open fields that teemed with migratory birds; though six months from now the temperature would be brutally, killingly cold, at the peak of summer’s heat in August a person would sweat standing still in the shade. In the distance, scattered smoke plumes rose from wood-pulping paper factories, from coal-fired power plants, and from smelters busy purifying valuable metals from ores.
Eventually, in that same direction, north, too far to see from where he stood, mainland Russia ended, where frigid waves from the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea broke against the shore. In winter, he knew from experience, those waves froze to solid ice. Now both seas were sprinkled with icebergs, and their farther sides bordered the polar cap itself. Past the New Siberian Islands was no more dry land until well beyond the North Pole, in an alien place called Canada—not much more distant from Meredov in one direction than Vladivostok was in the other.
He gazed thoughtfully to the north. Out there lay his area of responsibility. Rear Admiral Elmar Meredov commanded all shore-based and surface naval forces that defended the northeastern part of the Siberian coast against amphibious assault, and protected nearby home waters from incursion by foreign submarines. What an absurd military arrangement. Three thousand kilometers of coastline in his jurisdiction, not counting the islands, and he had no control over army troops, air force fighter jets, or any major fleet formations or Russian submarines. His own assets—smaller ships, long-endurance patrol planes, his undersea hydrophone nets, and even his headquarters building itself—depended for their own defense on other departments, directorates, and branches of the armed forces, between which cooperation, even in these turbulent times, was conspicuous by its nonexistence.
Meredov was very used to such things. In a way, he’d started out his career as a product of the Soviet state at its best. The son of poor factory workers in Leningrad, with no Party affiliations at all, he’d excelled in mathematics in school. After he won a regional math contest against stiff competition, the communist system sent him to college at Moscow State University, where he received a superb education in the mid-1980s. As graduation day approached he was invited to join the navy, by a regime whose invitations could not be refused. Trained as a junior officer, his technical talents and resilient, even-tempered personality led him to an assignment in submarines.
The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russia deteriorated into an era of experiments with democracy and capitalism—experiments that tragically failed. The Russian military dwindled, pay became increasingly irregular, but at least there was food and clean clothes. This was a lot better than most civilians had, including his parents, whom he was forced to scramble to support. He’d married a woman he met at university, a linguistics major of great inner character strength and no great beauty. But Elmar Meredov was neither charming nor handsome himself—and he knew it. In real life, love and passion had nothing to do with good looks; the marriage thrived and they raised three wonderful, bright, athletic sons. His wife’s language skills won her plenty of work as a translator, and the extended family, with her unemployed parents too, got by.
Meredov rose further in the Russian Navy based on his evident merit and persistent hard work, plus an increasingly shrewd sense of how to play the ridiculous system. He became the assistant captain of one of Russia’s handful of Project 941 subs. NATO called them Typhoons. Weighing almost as much as a World War II battleship, carrying twenty long-range missiles that each bore ten hydrogen bomb warheads, a Typhoon was immense and almost indestructible. Meredov earned another promotion, but there were too few submarines still in commission for him to get to command one. Instead, he was put in charge of
Eventually, in that same direction, north, too far to see from where he stood, mainland Russia ended, where frigid waves from the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea broke against the shore. In winter, he knew from experience, those waves froze to solid ice. Now both seas were sprinkled with icebergs, and their farther sides bordered the polar cap itself. Past the New Siberian Islands was no more dry land until well beyond the North Pole, in an alien place called Canada—not much more distant from Meredov in one direction than Vladivostok was in the other.
He gazed thoughtfully to the north. Out there lay his area of responsibility. Rear Admiral Elmar Meredov commanded all shore-based and surface naval forces that defended the northeastern part of the Siberian coast against amphibious assault, and protected nearby home waters from incursion by foreign submarines. What an absurd military arrangement. Three thousand kilometers of coastline in his jurisdiction, not counting the islands, and he had no control over army troops, air force fighter jets, or any major fleet formations or Russian submarines. His own assets—smaller ships, long-endurance patrol planes, his undersea hydrophone nets, and even his headquarters building itself—depended for their own defense on other departments, directorates, and branches of the armed forces, between which cooperation, even in these turbulent times, was conspicuous by its nonexistence.
Meredov was very used to such things. In a way, he’d started out his career as a product of the Soviet state at its best. The son of poor factory workers in Leningrad, with no Party affiliations at all, he’d excelled in mathematics in school. After he won a regional math contest against stiff competition, the communist system sent him to college at Moscow State University, where he received a superb education in the mid-1980s. As graduation day approached he was invited to join the navy, by a regime whose invitations could not be refused. Trained as a junior officer, his technical talents and resilient, even-tempered personality led him to an assignment in submarines.
The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russia deteriorated into an era of experiments with democracy and capitalism—experiments that tragically failed. The Russian military dwindled, pay became increasingly irregular, but at least there was food and clean clothes. This was a lot better than most civilians had, including his parents, whom he was forced to scramble to support. He’d married a woman he met at university, a linguistics major of great inner character strength and no great beauty. But Elmar Meredov was neither charming nor handsome himself—and he knew it. In real life, love and passion had nothing to do with good looks; the marriage thrived and they raised three wonderful, bright, athletic sons. His wife’s language skills won her plenty of work as a translator, and the extended family, with her unemployed parents too, got by.
Meredov rose further in the Russian Navy based on his evident merit and persistent hard work, plus an increasingly shrewd sense of how to play the ridiculous system. He became the assistant captain of one of Russia’s handful of Project 941 subs. NATO called them Typhoons. Weighing almost as much as a World War II battleship, carrying twenty long-range missiles that each bore ten hydrogen bomb warheads, a Typhoon was immense and almost indestructible. Meredov earned another promotion, but there were too few submarines still in commission for him to get to command one. Instead, he was put in charge of
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