CHAPTER 8
“H
ow long have you worked for this company?” Yuri asked. He rested on the sofa by the fireplace; it broadcast an amalgam of snaps, crackles, and pops from a fresh bundle of cedar kindling.
“Just over ten years.” Laura Newman sat at the nearby dining room table. “I was hired out of collegeâthe sixth employee.”
“And now there are two thousand.”
“Yes. We've done well.”
It was early afternoon at the beach house. After freeing Laura from the bedroom chair, he let her shower and change clothes; she wore a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved blouse. He let her eat lunch. After the meal, she'd asked permission to work. A collection of documents covered the tabletop along with a laptop. He'd left her hands untied but bound both ankles together.
“What are you working on currently?”
“I'm reviewing the marketing plan for a new product that we'll be launching in the spring.”
“What kind of product?”
“It's an update of an existing software system that uses seismic data to map subsea oil and gas formations.”
“You work for oil companies?”
“About one-third of our business is related to hydrocarbon exploration.”
“So you must have training in geology,” he said, looking back at Laura.
“No, but there are around a hundred geologists and geophysicists that work in my division; about half are PhDs. Their work generates unbelievable volumes of data, which is where my computer skills come into play.”
“Interesting.”
The oil business,
Yuri reflected.
No wonder she's rich
.
He remained on the sofa by the fireplace. The radiant heat helped. Nevertheless, his misery persisted. Most of his joints throbbed and the numbness in his lower left leg endured.
The bends' relentless assault continued.
Laura worked at the dining room table. Before allowing her access to the Dell, he'd disabled the wireless broadband port. He also tucked Laura's cell phone in his pants pocket.
He pulled out her 4G smartphone and called up the search engine. The website appeared in a flash. He navigated through the site, keying the About Us icon.
There she is!
He studied the color headshot of Laura Newman, a serious professional portrait that also accentuated her natural beauty. Her company title was Vice President of Operations.
Yuri devoured the rest of the website's contents, impressed with the company and in awe of Laura Newman.
Wow, she's really something
.
Yuri set the phone aside and peered out a living room window, taking in the expansive seascape. He thought of his maritime homeâmired in abyssal ooze about twelve kilometers to the southeast.
Yuri had been a member of the
Neva
's crew for sixteen months. They were his family and he missed them all, especially Senior Warrant Officer Viktor Skirski.
Viktor had perished along with fifty-three others. He made the first dive after the accident to inspect the fouled seawater intakes. He never returned.
Guilt consumed Yuri: He should have stayed aboard. Why should he be the only one to escape? No one else had a chance of making the ascent. He knew that yet it still stung.
And there was the issue that really tore at Yuri's heart.
I should never have moved the deep-water gear to the torpedo room. If they were still by the aft escape trunk, some of the crew might be able to make it to the surface.
To Yuri's relief, Borodin had not revisited his blunder during their early-morning talk. Nevertheless, an earlier accusation from one of the other surviving officers still festered.
It didn't matter to Yuri that Captain Tomich had approved his request to relocate the ten obsolete IDA59 rebreathers and companion bulky immersion suits to the now flooded first compartment to make room for Yuri's special spy gear. Nor did it matter that there were not enough IDA59s aboard for everyone or that they required specialized training at depths greater than fifty meters, which most of the crew had never received. Still, that fateful decision haunted Yuri.
I have to get them help soon or they'll perish.
The environmental conditions aboard the
Neva
were deteriorating. Foul air, near freezing temperatures, and leaks plagued the crew.
If they can get a reactor online, that'll buy time.
Survival of his submates required a reactor restart, which continued to elude the crew. A source of electricity would mean heat, oxygen generation, and energy to drive the bilge pumps.
And what about Moscow? Yuri wondered. They had to know by now.
All morning Yuri grew anxious waiting for a callback from the Russian embassy in D.C.
They had to send help
.
But would they?
The
Neva
's missionâspying deep inside U.S. and Canadian watersâwas an act of war. The
Neva
's orders had been explicit: If detected, exit unfriendly waters immediately. Under no circumstances could the
Neva
or any of its crew be captured. Should capture be imminent, the submarine and its crew were to self-destruct.
And that would mean the death of Yuri's family.
Yuri had no thoughts of his parents. They had evaporated long ago.
His mother died almost eighteen years earlier. Ovarian cancer took her over ten miserable months. During most of her suffering, Yuri's Army officer father had served in the field. Major Ivan Kirov could have requested a hardship assignment to Moscow, but he elected to avoid home.
Yuri had no siblings and the aunt that helped raised himâhis father's older sisterâhad been about as warm and loving to him as the Barents Sea in mid-January.
The one bright spot in Yuri's early life had been his maternal grandfather, retired Vice Admiral Semyon Nikolayevich Fedorov. During summer vacations, Yuri traveled by train from Moscow to St. Petersburg and stayed with Grandfather Semyon.
A widower, Fedorov had lived in a well-appointed apartment that overlooked the Neva River. The three consecutive summers Yuri spent with Grandfather Semyon were the best times of his life. They hiked in the country, day-sailed on Lake Ladoga, visited St. Petersburg's plentiful museums and monuments, spending countless hours in the Hermitage, and took in dozens of performances at the Mariinsky Theatre, the Ballet Theatre, and the Pushkin Drama Theatre.
Yuri enjoyed their visits to Semyon's previous command the most. The St. Petersburg Naval Base was one of Russia's largest naval facilities. Grandfather Semyon's office had been located in the Admiralty building; its landmark gold-coated spire towered over the lower Neva.
Yuri's visits to the naval base and Semyon's stories of Cold War skirmishes with NATOâhe had commanded a submarineâinspired Yuri to follow in his grandfather's wake.
Yuri retrieved the smartphone and typed in the Web address, one that he had memorized long ago. He smiled when the image appeared. Admiral Fedorov's official portrait reflected his tough no-nonsense warrior pose, but Yuri still adored it. The private website, owned and maintained by retired Russian naval officers, honored their beloved brethren. Grandfather Semyon was among the most honored.
For a fleeting moment, Yuri was tempted to send the e-mailâa quick message to one of his comrades back in Petro, informing the officer of the
Neva'
s fate. It would be so easy to do with Laura's phone. But he soon dismissed the thought, knowing the risk was not worth it. He would continue to follow protocol and work through the embassy.
Thanks to Grandfather Semyon's influence, Yuri attended the Nakhimov secondary school in St. Petersburg. He then entered the Higher Naval Submarine School located on the St. Petersburg Naval Base campus for five years of officer training.
Those were marvelous times for Yuri. He embraced military life, excelling in his studies and bonding with his future brother officers. Semyon died during Yuri's fourth year, passing in his sleep.
Over three thousand attended Admiral Fedorov's memorial service in St. Petersburg's Naval Cathedral at the Church of St. Nicholas. Although invited, Yuri's father had been a no-show.
After the funeral and in the privacy of his grandfather's apartment, Yuri wept, mourning the loss of his mentor and best friend.
The Russian Navy was now Yuri's only family. The officers and men of the
Neva
were his brothers.
CHAPTER 9
“T
hat's weird.”
“What?”
“I've got an anomaly on one of our sensors in the South Georgia Straits area.”
“What's the problem?”
The twenty-four-year-old University of British Columbia research assistant looked up from his laptop's screen to face his boss. They were inside a conference room in the Fisheries Centre of the Vancouver campus; it was mid-afternoon. Stacks of files and reports covered the table where they sat. “It looks like some kind of underwater outburst, a pretty big one. Take a look.”
He flipped the Apple around and slid it across the table. The attractive thirty-two-year-old assistant professor of marine zoology leaned over and eyed the LCD monitor. “That is odd. When did this happen?”
“Monday, one thirteen a.m.”
“Hmm.”
“I wonder if it's one of those geophysical companies testing equipment again.”
“No way,” the professor said. “That pressure spike and its duration are way beyond any normal equipment testing levels.”
For the past three years, she had been studying the effect of manmade underwater sounds on marine life, orcas in particular. The Greenpeace grant had allowed her to install eight hydrophones along the length of the 150-mile-long Strait of Georgia.
“Maybe it's the militaryâsome kind of new sonar test,” offered the RA.
“Yes, that could be it. Can you pinpoint the source?”
“No, just that it originated south of Vancouver, probably in deep water.”
“What about
Venus
?”
“I checked earlier this morning; it's still down and there's no estimate of when it might be online again. Apparently, they don't have a clue as to what's wrong.”
Venus, a cabled undersea research laboratory system, transmitted video, acoustic, and real-time oceanographic data from seafloor instruments via fiber-optic cables to the University of Victoria. One of its arrays was located on the bottom of the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver.
“Too bad,” the professor said, again eyeing the acoustic output on the Apple. “Whatever this event was, it occurred right in their backyard.”
“I know,” he said.
The professor keyed the laptop, initiating a search. The webpage downloaded. She flipped the laptop around, displaying a newspaper article titled “U.S. Navy's Sonar Lethal to Sea Life.”
“Americans?” the RA asked.
“Could be, especially in the middle of the night.”
“Trying to hide what they're doing?”
“Yes.”
“So, what would you like me to do?”
“Cross-check everything first and prepare me a summary.”
“You going to blow the whistle on this one?”
“Damn right. The U.S. Navy is not supposed to be doing any sonar testing near the Gulf Islands. It's bad enough that we let them operate at Nanoose Bay.” She shook her head. “The arrogance of those Pentagon bastardsâthinking we wouldn't find out.”
CHAPTER 10
I
gnoring the no contact court order, Ken Newman searched for his wife. He staked out her office, the house, and even her attorney's office. He'd also made two trips to Sea-Tac International, on the lookout for Laura's BMW. Ken even considered checking the private parking lots that surrounded the airport but abandoned that idea; there were too many. Ken tried hacking into her banking and e-mail accountsâhe knew Laura's Social Security numberâbut ran into cyber brick walls.
No solid leads, until now.
“I wonder if you could help me,” Ken Newman said, addressing the receptionist. He'd just walked into the lobby of a property management agency in downtown Kirkland at 3:25
P.M
.
“I'll try, sir.”
“I'm tracking down some unauthorized charges on my wife's credit card. One of them was made by your firm.” Ken held up a billing statement.
“Let me see if I can get you some help.”
“Okay.”
Desperate to find Laura, the previous evening Ken drove to their Redmond residence. He couldn't get in because she'd changed the door locks. But Laura forgot about the locking mailbox by the driveway. Ken still had a key. Luckily, it contained a Visa card statement along with the usual junk mail. He didn't think twice about stealing the statement.
Ken sat at a table in the conference room staring at a wall, when the office manager entered.
“I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Newman. It took awhile to download the files.” Holding up a stack of hard copies in her right hand, she seated herself across from Ken. “I don't think you have anything to worry about, at least for this charge. Your wife did pay for the rental.”
“How can you be sure of that? Some punk snatched her purse and used her credit cards. Laura couldn't have made that charge. I would've known about it.”
The manager heaved a sigh. “The rental agreement and credit card authorization form were e-mailed to your wife last week. She signed both and then e-mailed them back.”
“I don't understand,” Ken said, lying.
“Sir, we have concrete proof that the charge was legitimate. The property owner required Mrs. Newman to sign the rental agreement.” She held up a collection of papers in her left hand, then removed a credit card receipt clipped to the papers and handed it to Ken. “As you can see, your wife authorized the charge.”
The manager laid the pdf copy of the contract on the tabletop but did not offer it to him.
Ken examined the Visa card e-receipt but used it as a diversion. As a commercial real estate agent he'd become adept at reading contracts upside down while explaining deal points to his clients. He used that skill to scan the first page of the contract.
Ken handed the receipt back. “I'd like a copy of that please, and a copy of the rental contract, too.”
“I'm sorry but I can't do that. The account is in your wife's name only.”
Ken frowned. “Could you at least tell me where the rental is located?” He'd already memorized the address but the more information he could glean, the better.
“All I can say is that it is in Washington State.”
“Is it a condo, house, or what?”
“It's a beach house.”
“Oh, Laura,” Ken whispered, just loud enough for the manager to hear, “what are you up to?”
The manager froze in place, not offering anything else.
Ken grimaced, pushed away from the table, and stood. “I'm sorry to have bothered you. I didn't know about this.”
“No trouble at all.”
By the time Ken climbed into his Corvette, his hangdog pout had transformed into a broad grin. He'd pulled it off.
Point Roberts
, Ken wondered as he started the engine.
Where the hell is that?