The Forever Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  Laura’s and Yuri’s eyes met. “So much has happened tonight . . . I haven’t had the time to tell you what I saw.”

  Yuri puckered his brow, puzzled.

  “A couple of days ago we managed to escape from the cabin. We ended up inside some kind of control center one deck level above where I was held. While I was hiding there, the man you called Kwan and another Asian—a younger man—came inside and held a videoconference. It was in Chinese, but they had a PowerPoint display with lots of graphics.”

  “What were the images?” Yuri asked.

  “Maps, very technical plots, like some of the seismic data Cognition works with but different.”

  “What else?”

  “Many photographs—one of them of you. In your Russian officer’s uniform.”

  “Me?”

  “I heard your surname used several times. They also showed photographs of either the Deep Explorer or the Adventurer. I couldn’t tell for sure.”

  “Do you have any idea who they were speaking with?”

  “It was a two-way video setup. The monitor I saw had a room full of Chinese—most in uniform.”

  “The younger Asian with Kwan, what did he look like?”

  “Late twenties, early thirties, athletic build, short close hair, confident.”

  Yuri cursed and said, “Commander Wang—People’s Liberation Army-Navy.”

  Nick interjected, “Laura, do you have any idea what they were discussing?”

  “Something about submarines. They had several photographs of a sub on the surface.”

  Yuri turned to Nick. “Take the helm for me.” He turned back to Laura. “Take me to this control center.”

  Yuri and Laura relocated to the ops center. Laura parked Madelyn in the baby carrier on a desktop. Still awake, she kept busy looking around the compartment while babbling on.

  Yuri tried to access the center’s main computer with one of the built-in console keyboards, but it was password protected. The file cabinet on the side of the console was also locked. Undeterred, Yuri inserted the tip of his dive knife between the top drawer and frame and then pried open the drawer, which was stuffed with documents. He pulled out file folders until he discovered the manual. “Govnó,” he muttered as he opened it.

  “What?” Laura said.

  “This is bad.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s all starting to make sense now,” he said while paging through the pamphlet.

  Laura was at his side. “What is that?”

  “A Russian naval manual.” He handed over the inch-thick booklet.

  She rifled through the document, ignoring the Cyrillic text. Studying its diagrams, schematics, and photographs, she quickly deciphered the purpose of the manual. “This is a weapon system—I saw some of these diagrams in the slideshow.”

  “Yes, it’s a torpedo mine, what we call the Gadjúka—Viper.”

  “Why would they have something like that on this boat?” Laura said, stunned.

  “China’s trying to start war between Russia and the United States, and they’re going to blame it on me.”

  CHAPTER 79

  Yuri returned to the pilothouse to monitor the helm, now set on autopilot with a southerly heading. Through the windscreen, the predawn sky remained carbon black. Nick was busy examining the Mark 12 Viper manual.

  “How the hell did they get this thing?” Nick asked as he turned to face Yuri.

  “I don’t know, but I suspect Elena was somehow involved.”

  “How could she ever get her hands on a document like this?”

  Yuri hunched his shoulders. “You know her better than me. She’s resourceful and cunning, like all of you SVR types.”

  Nick ignored the barb. “If they have the manual, then they must have the mine—probably paid someone a fortune for it.”

  “That’s the way I see it.”

  “What are they up to?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. But you can be sure whatever it is, it’s bad.”

  Laura reentered the bridge from an aft compartment with Maddy in the carrier.

  “How is Elena doing?” Nick said.

  “She appears stable. The bleeding has stopped and she’s sleeping, which is good. But she needs to be in a hospital.”

  “We don’t have time to transfer her to shore yet,” Yuri said. “That will have to wait for now.” He faced Nick. “Maybe you should wake her up and question her about the mine. We’ve got to find out what they’re planning.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Laura said, now at Yuri’s side. “She’s too weak.”

  Nick said, “What about the Chinaman—Kwan? We should question him.”

  “I don’t know.” Yuri hesitated. “He strikes me as a hard case. This is his op. He won’t give it up—would you?”

  Nick was about to counter when Laura said, “What is it you’re looking for?”

  Yuri said, “Based on the fact they have the manual to one of our most secret underwater weapons, I suspect that they also have the actual mine and will soon deploy it.”

  “To do what?”

  “Sink an American ship.”

  Laura said, “And that will start the war you’re worried about?”

  “Yes. After all of the trouble in Alaska, I think it just might be the trigger.”

  “You mean the oil spills?” Nick said.

  Yuri nodded. “I think it’s all tied together, including the attack on Sakhalin.”

  “The last I heard, it was Ukraine that was—”

  Laura cut in, “What kind of American ship would have to be destroyed to spark a war?”

  “Military for sure,” Yuri said. “Probably an aircraft carrier or maybe a submarine.”

  “Like those missile submarines based on Hood Canal?”

  “Yes, that would be enough.”

  “I agree,” Nick added.

  “The slides of the submarine I saw . . . maybe that’s what they’re after.”

  Yuri tilted his head to the side, stunned at Laura’s comment.

  “What slides?” asked Nick.

  Laura ignored Nick as she questioned Yuri. “How do you deploy the mine—the Mark Twelve thing?”

  “Drop it overboard from a ship or parachute in from a plane. It sinks to the bottom and waits for the right target to come along. It then fires the torpedo and ‘boom.’ ”

  “Would it take long to deploy it?”

  “No. With the anchor and the unit itself, it probably would take ten to fifteen minutes, assuming decent weather. Why do you ask?”

  “Could it be done with this boat?”

  Yuri’s eyes narrowed as he considered the question. “Probably. From the place where they keep the tenders and other watercraft. There are overhead hoists that could be used to lift and then lower it into the water.”

  Laura pursed her lips. “That must have been what they were doing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “During the trip to Vancouver from Seattle, the boat stopped for at least fifteen minutes, maybe longer. I wondered what was going on. I thought maybe we had docked somewhere. I heard a lot of racket and then something really loud sent a shudder through the hull. And I also heard some kind of a small boat running around outside with an outboard engine.”

  “Do you have any idea where this might have taken place?” Yuri asked.

  “No. But the boat slowed down a couple of hours after leaving Seattle.”

  Yuri turned back to the instrument console, signaling for Laura to join him. “Please check the GPS system for me. Maybe we can backtrack the course.”

  “I’ll give it a try.”

  Yuri, Nick, and Laura stared at the electronic navigation chart of Puget Sound displayed on a wide-screen monitor built into the main console. Superimposed on the chart was the track line of the Yangzi’s position for the past seventy-two hours.

  Yuri keyed in a new command and the resolution of the chart tripled. He pointed to the screen. “There,
in that area. The boat hardly moved for almost twenty minutes. That’s got to be the place.”

  “You think that’s where it was deployed?” Nick asked.

  “That’s where I would put it if my mission were to ambush an American Trident missile sub.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Laura whispered, turning back to Yuri. “You’re right, honey. This was orchestrated to blame you and Russia. They used me to get to you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. They tricked me. I’m the one to blame for being so damn naïve. I should have known something was wrong with what they had me doing.”

  It was clear to Nick now, too. He switched to Russian. “Yuri, I’ve got to let Moscow know what’s happening. The consequences could be catastrophic for both us and the Americans.”

  “I know, but not yet.”

  “Why?”

  Observing Laura’s growing annoyance over the language barrier, he answered in English. “We need to find the mine and then maybe, just maybe I can neutralize it.”

  “How?” Laura asked.

  “Remotely signal it to shut down. If that doesn’t work, I’ll dive down to it and manually turn it off.”

  Laura leaned closer to the LCD display, squinting. She looked back at Yuri. “It’s over two hundred feet deep in some places there. You know what the doctor said.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nick asked Laura.

  “He’s still not recovered from last year. He has residual damage to his central nervous system. Another deep dive could permanently cripple him or worse.”

  “It’s less than one-third the depth of the Neva, and it’ll be a quick dive,” said Yuri.

  Laura’s face dissolved into a scowl.

  Yuri reached forward and advanced the dual throttles. “I’m kicking her up to ten knots.” He turned back to Laura. Smiling, he said, “Would you please program the autopilot to take us to Admiralty Inlet—via Rosario Strait?”

  Laura keyed in the waypoints.

  Nick stepped back from the bridge console.

  She’s not happy with him at all.

  CHAPTER 80

  Lieutenant Commander Wang Park was southbound on Interstate 5 passing Marysville when his cell phone rang. He took the call. It was from the Vancouver consulate’s security officer—a lieutenant in the PLA.

  “Sir, the Yangzi was attacked an hour ago. It’s been hijacked.”

  “What!” Wang shouted.

  “The intruders came in from the sea. They wore wetsuits.”

  “How many?”

  “Unknown. One of the MSS agents assigned to the ship was left behind on the dock—unconscious. He recovered enough to reveal that the other security officer on board was wounded in a firefight. He’s apparently still aboard. Two men on the dock posed as Canadian Customs and Immigration police. They ambushed the officer who was left behind.”

  Stunned, Wang said, “A coordinated attack?”

  “Yes, sir. No question about it. Sea-based and land-based.”

  “Where’s Kwan?”

  “Taken hostage.”

  Wang’s stomach flopped as his instant assessment of the tactical situation gelled. The Americans are on to us—the mission’s blown!

  Wang recovered enough to ask, “Is Kwan still on the ship?”

  “As far as we know. No one else aboard other than the one officer made it to shore.”

  “Where’s the damn boat?”

  “All we know is that it’s not at the marina.”

  “What about GPS? Use the Internet to check the vessel tracking system.”

  “We did. They turned off the transponder. It’s gone black, sir.”

  “Tmde!”—Dammit—Wang said. “At first light, I want everyone you can muster searching. We’ve got to find it.”

  “Yes, sir. We are implementing that now.”

  “I want a report from you at least every thirty minutes—understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Will you be returning to Vancouver?”

  “No. I’m going to stage from here.”

  Wang ended the call. He checked the dashboard clock: 4:34 A.M. He was about to make another call when his driver spoke up.

  “I couldn’t help but hear—the Yangzi has been hijacked?”

  “Yes, and they took Kwan Chi.”

  The driver, a PLAN special operator, was privy to the mission details. A couple hours earlier, he had assisted Wang with planting incriminating software aboard the workboat in Anacortes. He was also one of the shooters who invaded the Newman residence.

  “American military?”

  “Probably—operating in Canada without authorization. Delta or SEALs.”

  The zhongdui sighed. “Do we abort?”

  “No.”

  The commando perked up. “Are we going to take it back?”

  “As soon as we locate it, we attack.”

  “Excellent!”

  * * *

  “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “We’re headed back to U.S. waters.”

  Nick and Fredek caucused at the forward end of the upper-deck salon. They spoke in their native tongue and kept their voices down. Pyotr was nearby, standing watch. The captives sat on the plush lounge furniture or on the carpet, wrists bound behind their backs.

  “What will we do then?” asked Fredek.

  “We’re not sure yet. Things are still fluid. We need to get out of Vancouver.”

  “Okay.”

  Nick changed subjects. “It’s time to take care of that ‘other’ matter.”

  “Oh—that’s right.”

  Nick and Fredek relocated to a guest suite on the main deck. The guard who had lost the duel with Yuri lay on the queen bed covered by a bloodied sheet.

  Nick pulled the shroud away. The Asian stared back with unblinking eyes. He was in his late twenties and his once brown skin had paled to a dull gray. Unlike the rest of the male crew with their short military-style haircuts, the man’s thick black mane was long and stylish.

  Nick said, “We need to search him.”

  “All right.”

  Other than an electronic keycard in a pants pocket and a Yangzi photo ID tag fastened to a neck strap, the man carried no personal items.

  “He was probably a spook like us,” commented Nick.

  “MSS?”

  “Yes, or Second Department.”

  Nick pulled the sheet back over the body. “Let’s haul him out of here.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Nick and Fredek returned to the upper-deck salon—Kwan’s domain.

  After they raided a locker in the garage, Nick and Fredek weighted the body with ten meters of galvanized steel chain. Standing on the stern platform, they eased the corpse into the churning wake. It disappeared in just a couple of heartbeats.

  While Fredek conferred with Pyotr, Nick walked forward and entered Kwan’s stateroom. Elena rested on the huge bed, lying on her back.

  He leaned over. She was asleep, rendered unconscious by morphine Yuri had found in the sickbay.

  Laura had placed a towel over Elena’s chest to cover her breasts. The dressing on her shoulder was saturated with blood. He gently pulled it away. Elena remained unresponsive.

  There wasn’t much to the wound, just a pencil-diameter dimple. A dollop of blood oozed from the opening. He used a gauze pad to soak up the fluid and taped a fresh dressing over the bullet hole.

  Nick placed his left hand on Elena’s forehead; no fever, which was a relief. So far, the antibiotics kept infection at bay. She needed emergency surgery, but it was out of the picture for now.

  He wondered about Elena’s loyalty—did Kwan really turn her as Yuri claimed? He still couldn’t believe it.

  Nick placed a blanket over Elena, kissed her forehead, and stepped away.

  CHAPTER 81

  The U.S. Navy issued the recall notice by text and e-mail. It followed up with telephone calls until each officer and enlisted crew member acknowl
edged the new orders. One by one, 153 of the ship’s normal complement of 172 had made it aboard the USS Kentucky at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

  Many of the absent sailors were on leave and out of the state. They scrambled to catch military or civilian flights back to Sea-Tac International or Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Later in the day, at 1530 hours, dockworkers would disconnect the gangplank and the deck crew would shed the moorings. The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine would head north on Hood Canal, bound for the deep blue Pacific a hundred miles away. Those not aboard at the sailing would be marooned ashore for the duration of the Kentucky’s mission.

  SSBN-737 had been scheduled to depart from Bangor in twelve days for its next deterrent patrol until the president intervened. The Kentucky’s gold crew now hurried to prepare the boat. Rumors abounded as the crew carried out pre-departure duties.

  “We’re at DEFCON Three—that’s a new one for me.”

  “It’s those damn Russians, they’re behind all of this shit.”

  “This is crazy—no way are we ever going to nuke the Russkis over spilled oil.”

  “I bet they keep us on patrol for the full seventy days plus the extra dozen for the early start—that will suck for sure.”

  “You watch, old Spud is gonna show up one minute before we shove off, drunk as a skunk!”

  “War is coming, I just know it!”

  CHAPTER 82

  Yuri and Laura were in the pilothouse. The sun climbed over the distant Cascades, illuminating the jade waters. It was a clear, chilly morning with a faint northerly breeze.

  The Yangzi proceeded southeastward in the outbound shipping lane, running at eight knots. About an hour earlier, Vancouver Vessel Traffic Control had hailed the yacht over VHF Channel 16. Yuri informed the controller that the ship’s AIS transponder had failed and that they were returning to Seattle for repairs.

  He stood behind the helm, monitoring the autopilot. Laura leaned against the instrument panel, holding a pair of binoculars to her eyes.

  “There it is,” she announced.

  Yuri turned and peered eastward. A brown smudge with a backdrop of green projected from the inland sea. The landform looked like an island, except it wasn’t.