CHAPTER 93
“H
ow's he feeling?” Nick asked as Laura entered the pilothouse.
“He's resting. The meds finally kicked in.”
“Good. He needs to take it easy.”
It was early afternoon at Point Roberts. The serene cloudless sky extended to the southern horizon. A slight tremor pulsed in the deck boards; the mammoth diesel deep inside the steel hull idled. A trace tang of gasoline loitered inside the bridge.
“What's the weather report?” Laura asked.
“Light winds from the north, minimal swell. No rain.”
“We should make it back to Seattle tomorrow morning.”
“Right.”
Laura scanned the surrounding marinaâwall-to-wall boats. The workboat had relocated from the guest dock to a side tie near the head of the basin.
“You want to take her out again?” she asked.
“
Xorošó
âOK.”
Earlier in the predawn morning, while Laura had rushed Yuri to an emergency room, Nick piloted the
Hercules
solo. After opening every hatchway, door, and porthole and venting the hull for nearly an hour he started the diesel. He then headed into the Strait of Georgia. The stench of gasoline had permeated almost everything. Airing out the cabin was his excuse; Laura didn't question him. She knew what he was up toâdisposing of evidence.
Just before sunrise and about two miles north of Sucia Island, Nick deep-sixed Ken's corpse. He used sixty feet of anchor chain and assorted scrap metal looted from the engine room.
Nick then motored back to Point Roberts; he avoided the guest dock when returning to the marina. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were busy checking in a Canadian mega yacht that had just arrived. The marina manager assigned Nick a temporary slip for the day.
“I'll release the lines,” Laura announced as she started to head below.
“I'm sorry about Miller,” Nick said.
She stopped and turned. “So am I.”
“We did everything we could for him,” Nick said. “It was an accident.”
“I know.”
Nick smiled. “Remember, you have much to be proud of. You and Yuri saved all of those men who faced certain death.”
“Thank you.”
Laura again turned and headed down the companionway. The least she could do was return the
Hercules
to its homeport and hope that the heirs to Dan Miller's estate would benefit from it.
* * *
Two people watched as the nearly one-hundred-foot long vessel crept southward in the marina's navigation channel. They stood on a public shoreline walkway south of the guest dock. Both were severely jet-lagged, having arrived at Point Roberts just ten minutes earlier. Unable to book a direct flight from Amsterdam, they had been delayed in Montreal due to aircraft equipment problems. It then took forever to rent a car at Vancouver International this morning.
The exceptionally robust woman held a pair of compact binoculars to her eyes.
“Is that her?” asked the male, a bantamweight compared to his boss.
Captain Duscha Dubova focused on the female standing on the boat's port bridge wing; it was just forty meters away. When they drove past the marina, Lieutenant Grigori Karpekov had spotted the workboat as it pulled away from the dock.
Dubova lowered the glasses, using the strap around her neck for support. She then removed her cell phone from a coat pocket and opened an e-mail file. The Samsung's screen displayed a color photograph of Laura Newman captured over a week earlier.
“Yes, it's the subject.”
As part of her report on Yuri Kirov, Elena Krestyanova had photographed Laura and then e-mailed the digital image to the SVR director.
“Who do you think she is?”
“I don't know. Moscow provided no details.” The senior FSB officer held up her cell and snapped half a dozen photos of Laura and the workboat.
“That boat looks well equipped.”
“It was the one we were supposed to use.” Dubova turned to face her charge, holding up the cell phone with a magnified image of the vessel's stern nameplateâHERCULES filled the display.
Karpekov smirked. “I wonder what happened to Elena.”
Dubova muttered a curse. She remained peeved that their SVR liaison had left them high and dry.
“What do we do now?” Karpekov asked as the
Hercules
passed around the breakwater. “That boat could be going just about anywhere.”
“We're in no position to follow it,” Dubova said. “We return to the Trade Mission. I need to use the secure phone to report to headquarters.”
“Maybe they'll let us go home now.”
“Maybe.”
CHAPTER 94
T
he
Hercules
cruised southward at eight knots with Nicolai Orlov at the helm. Laura Newman and Yuri Kirov walked out of the cabin onto the main deck. Standing near the stern, they watched a lone seagull patrol above the workboat's churning wake, on the lookout for an easy meal.
Laura and Yuri wore parkas to ward off the afternoon chill. His left forearm was in a sling, covered by the jacket. A patch of white gauze covered his right eye; the limp still dogged him.
Yuri glanced forward at the wheelhouse. “Nicolai's turning out to be quite a skipper,” he said.
“He's a fast learner, plus I think he enjoys piloting the boat,” Laura replied.
Yuri turned back. “What about when it gets dark tonight?”
“I'll help him. With GPS and radar, it shouldn't be a problem.”
“Ah, a piece of cake.”
“That's right,” Laura said, impressed that Yuri had mastered a new American colloquialism.
Laura rubbed her hands together to warm them and said, “Have you given any more thought to what you want to do?”
Not cold, Yuri yawned instead. “Right now, I just want to rest and try to get my health back.”
Laura, too, craved physical recuperation. Her body felt depleted. She also was in desperate need of emotional curing.
“You'll find my home quite comfortable,” Laura said. “It has a sauna and a hot tub, and a lovely view of the lake.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
What Laura really wanted to know was Yuri's long-term plan. She worried that he'd have to return to Russia. Despite what had happened, Yuri remained a commissioned officer in the Russian Navy with a brilliant career ahead.
But that could wait.
Later, Laura and Yuri, still on the stern deck, gazed north at the retreating Point Roberts peninsula. From their vantage, it appeared as a jade-capped isle immersed in a placid gray sea.
Laura gestured with her right hand. “It all happened out here.”
“Indeed,” Yuri said. The dread and repulsion came roaring back in a torrent: the
Shkval
sending the
Neva
to the bottom, his escape, suffering from the bendsâtwice, his colleagues marooned and he their only hope, the betrayal of his own country, the submarine's resurrection, the death melee with Ken Newman.
Laura said, “You know, Yuri, what happened was truly a miracle.”
“I do know. I am blessed, and I thank you and God for it.”
Yuri turned to face Laura, leaned forward, and kissed herâa lingering delicious kiss.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
hanks to my sister Julie Urban for her critical review of the manuscript. Her observations and advice were invaluable to me.
I wish to thank Todd Wyatt of Carson Noel for his assistance with negotiating the contract with Kensington Books.
I'd like to thank my editor at Kensington, Michaela Hamilton, for her enthusiasm for the book. Michaela is a terrific editor who took time to work with me to refine and improve the story. It is deeply gratifying that Michaela and her talented team at Kensington really care about my work.
Finally, I'd like to thank my wife, Meta, and my daughters, Kerry and Kim, for encouraging me with my writing career and helping me to make this book possible.
Special bonus for fans of fast-paced espionage
fictionâ
Keep reading to enjoy a preview of Jeffrey Layton's
next exciting thriller
starring Yuri Kirov and Laura Newman
THE FOREVER SPY
Coming from Kensington Publishing Corp. in 2017!
CHAPTER 1
I
t was an ideal time to work on the iceâno wind, clear skiesâand a balmy 20 degrees F. The helicopter deposited the two researchers from the University of Alaska onto the frozen sea. Alaska's Point Hope was twenty-eight nautical miles to the east. The international boundary with the Russian Federation lay twenty miles to the west.
The sheer white veneer the men stood on appeared to extend to infinity in all directions. To the north, the Chukchi Sea stretched to the Arctic Ocean and its polar cap. To the south, the Bering Strait connected to the Bering Sea, which abutted the immense North Pacific Ocean.
The technicians from the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences had just over two hours to install the equipment before the helicopter would return. Although it was 1:20
P.M
., the February sun barely rose above the southern horizon. In about three hours, it would disappear entirely. The chopper pilot refused to fly during Arctic dark.
Designed to measure and record current speed and direction under the ice-sheet at five depth levels, the array when deployed would extend 170 feet to the bottom. Real-time data from the current meters would be transmitted to a satellite and then relayed to the chief scientist's office at the Fairbanks campus.
Although not expected to survive more than a week or so due to shifting ice floes, the data from the instruments would be used to help verify a mathematical model of late winter water exchange between the Pacific and Arctic oceans. The study was part of a larger effort to document climate change. The polar ice cap was in an unprecedented retreat. By the end of the coming summer, sea-ice extent would likely again shrink to a new record minimum.
It took the technicians an hour to assemble the current meter array, laying it out in a straight line along the ice. Their next task called for boring an eighteen-inch-diameter hole through the seven-foot-thick ice sheet.
The senior tech fired up the gasoline-powered auger, referred to as the “ball buster” for its affinity to toss operators pell-mell when concrete-hard ice jammed the bit. The racket of the auger's top-mounted engine polluted the otherwise tranquil environment.
Finally ready, the senior tech shouted, “Let's go, Bill.”
“Okay, boss.”
The assistant grabbed the handle on the opposite side of the auger, and the senior tech goosed the throttle. The bit tore into the first-year ice, advancing three feet in about half a minute. A cone of splintered ice mounded around the borehole.
As the auger continued to penetrate the ice, the operator backed off the throttle, expecting the bit to break through any moment. That's when the assistant spotted the change.
“What the hell is that?” he said, gesturing at the black material spewing from the auger hole.
Just then, the bit pierced the ice keel and a torrent of blackish seawater erupted from the hole, pumped onto the ice surface by the still spinning auger. The boss tech switched the engine off and both men extracted the auger from the borehole. More black fluid surged inside the puncture.
“What is that stuff?” asked the assistant.
“I don't knowâthis has never happened before.”
The senior technician dropped to his knees. He reached into the hole with his right arm. A moment later, he pulled up his gloved hand with the tips of the fingers blackened. He raised them to his nose.
“Son of a bitch!”
“What?”
“It's oil!”
“How can that beâwe're out in the middle of frigging nowhere.”
“I don't knowâsomething's not right.”
The senior tech stood. Dismayed, he wiped the soiled glove on the side of his coveralls and said, “I've got to report this right now.”
He reached into his parka and removed a portable satellite phone. Forty seconds later, he connected with the chief scientist in Fairbanks.
Within an hour, a transcript of the technician's report would reach the desk of the President of the United States.
CHAPTER 2
D
AY
1âM
ONDAY
Â
L
aura Newman cradled the coffee mug, embracing the warmth radiating from the porcelain. She stood on the spacious deck of her home, overlooking the tranquil lake waters. It was half past seven in the morning. Up a few minutes before six o'clock, she'd already run forty minutes, following her usual route of narrow lanes and streets that snaked up and down and across the hillside of her neighborhood.
A snow-white terrycloth robe concealed her lanky frame from neck to ankles; she'd just showered and shampooed. Her damp auburn hair remained bundled in a towel, turban-style. Clogs housed her petite feet.
In her early thirties, there was little need for makeup. Nevertheless, she would complete the ritual before heading to work, touching up her chocolate complexion.
Always a morning person, Laura cherished the solitude of the early hours. She used the quiet time to think and plan.
Once she stepped into her office building, it would be a whirlwind for the next eight to ten hours.
Laura sipped from the mug, savoring the opulence of the gourmet blend. Yuri ground the premium beans and then brewed a pot, something he did every morning.
They had been together for over a yearâlovers, best friends, and recently business partners.
Leaning against the guardrail, Laura spent the next few minutes strategizing, preparing for a teleconference she would chair at 10
A.M
. With at least a dozen participants from Los Angeles, Denver, and Houston, she would serve as ringmaster for the launch of a new project that would hopefully further enrich her company.
Laura drained the mugâshe limited herself to just half a cup a day. She turned and walked back into the living room. A few steps away she entered the nursery; it was just off the master bedroom. Madelyn remained fast asleep in her crib.
Laura beamed as she gazed at her darling daughter. Born eight months earlier, she was finally sleeping through the night. Laura reached down and gently stroked Maddy's angel soft chestnut hair. She stirred but did not wake.
“See you in a little while, sweetie,” Laura whispered. Before driving to work, she would nurse Madelyn.
Laura walked into the kitchen.
Yuri stood at the island, his lean six-foot-plus frame propped against the granite countertop and his arms crossed across his chest. A couple of years younger than Laura, the trim beard he wore complimented his slate-gray eyes and jet-black hair. While staring at a nearby wall-mounted television, his forehead contorted unnaturally. Laura had observed that look before and was instantly on alert.
“What's going on, honey?” she asked.
Yuri pointed to the TV; a Fox News Channel logo hovered in the lower left corner of the screen. “Oil spill in Alaska. A big one.”
“Where?”
“Chukchi Sea.”
“Oh noâisn't that near where you're supposed to work?”
He nodded, his lips pursed.
Laura focused on the television screen. A ringed seal encased in thick gooey oil lay lifeless on a sheet of ice.
“Do they know what happened?”
“No, just that some researchers found the first oil far offshore over the weekend. Then someone else found the seal near Barrow.”
“This is going to change everything.”
“Yes, it is.”