“I had little choice but to distance the agency from their actions in Italy and France,” Whittington said. “I’m sure the reporter was just reporting information that he’d gleaned from sources. And may I point out, the article is critical of them, not you.”
“Whittington, I’ve already got a slew of heel biters telling voters how I’ve screwed up as president and how much better they’ll do this job. They’re looking at my every word, my every decision, hoping to exploit my record and me for their own personal political advancement. Don’t delude yourself. An attack on Garrett and Mayberry is a backdoor attack on me.”
He tossed the paper into a nearby trashcan. “Besides, I happen to like those two.”
“Sir—” Whittington said.
The president raised his hands to cut him off. “You need to find out if someone in your agency is leaking information to this reporter. If so, you need to cut their balls off.”
At the same time that Whittington and President Fitzgerald were meeting in the White House, the Italian container ship Bella Sofia was entering the Sargasso Sea. It was one of the last Panamax cargo ships, with a maximum capacity of 5,000 TEUs—twenty-foot-equivalent cargo containers. More modern ultra-large bulk carriers could transport 14,000 TEUs, which explained why this was the Bella Sofia’s final voyage. Everything about the 965-foot-long and 106-foot-wide ship was old, including its rattling diesel engines and rusty propellers.
The loud sounds emanating from the Bella Sofia could be heard inside the Golden Fish as the submarine rose toward it from the depths, approaching its stern like a jaguar about to bite into the hind legs of its prey.
When the submarine was less than two hundred meters from the surface, Petrov ordered Kozlov to level it and increase speed. The churning noises from the Bella Sofia’s screws became almost deafening as the Golden Fish passed directly underneath those blades. When it was aligned under the cargo ship’s belly, Petrov gave a command to keep the submarine steady.
He was copying a Nazi U-boat trick. Active sonar used to identify submarines worked on the same principle as a bat’s radar. Sound waves were sent out, and when they struck an object, they bounced back. If a submarine traveled at the same speed and on the same course as another vessel, it was difficult for trackers to discern between the two. In addition to active sonar, the Golden Fish had to elude detection by passive sonar and hydrophones spread across the ocean floor. Even when the Golden Fish’s engines were shut down and its crew silent, it still made noises—machinery used to circulate air, for instance—that could be picked up by hydrophones. A moving boat also disturbed water, and the sound of moving water created an imprint—sound waves—that could be detected. The United States coastline was protected by thousands of such listening devices permanently installed on the sea’s bottom. This is why the Nazis’ old trick was Petrov’s best evasion technique. If the Golden Fish stuck close to the cargo ship’s underbelly, it was hard to detect the disturbed water and noise it created.
The Bella Sofia’s captain knew a submarine was running beneath his ship. The cargo vessel was owned by one of Zharkov’s companies, so the captain ensured that his boat and the submarine remained married.
The two ships had traveled midway across the Sargasso Sea when a US Navy P-3 Orion, an antisubmarine tracker, appeared overhead. A crew member on board the plane tossed out a long cylinder. A red parachute slowed its descent.
In the control room of the cargo ship, the captain watched the sonobuoy strike the water. Its listening microphones immediately began returning readings to the aircraft from a predetermined depth. There was nothing the Bella Sofia’s captain could do to thwart the submarine-hunting device.
He warned Petrov, traveling below him, with a coded transmission, and the two of them waited anxiously, unsure how to react if detected.
The P-3 Orion crew flew four long circles around the container ship, checking the water, before turning south and disappearing.
Relief.
While traveling under the cargo ship proved effective camouflage, the nonstop churning of the surface ship’s screws quickly became nerve-racking. Sleep was nearly impossible. Tempers grew short. A fistfight broke out in the engine room. Bleary-eyed men covered with sweat, sweltering in the heat from the diesel engines, plugged their ears with wax, but nothing shut out the churning noise completely. Nonstop sounds were not the only self-inflicted torture. Mentally, there was fear. Dread. What if they collided with the ship above them? Petrov, Kozlov, and Suslov were the only ones on board who were armed. The crew had watched Petrov beat one of their fellow sailors unconscious after he panicked. There was no talk of mutiny. Given the harsh conditions and plugged ears, there was little talk at all, and when there was, it was about how each man intended to spend the $1 million in cash promised upon completion of their voyage.
When the submarine had finally crossed the sea and was nearing the US coast, Petrov gave Kozlov the order to increase speed and dive. The agonizing drumbeat of engines and turbulence dissipated as the two vessels parted, the Bella Sofia continuing toward Norfolk’s busy port, and the Golden Fish entering the silence below.
Petrov used his charts to find the canyon that had been carved over time into the continental shelf. Like all cuts in the earth made by rivers, the canyon’s opening was widest at its mouth—the farthest point from the shore—and grew narrower as the Golden Fish moved through it, as well as shallower. The ocean at the canyon’s opening was five thousand feet deep, but fifty miles from the Virginia coast, its depth was less than eight hundred feet.
Petrov had read accounts of deadly underwater collisions, the most recent a US Navy submarine that had struck an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean southeast of Guam. The captain had been using an outdated chart that failed to identify the mountain. The impact had punched holes in the nuclear submarine’s forward ballast tanks, through which ocean water rushed in. The submarine’s propulsion system momentarily lost power. The boat’s bow dropped as the craft began drifting downward into the deep. The collision sent crew members bouncing like Ping-Pong balls against steel surfaces, knocking sailors to the floor, bloody and unconscious. The crew was saved only when an enlisted man hit the “chicken switches,” blowing high-pressure air through the ballast tanks, forcing the submarine to rise to the surface.
That mishap had occurred in charted waters. There was no guide to direct the Golden Fish safely through the canyon. No prior accounts written by seafarers foolish enough to enter a crack in the shelf. Petrov had added sensors and underwater cameras to the Golden Fish’s outer hull, as well as lights. His eyes darting between the multiple screens positioned before him, he tried not to overreact when a beep signaled the submarine was only a few feet from the canyon’s jagged, narrowing sides.
The submarine’s hull was not the only worry. Even the bottom of the canyon was threatening. Time and currents had created what appeared to be giant needles jutting upward.
An original Romeo-class submarine had a range of nine thousand miles at nine knots. Petrov had run his boat faster, and despite the replacement engines’ improved fuel efficiency, the Golden Fish was now low on fuel. Switching to electric helped conserve what was left, but those batteries also were losing power.
Petrov’s face shone with perspiration. His black clothing was drenched with sweat. Yet he showed no fear as he maneuvered the Golden Fish like a blind man walking down a narrow hallway with razors sticking from its walls.
At last his tenacity was rewarded. The submarine’s bow entered a deep hole in the continental shelf, caused by thousands of years of erosion in the softer, underwater rock. Tides and water churning along its walls had created ledges that jutted outward along its circular sides. Petrov guided the Golden Fish above a ledge 270 feet below the ocean’s surface. The crew became silent as the engines stopped and the submarine floated down, all hands praying the ledge would be strong enough to hold its tonnage.
A jarring stop.
It had settled on the exact spot
Zharkov had chosen. Petrov released an exhausted sigh.
“We have made it,” he announced through the submarine’s speakers. “Congratulations, men.”
Cheers. Backslaps. One crew member began to sing. Others joined him. The fifty-man crew had been told that once the submarine was grounded, each man would be issued a bright orange submarine escape immersion equipment (SEIE) suit. The whole-body suit would protect them from hypothermia as they rose to the top, where a boat would be waiting. During training in the Black Sea, each crew member had done a practice run inside an SEIE suit, so they believed themselves well prepared.
“Now you have nothing to do but relax,” Petrov said, “and plan how you will spend your fortune. The ship will be waiting for us in six hours. Until then, we party!”
The cook opened cases of liquor. Served cakes and pies.
Petrov, Kozlov, and Suslov spent a half hour with the crew before quietly excusing themselves. They slipped quickly through the submarine, first releasing a steel cable from it, with a float attached. It contained a series of telephonic relays necessary for deep underwater communication with one of Zharkov’s global satellites. The test was a call to the Russian billionaire.
“We’ve arrived,” Commander Petrov announced when Zharkov answered from his London safe room.
“Boris, I knew you could do this!”
Now confident that a satellite signal could reach the grounded submarine and the detonator attached to the Iranian nuclear bomb, Petrov and his two trusted colleagues continued from their quarters to where the escape suits were located.
“The engines?” Petrov asked when they arrived.
Kozlov nodded.
He turned to Suslov. “Communications?”
“From now on, only signals from above relayed below. No messages from here.”
“It’s time to go,” Petrov said.
Suslov was the first to exit the submarine in his SEIE suit, followed by Kozlov, and finally Petrov. They followed the steel communication cable upward. Petrov had no idea, nor did he care, when his crew would realize the submarine’s engines had been made inoperable and the SEIE suits left for them rendered useless. There would be no million-dollar payoffs—only a horrifying, suffocating death, trapped in a grounded submerged submarine.
As they approached the ocean’s surface, Petrov grasped Kozlov’s right leg and pulled himself up his body until he reached his comrade’s midsection. Unsure what Petrov was doing, Kozlov didn’t resist.
Petrov pressed a Russian SPP-1 underwater pistol against his second-in-command and fired a four-and-a-half-inch steel dart from one of the gun’s four barrels. A second trigger pull, and Kozlov’s limp body sank below him as his punctured suit filled with water, sending out an array of air bubbles.
That left only Suslov. The sonar operator had no clue about Kozlov’s fate; his inflated suit prevented him from bending to look downward. But when he saw the bubbles rising past him, he sensed something was amiss.
Petrov grabbed his ankle. Panicked, Suslov kicked his leg free.
They were less than forty feet from the surface now. Suslov released his grip on the steel cable, and Petrov fired. His dart ripped into Suslov’s suit and tore through the flesh of his left side. The sonar operator now understood he was being stalked by his friend. Petrov had only one dart left, and he needed to fire it before Suslov was out of range. He released his grip on the cable and shot the final dart. Like Kozlov before him, Suslov drifted down, his dead eyes peering through his face mask at his killer.
As Petrov broke through the surface, his suit expanded even further into a one-person life raft, a doughnut with Petrov riding in its center hole. A wave slammed against him, and he discovered that he’d risen into an angry ocean in the predawn darkness. Blinding rain pelted him, and the sea tossed him back and forth. Zharkov had promised him that a fishing boat would be waiting to take him to shore. But even though his suit was sending a homing beacon and a brilliant white light was flashing upward from his shoulder, Petrov could not see any rescue craft.
His first thought was that the boat had been delayed by the storm. But with each passing moment, he began to fear that no boat had been arranged. Petrov was no stranger to betrayal. He had double-crossed his crew, the men who’d helped him cross the Atlantic. He had murdered the two Russian friends he’d recruited from retirement. And yet he had foolishly trusted the Russian oligarch and his promise of wealth.
Ten-foot waves restricted his vision. He had no control over his movements in the bulky suit, but from the stars, he knew the storm was sweeping him farther out into the Atlantic.
Morning came with an exhausted Petrov welcoming calmer seas. He drifted, burning under the sun, for several more hours before he saw a boat approaching. Perhaps Zharkov had not betrayed him. Perhaps the fishing boat had not been able to rescue him as planned because of the raging storm. Perhaps Petrov finally would be rich and not have to work as anyone’s bodyguard and enforcer. Perhaps he’d fulfill his dream, to buy a superyacht and sail the world.
Not until the approaching boat’s engines slowed could he read the lettering on its bow.
us coast guard.
Thirty
“You obviously didn’t need my advice,” Garrett said, eyeballing Esther as she emerged from her bedroom. She’d selected a bloodred, skin-hugging maxi dress with a plunging V front and an even lower V back, held together with skinny straps. A front slit along her thigh revealed tanned, smooth skin. Ruching accented her backside. She’d undone her no-nonsense bun, allowing her lush brown hair to cascade onto her shoulders. Her makeup highlighted her cheekbones and full lips. There were no undergarments, only the outline of firm breasts shaped like champagne glasses under the fabric.
She returned his compliment. “You wear a black tie well.”
“Your people delivered it. Got my size right, even the shoes.”
“I’m good at judging a man’s size,” she said in a flirtatious voice.
Mayberry emerged from the second bedroom. “You certainly look the part,” she said to Esther.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Mayberry looked at Garrett, sitting in an overstuffed chaise next to the grand piano. “A bit overdressed, aren’t you, for a pimp?”
He smiled. “Apparently this is what pimps wear in London.”
Garrett could smell Esther’s perfume as she approached him. Chanel. “Here, put this on,” she said, dangling a wristwatch before him.
“I already have one.” He lifted his wrist.
“Yours is a sports watch. This is a Rolex, and this Rolex is linked to this.” She raised her left wrist, showing off a thin gold bracelet with a solitaire diamond embedded in it.
He removed his watch and wrapped the Rolex around his wrist. Esther pressed a finger against her bracelet’s lone diamond.
Garrett yelped. “The watch shocked me.”
“A signal if I need help.”
“Maybe you should give him a dog collar too,” Mayberry said.
“What’s your problem?” Esther asked, not hiding the rising anger in her voice.
“My problem is you. Both of you. I never should’ve agreed to this. I’m an FBI agent, not someone who flaunts the law. Someone who plays tricks. I should have caught that flight home in Paris.”
“I’ll gladly call you a cab,” Esther said.
“Valerie,” Garrett said, “the last time you put your rule book aside, we stopped terrorists who were attacking the Capitol.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that.” She glanced down at her crippled right hand. “It doesn’t mean we’re justified in doing any of this. Think about it, Garrett. We don’t have any proof this Russian is involved in a plot against the United States.”
“Which is why Esther needs to question him,” Garrett replied, “and we need to help her.”
“She doesn’t need our help. You’re chasing this because you need to chase it. You need the rush.
Otherwise, you don’t matter anymore.”
A hurt look swept across his face.
Esther folded her arms across her chest. “Since we’re being so insightful, why don’t you tell the truth. This is personal between the two of us, isn’t it? You and me. You’re jealous because of what I told you on the train.”
“What’d you say?” Garrett asked.
Mayberry’s face reddened. “That’s so insulting. We’re not schoolgirls! I’m packing my bag.” She walked back into the second bedroom.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Garrett said.
“Why bother? We don’t need her.”
“We do need her.” He nodded at the binoculars by the window. “We need her to watch Fallbrook Manor and notify Big Jules if this falls apart.”
“I’m leaving in ten minutes from downstairs,” Esther said. “I’ll do this without you if you don’t show up.”
Garrett waited until Esther was gone before he rapped on Mayberry’s bedroom door. When she didn’t answer, he tried the knob. It turned, so he let himself in.
A visibly angry Mayberry was closing up her suitcase.
“We need you to stay,” Garrett said. “I’d like you to stay. Just ignore her.”
She turned to face him. “That’s the best you got? Just ignore her?”
“Valerie, I wasn’t asleep. I heard your conversation on the train, and I’m not interested in her.” He stepped forward, gently placed his palms on her shoulders. Impulsively, he moved his head to kiss her.
Mayberry turned her face.
He loosened his hands, but as he was pulling away, she leaned forward and kissed him.
“I’m going downstairs,” he said, unsure of how to respond. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d watch us with the binoculars.”
Esther was waiting when Garrett entered the lobby. “She’ll watch our backs,” he said, “but she’s leaving first thing in the morning. You need to back off her. She’s my partner, and a good friend.”
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