As well as running two exercises during daylight hours, assuming that neither other ships nor any aircraft were painting on the radar, the captain had also approved running the same exercise after dark, which had the added bonus that, because another vessel would have to get very close to the Russian ship in order to observe anything unusual on the deck among the containers, the crew were able to complete the exercise in full, including removing the locking pins, swinging the double container around so that the front of the device pointed over the side of the ship, in the correct firing position.
Almost inevitably, this threw up one or two small glitches. One of the locking pins, for example, simply refused to line up with both of the second pair of holes once the container had been rotated. Obviously something had shifted or warped somewhere, so new holes were cut for that pin and the exercise run again to ensure that this time the line-up was correct. And rotating the upper container also took more manual effort than had been anticipated, possibly because the grease-filled bearing in the centre had been exposed to the harsh weather conditions as they came around the North Cape of Norway, with waves breaking over a large part of the container load; the probability was that water had got inside the bearing, making the grease less effective as a lubricant. But it was still movable, which was all that mattered.
Captain Vadim Pankin, used to things actually working when and in the way they were supposed to, was less than impressed, and the moment the exercise had been completed, he summoned the leading participants to the bridge, ostensibly for a debrief, but in reality because he had decided to make a number of changes to the way the system worked.
‘I’m not happy with the way we are doing this,’ he said, when all of the responsible officers had assembled on the bridge and were standing in front of him. ‘It is far too labour intensive. We are using a lot of men, who are having to climb up onto the containers using ladders and manually remove the locking pins, before swinging the upper container into position. When we perform the operation for real, in my opinion there is far too much chance of something going wrong, of a pin jamming or a man falling off a ladder if the sea is rough, or something of that sort. I am aware that the system was designed to be as simple and foolproof as possible, but I now believe that that is probably not the correct approach. Men make mistakes, especially when they are under pressure, and we do not know what the situation will be like when we reach the weapon deployment point.’
He looked around, but none of the other officers commented. Not that he had expected them to. He was the captain, and when he spoke he expected people to listen, not to talk.
‘What I do not want,’ Pankin continued, ‘is for us to attract unwelcome attention from anybody whilst preparing the weapon for release, and having half a dozen men clambering over the containers using ladders is exactly the kind of thing that would make people look at the ship and start to wonder, especially in view of what would happen a short time afterwards. This is supposed to be a covert operation, and in my opinion the best way for it to stay covert is to have nobody on deck at all during the pre-deployment phase, so that the only thing that moves will be the launch container itself. In short, I want to automate the whole operation. Can that be done?’
Mikhail Ostenko, the chief engineering officer, a bulky, dark-haired man with permanently grubby hands and who normally exuded a slight aroma of lubricating oil, and to whom the last four words had clearly been addressed, nodded slowly and thought fast, taking a mental inventory of the equipment and workshop facilities that he had on board and which could be used to do what the captain wanted.
‘I will have to check exactly what equipment we have, sir,’ he replied, ‘but I think we can jury rig something that will work. I can probably position a hydraulic ram on each end of the launch container and link it to the hydraulic system that’s already there for the supporting legs. The rams could do two things. They could hold the container in its normal position without the need for locking bolts, and then rotate it into the firing position on command. I could do something similar with the front container doors so that they would both open simultaneously when we are ready to launch, and the rear doors would not need to be opened at all. We only do that now to allow men to go inside the container to remove and then reposition the locking pins.’
‘Come back to me when you know that you can do the job, and exactly how you would accomplish it,’ the captain said, sounding pleased.
One of the other officers looked unhappy at the change of plan.
‘Yes, Yuri? What is it?’
Yuri Abramski was the man in charge of the electronics, navigation equipment and the like on the weapon.
‘There are several safety interlocks on the device, sir,’ he said. ‘They have to be removed before launch, and that cannot be done if the process is automated.’
Captain Pankin stared at him.
‘What is the purpose of those interlocks?’ he asked.
‘To prevent inadvertent launch of the device, to permit the warhead to be armed and so on.’
‘And they are removed how?’
‘Under the supervision of an officer, one of our men physically pulls out each pin. It’s much like the pre-flight check on a fighter aircraft.’
‘Can the launch, the actual deployment of the weapon, be carried out with the interlocks in place?’
Abramski nodded.
‘Yes, but the—’
‘So if the interlock pins were removed as a part of the launch sequence,’ Pankin interrupted him, ‘after the weapon began moving? Would that work?’
‘Well,’ Abramski began slowly, that option not having occurred to him. ‘I suppose that is a possibility.’
‘Good. Mikhail, can you also rig up some cables or something within the container so that as the weapon starts to move all the interlock pins are extracted?’
‘That should not be a problem.’
‘Work with Yuri on that part of the modifications,’ Pankin said. ‘And do a dry run to make sure it works. When everything is ready, physically push the weapon forward inside the container far enough to make sure that every pin is extracted cleanly. If that can’t be done, we may have to rethink this.’
‘I should emphasize, sir,’ Ostenko said, ‘that it will take a few days to locate and prepare what I will need, and then to fit it and test it. I will have to request a slight reduction in speed to allow time for this work to be completed, and this will obviously impact our arrival time at the launch site.’
‘For the first time ever in my entire career in the navy of our nation,’ Captain Pankin replied, with a slight smile on his face, ‘I find myself in charge of an operation that is not time-critical, running to a timetable or facing an immovable deadline. Slowing down the ship will have no effect whatsoever upon the success of our mission. In fact,’ he added, turning to the navigating officer, ‘we can start right now. Reduce speed by three knots. That will reduce the distance we cover in every twenty-four-hour period by over seventy nautical miles, and add about seven hours to our arrival time. Will that be enough, or do we need a further speed reduction?’
‘That should be entirely adequate, sir,’ the chief engineer replied, and a couple minutes later saluted before leaving the bridge to head for the engine room and the mechanical stores locker to see exactly what he had to work with.
The Atlantic Ocean has something of a reputation for bad storms with some parts of it, like the Bay of Biscay, being particularly notorious, but once the ship had moved some distance south of the Faroes-Iceland Gap, the atmospheric pressure began to rise and brought with it largely calm seas, light winds and mainly blue skies. Unless something changed dramatically in the next 72 hours, as far as the navigator could see they should have a straight and clear run right down to the target area, and would reach the launch point pretty much on the revised schedule that the captain had just implemented.
In fact, they might get there a little earlier, or even a little later than planned, depending on how quickly the modifications to the weapon deployment system could be made. Although the ship was at that moment proceeding much more slowly than normal, if the work could be accomplished in a shorter time than expected, then it was almost possible that they could speed up again and make the original, albeit unofficial, deadline. Not that the change in arrival time would make any difference at all to the result of the operation.
The Russian government, like the governments of every other nation on Earth, would learn about the events following the weapon’s deployment from the news media and surveillance satellites, and would react accordingly. It would come as a major surprise to everybody, including Moscow, and that was exactly what the planners had intended.