Читать книгу Ultimatum 2 - Richard Rohmer - Страница 14

The flight of the Gulfstream out of Biggin Hill across the North Sea into Murmansk was a spectacular ride for Sue and Rob and their two-person crew: the captain, Major Patricia Titov, who spoke Russian, and the co-pilot, Captain Peter White, a stocky, handsome black American. The aircraft belonged to a dummy corporation owned and operated by the Department of Defense. For the purposes of this trip the crew carried civilian passports, ID, and clothing.

Rob was much impressed by Titov. She was in her middle thirties, tall, almost six feet, reddish brown hair cut just above the collar, angular face, high forehead, hazel eyes, wide mouth, full lips, and great teeth. Ross was an expert girl-sizer-upper, and he rated Titov in the “A” range. Physically attractive, in charge, no nonsense unless she wanted it. Reminded him of that spectacular Air Force woman pilot, the lieutenant colonel who in early 2002 refused an order to wear the traditional Muslim abaya — a black head-to-toe robe worn by women in some Muslim cultures — over her uniform when off the base in Saudi Arabia. She stuck by her beliefs and won. The military brass caved in. Like Ross, Titov was of Russian-American stock and fluent in the first language of her parents.

A cloud-free high-pressure area sat over them for the entire flight to Murmansk, giving all on board an incredibly clear view as the panorama of sea, mountains, plains, fjords, villages, and cities moved slowly under their silver wings. Rob had asked Major Titov to plan the route so he could have a good look at the fabulous Norwegian North Sea oil rigs, producing energy that was critical to the American and other Western world economies.

At the beginning of the new millennium the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, had succeeded in getting its member nations (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait being in the forefront) to curb daily output in order to force world prices upward. By early 2005 OPEC had so cut its overall production that not only had the world price broken through record marks but more seriously the supply of oil into the gigantic maw of the United States began to decrease dangerously. The alarm bells were ringing in Washington.

Clinton’s Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, had paid an emergency visit to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, pleading and cajoling to persuade them and their OPEC partners to increase production. Then he went north to Oslo to meet with Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and his Oil and Energy Minister Marit Arnstad. Norway had cut its 3.2 million barrels per day output from its North Sea field by 200,000 bpd. The reason for the cuts? To help OPEC and other producers keep oil prices up. As from the Saudis and Kuwaitis, Richardson received a warm welcome but no assurances that gave comfort to a nation whose buoyant economy was dependent upon an uninterrupted, growing volume of imported crude oil. On the other hand the Russians were pumping oil to the Western world at maximum volume. They were not interested at all in cutting production. So by the beginning of 2003 oil prices were sitting in the range of US$30 per barrel and OPEC was again cutting production in order to boost the price of its oil. By 2006 the price hit over US$70 per barrel, cruel for motorists and fatal for some marginal major U.S. airlines.

Rob Ross had wanted to see with his own eyes the massive Norwegian North Sea oil fields, which were graphically and visually delineated by the scores of production rigs sitting like black, long-legged beetles on the surface of the sea. The black gold that they were sucking up from drill holes hundreds of metres down from the seabed were of near life and death consequence to America and to that insignificant, snow-covered wasteland to the north called Canada.

When Ross told her he’d seen enough, Major Titov did a wide circular pass over the oil rigs at five thousand feet, then set course northerly for Murmansk. Climbing to twenty thousand feet, the track she followed was straight north past Oslo, up to Tromso, then further along the Norwegian coast to the conjoining boundaries of Finland, Norway, and Russia at the Barents Sea, where they crossed the Russian border and began the eastbound letdown into Murmansk.

His specially prepared maps enabled Ross to follow the unfolding geography of this most powerful series of nuclear submarine bases in the world and undoubtedly the most contaminated nuclear reactor region on the planet. First there was Andreeva Bay, a long and narrow fjord with web-like roads weaving through the barren rocks on each side. On the west side he could see the Northern Fleet’s largest storage facility for spent nuclear fuel assemblies, and solid radioactive waste. And on the east side were three base docks for nuclear subs, and beyond in the hills overlooking the bay was the naval base town of Zaozersk at Zapadnaya Litsa.

The base docks Malaya Lopatka and Bolshaya Lopatka were the stations for the second or third generation of nuclear subs, some still operational, some decommissioned. He could see many whale-like hulls sitting nose-in at the docks of both, probably of the Victor, Alfa, and Oscar classes. Next, south on the Andreeva Bay, was Nerpichya, with its three piers and sitting population of six Typhoon-class nuclear submarines.

Then Ara Bay and Ura Bay appeared simultaneously, but the aircraft was low now, perhaps at six thousand feet, so Ross could get only a quick impression. The aircraft, still descending, swung south over the heart waters of the Kola, the Murmansk Fjord by Skalisti, Nerpa, Olenya, and Polyarny, then by Severomarsk, the only place in Russia where nuclear subs were still being built.

It was a blur of submarine after submarine, ship after ship, cranes, docks, buildings, and apartments, but above all, mass — massive urban, naval, and industrial mass. Mass costing billions upon billions in U.S. dollars, let alone rubles.

Rob Ross was astonished. It was unbelievable. The capital cost to the economy of the Soviet Union had to have been incalculable. And why did they do it? Simply to stand as a communist military nuclear threat equal to — no, much larger than — what they saw as a capitalist monster, the United States and its rapacious NATO and other allies.

Ambassador Ross’s briefing book was filled with current data on the condition of the Northern Fleet’s nuclear submarines and their support facilities. What it told him was that there was little money, that scores of nuclear reactors, both in and out of the old and even the medium-aged submarines, were rusting and dangerous. But he would soon have his fill of the state of Russia’s Northern Fleet, or at least sufficient information to justify having the Americans turn on the assistance money taps.

Earlier, just as Major Titov had eased back on the throttles to start the descent as they crossed the border into Russia, Captain White announced, “We have company.” There on each wingtip sat a huge Russian fighter, the all-too-familiar red stars on their unpainted fuselages, wingtips perhaps six feet away from the Gulfstream, the eyes in the white-helmeted, dark visored heads of the pilots locked to the tips of the American wings. “Steady as rocks,”White announced.“With no turbulence these guys are just glued to us. Obviously know what they’re doing.”