reassessing his prospects. The new orders did offer one bit of hope. At
least he could manipulate events to allow Terekhov to hang himself. That
would remove one thorn in his side, and he might still be able to use the
squadron leader as a convincing scapegoat if he handled the situation
skillfully.
The thought made him smile coldly. “I am sure Captain Terekhov’s plan
will be the best choice at that, Admiral.”
0642 hours Zulu (0842 hours Zone)
Soviet Submarine Thilsiskiy Komsomolets
Northeast of the Faeroe Islands
Captain Arkady Stepanovich Emelyanov bent over the radio operator’s
shoulder in the cramped communications shack of the submarine Thilsiskiy
Komsomolets and watched the chattering teletype print out a jumble of letters
and numbers. The submarine, which an American observer would have referred to
as a Victor-class attack sub, was lying at periscope depth accepting incoming
messages bounced off a communications satellite. The information would be
meaningless, of course, until it was decoded, but Emelyanov liked to study his
crewmen in the routine performance of their duties instead of remaining in
isolation like too many of his fellow captains. It kept the crew on their
toes to know that the commanding officer might come by just to observe while
they were standing watch.
There was a lot of message traffic this morning, he thought with a twinge
of anxiety. Lying so close to the surface, the submarine could be easily
detected, and Emelyanov longed for the safety of the deep. But since the
start of the campaign against Norway there was a lot of information to pass
along, and it was vitally important to keep up to date with the latest
unfolding developments. If nothing else the daily update was necessary
because Moscow would be sending the coded phrase that would indicate the scope
of his current operations. Without that there was no way to know if he was
supposed to initiate hostilities against any foe other than the Norwegians.
That brought a smile to his lips. Four days ago Thilsiskiy Komsomolets
had scored her first three kills, an Oslo-class frigate and a Sleipnir-class
corvette sailing north from Bergen, and later on a small, conventionally
powered Ula-class submarine that had tried to slip past the Soviet vanguard to
interfere with the operations of the Red Banner Northern Fleet. Small
victories, perhaps, compared to going up against American or British foes, but
still a mark of pride for the attack sub.
Now, though, they were no longer close in to the Norwegian coast. The
sub had been ordered to begin patrolling near the Faeroe Islands, along the
vaguely defined line of the GIUK gap. It was in some ways more hazardous
duty, thanks to the higher chance of detection by the American SOSUS
acoustical tracking network, but it had removed the sub from the true war
zone, and that was a disappointment.
The radioman made a soft-voiced exclamation that drew Emelyanov out of
his reverie.
“What is it, starshina?” the captain asked him.
The petty officer looked up at him. “This message is in special code,”
he said.
Emelyanov took care to control his features. “Very good, starshina.
Give it to me. Then pass the word for the zampolit to meet me in my quarters
before you proceed with the decoding of the regular traffic.”
He left the communications shack without even waiting for the petty
officer’s acknowledgment. Special coded messages like this one were almost
always concerned with a change in orders, and from its length it had to be
more than a mere signal to assume one of the other previously established
patrol stations on the list in his cabin safe. Perhaps Thilsiskiy Komsomolets
had been picked out for an important new mission.
Inside his cabin, Emelyanov waited impatiently at his desk until the
sub’s political officer arrived. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Dobrotin was a small,
sharp-featured man who never failed to remind Emelyanov of the mongooses he
had encountered while serving as a naval attache in India before the
Indo-Pakistani war. Dobrotin took his duties as zampolit with the deadly
seriousness of a zealot. He was not popular in the submarine’s wardroom, but
his power was unquestionably respected and feared.
The political officer knocked on the cabin door and entered immediately,