Chapter 35
Langley
The CIA operations center went silent. There was no typing. Hushed conversations between workstations stopped. Every phone call paused. It was as if the world had frozen when the new image appeared on the main screen.
It was sourced from the NRO, which was finding its stride.
Satellite passes were increasing in frequency, and a growing stream of overheads had been flooding in.
Yet one crystal-sharp image of a surfaced submarine, captured moments earlier from a hundred miles above the North Pole, had caught everyone off guard.
“What the hell is that?” the deputy director of operations inquired, ending the stunned silence.
When no answer came, he surveyed the room.
His eyes settled on an analyst at the ISR desk.
Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
The man was junior, but he wasn’t young.
Deep into his forties, he was a double dipper who’d served twenty years in the Navy before transferring to the CIA.
It was a common track that put experienced people to good use.
Unfortunately, at that moment, even the ex–Navy man looked baffled.
Realizing all attention was on him, he began by stating the obvious.
“It’s definitely not the Cheyenne. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not one of ours.
The aft sweep, the configuration of the planes, masts, and sail.
All very subtle, but it wasn’t built by General Dynamics or Huntington Ingalls.
” He was referring to the only two manufacturers of U.S. submarines.
“Chinese?” Flynn ventured.
“Possibly, but… hang on. Let me run it through the analytics.”
The wait seemed interminable but was actually only thirty seconds.
“The image IDs with a very high confidence,” the ISR man announced. “We’re looking at the Aurora, a prototype of Russia’s new Laika-class hunter-killer.”
“A Russian prototype?” Flynn echoed, trying to wrap his head around it.
“It’s a boat they’ve been working on for years.
The Aurora is the first of this new class and has been undergoing sea trials.
” The man referenced another screen. “Last time we had a bead on her was five weeks ago. She was leaving Rybachiy for the WESTPAC,” or Western Pacific Region.
Rybachiy, on the Kamchatka Peninsula, was Russia’s main submarine base in the east.
“She damned sure isn’t in the Pacific anymore. Why would a boat that’s not even operational be skulking around in the Arctic?”
“It’s not uncommon for them to field new weapons before they’re fully tested. It might have tracked the Chinese icebreaker there.”
The DDO felt a need to press ahead. Now wasn’t the time for analysis paralysis. “Well, the damned thing is at the crash site and it’s a threat to our mission. How long until the Cheyenne arrives on station?”
The duty officer said, “We show her ETA five hours and six minutes.”
“Can she pick up the pace?”
“I’d have to ask the Navy about that.”
“Do it, and if they give you any pushback, tell them the White House is watching this situation closely.”
The comm officer initiated a call to Pacific Fleet Headquarters.
“Let’s draft a message to Orion. We need to warn her about this Russian sub… if she hasn’t already seen it for herself.” He turned to the ISR man who had quickly become his source for all things Navy. “Give me your best guess. Why are the Russians sticking their nose in here?”
The analyst considered it. “I don’t see any way they could know about Sky Fire.
Most likely, they sent this new boat up to the Arctic as an extension of her sea trials.
You know, to see how she performs in harsh, real-world conditions.
But how she came across our crash site? I’d only be speculating. ”
“So speculate.”
The ISR man thought about it. “From an acoustic point of view, the Arctic is pretty quiet. There’s a lot of background clutter from grinding ice, but very few man-made noises. Maybe they heard Snow Dragon 2 battering along and decided to follow her.”
“That still doesn’t explain why they surfaced.”
The duty officer chimed in. “Could they be working jointly with the Chinese?”
“That doesn’t compute,” Flynn said. “The Chinese have a vessel of their own fifteen miles away. If they’d known about the wreckage on top, they would have been there hours ago.”
The subsequent silence forced Flynn’s hand.
“Okay. For now, let’s put aside why the Russians showed up.
We have to assume they’ll spot the wreckage.
When they do, they’re obliged by international law to give aid to the survivors.
Since there are no critical injuries to deal with, time is on our side.
We need to slow-roll their response, and Orion might be able to help.
If she can buy a few hours, the Cheyenne can take over when she arrives on scene. ”
The ISR man said, “Actually, from a legal standpoint the Russians would have on-scene command of the rescue since they were the first vessel to arrive.”
Flynn bristled, a nerve having been hit. He arced an index finger across the perimeter wall and said, “Do you see any law books in this room?”
The chastised analyst said nothing.
“The moment the Cheyenne arrives, we are taking charge, and no lawyer in the country is going to tell me otherwise.” He walked to the comm station and said to a young woman, “Compose a message to Orion. Tell her to buy time. And make sure she secures Sky Fire. The last thing we need is for the Russians to get their hands on it.”
The comm tech began typing, the DDO hovering at her shoulder. After a few minor edits, she hit the send button. Within seconds, a reply flashed to the screen. MESSAGE FAIL/RECEIVER FAIL.
“What does that mean?” Flynn asked.
“Our connection with Sky Fire has been lost,” the comm tech said.
“Lost? Is it a satellite problem again?”
“No, we have signal integrity, but the device isn’t responding. Orion must have shut it down.”
Flynn felt anger rising, but he knew it was more his fault than Orion’s.
He hadn’t included comm protocols in their initial message.
He should have told her to keep the system up and running.
Chances were, she was trying to keep electronic silence to avoid giving away her position.
Or possibly conserving battery power. Either way, there was little he could do about it until she turned Sky Fire back on.
In their favor, there was no one Flynn would have trusted more in this situation.
He’d seen Kasey Sheridan fight her way out of countless tight corners.
She was a rising star at the agency, and he had handpicked her for this mission.
That said, the pressure she was under had to be extreme.
The importance of Sky Fire, having survived an airplane crash, the extreme cold.
Not to mention the loss of her partner, Walter Ho.
One more star in the Memorial Wall, he thought despondently.
Flynn looked at the big map, where a handful of varied symbols were converging in an icy wilderness. A desolate point on the globe that had, until today, never meant anything to anyone. And one that now held the key to the next generation of warfare.