Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
In the dark hours of March 7, 1968, a lone submarine slowly prowled the surface in open waters of the North Pacific. The slender sub rolled easily in swells raised by a twenty-knot wind. Occasionally, the whitecaps racing ahead of wave crests broke over the low forward deck, sending foaming rivulets of seawater to hide the rust streaks weeping from the boat's aging welds.
A coast watcher might have mistaken the submarine for some naval relic with an oddly long fin emerging from the depths to fight a sea battle of the Second World War. Such identification would have been only partly right. This sub, despite its angular U-boat appearance, carried three atomic-age ballistic missiles snugly housed in tubes in its extended sail.
On the bridge, in the brisk wind, an officer quickly scanned the horizon through powerful naval binoculars, and then raised them to search all quadrants of the night sky.
A seaman in an ill-fitting sheepskin coat focused his attention closer to home, climbing to the highest point in the aft section of the bridge. The coat was much too large for his slight frame, and he was much too young to have attained the rank entitling him to wear the storm raglan coat, quilted pants, and expensive lined boots of a fleet officer.
From his new perch he examined the long, flat area of the conning tower behind the bridge. The faintest glow of starlight provided just enough illumination for the sailor to discern the outline of the three launch-tube doors. The doors appeared to be clear of any flotsam that might have been picked up during surfacing. Beneath the steel doors, like giant elongated eggs, were forty-two-foot-longballistic missiles. Each carried a one-megaton thermonuclear warhead.
The massive doors were tightly sealed, to keep salt water out of the missile tubes. The powerful hydraulic arms that opened them could be activated only from the missile control panel inside the submarine.
The officer gazing through his binoculars at the front of the bridge had seen no threat to their position--no running lights of surface ships, no antisubmarine warfare planes patrolling the sky. He acknowledged the other man's report that the missile doors were clear, then ducked back down the ladder and into the submarine.
As the boat broke through the swells at an almost leisurely two knots, the crewmen below eagerly breathed the fresh air rushing in through hatches opened to the conning tower. It was the first time the boat had been on the surface long enough to flush out the foul air that had accumulated in the living chambers during two weeks of submerged sailing. The cool sea air replacing oily diesel fumes created a slight draft in the control center as it flowed from compartments fore and aft.
The usual elation of the crew at finally being back in man's normal realm on the surface was suddenly cut short when they heard an order barked over the intercom. The order was for battle stations, missile launch. All compartments were to report ready when sealed. The order was followed by: "This is not a drill."
That harsh command, which may have startled even the few crewmen in the operating compartments who knew what to expect next, was more shocking for five dozen officers and sailors confined against their will in the forward two compartments of the submarine.
With an efficiency born of a thousand drills, all the steps to fulfill a missile submarine's ultimate purpose were methodically taken.
The officer who had just returned from lookout duty on the bridge entered the control room to assume the post of deputy commander. He reported that all was clear from his visual observations, and that the doors over the missile tubes were free of flotsam. Only the sailor in the bulky, foul-weather coat remained on the bridge in the open night air.
Another officer pronounced the stations manned and ready for live fire of the main missile batteries.
Before surfacing, several skilled seamen trained as missile technicians had worked feverishly for nearly an hour preparing for the next order. An inspection of the missile tubes through small hatches in compartment four revealed no fuel leaks or seepage of seawater that might hamper a launch. Now all preparations were complete. A small knot of anxious men in the control center waited for the commander to issue the final instructions to activate the emergency firing procedure for nuclear weapon release.
A missile officer standing at the launch console watched a warning light blink on. The door of number-one missile tube was open.
Atop the submarine, the sailor in the raglan coat visually confirmed that the missile door had opened properly. He closed the outer hatch in the floor of the bridge and knelt behind a steel protective shield. His job was to remain in this somewhat precarious spot -- the only person outside the hull -- to be available in the event of any last-minute problems.
Below the bridge in the action center, an officer peering through the periscope confirmed number-one missile hatch open and clear.
The commander provided a large cassette containing the computerized codes required to arm the missile warhead. Normally, the codes would have been locked inside the captain's safe, to be retrieved by the captain and the submarine's political officer only after orders were received from fleet headquarters. This time, the officer in charge simply handed the cassette to a young man, who turned and plugged the packet into the launch console.
Some of the crewmen waited to hear the procedure they had followed in dozens of simulated and live drills. The political officer should have announced that headquarters had confirmed launch authority. But this critical procedure was ignored. There had been no communication with headquarters in more than a week.
The officer in the action center directly above the control room made one last sweep of the horizon with the attack periscope. He checked again to make sure the missile door was completely deployed and shouted down to the control room that the missile was clear for launch.
At the launch control panel, an officer confirmed he had powered the number-one console.
An assistant navigation officer, a lieutenant, told the commander they were three minutes to launch position at latitude 24° north, longitude 163° west. Their course was east-southeast, at a speed of two knots.
The missile technician at the launch panel confirmed the target coordinates on a southeast heading from the boat: 21° 18' north, 157° west.
With that information, the commander, his deputy, and a third sailor stepped up to the launch panel. Each man inserted a key in the panel face. They turned the keys and stepped back to allow the missile officer to complete his task at the console.
The commander gave the order to proceed to activation of the warhead on number-one missile. He hurried up the ladder to the periscope in the action center, shouting to his deputy as he climbed to prepare for emergency dive after launch.
A small spotlight in the ceiling above the chart table in the control room threw a bright beam onto a naval chart. A penciled X, crudely drawn in the center of the chart, partially covered the name printed on the map. Just below the mark was another name: HONOLULU. The target was Pearl Harbor. But the explosive power of a one-megaton yield from the thermonuclear warhead would extend far beyond the military base to the civilian metropolitan area that adjoined it.
The sailor at the launch control panel announced the system ready for firing sequence.
The commander looked toward the man standing at the navigator's station. The man held a stopwatch in one hand and dividers in the other. "Two minutes to launch point on my mark...mark!"
Instantly, the commander activated his own stopwatch. The second hand swept one full turn around the face. He ordered missile one to be fired.
The man at the control panel complied, setting in motion the last step to launch missile one. Time to launch was sixty seconds.
Officers and seamen in the control room instinctively braced themselves for the jolt that would come when compressed air ejected the eighteen-ton missile out of the launch tube, just feet away from the command center.
At the control panel, a sailor pressed a black button, removing the last manual override of the system. It was fifteen seconds to launch.
The men locked in the forward compartments could hear each order in the launch sequence over the intercom. Any outcry they made was muffled by the watertight hatch separating them from the men giving the orders in the control center.
A young assistant missile officer, who by training would have known more than most crewmen about what was to happen next, curled up helpless in his bunk in one of the officers' cabins in compartment two. A small journal lay by his side.
It was ten seconds to launch.
Standing in front of the control panel, the officer commanding the submarine began the staccato countdown:
"Dyesyat, dyevyat, vosyem, syem..."
Copyright © 2005 by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond
