The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy [42]
SIGNAL COVERAGE AS FOLLOWS: NORTHERN FLEET AREA BALTIC FLEET AREA AND MED SQUADRON AREA XX NOTE FAR EAST FLEET NOT REPEAT NOT AFFECTED BY THIS BROADCAST XX
NUMEROUS ACKNOWLEDGMENT SIGNALS EMANATED FROM ADDRESSES IN AREAS CITED ABOVE XX ORIGIN AND TRAFFIC ANALYSIS TO FOLLOW XX NOT COMPLETED AT THIS TIME XX BEGINNING AT 100000Z NSA MONITOR STATIONS [DELETED] [DELETED] AND [DELETED] RECORDED INCREASED HF AND VHF TRAFFIC AT REDFLEET BASES POLYARNYY SEVEROMORSK PECHENGA TALLINN KRONSTADT AND EASTERN MED AREA XX ADDITIONAL HF AND VHF TRAFFIC FROM REDFLEET ASSETS AT SEA XX AMPLIFICATION TO FOLLOW XX
EVALUATION: A MAJOR UNPLANNED REDFLEET OPERATION HAS BEEN ORDERED WITH FLEET ASSETS REPORTING AVAILABILITY AND STATUS XX
END BULLETIN
NSA SENDS
102215Z
BREAKBREAK
Ryan looked at his watch. "Fast work by the boys at NSA, and fast work by our duty watch officers, getting everybody up." He drained his mug and went over for a refill. "What's the word on signal traffic analysis?"
"Here." Greer handed him a second telex sheet.
Ryan scanned it. "That's a lot of ships. Must be nearly everything they have at sea. Not much on the ones in port, though."
"Landline," Greer observed. "The ones in port can phone fleet ops, Moscow. By the way, that is every ship they have at sea in the Western Hemisphere. Every damned one. Any ideas?"
"Let's see, we have that increased activity in the Barents Sea. Looks like a medium-sized ASW exercise. Maybe they're expanding it. Doesn't explain the increased activity in the Baltic and Med, though. Do they have a war game laid on?"
"Nope. They just finished CRIMSON STORM a month ago."
Ryan nodded. "Yeah, they usually take a couple of months to evaluate that much data—and who'd want to play games up there at this time of the year? The weather's supposed to be a bitch. Have they ever run a major game in December?"
"Not a big one, but most of these acknowledgments are from submarines, son, and subs don't care a whole lot about the weather."
"Well, given some other preconditions, you might call this ominous. No idea what the signal said, eh?"
"No. They're using computer-based ciphers, same as us. If the spooks at the NSA can read them, they're not telling me about it." In theory the National Security Agency came under the titular control of the director of Central Intelligence. In fact it was a law unto itself. "That's what traffic analysis is all about, Jack. You try to guess intentions by who's talking to whom."
"Yes, sir, but when everybody's talking to everybody—"
"Yeah."
"Anything else on alert? Their army? Voyska PVO?" Ryan referred to the Soviet air defense network.
"Nope, just the fleet. Subs, ships, and naval aviation."
Ryan stretched. "That makes it sound like an exercise, sir. We'll want a little more data on what they're doing, though. Have you talked to Admiral Davenport?"
"That's the next step. Haven't had time. I've only been in long enough to shave myself and turn the coffee on." Greer sat down and set his phone receiver in the desk speaker before punching in the numbers.
"Vice Admiral Davenport." The voice was curt.
"Morning, Charlie, James here. Did you get that NSA-976?"
"Sure did, but that's not what got me up. Our SOSUS net went berserk a few hours ago."
"Oh?" Greer looked at the phone, then at Ryan.
"Yeah, nearly every sub they have at sea just put the pedal to the metal, and all at about the same time."
"Doing what exactly, Charlie?" Greer prompted.
"We're still figuring that out. It looks like a lot of boats are heading into the North Atlantic. Their units in the Norwegian Sea are racing southwest. Three from the western Med are heading that way, too, but we haven't got a clear picture yet. We need a few more hours."
"What do they have operating off our coast, sir?" Ryan asked.
"They woke you up, Ryan? Good. Two old Novembers. One's a raven conversion doing an ELINT