Contact

(Source)

"Gospodin prezident¹, it is so very good to talk with you once again. How may I be of service?"

"Vasily Aleksandrovich², the pleasure is mine. I was very happy to see that you had been appointed to be your country's ambassador to the United States, you have always been a forthright and honest man. Blunt at times, but that, to me at any rate, is refreshing in a member of the diplomatic corps."

"Well as you know Sir, I was not always a diplomat ..."

"Yes, Captain First Rank Volkov, you were once a feared submariner!"

"Garri³! You old seadog, why are you not in jail!"

Admiral Harry Fairchild laughed at that, Volkov had already been one of the Russians' best submarine commanders at around the same time Fairchild had been given his first command. After the incident in Ukraine, the Russians and Americans had sat down and peace, after a fashion, had been negotiated. At the negotiations Fairchild and Volkov had been members of their country's respective naval delegations. In the manner of sailors everywhere, the two parties had gotten along famously. To a sailor the first enemy is always the sea, the vast oceans of the planet do not respect ideology of any kind.

"I might ask the same of you, Captain Volkov."

After a short chuckle, Volkov got straight down to business, "Mr. Rutherford, I was under the impression that you were no longer the President of the United States, however, we here at the Russian Embassy are by no means ignorant of what is happening in your country right now. Are you part of this, this coup?"

Rutherford thought for a long moment, then answered the Russian Ambassador to the United States, "Yes, Vasily Aleksandrovich, I suppose I am."

"Are you one of the leaders?"

Rutherford looked at Colonel Tanaka, who nodded.

"Yes, I suppose I am Mr. Ambassador."

"Excellent, my government has a message for you."

"Conn, Sonar."

The Officer of the Deck (OOD), Lieutenant Lance Pendleton picked up the microphone, "Sonar, Conn, report."

"That contact that's been fading in and out at relative bearing 227, it's back and a lot stronger. I think we need to check the Sound Velocity Profile (SVP) for this area, I think the layer has moved."

Pendleton switched circuits, "Captain to the Conn, strong sonar contact 227 relative."

Moments later CDR O'Bannon entered the control room, "Captain has the Conn," the OOD announced.

"What do we have, Lance?" The captain stepped over to one of the Fire Control consoles and looked at the display.

"That contact has been out there for hours Cap'n, he thinks he's being sneaky. We updated the SVP, salinity and temperature have changed, this guy," the sailor on the console pointed at the contact, which was labeled S320, "doesn't seem to realize it."

O'Bannon picked up a the microphone, "Sonar, this is the Captain, you got a classification on Sierra Tree-Two-Zero?"

"Computer says it's a Sui-class boat, one of their older ones. My gut tells me it's Changzheng-24. We listened in on her trials a couple of years back, that boat had some odd flow noise characteristics, almost as if she had something sticking up from the hull, like something wasn't installed quite right."

"Thanks Chief." Heading back to the Conn, O'Bannon ran into the XO. "Tom, we have a recording of the time around we barely dodged that Shkval, right?"

"COB's got it cued up, Cap'n."

"Let's give it a look."

Vice President Robert Fallon had sought asylum at the Russian Embassy when he had been headed for the White House and noticed the significant military presence around that building. His own intelligence apparatus had warned him that a military coup was imminent. He had been too far from the Chinese Embassy to try and get there, so he went to the Russians.

They had been cordial at first, then when things had started to go south, they had become more formal and had restricted him to a small room used by the embassy's overnight staff for sleeping. He had demanded to be escorted to the Chinese Embassy under diplomatic cover, but had been refused.

A very serious man, Fallon suspected that he was FSB⁴, their Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB⁵, had questioned him closely about why he had sought asylum. When Fallon had told them that he was working with the Chinese for "world peace" the Russians had stopped communicating with him altogether.

Now he was being led out of the room, he had a bag over his head and his hands had been zip-tied. "What is this outrage? I am the Vice President of the United States and I demand to know just what the Hell you think you are doing!"

He received no answer, he felt the cold air as he was led outside, he was beginning to be very worried. He heard what had to be the gate to the Embassy grounds being opened. He was pressed up against a metal pole, which he assumed was a light pole. Then his hands were released, then wrapped around the pole and zip-tied again. He heard the two men who had practically dragged him outside walking away.

"What, what is this?! How dare you?"

He then heard one of the men say, "Udachi tebe dolbanyy predatel'⁶."

From the tone of the man's voice, Fallon realized that he was in deep shit.

Captain Xue Xiaotong was preparing a report to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party when the alarm went off. He rushed to the control room of his command, the submarine Changzheng-24.

"Report!"

"Captain! Torpedo in the water, we think it's from the American!"

"How the Hell could they know we are here? Navigator! Are we still below the layer?"

The navigator checked his instruments, then rechecked them, "Captain, I apologize, the SVP has changed drastically, probably because of the large storm which passed through yesterday. There is a clear sound channel to the American submarine."

"Maneuvering ..."

Before Xue could deliver his order, the Mk 48 TI1 detonated when it detected the Chinese submarine. The shock of the explosion actually "bent" the Chinese boat and caused massive flooding throughout Changzheng-24. Her crew never had a chance.

Colonel Jeff Tanaka knocked on the interim President's door, which is how they were referring to Rutherford at the moment.

"Enter!"

"Sir, we have the Vice President!" Tanaka placed a sheaf of documents on the desk in front of Rutherford.

The interim President studied them briefly. One document was from the Russians, it had dates, times, and even photographs of Fallon's meetings with the Chinese. The last document at the bottom was Fallon's resignation from the office of the Vice Presidency.

"Has a copy of this been sent over to the acting head of the Senate?" he asked Tanaka.

"Yes Sir."

"Have we had a reply?"

"Just verbal Sir, they are asking permission to contact the President at the White House to inform him and ask for his nomination to the vacated office. They made the suggestion that your name should be considered. The implication was that your name would be the only one the rump Senate would approve."

"How many Senators are going along now?"

"Sixty-four Sir. More than a quorum from my understanding."

"That's right Colonel, the Constitution says a simple majority in either house constitutes a quorum. Any idea when the current President will answer the Senate?"

"Negative Sir, but we're monitoring the situation."

"Thanks Colonel, hopefully this all works out well."

"Yes Sir ...," Tanaka hesitated, then said, "Sir, I must inform you that I have been told that there is a warrant out for my arrest."

"From who?" Rutherford looked outraged at that.

"My sources are trying to find out, Sir."

"Keep me posted, don't leave the building if you can help it Jeff."

"No Sir, I won't."

¹ Russian for "Mister President," (Господин президент).

² I borrowed the name from this man, who is certainly worth remembering.

³ Harry in Russian sounds something like Gary in English, the phonetic spelling given by Google Translate is "Garri," in Cyrillic it's spelled "Гарри."

⁴ FSB = Russian: Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti

⁵ KGB = Russian: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Committee for State Security

⁶ "Good luck you f**king traitor.