Fatal Thunder: A Jerry Mitchell Novel (12 page)

“So we tell the Russians about the barge.” Hardy stated flatly. “The problem is, as soon as we say when and where, they’ll link it to the loss of their sub.”

“It can’t be avoided,” Myles replied. “And the official position of the U.S. government is that their submarine was lost while making an unprovoked attack on one of our vessels. And you did not fire a single weapon in your defense.
Gepard
was sunk by one of her own torpedoes, decoyed away from
Memphis
.

“If they want to kick up a fuss, first they have to explain about the barge and its contents, and why
Gepard
was attacking one of our subs in international waters. And we can do that privately, or publicly.”

“I can’t predict, or even guess, how the Russians will react, Mr. President.” Patterson’s expression showed her worry.

Myles was more optimistic. “One of the reasons I picked you as my national security advisor was because you’ve dealt with the Russians successfully. You persuaded them to work with us when
Severodvinsk
was crippled on the Arctic seabed.”

Lloyd said, “I think they’ll react every way we can imagine. Anger, embarrassment, denial, and fear. They may even demand we return the warheads.”

“Which I would happily do,” Myles added. “It costs a pretty penny to keep those things secure. There might even be a few reporters around for the handover.” He turned to face Hardy directly. “So I will ask you again: Will you meet with the Russians and tell them about the barge?”

“I’ll set it up in a secure room at the State Department building,” Lloyd added hopefully. His tone became more serious. “They need to know about this.”

Hardy looked over at his wife. She looked as worried as he did, but nodded silently.

23 March 2017

1630 EST

State Department, Harry S. Truman Building

Washington, D.C.

Ambassador Arkady Vaslev didn’t know what to expect when his car arrived at the State Department building, but it certainly wasn’t Secretary Lloyd’s chief of staff, Ron Davis, waiting for them at the main entrance. “Ambassador Vaslev, Captain Mishin, Mr. Zykov, thank you for coming on such short notice.”

Vaslev shook his offered hand, and replied carefully, “Your request was most urgent, but not very informative. It is hard to prepare for a meeting when you don’t know what it is about.”

The summons arriving that morning had requested an immediate meeting on an “urgent and critical matter.” It had asked not only for the ambassador’s presence, but also that the naval attaché and the deputy cultural attaché attend.

Requesting Mishin’s presence implied a naval or maritime topic, but while Valery Zykov might hold the title of “deputy cultural attaché,” he was actually the station chief for the Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, Russia’s overseas intelligence arm. Vaslev had long suspected that American intelligence had deduced Zykov’s true role, but to have them ask for his presence by name confirmed that fact. Why did they want a known intelligence operative at the meeting?

Davis, a career diplomat, chatted amiably as he passed them through security and down the hall to a secure conference room, if the armed guard at the door was any indication. He snapped to attention as the group came into view.

The room was a small briefing theater, with the seats facing a large screen on one wall. A tall, heavily built man with thinning gray hair stood to one side. Davis introduced him as Senator Lowell Hardy, of Connecticut, a retired submarine captain. “He has information vital to both our governments to share with you.”

The Russians were offered chairs in the front row. As Vaslev moved to take his seat, motion to the side caught his eye, and he noticed two people sitting down in the back; he immediately recognized them as Secretary of State Lloyd and Vice President Randall.

They hadn’t been introduced, but had simply come in after the Russians and silently taken their seats. The implication was clear. This matter was of the highest importance.

The moment all three Russians were sitting, Hardy took the podium and the lights dimmed. Vaslev noticed that Davis was assisting Hardy, and there were no other assistants or aides in the room.

Hardy’s voice was strong, and he appeared to speak a little slowly, perhaps in deference to his audience. “In 2005, I was the commanding officer of USS
Memphis
, a
Los Angeles
–class nuclear submarine homeported in New London.” A photo of the sub flashed onto the screen, a record shot that would be more familiar to Mishin and Zykov than to the ambassador.

The photo was replaced by a map of the Barents and Kara Seas. “In May 2005, we left on a patrol that took us into the Kara Sea.” A dotted red line appeared on the map, showing the sub’s path. “Our orders were to survey several areas off the east coast of Novaya Zemlya for radioactive waste dumped in those waters by the Soviet and Russian governments, and measure the levels of contamination.”

Vaslev bristled a little at the idea of an American submarine so close to the Russian coast. It happened all the time, but nobody in Russia liked Yankee subs spying on them. This “radioactive survey” sounded like a typical cover story. But why go to all this trouble to tell such a fairy tale?

“In the areas we’d been assigned to search, we used remotely operated submersibles to locate and photograph debris, and to measure the levels of radiation.” The map was replaced by underwater photos of junk, most of it barely recognizable as machinery or waste containers. “We will provide you with a copy of the survey’s findings.”

So it wasn’t a cover story; but now irritation at the sub’s presence mixed with concern. Radioactive material had been dumped indiscriminately during the Soviet era, and to a lesser extent, afterward. Bellona and other environmental groups had complained about the issue for years, but had never been able to provide such detailed information.

This could be troublesome, but hardly rose to the level of vital national interest. And “urgent”? This happened years ago …

Hardy was describing the search with the ROVs. “… end of our mission, one of the last sites to survey was in Techeniye Guba.” The map came back on the screen, and Vaslev followed the sub’s track to the marked location. He looked closer, and remarked carefully, “It appears that the site is within twelve miles of our coast.” The edge of Russia’s territorial waters was also marked on the map.

Hardy frowned, but answered, “We did send the ROVs inside the twelve-mile limit, but
Memphis
remained outside. Our only intention was to photograph whatever was there and take radiation samples. You will be interested in what we found,” he added mysteriously.

Several photographs, taken at close range, of the barge were accompanied by an artist’s sketch of the entire object. It was a medium-sized barge, intact, resting on its bottom on the seabed. “We took water and soil samples, of course, and that’s when everything changed.”

Hardy reached into the podium and took out a document, which he offered to Vaslev. “This contains the gamma-ray spectrum analysis we collected near the barge. The many others we’d taken up to that point are listed in the official study I’ve already mentioned. They showed cesium, strontium, cobalt—typical components of spent fuel or radioactive waste. This sample had had a particularly dominant isotope of one element: plutonium 239, in concentrations consistent with a nuclear weapon.”

Hardy paused to let that sink in. “Photographs taken by the remote vehicle showed the inside of the barge filled with cases. They did not look like waste drums. On my own authority, I brought
Memphis
in closer to the site. We sent out divers who entered the barge and opened one of the cases. This is what they found inside.”

Vaslev, still reeling from the idea of American divers operating covertly inside Russian territorial waters, saw a photograph, in poor lighting, of a cone-shaped object. A diver to one side let him judge the size: almost two meters long and slightly less than a meter across at the base. The poor-quality image was replaced by another, presumably of the same object, out of the water in normal lighting. It was dull green or black, and detail photos of the base showed white Cyrillic lettering.

“
Stoy!
” Vaslev shouted, so upset that he had to deliberately recall the English word, and finally repeated, “Stop!” He looked over at his two colleagues. Their expressions were unreadable. They were both looking over to him, perhaps for guidance. He gestured for them to remain silent, and gathered his thoughts.

Vaslev stood, and said, “The enormity of this act is almost overwhelming. The American navy entered Russian waters and stole this object…”

Hardy interrupted, “Actually we took two, this one, and another still in its case. Aren’t you even interested in what they are?”

“They are obviously property of the Russian government,” Vaslev answered immediately. After a moment’s pause, he added, “This confession, years after the fact, does not alter the seriousness of this violation of our territory…”

“We didn’t ask you here to confess anything, Mr. Ambassador.” Secretary Lloyd’s voice overrode Vaslev’s speech. “You haven’t even asked what Soviet state property we stole. We recovered two reentry vehicles for a Russian RT-21 Pioneer missile, each fitted with a 150-kiloton thermonuclear warhead. The RT-21s were medium-range ballistic missiles that were supposed to have all been withdrawn under the INF treaty in 1987. Observers watched the destruction of the missiles and the disassembly of all the warheads, at least all those reported under the treaty. Can you explain where these came from?”

Vaslev, surprised by Lloyd’s speech and then its sternly delivered content, appeared genuinely confused, but said, “I have no information about this barge or alleged warheads. These are serious charges. My country has always lived up to the letter of every international treaty, and…”

Lloyd’s tone sharpened. “Mr. Ambassador, I’m not interested in the party line. We are ready to hold a press conference and wheel both bombs out in front of whoever wants to see them. I’m sure the media would be very interested in this.”

Vaslev held up his hands. “What can I say, Secretary Lloyd? Again, I have no knowledge of this. I’ll of course contact my government as soon as I return to the embassy.”

“You can also tell your government that the exterior of the barge has some marine growth, but hadn’t been in the water more than ten years. Was your government deliberately concealing nuclear warheads, in violation of the INF treaty, since at least the mid-nineties?”

Vaslev sat. After a brief pause the ambassador ventured, “The ocean is not typically used for storing anything. Since you found these objects in the same area as radioactive items that had been discarded, perhaps these were also discarded.” Vaslev was warming up to the idea. “These may be warheads that are flawed, or defective and were dumped by the old government.”

Hardy shook his head. “Our examination of the two devices showed them to be fully functional, ready for installation on the warhead bus of a ballistic missile. And you forget the marine growth…”

Vaslev waved his hand to brush the argument aside. “Seaweed is not proof of anything.”

Hardy nodded to Davis, who pressed a key, and a new image appeared on the screen. “Then how about an acoustic sensor, fixed to the seabed near the barge, and placed at the same time? Somebody was keeping watch on those nuclear weapons.”

The ambassador glanced over to Mishin, who was studying the image carefully. He looked at Vaslev and nodded his head slightly. He recognized it. In Russian, he reported, “It is a standard type of fixed acoustic sensor.”

The implications and consequences of this discovery were beginning to take shape in Vaslev’s mind. But he needed to think …

“Why are you telling us this now, after so many years?” It was an honest question, the first the ambassador had asked. It was intended to buy time, but he was curious.

Hardy replied quickly, “Because there is a high probability that the weapon detonated in Kashmir came from this source.”

Vaslev’s thoughts struggled to follow several tracks at once. Foremost was protecting Russian interests. Second was trying to understand the Americans’ intent. Consideration of the actual facts being presented came third and last. But the American’s statement brought everything to a sudden halt.

Stunned, the ambassador blinked, then blinked again. Almost automatically, with reflexes trained by years of diplomatic service, he asked, “What proof do you have of this?”

Hardy handed the Russians two documents. “The first one is an analysis of the fallout and soil samples from the Kashmir explosion. It’s more detailed than the one released to the public last week. The second is our analysis of the reentry vehicles’ fissile material. The isotope ratios of the plutonium in all three cases are identical. The measured size of the explosion also matched the warheads’ rated yield—one hundred and fifty kilotons.”

Vaslev studied the tables on the marked pages. His spoken English was good, but he sometimes had trouble with the Roman alphabet. Now the words might as well have been printed in Martian. But numbers were the same in both languages, and so were the chemical symbols for uranium and plutonium.

Lloyd, still standing nearby, waited until Vaslev had looked at both analyses and handed them to Mishin, then sat down next to the ambassador. “Mr. Ambassador, as the representative of the United States, I am speaking to the representative of the Russian Federation. There is or was a large cache of nuclear warheads in your northern waters. Whether they were put there at the orders of your highest leaders, or by some faction within your government, one of those weapons has now exploded, causing exactly the type of destruction its designers intended.

“The United States is deeply concerned that the Russian government has lost control of these weapons, indeed if they ever had control. They present a grave danger, not just to Russia, but the entire world. We will give you every scrap of information we have about them, but the trail leads back inside Russia, and your country must take the lead in tracking them down.”