August 12, 2000,
11:30 a.m., Barents Sea
BENEATH THE SEA IN a nuclear submarine is a setting that few people in the world will experience; but for Lieutenant Captain Dmitri Kolesnikov, it was as natural and familiar as his childhood home in St. Petersburg, or the apartment he shared with his wife of three months, or the naval training camps where he had spent much of his young life.
Kolesnikov was crouched low in the cramped Seventh Compartment of the Oscar Class nuclear submarine—a 943-model attack vessel capable of carrying dozens of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, a battery of torpedoes, a dozen mines, a slew of antiaircraft mortars. Hell, it was one of the largest submarines ever built, over five hundred feet long, one of only five in the Northern Fleet. Bathed in the harsh, fluorescent light reflecting off the thick steel walls and iron-plated floors, he worked his way between the various hissing pipes and clicking knobs of his turbine station.
The vessel was still at periscope depth—right below the surface of the churning, frozen waters of this area of the Barents Sea, near the desolate northwestern coast of Russia—and he could feel the slight rocking of the current, something that might have bothered the stomach and the inner ear of a less-experienced sailor but barely registered with him.
To say that Dmitri had been born a submariner would not have been an exaggeration; he had followed his father’s footsteps into the navy, and into the company of men who lived much of their lives beneath the surface. His proudest achievement was the day he had gained command of this Seventh Compartment, making him an integral part of his crew of one hundred eighteen officers and enlisted men. They were brothers, all, who had chosen a way of life defined by the close, unique environment inside that submerged steel tube.
Dmitri worked diligently and efficiently at his station, as orders filtered through the intercom system above his head from the command compartment, four sections ahead along the chassis of the narrow vessel. Even though this was only a training mission, his crew was taking part in a series of naval games being conducted by the Northern Fleet, and he took his duties seriously. The truth was, every moment aboard a nuclear submarine had to be taken seriously. Every submariner knew there were no margins for error, that the only thing that separated them from certain death was a hull made of steel, titanium, and iron and the diligence of the brothers who also wore the uniform.
The brotherhood was so thick Dmitri could taste it in the air they all shared. A hundred and eighteen men breathing the same recycled oxygen, bathing in and drinking from the same recycled water. An almost organic system, unlike any in the outside world. The significance of every moment was made more real by the fact that there was no sense of night or day, no windows. The fluorescent light, a constant glow, penetrated Dmitri’s thoughts even when he slept on that steel shell of a bunk he called his own, in a room near the front of the sub, crowded together with brothers for months at a time.
It didn’t matter that the two torpedoes his vessel was about to fire at the nearby battle cruiser—the Pyotr Velikiy—were actually dummy weapons, little more than fueled metal pipes that would do no more damage to the hull of the ship than a rock from a slingshot. For the men aboard the Kursk, the mission was as real as life and death.
Approximately a minute later, when the order to fire reverberated through the intercom, Dmitri felt the vessel tremble beneath his feet. His finely trained ears could hear the whisper of the torpedoes leaving the tubes, followed by the rush of water as they tore toward their target. Dmitri allowed himself a smile as he continued checking his turbine controls. The sheer power of his vessel never ceased to amaze him, releasing a kind of primal energy inside his own veins.
His mind was still picturing those twin mock torpedoes spiraling through the deep cold water a second later, when suddenly, there was a terrifying noise, a blast so loud that spikes of pain tore through his eardrums. The submarine—his entire world—lunged upward. Dimitri toppled forward, slamming into the hard metal floor chin first and for a brief second his vision blurred. Then his adrenaline spiked, his training kicked in, and his eyes opened.
Everything around him seemed to slow, as the chaotic moment unfolded. He could feel a surge of the sub’s engines, as someone in the command center tried desperately to raise the ship. And then, just as suddenly, they were diving, but not in any controlled fashion, not in any manner he had experienced before in the smooth descent of the most sophisticated war machine of the Russian nation. This was a desperate, horrifying plunge. Dimitri flung out both hands, grabbing hold of one of the nearest steam pipes in an attempt to hold himself upright—and then the entire submarine somersaulted, flipping him up into the air, then sending him crashing back down again. The fluorescent lights flickered, but somehow held; even so, all he could see was pure mayhem, a blur of equipment flying through the air, other crewmen crashing into the ceiling and the walls and the floor. The air filled with screams and the horrible screeching of rending metal. Even worse, Dimitri could hear the thunder of water rushing into the vessel—but thankfully, not yet into his own compartment.
His terror was intense, paralyzing, but Dimitri refused to give in. He concentrated on counting out the seconds as they descended, calculating depth. He had reached about three hundred and fifty feet when there was another ferocious crash, and his body was slammed upward—the sub careening at full descent into the ocean floor. Barely a second later, there were multiple explosions in rapid succession and the sickening feeling of part of the hull ahead tearing apart.
More frantic screams and then crewmen pushed past Dmitri, rushing toward the rear compartment. Without thinking, Dmitri let his own reflexes take over, and he followed them through the vessel, shouting for others to follow, grabbing a bleeding, wounded sailor by the arm, dragging him along. Go, go, go! They raced from his turbine compartment, Seven, into Eight, and then through that into the rear and final cabin, Nine. There was an escape hatch in the back of the ninth compartment, along with enough rescue, pressure-protective suits to keep them alive, even at such a depth. He had no idea what had happened, whether they had collided with something under the water, hit an errant mine or an enemy torpedo, or whether one of the dummies had simply malfunctioned and sent them to the floor. But he was fairly certain that, once they had hit the bottom, the force had detonated their payload of real torpedoes. He could only be thankful that the sub wasn’t carrying any nuclear-tipped armament during the training session. But he had no doubt that the submarine was damaged beyond repair. From the force of the explosions he had felt, and from the way the vessel had somersaulted on its way down to the ocean floor, he believed that the front half of the Kursk had been destroyed, perhaps all the way back through the command center, to the engines themselves.
Which meant they had very little time before power was gone, and along with it, the breathable air they had left.
He leapt forward into the rear compartment, and went to work with the other seamen, sealing off the cabin. Then he glanced around the small confines and counted the remaining crew. Twenty-three men. The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth compartments had a crew of twenty-four all together. It appeared that almost all of them had made it to the back of the vessel. But the rest of the sub’s crew was gone. Listening at the door they were sealing, he could hear nothing behind it but creaking metal and the rush of water. He could only hope that the rest of his brothers had died instantly as the vessel had crashed into the ground.
After they had finished sealing off the door, he turned his attention to the rear of the Ninth Compartment, to the group of crewmen milling around the escape hatch. But as he looked at the focus of their work, his stomach dropped. Even from across the compartment, Dimitri could see that the hatch was warped inward at the center—the metal curling over itself, the release mechanisms melded together in a tangle of iron and steel. The damage was severe, and with the tools they had available in the rear compartment, it was doubtful they were ever going to get through.
Dimitri’s legs grew heavy. The men near the escape hatch spoke in frantic, clipped words, but he already knew what the others were now realizing: their situation was hopeless. He let himself drop slowly to the floor, his back leaning upright against the sealed inner hatch behind him, his breathing slowing, his heart strangely calm in his chest.
In the weeks leading up to this mission, the twenty-seven-year-old had felt a sort of premonition. Normally optimistic and high-spirited, he had felt so strongly that something might soon go wrong that he had even given his young wife of only a few months a short poem about the fragility of life. The poem had ended quite simply, and quite sadly: I want time to whisper one thing, my darling, I love you.
At that moment, Dmitri didn’t know how much time he had left to whisper anything. He guessed maybe a few hours of air, which he could already sense was rapidly filling with toxic levels of carbon dioxide, as well as peroxide, most likely from the destroyed torpedoes. Even though other boats nearby would have seen them go down, and a rescue effort would be waged, it was doubtful anyone would get to them in time.
A few hours left to whisper, but maybe he could do something more significant. He crawled across the compartment, and began searching the low desks and cabinets riveted to the nearby wall. He quickly found half of what he needed—a writing instrument, but no blank sheets of paper. He grabbed a nearby book and tore a number of pages free. Then he dropped back into a sitting position, his back against a free section of the wall, and began to write.
He started with a personal message to his wife. All the things he never had the time to tell her. And then he switched back to his official capacity—and dutifully noted what he had experienced, logging as much as he could for the rescue divers who would eventually find them. He noted the time, in military style: 15:45.
As he worked, the fluorescent lights dimmed: It is dark to write, but I will try, I feel it seems we have no chance, I hope someone will find this . . .
After that, he listed the twenty-three men who were in the compartment with him. And he continued writing, trying to continue as long as the air was still breathable: There is no need for despair . . .
Then the lights went out. Still, in complete blackness, trying his best to ignore the terrified voices around him, he continued, doing his best to feel the pencil against the paper, knowing that his handwriting had become a nearly indecipherable crawl. The air grew thicker, his vision began to swirl, but still he wrote, for as long as he could.
Before he finally lost consciousness, he found something plastic to wrap his note inside, then placed the package carefully in the pocket of his naval uniform.
The last thing he did, before he closed his eyes, was whisper, one last time.