Page 9 (1/2)

With a length of five hundred seventy feet and a seventy-five-foot bea forward deck stretched out fro tower, or sail, to ed in ts The design gave the Typhoon a distinctive profile

The unique hull design extended past its metal exterior Instead of one pressure hull, as in most subave the Typhoon a cargo capacity of fifteen thousand tons and rooym and a sauna Escape chambers were located above each hull The submarine’s control room and attack center were both in compartments located under the sail

The Bear was one of six 941 Typhoons commissioned in the 1980s and introduced into the Northern fleet as part of the first flotilla of nuclear submarines based at Nerpichya Leonid Brezhnev called the new model “the Typhoon” in a speech, and the name stuck They were deployed as the Russian Akula class,“shark,” which was the name the US Navy used for them

Despite its huge size, the Typhoon clipped along at more than twenty-five knots underwater and around half that speed on the surface It could turn on a ruble, dive to the ocean depths, and stay down a hundred eighty days, acco these ned The sub carried a crew of more than one hundred sixty Each hull had a reactor plant that powered a steam turbine which produced fifty thousand horsepower to drive the two huge propellers Two propulsion pods allowed the sub to hover and maneuver

The Typhoon subs eventually outlived their military and political usefulness and were taken out of service in the late 1990s Soo under the arctic ice by replacing the o space The ent out that the Typhoons were for sale to the highest bidder

The captain would have preferred to see the subs scrapped rather than have thenoble end for a fine war machine! In its day, the terrible Typhoon was the subject of books and otten how many times he had seen The Hunt for Red October

Vasilevich had been hired by the Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering to oversee the conversion The nuclearbeen rereed to scrap its own city busters

Vasilevich had supervised the reo hold The silos were plugged andand off-loading of cargo A crew half the size of the original would deliver the sub to its neners

The captain took another shot of vodka and tucked his flask into a pocket Before leaving the dock, he couldn’t resist turning back for one last look The submarine had cleared the harbor and was on the open sea headed to its unknown fate The captain pulled his coat closer around hi off the water and headed back to his car

Vasilevich had been around too long to accept things at face value The subht coue, and the deal was structured like a set ofdolls

The captain had his own theories about the sub’s future An undersea vessel with the long range and huge cargo capacity of the Typhoon would be perfect for shts to hierous for those who knew toopossession of the Cold War relic was none of his business This deal had warning signs posted all over it, but the captain kneise not to ask about such things, and even wiser not to know

CHAPTER 2

ANHUI PROVINCE, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

THE HELICOPTER DARTED IN FROM NOWHERE AND CIRCLED above the village like a noisy dragonfly Dr Song Lee looked up fro boy’s arm and watched as the helicopter hovered and then started its vertical descent to a field at the edge of the settlement

The doctor gave the boy a pat on the head and accepted her payrateful parents She had treated the wound with soap, hot water, and an herbal poultice, and it was healing nicely With little in the way ofdoctor did the best she could hat she had