Cry from the Deep by Ramsey Flynn

Author:Ramsey Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

BLAST PLUS SIX DAYS, SIX HOURS

By the evening of Friday, August 18, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov prepares to face the submariners’ families on Putin’s behalf. As he enters the simple officer’s auditorium in Vidyayevo, he senses the crowd is piqued in a way utterly unfamiliar to him. In Soviet times, displays of grief and distress might manifest, but this is a people he barely recognizes.

Taking his position at the podium, Klebanov is flanked by Murmansk regional governor Yuri Yevdokimov along with Kursk regional governor and popular Russian war hero Alexander Rutskoi.

Rutskoi’s presence serves as a key touchstone. He was at the center of the 1991 coup attempt to oust Mikhail Gorbachev, a bold effort essentially intercepted by Yeltsin. It is also Rutskoi’s region in western Russia, Kursk, which gives the great submarine its name. The region became deeply etched into the Russian psyche as the site of history’s biggest tank battle, in which the Red Army decisively turned back the Nazi advance in Russia’s “Great Patriotic War.” The region has been so enamored of its namesake submarine that its citizens have routinely supplied it with supplementary foodstuffs, and have held annual competitions for local young men to win slots on her crew. Seven sailors from the Kursk region are among the 118 who sailed out to the exercise, their fates now unknown.

But the support of such officials offers little protection for Klebanov against the pent-up fury of a hall filled with stricken relatives who have seemingly lost all fear of a government they now see as increasingly deceitful, incompetent, and inhumane.

Some of the young wives are in the auditorium, clinging to the idea that here is a Kremlin official who might have better news. Khalima Aryapova has spent long stretches alone in her apartment all week, but is now supported by her brother, who has just arrived. Olga Lubushkina yearns for any official information. Olga Kolesnikova has also arrived, along with Dima’s parents. Dima’s young wife is stoic, but more functional than her two stricken girlfriends.

Deputy Prime Minister Klebanov’s plan is to assuage the families with a confident description of how Russia’s greatest assets have been brought to bear to rescue their relatives. Perhaps that is the information they lack, so he will show them. But no sooner does Klebanov begin listing the numbers of vessels involved in the effort than he is abruptly halted with a primal shriek.

Nadezhda Tylik shoots to her feet. “You’re swine!” she screams, as a TV camera furtively pans away from the podium to her location in the crowd. Tylik has spent the better part of her adult life in this desperate garrison town, and she had grown accustomed to Moscow’s official neglect. This is the first time in her memory that such a senior government official has seen fit to pay a visit to her forgotten little community, whose people forgo even basic necessities to guarantee their country’s security. They’d trusted their government to be there when the chips were down, but these feeble mutterings are more than she can bear.

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