“This is President Madan.”
The American president conveyed his thoughts on the recent incident to Madan, following the outline of his discussion with Ambassador Chandra.
There was a long silence on the line before Madan replied, “I agree. We have forged a vital relationship over the last few years, and we will work to repair the damage done.”
“As will we,” the president said. “I look forward to setting aside what occurred, and is about to occur, so we can strengthen our relationship.”
“About to occur?” President Madan asked.
The president checked the clock on the Situation Room wall. “You have five minutes to vacate the presidential palace. Anyone remaining inside will not live to see another day. Do I make myself clear?”
There was no response from President Madan. Instead, the line went dead.
Hardison grabbed a remote from the table and activated the video screen on the far wall. A satellite image of India’s presidential palace appeared—the 340-room Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi—and it wasn’t long before men and women began streaming from the exits, dispersing into the 320-acre complex.
As the last few stragglers hurried down the front steps, the entire east facade of the building disintegrated as several dozen explosions rippled across the front of the palace, the black-tinged fireballs roiling upward.
Turning to Ambassador Chandra, the president said, “It looks like your presidential palace accidentally got in the way of a few Tomahawk missiles. As we learned all too well last week, accidents happen. Please convey my sincere apologies to President Madan.”
EPILOGUE
MOSCOW
As sunlight streamed into his Kremlin office through tall Palladian windows behind him, President Kalinin sat at his desk, deep in thought. With two key positions temporarily vacant—Russia’s minister of defense and director of the SVR—Kalinin had convened today’s meeting in his office instead of the conference room. Seated across from him were General Andropov, Fleet Admiral Lipovsky, and Foreign Minister Lavrov. The three men waited while Kalinin sorted through the magnitude of their naval defeat.
Russia’s Northern and Pacific Fleets had been ravaged, with every surface combatant sunk or heavily damaged. The submarine force had fared much better, still fielding over thirty attack submarines. The significant numerical advantage beneath the waves, with most of America’s submarines still undergoing repair, weighed heavily on Kalinin’s deliberation.
“What is the status of our Alexander class?” he asked.
“We have one operational submarine so far,” General Andropov replied. “However, it was withheld from battle pending resolution of defects in its new capability. We are pushing the cutting edge of technology,” Andropov offered as an excuse, “but we will test a solution next month. Additionally, two more Alexander class are nearing completion. With six Alexander class leading our submarine force, the American submarine fleet would be overwhelmed.”
Kalinin replied, “As we experienced in the Arabian Sea, the Americans have more anti-submarine forces at their disposal besides submarines. Their surface combatants and aircraft are formidable assets.”
General Andropov replied. “We still have the Zolotov option.”
“That’s a very dangerous plan,” Minister Lavrov said. “A path from which we cannot turn back. We cannot predict how America would respond.”
“There will be no response from the United States,” Andropov replied. “That’s the purpose of the Zolotov option: to eliminate their ability.”
President Kalinin weighed his options in silence, moving slowly toward a decision. The United States had publicly humiliated both Kalinin and Russia. A response was required.
“You may proceed,” Kalinin said. “Order both submarine shipyards to twenty-four-hour shiftwork to complete the next two Alexander class as soon as possible. Regarding the Zolotov option, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
General Andropov acknowledged Kalinin’s order. “It is a wise decision, Mr. President. We will make America pay for what they’ve done.”
* * * THE END * * *
COMPLETE CAST OF CHARACTERS
AMERICAN CHARACTERS
UNITED STATES ADMINISTRATION
KEVIN HARDISON, chief of staff
BOB MCVEIGH, secretary of defense
DAWN CABRAL, secretary of state
CHRISTINE O’CONNOR, national security advisor
BILL DUBOSE (Colonel), senior military aide
SHEREE HINTON, White House intern
MILITARY COMMANDERS
ANDY WHEELER (General), Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
BRIAN RETTMAN (Admiral), Chief of Naval Operations
USS HARTFORD (LOS ANGELES CLASS FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE)
DAVE THAMES (Commander), Commanding Officer
JOE WHITE (Lieutenant Commander), Executive Officer
USS MICHIGAN (OHIO CLASS GUIDED MISSILE SUBMARINE)—CREW
MURRAY WILSON (Captain), Commanding Officer
DAVE BEASLEY (Lieutenant Commander), Executive Officer
KELLY HAAS (Lieutenant Commander), Supply Officer
CHARLIE EATON (Lieutenant), Navigator
MIKE LAWSON (Lieutenant), Weapons Officer
JAYNE STUCKER (Lieutenant), Junior Officer
CHRIS SHROYER (Lieutenant), Junior Officer
PAT LEENSTRA (Electronics Technician Second Class), Quartermaster
USS MICHIGAN—SEAL DETACHMENT
JOHN MCNEIL (Commander), SEAL Team Commander
JAKE HARRISON (Lieutenant), SEAL Platoon Officer-in-Charge
ROB MAYDWELL (Special Warfare Operator First Class), breacher
WAYNE BROWN (Special Warfare Operator Second Class), communicator
RICHARD MENDELSON (Special Warfare Operator Second Class), sniper
JOE ALEO (Commander), Medical Officer
USS MISSISSIPPI (VIRGINIA CLASS FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE)
BRAD WALLER (Commander), Commanding Officer
GEORGE SKEENS (Lieutenant), Junior Officer
USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (NIMITZ CLASS AIRCRAFT CARRIER)
DAVID RANDLE (Captain), Commanding Officer
BRENT SITES (Captain), Combat Direction Center (CDC) Operations Officer
BILL HOUSTON / call sign Samurai (Lieutenant Commander), F/A-18E pilot
DAVE HERNANDEZ / call sign TexMex (Lieutenant), F/A-18E pilot
USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (NIMITZ CLASS AIRCRAFT CARRIER)
RICH TILGHMAN (Captain), Commanding Officer
DOLORES GONZALEZ (Captain), Combat Direction Center (CDC) Operations Officer
OTHER MILITARY CHARACTERS
JOE MARTIN (Captain), Delta Force team leader
PATRICK TERRILL (Staff Sergeant), Delta Force team member
MIKE PECK (Major), B-1B pilot
JOHN MARTIN (Lieutenant Commander), P-8A Tactical Coordinator
TIM JOHNS (Cryptologic Technician Networks Second Class), U.S. Cyber Warfare Command
STU NELSON (Staff Sergeant), Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician
JOHN BROWN (Captain), Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal company commander
OTHER CIVILIAN CHARACTERS
JESSICA CHERRY, director of the Central Intelligence Agency
JOHN KAUFMANN, Central Intelligence Agency interrogator
KATRINA WETZEL, U.S. ambassador to the People’s Republic of China
NATASHA GRAHAM, U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation
BARRY GRAHAM, aide to the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation
MARK JOHNSON, Russian translator (American embassy)
ELENA KRAYEV, Russian translator (CIA agent)
RUSSIAN CHARACTERS
RUSSIAN FEDERATION ADMINISTRATION
YURI KALININ, president
BORIS CHERNOV, defense minister
ANDREI LAVROV, foreign minister
SERGEI IVANOV, national security advisor
MAKSIM POSNIAK, director of security and disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
SEMYON GOREV, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)
ANDREI TUPOLEV, ambassador to the United States
DANIL SOKOLOV, ambassador to the People’s Republic of China
MILITARY COMMANDERS
SERGEI ANDROPOV (General), chief of the general staff
ALEXEI VOLODIN (Colonel General), Commander-in-Chief, Aerospace Forces
VIKTOR GLUKOV (Colonel General), Commander-in-Chief, Ground Forces
OLEG LIPOVSKY (Admiral), Commander-in-Chief, Navy
LEONID SHIMKO (Admiral), Commander, Northern Fleet
PAVEL KLOKOV (Admiral), Commander, Pacific Fleet
VITALY VASILIEV (Major General), Commanding Officer, 448th Missile Brigade
K-456 VILYUCHINSK (OSCAR II CLASS GUIDED MISSILE SUBMARINE)
DMITRI PAVLOV (Captain First Rank), Commanding Officer
MIKHAIL EVANOFF (Captain Second Rank), First Officer
LUDVIG DOLINSKI (Captain Lieutenant), Central Command Post Watch Officer
OTHER RUSSIAN CHARACTERS
VADIM ALEYEV (Major), Sukhoi Su-35S pilot
ANTON BELIKOV (Captain Lieutenant), Spetsnaz platoon leader
ROMAN SAVVIN (Sergeant First Class), VDV paratrooper
ANTON FEDOROV, detonator designer
VAGIT ALEKPEROV, president of LUKoil Oil Company
BOGDAN MELIKOV, supervisor at Omsk Oil Refinery
OTHER CHARACTERS
BELARUSIAN
ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, president
EDWARD AYMAR (Colonel), Commander, 11th Guards Mechanized Brigade
CHINESE
XIANG CHENGLEI, president of China and general secretary of the Party
XIE HAI, president’s executive assistant
INDIAN
DEEPAK MADAN, president
ANKUR KUMAR, minister of defense
RAHUL GUPTA, minister of external affairs
NAVEEN CHANDRA, ambassador to the United States
NATO
JOHAN VAN DER BIE, secretary-general
SUSAN GATES, United Kingdom prime minister
FRANÇOIS LOUBET, French president
EMMA SCHMIDT, German chancellor
DALIA GRYBAUSKAITĖ, Lithuanian president
UKRAINE
ALEX RUDENKO, Opposition Bloc politician
RANDY GUIMOND, Russian SVR agent
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed reading Blackmail as much as I enjoyed writing it.
This was the most enjoyable book for me to write thus far. My first book—The Trident Deception—was tortuous, as I was still learning how to write, and it went through many revisions before reaching the final version. (Over two hundred pages ended up on the cutting room floor, and the ending is quite different than the one my publisher bought. It’s a long story, but the short version is that in the original novel, everyone died at the end—Wilson and Christine included. However, my publisher wanted a sequel, and that’s hard to do if everyone dies. So I resurrected Christine and Wilson. If the scenes in The Trident Deception where it appears they die come across as convincing, that’s because they originally died in those scenes.)
Each book continues to be a learning experience as I get feedback from readers, gaining a better understanding of what works and doesn’t from a thriller reader’s perspective. Due to how early my publisher requires my manuscripts (Empire Rising was turned in before The Trident Deception was published), Ice Station Nautilus was the first book where I had a chance to incorporate reader comments, and Blackmail incorporates additional feedback. I hope you like how it turned out.
I enjoyed writing the Russian paratrooper chapter in Blackmail, drawing on my personal experience. I’m a submariner who also happens to be a qualified paratrooper—I earned my wings at Fort Benning, Georgia. I was planning to go Marine Corps at the time, but for several reasons ended up going submarines. I wore my jump wings on my uniform for a few years, garnering quite a few odd looks and questions. A paratrooper aboard a submarine is obviously an odd lash-up.
Also, the usual disclaimer—some of the tactics described in Blackmail are generic and not accurate. For example, torpedo employment and evasion tactics are classified and cannot be accurately represented in this novel. The dialogue also isn’t one hundred percent accurate. If it were, much of it would be unintelligible to the average reader. To help the story move along without getting bogged down in acronyms, technical details, and other military jargon, I simplified the dialogue and description of operations and weapon systems.
For all of the above, I apologize. I did my best to keep everything as close to real life as possible while developing a suspenseful (and unclassified), page-turning novel. Hopefully it all worked out, and you enjoyed reading Blackmail.
ALSO BY RICK CAMPBELL
The Trident Deception
Empire Rising
Ice Station Nautilus
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICK CAMPBELL is a retired navy commander who spent more than twenty years on multiple submarine tours. On his last tour, he was one of the two men whose permission was required to launch the submarine’s nuclear warhead–tipped missiles. Campbell is the author of The Trident Deception, Empire Rising, and Ice Station Nautilus. He lives with his family in the greater Washington, D.C., area. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Main Characters
Map
1. Western Pacific
2. USS Mississippi
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Washington, D.C.
5. Washington, D.C.
6. Washington, D.C. • Moscow
7. Vladivostok • Severomorsk
8. Kursk, Russia
9. Minsk, Belarus
10. Zaporizhia, Ukraine
11. Washington, D.C.
12. Washington, D.C.
13. Arlington, Virginia
14. USS Michigan
15. Moscow
16. Beijing, China
17. New Delhi, India
18. Moscow
19. Arish, Egypt
20. USS Michigan
21. Fort Meade, Maryland
22. Washington, D.C.
23. Moscow
24. USS Michigan
25. USS Michigan
26. Mediterranean Sea
27. Moscow
28. USS Michigan
29. Zaporizhia, Ukraine
30. Zaporizhia, Ukraine
31. Moscow
32. Kamennyi Log, Belarus
33. Washington, D.C.
34. Moscow
35. Washington, D.C.
36. Casteau, Belgium
37. Novaja Huta, Belarus
38. Kiev, Ukraine
39. Air Force One
40. USS Michigan
41. Arish, Egypt
42. Brussels, Belgium
43. Washington, D.C.
44. Moscow
45. Washington, D.C.
46. New Delhi, India
47. Beijing, China
48. Velikiy Novgorod, Russia
49. Jaslyk, Uzbekistan
50. Washington, D.C.
51. USS Harry S. Truman
52. USS Michigan
53. Moscow
54. Washington, D.C.
55. Moscow
56. Moscow
57. Sochi, Russia
58. Yasenevo, Russia
59. Sochi, Russia
60. Sochi, Russia
61. Sochi, Russia
62. Valdez, Alaska
63. Arlington, Virginia
64. USS Harry S. Truman
65. USS Michigan
66. USS Harry S. Truman
67. Fury 21
68. Bandar Abbas, Iran
69. Arabian Sea
70. Aiea, Hawaii
71. Moscow
72. Gulf of Oman
73. USS Harry S. Truman
74. USS Hartford
75. Arabian Sea
76. USS Harry S. Truman
77. Arabian Sea
78. Arabian Sea
79. Pelican Zero-Eight
80. K-456 Vilyuchinsk
81. Moscow
82. New Delhi, India
83. USS Harry S. Truman
84. Arabian Sea
85. USS Harry S. Truman
86. USS Theodore Roosevelt
87. Pentagon
88. USS Michigan
89. Siberia, Russia
90. USS Michigan
91. Omsk, Russia
92. USS Michigan
93. Omsk, Russia
94. Moscow
95. Sochi, Russia
96. Sochi, Russia
97. Black Sea
98. Washington, D.C.
99. USS Michigan
100. Washington, D.C. • USS Michigan
Epilogue. Moscow
Complete Cast of Characters
Author’s Note
Also by Rick Campbell
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BLACKMAIL. Copyright © 2017 by Rick Campbell. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Maps by Rhys Davies
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Campbell, Rick (Navy Commander), author.
Title: Blackmail / Rick Campbell.
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013455 | ISBN 978-1-250-07216-0 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-4668-8356-7 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—Russia—Fiction. | Russia—Foreign relations—United States—Fiction. | Special operations (Military science)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Technological. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | War stories.