CHAPTER 68
“C
aptain, sonar. Contact change.”
Captain Borodin grabbed a microphone from an overhead panel. “Sonar, report.”
“Captain, target eight has deployed some type of underwater instrumentation. High-frequency modulations, narrow band spread.”
“What is it?”
“Not sure, but it may be surveying equipment. The signal strength is weak. It bears one seven two degrees relative; range is ten point five kilometers.”
“Let me know when you've identified the signal.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Borodin returned the microphone to its receptacle and leaned back in his chair. Eight men in the CCP sat at consoles and control stations. It was late morning.
The
Neva
navigated five kilometers southwest of Point Roberts, forty meters below the surface. It orbited in a two-kilometer radius at four knots.
The flooded torpedo room continued to vex Borodin and his crew. The
Neva
made wild swings in depth. During one maneuver, the sail came within ten meters of the surface. However, by running in a tight circle at minimal speed and adjusting the blow planes, the diving officer compensated for the sub's bizarre handling.
Optimistic for the first time in days, Borodin planned to jog offshore of Point Roberts until dark. He would then surface and make repairs.
Crew morale soared. No longer mired on the bottom was the bell-ringer event. But full bellies came in a close second. The food transferred from the
Hercules
the previous night was a blessing.
“Captain, sonar. I have an update on target eight.”
“Report.”
“Target eight is streaming side scan sonar. It appears to be conducting a survey.”
“Survey of what?”
“I don't know, sir.”
“Keep monitoring. Update in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Ken might not have heard the vehicle if he hadn't been in the bathroom. It was 11:20
A.M
. The headache that had been hounding him for hours had reached migraine status. He opened the medicine cabinet in the ground-floor bathroom but found nothing helpful. What he really needed was a drinkâhair of the dog as the saying goes.
When the automobile turned off the road and drove onto the driveway, the engine noise put Ken on alert. The engine switched off and a set of doors opened.
* * *
“It won't take me long to pack,” Laura Newman said. “Help yourself to what's in the kitchen if you're hungry.”
Nick Orlov stood next to Laura. They were in the foyer of the rental house.
Laura sprinted up the stairway to the master bedroom.
Nick walked into the living room.
* * *
Ken hid in the closet under the stairway. He squatted behind a vacuum cleaner and a cardboard box of cleaning supplies.
With the door shut, he couldn't see much but he could hear muffled talkâa familiar female voice. And he'd armed himself with a butcher knife snatched from the kitchen counter.
She's with that bastard!
He wanted to burst through the closet door.
Not yet!
Ken cringed when Laura stepped on the carpeted stairway treads over his head. He heard the man walk into the living room, his sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor.
Just enough light diffracted from under the closet door to allow Ken to step over the box. With the knife cocked in his right hand, he used his left to crack open the door.
The target stood about twenty-five feet away with his back to Ken.
Wound coil tight, Ken prepared to strike.
* * *
Orlov peered through the living room window. On the distant horizon, he noticed a powerboat tracking westward. He hoped the waters would remain smooth for tonight's mission.
Nick settled into a sofa, removed his phone from a coat pocket, and pressed a speed dial numberâElena's cell.
“Allo, Yelenu,”
he said.
* * *
Ken was ready to pounce when the male took a couple steps and sat on a sofa. That's when Ken realized something was wrong.
He's not limping.
Still peeking around the edge of the closet door, the eight-inch blade in hand, Ken studied the man's profile.
It's not him.
Ken retreated, closing the closet door.
* * *
After finishing the call, Nick wandered into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and removed a can of Coca-Cola.
The can was half-empty when Laura walked down the stairway, carrying her suitcase.
“Would you like a Coke?” he asked. “There's another in the refrigerator.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
Laura joined Nick at the kitchen table. She asked about Elena.
“She's coming down late in the afternoon.”
“What else did she have to say?”
“She's still working on the passports. That's the hang-up.”
“Do you really need passportsâI mean if you get them on the charter flight in Vancouver and it's your own people flying the plane, who would know?”
“That's not the problem. We can probably pull that off without IDs. But when the plane lands in Finland, that's where the passport check will come inâno way around that.”
“Hmm, I see your point.” Laura ran a hand through her hair. “Why can't you fly them directly to Russia?”
“If we filed a flight plan like that there'd be a record of it. If the story about the
Neva
leaked, someone might make the connection and then trace it back to here.”
“I see, by flying to Helsinki and then crossing the border by bus and driving to Saint Petersburg there's some insulation against a direct link.”
“Yes.”
Laura said, “Keeping this whole situation secret might be hard. I could see something leaking all right.”
“We can't let that happen. Everything we do from now on must be absolute low profile. We can't leave one loose end. If Ottawa or Washington has even a tiny inkling that we left a submarine up here, they'll never stop looking for it.”
“Yeah, you're probably right.”
“Moscow just wants this debacle to go away, regardless of what the Ministry of Defense and the Navy might think. And believe me, if ordered, the SVR will sacrifice the
Neva
's entire crew in a heartbeat to keep the Americans from finding out.” He met Laura's eyes. “So, from here on out, we can't afford one mistake.”
“I get it, Nick.”
* * *
Ken could barely contain himself, stunned at his wife's bizarre conduct. He stood by the front door. He opened it a smidgen to verify that Laura and the male had left in the Suburban.
Ken had just run through a gauntlet of emotions: rage, jealousy, curiosity, and finally revulsion. He tried to make sense of what he'd heard.
When the stranger began speaking in Russian, Ken listened to the one-sided telephone conversation but he learned nothing. It wasn't until Laura trotted down the stairs and sat at the kitchen table with the mystery man that Ken put it together.
Passports, Helsinki, Moscowâa submarine!
There was only one explanation.
My wife is a spy!
CHAPTER 69
K
en watched the
Hercules
from the edge of the boat basin. He sat inside the Corvette, parked half a dozen stalls away from the Suburban. The workboat occupied the same berth from the day before.
Ken didn't dare venture onto the floating pierânot in broad daylight. Instead, he spied from shore. Laura and the same male he'd almost gutted earlier attended to equipment scattered on the workboat's stern deck.
What are they doing?
And where's the gimp?
* * *
After collecting her clothing from the beach house, Laura and Nick drove back to the marina. They removed the hefty electric arc welder and two pumps from the Suburban's cargo bay, transferring the gear to dock carts. Laura and Nick wheeled the rental equipment to the
Hercules
where Nick employed the hydraulic crane to transfer the apparatus aboard.
There was a glitch at the Point Roberts border crossing with the rented welder and pumps. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer hassled Laura and Nick about the foreign imports. Laura resolved the dispute by paying the full import duty on the retail value of the equipment.
For the next half hour, the pair assembled and tested the gear. There was one item left.
“I can't get this thing started,” Nick said. He was on his knees next to the rented welder on the workboat's main deck.
Laura squatted beside Nick. She studied the control panel.
Nick said, “I keep pressing the Start switch but nothing happens.”
Laura stood and reached forward, pulling open an access panel. She peered into the guts of the machine. “One of the battery cables came off,” she said.
“No wonder it wouldn't start.”
Laura again dropped to her knees and searched through a toolbox that she'd removed from the engine room earlier. She found the right size socket and snapped it onto the wrench.
She reached inside the welder and reattached the cable, tightening the terminal clamp with the socket.
“Try it now.”
Nick pressed the Start button with his right thumb. The gas engine exploded to life.
“Wow, what would I do without you?” he said with a broad grin.
Laura returned the smile.
Surveying the equipment they had assembled and tested, Laura announced, “Everything works.”
“Time for a coffee break.”
“Sounds good.”
* * *
Elena sat alone at the conference table in the Trade Mission's code room. She held a telephone handset. The directors of the SVR and FSB were on the other end of the encrypted satellite telephone circuit, each at their residence. Neither man was happy about the
Neva
's miraculous resurrection.
“I know, sir,” Elena said. “There wasn't anything we could do about it. By the time we were ready to deal with him, Kirov had already implemented his rescue plan. Major Orlov and I were not in a position to stop him.”
“You and Orlov were ordered to terminate Kirov if he did not cooperate. Explain yourself,” ordered SVR chief Smirnov.
Elena glanced down at her notes on the tabletop. “Sir, Kirov's American friend engineered the operation. She used a remote-controlled underwater device to enter one of the
Neva
's torpedo tubes. It had a television camera that Kirov was able to use to figure out a repair.”
“You knew nothing of that?”
“That's correct. Apparently, they'd been working on this plan from the beginning. Major Orlov and I only found out about it when we followed them out of the marina last night.”
FSB General Golitsin responded next. “That's when you saw the
Neva
on the surface?”
“Yes, sir. When we arrived on scene, the submarine had already surfaced.”
Elena lied. If she revealed the truth, both she and Nick would be banished from the service, or worse. They could have halted the operation with a bullet to Kirov's temple and another to his female partner.
“Where is this woman now?” asked Smirnov.
“In Point Roberts with Major Orlov. I spoke with him half an hour ago.”
“What about the Operation Eagle teamâwhat are they doing?” asked Golitsin.
“As ordered, I set them up in Bellingham yesterday, unaware that the
Neva
was about to be rescued. They were supposed to search for the hulk today. I have not yet heard back from them.”
“And the
Neva
has moved out of the area?” her boss said.
“I don't know where it wentâonly that Major Orlov and I are supposed to rendezvous with them tonight to work out the transfer details, and then they're supposed to scuttle the sub.”
“Where?” asked the FSB general.
“North of Vancouver, at an abandoned underwater ordnance disposal site.”
“And Kirovâhe's back aboard the submarine?”
“Yes, General. After diving down and implementing the repairs, he remained aboard, decompressing.”
Ignoring Elena, the military counterintelligence chief addressed his counterpart, “Borya, this news is incredible. Kirov has pulled off the rescue despite the odds. How do you recommend we bring them home?”
The SVR director did not share his colleague's enthusiasm. Spiriting out three dozen men without detection would be a monumental undertaking. If the effort failed, it would be his head mounted atop a pike pole on a Kremlin wall.
“What do you propose?” the SVR chief asked, redirecting his colleague's question to Elena. If the rescue mission turned sour, he would have some insulation from the aftereffects by blaming a subordinate.
“Well, sir, if we can charter an aircraft that has . . .”
* * *
Kirov remained inside the escape trunk. He'd been decompressing for about fifteen hours yet he didn't dare leave the steel cylinder. His body tissues and blood remained partially saturated with helium. Exposure to surface conditions for even a few minutes would be lethal. Expanding helium bubbles would turn blood into froth and vital organs into slush.
The cold hadn't been a problem, as he'd feared. An external heater warmed the gas feed line to his breathing mask, which maintained his core temperature.
Yuri continued to inhale a mixture of oxygen and helium with the blend periodically adjusted to compensate for the reduction in the trunk's pressure. But he had no control over that process. A nineteen-year-old sailor monitoring the gas panel had that duty, which troubled Yuri.
Yuri's greatest concern, however, was thirst. With no freshwater in the escape trunk he could no longer salivate.
He had another critical decision to make. His original plan called for him to remain in the escape trunk for the entire fifty-eight-hour decompression process. But he toyed with an alternative.
The
Neva
was equipped with a recompression chamber. Located at the base of the aft escape trunk, the 1.5-meter-diameter by 3-meter-long steel cylinder might be his lifeboat. Although not an option when Yuri first entered the escape trunk, he'd decompressed enough that it might be possible, albeit risky, to make a swift surface ascent. That would allow Yuri to climb out of the escape trunk, transfer to the chamber, and recompress.
The lure of the
Neva
's recompression chamber tempted Yuri. He would be able to lie down on a bunk, read a book, and eat a meal. Most important, he would have water.
There would be a price for this luxury. If Yuri made the transfer now, he would have nearly sixty hours of
additional
decompression to endureâthe consequence of subjecting his body to ultra fast decompression. However, should he elect to continue his current decompression schedule, he would be free of the escape trunk in about forty-three hours.
With the
Neva
's precarious operational characteristics, the pending crew transfers to shore, and Captain Borodin's decision to deep-six the
Neva
in an underwater junkyard, Yuri's decompression had become a burden to everyone aboard.
He decided to stick with the original plan.
The prospect of another day and a half plus of thirst troubled Yuri. It would be especially tough when he started breathing pure oxygen. Hydration would be essential at that time.
Without water, he might not survive.
* * *
The afternoon sun started its retreat over the peaks of Vancouver Island. The trawler yacht
Explorer
lumbered along at five knots about four nautical miles south of Point Roberts. Both crew members were in the main cabin. The female stood behind the helm; the male sat at the galley table.
Captain Duscha Dubova turned away from the steering wheel and eyed her charge. He stared at his laptop screen. “What is it?” she asked.
Lieutenant Grigori Karpekov looked up. “Looks like boulders to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“They're strung out over the bottom for a hundred meters. I increased the resolution on the second pass. You can see some of themâstacked a couple of meters high.”
“Chërt voz'mÃ!”
After spending most of the day in a fruitless search, the side scan sonar revealed one tantalizing reflection. The gray-black smudge on the screen indicated a potential bottom target in the range of the
Neva
's length: 110 meters. They continued mowing the lawn via a GPS navigation system, towing the sonar-emitting fish over the bottom in overlaying transects until mapping the entire area. Only then did they return to the one promising target of the day.
But now, after lowering the fish for a close look, the results were in
ârocks.
Dubova had been certain they'd found the derelict submarine. She next said, “Why would there be boulders out here? There's nothing geologically around here to account for them.”
“They were probably dumped. We're in the northbound shipping lane. A barge could have turned turtle, dumping its cargo.”
She conceded defeat.
For most of the early morning, the FSB special operators searched for the
Hercules
, expecting to transfer the underwater surveillance gear to the larger workboat. Dubova repeatedly called and texted Elena's cell but received no response. Finally, after waiting at the rendezvous point just north of Lummi Island for ninety minutes, they reverted to the original work plan.
Karpekov faced his boss. “So what do we do now?”
“It's time to head back to Bellingham.”
“Fine with me.”
“Reel in the fish.”
“Okay.”
It would take only forty-five minutes for the Russians to motor north to Point Roberts where they could rent an overnight berth at the marina. But the mission orders were explicit: Conduct all search operations from Bellingham. They had at least a two-hour voyage ahead of them.
* * *
Ken Newman's headache was replaced by a tepid, all-too-friendly buzz. So far, he'd downed three double whiskeys and had just poured his fourth. Ken's current slide started after he'd spied on Laura and her new companion while they tinkered with gear on the workboat.
After the pair retreated to the cabin, Ken moved on. Still hungover, he drove to a local store where he purchased a fifth of bourbon. He next returned to the beach house, confident that he'd be alone for a while. Laura had cleaned out the drawers and closets of the bedroom and bathroom. That's when he started self-medicating.
Ken slouched on the living room sofa, his feet propped on the coffee table and glass in hand. He'd been hashing it out, running from one scenario to the next. The advancing alcohol in his bloodstream fueled his rising bitterness.
No matter how he cut it, Laura's filing for divorce offended the most. He no longer had any hope that she'd take him back.
He considered Laura's admirerâthe gimp bastard who had ambushed him. It wasn't as if Ken had caught them naked in bed together, but he sure had imagined it.
Laura's stock awards were another worry. She would be due another colossal payout in the form of company ownership. Laura's divorce attorney would certainly try to screw Ken out of his share.
And what about the Russian connection? Ken had eavesdropped on Laura and the other man. But with his brain now awash in booze, none of what they said made any sense to him. He was confident, however, about one underlying fact: No one was going to steal his wife.
Ken slugged down the whiskey. He sat up, reached down, and removed the bludgeon from the bag at his feet. He brought it from Bellevue. He used it to bash salmon after reeling them into a boat; it also made an ideal billy club.
Ken tapped the working end of the fourteen-inch-long oak baton against one of the glass panels in the coffee table. He once again pictured Laura in bed with her lover; his blood pressure spiked. He raised the billy above his head and slammed it down onto the table, smashing the panel into shards.
“You two-timing bitch!”
he roared.