The Forever Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  “Could they have sold it to somebody?”

  “Possibly, but this particular boat is still in their inventory.”

  “Then we’ve got them.”

  “Yes, sir. We have sufficient evidence to point the finger right back at the Kremlin.”

  “They’ve already denied any involvement and continue to blame us for the blowout of their well.” POTUS leaned back in his chair. “He’s a damn hothead, reacting like this with no cause.”

  “I agree.”

  “Let’s sit on this for the next day or so. I’m not ready to do anything yet. Things are dicey and I don’t trust that SOB. We need to really think this situation through.”

  “Very good, sir. If it is permissible, I would like to work on some contingency plans.”

  “That’s fine, but keep it in-house with your key staff. Need to know only.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  CHAPTER 32

  DAY 19—FRIDAY

  Elena set up the meeting, insisting Yuri attend. They sat at a conference table high up in the downtown Seattle tower. Designed to impress, the meeting room faced an extraordinary view of Elliott Bay. An international law firm occupied the office space, taking up three floors.

  Yuri at first wondered how Elena had procured such a lavish venue but then decided the law firm must represent Russian government interests.

  After placing a chart of the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the tabletop, Elena made the introductions. Expecting Russian operatives, Yuri was half-right. The man sitting to his right fit the profile of a typical SVR or GRU officer assigned to North American activities. In his early thirties, Tim Dixon—his cover name—was a medium-height Caucasian with a lean build and stylish brown hair.

  The man sitting opposite Yuri next to Elena was the wild card. Of Asian origin, David Wang—a partial alias—spoke better English than Yuri, and Yuri was fluent. The trim mustache helped disguise his age, which Yuri guessed to be around his own—thirty years plus or minus. Wang’s close-cut hair, the well-tailored suit that fit his trim physique, and his erect posture in the chair all pointed to one conclusion—military.

  After making the introductions, Elena addressed Yuri. “I expect you’re wondering why Mr. Wang is joining us today.”

  “Yes.”

  “For this assignment, we are working with our ally the People’s Republic of China. Accordingly, Mr. Wang is representing the PRC’s interest in the project.”

  “You should have told me about this.” Yuri faced Wang. “No offense is intended to you personally, Mr. Wang, but I am not comfortable with an outsider on this mission. I want our own people.”

  Wang Park kept his poker face.

  Elena reacted. “Mr. Dixon is here and he will assist you, along with Mr. Wang. There is no compromise on this—it comes straight from the top. We are to share all intelligence information obtained with our Chinese friends.”

  Yuri again addressed Wang. “What is your background?”

  “I’m an officer in the People’s Liberation Army-Navy, a lieutenant commander.”

  “Your specialty?”

  “Anti-submarine warfare.”

  “Sea duty?”

  “Multiple deployments on destroyers. One cross-training deployment with a submarine.”

  That got Yuri’s interest. “Tell me about the sub deployment.”

  “I received training in submarine tactics used to evade surface ships. It was enlightening.”

  “I bet it was.” And a damn smart move by your superiors. Russia should do the same thing.

  Yuri continued, “What’s your experience with the Russian Navy?”

  “I was attached to a destroyer that made a port call to Vladivostok. We attended a banquet hosted by the base commander.”

  “When did that occur?”

  “Four years ago—in July, as I recall.”

  Yuri tilted his head at Elena. “Sounds like he knows what he’s doing. That’ll be important out on the water.” He focused on Dixon. “Have you had any sea duty?”

  “Ah no . . . other than taking ferries across the English Channel a couple of times and boating on the Black Sea during a vacation.”

  Yuri grinned. “Better make sure you take anti–motion sickness pills. It can get rough out there,” he said, pointing to the chart. “You’ll be no good to us if you’re puking your guts out all day long.”

  That lifted the icy tone of the meeting. Smiles broke out on both Wang’s and Dixon’s faces.

  Yuri looked toward Elena. “You want to come with us? I know you’ve had plenty of time on the water before.”

  “No thank you. I’ll let you gentlemen do the honors.”

  Facing Wang, Yuri pointed to the chart. “We’ll need to transport Deep Adventurer by truck to the Duwamish Waterway and transfer it to the workboat.”

  Yuri and Wang spent the next forty minutes planning the mission.

  * * *

  Yuri took the elevator to the lobby solo. Elena remained in the conference room with her two associates “to coordinate,” as she’d said to Yuri after the meeting concluded.

  The Chinese connection was a concern. Yuri could not imagine the Fleet Intelligence Directorate going along with such an operation. Russia’s penetration of the U.S. Navy’s strategic crown jewel, the Trident ballistic missile submarine force, represented the pinnacle of a military intelligence operation that had been in play for years. Yuri had been right at the tip of that op.

  As he took another elevator to the garage, his apprehension expanded.

  There’s something else going on here.

  By the time he slipped into the seat of his Highlander, he had made up his mind.

  I need to run this past Nick.

  CHAPTER 33

  DAY 20—SATURDAY

  “You have a lovely home, Ms. Newman.” “Please, just Laura. And thank you, we’re very comfortable here.”

  “Okay, Laura.”

  Laura just completed the house tour. It was late afternoon. Her guest was in her early forties. Slim like Laura, Sarah Compton was an inch taller. She wore a professional pantsuit with a matching tailored jacket. There was just a slight bulge under the left armpit. To the layperson, the Sig Sauer semiautomatic nine-millimeter she carried was invisible. The only reason Laura noticed was because Yuri had insisted her bodyguard be armed at all times.

  “I understand you’re a runner,” Sarah said. Yuri had supplied background information on Laura and Madelyn.

  “I like to run in the mornings before heading to the office.” Laura hesitated. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No, not at all. I’m also a runner.”

  “It will be nice to have company. Since Yuri will be gone, I’ll be pushing Maddy in her jogging stroller, so it will be the three of us.”

  “Great.”

  “I typically leave around eight thirty. The office is about twenty minutes away—if the traffic isn’t backed up on five-twenty.”

  “While at your office, where can I hang out—without being too conspicuous?”

  “I’ll set you up in an office across the hall from mine. We’ll bring in a couch so you can sleep if you like.”

  “Thank you.” Sarah would remain on duty during the late evening and early morning hours—the high threat times for home intrusions—resting only during daylight.

  Laura considered the personal protection overkill. Nevertheless, she promised to abide by Yuri’s request, at least for the next few days.

  Sarah Compton worked for a Seattle area–based security firm that specialized in executive protection. A former U.S. Army Military Police officer, she’d been lured from her military career with a compensation package that nearly tripled her annual service pay. Her specialty was female protectorates. Sarah’s services were in high demand in Silicon Valley as well as the Pacific Northwest.

  “Will John be home this evening?”

  “No. He’s already left. He’ll be away—at least a couple of days.”

  “Can you
provide me with any additional information on the threat?”

  “Nothing specific, only that an anonymous caller warned John at his office. The caller made it clear that I was the target.”

  “Have you reported the call to the police?”

  “No, not yet.” Laura glanced down at the floor. “If we make a formal report, there will be a public record of it. The press could get hold of it—we cherish our privacy. Besides, I think it was a crank call.”

  “Are you sure? You have a large company, and I suspect there are one or more disgruntled ex-employees out there.”

  Laura met Sarah’s eyes. “I suppose it’s possible but Yur . . .” Laura corrected herself. “John tends to be overcautious at times. I’m sure this is nothing.”

  “Well, just the same, my job is to protect you and your daughter.”

  “I understand,” Laura said, now growing weary of mixing truths with fabrications. She checked her wristwatch. “I don’t feel like cooking, so I’m going to order out. Do you like Thai?”

  “Very much.”

  Laura reached for her cell phone and called up the speed dial menu.

  “Will you be ordering from a restaurant you’ve used before?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Sarah removed an iPhone from her jacket pocket. “Please, use my phone—just in case someone is monitoring your phone. That will minimize the risk. And I’ll answer the door when the delivery is made.”

  “Okay,” Laura said, impressed with Sarah’s vigilance.

  CHAPTER 34

  DAY 21—SUNDAY

  It was an abysmal morning—just a few degrees above freezing, with negligible visibility and sporadic downpours approaching monsoon status. Swells running down the hundred-mile-long Strait of Juan de Fuca agitated the local waters.

  The last gusher petered out, leaving a whisper of vapor in its wake. But somehow, the chill of the drizzle penetrated Yuri’s rain gear and underlying parka. As he stood on the starboard bridge wing of the 120-foot workboat, eyes peering through the binoculars, he shivered. Although more than a year had passed since his last bout of hypothermia and decompression sickness, he wondered if his body’s memory was sending him a warning.

  “See anything?” asked the man standing next to Yuri.

  Yuri lowered the binocs while turning to face David Wang, aka, Lieutenant Commander Wang Park. “No, it looks clear.”

  “Good. I didn’t see anything nearby on radar, so I think we should get started.” The PRC naval officer, similarly outfitted in rubber boots and yellow rain gear, appeared unaffected by the cold.

  “Let’s proceed.”

  They had been under way since late the previous evening. After employing a dockside crane to transfer Deep Adventurer onto the aft main deck of the Ella Kay, Yuri and crew departed from the Duwamish Waterway pier and headed into Elliott Bay. The workboat headed north. They arrived at the launch site at sunrise.

  Yuri and Wang, and one of Wang’s assistants encased in a black neoprene wetsuit, stood on the Ella Kay’s deck near the stern. By their side, Deep Adventurer remained nestled in its cradle. Bright yellow with a twenty-foot-long by three-foot-diameter cylindrical hull, the autonomous underwater vehicle was a twin to the Deep Explorer, which continued its work in the Chukchi Sea.

  As part of Yuri’s negotiations with Elena, he had insisted that she supply the vessel. In addition to deploying the AUV, the workboat would be needed later to recover the underwater spy pods, assuming Yuri could locate them.

  Commander Wang and Tim Dixon procured the Ella Kay, managing to charter the vessel bare-bones—without an owner-supplied crew. Dixon and the workboat’s skipper, another Asian and presumed by Yuri to also be a PLAN operative, remained in the pilothouse. Despite the anti–motion sickness medication he’d taken, Dixon’s belly had rebelled earlier in the morning. Still queasy and with his stomach emptied, he continued to function, impressing Yuri with his grit.

  Ella Kay jogged in a wide orbit two miles northwest of Protection Island. It was a few minutes before eight o’clock. The mile-thick mat of saturated clouds hung just five hundred feet above the water surface. The overcast concealed the steep slopes of the Olympic Mountain Range to the south. As a new near-shore shower cut loose, the shoreline several miles southward was a blurry smear of green and brown. To the north, across the twenty-mile-wide western limit of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Vancouver Island and the adjacent San Juan Islands were similarly obscured.

  Yuri had been adamant with Elena about manpower. No NSD staff would be involved in the operation. Yuri emphasized security as the reason for exclusion. But his real purpose was to protect his employees. If the op went sour, no one other than Yuri would be in jeopardy with the feds.

  Yuri’s excuse to the NSD staff for taking Deep Adventurer unaccompanied was also security-based. A potential new client requested a secret demonstration dive in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Yuri let the staff work on that morsel as they prepared the AUV. By the time Deep Adventurer was fine-tuned and loaded onto the semitrailer truck along with all of its ancillary gear, NSD employees were convinced that Yuri was meeting with the U.S. Navy. How ironic, Yuri had thought.

  Yuri stepped to the base of the boom crane and slipped into the operator’s seat. He engaged the winch and slowly reeled in the steel cable, tensioning the fore and aft nylon lifting slings wrapped under the AUV’s hull.

  “Ready?” he called out.

  Wang gave a thumbs-up.

  Deep Adventurer was afloat about ten feet from the Ella Kay, still attached to the lifting slings. Wang and his assistant stood by, each holding a mooring line attached to a sling strap.

  Yuri stepped away from the crane and called out to Wang, “Keep holding it there! I want to run a quick check!”

  Wang nodded.

  Yuri now occupied a covered workstation on the main deck next to a bulkhead connecting with the cabin superstructure. He keyed the laptop, initiating a wireless transmission to Deep Adventurer. The diagnostic test took fifty seconds with the results displayed on the laptop’s screen. The pressure hull was watertight and all systems were go.

  Yuri returned to Wang’s side. “Tell your man to get wet.”

  Within two minutes, the assistant was treading water next to Deep Adventurer’s bow; he worked on the forward lifting strap. He’d already released the aft connection, and Yuri had retrieved the mooring line. The forward strap disconnected and Wang reeled in his line.

  Yuri faced Wang. “Tell him to swim away. I’m going to let her go now.”

  Wang repeated the request.

  Yuri returned to the workstation and with a two-stroke keyboard command sent Deep Adventurer on its way.

  He walked back to the port bulwark and watched the AUV surge northward, its propeller biting into the water. About half a minute later, it submerged, leaving a faint bubble trail that soon dissolved.

  Satisfied with the launch, Yuri addressed Wang. “Let’s get your man aboard.”

  “All right.” Wang hesitated. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”

  “It’s going to take a while. Since I don’t have the exact coordinates, I’ve programmed Deep Adventurer to execute a search in the general area. The nearest pod is about twelve miles from here—that assumes the Americans never discovered it.” Yuri checked his wristwatch. It was 8:22 A.M. “We might have something around sixteen hundred.”

  “So we wait here?”

  “Yes, unless it gets really rough. Then we might need to shelter in Port Townsend.”

  “Okay.”

  * * *

  It was now early afternoon. Yuri was the first to notice the jet; it was several miles away, but it flew abnormally low, especially for such a large aircraft. He picked up the binoculars and peered through the pilothouse windscreen. “Trouble,” he muttered.

  “What?” Wang said. He sat on the bench seat behind the helm.

  Yuri pointed northward. “U.S. Navy patrol aircraft—one of their new ASW platforms.”
<
br />   Wang stepped forward and Yuri handed him the binoculars.

  “You’re right—it’s a Poseidon. Must be from the naval air station.”

  “No doubt.”

  Yuri had warned both Elena and Wang about the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Located at the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it was the home to several squadrons of elite naval aircraft including P-8 Poseidon sub hunters and EA-18 Growler electronic attack jets.

  “Maybe it’s on a training mission,” Wang offered.

  “Maybe.”

  Yuri and Wang watched the P-8 as it turned southward and then looped eastward, heading back toward Whidbey Island. Based on the Boeing 737 airframe, the Poseidon skimmed the low-cloud ceiling, still about five hundred feet above the water surface. Then an object dropped from the fuselage. It floated downward suspended from a white parachute.

  Wang uttered something in Mandarin.

  Yuri didn’t need a translation. “This is a huge problem. I was afraid of this.”

  “They must have detected your craft.”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Can they actually find it?”

  “Possibly. Deep Adventurer is quiet, but they must have placed new sensors in the area . . .” Yuri almost added, after we defeated their sensors the previous year.

  “If they manage to track it, what would they do?”

  “Deep Adventurer is running a standard series of transects—mowing the lawn. Assuming they heard it—its electric drive is much quieter than any nuke—they would eventually develop a plot that would indicate a grid search.” Yuri paused. “Remember seeing the word research that was stenciled in red paint on the hull?”

  “I do.”

  “That was done in case there’s a malfunction and it pops to the surface. I don’t want it scaring a recreational boater—thinking it’s a torpedo or mine. That’s also why NSD’s phone number and reward notice are painted on the hull—they’ll get some money if they tell us where it is. Now, if the U.S. Navy manages to snag Deep Adventurer and brings it to the surface, they’ll likely chalk it up to a general mapping project. I’ll probably get a nasty phone call but probably nothing will come of it.”