CHAPTER 4
“A
loha,” he said, speaking into the cell phone. “I'd like Laura Newman's room.
“That's right, Laura Newman. From Redmond . . . Washington State.
“Hmm, she's not registered . . . you know, she might be using her maiden name, Laura Lynn Wilson. Could you check that for me?”
Half a minute passed. “No luck there, either. Well, I guess I got some bum info. Thanks.”
Ken Newman had already called fourteen hotel and condominium resorts on Kauai, and as on his last call, he'd failed. There were nearly twenty more to go.
He'd searched the Web for an hour, compiling a list of candidates. He concentrated on four- and five-star establishments; he knew his wife's preferences. He would check the remaining resorts but didn't expect the effort to yield anything.
Ken called from his Spartan studio apartment in Bellevue, sitting at the kitchen table. Dirty dishes overfilled the sink, sports magazines and newspapers littered the coffee table, and a two-foot-high pile of soiled clothing occupied a corner by the window. They'd been living apart for four months. The previous morning a King County sheriff's deputy had served him with the breakup papers and a temporary restraining order.
But Ken wasn't done.
Laura had changed cell phones so he'd called her secretary this morning, ignoring the no contact order. Ken learned that Laura had flown to Kauai for a two-week vacation. He had no reason to doubt the secretary's storyline but remained suspicious.
Ken retrieved a coffee mug from the table. As he sipped, he planned.
Tonight he would drive to Sea-Tac and cruise the huge parking garage's aisles. If Laura had parked her silver BMW 7 Series at the airport, he'd know that she'd fled. If he didn't find it, she might still be around.
* * *
“Why are you doing this to me?” Laura asked.
“Just cooperate and you'll be fine.”
Laura again sat in the dining room chair, her wrists and ankles re-taped to the chair's mahogany armrests and legs. An eight-place black marble table occupied the room. The view of the beach and the water's edgeâjust steps awayâwas dazzling.
Sweat beaded across Laura's brow. Her captor stood at her side, a half-full water glass in hand. She leaned forward and took another gulp, draining the glass.
Her thirst satisfied, she said, “Thank you.”
He was about to reseal her mouth when Laura turned her head to the side. “Please, don't gag me. My stomach's bothering me; I might vomit.”
“All right, for now I won't but keep quiet. I need to rest.”
“I willâI promise.”
Laura watched as he made his way back to the connecting living room; his limp had worsened. He lay down on the sofa facing the fireplace. Searing heat radiated from the fresh charge of fuel.
He'd turned up the home's gas furnace to maximum, too, roasting Laura.
What
's
wrong with him?
* * *
He hobbled onto the timber deck, dragging his useless lower left leg. The mid-afternoon sky was cloudless, allowing the sun to bathe his body; it had been weeks since he'd last felt its touch.
Water lapped at the rock revetment fronting the home. In the distance, a mammoth ship steamed northward, its decks overflowing with hundreds of shipping containers.
Although no longer chilled to his marrow, he remained unpleasantly cool. A wool blanket from a bedroom encased his shoulders and upper torso. He also shed the jumpsuit, replacing it with the civilian clothing he'd carried during the ascent. The waterproof bag leaked, soaking the blue jeans, black long sleeve shirt, running shoes, and other gear. He discovered the home's laundry room, where he washed and dried the garments.
He unconsciously shook his head, still amazed that he had survived. It could have been much worse. The bends could have just as easily killed him, or he could have succumbed to hypothermia.
Why had God spared him?
His mother had sparked his early belief, but her guidance ceased after his twelfth birthday and his faith withered. Nevertheless, his impermeable armor of disregard now had a couple of chinks in it. Surviving the sinking came first. His solo escape followed.
He again wondered why he was alive when so many others were not.
His thoughts dissolved as something caught his eye far in the distance. The floatplane cruised northward up the inland sea, about two hundred meters above the water. He couldn't help but think that it probably passed right over the
Neva.
* * *
Seven nautical miles to the southeast and over seven hundred feet below the surface, the
Neva
's crew was oblivious to the Kenmore Air charter. The beat of the Beaver's propeller penetrated the water but never reached the stranded submarine.
Underwater sounds rarely travel in a straight line. Instead, they refract or bend due to varying temperature, salinity, and pressure. On this afternoon, the only sounds that the
Neva
's passive sonar sensors registered were biologics.
The thirty-four-year-old slightly balding and fleshy engineering officer left the central command post and entered the sonar room. Catapulted to acting-captain status nearly forty hours earlier, he hoped for good news.
“Anything new?” he asked the sole inhabitant of the compartment. Packed with electronic gear from the deck to the overhead, the space contained three consoles.
“No, Captain,” said the technician, a man in his early twenties sitting in the center console.
They spoke in their native tongueâRussian.
The tech removed his earphones and flipped a switch on his console, activating a bulkhead speaker. The sound of bacon sizzling on a grill broadcast throughout the compartment. “Still the same biologic we've had all day longâfornicating shrimp.”
“Anything else?”
“I did pick up a ship's propeller. Merchantmen most likely headed to Vancouver.”
“How about small vessels?”
“No, sir, nothing like that. In our degraded condition, they would need to be close by for our remaining sensors to register.”
The commanding officer nodded. He'd anticipated something more encouraging. The diver should have made it to the shore by now. Still, it was early.
“Captain, how's the scrubber repair going?”
“It's working again. CO-two is stabilized.”
“Good . . . that's good.” The sonar tech scratched the stubble on his chin. “And the reactors?”
“We're still bailing out muck. We might be able to test a heat exchanger in a few hours. Once circulation is reestablished, we should be able to restart Unit Two.”
“That will help a lot.”
“Yes, it will.”
Neither man wanted to ask the ultimate “what if” question: What if they couldn't restart the reactor?
Programmed to prevent a core meltdown, the computer controlling the reactor would automatically squash the chain reaction if the coolant system were not adequate. Without the heat generated by the fission process, there would be no steam. Without steam, the generator would not turn. Without the generator, there would be no electrical current to run the ship's oxygen maker. And without fresh oxygen, they would all die.
CHAPTER 5
L
aura and her captor sat at the kitchen table, facing each other. They sipped tea from mugs, having just finished dinnerâscrambled eggs and fried potatoes that he'd prepared.
Although Laura's hands were free, her ankles remained bound. But she no longer sweltered; he had dialed back the furnace and the fireplace.
Laura had read somewhere that establishing a personal relationship with a captor helped in hostage situations. She decided to test the theory.
“My name is Laura. May I ask yours?”
He took a sip of tea. “John.”
“Your leg, it looks like you really injured it. Do you need help with it?”
“It's fine.”
“I live in Redmond; I'm just renting this place.”
No response.
Laura racked her brain to formulate another question that would not alienate him. Her demands during their initial encounter had resulted in the gag.
“I'm a software engineer,” she offered.
“You write programs?”
“Sometimes, but others in my company write most of the code. My job is to coordinate and assemble the software we develop.”
“John” leaned back in his chair and said, “You're a manager?”
“I am.”
“How many do you supervise?”
“There are about six hundred programmers and engineers in my division.”
He returned his chair to its normal position and cocked his head to the side. “You own this company?”
“I'm one of four principals. We have just over two thousand employees.”
“What software do you write?”
“Mostly business applications with some science-based work.”
He said, “You must make a lot of money.”
“I do well.”
“Were you raised in Seattle?”
“No. The Bay Area.”
His brow wrinkled.
“You know, San Francisco Bay.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I grew up east of the bay in a city called Castro Valley.”
“Ah, you're a California girl.”
“I was.”
“Tell me about your parents.”
Laura expected the inquiry. It always came up with someone new. “I was adopted as an infant. My birth mother was Caucasian; my birth father was African American. I've never met them.”
“Your parentsâwho adopted youâwhite or black?”
“Caucasian.”
“What was it like for you growing up, with your father's blood?”
He was direct, if anything.
“Great. No real problems.”
Laura skirted the truth, not wanting to revisit past hurts.
“Where did you receive your university education?”
“CaltechâCalifornia Institute of Technology.”
“Oh, I know that school.” He shifted position in his chair. “How did you end up in the software business?”
“Well, assembling computer code is like solving a puzzle. I've always enjoyed working on things that make you think. You know, like chess and math games and . . .”
Laura and John continued their dialogue. She had just mentioned her soon-to-be ex.
“You came here to get away from him?”
“Yes, my attorney served him with the divorce papers on Monday.”
“He doesn't know you are here?”
“Absolutely not. Even my office doesn't know I'm here.”
Laura regretted her last statement, knowing she'd revealed too much. “My attorney knows where I am; we've been communicating daily.” True to a point. She'd received one e-mail from her Seattle lawyer verifying Ken had received the court filings.
Laura folded back the bathrobe from her right shoulder and pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt, revealing a nasty bruise. “He's vicious when he drinks. He hit me a couple of weeks ago. But never again.”
“The man is a pig. He should be in jail.”
“I just want him out of my life.”
* * *
Laura sat on the couch in the living room, her wrists tied in front and her ankles still bound.
Laura's captor worked at the dining room table; “John” had been at it for over an hour. Electronic parts harvested from a living room AM /FM stereo receiver covered the tabletop. A stainless steel pressure cooker and a telephone handset completed the parts collection, both taken from a locked cabinet in the pantry that he had pried open with his knife. The cabinet contained personal items of the homeowner.
Laura had been tempted to ask what he was doing but refrained, believing the less she knew the better off she'd be.
Since their initial encounter with the knife, there had been no additional threats and he hadn't touched her, except for the restraints. Even so, Laura remained wary. He could turn on her.
Still she had hope, sparked by their dinner conversation. His interest in her background came across as genuine. He asked additional questions about her birth parents, but Laura simply repeated that she'd never met themâtruthful yet evasive. She had a complete file on her birth parents.
Just remain calm,
Laura self-ordered.
I can get through this. He'
s
going to slip up sometime and I'll escape
.
* * *
Captain Lieutenant Yuri Kirov looked up from the worktable to check his prisoner. She remained on the sofa about twenty feet away. He had used rope from the garage to bind her this evening. He'd exhausted most of the roll of duct tape that he'd discovered earlier in a kitchen drawer.
Yuri watched as she leaned against the sofa cushion, eyes shut.
Despite her tousled hair, lack of makeup, and the unpretentious bathrobe, Yuri found Laura Newman alluringâan exotic blend of Scandinavia and equatorial Africa.
Laura had inherited her Nordic birth mother's high cheekbones, full ripe lips, azure eyes, and russet hair. Her father's tall willowy frame, broad nose, and cocoa skin, all linked to his distant Bantu ancestors, complimented her mother's genes.
Yuri wondered what it was like for Laura growing up chocolate in a black and white world. In Russia, biracial children often had a tough life. Maybe it was easier in the USA.
He considered asking more questions about her family but thought better of it. He could not afford personal involvement. Laura represented a liability that he might be forced to eliminate for the sake of his submates.
Yuri turned back to the table and picked up one of the speakers. He inserted the woofer inside the pressure cooker and ran the connecting wire from the speaker through the relief valve opening in the lid. He set the lid on the pan and rotated it, engaging the rack-and-pinion lock mechanism.
Perfect!