“What on earth do you think—”
From behind, he toweled up the cold rivulets of water from her shoulders. The protest died on her lips. His hands were strong and gentle as they moved up and started to rub her hair dry. It felt . . . really nice.
So nice, she almost forgot she was standing there practically naked.
Almost.
When he started on her back, she said, “Nikolai, I’m serious. I’m not sleeping in your bed, with or without you.”
“We’ll see,” he murmured. She could feel his warm breath on her neck. It raised the fine hairs on her nape to attention. His fingers began to push her damp bra straps off her shoulders.
Frustration swept through her. Why wouldn’t he listen? “Stop! This is not some pirate ship where the captain can do as he pleases with his female passengers!” she said in exasperation, turning to face him. She clutched the towel to her breasts, determined to keep him at bay.
He looked down at her, his expression unreadable. Her pulse jumped madly. Unfortunately, her own body wasn’t listening, either.
“You are welcome to make other sleeping arrangements, and I will undoubtedly rack out elsewhere for the most part,” he said evenly. “But . . . isn’t being in my stateroom an ideal situation for completing your assignment? Always knowing what the boat’s commander is up to?” He tilted his head. “Perhaps I’ll forget to lock up some important documents. Who can tell what state secrets you might discover?”
Her heart nearly stalled at the implication of his statement. Oh, God. He
did
know about her! But how?
She gathered her wits, praying she was just being paranoid. “My
assignment
is to write articles about the expedition,” she said as forcefully as she could, “
not
about you or the secrets of the Russian navy.”
His gaze met hers, lit with subtle challenge. “But what
else
are you here for,
dorogaya moya
?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she insisted. What had he just called her?
His icy blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her. “I have been a submariner for many years,” he said. “On every patrol without exception there has been a
zampolit
, an FSB political officer, hidden among the crew. Not to spout doctrine, as in the old days, but to spy on navy missions.” He stepped closer to her. Their bodies were brushing now, the fine wool of his uniform scraping erotically against her bare skin. “Trust me, I know a
shpion
when I see one.”
Shock went through her. Even she didn’t need a translation for that word. Her heart pounded in her throat.
She forced a scoff. “Are you really accusing me of being a
spy
, Captain Romanov?” Lord, she didn’t know what she’d do if he actually said yes.
He leaned in, putting his lips to her ear. “Think about it. Stay here and seduce me. No one has to know. With such an incentive, I might voluntarily tell you everything you’ve been sent to find out. Hell, I may even want to defect to your country. Imagine what a coup that would be for you, back at Langley.”
So much for any doubts that he knew exactly what she was and who had sent her.
For a second she was too stunned to speak.
More bait.
Obviously for a trap. But cripes. Talk about getting nailed! And not in the good way, either.
Somehow she found her voice, and she picked the easiest part of his dangled bait to address. “Defect? Don’t be absurd. Russia is a democracy now. If you want to move to the United States, just get yourself a passport.”
He chuckled, his breath caressing her cheek, stirring stray hairs against her skin. “Ah,
milaya moya
. You seem to be a worthy opponent. I believe I shall enjoy our upcoming game of matching wits.” His jacket grazed the tips of her breasts, zinging them to painful attention. “And I especially look forward to the part where you seduce me.”
She swallowed.
Ho-boy
. This was
so
not good.
“But, in the meantime . . .” He reached behind her, opened the tall locker, and pulled out a dark blue coverall. He pushed it into her hands. “Get dressed.” He gave her a drowning look. “Or I may forget that I am not a pirate captain after all.”
Unable to form a comeback—for any of it—she watched him grab an old,
Hogan’s Heroes
–style pilot’s cap from a peg on the wall, tug it on, and leave the stateroom.
The door snicked shut.
With a long, unsteady exhale, she fought a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Oh. Mygod.
She was in such big trouble.
There was much to do to steer
podvodnaya lodka
B-403
Ostrov
safely out of Petropavlovsk Harbor, through Avachinskaya Bay and past the Three Brothers rock formation that guarded the narrow mouth of the bay, and into the open waters of the North Pacific. But Nikolai did it all with a smile on his face.
He could see his men wondering at the change in him. For the past month, since being assigned as
Ostrov
’s commander, Nikolai’s behavior had been reminiscent of the snarling Russian wolves that stalked the family’s winter dacha. He resented his demotion, was mortified by the charges of negligence and rogue hotheadedness that had landed him here, and frustrated by a political system that condemned good, loyal men without a fair hearing. Чёрт возьми.
Devil take it
. With no hearing at
all
.
But the arrival on his very doorstep of an enemy
shpion
had given him new hope to redeem a career that had just yesterday seemed more than a shade beyond salvage. And what a
shpion
!
There was no doubt in his mind that Julie Severin worked for U.S. intelligence. Though shocked by his accusation, she’d never actually denied it. Was it mere coincidence that she was tantalizingly beautiful and seemed as attracted to him as he was to her? Nikolai did not think so. But it didn’t matter whether her attraction was real or fabricated as part of her covert mission. Either way, he could turn it to his advantage.
He’d whispered in her ear what benefit she might gain over him if she remained in his stateroom, if she used her body to tempt him into treason, but in reality he planned to turn the tables on her. He would use their sizzling connection to find out what she was up to, all right. And then he would do his damnedest to coax her into becoming an agent for Russia—using whatever means necessary, just as Cherenkov had ordered. If he succeeded, even the navy
diviziya
admirals would be forced to reconsider their unjust treatment of him. And reinstate his rightful command.
Da
. Things were definitely looking up.
Both figuratively and literally.
Standing in the central command post on
Ostrov
’s main deck, Nikolai glanced skyward through the conning tower’s barrel trunk to the round patch of misty gray that sat heavily above the open hatch. The chilly bite of the northern summer air blasted through the opening, and he could see the mad flutter of his
starpom
’s long black coattails snap back and forth across the narrow cockpit. Nikolai grabbed his greatcoat from a rating who rushed up with it, along with his wolf fur
ushanka
, which only came out for trips up top. It wasn’t really that cold, but wearing the fur hat was his private tradition.
“Permission to come up to the bridge,” Nikolai called to the
starpom
—his executive officer, Captain Third Rank Stefan Mikhailovich Varnas, who was currently serving as officer of the deck. As OOD, Varnas held the conn as well. After clearing Avachinskaya Bay, Nikolai had gone below to make sure his passengers were comfortable and his crew was settling into the routine. This was their first real patrol together.
With a severely reduced contingent of less than two dozen of the usual fifty-two men, and being a strictly scientific expedition rather than a military one and carrying no weapons on board, he’d had to do some shuffling of assigned duties. In the Russian navy, men stayed at one post for life. But not on this patrol.
There’d been grumbling. Until, that is, Nikolai had given orders allowing everyone four hours on duty followed by a full ten hours off. Unconventional, yes, but it had immediately and dramatically improved morale and ensured the men’s loyalty.
If that made him a rogue, so be it.
“Come on up,”
Starpom
Varnas called down. “Hope you brought your
ushanka
,
Kapitan
. The wind from the north is a screaming bitch today!”
With a grin, Nikolai checked that his coat was buttoned up and fur hat was snug on his head before he ascended the ladder. Stefan Mikhailovich had been transferred from a cushy post on the Black Sea, and he hated the cold breezes of the Arctic latitudes. He’d ended up here because he, too, was on the Main Naval Command’s shit list.
Of course, so were nearly all the others among
Ostrov
’s crew—the three other officers and five senior enlisted and petty officers, and all but a few of the ten ratings. Official Disfavor was the running theme, the reason they’d all been mustered onto this assignment. It reminded him of an old American war film he’d once seen where a platoon of navy misfits was sent out on a garbage scow to deliver a spy to a remote outpost in the Pacific. The parallels were ironic. He only hoped his own ending was as good as Jack Lemmon’s.
Passing the midpoint landing and bypassing the small flying bridge compartment, Nikolai climbed up the ladder and into the cockpit at the top of the sail. He braced himself against a hard gust of wind as he clipped his safety harness to an attachment point at the rear of the bridge. The storm was still active, making the sea choppy and unpredictable. Normally on the sail they didn’t bother with the harnesses, but during a storm he had given orders that safety procedures be strictly observed.
He made a quick scan around the horizon, nodding to the rear lookout posted at the aft of the sail, then asked the
starpom
, “Anything to report?”
There shouldn’t be, not just an hour out of their sheltered home bay, but with this old tub he figured it was best to ask. After the fall of the Soviet Union, everything run by the government had descended into chaos and disrepair, nothing more so than the navy. Rusting, rotting ships and submarines littered every naval yard in the country, abandoned for lack of funds for upkeep or even proper disposal. The ships and boats left in service were hard-pressed to obtain needed spare parts or even the most rudimentary of required instrumentation. It had been getting better over the past few years, but not by much. It was a damned good thing the foreign scientists had brought a ton of modern equipment along with them. This obviously wasn’t their first ride on a Russian submarine.
“So far, so good,” Stefan Mikhailovich replied. “Just the usual noisy wingmen.” He jerked a grin at a persistent flock of seabirds swooping and dipping over the sub’s wake. “Oh, and a TU-142 Bear heading north,” he casually added, avoiding Nikolai’s gaze.
Great. Thanks to the Internet and Google, the whole damn universe knew the juicy details of Nikolai’s fall from naval grace.
He glanced northward with a frown. The TU-142 Bear was a Russian anti-sub-warfare plane loaded with all the bells and whistles needed to track the ultrastealthy U.S. nuclear submarines that regularly plied the northern seas. Unfortunately, the Bears were in as bad repair as the navy subs. It had been a TU-142 that provided the faulty positioning information that had caused the collision in Norwegian waters that was ultimately blamed on Nikolai. He was now a fervent Bear hater. Give him a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and he’d be tempted to shoot the damned thing out of the sky.
Псина чертова.
Fucking dogmeat
.
He didn’t comment on Stefan’s observation, just clamped his jaw and turned his face into the wind, gazing back toward the distant snow-covered slopes of Mount Koryakskaya. The icy slap of sea spray managed to cool his simmering temper. Somewhat.
He turned back to the
starpom
. “So, why are
you
here, Stefan Mikhailovich?” he asked, just to level the playing field. “What did you do to anger Naval Command so much they assigned you to this delightful joyride?”
The
starpom
’s mouth twisted wryly. “An affair with the wrong woman.”
That was a new one. Usually their superiors were not nearly so sentimental. Unless . . . “The wife of an admiral, I presume?”
“Daughter,” Stefan Mikhailovich admitted with a dramatic sigh.
Nikolai winced. “Ouch.”
“The woman has complicated my life considerably.”
An understatement, no doubt. “Women do have a tendency to do that.” One of the many reasons Nikolai had avoided involving himself with the creatures, other than for the occasional indulgence of mutual pleasure.
Until now, of course. But this was different. This was a job. And a means to an end.
“With any luck,” Stefan said, “I can distinguish myself enough on this patrol that the admiral will accept me as a suitable son-in-law.”
Somehow Nikolai doubted there’d be opportunity for anything close to that. But who was he to dash a young man’s hopes? “With any luck,” he replied neutrally, scanning the horizon again.
They were heading due east, in order to get out to deep water as soon as possible. The storm seemed to be drifting toward the west in the opposite direction, the black clouds already less angry than when they’d departed. The pouring rain had stopped, at least temporarily. He could even see a big patch of blue ahead. Good news for those who were feeling seasick—which included most of the new men on the crew, who refused to take the antinausea meds for fear of being labeled sissies, and the scientists who weren’t used to being out on the open water.
“Do you think the weather will remain decent for us all week?” Nikolai asked, tactfully changing the subject. Traversing the Bering Sea to the Arctic Circle was always a tricky endeavor, let alone with half a crew and a bunch of civilian passengers.
The
starpom
shrugged. “If I could predict the weather, I’d be a rich man,
Kapitan
. The ice pack is pretty far north this year, and the forecast says only a slight possibility of a storm over the Arctic for the coming week . . . but I wouldn’t even place my nonexistent government paycheck on that bet.”
Nikolai gave a humorless chuckle. Both on account of their oft-delinquent salaries and his
starpom
’s pessimistic weather forecast. At the moment, the latter was of most concern.
Contrary to popular belief, not all submarines were below-surface dwellers. Diesel-electric boats such as
Ostrov
stayed on the roof most of the time. While a nuclear sub could—and usually did—spend months on end hiding in the ocean depths without surfacing, a diesel boat could only go down for quick dives of four or five days max before having to come up again to recharge its electric batteries. To charge the batteries, the diesel engines needed to run, and for that they needed air. The sub was also forced to ride out storms on top of the waves, for fear the batteries would be depleted below and the sub would be unable to surface again. A submarine was at its most vulnerable during a dive or surfacing maneuver. One big wave hitting at the wrong time at the wrong angle could easily send it to the bottom—a fatal experience Nikolai would just as soon forgo.
“Still,” Stefan Mikhailovich mused, “these crazy scientists, they are probably praying for a big storm. More data for their damned spreadsheets.”
Nikolai grunted in agreement. It was bad enough dodging icebergs and sea ice without taking unnecessary risks. He’d heard rumblings about the hair-raising exploits of the last expedition. An annual event, these research trips were sponsored and paid for by some international circumpolar academic institute that wanted to get the maximum bang for its buck. He wondered idly who at the Russian Naval Command had been bribed—or fucked—into lending it a submarine once a year.
“The Admiralty,” Stefan Mikhailovich said with a sardonic smile, “is surely praying a cyclone will come and swallow us all. That would conveniently rid them in one fell swoop of about two dozen problematical thorns in their sides.”
Nikolai turned to Stefan with a little smile. How right he was. “Then we must try to disappoint them, mustn’t we,
Starpom
Varnas?”
Stefan Mikhailovich gave him a wicked grin. “
Da, Kapitan
. Typhoon or no, we will show them we submariners are not so easy to get rid of.”
Julie smoothed a hand down the thigh of the navy coveralls she’d put on over, well, over nothing. She was not comfortable wearing the coveralls. And not only because her underwear was still too damp to put on and she was forced to go commando. The coveralls were too large, and she’d had to roll up the long sleeves and pants into thick cuffs. Unfortunately, she’d had no option in the shoe department. She had to wear her red dress heels. She felt truly ridiculous.
Her outfit, however, was a big hit with the crew, causing grins, thumbs up, and comments all along her wobbly pinball walk to the expedition’s welcome-and-strategy luncheon. Which was far more attention than she’d wanted to attract.
Blend, Julie,
the boss had instructed her.
Blend
.
Right. Try doing
that
wearing coveralls and high heels.
A few minutes ago,
Kvartirmyeister
Misha had come to fetch her from the stateroom. She almost hadn’t answered the door. Except, oh yeah, Nikolai wouldn’t bother to knock. He had a key.
Tucking her trusty notebook computer into one of the coverall’s roomy cargo pockets—luckily it was one of those really small ones and just fit—she tried not to stumble or trip as Misha led her through the pitching and rolling submarine. At least keeping her balance gave her something to worry about . . . besides seeing Nikolai again. With any luck, the captain would be far too busy running his boat to attend the scientists’ luncheon.
But naturally, when she arrived at the dining area he was already lounging casually against the wall—or the bulkhead, as she’d learned from her briefing file on submarine lingo. She’d read the entire file twice, in an attempt to blot out her hovering anxiety. Anxiety over the deep ocean surrounding the boat, over the unnerving idea of sharing a bedroom with a high-ranking Russian military officer—just the
term
“hot-bunking” made her blush—but especially over the überdisconcerting thought of what might happen the next time she actually found herself alone with the man.