Red Storm Rising

by Tom Clancy

Copyright © 1986 by Jack Ryan Enterprises Ltd. and Larry Bond.

ISBN: 978-1-101-00234-6

Version_10

The sea has supplied mobility, capability, and support throughout Western history, and those failing in the sea-power test—notably Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler—also failed the longevity one. —Edward L. Beach, in Keepers of the Sea

Author’s Note

1

The Slow Fuse

NIZHNEVARTOVSK, R.S.F.S.R.

“It is time, my brothers.” Tolkaze handed the AK-47 rifle and ammo belt to his taller friend.

“Paradise awaits.”

His face bore a grim, content expression. At least twenty-five atheist pigs dead. Twenty-five foreign invaders who would no longer stand between his people and their God. Truly he had done Allah’s work!

There was no place—and no reason—to run. Mohammet and Ibrahim stood immobile in the doorway as the grenades bounced and skittered across the tiled floor. Around them the whole world seemed to be catching fire, and because of them, the whole world really would.

“Allahu akhbar!”

SUNNYVALE, CA...

The fire which had begun in the gasoline/diesel section of the refinery had been sufficient to alert a strategic early-warning satellite in geosynchronous orbit twenty-four thousand miles above the Indian Ocean. The signal was downlinked to a top-security U.S. Air Force post.

“The refinery—well, it’s gone, sir. That fire’ll spread in front of that wind, and ain’t no way in hell they’ll stop it. The refinery’s gone, total loss, burn maybe three, four days—maybe a week, parts of it. And unless they find a way to stop it, looks like the production field is going to go, too, sir. By next pass, sir, it’ll all be burnin’, all those wellheads spillin’ burnin’ o’l . . . Lordy, I don’t even think Red Adair would want any part of this job!”

“It’s their newest and biggest, ought to put a dent in their POL production while they rebuild that from scratch. And once they get those field fires put out, they’ll have to rearrange their gas and diesel production quite a bit. I’ll say one thing for Ivan. When he has an industrial accident, he doesn’t screw around. A major inconvenience for our Russian friends, Sergeant.”

2

Odd Man In

The Nizhnevartovsk oil production field accounts for roughly 31.3 percent of total Soviet crude oil, according to the American Petroleum Institute, and the adjacent, newly built Nizhnevartovsk refinery for approximately 17.3 percent of petroleum distillate production.

This seemingly mild statement is being seen in Western circles as a stinging indictment of the policies of now-departed Petroleum Industry minister Zatyzhin, since replaced by Mikhail Sergetov, former chief of the Leningrad Party apparatus, regarded as a rising star in the Soviet Party. A technocrat with a background of engineering and Party work, Sergetov’s task of reorganizing the Soviet oil industry is seen as a task that could last years.

MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.

Three hundred men were known to have died fighting the fire, and, miraculously, fewer than two hundred citizens in the city of Nizhnevartovsk.

The refinery was almost totally destroyed. Reconstruction would take a minimum of two to three years, and would account for a sizable percentage of national steel pipe production, plus all the other specialty items unique to a facility of this type:

The bad news: the fire that had engulfed the production field had totally destroyed the welltops. Time to replace: at least thirty-six months!

For a minimum of eighteen months the Soviet Union will have an enormous shortfall in oil production. Probably more like thirty months. What will happen to our economy?

“Comrade, work in the Siberian fields is arduous, and we have had serious difficulties in filling the posts we have there. My predecessor decided to conscript experienced oil-field workers from the Baku region to Siberia. This was madness. You will recall that my first recommendation last year was to change this policy.”

“My report of December 20 described the dangers here. This room quite literally controlled the pumps and valves for over a hundred square kilometers. The same is true of all of our large oil complexes. From the nerve center, a man familiar with control procedures could manipulate the various systems throughout the field at will, causing the entire complex quite simply to self-destruct. Tolkaze had such skill. He was an Azerbaijani chosen for special treatment for his intelligence and supposed loyalty, an honor student educated at Moscow State University and a member in good standing of the local Party. It would also seem that he was a religious fanatic capable of astounding treachery. All the people killed in the control room were friends of his—or so they thought. After fifteen years in the Party, a good salary, the professional respect of his comrades, even his own automobile, his last words were a shrill cry to Allah,” Sergetov said dryly. “The reliability of people from that region cannot be accurately predicted, Comrades.”

“Comrades, we have lost thirty-four percent of our total crude oil production for a period of at least one year, possibly as many as three.”

“In real terms, due to the chemical makeup of the Nizhnevartovsk oil, the net total production loss understates the actual impact on our economy. Siberian oil is ‘light, sweet’ crude, which means that it contains a disproportionately large amount of the most valuable fractions—those which we use to make gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel, for example. The net loss in these particular areas is forty-four percent of our gasoline production, forty-eight percent of kerosene, and fifty percent of diesel. These figures are rough calculations I made on the flight back, but they should be accurate to within two percent. My staff will have more precise figures ready in a day or so.”

“Comrade, your experience in foreign and defense areas is slim, no?” the Defense Minister asked. “I have never pretended otherwise, Comrade Minister,” Sergetov answered warily. “Then I will tell you why this situation is unacceptable. If we do what you suggest, the West will learn of our crisis. Increased purchases of oil production equipment and unconcealable signs of activity at Nizhnevartovsk will demonstrate to them all too clearly what is happening here. That will make us vulnerable in their eyes. Such vulnerability will be exploited. And, at the same time”—he pounded his fist on the heavy oak table—“you propose reducing the fuel available to the forces who defend us against the West!”

“For the first time, the West has the ability to strangle us in a single year. What if now they also prevent our purchase of grain?”

He looked around the table. Twenty-two men, of whom only thirteen really decided matters—and one of those was missing—were silently contemplating the prospect of over two hundred fifty million Soviet workers and peasants, all hungry and in the dark, at the same time that the troops of the Red Army, the Ministry of the Interior, and the KGB found their own fuel supplies—and because of it, their training and mobility—restricted.

Around them was a country whose citizens were poorly fed and poorly housed, whose only abundant commodities were the painted signs and slogans praising Soviet Progress and Solidarity. Some of the men at this table actually believed those slogans, Sergetov knew. Sometimes he still did, mainly in homage to his idealistic youth. But Soviet Progress had not fed their nation, and how long would Soviet Solidarity endure in the hearts of people hungry, cold, in the dark? Would they be proud of the missiles in the Siberian forests then? Of the thousands of tanks and guns produced every year? Would they then look to the sky that held a Salyut space station and feel inspired—or would they wonder what kind of food was being eaten by that elite? Less than a year before, Sergetov had been a regional Party chieftain, and in Leningrad he had been careful to listen to his own staff people’s description of the jokes and grumblings in the lines which people endured for two loaves of bread, or toothpaste, or shoes. Detached even then from the harsher realities of life in the Soviet Union, he had often wondered if one day the burden of the ordinary worker would become too heavy to endure. How would he have known then? How would he know now? Would the older men here ever know?

The Defense Minister broke the silence. “We must obtain more oil. It is as simple as that. The alternative is a crippled economy, hungry citizens, and reduced defense capacity. The consequences of which are not acceptable.” “We cannot purchase oil,” a candidate member pointed out. “Then we must take it.”

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

The fire was out, and people in his department had been speculating on how Ivan had put it out so fast. “Shouldn’t hurt them too bad. I mean, they don’t have millions of people taking to the road on summer vacations, do they?”

MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.

“Comrades,” began the Defense Minister. “The Soviet Union must have oil, at least two hundred million tons more than we can produce. Such oil exists, only a few hundred kilometers from our border in the Persian Gulf—more oil than we will ever need. We have the ability to take it, of course. Inside of two weeks, we could assemble enough aircraft and airborne troops to swoop down on those oil fields and gobble them up. “Unfortunately, there could not fail to be a violent Western response. Those same oil fields supply Western Europe, Japan, and to a lesser extent, America. The NATO countries do not have the ability to defend those fields with conventional means. The Americans have their Rapid Deployment Force, a hollow shell of headquarters and a few light troops. Even with their pre-positioned equipment at Diego Garcia, they could not hope to stop our airborne and mechanized forces. Were they to try, and they would have to try, their elite troops would be overwhelmed and exterminated in a few days—and they would be faced with a single alternative: nuclear weapons. This is a real risk that we cannot disregard. We know for a fact that American war plans call for nuclear weapons in this case. Such weapons are stored in quantity at Diego Garcia, and would almost certainly be used. “Therefore, before we can seize the Persian Gulf, we must first do one other thing. We must eliminate NATO as a political and military force.”

“If NATO is first removed from the board, America will be in a most curious position. The United States will be able to meet its own energy needs from Western Hemisphere sources, removing the need to defend the Arab states, who are in any case not terribly popular with the American Jewish Zionist community.”

Did they really believe this, Sergetov wondered, did they actually believe the United States would sit on its hands? What went on at the late meeting yesterday?

“Our objectives must be limited, and obviously so. This presents us with several political tasks. First, we must engender a feeling of security in America, to put them off guard until it is too late for them to react forcefully. Second, we must attempt to unravel the NATO alliance in a political sense.” The Foreign Minister ventured a rare smile. “As you know, the KGB has been working on such a plan for the past several years. It is now in its final form. I will outline it for you.”

“And what if NATO discovers our intentions?” old Petya demanded. “They will not. Already we are preparing our maskirovka, our trickery. NATO is not a strong alliance. It cannot be. The ministers bicker over each country’s defense contribution. Their peoples are divided and soft. They cannot standardize their weapons, and because of it their supply situation is utter chaos. And their most important, most powerful member is separated from Europe by five thousand kilometers of ocean. The Soviet Union is only an overnight train ride from the German border. But, Petya, my old friend, I will answer your question. If everything fails, and our intentions are discovered, we can always stop, say that we were running an exercise, and return to peacetime conditions—and be no worse off than if we do nothing at all. We need strike only if all is ready. We can always draw back.”

What army had ever been mobilized to be called back?

The vote was eleven to two for war. The process had begun.

3

Correlation of Forces

MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.

“How are we to go about it?” Rozhkov asked. “Red Storm,” the Marshal replied simply. Red Storm was the plan for a mechanized attack into West Germany and the Low Countries. Constantly updated for changes in the force structures of both sides, it called for a two- to three-week campaign commencing after a rapid escalation of tension between East and West. Despite this, in accordance with standard Soviet strategic doctrine, it called for strategic surprise as a precondition for success, and the use of conventional weapons only.

“And the maskirovka?” “In two parts. The first is purely political, to work against the United States. The second part, immediately before the war begins, is from KGB.