Torpedo! (The Silent War Book 3)

by Harry Homewood

  The two men stayed close together as they left the Orange Bowl, Shevenko moving through the dense crowd with an expert use of shoulder and hip. Outside of the stadium Wilson stopped and took out his billfold and extracted a ten-dollar bill. Shevenko shoved it in his pocket.

  “At least I won something out of this rotten business,” he said. “I have one more favor to ask of you, my friend. Will you come back to the hotel with me?”

  “Sure,” Wilson said. He led the way down the street to a house where cars were parked on the front lawn.

  “Fifteen bucks to park your car on their damned grass,” he said as he started the engine and backed into the street. “Damned people around this stadium make enough money during the football season to pay their year’s taxes.”

  “The joys of capitalism,” Shevenko said. “When you get to the hotel it will cost you five dollars for a Cuban refugee to park your car and another five dollars to the same Cuban to get it back for you and for all you know the Cuban might be a Communist. You think it’s better to be free and pay for everything. I think I like it best under our system. But each to his own, I guess.” He paused and offered a cigarette to Wilson and took one for himself and lit it.

  “I’d like to trade you some information, Bob.”

  “Shoot,” Wilson said.

  “Our admiral, the asshole who started this whole business, has been forced into retirement. He’s lucky Papa Brezhnev didn’t have him shot. He knows that and the people who backed him know it, too. I think we will have a period of some peace for quite a while now. What about your admiral, the one who ordered our submarine attacked and sunk?”

  “You know the name Captain Steel, Herman Steel?” Wilson said.

  “Yes. The father of your nuclear Navy. A difficult man to get along with, I am told.”

  “That’s right,” Wilson said. “He and Vice Admiral Brannon, he’s the one who issued the orders to get your submarine, he’s been fighting Admiral Brannon tooth and nail for almost three years.

  “When Brezhnev called the President and said he’d ordered his missile submarines to return to base and it was confirmed by our submarines, Admiral Brannon offered the President his resignation. Captain Steel stood up on his hind feet and hollered his head off, said if the President accepted Admiral Brannon’s resignation he’d have to accept his own resignation.”

  “So your mad admiral stays on duty?” Shevenko said in a soft voice.

  “He’s not mad,” Wilson said, his voice sharp. “He knows how to play hard ball with you people.”

  “God help us all if the rest of your military, or ours, learn that lesson,” Shevenko said. The two men got out of the car at the door of the hotel and Wilson gave a five-dollar bill to the Cuban valet parker. As they stood waiting for the elevator Wilson looked at the Russian.

  “We both owe one hell of a debt to Dr. Saul, do you agree?”

  “I do,” Shevenko said. “I have in mind how I will repay him.”

  He unlocked the door of his suite and went in, followed by Wilson. The CIA man looked at the unconscious form of Sophia Blovin on the bed, his eyes moving from the bare breasts of the sleeping girl to her handcuffed wrist. Shevenko went to the bed and unlocked the handcuffs and put them in his jacket pocket. He picked up his bag and turned around.

  “That is Sophia Blovin,” he said, nodding his head toward the bed. “Also known as Little Fox. My personal aide in my Directorate for the past few weeks. Before that she worked for the Directorate as our expert in American psychology. I give her to you for safe keeping, Bob. It’s my way of repaying Dr. Saul.”

  “I don’t understand,” Wilson said.

  Shevenko walked toward the door of the suite. “How did you think that Dr. Saul knew everything that was going on in my operation? Sophia is a deep mole. She works for Dr. Saul.” He looked at Sophia’s sleeping form with affection in his eyes.

  “She doesn’t know I found out about her but if I was able to do that, in time, someone else in my organization would also find out. Lubianka prison is not a place for Sophia.” He paused at the door, his hand on the knob.

  “The drug I gave her is harmless, no side effects. She’ll wake up by six.” He turned the knob and opened the door.

  “Send her back to Dr. Saul with my compliments. Tell him he owes me one.” He went through the door and closed it behind him.

  THE END

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