The unique hull design extended past its metal exterior. Instead of one pressure hull, as in most submarines, the Typhoon had two parallel ones. This arrangement gave the Typhoon a cargo capacity of fifteen thousand tons and room in the starboard hull for a small gym 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, meaning “shark,” which was the name the U.S. 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, accomplishing these maneuvers with one of the quietest power systems ever designed. 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. Someone had suggested that they might be converted to carry cargo under the arctic ice by replacing the missile tubes with cargo space. The word went out that the Typhoons were for sale to the highest bidder.

The captain would have preferred to see the subs scrapped rather than have them turned into undersea cargo scows. What an ignoble end for a fine war machine! In its day, the terrible Typhoon was the subject of books and movies. He had forgotten 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 nuclear missiles had long been removed as part of a joint treaty with the U.S., which had agreed to scrap its own city busters.

Vasilevich had supervised the removal of the missile silos to create a vast cargo hold. The silos were plugged and modifications were made that would allow easier loading and off-loading of cargo. A crew half the size of the original would deliver the sub to its new owners.