Julie saw Nikolai and the rest of the crew stop in their tracks as though suddenly frozen solid. Tension surged through the room like a bolt of lightning.
“What’s going on?” she asked in alarm, cursing for the hundredth time today that she’d never learned the Russian language. She spun. “Clint?”
Nikolai barked an order and the room exploded into action. Overhead, the klaxon went off and the speakers blared something in Russian that made everyone jump. No one paid the slightest attention to her question. Even Clint had popped up, an astonished frown on his face.
“Clint!” she exclaimed, coming to her feet as well. “What on earth is happening?”
He shot her a distracted glance. “The 093 seems to be preparing to launch torpedoes.”
She stared at him in horror. “Are you serious? But why? What did we do?”
“Not a damn thing,” Nikolai interjected from where he stood at the main console, scowling. Everyone was poised over their instruments as though teetering on a dime, ready to act on a word from their captain.
“This is crazy. They have to know we’re unarmed!” she exclaimed hoarsely.
“They don’t appear to care.”
Abruptly, she sat back down. Goose bumps crawled over her arms like giant spiders.
Shit, shit, shit
.
What were the Chinese doing? Were they planning to sink
Ostrov
? Would they really risk starting a world war over the UUV plans contained on the data card that was currently burning a hole in her coverall pocket? Could those plans possibly be so important to them?
Once again she wondered if there might be something on the storage card other than what she’d been told. . . .
“Look,” Clint said, lowering his voice so only the two of them could hear, “I know you found the SD card. Have you told anyone? Could the Chinese have somehow found out that you have it now?”
She gaped at him, wide-eyed. “How did you know?”
The corner of his lip curved. “You just told me.”
She stood up abruptly, furious with herself for falling for the oldest trick in the book. “Who the hell
are
you?” she demanded in a low but intense voice. “What are you doing on this boat? You’d better tell me right now or I swear to God I’ll have Nikolai slap you back in—”
He held up his hands. “No need for dramatics. We’re on the same side. Honest!”
“Julie! Are you all right?” Nikolai called, having sliced them a glance when she’d jumped up.
“If you want answers,” Clint said impassively, “tell him to back off. And keep your voice down.”
“I don’t like being told what to do,” she retorted. But quietly.
“Yeah, I got that,” he said.
Nevertheless, she nodded her head and smiled Nikolai off. She
did
want answers. And Clint was right. The real saboteur could be listening to their conversation even now.
“Now, about that SD card. Does anyone else know?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He shot a glance at Nikolai. “No one?”
Again she shook her head. “I just found it this morning. I was going to tell him, but I”—she gave an involuntary shiver—“never got the chance.”
“You still have it? The attacker didn’t take it off you?”
Her hand strayed to her pocket. “No. I checked it when I changed clothes.”
“And you’re sure it’s the same SD card?”
She nodded. “I drew a small Chinese symbol onto the label after I found it. It hasn’t been switched.”
“Well,” he said, “the good news is the attacker must not know you have it, or it would be gone.”
Small favors.
“And the bad news?”
All at once a loud noise reverberated through the hull, sending a physical jolt through her bones. Her hands flew up to steady herself as she gasped.
“Christ,” Clint said. “They’re going active.”
Fear gripped her. “What does that mean?”
Nikolai shouted an order and no one moved a muscle. She could see sweat pop out on brows all around.
“Sonar. We just got targeted,” Clint told her, frown deepening.
“They’re
shooting
at us?” she squeaked.
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed, looking more calculating than afraid. “My guess is they’re trying to scare the pants off us,” he said from where he stood. “In retaliation for yesterday.”
“Well, it’s working,” she croaked.
Still, as Nikolai exchanged terse words with his men she felt somewhat relieved. She should have thought of that. Of course the 093 would try to get back at
Ostrov
for the embarrassing musical UUV maneuver Nikolai and Clint had pulled with their decoy sounds. Maybe that was all this was. Saving face. Not starting World War III.
“Still no torpedoes launched,” Clint said, watching the instruments like a hawk.
She met Nikolai’s gaze. “Should I be worried yet?” she asked shakily, recalling his promise.
“Not quite yet.” Calm as the center of a storm, he looked at her evenly. “So,” he asked, “how do they expect us to react to this blatant intimidation?”
After her initial surprise over being consulted again, she warmed inwardly at his trust in her judgment. He really
did
believe in her.
Her eyes went back to the sonar monitor, where she could see the Chinese sub getting closer and closer. She nibbled her lip. How
should
they react?
If this was simple retaliation, a show of fear by
Ostrov
’s captain would satisfy their honor. But things were seldom quite so simple with the Chinese. They were unparalleled strategists and masters of subtlety. If this was them lulling
Ostrov
into complacency, or into an unknown trap, it would behoove Nikolai to be thinking several moves ahead.
“They’ll expect us to act frightened. If not in reality, then in pretense, to allow them to save face. I suggest you do so. But let it be the first chess move of your own plan. Be the queen, not a pawn.”
Nikolai smiled. “Or perhaps a knight. I’ve always fancied learning to ride a horse.”
She tilted her head, momentarily distracted. “You’ve never ridden?”
He shook his head. “Not even a seahorse.”
She smiled. “My aunt has horses on her farm in Oklahoma.” She opened her mouth to tell him she’d take him riding when he came to visit. Except he wasn’t going to visit. So she closed it again.
The pain of knowing that stabbed through her. How she wished . . .
Clint cleared his throat. “Whatever you do, Skipper, I think you should be quick about it.”
Another active sonar ping hammered
Ostrov
’s hull, emphasizing his words. Once again all eyes went to Nikolai, who whipped back to his instruments, calling out orders. Then he grabbed a headset, strode over to Julie, and thrust it into her hands.
“What’s this for?” she asked in surprise.
“My secret weapon,” he said, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.
“Which is?”
He lifted her hands with his and urged her to put on the headset. “You.”
Julie’s jaw dropped in shock.
“What?”
Nikolai couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this sooner. “You speak Mandarin, right?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Good. Then you can speak with that Chinese captain and find out what the hell he’s up to.”
Her eyes widened. He had to be kidding. “You realize it won’t be that easy. First of all, I doubt he’ll talk to me.”
“Oh, he’ll talk to you, all right.”
“But is that wise?” Walker interjected.
Nikolai was getting a little tired of the man’s interference. Everywhere he turned, Clint Walker was sticking his nose in. One more and he’d get out the duct tape.
“If they know about the SD card, they have to know CIA sent someone to retrieve it. It won’t be too hard for them to guess it’s Julie,” Walker warned, his voice lowered.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Nikolai said through his teeth, sliding on his own circuit earphones. Ship-to-ship communication underwater was tenuous at best, but at this close range it was just possible. “Mr. Petrov, get the captain of the 093 on the growler, and patch in Miss Severin,” he ordered his radioman, who glanced at him in surprise, then scrambled to obey.
“What am I supposed to say?” Julie asked nervously.
“Ask him what he’s planning to do,” Nikolai returned. “And when he refuses to say, tell him point-blank you found the stolen data card days ago and have already transmitted all the information on it to your employer, so anything they might have in mind in the way of a plan to retrieve—or destroy—it will be too late.”
She blinked owlishly. “I’m pretty sure they’ve been monitoring our communications, including satellite phone calls. They’ll know that’s a lie. Even if I weren’t a terrible liar. Which I am.” At that her eyes dipped away, looking guilty for a brief second.
His attention snagged. A suspicion niggled at him. Was she hiding something from him?
“Granted,” he replied, “but hopefully it will produce a cloud of confusion long enough for us to slip away.” Not to mention the fact that it was a civilian woman speaking to the vessel’s commanding officer—the very woman they were hunting—and not
Ostrov
’s captain. That should buy Nikolai time as the enemy tried to analyze the unorthodox and totally unexpected move.
“Yeah, okay,” Julie said doubtfully.
Unconsciously, her fingers touched the pocket of her coverall, again drawing his attention. She
was
hiding something! Something small.
Nikolai wasn’t the only one who saw the movement. Walker’s gaze darted speculatively to his. Nikolai kept his expression carefully neutral, pretending he hadn’t noticed.
What the hell?
Had Julie actually found the SD card? Sometime between when he’d walked away from her last night and the attempt on her life this morning?
But just then his headset came to life, static echoing in his ears, and a tinny, faraway voice came on speaking Chinese. Julie jerked up in her seat and said something in reply, whereupon there was more static. Finally a man whose clipped, authoritative voice could only be that of the 093’s CO came on. Nikolai could clearly hear the restrained outrage in his tone, but could only guess at what he might be saying to Julie.
While they spoke, Nikolai ordered
Ostrov
about, so they were facing the enemy nose to nose. That should give the enemy commander another unexpected move to think about as he lied through his teeth to Julie.
Who was impressing the hell out of Nikolai. Though he couldn’t understand the conversation, a serene expression had settled over her face and she spoke with elegant dignity as she and the Chinese captain conducted their short, excruciatingly polite exchange. She didn’t let his curt answers ruffle her, and when nothing further was forthcoming, she politely thanked him—at least it sounded that way to Nikolai—and with a
click
the earphones filled with static once more.
She slid off the headset. “Well. That was fun. Not.”
“What did he say?” Walker asked.
Nikolai glared at him in irritation. The other man raised his palms in conciliation. “Sorry.”
Julie’s expression turned wry. “He said he had no idea what I was talking about.”
“I’m shocked,” Walker muttered.
“Conn, sonar. More tubes flooding!” Gavrikov announced from the sonar shack.
It was all Nikolai needed to hear. He smiled grimly. It didn’t matter what the 093 had in mind, he wasn’t sticking around to find out.
“Bring battle stations to full alert, OOD. Prepare to dive the boat, Mr. Zubkin!” he ordered briskly. “Nav! Plot a course for those canyons. I think it’s high time we became a ghost ship.”
He just hoped it was only metaphorically.
One of the principal advantages of a diesel-electric submarine over a nuclear-powered one was the ability to dive and surface quickly.
Ostrov
moved in the water like a whale, large but swift and decisive. The 093 was more ponderous, like an ungainly water buffalo—once going it was formidable, but gearing up and turning about, it took its sweet time.
Nikolai used every precious minute of that time to disappear.
“
Kvartirmyeister
Kresney reports a leak in the galley, sir!” Danya called out just before they hit the two-one-five mark.
Хуйня. The old tub was leaking like a goddamn sieve.
“How bad?” Nikolai demanded over the circuit. “Can we make it?” They were diving hell-bent for leather under the big nuke, and he planned to sprint for the uneven shelter of the canyons as soon as they were clear of the hull, before the enemy could turn around and pursue them.
“It’s bad,
Kapitan
,” came Misha’s report, shouted over the sound of gushing water. “Don’t dive any deeper or we risk the whole damn boat coming apart!”
No way could they come up yet without risking shearing off the sail on the bottom of the Chinese sub, gutting it like a trout in the process. Fatal for both boats.
He noticed that Walker had stopped translating for Julie. Her gaze was darting around the central post with a look of growing panic. Her fingers clutched the arms of her chair in a death grip.
He paused to send her a reassuring smile. “Don’t get worried yet,” he said, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “We’ll be fine.”
He turned back to his monitors. The second they cleared the 093, he ordered, “All ahead full, Mr. Zubkin. Full rise on bow and stern planes! Bring her up to one-five-zero and make it fast.”
He felt the surge of buoyancy as pressurized air was blown into the ballast tanks and
Ostrov
cut up like a dolphin through the water toward the surface. His own adrenaline surged along with it, feeling the force of the pressure pressing his feet into the deck.
“Conn, sonar. The 093 is starting to turn.”
Good luck with that, he thought. By the time the nuke came about,
Ostrov
would already be swallowed up by the recesses of the feature-rich canyon the nav had discovered.
“Fucking hell!” Gavrikov’s voice burst over the circuit. “Conn, sonar! Torpedo has been launched! Repeat, torpedo in the water!”
Julie knew immediately that something was very, very wrong. This time there was no frozen pause before the entire central post watch launched into a chaos of shouts and action.
She didn’t need a translation. The Russian word
torpeda
was not so different from the English.
Terror ripped through her veins, but she ruthlessly tamped it down. Falling apart now would serve nothing, and it would not save her or the lives of the others if
Ostrov
was about to be blown up.
God help them all!
At the helm, Nikolai held the tense crew together, assuming control with an iron will, calming the tumult that swept through the space, urging the men back into military efficiency, launching countermeasures, snapping commands, and ordering
Ostrov
into a diving sprint so fast Julie could feel the grind of the main propeller shaft as it bit into the water. He was magnificent, every inch the hero, and despite her terror Julie felt a huge admiration for the man she’d come to love.
Clint had jumped up at the first sign of trouble and was now peering intently at the sonar repeater. For the moment, the small blip that had shot out from the still-turning 093 was heading away from
Ostrov
, being forced to boomerang around in a semicircle after being launched in the wrong direction due to the 093’s position.
“It’s not a torpedo,” Clint announced loudly, bringing Nikolai whipping around. “It’s a UUV.”
Relief seared through Julie.
Oh, thank God
.
It took Nikolai about two seconds to digest this information and bark a few words into his headset. He listened, then said, “Gavrikov agrees.”
“We’re too close for a torpedo attack,” Clint said, probably for her benefit.
Nikolai nodded at the sonar blip, in the zenith of its U-turn but still closer to the Chinese sub than to
Ostrov
. “They’d risk damaging their own boat in the explosion.”
“Nothing worse than getting sunk by your own fish,” Clint observed.
Julie shivered at the thought. “Other than being sunk by someone else’s.”
Nikolai scowled. “So what’s its purpose?”
Clint pursed his lips. “Too many possibilities even to guess.”
“Could it be carrying explosives?” he asked.
Clint’s shoulder lifted. “If they wanted to blow us up, they’re carrying plenty of real torpedoes. They didn’t
have
to get so close.”
Nikolai glanced over at her. “Julie? Any suggestions?”
She peeled her horrified attention from the blinking dot and forced herself to think. Her heart pounded painfully. “The Chinese have been testing several new kinds of ASW technologies. I guess it would depend on whether they want to follow us, disable us, sink us, or . . .” She let her suggestions trail off. She honestly didn’t want to come up with any more scenarios.
He didn’t press her. “Well, I’m not about to stick around to find out.” He paced back to the main console, calling out orders as he went.
Seconds later the sub made a deep turn, and Julie grabbed hold of her chair, hanging on for dear life while the seasoned submariners simply leaned their bodies with the motion.
She squeezed her eyes shut, listening to Nikolai’s commanding voice as he guided them away from danger, trying to absorb his calm strength through osmosis. He knew what he was doing. He’d get them out of there safely. He had to!
She couldn’t believe it had come to this. This insane mission had changed her life in ways she hadn’t ever imagined. And now it might take it away completely.
No. She mustn’t think that way. That
wasn’t
going to happen.
She opened her eyes again, watching and listening in white-knuckled fear as Nikolai drove
Ostrov
at full tilt up through the steep underwater canyon, searching for a hiding place. The pit of her stomach lurched at every change of depth and turn of the rudder as the sub dashed over ridges and around seamounts to shake their pursuer. She knew their speed wasn’t more than a couple of knots at most, but it felt like a high-speed car chase at ninety miles per hour. The staccato Russian exchanges between Nikolai and his men and the urgent bleat of the overhead speakers made a taut soundtrack to the indecipherable snowstorm of the sonar monitor’s visuals. Cutting through it all was the loud, intermittent ping of the 093’s active sonar blasts, each new one making her jump out of her skin.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take the tension any longer, the chase came to an abrupt halt. The sub slowed like it had hit a solid wall of molasses. Nikolai gave one last clipped command and immediately every sound on the submarine ceased. She opened her mouth to ask what had happened, but he quickly put a finger to his lips, signaling for absolute silence.
She held her breath. They’d gone ultraquiet, hiding in the uneven geography of the canyon, hoping to disappear completely.
Adrenaline surged through her veins as she held her breath. She was certain the Chinese sonar operator must be able to hear the timpani of her heartbeat.
Long, tense moments passed, everyone standing at attention, listening intently, eyes cutting from the sonar monitor to the hull of the boat as though trying to see through the steel walls out to the cold, black water beyond.
All at once a high, metallic ping bounced through the space. Not the familiar hammer jolt, but a thinner, smaller sound.
Nikolai gave a harsh curse at the same time Walker muttered disgustedly, “Damn little fucker!”
“What is it?” Julie asked in alarm.
“The UUV. It pinged us. Jesus. I can’t believe the fucking thing found us.”
Nikolai stalked back and forth, mouth set in an angry line. “I guess that answers our question about what it’s doing,” he said tersely, then switched back to Russian and clipped out more orders.
The crew snapped back into action and instantly she was hanging on to the console again, clenching her stomach against the force of the submarine lurching into a sprint and continuing its uneven run through the obstacle course of the undersea features.
All the while their small shadow followed.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” she asked Walker minutes later, her voice hoarse with apprehension for what might happen next. “I mean with one of your UUVs? Like chase it off? Or ram it to pieces or something?”
They both glanced at the repeater. The small blip hovered behind them, taking on an air of menace, like one of those creepy little flesh-eating creatures in a horror movie.
“I believe you’ve been reading my mind,” he said, and he jerked his chin at Nikolai. “Think he’d trust me out of his sight?”
She blew out an uneven breath. “Hell, Clint. I still don’t know if
I’d
trust you.”
His lips quirked. “I’m hurt.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a reason to,” she said. “Tell me who you’re working for.”
His jaw tightened as the sub went into another steep turn, and he seemed to come to a decision. To her surprise, he said, “All right. I guess it’s time you knew.” He glanced around, assessing who might be within earshot. Everyone was busy at their controls. When he was satisfied they weren’t being eavesdropped upon, he leveled her a look and said in barely a murmur, “I’m with Naval Intelligence.”
Relief mingled with surprise. Even though it made perfect sense given his background, she hadn’t expected that particular agency. At least he wasn’t CIA as she’d suspected.
If
he was telling the truth.
“
U.S.
Naval Intelligence?” she clarified.
He chuckled softly. “Yes. I work for the U.S. military.”
She swallowed. She needed to know. “Tell me why you’re here on
Ostrov
.”
To his credit, he didn’t lie. “Same reason you are. To retrieve the SD card.”
That was what she was afraid of. “Then we’re going to have a problem,” she said, wondering how the navy had found out about it. She’d thought that intel had been exclusively CIA property.
The sub was hit by another high-pitched ping, and Clint’s eyes went to the repeater, to the enemy UUV stalking them. It was getting closer. The larger mother ship had also reappeared on the screen, hovering at the edge. “Woman, in case you hadn’t noticed, we already have a problem.”
No freaking kidding. But he was avoiding the issue. “I’m not letting you take the SD card from me,” she told him determinedly. “Nikolai won’t—”
“Captain Romanov is a Russian military officer,” he said impatiently, “who works as an asset for the FSB. You really think he’ll let you hold on to something this important?”
“He promised—”
“Trust me, he’d promise anything and do even more to get his hands on the intelligence stored on that card. It’s his ticket to saving his career. You know that as well as I do.”
She shook her head in denial. It wasn’t true. Nikolai wouldn’t betray her. She wanted to tell Clint, to shout it out loud at him, but her words stuck in her throat. “It doesn’t matter. The point is he won’t let
you
take it from me.”
Clint looked smug. “He can only stop me if he knows you found the SD card. When were you planning to tell him? Or were you going to . . . ?”
Her fingers held the edge of her seat with white knuckles. But this time it wasn’t because of the erratic movement of the boat. It was to keep herself from reaching over and wringing Clint Walker’s neck.
“I’ll tell him right now,” she ground out, just to prove to the insolent jerk—and possibly to herself—that she would. She stood up.
Nikolai looked over.
Already on his feet, Clint put a hand on her arm, urging her back down. “Julie, there’s no need to—”
Just then the sub made another sharp turn, throwing her off balance. She landed in Clint’s arms.
Instantly Nikolai was there, yanking her away from him. “Do
not
touch her,” he growled.
Walker raised his hands, palms out. “Then stop doing goddamn loop-de-loops.
Ostrov
’s a submarine, not a goddamn Spitfire.”
The force of
Ostrov
slicing through the water made all their bodies tilt precariously. Nikolai put his arm around her waist and held her tighter.
“Why did you stand up?” he asked her without shifting his glare off the other man. “Is there a problem here? Is he—”
“No,” she assured him, then turned in Nikolai’s arms and rushed on before the conversation took a nosedive. “I just wanted to tell you . . .” She regrouped. “You know that thing I’ve been looking for?”
Releasing her, he took a step back to look down at her, his expression wary. “Yeah?”
“I found it. This morning.”
He froze for a millisecond, then his icy gaze razored back to Clint. “He knows?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. He guessed. Just now.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “He’s with U.S. Naval Intelligence.”
Nikolai’s breath jetted out angrily. “Really. Anything else I should know?”
She hesitated, then plowed on. “We were thinking he could try to do something about the Chinese UUV out there, using one of ours.”
Nikolai’s scowl eased fractionally. She had his attention. “Such as?”
Clint leaned back on his heels. “Well. I’ve got an interesting little device I developed that can magnetically wipe any and all electronics software it’s aimed at. That should annoy them to no end.”
An unwilling smile crossed Nikolai’s face. “It should, indeed.” He studied Walker for a moment. “What would it take to set that up?”
“I’ll need to work from the UUV console in the torpedo room,” Walker said. “And I’ll need some help.”
Nikolai considered him with a steely regard. Julie knew he was weighing how far Clint could be trusted. But he had already been cleared of her attack, and he couldn’t really make his UUV do anything bad to
Ostrov
without dooming himself along with everyone else. And why would he? He was after the SD card. Not out for sabotage. He wasn’t the enemy. Not the saboteur.
“Are you on board with this?” he asked Julie.
She gave him a wobbly smile. “Yeah,” she said.
“Very well,” Nikolai said at length. “Do it,” he told Clint. “I’ll assign
Kvartirmyeister
Kresney to accompany you, and one of the weps techs to help. Will that do?”
Clint smiled. “Perfect.”
Nikolai nodded and started to walk away, then hesitated and turned back to Julie. “Is it in a safe place?” he asked.
Despite the sharp shift in subject, there was little doubt what he was talking about. When his gaze dropped briefly to her coverall pocket, she also knew he knew exactly where she was keeping it.
“It’s as safe as I am,” she said.
“Then let’s keep it that way,” he said tightly and strode away, back to the main command console.
As she watched him go, her heart fluttered. It was ridiculous how huge a crush she had on that man. Absurd how crazy in lust, and absolutely in awe of him, she was. Total insanity how she’d managed to fall in love with Nikolai Kirillovich Romanov so thoroughly in such a short time. But how could she not have? He was the most powerful, intelligent, and thoughtful man she’d ever met, as well as being the sexiest man alive.
It broke her heart completely that she would have to give him up soon.
Too
soon. Now that she’d found the SD card, as soon as she was able to contact Thurman she’d be recalled home immediately.
As though reading her thoughts, Clint’s expression turned serious. “What’ll you do when they order you to leave him behind, and never allow you to see him again . . . ?”
Pain cut through her. She didn’t want to think about that. And she sure as hell didn’t want Clint Walker reminding her of it. “That’s none of your damn business,” she snapped.
He leaned in. “Julie. I can
make
it my business. I can help you be together.”
She threw him a skeptical look. “You? How?”
“My agency, and the navy, could learn a lot from a cooperative Russian naval commander of Nikolai’s rank and status. I’m sure they’d be willing to pave the way for him to come to the States in exchange for the opportunity to question him.”