. Mister President…”

MOSCOW

THE KREMLIN

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT’S CONFERENCE ROOM

Colonel Dretzski had had a contingency plan in case Novskoyy’s plan failed. Now that the Novskoyy plan had stumbled, with one missile in the sky and the rest of the deployed ships apparently having decided not to fire, Dretzski decided to reveal his hand to the President. Now the emphasis should be on keeping Russia from getting hit with a retaliatory strike. Dretzski wondered what had happened, why Novskoyy had decided to launch instead of strong-arming both superpowers as he had promised. Further, once he did elect to shoot, why had the fleet refused to fire, why did only one boat decide to launch? Was it a problem with the radios? Ironic if Novskoyy’s grand, ego-driven plan had ended up being undone by a faulty circuit chip. Dretzski had been encamped at Yasenevo, headquarters of the photographic intelligence raw-data section, monitoring the photo-reconnaissance satellites. He had been there all weekend, napping a few hours between satellite passes, awake for the coverage of the U.S. east coast. He was exhausted. The conference room he was in now bore little resemblance to the Spartan qualities of the FED. The room was fit for an old-fashioned American Robber Baron: the huge hearth big enough to roast a pig in, logs crackling and warming the room, a table stretching on and on in mahogany splendor with deep leather chairs set about it, the high ceiling inlaid with gold, the walls panelled with hand carved wood, the furniture seemingly from the days of Catherine the Great.

Dretzski sat near the end of the table near the President.

On the of — er side were General Pallin, FED chief, who looked ready to kill Dretzski, and Maksoy, head of the KGB, who looked abstracted. Admiral Barisov was, strangely, on Dretzski’s side of the table, as well as Defense Minister Fasimov. Foreign Minister Kirova was absent. What a meeting to miss, Dretzski thought. Dretzski began. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, turning to the President, “this is an emergency. Just moments ago, in our monitoring Admiral Novskoyy’s deployment exercise we detected on a satellite infrared scanner an actual cruise missile launch off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, USA …” Dretzski paused. He had the room’s full attention.

“Dretzski,” the President said, his face suddenly tense! “are you saying there was an accident? That someone accidentally launched a missile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Must be an exercise weapon,” Maksoy said, coming awake. “We destroyed our warshots, the U.N. monitored it.”