The TAO called the captain again. "The water is very shallow, sir. The sound is echoing off the bottom and other ships and thermal layers. It's like we're pinging inside a kettledrum. The scope is a sea of return. America might be one of those blips, but we would only be guessing. We could go passive, see if the operator can pick him out."
"He'll never hear him. I'll bet a silver dollar that he's under that ferry this very minute."
"That would be a good bet, Captain, but we can't pick him out of the return at this range. If you want to close, we can keep trying."
"This guy won't wait for us to search the haystack," Harvey War-field said with conviction. He knew that pinning a submarine in shallow water under less than ideal conditions was an impossible task for a guided-missile destroyer like the Jones, equipped with fifteen-year-old sonar technology. He needed a helicopter or two, or a second destroyer. Even if he had those assets at his disposal, stealthy as the America was, he would need a pot full of luck. "Do whatever you think best," Warfield told the TAO.
"Just like that," Captain Warfield stormed at his XO. "Just like that! I will make a prediction. I predict that before very long those bastards in the Pentagon are going to wish to God they had given the order to destroy that boat before it submerged."
Kolnikov did use the ferry, not by running along under it, but by keeping it between the submarine and the destroyer when he left the destroyer's wake. As he stole slowly away he was careful not to put the destroyer directly astern, in his baffles, so he could still see it on the sonar presentation. The active pinging from the destroyer's sonar resembled flashes of light on the screen.
When the destroyer was miles behind, Kolnikov threw the sub into a series of hard, tight turns designed to allow him to check his baffles to see if an American submarine was trailing him.
The sea was empty. America was alone.
"It feels strange going to sea without an American boat following along with his nose up our ass," Turchak remarked.
Kolnikov thought this remark amusing. American attack subs usually picked up Russian boomers as they left port and followed them for months, quite sure the Russians didn't know they were there.
"I think this time we are really alone," Kolnikov replied jovially and slapped Turchak on the back.
With the sonar presentation showing open sea ahead and to all sides, America swam deeper into the gray wastes of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER TWO
Rear Admiral Jake Grafton and his wife, Callie, awoke Saturday at their beach house in Delaware. They had guests this weekend, both of whom were apparently still asleep. The Graftons pulled on pants and shirts, and tiptoed down the stairs and out the front door. They sat on the porch steps to put on their shoes, walked the block along the crushed seashell street to the public parking area, then crossed the dune on the boardwalk. Standing on the beach in deep sand, they took off their shoes again, tied the laces together, and draped them around their necks.
The wind this morning was off the sea. The Graftons walked along arm in arm as seabirds ran along the sand probing for mollusks and the September breeze played with their hair. They tried to get to the beach several times per month, but with two hectic schedules they were lucky to get there once every other month. This weekend trip had been eagerly anticipated for three weeks. Jake normally spent twelve hours a day at the office, seven days a week.
When the couple bought the beach house years ago they anticipated living here when Jake retired. As Callie walked the beach this morning, she suddenly realized that she and Jake hadn't discussed retirement in quite a while. He hadn't mentioned the future in months.
She glanced at him. He had thinning hair, which he combed straight back, and a lean face with a nose that was a trifle too large. His tan, she noticed, was pretty much gone. She reminded herself to make sure he put on sunblock when they returned home.
Now he smiled at her and squeezed her hand. "We've got to get over here more often," he murmured. "It isn't fair for me to keep you cooped up in that flat in Washington."
"If I wanted to come by myself, I could. I just don't like coming here without you."
"I know how you feel." He smiled again.
"Last night was a lot of fun," she said. "I really like the Russian, Ilin." Last night Toad Tarkington, Jake's executive assistant, arrived at the beach house with Janos Ilin, a Russian.
Jake absentmindedly released her hand and jammed both fists into his trouser pockets. "He's really smart," Jake said tentatively. "Supposed to be a bureaucrat in the Russian defense department, an accountant, he says. He's certainly a people person, smooth as old scotch. Almost too much so. This guy could sell magazine subscriptions at a home for the blind or charm his way out of jail. At times I wonder what the man who lives in there is really like."
"Supposed to be a bureaucrat?"
"I think he's a very senior officer in the foreign intelligence service, the SVR, which is the successor to the KGB. Same paranoid bunch running it, doing all the nasty stuff they always did, but they aren't Communists now, they say. As if that makes a difference in an authoritarian society."
"Do you really think having him here is a good idea?"
"Maybe not, but Ilin didn't want to spend the weekend at the Russian embassy and Toad didn't want to just turn him loose to see what trouble he could get into. Hell, the guy's first taste of freedom — he might run off to Vegas with a topless dancer sporting a new boob job and never be heard from again. You can imagine the repercussions!"
She made a rude noise.
"Toad had to do something with the guy," Jake said with a shrug. "His wife's on a cruise and the kid is at his grandmother's. Toad knew you and I were coming to the beach, so he brought him here."
"Ilin makes a nice houseguest. I enjoyed visiting last night."
Jake smiled. Callie, the linguist, had been studying Russian for the last year. Last night she refused to speak to Ilin in English, which he spoke well. The two of them had laughed merrily as she chattered away in fractured, broken, semi-intelligible Russian.
"Even if he is a spook, he's very charming," she said as they strolled along, Jake with his hands in his pockets, Callie with her arms crossed in front of her.
Jake took his time choosing his words, then said slowly, "He replaced the last Russian six weeks ago, two weeks after the Super-Aegis satellite was lost. The other guy was called home for a family emergency, according to Ilin. The other guy went back to the embassy one evening and Ilin showed up the next day with credentials and an explanation."
"So have they figured out what went wrong?" Callie asked now. She touched Jake on the arm and he automatically reached for her hand.
"NASA is investigating. And the Russian rocket experts and the European experts. Someone said that every time three people meet in an office, it's like a session of the UN Security Council. I hear they even have the FBI turning over rocks and going through waste-baskets. In any event, no one is telling us diddley-squat."
A thorough, comprehensive search had failed to find the satellite or the reactor it contained. Nor could any trace of excess radiation be found, which one would expect if the reactor had been damaged in the crash. Even worse, no one knew why the launch had failed or the entire tracking system had shut down.
"Surely there must be some theories," Callie murmured.
"Theories are four for a dollar," her husband admitted ruefully. "NASA insists the prelaunch and launch procedures are not the problem, the Russians insist there is nothing wrong with Russian rockets, the Europeans deny that the expedited testing procedures they demanded for cost-containment purposes are to blame… but the fact is the satellite didn't reach orbit. It was presumably lost at sea."
"I don't understand why it hasn't been found. It must be somewhere under the launch path. Shouldn't it?"
"Well, there's a debate about that. The trajectory was curving to the north when the third stage failed to ignite. Apparently. Then the tracking stations lost it. At that speed and altitude,
it could be anywhere from Africa to the Bahamas."
"You don't really think that something just 'happened,' do you?"
"No. I think it was sophisticated sabotage. Someone changed a few lines of software here and there. After the missile was lost, he or she went back in and changed it back. Someone else could have killed the tracking stations for several minutes. The FBI is investigating and apparently coming up dry."
"And the Russian response to the SuperAegis disaster was to send a spy to be a member of the liaison team?"
"It's that kind of world, I guess," Jake said lightly. "Drop a satellite and here they come. But who knows, there's a chance — a small one, of course — that Ilin is indeed what he is says he is, a career paper pusher, a bean counter."
"So why didn't he get a room at the Washington Hilton?"
Jake chuckled. "The times, they are indeed a-changin'," he said. "But they don't change overnight. Used to be a senior spook like Ilin couldn't leave the Russian embassy without an escort. They're afraid their people might defect or turn traitor or something. Presumably Bin's chock-full of state secrets that Russia's enemies would pay huge money for. He says his boss thinks he's growing up. They would like him to sleep at the embassy, but now he can play outdoors without adult supervision."
"How senior is he?"
"Equivalent of a major general, I think. Maybe a lieutenant general. The CIA says they think he's the number-two or — three man in one of the SVR's chief directorates."
"Are you and Toad corrupting him?"
"I'm just trying to be a decent host. Toad is probably trying to rot Bin's Cyrillic heart. I don't know. Or care. Ilin may be trying to show us that he isn't SVR because he can sleep outside the Russian embassy. Whatever. At some point you stop peeling the onion and let it be."
"Is he going to defect?"
"God, I hope not! It would be a disaster if he did."
"Do you like Ilin?"
Jake shrugged. "I haven't thought much about it. He is charming, but he's way too smart. Being around him makes me nervous."
Callie laughed. "Phooey. You're in his league, Jake Grafton." She shook her head. "Just for the record, though, I wish you and I had a little more time alone to practice this husband-wife thing."
"Me too," Jake agreed warmly and reached for Callie's arm. "I'm sorry the guys showed up. I could tell Toad to take him down to Ocean City this afternoon, get a hotel room with a good television and watch some football."
"No, no. They can stay. I didn't mean that."
"Honest. I can run 'em off."
"I know. But it would be impolite."
They walked on hand in hand.
"Last night was fun," Callie said, remembering. Ilin had asked the origin of the name of the project — Super Aegis. Jake replied that the space-based missile defense system was first christened Galahad, after the good knight with the enchanted shield. "Galahad's shield," Jake explained, "had a marvelous property; it would protect only those pure in heart. The president thought that this close to the Clinton era, people would think the name was some kind of political joke."
That remark got Ilin started on political jokes. He regaled the Americans with an hour's worth, all of which Callie forced him to repeat in Russian. Then somehow the conversation turned to grandmothers. Jake Grafton grinned as he walked the beach this morning, remembering.
"My father's mother liked to invite her friends over for cards in the afternoon," Callie had told her audience. "They smoked and drank gin until they were so snockered they could barely walk and thought they were so wicked. Grandmother would call me over to her and announce, 'Callie is going to help me cheat. Look at the other ladies' cards, honey, and tell me if you see any jacks.' My other grandmother was also a pistol. She's the one who taught me to pee without taking off my swimsuit." That comment brought a gale of laughter. "She also liked to skinny-dip and would wake me up at midnight to go skinny-dipping with her in her pool. She loved splashing around naked in the darkness, listening to the crickets and frogs, speculating about what the neighbors would say if they ever found out."
That got Toad talking about his grandmothers. He then mimicked the way they talked. Jake and Callie had never heard him mimic other voices before, so they encouraged him. He did an excellent John Wayne, good Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny, Bill Clinton, and a passable handful of others. Although Ilin didn't know many of the voices, the Graftons did; Toad had them in stitches.
"What are you grinning about?" she asked her husband this morning as they walked the sand.
"Being alive," he shot back. "Like your grandmother, I enjoy it immensely. Come on, let's get our feet wet." Jake led Callie into the surf runout area. The water was cold on their ankles. In seconds a wave forced them to retreat. Back and forth they went, like children, as the surf chased them.
Eventually he misjudged a wave, which soaked his trousers from the knees down. He grinned ruefully at his wife, who was wearing a wide smile as the cold salt water swirled around her ankles.
They were crossing the beach, heading for the boardwalk across the dune, when Jake's cell phone rang. He removed it from his pocket and flipped open the mouthpiece.
"Grafton," he muttered and inserted a finger into his left ear to block out the sighing of the wind and surf.
Callie sat down on the boardwalk to put on her shoes as Jake concentrated on the telephone conversation. He didn't say much. Callie felt her spirits sink. The cell phone was nonsecure, Callie knew, so official business could not be discussed on it. More than likely this was a summons to return to Washington. When Jake glanced at his wristwatch, she knew.
"Okay," he said and closed the phone mouthpiece. As he put the phone into his pocket he looked at her and shrugged. He looked tired, she thought.
"Someone hijacked a submarine — if you can believe that. Big meeting in Washington. They're sending a helicopter. It'll be here in about an hour."
"Oh, Jake. I'm sorry."
"Damn!" he said. "You'll have to drive the car back to Washington."
"A submarine?"
"New London, he said. This morning."
"Is there any chance you could get back here tonight?"
"I don't know. Perhaps."
"Why don't you call me from Washington, let me know? I could thaw steaks and Toad can cook them tonight on the grill. I'll thaw one out for you."
"Okay."
She touched his cheek. "You seem happier than I've seen you in years, Jake. You're fully engaged."
"They keep me jumping, that's for sure."
"And you love it."
He grinned. "It's the niftiest job I've had in years. Maybe ever. The truth is that it's fun working with really smart people, like Ilin. Man, I didn't know there were this many geniuses in the world. At times I feel like I'm the dumbest kid in the class, but what the hey. I'm giving it my best shot. And yeah, that's fun."
They found Toad and Ilin sitting on the screened-in porch drinking coffee. In his mid-forties, Janos Ilin was a tall, lean man with craggy features and lively, expressive features. He greeted Callie now with a phrase in Russian, and she fired a few words back at him.
"Good morning, Jake," Ilin said to the admiral with a smile. Ilin liked to use first names. Apparently someone had told him that was the American custom and he took it to heart.
"So did you sleep okay?"
"Fine, Jake. Just fine."
"I'm going back to Washington in a few minutes," Jake said, more to Toad than Ilin. "You guys make yourselves at home. Callie is going to thaw steaks for tonight."
"Will you be returning this evening, sir?" Toad asked.
"I don't know."
Jake took his coffee with him when he went upstairs to pack. As he climbed the stairs he heard Callie speaking to Ilin in Russian, probably asking him what he wanted for breakfast. When Jake came back downstairs carrying his overnight bag, he found Ilin inspecting the bookshelf.
"Help yourself," he told the Russian. "Toad, how about driving me down to the hospital h
elo pad."
He kissed his wife, then went out to the car with Tarkington. As Toad piloted the car along the highway, Jake told him of the submarine hijacking. "USS America, according to the Pentagon duty officer. It's on television, he says; all the channels are running news specials. Turn it on when you get back, watch Ilin's reaction."
"Why?" Toad asked, referring to the theft of the sub.
"I dunno. Someone wanted a sub."
Toad whistled. "Holy…!"
After a bit Jake asked, "What do you think of Ilin?"
"He's sharp as a razor, Admiral. It's hard to figure what he's thinking, but I suspect that he has a low opinion of you and me. It's just a feeling I have, nothing specific."
"We are sorta small-caliber guys," Jake muttered.
"He speaks great English," Toad continued. "Has an excellent vocabulary. Seems to know a lot about a lot of stuff. He has something to say about every subject I could think to raise. This morning you saw him checking out your taste in literature."
As Jake mentally cataloged the thrillers, mysteries, and action-adventure novels that filled his shelves, Toad added, "He thinks we're nincompoops."
"There's nothing on my shelves that will disabuse him of that notion," Jake replied. "Let's let him hang on to it as long as possible."
Kolnikov had America running at three knots, five hundred feet below the surface of the sea, when he engaged the autopilot. He had seen submarine autopilots before, of course, but not an autopilot that was designed to run the ship all the time, except in the most dire emergency. He had never seen a submarine with completely computerized, fly-by-wire controls operated with a joystick, either. No fool, Vladimir Kolnikov knew the reason that naval engineers didn't trust submarine autopilots — if a stray electron galloped sideways through the system, the boat could be endangered within seconds. An out-of-control submarine could easily dive too deep, past its crush depth. The faster the sub was going when control was lost, the sooner crush depth would be reached. This one, Kolnikov knew, was operated by three computers that constantly checked on each other and compared data. Any two of them could outvote and override the third.
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