"Get those lights out," Ross repeated, "if they see us watching, we may be as good as dead. And the basement lights too!" he shouted towards the kitchen.

      After a little more fiddling the sub's identification markings became visible.

      "That's an old Yankee-1 class sub. They are used as nuclear-powered supply ships and attack submarines," said Ross after a few moments, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

      He said that the Northern Fleet has sixty percent of the Soviets' nuclear missile subs. He also told us that most of them are permanently stationed off the US coast for pin-down missions against ICBM fields. The goal is to prevent our missiles from being launched while their big SS-26s are coming in from Siberia to destroy our missiles in their silos. "Whoever strikes first, has nine-tenths of the battle won."

      Ross added that the subs' missiles might also be targeted against our coastal cities to destroy the nation's harbor facilities. He suggested that such an attack might take somewhat less then three minutes, from start to finish. "Some of the subs' missiles might even be targeted against our strategic bomber fields," he said, "which can be reached in less than eight minutes.

      "It's impossible to get any aircraft off the ground in that short of a time-frame," said Tony.

      "That's the point!" said Ross. "That's the advantage of launching from submarines, apart from their deadly load being indefensible."

      Ross told us that the two subs that we saw were an older model of the Yankee-1 class. They had been taken out of service as primary missile carriers, but had still plenty of life left in them to serve as cargo ships or as backup attack submarines, and of course also as backup missile carriers. He said that the subs supplied the spy ships up and down the coast. He just couldn't figure out why they had come so close to the shore. He said that they had never done this in the past.

      He turned to me with a questioning lock. "I wish I could figure this out. They normally do this far out at sea. Why not now. This doesn't add up, Peter. It doesn't look good."

      "Perhaps the sea is too rough farther out," suggested Tony.

      Ross agreed that this might be the reason. "Let's hope you're right," he said. He added quickly, "though I doubt it."



      Nothing much happened while we watched. It seemed as if they could see us watching them, and that they were now waiting for the darkness to settle in.

      "The trawler and the subs might just be communicating," Tony surmised.

      Ross was much calmer now when he went back to the telephone. He called Norfolk again. He told them that we were watching the whole show and that we had the whole thing on videotape. Norfolk decided they wouldn't intervene at this point.

      Ross showed us where the launch tube hatches were. He said there were at least thirty Russian subs on station at any given time, just outside the US territorial limits, a few Yankee-1 ships, with the bulk made up of Delta-I, Delta-III and the newest Delta-IV boats. He said, at first the subs showed up during naval maneuvers. Then the maneuvers became more frequent until they finally remained on permanent patrol. Ross said that what we were seeing was an extremely rare showing of a supply submarine, not to mention two. He told us that we were watching two of the five supply boats that are believed to service all the spy boats on the East Coast. He said that this principle was being used on the West Coast as well.

      He also told us that on extremely rare occasions one of the Soviet's giant Typhoon subs turns up. Each one of them carries twenty long-range, nine-warhead missiles. He said that the Typhoons usually operate only near Murmansk and are designed to hide out under the northern ice cap where they are supposed to weather out the first round of a nuclear exchange. Their task is to stage the after-show, to deliver the final, lethal load against any surviving US city, should there be no unconditional surrender.

Next Page

|| - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||

Stories about War from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche