Panic Switch полностью

“Seats, please, gentlemen,” Zhigunov said. The admiral was in his sixties, a grizzled tall figure, still considered handsome by Alexeyev’s female officers. He had a full head of completely gray hair and a chiseled face, time worn and beginning to sag. He took his seat at the end of the table opposite the large flatpanel display. He dropped his pad computer on the stainless steel table’s surface and reached into his inner tunic pocket, withdrawing a blue pack of cigarettes and his lighter with the emblem of Northern Fleet Command. The unfiltered French brand Zhigunov favored, Gauloises Brunes, made noxious smoke, but nothing like Matveev’s, Alexeyev thought. He offered the submarine commanders cigarettes. Alexeyev waved him off, but Kovalov took one, taking the admiral’s lighter when he’d lit up. Kovalov smoked a different brand and had a general contempt for Western cigarettes, but he acted as if he smoked Gauloises every day.

“Have you both read the mission profile?” Zhigunov puffed hard on his cigarette, tapping out his ash on a tray he’d pulled over from the center of the table. When the officers nodded, he reached for a remote and projected on the screen, the display showing a detailed map of the globe taken from high over the north pole.

“So. The mission, then. At the time to be determined, Captain Alexeyev, your Belgorod will sortie from Zapadnaya Litsa Submarine Base and make your way north to the Barents Sea, where you will rendezvous with Captain Kovalov’s Losharik, which will leave port from Olenya Guba and rendezvous with Belgorod here.” A bright red dot lit up north of the Kola Peninsula. “You will take aboard Losharik while submerged.”

“Admiral?” Kovalov said, hesitantly interrupting while stubbing out his half-smoked cigarette in the ash tray. “We’ve never docked Losharik to Belgorod at sea, and never while both units are submerged.”

Zhigunov nodded, seeming distracted, while he put out his cigarette and lit a second. The room was becoming filled with smoke. Alexeyev had a momentary thought about his conversation with Kovalov the night before, about dying in a depth-charged submarine, and unbidden, a flash memory came to him, of the upper level of Kazan when the first compartment exploded and the passageway leading to the escape chamber had filled with flames and smoke. With a conscious effort, Alexeyev blinked away the waking nightmare.

“Something wrong, Georgy?” Zhigunov asked, flashing Alexeyev a penetrating gaze.

“No, sir,” Alexeyev said, trying to keep his facial expression hard. “Please continue, Admiral.”

“When Belgorod departs, you will be loaded with three Status-6 weapons. When you arrive on-station, you’ll transfer them one at a time to Losharik, which will place them in their mission-determined locations.”

Alexeyev bit his lip. Firing an exercise-shot Status-6, which his Belgorod had done a dozen times, was routine. Transferring a dummy mockup of a Status-6 to the deep-diver Losharik he’d only done once, and it had been a disaster. He was still smarting from the post-exercise critique of that endeavor.

“Sir, if I may,” Alexeyev said slowly, “transferring a Status-6 to Losharik is problematic. We’ve never managed to do that well. Our only attempt—“

“I know, Captain Alexeyev,” Zhigunov said. “I’m well aware of the exercise failure, but I am confident that this time you will be successful. Unlike the exercise you participated in, you will be in shallow water. A dropped weapon can easily be recovered by Losharik and the mission will continue.”

“So, sir, the mission? We’re actually deploying Status-6 weapons?”

Zhigunov nodded. Alexeyev could tell the admiral was passing along orders he didn’t agree with. Zhigunov manipulated the display and the image of the globe turned to focus on the east coast of the United States. Three red dots appeared. The southern-most dot flashed brighter than the other two.

“The first unit will be placed here off the border between their provinces of Florida and Georgia, where their main strategic missile submarines are based.” The red dot flashed for a moment and Zhigunov zoomed the display far in, the aerial view looking down on the Saint Marys Channel. “The weapon must be placed in the mid-point of the deep channel leading out of the submarine base. The water is too shallow for Belgorod, but not for Losharik. The weapons must be placed with absolute precision, which is why we are not relying on their internal navigation systems. The weapons will be in stand-by mode and asleep when you drop them.