CHAPTER 28
B
y the time the Sea Ray arrived over the
Neva,
the waves had subsided enough to allow Yuri with Laura's help to link up with the VLF buoy and reestablish comms. Sunrise remained hours away.
Still queasy, Laura stood beside Yuri in the cockpit as he spoke with Captain Borodin over the closed circuit phone line. Although she could not understand their conversation because of the language barrier, the strain in Borodin's voice was obvious.
After just five minutes, Yuri signed off.
“How are they?” asked Laura.
“Not well. More equipment problems and the lack of heat are wearing all of them down. Some are starting to get sick.”
That all sounded ominous to Laura. “How about oxygen, is that still functioning?”
“Thankfully, yes.”
“That's good.”
“One less thing to worry about, but they need to be rescued now.”
“That's in progressâright?”
“I hope so.”
But Yuri had no assurance that was the case. He had not yet heard back from Orlov or Krestyanova.
Yuri hobbled toward the stern. “Please help me disconnect from the buoy. It's time for us to return to the marina.”
“Let me take care of that.”
Laura climbed over the rear seat cushions and lowered herself onto the swim step. Her running shoes and the calves of her jeans were soaked again as residual wave action washed over the cantilevered platform.
Laura disconnected the telephone handset cable from the VLF cable and handed the free end to Yuri. With her left hand gripping the hull, she leaned seaward and used her right hand to free the mooring line from the buoy.
“Okay, we're free now,” she called out.
Yuri offered a hand as she climbed back into the cockpit.
Once aboard, Yuri said, “Thank you, Laura. I could have never done this tonight without your help.”
“You're welcome.”
* * *
A jackhammer worked overtime inside Ken Newman's skull. He sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasping his head.
He'd had hangovers before, but this one achieved a new level of misery. “Ahhhh,” he muttered, “this is bad.”
Ken tried to stand, when the queasiness struck. He collapsed back onto the bed, rolled onto his side, and gagged.
“Don't puke on the floor.”
“Whaaaat?” moaned Ken, clutching his stomach.
“I said don't spill your guts on the floor. Use the bucket.” The middle-aged man sitting on the twin to Ken's bunk, six feet away, kicked the plastic bucket. It skidded across the floor and slammed into the metal frame of Ken's bed.
Ken lay still until the spasm passed. “Where are we?” he asked.
“You're in jail, you moron.”
“Jailâoh God!”
Ken surveyed his surroundings. The holding cell was about twelve feet square. It had no windows, just a single steel door with a tiny glass window at eye level. A bank of fluorescent lights lined the ceiling. A toilet and a sink claimed one corner.
Ken faced his cellmate. The heavyset stranger with shoulder-length black hair reclined on the bare mattress, his back propped up by a pillow jammed against the bed frame.
“What time is it?” Ken asked, noticing for the first time his missing wristwatch.
“Damned if I know. Pricks always take your watch.” Tats littered the man's exposed forearms.
Ken turned away, trying to think despite his pounding brain.
What the hell did I do?
It came back in a rush: The fight with Laura's lover; the six-pack in the Vette; more beer and shooting pool at the Tides; Emma's boobs, her hustle and even more beer; and then he couldn't remember. What happened to his right wrist? Like his head, it throbbed, too.
“Are we in Point Roberts?”
His cellmate laughed. “At least you got that right.”
Ken walked to the door. He pounded it with his uninjured hand. No response. “Open the door,” he yelled. “I want to call my attorney.”
His companion let out another belly laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” Ken snapped, turning around.
“Ain't going to do you no good banging on that door. No one's home right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hey, man, this is Point Roberts. There's just one full-time deputy up here plus another on weekends and holidays. They're probably having breakfast.”
“I can't stay hereâI've got things to do.”
“You ain't going nowhere fast, that much I can tell you.”
“Why?”
“You get picked up for drunk driving?”
Ken peered down at the floor as fragments of his arrest coalesced. “Yeah,” he answered.
“So why'd you take a swing at one of the deputies?”
“What?” Ken said, looking up.
“I heard 'em talking when they brought you in. You clobbered one of 'em; he was bitching about his sore jaw.”
“Oh no.”
“That's assault, man. They're going to throw the book at you.”
Ken glowered, disgusted with his behavior. He'd had a few bar tussles over the years, and he'd used Laura as a punching bagâonly when drunk. But hitting a cop? Another low for Ken.
“What are they going to do with me?”
“Nothing here. You're headed to jail to be arraigned. Then you can post bail.”
“Where?”
“Bellingham, but don't be surprised if it takes a couple days before you get there.”
“What? It's just an hour's drive away.”
“Sure, but that means you've got to drive through BC. The Canucks won't let the cops transport U.S. prisoners on their soil.”
“So how do we get there?”
“Usually by boat. But the sheriff's office don't like making the crossing to Blaine unless it's a millpondâsomething about safety requirements. So, if it's still snotty out there, we've both got a wait ahead of us.”
Kenny collapsed back on the bed. “How come you know so much about this place?”
“Been there, done that.”
* * *
Both rested from their early-morning rendezvous with the
Neva
, Yuri and Laura sat side-by-side on the leather sofa in the living room. Crackling flames in the fireplace helped ward off the afternoon chill.
Yuri stared into the stone fireplace. He reached up with his right hand and caressed his scalp. The wound throbbed. Just before leaving for the boat trip, Laura smeared Neosporin onto a thread and a sewing needle from her cosmetics case and stitched the inch-long tear. His hair partially concealed the injury.
“Is it still bothering you?” Laura asked.
“It's a little sore.”
“Maybe I should check it.”
He lowered his hand. “It's okay.”
Yuri shifted position on the sofa and said, “Laura, I think it would be best if you just went home. I'm sorry to have involved you in my problems.”
“But what about your submates? How will you help them? You can barely walk.”
“I'll manage, and with help from the Trade Mission we'll find a way to make the rescue.”
Laura's instincts told her that she should leave. The
Neva
's plight was not her responsibility. Instead, she responded, “I could get help for your crew.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could call our Navy and they'd mount a rescue.”
Yuri frowned. “Remember what I told you earlier, if the
Neva
is detected by your nation or the Canadians, the crew will self-destruct.”
Laura looked away, her eyes dropping downward.
* * *
Aboard the
Neva
, the hull temperature was a few degrees above freezing. Every surface dripped with condensation. Bone-chilled in their damp clothing and bedding, the crew languished with spirits bordering on bankruptcy.
Several men had pneumonia. The boat's medic was treating them with antibiotics and bed rest.
Those that could work tackled the fouled seawater cooling system. Pump equipment, filters, valves, and piping not designed for disassembly while submerged had to be first isolated and then each part bypassed to maintain the flow of seawater that cooled the turbo generator. The workers extracted the gunk from inside the isolated parts and reassembled the equipment.
All work had to be done by hand, employing block and tackle to suspend and move the bone-crunching heavy hardware. With hundreds of feet of pipe and numerous appurtenances, it was a Herculean task.
The crew had managed a diminutive improvement. The electrical power output increased from 11 percent to 15 percent, not enough to make a real difference but moving in the right direction.
The bilge pumps continued to match the leakage. That boosted the crew's morale.
Unfortunately, the one remaining head malfunctioned. The pump that jettisoned the contents of the toilet's holding tank seized up. A two-man crew worked the problem but no joy yet.
With the holding tank filled to the brim, the crew used buckets, pails, and any available container. The stench spread throughout the pressure casing. It was like living inside of a septic tank.
Despite the awful living conditions, the
Neva
's crew still had hope. Yuri promised them all that he would bring help. With that spark of optimism, they endured.
CHAPTER 29
D
AY
8âM
ONDAY
T
he
Barrakuda
was ten nautical miles south of Victoria, Vancouver Island's largest city and the provincial capital of British Columbia. For the past twenty-four hours, the sub had followed the pre-surveyed route code-named Backdoor, creeping just above the bottom.
Captain Antipov remained at the conn during the transit of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He successfully skirted the U.S. Navy's acoustic sensors planted along the seabed, their GPS coordinates provided by a paid turncoat in the Department of Defense. But a perpetual threat remained. American hunter-killersâ
Los Angeles-
,
Virginia-
, and
Seawolf
-class submarinesâinhabited these waters at times. They were designed to destroy submarines like the
Barrakuda.
Antipov took extreme care not to rouse one of those steel sharks.
The
Barrakuda
would soon depart from the Backdoor route. Instead of turning southward toward Admiralty Inlet and Hood Canal beyond, it would head northward into Haro Straitâuncharted waters.
The approaching waterway was narrow and torturous in places, and likely laced with acoustic monitors. Antipov would need to maneuver with maximum stealth and acute care. That meant running slow and staying deep.
* * *
Nicolai Orlov and Elena Krestyanova arrived early. They picked a booth in the back, away from the main dining area, and ordered coffee. There weren't many patrons in the Point Roberts restaurant this late morning, but that would change in about an hour. Hungry regulars from both sides of the border eagerly sought Fat Billie's cheeseburgers. The restaurant was a remake of Fat Willie's, the Point's legendary eatery from the 1980s.
“Why did he choose this place?” asked Elena. “The other one we met at has a water view.” She peered at a nearby window. “Here, just a field.”
“I don't know. Maybe he likesâ” Orlov stopped speaking as he craned his neck in the direction of the front door, some thirty feet away. “There he is!” He stood and raised his right arm.
Yuri Kirov walked toward the couple, his limp pronounced, but he made it without stumbling. He sat down in the booth next to Elena.
“Good morning,” offered Orlov in their native tongue, speaking softly.
“Please,” Yuri said, “English only here. I don't want to draw any more attention to myself than I already have.”
“Your leg?” asked Nick.
“Yes, I try to blend in but I still stand out with this limp.”
Elena smiled and said, “How are you managing . . . is it any better?”
“A little.” He lied.
A waitress approached Yuri. “Care for coffee?” she asked.
“No, thank you, but I'd like a chocolate milk shake and a double cheeseburger.”
“With fries?”
That threw Yuri for a temporary loop and then he remembered: french-fried potatoes. “Yes, please, lots of those. And ketchup, too.”
Yuri remembered something else. “And give him the bill for my lunch.”
“Got it.” She faced Nick and Elena. “What can I get for you folks?”
“Just some more coffee for me,” Elena said. Nick echoed her request and flashed a friendly grin, wondering how Yuri had learned to pass on the bill so quickly.
After filling the cups, the server moved to another customer.
Nick asked, “How's the crew?”
“The men are getting sick. Lack of heat, stress, bad air, poor sanitation. I'm extremely worried.” Yuri set both elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers. “We must initiate rescue.”
“I thought you said they could last a week or so.”
“Borodin told me the crew's morale is shotâthey're giving up hope. There was even one escape attempt, completely unauthorized. The man drowned.”
“Did he get out?” Nick said.
“No.”
“Where's his body?”
“Recovered from the escape chamber.”
“Good.”
“The chamber is now guarded. It won't happen againâunless there's no hope.”
“What do you mean?” Elena asked.
“If we can't get them out, their only chance will be to risk a free ascent.” Yuri dropped his hands while shifting position on the bench. “Maybe a few will survive, but most won't. Anyway, that would be a quicker way to go than rotting away inside that stinking
sortÃr
.”
Elena reacted silently to Yuri's admission: If dead Russian sailors started washing up on the shore, the Americans and Canadians would never stop looking for the source.
Major Orlov was more direct. “You know they can't do such a thing. It's against all protocols. If they can't be rescued they'll have to do their duty.”
“Self-destruct?
Ni khrená!
” Nothing of the kind. “The codes to trigger the scuttling charges were known only to the captain and the executive officerâand they're both dead.”
“But surely, they could figure out some way to do it.”
“Nyet!
All of the extra explosives are in the torpedo room. It's flooded; there's no access.”
Yuri spiked his responses with the occasional Russian epithet to elicit sympathy from the SVR officers. He also lied.
Neva
had three scuttling charges, each bomb containing one hundred kilograms of semtex and molded into unobtrusive shapes in the bilge piping. The first charge was in the torpedo room, flooded and inaccessible, the second under the CCP, and the last in the engine compartment. Borodin could easily rig manual detonators to the two accessible charges.
Although Yuri had used the self-destruct threat to motivate Laura and confuse Orlov, he never broached the subject with Stephan Borodinâsomething he could not do. Still, his colleague had to be considering the role he would be expected to fulfill. The order would be direct:
“Captain Borodin, for the good of the Motherland, you must do your duty.”
Moscow had to be thinking about it, too, perhaps just at the contingency level. A shattered hulk, its fragments swallowed up by the bottom muck, and the entire crew shredded into fish-food chunks would solve all of the Kremlin's problems. The official decree from fleet headquarters would acknowledge that the
Neva
had failed to return to its homeport due to unknown causes and that the submarine and its ninety-two men were lost.
Yuri addressed Orlov. “Enough of this self-destruction
chush' sobách'ya
.” Bullshit. “We must rescue the crew. They're our brothers, our comrades.”
Nick and Elena acknowledged their agreement.
Yuri leaned forward, meeting both sets of eyes. “When can I expect some help?”
“We should have something for you tomorrow,” Nick said.
“Good, what's Moscow planning?”
“I don't have any details. All I was told last night is that a rescue plan is being prepared.”
“How? Where?”
“We have no details yet.”
“When you drive back to Vancouver, call your superiors and tell them to hurry. I'm worried about what might happen to the officers if we wait too long.”
“What do you mean?” Elena said.
“Captain Borodin is just one man. If the crew panics”âYuri scowledâ“hysteria can spread like a wildfire. If the crew wanted, they could overpower Borodin and the other officers. They could release the emergency buoy and signal the Americans and Canadians. Can you imagine the
govnó
that would create back in Moscow?”
Nicolai and Elena departed; Nick left a U.S. twenty-dollar bill. Yuri was wolfing his way through the burger when Laura walked into the restaurant. She slipped into the booth, opposite Yuri.
Still chewing, he pushed his plate with a mound of fries to her side. “Have some.”
“You must really like this place.” Laura declined, not hungry and her stomach queasyâagain.
“Ummm,” Yuri said, devouring the last of the sandwich. “That was delicious. There's nothing like this back home.” He took a long draw on a straw, sucking in the thick creamy shake. He'd visited a McDonald's in Moscow just once, not wanting to return.
Laura smiled at Yuri's fondness for such common fare. Yesterday he had his first all-American combo, also at Fat Billie's. Tired of eating at the beach house, Laura convinced him to lunch outâher treat.
“So what did they say?” Laura asked. She could have been halfway to Bellingham by now. Yet, she didn't leave.
Yuri swallowed another slug of the milk shake before answering. “They claim there's an operation under way but have no details. They're supposed to have more information tomorrow.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I expect what they told me was what they'd been told to say.”
“What can they do, I mean, how will they help?”
“With the right kind of equipment, I can get them all out.”
“What would you need?”
“A large workboat outfitted with a rescue diving bell and hoist system. The bell can be lowered down and . . .”
When Yuri finished, Laura asked, “Where can you find such equipment?”
“The American offshore oil industry. They're pioneers in deep diving.”
“I don't think there are any oil companies around here.”
“You're right. They're mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and some in California and Alaska.”
“But those places are thousands of miles away. How could you ever get it here?”
“Easy. Find the bell and rent it, or buy it. Put it on an air freighter and fly it to Seattle. Mount it on a workboat and sail it to Point Roberts. It can all be done in a couple of days.”
“But you certainly can't do all of that.”
“Of course, but we have resources here that can do it.”
“You mean spies?”
“Call it what you like, but we have the capability to accomplish the task, with your help.”
Laura's already tender stomach flip-flopped. She recalled the Russian spy ring that had made national headlines a few years earlier. The FBI rounded up nearly twenty sleeper agents scattered across the United States.
What am I doing here?
Laura wondered to herself.
If I help them directlyâthe Russian Navy, even if they are in Canada, I could go to jail!
If I tell the government, the
Neva
's crew will blow themselves up.
If they're not rescued, they'll all die
.
That was Laura's paradox.
Finally, she considered Yuri; he had stood up to Ken, protecting her.
Just one more day, and then I'll go home.
* * *
“Captain, I need a few minutes of your time.”
“Come in.”
The U.S. Navy lieutenant commander walked into her boss's office. The commanding officer of Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport, Washington, sat behind his desk.
“What's up?” asked the CO as the naval base's environmental officer took a seat.
“Sir, I had a phone call this morning from a senior scientist with NOAA in Seattle. We've had another complaint.”
The captain frowned. “Those fish people again?”
“Yes, National Marine Fisheries Service. But they're not the ones making the stink. Turns out a professor from the University of British Columbia contacted them. She's accusing us of making unauthorized sonar tests in the south end of the Strait of Georgia.”
“That's nuts. We don't operate anywhere there.”
“I know, and I relayed that to NMFS.”
The officer opened a file folder and removed a ten-page document. She handed it to the captain. “NMFS e-mailed the complaint. It's quite detailed and I can understand the professor's concern.”
The CO glanced through the document, stopping at a graphical plot. “What's this about?”
“It appears the BC researchers picked up some kind of underwater anomaly. The pressure spike in that plot is way above background levels.”
“When did this happen?”
“A week ago.”
“Hmm, well that's certainly not anything from us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let's have our technical group look at it. Maybe they can figure out what happened.”
“Very good, sir. I will notify Dr. Markley.”