EndWar

“High Level Bridge,” said the XO with recognition. “I’ve actually driven over that.”

“Yes, and it seems a large Russian ground force is looking for the same experience.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. And you know what they want us to do.”

“They can’t be serious. What about collateral damage, aren’t they worried about—”

“The Euros asked for a kinetic strike.”

“That would take out the surrounding buildings — including the legislature. Couldn’t engineers rig the bridge?”

“I’m told that was the first plan, but they realized they can’t get it done in time.”

“I see.”

“So we’re going to deny the enemy that avenue of approach, but we’ll need to do it like surgeons. If we’re successful, Enforcers Corps troops on the ground will continue the delaying operation. I get the impression from the admiral that something even bigger is going on down there and that it’s imperative we do our part.”

“Well, he can count on us, sir.”

“My words exactly. So we’re under way for the Gulf. And XO, the second we’re in our firing position, I aim to let our Tomahawks fly and destroy that target.”

The XO nodded. “The crew will happily oblige, sir.”

In 1703, Peter the Great laid the cornerstone of the fortress he named St. Petersburg, in honor of the guardian of the gate of heaven. He later built a shipyard across the Neva River from the fortress.

In 2015, Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov, a Project 955 Borei-class submarine was launched to honor the great tsar.

Five years later, Captain Second Rank Mikhail A. Kolosov was given command of that sub. Kolosov was thirty-nine, never married, and known by his colleagues as a pensive loner. He was a graduate of the Tikhookeansky Naval Acadamy and the Paldiski nuclear submarine training center.

His first assignment was as communications officer on a diesel-electric Foxtrot class. Next he was an engineering officer aboard the last remaining Alpha nuclear attack sub. He later served four years as XO onboard a Typhoon-class SSBN until it was sold to the Chinese.

Despite eighteen years in submarines, Kolosov was still the youngest officer to be given command of the Romanov, and he was now on the mission of a lifetime.

Just two days previously, the Romanov had slipped her moorings at Severodvinsk’s Sevmash shipyard, transited the Neva River, and disappeared under the polar ice. Kolosov knew that JSF spy satellites had photographed Romanov’s empty berth and that her movement had triggered a worldwide alert.

Now they were about to pass through the Dolphin and Union Strait, bound for the Coronation Gulf, utilizing their shaftless propulsors called RDT — rim-driven thrusters. The super quiet, all-electric Romanov did not require noisy main reduction gears to convert high-speed main turbine rotation into low-speed propeller shaft rotation, and Kolosov was certain that he and his crew of 110 would pass unnoticed into the Gulf, carrying their full complement of twelve R-30 Bulava (SS-NX-30) ballistic missiles.

Kolosov reached into his breast pocket and removed the picture of Dimitri. He stared at it a moment, then rubbed the back for good luck, a ritual he had performed countless times. His older brother, twelve years his senior, had died back in the mid-nineties.

Dimitri had been working on the clean-up of the 70 MWe and 90 MWe pressurized-water training reactors in Paldiski, Estonia, and had suffered radiation poisoning while constructing the two-story concrete sarcophagus that now encased the two reactors. Officials and administrators had been grossly negligent, and Kolosov had lost his brother because of them. Dimitri’s death was a devastating blow to the family, one from which his parents had never recovered. They had gone to their own graves grieving his loss.

Kolosov returned the photo to his pocket and regarded his executive officer.

“It won’t be long now, sir,” said the younger man. “Today will be a great day for the Motherland.”

Kolosov averted his gaze. “Yes, comrade.”

Sergeant Marc Rakken and his team moved up the Calgary Tower stairwell, climbing farther into the uncertain darkness. The Spetsnaz troops had gassed the entire stairwell but to no avail. Rakken and his squad were masked up and determined. Another squad was coming up behind his, with two more in the other stairwell.

The staircase seemed to go on forever, the teams’ lights shining up until they seemed to run out, beams clogged with the still-lingering gas.

Every man on Rakken’s squad was now equipped with a concave-shaped Ferrofluid shield behind which they could duck in the event of a grenade being tossed into the stairwell. The shields also protected them from incoming rifle and rocket fire, though a significant explosion’s concussion would send them tumbling back down the stairs. If the blast didn’t kill them, the fall might.