I went next door to the Vietnamese restaurant and got a table. When the waitress had brought a menu and glass of water, I got up and went to the bathroom still carrying the duffel. Just large enough for a toilet, urinal and sink, I crowded in with another man who stood at the sink washing his hands. I relieved myself, and waited until he left, then took his place at the sink. When I’d dried my hands, I opened the duffel. I’d stashed five grand in cash and Charlie’s back-up piece in the locker “just in case.” This seemed like as good a case as any. I reached in and pulled out one of the banded stacks of twenty-dollar bills and stuffed it in my pocket. After returning to the table, I told the waitress I’d changed my mind and ordered a phở ga to go. When she brought it a few minutes later, I handed her a twenty and left.
Buses leaving the station in the next hour or two headed north, east and south, according to the schedule. I bought one-way tickets on all three to various destinations. Then I found a relatively quiet corner to eat, and tried to cut some thoughts out of the herd, lasso them and put them in pens in some semblance of order. My roping skills were sadly lacking. A couple of the homeless men headed in my direction to cadge some bills, but shied away as they got closer. My size tends to intimidate, acting as a deterrent most of the time.
I waited until the last minute to board an eastbound bus that left within minutes of one going north. No one else got on behind me, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I wedged myself into a seat on the aisle. The foul stench from the tiny bathroom a few rows back nearly gagged me, but the bus seemed clean enough. I cracked the sliding window and tried to get comfortable, praying that no one would sit in front of me and attempt to put the seat back. For the umpteenth time, I reviewed what I knew, and it wasn’t much.
Someone had fatally shot Anthony D’Amato. Not long after he died in my car, two Russian thugs intercepted me looking for their “uncle,” a man fitting D’Amato’s description. I felt safe assuming the Russians had killed him, but then again jumping to conclusions was a special proficiency of mine. A Russian mob boss had kidnapped me off the street to see what I knew about D’Amato and let me know D’Amato owed him something. But what? D’Amato had died carrying little on his person except a listening device and two very odd contact lenses. Putting that together with the fact that he was a scientist working on a government contract made me wonder if he’d been into a little industrial spying. Lasers didn’t seem like the kind of business that would interest a Russian mobster, but if D’Amato had owed money…
And then there was the girl D’Amato wanted me to protect. Pavel, the pastor at the storefront church, indicated the girl’s mother Anya had been a prostitute, and had gone into hiding to stay out of the life. Maybe Dmitrov wanted her back in the fold. And Grigori and Marko had tortured and killed Masha to find her. One piece still didn’t fit. Why had D’Amato been carrying a gun belonging to a missing NCIS agent?
The bus had crossed Lake Washington on its way toward Issaquah before I noticed the growing twilight outside the window. The onset of nightfall reminded of one more thing I’d forgotten to do. I pulled out one of the burners and called Chance to see if he could drive my route. Half of the gay couple upstairs, Chance was a female impersonator in a gay bar on Capitol Hill, so kept similar hours. He usually got off in time to deliver papers, and was a prince when it came to helping me in a pinch.
After several rings, Chance answered hesitantly. “Hello-o?”
“Hey, it’s Blake. I wondered if you could fill in for me tonight. I know it’s short notice—”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
The hairs on my neck stood up. He didn’t sound right. “What’s going on? You okay?”
“Hang on a minute.”
I heard muffled voices in the background, then rasping, as if Chance had put his hand over the phone.
Another voice came on the line. “I’m very disappointed in you. You haven’t been truthful with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dmitrov. I never lied to you.”
“Come, come, let’s not waste time arguing.” Displeasure honed the Russian’s voice to a steely edge. “D’Amato gave you something. I want it.”
“D’Amato gave me nothing,” I dissembled. I thought of the girl’s photo. “Nothing you’d want, anyway.”
“Whether he did or didn’t makes no difference. You have twenty-four hours to return what’s mine. Since you know where I am at this moment, you know what will happen if you don’t.”
A chill ran up my spine. “If you hurt them, I swear…”
“You’ll what? You’ll kill me?” He laughed, but it was an ugly sound with no humor in it. “Bring me what I want and we go our separate ways.”
“Simple as that.”
“Yes, as simple as that. The clock is ticking, Mr. Sanders.”
The call disconnected.
He had Chance and Peter. I couldn’t disappear, not now. I couldn’t run. But I knew that as soon as I gave him what he wanted, he’d kill us all. I needed a place to think it through, figure out some sort of plan.
Chapter 25
July 27—Bering Sea
Macready drained the rest of the bitter, black tea in his mug and carried it to the scullery in the mess. As strong as coffee, it did little to revive his senses. Lack of sleep and the stress of maintaining the charade he played took their toll. He scanned the mess, now serving first shift breakfast, but failed to spot Dudayev’s visage in the sea of faces. Sailors still jabbered excitedly about the early lifeboat drill, and their expressions mirrored their conversation. A far cry from the panic and fear Macready had witnessed earlier, especially among the youngest seamen, who’d been convinced the whistle and klaxon signals waking them meant the ship was sinking.
Noticeably absent, at least to Macready, were officers. The most senior of them had their own wardroom, but Macready would have expected more junior officers here at breakfast. The seamen seemed not to notice, or if they did were perhaps a little more boisterous because of it. Sailors aboard tightly run ships at sea took their work seriously, but on Russian vessels the mood was even more dour. The uncharacteristic scene in the mess told Macready these men were more on edge than a normal ship’s complement and needed to blow off some steam. The dearth of officers probably meant they had gathered with senior crew to evaluate the situation.
The ship’s command might chalk the fire up to an accident, but Macready had seen the concern etched on the officers’ faces, too, that morning. They had no more understood the “abandon ship” signal that had sent them all scrambling to muster stations than the sailors. They’d prepared and waited for the signal to launch life rafts when the captain had belatedly announced that the exercise was only a drill. Shortly after, the ship’s whistle and general alarm had sounded three short blasts, ending the drill and dismissing the crew.
The two incidents added up to a big problem, and Macready smelled trouble. Someone aboard had tripped two alarms, perhaps to create diversions or maybe even sabotage the ship. Bad for Macready because the captain would beef up security and the crew would be more watchful in general, making his job more difficult.
He worried about slipping up, using the wrong phrase due to his rusty Russian, or being asked some detail about his background that he couldn’t answer. Russians’ distrust of strangers worked for and against him; no one faulted him for his antisocial behavior, but he was being watched. Not being careful enough had almost been enough to get him caught a few hours earlier rifling through Dudayev’s files. He couldn’t afford another mistake like that. Dudayev had nothing to do with Macready’s mission, anyway. Macready just felt there was something off about the man.
The ship’s bell struck seven, which meant Macready had an hour before his next duty watch. Men poured into the mess for second shift, and stragglers from the early shift stuffed remaining bites of food in their mouths and hurried out. Macready joined the thin stream swimming against the tide and shoved his way out into the corridor. The
men ahead of him hurried off to their posts. Within thirty feet, the sounds of the mess faded behind him and the corridor emptied. He headed below for the machine shop. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In a passageway outside one of the crew berthing areas, Macready heard a commotion and slowed. Rounding a corner, he saw four men blocking the corridor. Three of them pressed the fourth up against the bulkhead, a kid no more than nineteen. Dark hair, blues eyes rolling wildly like those of a bee-stung horse. Macready could smell the fear rolling off the kid from where he stopped. The others were a year or two older. Two heads turned to look at him. The one in the middle didn’t take his focus off their victim, face pressed up close, lips twisted into a feral grin. Down low, the leader held a knife in his fist, the point buried in the crotch of the kid’s uniform trousers.
Macready sized up the situation in an instant. Dedovshchina, they called it, the worst kind of bullying. All four of the young sailors were conscripts, drafted into service whether they liked it or not. But the kid about to lose his left testicle was a newbie, the others more senior. Macready had heard that hazing in the Russian military was brutal. At one point, hundreds died, either as a direct result of the physical and psychological abuse or indirectly, driven to suicide.
“Leave him alone,” Macready said quietly. His interference wouldn’t stop them from continuing as soon as he left, and might make things worse for the kid, but he couldn’t let it pass.
“Not your business,” said the one with the knife. “Move on.”
“I’m your superior officer,” Macready said. “That makes it my business.”
The sailor turned his head indolently, sloe eyes flat and empty. “Poshol nahuj, durak. Fuck off, asshole.”
His compatriots laughed nervously. Even the kid with the knife in his crotch focused long enough to watch Macready with wide eyes.
Macready almost smiled at the crude language. He’d learned Russian mat—the rudest form of swear words—from a fellow SEAL whose parents had moved from Russia to the States when he was a boy, not from his Russian language classes. The narrow corridor allowed little room for maneuvering. Macready quickly formulated a plan.
He crooked a finger. “You like boys, pidar? Maybe you should try a real man. Come and get it.”
The leader faced Macready and flicked the point of the knife in his direction. “Maybe you’d like this up your ass instead of my dick.”
His homies tittered again, and he stared at them, rage darkening his face. “Yobni yivo! Kick his fucking ass!”
Nervously, the two goons came at Macready, jostling each other as they tried to move down the corridor shoulder to shoulder. Macready pasted a look of fear on his face and took a hesitant step back, encouraging them. One swept out in front and closed on Macready, but Macready used the back-step to gather himself. He pushed off and kicked the first attacker in the groin. With a continuous motion, he pivoted on his forward foot bringing his left elbow around in an arc that smashed the second attacker in the temple, whipping his head sideways. Macready finished his turn, and as the second man brought his head back up, he used his momentum to thrust his palm forward into the man’s nose, smashing it up and back into his face. The man went down, blood pouring from his broken nose.
“What the hell is this?” a gruff voice shouted.
Macready pulled up short. The leader whirled around, facing the source of the question, his knife disappearing into a pocket. Bogomolov, the chief mate, stomped up the corridor toward them with a couple of midshipmen in tow carrying a heavy crate. The knife-wielder flattened himself against the bulkhead so the chief had a clear view of Macready and the men writhing on the floor. Bogomolov’s eyes flicked back and forth as his gaze took in the scene, from the frightened matros leaning against the bulkhead whose knees were about to buckle to Macready and the injured men. The tour stopped on Macready.
“You did this?” Bogomolov said to Macready.
“Yes!” the knife-wielder said loudly. “He—”
“Silence!” Bogomolov roared. He looked at Macready again.
Macready nodded. “They came at me. I defended myself.”
“He stuck his nose in our business,” the knife-wielder sneered.
Bogomolov whirled on him. “Do you have ears? You better learn to take orders from your superiors, boy, or it will go badly for you on this ship. Now, you and your friends get to your posts.”
Chastened but still defiant, the kid said “But, sir, we’re not on watch.”
“You are now,” the chief growled. “Go relieve whoever’s at your post. And before you harass this matros again, remember that I’m watching you. Go!”
Mack the Knife and Bloody Nose hauled their buddy to his feet and the threesome stumbled down the passageway past Macready, faces darkened with hatred.
Bogomolov turned to the kid. “You better learn to fight. It’s the only thing they respect. Go on, get out of here.”
The kid slunk through a door and disappeared. Bogomolov watched him go then sauntered up to Macready. “Next time, you should turn around and walk away. Stick your nose into someone else’s shit and they’re likely to grind your face in it.” He motioned to the two men with the crate. They picked it up and followed as he squeezed past Macready.
Macready waited until they were out of sight before he turned and followed. The sailors bearing the heavy load left a trail of grunts and swearing that Macready dogged easily enough. They worked their way up and aft, laying topside, the swearing growing louder each time they reached a ladder and hoisted the crate up. When they reached the main deck, the sounds ahead ceased. Macready hurried to catch up, but saw no sight of them. As he passed a door with a porthole, he caught a glimpse of the trio outside in bright sunlight. He backtracked and pressed his face up next to the glass. The threesome headed across a short expanse of open deck toward the hangar deck.
Macready considered his options. Whatever they carried in the crate seemed destined for one of the ship’s two Kamov helicopters. He quickly made up his mind and hustled below deck, working his way to the ship’s stern before laying topside again, climbing up to the flight deck. He shouldered past a group of slow-moving sailors. They lobbed insults at his back, but they bounced off harmlessly. He knew he might get only one chance at finding out what the Russians were up to, and he was betting it all on the possibility that the crew had opened the hangar doors. Over the past two days, the seas had grown noticeably calmer and the air warmer as they headed south from the Bering Sea.
He lucked out, but the “warmer” air hit him like a yeti prizefighter when he climbed the ladder to the flight deck. A stiff breeze plucked at his sleeves and trousers as he crossed the open deck. The big set of double doors to the starboard hangar stood open, a flight deck officer positioned in front of the ramp leading down into the hangar like a sentry. He watched Macready approach with a frown evident below his dark goggles. Gloved, helmeted and jacketed in a yellow safety vest over an insulated windbreaker, he seemed unaffected by the bitter wind.
“Sir,” he shouted, pulling the headphones away from one ear, “you shouldn’t be out here without the proper gear!”
“I just go where they tell me,” Macready yelled.
The FDO stood in a relatively sheltered spot, and Macready was glad to get out of the brunt of the wind. He looked down the dim ramp into the brightly lit hangar below. The FDO followed his gaze then looked at Macready and held his hands out.
“No one up here on the flight deck but me, and I haven’t heard about any injuries.”
“Mind if I check?” Macready said.
The FDO shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Macready trod down the steel ramp cautiously, eyes scanning the scene below. With rotors folded back, one of the choppers, a Ka-27 Helix-A ASW, resembled a giant beetle. With some surprise, Macready noted the other helicopter was a newer Ka-52 “Alligator,” a two-seat version of the Ka-50 “Black Shark,” an attack helicopter developed to compete with the AH-64 Apache that US forces
flew. Larger and faster than the Ka-27, the Alligator also was more deadly. Macready had heard that the special “K” version built for the navy had been ordered for the Mistral landing ships that Russia purchased from France. To see one here meant the ship’s mission had a component that required its unique characteristics.
By the time he reached the bottom of the ramp he realized that he needn’t have bothered being quiet. The flight maintenance crew hovered around both stubby helicopters, servicing worn parts. The clang, hiss and clatter of impact wrenches, welding torches and other tools filled the cavernous space. The two seamen assigned to the crate crouched next to it and reached inside the open lid. They lifted a rectangular metal box from the crate. A cylinder protruded from one end of the box and wires from the other. As they swung the heavy piece of equipment around and carried it to the Ka-52, light reflected off a glass lens set in the end of the cylinder.
Macready sidled the other way as he watched the sailors set the equipment down next to waiting hands beside the chopper. An older, gruff-looking mechanic working on the landing gear of the smaller chopper watched Macready curiously.
Macready pointed to the medical insignia on his uniform and spoke loudly over the din. “I was told someone here is ill.”
A look of surprise crossed the man’s face then he shrugged and shook his head. “Nobody has complained of being sick.”
“Incompetents,” Macready spat. “Wasting my time.” He glanced over at the equipment beneath the Alligator again. “Doesn’t look like a launcher for Kh-35 missiles. What are they doing?”
“They won’t tell us—very secret. But word gets around.” He paused until Macready’s silence made him uncomfortable. “I heard it’s some kind of laser.”
Macready had already guessed as much, but what type of laser was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. The U.S. Navy had deployed laser cannons on ships since the summer of 2014. This device was nowhere near as large as those. So, some other type. Macready wished he knew more about photonics, but asking more questions would simply draw more suspicion. For a moment, he watched a pair of mechanics prepare to attach the device to one of the six external hardpoints on the chopper’s “wings” while the sailors held it in place. Suddenly, a whistle blew.
Night Strike Page 17