Russian corvette Suzdaltec The Black Sea

The full moon hung low over the sea, painting a rich, luminescent carpet across the water and illuminating the silhouette of the Honolulu, which was in tow perhaps one hundred yards behind the Suzdaltec.

The orphans had been taken inside the Russian warship, but the American submarine crew was corralled on the fantail. Armed Russian sailors guarded Pete and his crew.

Pete stood in the middle of his crew, checking his watch. Standing next to him, Frank Pippen was doing the same thing.

Their eyes met. Neither spoke.

Thirty seconds passed. Two loud booms echoed across the water from the direction of the submarine. Two more booms. Pete caught the grin on Frank Pippen's face. The XO gave his skipper an unobtrusive thumbs-up.

Russian sailors scrambled to the fantail, waving their arms and yelling phrases that Pete could not understand. Flames burst in the open bridge area of the Honolulu. The submarine started sinking in the water.

Honolulu was taking on torrents of seawater, undoubtedly from the holes in her hull caused by the SEALs' handiwork with plastic explosives. She was going under, slowly, and her weight was pulling on the back of the Suzdaltec. Pete ordered his men to stay put.

Pete felt the Suzdaltec's engines shift from ahead to neutral. This was to loosen the tension in the lines between the ship and the submarine. Even still, the fantail was listing, and water was starting to lap up over the stern.

Suzdaltec's commanding officer had come down from the bridge and was walking about the fantail, barking orders. Were they not going to cut the lines to the sinking sub? Would they let the waterlogged sub capsize and sink the corvette? Pete had heard about Russian inefficiency. He had surrendered his sub to save the orphans. But now, if the corvette went down, they could all wind up dying anyway.

"Mr. Jamison, what's going on?"

"The captain's talking about sending a boarding party back to the Honolulu to investigate."

"A boarding party? The idiot is going to wind up sinking his own ship."

"To be honest, sir, I think he and some of his officers were in the galley celebrating the capture of the Honolulu with a little too much vodka, sir."

"Great." The Russians would wind up getting them all drowned. "Lieutenant Jamison. Tell the Russian skipper that the sub is sinking, that it cannot be saved, and that he should cut the tow lines."

"Aye, Captain, " Jamison said. He called out to the Russian skipper. "Eezveneetzyah, Kapitan!" Lieutenant Jamison got the Russian skipper's attention and translated the message as instructed.

The Russian captain walked over to the center of the listing fantail, waving his hands and frantically waving and yelling at Pete.

"What's he saying?" Pete asked.

"He's steamed that we sabotaged the sub, sir. Lots of cursing. Says we will be shot for it."

"Tell him he'll never live to see us shot if he doesn't cut those lines and cut them now!"

"Aye, sir."

Jamison relayed the message. More screaming from the Russian skipper. The ship's stern lapped lower into the sea. A moment later, however, Russian sailors cut the lines attaching Suzdaltec to the sinking Honolulu. The ship's stern rose back up to normal level.

Armed sailors broke through the perimeter and approached Pete. The barrels of their AK-47 assault rifles jabbed his neck and the back of his skull. They were yelling something in frantic Russian.

"What are they saying?"

"They want you to go with them, Skipper."

"Okay, I'll go."

The men pushed Pete at gunpoint into the ship's superstructure. Once inside, they forced him down a ladder, then into a windowless space somewhere below deck. They turned off the lights and locked the door.

The room was pitch dark, except for the faint light seeping under the passageway.

Pete kneeled in the dark and prayed for the safety of his crew.

The White House Situation Room

Emergency meeting of the National Security Council

Is it true?" President Mack Williams stood at the end of the long mahogany table, staring out over the members of his National Security Council. Most of them wore somber faces.

"Have the Russians really captured our submarine?"

Silence.

"Can no one answer my question?"

Mitchell Winstead, CIA director, spoke first. "No one can confirm seeing the Honolulu, at least not yet, Mr. President." The slim mathematician swiped sweat from his thinning hairline. "But we trust our sources on this one, sir. It doesn't look good."

The president buried his eyes in his left hand. "Secretary Lopez, where's our submarine? Does the Navy know?"

"Mr. President, we've not heard from them in six hours. Our last contact was an extremely low frequency signal indicating they had spotted the Alexander Popovich. We think that they attacked the freighter… sunk it… And then… nothing, sir."

Mack stopped drinking years ago. He vowed to abstain while in public office. But now… if he had a gin and tonic… He dismissed that thought. "Director Winstead, what about this claim that the Alexander Popovich was carrying orphans?"

"Yes, sir, " Winstead said. "We've tracked down those claims. They're true, Mr. President."

"It just keeps getting better and better."

"Mr. President, " Secretary of Defense Lopez said.

"Secretary Lopez."

"Sir, the Russians have raised the alert levels of their nuclear forces to levels comparable to the Cuban Missile Crisis levels, sir. I recommend that we raise our level to DEFCON 2, sir."

Another knot twisted Mack's stomach.

"Mr. President, " the secretary of state spoke up.

"Secretary Mauney."

"Rising to DEFCON 2 would be a mistake. Sir, that puts us on the precipice level for nuclear war."

"But, Mr. President, " Secretary Lopez responded, "we must continue to show strength here. Remember, Russian forces in the Caucasus region threaten our Turkish allies. The Russians know only one word. Strength. They've raised their threat level. We must respond."

"But, sir, " Secretary Mauney responded, "now is the time for calm and reason before all this blows up. I urge an open dialogue with the Russians before it's too late. Sir, I believe we should first have Secretary Lopez contact the Russian minister of defense to calm things down and assure them that our forces are not there to attack them. That would be followed up by you calling President Evtimov, sir."

The CIA director spoke up. "I'm afraid it won't be possible for Secretary Lopez to call Minister Popkov."

"What do you mean, Director Winstead?"

"Sir, our intelligence sources in Moscow say that Minister Popkov has been assassinated."

That news was a bucket of cold water on Mack's head.

"Not only that, sir, but we have satellite photos showing trucks fueling at least two dozen long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles in Siberia. These missiles had been drained of fuel as part of the Ballistic Missile Reduction Treaty negotiated by the previous administration."

"What's going on? Who's in charge of the military?"

"Sir, we hope that President Evtimov is still in charge. But the answer to the question is that we really don't know, " Director Winstead said.

"Mr. President, " the secretary of defense said. "All the more reason to raise the readiness status of our nuclear forces to DEFCON 2. We don't know who's running the show."

"Let's call President Evtimov, " Secretary Mauney retorted. "Let's defuse this thing now. Please."

"Of course Evtimov will claim he's in charge." Secretary Lopez's voice was as tense as Mack had ever heard it. "But are we to believe that?

Popkov is murdered. Then they raise their nuclear alert status to Cuban Missile Crisis levels? Sir, that means that they're targeting American cities again. Right now.