Red Chaos, page 16
Bradley Snavely wasn’t Battaglio’s man. None of the Cabinet members were. Elizabeth Matthews decided to appeal to his patriotism.
“I need you to consider the country, Mr. Secretary.”
He said nothing.
“Above all else, Brad.”
He said nothing.
“Watch the elections in Ukraine and Latvia. Then ask yourself what Battaglio will do?”
Bradley Snavely looked around her office: At the photographs with world leaders. At the framed photograph of her father, a former state attorney general and ambassador to Germany. At the State Department seal behind her. He should have noticed her pin handcrafted by a Santa Fe artist—a wide-eyed owl perched on a branch. As always, she wore her brooches with real forethought.
“Thank you, Elizabeth. You’ve given me a great deal to think about.”
In her mind, she didn’t give him enough.
Snavely left without committing to a position. This was how her conversations went with three other Cabinet members. She had eleven to go—fifteen members in all, including herself. She had to be very careful. Any one of them could turn against her. After her talks with the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Commerce, and Agriculture she thought she still had time to pull a majority of members together. It would take eight: eight of the fifteen could invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Ryan Battaglio from the presidency. Without a vice president, that would send Speaker of the House Sean Allphin to the Oval Office. A good man: perhaps not the best, but far better than Battaglio.
Elizabeth Matthews leaned back in her chair and strategized who she’d contact next. Yes, she thought, she still had time. Then her phone rang. It was Pierce Kimball.
“Elizabeth, I’m out. I’m calling to wish you good luck. You’ll need it.”
28
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Protocol typically required the Russian ambassador to meet in the White House. But Elizabeth Matthews had a different strategy. She would go to Dimitri Lukin’s office at 2650 Wisconsin Avenue, NW. There, her meeting would be recorded. She knew it, and Lukin would be a fool not to know she knew and fully intended for her words to get directly to Moscow. Nicolai Gorshkov’s English was good enough that he wouldn’t need the transcript. She figured he’d be listening before she even got back to the White House.
“Madame Secretary, so nice of you to come here for a change,” Lukin said, greeting her in his office.
Lukin was standing when she entered his office, which was appointed with the Russian Federation flag, a national map, and framed photographs of Gorshkov, Russian missiles, tanks, and planes. The differences from the Soviet Era when the embassy opened in 1984 were minor. They amounted to the color of the flag, the persona of the dictator, the updated military hardware, and the size of the map. Today the map of Russian territory was much smaller. Gorshkov was working on changing that.
The ambassador was six-five, bald, but with bushy eyebrows. He was military fit and university savvy. Tough and smart. He wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. A scar ran off the corner of his left eye, an inch toward his ear. Plastic surgery could have made it virtually invisible, but Lukin wore it like a badge of honor. She assumed there was a story behind it—a story that probably went back to his army career.
“Mr. Ambassador, thank you for seeing me on short notice.”
He led her to a seat at a small round table set in the corner, likely well-wired for audio and video. In the center, a dark blue vase held low cut flowers.
“Coffee or water?”
“No thank you, Dimitri,” she said switching to his first name. “I’d like to get right to it.”
“Please do. To what do I owe this honor?”
She had decided to lead with the breaking news.
“As I’m sure you are, we’re troubled by the incidents in the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal. Global markets reacted swiftly. The president needs assurance that the Russian Federation has had no hand in these actions.”
Lukin gritted his teeth. It pulled his scar tighter. “Excuse me, Madame Secretary, but if you’re suggesting we are responsible, you are completely wrong. The two incidents, as you call them, are completely separate. The second falls on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first is still under review.
“We view—”
“I’m not finished,” Lukin demanded. The ambassador had deftly avoided answering Matthews’s question and turned the conversation on a dime—the equivalent of about ten rubles. “You failed to mention the murder of a highly regarded Russian oil executive in London in one of your American-owned hotels. This has us deeply troubled. And since there are questions you pose of us, I seek assurance that you will apprize us of everything that comes from the investigation of that terrible murder.”
“You have that assurance.”
“Good, because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“And vice versa, Mr. Ambassador. However, back to my question. The United States would be greatly disturbed to discover any Russian fingerprints on the actions in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“An insult.”
“The container ship was sunk in international waters, Mr. Ambassador.”
Lukin leaned in across the table. “Heading out of its established lane toward land. A threatening move to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Enough for the recording on that point, Matthews determined. Now her second volley.
“I’d like to address the Northern Sea Route and the toll you’ve attempted to collect for transit.”
“Madame Secretary—” he was back to formalities. “The waters are ours.”
“Mr. Ambassador. Same point, different waters. Some of the NSR is within your navigational boundaries. Not all. Furthermore, Russia has no right to require transit fees or escorts in waters that are clearly international.”
“Russian icebreakers—”
Matthews powered on. “The Northern Sea Route is becoming more navigable because of the rising temperatures in the Arctic. Your icebreakers contribute to safer passage. So do ships under American registry as well as ships from Canada, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Latvia. I can go on. The point is, the route is not yours, Mr. Ambassador.”
“It is the shortest, safest way between Russia’s east and west. That gives the NSR high strategic value to be protected and monitored. Moreover, it is incumbent that we safeguard our oil reserves in the seas from attack. My country views that as a priority, made all the more clear today given how transit is curtailed in the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. Your introductory point today, Madame Secretary.
“We are not looking to prevent transit,” Lukin continued, “but our national interests depend upon guaranteeing the security of the region. The NSR cuts shipping time in half from the Suez. Now that the canal is shut down for an indeterminate time, the Arctic route is essential to the Russian Federation’s economic survival.”
“Does that include flyovers that taunt NATO flights? Russian subs pinging ours. It’s a deadly game of catch and release. One of these days, somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“Elizabeth,” he said in a cheery voice, much more informally, “you sound like a cold warrior. The days are warmer.”
“As noted, so are the waters, which makes our conversation very timely, Dimitri.”
“Is there a message you want to formally communicate to President Gorshkov?”
She had been doing that since she stepped into his bugged room.
“Yes. Your elections come and go and yet your presidents tend to stay for life. The same can be said for China. In the U.S., the White House is like a dormitory with temporary occupants. But don’t take that as weakness. We are who we are because of the people who stick around. We have memories that go way back. Don’t base your judgments on one particular man sitting at one particularly historic desk.”
Elizabeth Matthews made sure she delivered her last line into the vase in the middle of the table.
29
MOSCOW
THE KREMLIN
The Russian president was a better talker than a listener. But today he had settled into his deep leather chair, puffing a Havana cigar, smiling broadly, and happy with what he was hearing.
“The Suez will be out of commission for six months,” reported the oligarch Markov Kudorff. “And God and the Ayatollah’s mines, strictly by coincidence and the Japanese tanker captain’s stupidity, worked in our favor. And now, oil futures are shaking up the world’s stock exchanges even faster than I expected.”
“And we’re not finished,” Gorshkov boasted. “I’m going to revise my schedule on taking Muldova. And get me a report on how our efforts inside Finland and Sweden are going. We have a window before they fall to NATO. They are key to our further control of the Northern Sea Route.” He focused on his new chief spy, FSB head General Valery Rotenberg. “But first, the Latvia vote.”
“The numbers will be in our favor.”
“Are you certain?”
“With a quarter of a million Russian nationals now voting thanks to the way you maneuvered Battaglio in Stockholm, we will win. Ballots over bullets, Mr. President, with bots thrown in for good measure.” Rotenberg punctuated his assessment adding, “Your masterful negotiating victory.”
Across the conference table, General Ivan Zalinski, Commander of the Southern Military District, stiffened. “Mr. President, would you welcome a word of caution despite the optimistic picture Colonel Rotenberg paints?”
“Certainly. Speak freely.”
Rotenberg nearly choked on the president’s words.
“Thank you. The goal is to secure our borders in a manner we have not seen since the end of the Soviet era.”
Gorshkov nodded.
“Doing so gives us economic stability and renewed influence in global affairs unlike anything we have ever seen.”
Another nod.
“However, in my estimation, we must plan better this time. Upgrade our armored units, bolster our gasoline and food supply lines, and prepare our troops better. We must—”
Zalinski stopped suddenly, regretting his last point. “Excuse me, Mr. President. That was out of order. No disrespect intended.”
“None taken,” Gorshkov lied, smiling at his general while deciding Zalinski would be a short-lived commander. He turned to General Arkady Bolonguv. “Arkady, your assessments of our troops and equipment?”
“In my estimation, Mr. President,” the general said, taking more care than his fellow general, “we are ready and awaiting your orders. In so far as Latvia is concerned, the 7th Guards Airborne Division is set to deploy. Meanwhile, the plainclothes ‘influencers’ are in place. I should add they have been most effective.”
Gorshkov smiled. The so-called influencers were trained troops in civilian clothes: young singles and couples posing as married, making friends in bars, taking up jobs in the cities and throughout the country. Slipping into all aspects of government and civilian life. Changing the political structure from within, and gaining access to all levels of corporate offices, educational institutions, and Saeima, the country’s legislative body. It was a page of out Gorshkov’s old Cold War playbook with a few updates.
After some additional details, Gorshkov excused everyone except Colonel Rotenberg. He waited for the room to empty, poured a vodka for his FSB chief, and pointedly asked, “Has the cat found a mouse yet?”
“From our intelligence, he really wants to blame Iran, but his advisors have told him not to.”
“Then maybe we should give Mr. Battaglio more reason.”
30
OFF THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND
“XO, sonar track now two-four, bearing zero-four-zero. Range twenty-seven hundred.”
Executive Officer Ricky Moore repeated the tracking and shot his Commanding Officer, Commander Andrew Policano, a raised eyebrow.
Sonar control onboard the USS Hartford had been tracking the Russian sub in the North Atlantic for the past five days. The sonar crew of fourteen traded off every eight hours with half always on watch, rotating shifts between port and starboard stations. The target had steadily moved south after emerging from the Arctic Sea. The Hartford stayed with it except for nineteen harrowing hours when the Admiral Kashira disappeared within the New England Seamounts.
One hundred million years ago, these now submerged mountains were above sea level. But as the North American continent drifted west, the volcanic range cooled and sank. The peaks are now more than a half-mile below the surface, and for a submariner they offer endless possibilities.
“Target speed, two-three knots,” reported the chief sonar operator on duty, Lieutenant Marcus James.
Speed was an important way of tracking. The Admiral Kashira—the most capable attack submarine in the Russian fleet—was quiet in relative terms at 35 knots. Below 20, it was virtually silent. Two-three knots was the closest it had come to going invisible.
“What’s he up to, Mr. James?” the Hartford CO asked James.
“Back to hugging the ridges closely, sir. We could lose him again with one fast jink.”
“Just stay on him.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The sonar signal was reacquired, and with it came a new firing solution in the fire control tracking party computers. Even in peacetime, this was an exhausting and intense game of undersea hide-and-seek, and peacetime could change in a second with the distinctive sound of torpedo tubes flooding or missiles tubes opening.
Thirty-seven minutes later, the sonar watch reported the Russian nosed down. “Five degrees down angle. Speed, two-zero knots. He’s trying to shake us again.”
The ocean is full of noise. Everything provides a distraction in the shallows: wind and rain above, below the surface biological activity, including whales, and rising and falling geography. Deep oceans have channels that trap noise, allowing it to travel for hundreds of miles. In Arctic waters, ice caps and snow melts create vertical sound reflectors, physical sonic mirrors that throw hunters off. But for a submariner who knows he’s being hunted, the best place to hide is silently on the bottom or behind a mountain.
Sound is actually energy that moves through mediums—air and water. It travels from a source in waves that radiate out in all directions. The waves have both a wavelength, a frequency, and an amplitude, or energy level. Sonar detects these waves. Sonar operators read them.
The principal source of a submarine’s noise comes from its propulsion system. But sound can also radiate through the water from a toilet seat being slammed, a hammer hit against the hull, or other unintentional sounds. Captain Andrew Policano of the USS Hartford knew that the Admiral Kashira was designed with a low acoustic profile. As a nuclear sub, it was cooled without pumps, a major source of noise in a diesel ship. Also, its outer layer was composed of tiles that reduced interior transmission of sound and incoming echoes from active pinging sonar. The Hartford was using passive sonar, which emits no signal and keeps the hunter silently in pursuit.
Ninety-minutes later, things suddenly changed again.
“Sonar reports signal lost.”
“Roger. Signal lost.”
“Find him, Mr. James.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
But he didn’t.
Another Russian Yasen-class guided missile submarine, the Severodinsk, had given the U.S. Navy command ulcers a few years earlier when it evaded detection for weeks. Policano’s concern was heightened, considering how Russia was turning the Northern Sea Route into its private ocean freeway, and heightened further with the still-unexplained sinking of the Japanese container ship in the Strait of Hormuz. That concern was also felt when Policano raised the antenna and updated 2nd Fleet Command that his prey had disappeared. Minutes later, word reached COMUSFLTFORCOM, the U.S Fleet Forces Command in the Pentagon. From the Pentagon, alarms rang in the White House.
Newly appointed National Security Advisor Roger Whitfield failed to understand the complexity, based on his predisposition toward what he considered the Pentagon’s historic alarmist reactions. Consequently, he sat on the warning.
But there were other ways information bubbled up. COMUSFLTFORCOM also reported to the CIA.
“Will you take a call from Director Watts?” Elizabeth Matthews’s secretary asked.
It was her first call of the day, 6:05 a.m.
“Good morning, Reese, what’s up?”
“Head start before the today’s PDB.”
“Topic?”
“A Russian killer sub is missing again off New England. 13,800 tons and 390 feet of nothing. It’s the Admiral Kashira. All things considered, it’s probably just a game.”
“Any chance it’s a rogue captain?”
““Doubtful,” the CIA Director posited. “Captain Boris Sidorov is one of Russia’s most experienced commanders.”
“What happened and why tell me? I have trouble finding the soap in the bathtub,” Matthews joked.
“Given everything else going on, it seemed like there may be a negotiated side to this. Now or later.”
“Did we vary from normal procedure?” she asked.
“Not at all. The Russians took a fast dive, made some wild Crazy Ivans, jinked behind a ridge. Poof.”
Crazy Ivan was a term born after an incident between a Soviet nuclear submarine and the USS Tautog in 1970 in the Sea Of Okhotsk near Russia’s Kamchatka base. The American sub was following the Russian when suddenly it executed frequent sharp undersea course reversals, including 90 and 180 degree turns. The Tautog crew gave the maneuver a name. It stuck.
“Who was on him?”
“Andrew Policano. Seasoned commander of Hartford. An old Annapolis buddy of mine. He’s used to the drill and the chase. It goes on all the time. Except—”
“Yeh right. Except. How does the Pentagon rate the threat?”
“Under present circumstances, highly suspect.”
“Prickling hairs on your neck suspect?” she asked.
“Every hair and every East Coast harbor suspect.”
