The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [392]
Sergey Nikolayevich Golovko had been awakened from a sound sleep and driven to his office to add his name to the people all over the world shocked into frightened sobriety. A First Chief Directorate man all of his life, his job was to examine the collective American mind and advise his President on what was going on. The decrypts flooding onto his desk were the most useful tool.
He had no less than thirty such messages which bore one of two messages. All strategic forces were being ordered to Defense Condition Two, and all conventional forces were coming to Defense Condition Three. The American President was panicking, KGB's First Deputy Chairman thought. There was no other explanation. Was it possible that he thought the Soviet Union had committed this infamy? That was the most frightening thought of his life.
"Another one, naval one." The messenger dropped it on his desk.
Golovko needed only one look. "Flash this to the navy immediately." He had to call his President with the rest. Golovko lifted the phone.
For once the Soviet bureaucracy worked quietly. Minutes later, an extremely low-frequency signal went out, and the submarine Admiral Lunin went to the surface to copy the full message. Captain Dubinin read it as the printer generated it.
AMERICAN SUBMARINE USS MAINE REPORTS LOCATION AS SOD-55M-O9SN I53D-OIM-23SW. PROPELLER DISABLED BY COLLISION OF UNKNOWN CAUSE.
Dubinin left the communications room and made for the chart table. "Where were we when we copied that transient?"
"Here, Captain, and the bearing was here." The navigator traced the line with his pencil.
Dubinin just shook his head. He handed the message over. "Look at this."
"What do you suppose he's doing?"
"He'll be close to the surface. So we'll go up, just under the layer, and we'll move quickly. Surface noise will play hell with his sonar. Fifteen knots."
"You suppose he was following us?"
"Took you long enough to realize that, didn't it?" Dubinin measured the distance to the target. "Very proud, this one. We'll see about that. You know how the Americans boast of taking hull photographs? Now, my young lieutenant, now it will be our turn!"
"What does this mean?" Narmonov asked the First Deputy Chairman.
"The Americans have been attacked by forces unknown, and the attack was serious, causing major loss of life. It is to be expected that they will increase their military readiness. A major consideration will be the maintenance of public order," Golovko replied over the secure phone line.
"And?"
"And, unfortunately, all their strategic weapons happen to be aimed at the Rodina."
"But we had no part in this!" the Soviet president objected.
"Correct. You see, such responses are automatic. They are planned in advance and become almost reflexive moves. Once attacked, you become highly cautious. Counter-moves are planned in advance, so that you may act rapidly while applying your intellectual capacities to an analysis of the problem without additional and unnecessary distractions."
The Soviet President turned to his Defense Minister. "So, what should we do?"
"I advise an increase in our alert status. Defensive-only, of course. Whoever conducted this attack might, after all, attempt to strike us also."
"Approved," Narmonov said bluntly. "Highest peacetime alert."
Golovko frowned at his telephone receiver. His choice of words had been exquisitely correct: reflexive. "May I make a suggestion?"
"Yes," the Defense Minister said.
"If it is possible, perhaps it would be well to tell our forces the reason for the alert. It might lessen the shock of the order."
"It's a needless complication," Defense thought.
"The Americans have not done this," Golovko said urgently, "and that was almost certainly a mistake. Please consider the state of mind of people suddenly taken from ordinary peacetime operations to an elevated state of alert. It will only require a few additional