The Intruders by Stephen Coonts

Author:Stephen Coonts
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2010-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

13

The Soviet intelligence ship Reduktor joined the task group during the night and fell in line astern. At dawn she was two miles behind the carrier wallowing heavily. When the sun came up she held her position even though the task group raised its speed to twelve knots. When the sea state eased somewhat the Soviet ship rode steadier.

Jake came up on deck for the first launch of the day only to find that the AGI was dropping steadily astern. Her captain knew the drill. The carrier had been running steadily downwind, but to launch she would turn into the wind, toward the AGI. So now the Soviet ship was slowing to one or two knots, just enough to maintain steerageway.

At the brief the air intelligence officers showed the flight crews file photos of this Okean-class intelligence collector. She was a small converted trawler. Had she not been festooned with a dazzling array of radio antennas that rose from her superstructure and masts, one would assume her crew was still looking for fish.

So there they were. Russians. In Reduktor’s compartments they were busy with their reel-to-reel tape drives—probably all made in Japan—recording every word, peep or chirp on every radio frequency that the U.S. Navy had ever been known to use. Doubtlessly they monitored other frequencies occasionally as well, just in case. These tapes would be examined by experts who would construct from them detailed analyses of how the U.S. Navy operated and what its capabilities were. Encrypted transmissions would be turned over to specialists who would try to break the codes.

In short, the crew of Reduktor were spies. They were going about their business in a lawful manner, however, in plain sight upon the high seas, so there was nothing anyone in the U.S. Navy could do about it. In fact, the American captains and watch officers had to make sure that their ships didn’t accidentally collide with the Soviet ship.

There was one other possibility, not very probable, but possible. Reduktor might be a beacon ship marking the position of the American task group for Soviet forces. Just in case, American experts aboard the U.S. ships monitored, recorded and analyzed every transmission that Reduktor made.

Anticipating the coming of a Soviet AGI, the U.S. task group had already reduced its own radio transmissions as much as possible. During the day the aircrews from Columbia operated “zip-lip,” speaking on the radio only when required. Specialists from the Communications Security Group—COMSEGRU— had visited every ready room to brief the crews.

This morning Jake Grafton spent a moment watching the old trawler, then went on with his preflight. He would, he suspected, see a lot of that ship in the next few months.

After four days of operations in the Sea of Japan, Columbia and her escorts called at Sasebo and stayed for a week. Reduktor was waiting when they came out of port.

The first week of August was spent operating off the southern coast of Korea, then the task group steamed south and spent a week flying in the South China Sea.

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