The Good Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  He’d turned up the home’s gas furnace to maximum, too, roasting Laura.

  What’s wrong with him?

  * * *

  He hobbled onto the timber deck, dragging his useless lower left leg. The mid-afternoon sky was cloudless, allowing the sun to bathe his body; it had been weeks since he’d last felt its touch.

  Water lapped at the rock revetment fronting the home. In the distance, a mammoth ship steamed northward, its decks overflowing with hundreds of shipping containers.

  Although no longer chilled to his marrow, he remained unpleasantly cool. A wool blanket from a bedroom encased his shoulders and upper torso. He also shed the jumpsuit, replacing it with the civilian clothing he’d carried during the ascent. The waterproof bag leaked, soaking the blue jeans, black long sleeve shirt, running shoes, and other gear. He discovered the home’s laundry room, where he washed and dried the garments.

  He unconsciously shook his head, still amazed that he had survived. It could have been much worse. The bends could have just as easily killed him, or he could have succumbed to hypothermia.

  Why had God spared him?

  His mother had sparked his early belief, but her guidance ceased after his twelfth birthday and his faith withered. Nevertheless, his impermeable armor of disregard now had a couple of chinks in it. Surviving the sinking came first. His solo escape followed.

  He again wondered why he was alive when so many others were not.

  His thoughts dissolved as something caught his eye far in the distance. The floatplane cruised northward up the inland sea, about two hundred meters above the water. He couldn’t help but think that it probably passed right over the Neva.

  * * *

  Seven nautical miles to the southeast and over seven hundred feet below the surface, the Neva’s crew was oblivious to the Kenmore Air charter. The beat of the Beaver’s propeller penetrated the water but never reached the stranded submarine.

  Underwater sounds rarely travel in a straight line. Instead, they refract or bend due to varying temperature, salinity, and pressure. On this afternoon, the only sounds that the Neva’s passive sonar sensors registered were biologics.

  The thirty-four-year-old slightly balding and fleshy engineering officer left the central command post and entered the sonar room. Catapulted to acting-captain status nearly forty hours earlier, he hoped for good news.

  “Anything new?” he asked the sole inhabitant of the compartment. Packed with electronic gear from the deck to the overhead, the space contained three consoles.

  “No, Captain,” said the technician, a man in his early twenties sitting in the center console.

  They spoke in their native tongue—Russian.

  The tech removed his earphones and flipped a switch on his console, activating a bulkhead speaker. The sound of bacon sizzling on a grill broadcast throughout the compartment. “Still the same biologic we’ve had all day long—fornicating shrimp.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I did pick up a ship’s propeller. Merchantmen most likely headed to Vancouver.”

  “How about small vessels?”

  “No, sir, nothing like that. In our degraded condition, they would need to be close by for our remaining sensors to register.”

  The commanding officer nodded. He’d anticipated something more encouraging. The diver should have made it to the shore by now. Still, it was early.

  “Captain, how’s the scrubber repair going?”

  “It’s working again. CO-two is stabilized.”

  “Good . . . that’s good.” The sonar tech scratched the stubble on his chin. “And the reactors?”

  “We’re still bailing out muck. We might be able to test a heat exchanger in a few hours. Once circulation is reestablished, we should be able to restart Unit Two.”

  “That will help a lot.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  Neither man wanted to ask the ultimate “what if” question: What if they couldn’t restart the reactor?

  Programmed to prevent a core meltdown, the computer controlling the reactor would automatically squash the chain reaction if the coolant system were not adequate. Without the heat generated by the fission process, there would be no steam. Without steam, the generator would not turn. Without the generator, there would be no electrical current to run the ship’s oxygen maker. And without fresh oxygen, they would all die.

  CHAPTER 5

  Laura and her captor sat at the kitchen table, facing each other. They sipped tea from mugs, having just finished dinner—scrambled eggs and fried potatoes that he’d prepared.

  Although Laura’s hands were free, her ankles remained bound. But she no longer sweltered; he had dialed back the furnace and the fireplace.

  Laura had read somewhere that establishing a personal relationship with a captor helped in hostage situations. She decided to test the theory.

  “My name is Laura. May I ask yours?”

  He took a sip of tea. “John.”

  “Your leg, it looks like you really injured it. Do you need help with it?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I live in Redmond; I’m just renting this place.”

  No response.

  Laura racked her brain to formulate another question that would not alienate him. Her demands during their initial encounter had resulted in the gag.

  “I’m a software engineer,” she offered.

  “You write programs?”

  “Sometimes, but others in my company write most of the code. My job is to coordinate and assemble the software we develop.”

  “John” leaned back in his chair and said, “You’re a manager?”

  “I am.”

  “How many do you supervise?”

  “There are about six hundred programmers and engineers in my division.”

  He returned his chair to its normal position and cocked his head to the side. “You own this company?”

  “I’m one of four principals. We have just over two thousand employees.”

  “What software do you write?”

  “Mostly business applications with some science-based work.”

  He said, “You must make a lot of money.”

  “I do well.”

  “Were you raised in Seattle?”

  “No. The Bay Area.”

  His brow wrinkled.

  “You know, San Francisco Bay.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I grew up east of the bay in a city called Castro Valley.”

  “Ah, you’re a California girl.”

  “I was.”

  “Tell me about your parents.”

  Laura expected the inquiry. It always came up with someone new. “I was adopted as an infant. My birth mother was Caucasian; my birth father was African American. I’ve never met them.”

  “Your parents—who adopted you—white or black?”

  “Caucasian.”

  “What was it like for you growing up, with your father’s blood?”

  He was direct, if anything.

  “Great. No real problems.”

  Laura skirted the truth, not wanting to revisit past hurts.

  “Where did you receive your university education?”

  “Caltech—California Institute of Technology.”

  “Oh, I know that school.” He shifted position in his chair. “How did you end up in the software business?”

  “Well, assembling computer code is like solving a puzzle. I’ve always enjoyed working on things that make you think. You know, like chess and math games and . . .”

  Laura and John continued their dialogue. She had just mentioned her soon-to-be ex.

  “You came here to get away from him?”

  “Yes, my attorney served him with the divorce papers on Monday.”

  “He doesn’t know you are here?”

  “Absolutely not. Even my office doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Laura regretted her last statement, knowing she’d revealed too much. “My attorney knows where I am;
we’ve been communicating daily.” True to a point. She’d received one e-mail from her Seattle lawyer verifying Ken had received the court filings.

  Laura folded back the bathrobe from her right shoulder and pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt, revealing a nasty bruise. “He’s vicious when he drinks. He hit me a couple of weeks ago. But never again.”

  “The man is a pig. He should be in jail.”

  “I just want him out of my life.”

  * * *

  Laura sat on the couch in the living room, her wrists tied in front and her ankles still bound.

  Laura’s captor worked at the dining room table; “John” had been at it for over an hour. Electronic parts harvested from a living room AM /FM stereo receiver covered the tabletop. A stainless steel pressure cooker and a telephone handset completed the parts collection, both taken from a locked cabinet in the pantry that he had pried open with his knife. The cabinet contained personal items of the homeowner.

  Laura had been tempted to ask what he was doing but refrained, believing the less she knew the better off she’d be.

  Since their initial encounter with the knife, there had been no additional threats and he hadn’t touched her, except for the restraints. Even so, Laura remained wary. He could turn on her.

  Still she had hope, sparked by their dinner conversation. His interest in her background came across as genuine. He asked additional questions about her birth parents, but Laura simply repeated that she’d never met them—truthful yet evasive. She had a complete file on her birth parents.

  Just remain calm, Laura self-ordered. I can get through this. He’s going to slip up sometime and I’ll escape.

  * * *

  Captain Lieutenant Yuri Kirov looked up from the worktable to check his prisoner. She remained on the sofa about twenty feet away. He had used rope from the garage to bind her this evening. He’d exhausted most of the roll of duct tape that he’d discovered earlier in a kitchen drawer.

  Yuri watched as she leaned against the sofa cushion, eyes shut.

  Despite her tousled hair, lack of makeup, and the unpretentious bathrobe, Yuri found Laura Newman alluring—an exotic blend of Scandinavia and equatorial Africa.

  Laura had inherited her Nordic birth mother’s high cheekbones, full ripe lips, azure eyes, and russet hair. Her father’s tall willowy frame, broad nose, and cocoa skin, all linked to his distant Bantu ancestors, complimented her mother’s genes.

  Yuri wondered what it was like for Laura growing up chocolate in a black and white world. In Russia, biracial children often had a tough life. Maybe it was easier in the USA.

  He considered asking more questions about her family but thought better of it. He could not afford personal involvement. Laura represented a liability that he might be forced to eliminate for the sake of his submates.

  Yuri turned back to the table and picked up one of the speakers. He inserted the woofer inside the pressure cooker and ran the connecting wire from the speaker through the relief valve opening in the lid. He set the lid on the pan and rotated it, engaging the rack-and-pinion lock mechanism.

  Perfect!

  CHAPTER 6

  DAY 3—WEDNESDAY

  The nearly full moon illuminated the vast inland waterway for miles, its surface silky smooth this early morning.

  Yuri Kirov sat at the aft end of an aluminum skiff, guiding it southward. He had swiped the boat and its trailer from the yard of a neighboring beach house. It was early November and the owner, like those of most of the other homes along the seashore, had departed for the season.

  Before locking out from the Neva, he’d memorized the bottom coordinates from the sub’s inertial navigation system. Using the GPS unit in Laura’s iPhone, he retraced his path. Yuri glanced at the digital display of the smartphone. He cut the outboard engine.

  Yuri lowered the device into the water. It was an odd creation consisting of a kitchen pressure cooker filled with stereo radio components connected to an extension cord.

  Yuri submerged the contraption just three meters. Any deeper and the seals he’d fashioned might fail. If the gadget flooded, his efforts would have been for nothing.

  It took five minutes to connect the additional gear. He used the battery from Laura’s BMW to energize the system. He’d discovered the sedan in the garage.

  Yuri checked his wristwatch: 12:59 A.M. It was time. They should be listening. But what if it didn’t work? What then?

  He ignored his doubts and pressed the Transmit switch on the makeshift microphone—a hybrid constructed from the telephone handset he’d found. He spoke in English, using a pre-arranged code: “Alpha to Bravo, testing, one two three.”

  The hydrophone broadcast into the deep. His voice propagated downward at over fifteen hundred meters per second. He repeated the call eight times at fifteen-second intervals.

  Four minutes after the first transmission, a black one-meter-diameter globe surged to the surface in a flurry of bubbles.

  * * *

  Laura peeked through the curtains, searching for movement on the dimly lit beach below.

  Her captor left two hours earlier. Instead of binding her to a dining room chair, he’d used an upholstered chair in the upstairs master bedroom. He lashed her wrists and ankles to the chair’s frame with rope.

  She could move just enough to maintain circulation in her limbs but not enough to loosen the bounds. For the present, she’d given up trying to escape.

  John hadn’t bothered with a gag. Instead, a single layer of duct tape sealed her lips. She could grunt muted words but nothing coherent. Even if she could have screamed full throttle, no one was around to hear. He’d made that point to her more than once.

  Before heading downstairs, he’d informed Laura that he would be gone for several hours. She had no choice but to wait for his return.

  From her second-story perch, Laura could see the moonlit beach through a narrow gap in the draperies. She’d watched him struggle to drag the twelve-foot skiff onto the beach; the man had only one good leg. He launched the runabout and motored into the darkness.

  Laura wondered what he was up to, and why was he doing it in the middle of the night?

  As Laura sat, occasionally peering through the window, she thought of her husband. He was up to something, too. But what?

  Laura feared Ken as much as she feared her captor, maybe more. Just two weeks earlier, he had shown up at Laura’s house unannounced. Reeking of whiskey, Ken knocked Laura to the floor and attacked her with his size 11 Florsheims. He fled before the cops arrived.

  Laura vowed that he would never touch her again.

  As she peeked through the curtain, Laura again wondered about her captor.

  Where did he go?

  * * *

  “Can you hear me?” asked Yuri Kirov.

  “Yes, your signal is five-by-five.”

  “Five-by-five here, too.”

  Yuri grinned. Direct voice communication had been his goal. He’d just accomplished that task—speaking with the submarine’s acting commanding officer, Captain Third Rank Stephan Borodin.

  The Neva bristled with high-tech communication devices, but to use them required the submarine to be under way, not marooned on the bottom.

  After signaling with his makeshift hydrophone, requesting deployment of the very low frequency radio antenna buoy, Yuri connected with his shipmates. He accomplished that task by coupling a pair of wires he’d harvested from the stereo set to the buoy’s cable; he cut through the armored outer sheath and spliced the wires to an internal VLF radio receiving circuit. He attached the other end of the stereo wires to the telephone handset—now disconnected from the hydrophone. After the Neva’s communication officer energized the cable, Yuri could speak with Borodin. It was a crude arrangement but it worked.

  “Are the reactors still offline?” Yuri asked.

  “Yes. We’re still fighting that damn muck. It’s as if we sucked in half of the bottom.”

  “What about the batteries?”


  “Bad. We’ve got everything powered down, except the radio compartment.”

  Yuri knew what that meant: no lights, no heat, and foul air.

  Borodin continued, “We’ve got enough battery power left for a restart. But if that fails, we’ll be profúkat’.” Down the toilet.

  “You’re still working on the seawater intakes, right?”

  “Of course. Dima and his boys are mining that crud as we speak. Unit One is hopeless. But if we can unplug a condenser, we’ll be able to fire up Unit Two.”

  “Okay, I understand.” Yuri chose his next words with care. “I’m working on getting us help, but it’s going to take a little time.”

  He included himself by using the word us, even though he’d escaped from the underwater tomb.

  “What kind of help?”

  “I’ve made contact with our embassy in Washington.”

  “They can’t do anything. Or won’t, once they know what happened.”

  “I won’t reveal everything. Only what they need to know.”

  “I don’t know about that. According to our orders we’re supposed to be dead.”

  “That’s only if we were caught, but the Americans and Canadians are in the dark.”

  “What can the embassy do anyway?”

  “I don’t have any answers for you yet. It’s going to take awhile to sort out.”

  Yuri refrained from informing Borodin that he’d yet to talk with anyone that could offer help. His cryptic call to the embassy represented a first step in a convoluted and risky process of informing his superiors of the Neva’s fate.

  As a military intelligence officer, Yuri had been schooled in the “dos and don’ts” of operating in North America. Use of the telephone was discouraged. The FBI routinely monitored phone calls to and from the Russian embassy and its consulates. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police scrutinized Russian Federation facilities in Canada. The RCMP was meticulous about that.

  When he’d called the embassy, he masqueraded as a U.S. citizen and deliberately spoke in English. An American who used Russian would draw the FBI’s instant attention.

  “Why are you even bothering with the embassy?” Borodin asked. “I thought you were going to make contact with Petro first.”