ROGUESTATE, page 3
By the time someone determined the hatch was barred against entry, it would be too late. Nicolas hefted the screwdriver and removed six screws to reveal the access panel guarding the safety interlocks for the warhead. It would never do to have a torpedo arm within a lethal distance of the submarine. The torpedo was designed to arm a minimum of one hundred meters after leaving the tube and perhaps longer depending on the tactical situation.
Nicolas let the access panel drop to the deck. He pushed his head forward over the square recess on the top of the torpedo and quickly found the safety arming mechanism. It took him a minute to pry the safety interlock away from its housing.
The men responsible for manning the forward torpedo room arrived and began banging on the hatch. Nicolas ignored them—it was time to die. He removed a small copy of theKoran from his other pocket. It was vital he be prepared for what was to come. He closed his eyes striving towards an inner peace and meditation. He ignored the increasing loud clanging on the locked hatch. He recognized his shipmates would use their emergency procedures to pop the locks.
It was time.
He gathered the device given to him by the Chechen and purchased by the Iranian. They had been very precise in explaining to him regarding the placement of the device. In reality, it was a cluster of three shaped charges, a lithium battery, and a small electronic primer. A torpedo was like any other explosive ordinance. It was designed to gobang when the priming charge initiated the main explosive. The priming charge was always more volatile than the main explosive, simply because it needed to explode first. What Nicolas did not know was that the warhead mounted on the torpedo was inert—a dummy.
Nicolas placed the charge and tapped the membrane switches used to activate a thirty-second countdown timer. Presumably, the thirty seconds was to permit someone time to run away from their mischief, however, on a submarine two hundred feet below the surface there is no place to run from a torpedo triggered to explode inside the hull. Nicolas used his precious last seconds to hold his red covered Koran to his lips, close his eyes, and wondered what paradise awaited him.
He found out.
The dummy warhead never exploded, but the rocket fuel hovered like a mist throughout the forward torpedo room waiting for the proper spark.
* * * *
USS Springfield(SSN 761), Barents Sea
TheSpringfield waited like a hole in the dark water. She slid fifty feet above the ocean floor’s contours at a steady five knots. She ran whisper-quiet as all her sensors were extended into the dark night. While they no longer trained specifically for the Red menace, everyone knew that if the order ever came to fight, then theOscar II andTyphoon class boats would be their primary targets.
Captain Jeff Andrews walked through his control room. He wore a ball cap bearing his ship’s name and wore rubber-soled tennis shoes designed to muffle his steps. The mug he carried was a plastic Annapolis travel mug. The computers recorded their digital inputs as theSpringfield, and presumably one of her sister ships, captured every radio signal, radar aperture, and sonar beacon.
He checked the plot board. They had been busy during the night adding theAdmiralKuznetsov —the Russian Federation’s only operating carrier—the cruiserMarshal Ustinov , and the new destroyer,Admiral Chabanenko. The firing solutions for each of those ships was logged and locked into the computer. The plot reviewed each solution twice each hour and updated the solution.
However, the modern Russian navy was a submarine force. The true threats were stealthier and more difficult to track. However, the sonar team had active plots on theKursk and theOrel , twoOscar II class boats, and the olderKrab , aSierra I class boat. Six active plots kept his men working and engaged.
Captain Andrews set his mug in a drink holder attached to the chart table about the same time history happened.
Five thousand meters distant, the shaped charge developed by the Iranians and presented by the Chechens ignited. The super-hot copper core liquefied and expanded into the warhead—a dummy warhead. It produced a pop captured by theSpringfield , and this pop would become known as a smaller primary explosion.
Back blast from the shaped charge penetrated the torpedo’s fuel cell. The atrocious state of the Russian Navy’s maintenance and fueling policies ignited in theKursk ’sforward torpedo room. The tradeoff for achieving the extraordinary speeds credited to theShkval torpedo was the replacement of a solid-state fuel with a more volatile liquid fuel. Most of the torpedoes tended to sweat and emit fuel vapors.
Superheated fragments ripped into the torpedo’s fuel cell and ignited the fuel mixture as well as the fuel vapors. The result was a much larger explosion measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale. It was the largest explosion ever recorded between the Kola Peninsula and the North Cape. The aggregate combustion for eight torpedoes lit up the interior of theKursk ’sforward torpedo room. The hull did not merely rupture—it shattered!
Jagged pieces the size of dinner plates spun into the dark water. The hatch Nicolas’ comrades were attempting to open burst back on his crewmates and the deadly cold sea swept through the fire. The bulkheads nearest the torpedo room vaporized, as six of the ten watertight compartments were suddenly open to the sea.
The thirteen-thousand-ton boat instantly gained an additional seven thousand tons of water and rocketed towards the bottom. The emergency control systems and rescue beacons never launched due to the massive systems failure. The doomedKursk struck the ocean floor with enough force to rupture the missile hatches behind the sail, warp the rear escape hatch, and partially bury the bow. She came to rest at a sixty-degree list in three hundred fifty-four feet of water. The impact caused the railing surrounding the conning tower to bend, and the periscope popped free of its mooring.
Broken and bleeding survivors lay in the four remaining compartments. The battery system failed to activate, leaving them without an atmosphere scrubber to eliminate the carbon dioxide or replenish their air supply. The two reactors suffered massive damage to their cooling systems, but the ocean’s natural cold prevented a greater catastrophe—for the moment.
Twenty-three men lived through the initial explosion and crash dive. More than one of them bled to death in the next hours from broken bones impaling their skin and internal hemorrhaging. The few who survived with relatively minor bumps and bruises struggled to right themselves in compartments tilted crazily and gradually growing colder. They all heard the water dripping into their small world, and they spent the rest of their lives inside a cold metal coffin at the bottom of the Barents Sea.
Danny Henderson was manning the sonar cave aboard theSpringfield . He viewed the multi-million–dollar electronics suite as his personal Sony Play Station. His array of acoustic microphones recognized the death of theKursk as a seismic anomaly—an earthquake.
Other sub drivers thought Henderson a bit strange and certainly unconventional. None of Andrews’ peers would have tolerated the quiet tapping on the sonar equipment or the occasional chuckles. Three years ago, theSpringfield faced down a ChineseHan class submarine in the Persian Gulf. Henderson earned his bones that day, and Andrews never quarreled with success, especially success in combat.
“Conn! Sonar, I have new contact!” shouted Henderson.
Andrews looked across the crowded control room and waited.
“Oww!” continued Henderson pulling his headphones back from his ears. The sound graph above his console pegged in the red zone and stayed there for five or six seconds.
“Something big just happened, Captain.”
TheSpringfield painted the underwater world in digital sound. It could notsee the storm of debris and dirt rushing towards her. The ocean was angry, and it needed to dissipate the energy released by theKursk explosion. A terrible wave rolled under the ocean, and an even larger one raced upwards to the surface—marking the grave with a white-hot waterspout. It was quickly swallowed by the storm raging on the surface.
The coffee in Andrews’ travel mug began to dance as the wave’s first tendrils tickled theImproved Los Angeles class warship. The rest of the wave came hard and fast, tossing the seven-thousand-ton submarine like a child’s toy. The outer hull rattled as dirt carried by the wave washed over theSpringfield. The emergency lighting kicked in and the battery systems automatically switched on. The safety systems built into the reactor’s controls activated and the pile scrammed.
The awful shaking lasted seven seconds. It could have been forever. It took a bit longer for theSpringfield to trim out again. The damage control board had a couple of amber lights, and damage control watch officers reported in on minor issues, but theSpringfield weathered theKursk explosion.
Andrews twisted around and voiced the question everyone else was asking, “Anyone know what that was?”
Blank stares and uncertain expressions responded to his query. The lights flickered from emergency red back to their normal amber white as the reactor came back on line.
Deep inside his cave Henderson reported, “I can’t seem to find theKursk. ”
The chief of the boat arrived in the control room. Chief Watson was a grizzled veteran of too many cruises. He leaned over Henderson’s shoulder and asked quietly, “What have you got?”
Henderson’s fingers clattered along the keyboard as he tapped out commands. “I’ve reacquired theAdmiralKuznetsov and theMarshal Ustinov .” He tapped the monitor screen authoritatively. “The computer thinks this is theAdmiral Chabanenko. I don’t know about that, Chief. It was a long way off and moving away.”
“Uh-huh,” muttered Watson as he attempted to keep up with Henderson. He had already recommended to the captain that Henderson was officer material. Andrews concurred and Henderson was destined for a new billet at the end of this cruise.
“Now, this is the tricky part,” continued Henderson. “This signature must be theKrab . It’s aSierra I boat, and we only had one on the plot board when this thing hit. The other two wereOscar II boats.”
“That would be theKursk and theOrel?” intoned Watson.
“Yes, sir!” exclaimed Henderson. “This is where the problem is. TheOrel was on the far side of theKursk . I think we pegged it at fifteen thousand meters on an oblique angle. The computer found theOrel again.”
“So you’re saying theKursk should have been a piece of cake.”
Henderson bobbed his head. “But it’s not there! It vanished before we got tossed around, and now it’s gone.”
Chief Watson stared at the readouts, then asked the imponderable question: “Can you figure out where that quake took place?”
Captain Andrews turned to his XO and ordered, “Note the time of this event in the log.” He checked his watch, “Eleven twenty-eight local time.”
The XO recorded the information in the log as Andrews walked towards the sonar cave. “How far away was theKursk before we lost her.”
“Five thousand meters,” replied Henderson.
“Okay, let’s go find her,” decided Andrews. “XO, plot a course to theKursk ’slast known position, ahead slow. The Russians know we’re observing, no need to advertise our position.”
An hour later, Henderson heard the faint tapping of the doomed men trapped in the dank, watery compartments. The international distress signal: SOS sounded like pitiful pings on the ocean floor. The second word following SOS was eventually translated to mean water. Chief Watson, the XO, and Captain Andrews clustered behind Henderson’s station.
Andrews turned to his XO, “We’ve got to call this in.”
CHAPTER THREE
Intourist Brochure-November 5, 1967 -On the eve of 50th anniversary of a Great October socialist revolution, the Act of State Commission was signed about the commissioning of the first part of tower construction. The Ostankino tower started the transmission of four TV and three radio broadcasting programs. Powerful transmitters “Uragan” for channels 1 and 3, and “Len” for TV channels 8 and 11 have ensured the stable reception of the programs apart 120 km from the tower.
Moscow, Russian Federation
Sunday, August 27, 2000
Noon (GMT +3:00)
Ostankino television tower is a shining stainless steel spire reaching 1520 feet above the Moscow skyline. It provides television service to over twenty million households, and the transmission signals for Russia’s six national television networks, various government frequencies, and all commercial and emergency paging services are broadcast. It is the second tallest freestanding structure after Toronto’s CN Tower, and in a country struggling for every hard currency dollar it can find—irreplaceable.
Parvez Hyder took the elevator to the Seventh Heaven restaurant 1500 feet up the tower. He timed his action to coincide with the busy Sunday lunch rush when the weekend staff replaced the normally alert weekday staff. Wearing a gray coverall, a pilfered identification badge, and carrying a toolbox, Parvez slid through the hungry Muscovites and past the overworked staff into the maintenance rooms behind the kitchen. No one stopped him. Someone had actually showed up to fix something—it was an all too rare event.
Over the past year, the Ostankino Tower had been re-cabled and obsolete equipment in place since the tower’s opening had been replaced. The equipment mix was a combination of Russian vacuum tubes and German silicon chips. The constant pressure to cut costs and pay off the middleman resulted in a great deal more tubes than the announced modernization suggested. The broadcast engineers were more familiar with Soviet tube technology than American chip technology, and they gladly clung to the familiar.
The maintenance room contained the final relays for the upper-most satellite and antennae arrays. Parvez closed the door behind him and turned the deadbolt lock to ensure no one bothered his efforts. He turned to the South Korean manufactured equipment racks holding shock-mounted electronics cases. Behind the equipment racks were a series of fuse boxes and master power switches. Warnings were printed in Cyrillic letters on signs above the circuits. The switches and latches were secured with yellow metal tags and they were attached using lead safety wire.
Thick, black cables ran down from the top of the room and out the bottom. The cables were a combination of aluminum, silver, and copper wiring. Besides the fuse boxes, the cables ran around the top of the maintenance room free of any metal conduit.
Parvez nodded satisfactorily. He set the gray toolbox on the floor and flipped open the latches. His toolbox did not contain the normal assortment of screwdrivers, hammers, and wrenches. He pulled out the top tray and set it to one side. Underneath, resting on a cradle of foam rubber, were six bombs designed to burn whatever they ignited and to accelerate the temperature to two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
He hefted tempered steel pins and moved to the circuit breaker boxes. The power flowing through the fuses would feed the fire and destroy the evidence. He grabbed a pair of wire cutters and snipped through the soft lead wire designed to melt in the event of a fire and force a power shutdown to the critical arrays mounted above the restaurant, observation deck, and maintenance room. He replaced the lead wires with the tempered steel bolts. The alteration would keep electrical power flowing into the equipment room and feed the fire.
A series of South African monitors mounted in a row on the far wall recorded system status, environmental standards, and the various frequency bands currently in use. The hard plastic shells enclosing the fifteen-inch cathode ray tubes would melt around three hundred degrees, and the tubes would probably explode at four hundred degrees.
Parvez turned his attention to the sprinkler system running through the ceiling. He pulled a four-rung stepladder from its resting place and traced the pipe until it reached a shutoff valve. Technically, there should not have been a shutoff valve for the sprinkler system, but the construction engineers installed it to fix the leaks for final inspection. It would not do to have a puddle on the floor in the middle of a refurbished equipment room. Parvez flashed a portable halogen lamp along the top of the equipment racks. The Iranian information provided by the Ayatollah’s watchers was excellent as he played the lamp on the shutoff valve.
He unfolded the stepladder and quickly closed the valve. When the fire reached a temperature capable of melting the sprinkler safeties, only the water inside the pipe would leak out. It would be too late by then. The wiring panel providing power and intelligence for the entire observation desk and restaurant was on a common wall with the natural gas lines used by the kitchen’s grill and oven. The plan did not rely solely on the Iranian supplied thermite bombs. Parvez intended to use the natural gas to feed the conflagration. He mounted one of the bombs between the natural gas leads. The emergency shutoff valves were on either side of the bomb.
Next, he mounted a bomb in the heart of the wiring harness for the entire level. The two bombs would ignite the kitchen and spread the fire throughout the entire level. Parvez did not concern himself with potential casualties. He had witnessed enough death in Chechnya to erase any guilt associated with his actions. Besides, these were Muscovites—Russians who stuffed their fat mouths while Chechen children starved.
Parvez set the remaining bombs between equipment clusters and behind racks. He smirked as he noted the wooden cabinets, carpeted floor, and pressed-wood wallboard. The steel struts supported the level, and if the fire burned hot enough, then the heat would travel along the steel causing more damage.
He left his coveralls, the toolbox, the six bombs, and his identification card in a heap on the floor. Three hours later the timers connected to the Iranian provided bombs hit zero, and the Ostankino tower fire began.
* * * *
The Ostankino Tower fire raged for twenty-seven hours. The tower erected in 1967 to stand taller than the Empire State Building served as an in-your-face declaration of Soviet prowess. It was opened on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution during the height of the Cold War and space race. It became a symbol, and like so many symbols of the dead empire, it might not have been built as well as it should. It became the tallest structure in Europe and for thirty-three years, it dominated the Moscow skyline as a symbol of the can-do, hi-tech capabilities of the Soviet Union and her successor state—the Russian Federation.
