Red Hammer 1994

The president strode toward the gray metal platform protruding from the boxcar’s recessed wooden door. To reach the car, each man in turn navigated three steep steps. Laptev paused on the last and, gripping the stainless-steel handhold, twisted his body toward his beloved Moscow. Invisible were the city’s festive summer lights, but he felt her soothing presence, as so many had down through the centuries. He was merely an instrument to be used as she saw fit. He would most certainly take his rightful place among the heroes who had sacrificed and struggled to thrust Russia on her inexorable journey to greatness. He wanted nothing for himself.

Most confidants assumed this was another in a long series of drills—Laptev knew better. He had been juggling his nuclear forces for the last few months to the point of putting the Americans to sleep. Only a handful of trusted top aides knew the truth. What if they failed him at the last crucial moment? He had planned for that, too. The last Russian president, Nikolai Laptev, lowered his head and ducked inside the door.

Within minutes, the two diesel locomotives roared to life, belching black smoke skyward. The last of the cables was disconnected as the train pulled slowly from the station. The intermediate destination was Gor’kiy, to the southwest. From there the specially configured command train would travel over the stretch of track between Gor’kiy and Kirov, slipping into a heavily forested area thirty kilometers before the city proper to rendezvous with crack Spetsnaz and Air Defense troops.

The Russian president’s command train was equipped with the latest in satellite- and terrestrial-communications equipment to maintain tight control of all Russian nuclear forces, even under the worst of conditions. To the north and west, identical trains departed for other dispersal sites, providing well-planned redundancy for Russian command and control. It was ten minutes after three in the afternoon in Washington D C, where the city was melting under the afternoon heat, awaiting the holiday weekend.

CHAPTER 15

“Left standard rudder, ahead one-third, steady on course 195,” crisply ordered Sanchez. The young sailors at the controls answered smartly in turn. The tension and silence in Control recalled memories of the last few months. Sanchez stared at the digital depth readout, mentally juggling the myriad of interconnected and mutually dependent parameters that would determine his boat’s performance and, ultimately, fate.

San Francisco had slipped between the two intruders, falling in behind the larger Delta at less than eight thousand yards, tucked securely in her baffles. The dangerous Victor trailed San Francisco by another ten thousand, at that distance deaf, her old technology sonar unable to weed out the faint, telltale signature of the quiet LA-class boat from the low-frequency reverberations of the Delta’s huge propellers. Sanchez hated being sandwiched, but his options were few, and his margin for error was nonexistent. He’d sweat it out just long enough to record signature tapes on the Delta, then slip away, dive deep, and come up six to ten miles behind the Victor, clearly in the tactical driver’s seat. Then they could all breathe easily.

Sanchez closed in on the Delta, shooting for no more than four thousand yards astern. A couple of nautical miles sounded huge, but in the pitch black, undersea cat-and-mouse game he was playing, that tiny gap could evaporate in the wink of an eye. Passively generated ranges were estimates, not absolutes. Surprise could come at any moment given the relative motion.

San Francisco settled on a true heading of 195 degrees, properly trimmed, inching forward on the unsuspecting Delta. It was a game that they had played many times in the past. Sanchez took a stroll around Control to unwind, shaking the tenseness out of his arms. He wanted to measure his crew. They were taking it all in stride. True professionals in every sense of the word, he thought, I couldn’t ask for better.

“We made it, Skipper; we’re there. It should take another half an hour to close to four thousand,” said a lieutenant at the plotting table. The strain partially lifted from Sanchez as he stopped dead in his tracks. He felt a flush of relief, a respite. His boat had regained her natural rhythm. They were in charge, the one forcing events.

“Good,” he said, his hands resting comfortably on his hips. “Take it slow and easy.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Take the conn, XO.” His number two nodded and barked the announcement to the crew. Sanchez wanted to bone up on his peacetime rules of engagement. He wasn’t flirting in Russian waters this day.

At his stateroom door, a panicky sailor ran up behind, out of breath. “Captain, the XO wants you back in Control, sir!”