Anger flashed. “What the hell do you know about it?”
Dean smiled. “Enough. We have a thick file on you, too.”
“It seems to me you know entirely too much for your own good, American.”
“Yes, well, that’s been a failing of mine ever since I was a smart-assed kid. Poking my nose in where it’s not wanted. I tend to be the curious type.”
“You Americans have an expression, I believe? About curiosity and a cat…”
“Believe me,” Dean said, leaning back and doing his best to express an attitude of calm and relaxation that he was not even close to feeling, “you and your people do not want to kill me. Or Kathy McMillan. Enough people know exactly where we are that you can’t just make us disappear. Not without exposing your whole operation. To begin with, Russia will lose her claim to the Arctic Ocean.”
“The Arctic is ours by right.”
“That has yet to be determined. Denmark and Canada, just to name two, do not agree with you. But that’s not really the point, here.”
“Oh? And what is?”
“The point, Admiral, is that you love Mother Russia. Once, twenty, twenty-five years ago, you were willing to stand up against politicians and commissars and apparatchiks when you saw them making decisions that threatened to destroy your country. Right? But now you’re working for people who are sucking the lifeblood out of Russia.”
“You do not understand.”
“Don’t I? Russia has a new chance, not just at life, but for greatness… but the Organizatsiya siphons off the profits, discourages new business, scares off foreign investment. Russia is dying, Admiral… and the Mafiya is a ghoul feeding off the corpse before it’s even properly dead-”
“Enough!” Golytsin brought his hand down sharply on a key. Dean suspected that there was a microphone wired to the computer, that the Russian had been recording the conversation.
But the conversation had veered unexpectedly in a new and unwanted direction.
“Things are not that simple,” Golytsin said. His face was flushed, and he was breathing heavily.
“No, sir. They never are.” Dean looked around the small office, at the thick steel bulkheads coated with pale green paint. “This is an astonishing facility you have here. Truly remarkable. It’s a real testament to Russian ingenuity, science, and technology, and if you’re able to develop it, it could help put Mother Russia smack back on the map. A global superpower. If Kotenko and his piranhas don’t strip her to the bone first!”
“I think this interview is at an end.” Golytsin stood.
“Time to turn me over to Braslov?” Golytsin gave him a sharp look, and Dean shrugged. “I know you were trying the good-cop/bad-cop ploy on me. Now it’s time to give me to the bad cop, right?”
“Mr. Dean-”
“You’re the one with the gun, Admiral. You decide what’s right. Just remember that you have to take the responsibility for the outcome of your decisions.”
“I do every day, Mr. Dean. Every day.”
“I imagine you met some people while you were in the gulag. People who offered you… what? An opportunity to get revenge over the party-blind bureaucrats and petty martinets who’d put you there? I’d like to know, Admiral. Is that revenge worth the survival of your country?”
“At this point, Mr. Dean, there is not much choice.” The anger had faded, leaving behind an expression of sheer emotional exhaustion.
“Bullshit. There’s always a choice!”
“Really? And what would my choice be down here?” Reaching up with the Makarov, he lightly tapped the steel bulkhead beside him. The steel was thick and gave back only a dull click. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Dean, this is a prison. It’s every bit as much a prison as the gulag.”
“Help me, McMillan, and Benford get out of here. Get us back to the surface, where we can be picked up by our people. And you come with us. We can offer you asylum.”
Golytsin expelled a single sharp puff of air, as though he’d been struck in the gut. “Asylum!” he said. “There is no asylum. Not from these people.”
“You could tell us what you know about the Organizatsiya. Names. Places. Projects. Damn it, Admiral, you could help us shut these bastards down, and give the New Russia a fighting chance!”
“No, Mr. Dean. It’s far too late for that.” Reaching over, he opened the door to the room and gestured with his pistol. “Time to go back to your quarters. You’re right about one thing, though. Sergei Braslov will want to have a talk with you in a little while. Perhaps you’d care to discuss the Tambov group’s role in the New Russia with him and a few of his muscular friends.”
“Admiral-”
“No, Mr. Dean. It’s time for you to return.”
Golytsin and the guard led Dean back down the passageway toward the storeroom.
SSGN Ohio Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1156 hours, GMT-12
“Captain! Sonar!” Chief Mayhew’s voice came over the intercom hushed but sharp with urgency.
“Go ahead, Chief.”
“Transients, Skipper! He’s opening his bow doors.”
“Where?”
“Starboard side, Captain. Estimate range is no more than one thousand yards!”
“Very well.”
Grenville was standing in the control room again. The compartment was dead silent, filled with sailors and officers all intently attending to their duties… and waiting for the next command from him.
He glanced at the plot board behind the periscope station, where an enlisted rating was using a grease pencil to mark the Ohio’s position relative to the probable position of sonar target 116. Half an hour ago, the Ohio had turned toward the target, moving dead slow. By now, they would be passing the target, starboard to starboard. Grenville’s intent was to pass the Victor, then pull a Williamson turn, swinging around 180 and dropping in on the Russian submarine’s tail.
If he was opening his bow doors, he was preparing to fire torpedoes. That could mean he’d heard the Ohio and was getting ready to fire now… or it could mean he merely suspected the Ohio was close and was preparing a war shot just in case. Which?
And where the hell was the Pittsburgh?…
GK-1 Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1201 hours, GMT-12
Golytsin held his pistol aimed at Dean’s left side as the young Russian soldier holstered his own pistol and fumbled with the keys outside of the locked storeroom door. The door swung open, and Dean saw Kathy’s worried face inside just above a bundled-up blanket, with Benford, looking sullen, standing behind her.
There would be no better time.
Marines learned in survival-training courses that if they were made prisoner, the best times to try an escape were when they were being moved. The guards would be more distracted at those times, would be forced to pay attention to more details, and there was always the possibility of the unexpected. The Makarov was aimed at Dean’s ribs, but Golytsin’s head had turned as he watched the door open… alert to the possibility that the prisoners had elected to use this opportunity to attempt an escape. Dean whipped around to his left, his elbow sweeping Golytsin’s wrist into his body, the heel of his right hand slamming up and across and squarely into Golytsin’s jaw.
The Russian staggered back a step and Dean followed, his right hand grabbing Golytsin’s right hand and turning it sharply inward, a jujitsu move that made it impossible to maintain a grip on anything in that hand. The pistol dropped, clattering onto the steel deck.
The naval infantry guard was grabbing for his holstered weapon when Kathy lunged through the door and hit him full in the chest. It had scarcely registered on Dean that she was clutching one of the blankets in front of her, using it as a shield. When she collided with the guard, there was a clatter and a number of large aluminum cans scattered across the deck. Dean dropped to his knees, scooping up the pistol Golytsin had dropped, then coming back to his feet just as the guard slammed backward into him.
The three of them, Kath
y, the guard, and Dean, went down in a thrashing tangle of limbs and wildly rolling cans of stewed tomatoes. Somehow, Dean was able to roll out from under and get on top, the Makarov in his hand swinging up, then down with savage force, striking the guard in the side of the head with the weapon’s butt just as the man managed to pull his own pistol free.
The guard sagged back to the deck, unconscious. Dean rose shakily to his feet, the pistol aimed now at Golytsin, standing several feet away. “You okay?” Dean asked Kathy as she scrambled clear of the blanket and got to her feet.
“Yeah.”
“What’s with the cans in the blanket?”
“Improvised ballistic armor,” she said. “I thought it might at least deflect a bullet if he got off a shot.”
Dean was very glad she hadn’t had to put the idea to a test. It might have worked… or the 9mm round might have slammed straight through blanket, tomato cans, and Kathy and scarcely even slowed down.
“Put the guard in the room. And gather up those cans. Benford! You help her!”
“You can’t get out of here, you know,” Golytsin said.
“I’m damned well going to try. And you have a choice.”
“What choice?”
“You can get into that room. We’ll lock you in with this guy. When they let you out, you can quite truthfully say the Americans overpowered you and escaped.”
“Or?”
“Or you can come with us. The offer’s still open.”
Golytsin was clearly thinking about it as he stood there, rubbing his wrist where Dean had nearly broken it. Benford and McMillan together dragged the unconscious guard inside the storeroom, tossing in the blanket and the errant cans. Kathy retrieved the guard’s pistol and the keys.
“Time to make your decision,” Dean told him. “Loyalty to your new masters? Or loyalty to Mother Russia?”
Golytsin turned and entered the storeroom. Kathy began to close the door… and then he glanced around suddenly and said, “Wait! I’ll come!”
“Good man. C’mon.”
“You’re thinking of the Mir subs?”
“You have a better idea?”
“No. The Mirs are kept charged and ready to go at all times. They’re the closest we have to lifeboats in this place.”
After locking the storeroom door, the four of them hurried down the passageway, rounding the ninety-degree bend in the corridor and skirting the opening in the deck leading down into the facility’s control center. The waiting Mir subs were just ahead.
“Everyone grab a dry suit!” Dean called. “We’ll need ’em topside!”
And then a sharp cry came from behind.
“Stoy! Ruki v’vayrh!”
SSGN Ohio Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1204 hours, GMT-12
“Weps,” Grenville said softly. “What’s our war-shot status?”
“War shots loaded in tubes one, two, three, and four, Skipper. Inner and outer bow doors closed. Four Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes ready for firing.”
“Open bow doors two and four,” he said. “But manually.”
“Open bow doors two and four manually. Aye, aye, sir.”
Using the hand cranks was slower, but it could be done in complete silence. He didn’t want the Victor out there hearing the Ohydro getting set to shoot. Tubes two and four were on the port side of the vessel, on the side farthest from the Victor now, but they would be the first to bear as the Ohio came out of the Williamson.
A minor point. In modern submarine warfare, you didn’t have to be aimed at the other guy to have a chance of hitting.
But it did help. Especially at close range.
“Captain, this is Chief Mayhew.”
“What is it, Chief?”
“I know this is out of order, sir, but… can I talk to you for a sec, here in Sonar?”
“Be right there.”
It couldn’t be super-urgent for Mayhew to sidestep the usual formalities of command protocol, but it did sound important. Grenville walked forward up the starboard passageway and stepped into the sonar shack.
“Whatcha got?”
“Sir… I don’t really have anything… but it’s kind of a… a feeling, okay?”
“A feeling.”
“Yes, sir. We’re still getting occasional transients from Sierra One-one-six, okay?”
“Yes…”
“And we’re getting a lot of background from, from… all over. Ice grinding overhead. We have some biologicals. Lots of noise from the ships on the surface. In fact, half the problem is just hearing the Victor’s transients over all the background-”
“What’s your point, Mayhew?”
“Sir… look here.” He pointed at one of the two display monitors above his workstation. It had been reconfigured to show a waterfall.
“Waterfall” was the term for a particular type of sonar display. It looked like a green TV screen filled with static, but with some of that static just orderly enough to begin to sketch out white lines against the green background. Across the top were compass bearings; down the left side were time readouts, recent at the top to older at the bottom. The waterfall made the universe of sound surrounding the Ohio visible and tracked each source over time. Each line drifted at an angle across the screen, its bearing changing as the Ohio moved relative to it or it moved relative to the Ohio.
“Ignore these three, Captain,” Mayhew said, indicating the three brightest and most slowly moving lines. “Those are the three ships topside. This is Sierra One-one-six.” He pointed to another line that, over the past few minutes, had drifted sharply across the Ohio’s starboard side.
“Not much there,” Grenville said.
“No, sir. We’re close enough to pick up some noise from his screw, and some from his power plant. Down here…” He pointed to a bright patch on the line. “That’s when he opened his bow doors.”
“Yes.”
And thank God a Russian torpedo hadn’t followed a moment later. The other captain was hunting still, not sure where the target was.
“This is what I wanted to show you, sir.”
Mayhew indicated an area of random static, a vague patch somewhere behind the Russian sub. Random static… but somewhat less of it than elsewhere on the screen…
Grenville’s eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing. “Shit!”
“I think-,” Mayhew started to say, but Grenville’s hand was already on the intercom mike.
“Helm! This is the captain! Hard left rudder! Now!”
24
GK-1 Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap 82° 34' N, 177° 26' E 1205 hours, GMT-12
DEAN SPUN, DRAGGING BACK the slide on the Makarov to chamber a round. At the far end of the corridor, perhaps eight or ten yards away, a man in civilian clothing was aiming a sidearm at them. “Stoy!” the man shouted again. “Stop!”
As Dean moved, the man fired, the shot a thunderclap in the steel confines of the base passageway. The bullet struck the overhead, ricocheted with a screech, then ricocheted again off a bulkhead somewhere at Dean’s back.
“Jesus!” Dean ducked reflexively, even though the round had already screamed past. Taking aim, he triggered a round as well, and heard the bullet bouncing off one of the walls before rebounding from the bulkhead behind the other man. Something clattered on the deck ahead of Dean… the spent round, spinning as it burned off the last of its energy.
This was, he realized, a deadly shooting gallery. Handguns simply weren’t accurate beyond a range of a few yards unless the shooter was well trained. Here, though, the massively thick steel bulkheads served to channel shots all the way down the passageway… with the effect of making this a little like a shoot-out inside a sewer pipe.
Sooner or later, even the worst shot would hit something. Dean needed to end this now.
He fired three more shots in rapid succession, not trying for accuracy so much as for a storm of bouncing, ricocheting rounds that would force the Russian gunman back behind the shelter of the far bend in the passageway.
The ugly little Makarov was uncomfortable in Dean’s hand, the grip considerably thicker than what he was used to. A disengaged part of him recalled that the design enabled the shooter to handle the weapon easily while wearing heavy gloves-a necessity in the cold, long winters of Russia.
The other man dropped to the deck, writhing. A pipe running along the overhead suddenly spurted a stream of water. A second man appeared and snapped off another shot that came shrieking down the metal corridor, then pulled back out of sight. Behind him, Dean heard a sudden gasp, a cry of, “Ah!”
“Who’s hit?” Dean called.
“It’s Golytsin!” Kathy said.
“I’m okay!” Golytsin said. “Into the submarine! Into the submarine!”
Two men appeared around the bend in the passageway, grabbed their comrade, and dragged him back out of sight as water continued to spray into the far end of the corridor. At least, Dean thought, it wasn’t coming in with a force of half a ton per square inch; it must be a broken internal water supply.
“You can’t get away, American!” a voice yelled.
Braslov.
For answer, Dean fired twice more, deliberately aiming at the bulkhead far down the corridor in an effort to bank the shots around the corner. He heard a shriek with the second shot.
Behind him, the others had scrambled down an open hatch in the deck. Dean fired one more shot blind, then jumped into the opening, pulling down one circular hatch and dogging it, then the second.
Golytsin was already at the controls, flipping power switches and bringing the little submersible to life. “We need to leave now,” he told the Russian. “Before they figure out how to stop us.”
“Coming online now,” Golytsin replied. Dean could hear the rising hum from astern. “Cutting the connectors now…”
There was a jolt and a sudden dropping sensation as the deck tilted sharply forward. The whine aft shrilled louder, and then the deck started to level off as Golytsin wrestled the submarine level.
Dean dropped the Makarov onto one of the narrow seats provided for passengers on the craft and squeezed forward between Kathy and Benford, peering over Golytsin’s shoulder.
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