Dead or Alive

by Grant Blackwood

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Offshore I have. Not enough money in the world could get me into those bays and channels. No, this place we’re headed is paradise compared to Mityushev.”

  “It’s a wonder anything lives here.”

  “Everything is relative. You’ve heard of the Pak Mozg, yes?”

  “No.”

  “The English translation is ‘brain crab.’ It’s supposed to be about half a meter tall, with a shell that’s split along the bottom and its nervous system exposed, sort of hanging out the gap in the shell.”

  “You’re joking with me.”

  Salychev shrugged. “No. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve got a friend who swears he did.”

  Adnan waved his hand dismissively. “Nonsense. How long until we reach the shipyard?”

  “Two hours, give or take. Going to be dark not long after that, so you’ll have to wait until morning. Don’t want to be stomping around in the dark.”

  “No.”

  “You never did say exactly what you’re after. Samples, right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Soil and rock samples. That’s what most of you types come here for: dirt. Testing it for whatever.”

  “That’s right,” Adnan replied. “Dirt.”

  54

  THE ONE DRAWBACK might be that people would notice the cars coming in and out.

  Arnie came in first. Former President Ryan met him and walked him into the living room.

  “Ready?” the former Chief of Staff asked.

  “Not sure,” Jack admitted.

  “Well, Jack, if you have any doubts, you’d better exorcise them today. Do you want four more years of Ed Kealty in the White House?”

  “Hell, no,” Jack replied almost automatically. Then he thought it over again. Was he so arrogant that he thought he was the projected savior of the United States of America? Such moments of introspection came quickly to him. He wasn’t one to measure his ego on the Richter scale or power-of-ten notation. The campaign to come would not be fun in any respect. “Here’s the problem: My strength is national security matters,” Ryan said. “I’m not an expert on domestic affairs.”

  “Kealty is-or at least that’s the image he projects. He’s got chinks in his armor, Jack, and we’ll find them. And all you have to do is to persuade two hundred million American voters that you’re a better man than he is.”

  “You’re not asking much,” Ryan groused. “A lot of things to fix.” A hell of a lot of things to fix, he added to himself. “Okay, who’s first?”

  “George Winston and some of his Wall Street friends. George’ll be your finance chairman.”

  “What will this cost?”

  “North of a hundred million dollars. More than you can afford, Jack.”

  “Do these people know what they’re buying?” Ryan asked.

  “I’m sure George explained it to them. You’ll have to back that up, of course. Hey, look on the bright side. Your administration didn’t have much in the way of corruption. Reporters sniffed around plenty looking, but nobody ever found much.”

  Jack, this guy’s a loser,” George Winston announced, to general agreement around the dining room table. “The country needs somebody different. You, for example.”

  “Question is, will you come back in?” Ryan asked.

  “I’ve served my time,” the former Secretary of the Treasury replied.

  “I tried saying that, too, but Arnie isn’t buying.”

  “Goddamn it, we got the tax system all fixed until that dickhead went and fucked it all up again-and he chopped revenue doing it!” Winston emphasized in some disgust. Raising tax rates invariably decreased revenues as soon as accountants got to work on the new code. The new and “fair” tax code was a godsend to the tax-avoidance community.

  “What about Iraq?” Tony Bretano asked, changing directions. The former CEO of TRW had been Ryan’s chosen Secretary of Defense.

  “Well, like it or not, we’re stuck with it,” Ryan admitted. “Question is, can we smart our way out of it? Smarter than Kealty’s being, at least.”

  “When Mary Diggs gave his speech two years back, he damned near got himself shot.” General Marion Diggs had clobbered the military of the United Islamic Republic during his tour as Army chief of staff, but his observations about more recent conflicts had been totally ignored by the new administration. Diggs’s successors in the Pentagon had bowed to White House orders and done what they’d been told to do. It was a common-enough failing of senior military officers and wasn’t the least bit new. The price for many of the fourth star was to have your balls removed. Most of them were not old enough to have served in Vietnam. They hadn’t seen friends and class-mates die for political misjudgment, and the lessons inflicted on the previous class of officers had been lost in the process of something called “progress.” That Ed Kealty had dissolved two complete light-infantry divisions, then walked into a conflict that cried aloud for light-infantry formations, was something the news media had almost totally ignored. Besides, tanks were pretty things to photograph.

  “I’ll say this for you, Tony. You always listened to advice,” Ryan told him.

  “Helps to know what you don’t know. I’m a good engineer, but I don’t know it all yet. This guy who took my old office is occasionally wrong, but he’s never in doubt.” Former Secretary Bretano had just described the most dangerous person on the planet. “Jack, I have to tell you now, I won’t be coming back. My wife’s sick. Breast cancer. We’re hoping they caught it early enough, but the jury’s still out on that.”

  “Who’s your doc?” Ryan asked.

  “Charlie Dean. UCLA. He’s pretty good, they tell me,” Bretano answered.

  “Wish you luck, pal. If Cathy can help, let us know, okay?” Ryan had used his wife for numerous medical referrals over the years, and unlike most political figures, he didn’t figure that everybody with an M.D. after his name was the same, at least in treating other people.

  “I will, thanks.” The news had a sobering effect on the meeting, in any case. Valerie Bretano, a vivacious mother of three, was well liked by just about everyone.

  “What about the announcement?” van Damm asked.

  “Yeah, gotta do that, don’t I?”

  “Unless you want a stealth campaign. Kinda hard to win that way,” Arnie observed. “Want me to get Callie Weston to gin up a speech for you?”

  “She’s good with words,” Ryan acknowledged. “When will I have to do it?”

  “Sooner the better. Start framing the issues.”

  “I agree,” Winston said. “He doesn’t know how to hit above the belt. Any bad baggage, Jack?”

  “Nothing I know of-and that doesn’t mean nothing I remember. If I’ve ever broken the law, they’ll have to prove it to me, and a jury.”

  “Good to hear that,” Winston observed. “I believe you, Jack, but remember the devil’s advocate. Lots of them in Washington.”

  “What about Kealty? What dirty laundry does he have around?”

  “A lot,” Arnie answered. “But you can only use that weapon with care. Remember, he has the ear of the press. Unless you have a videotape, they’ll apply a hellacious reality test to it, and they’ll try to ricochet it back on you. I can help a little with that. Leave the leaks to me, Jack, and the less you know about the process, the better.”

  Not for the first time, Ryan found himself wondering why van Damm was so faithful a vassal to him. He was so far into the political system that he did and said things Jack would never really understand. If he were the babe in the woods, then Arnie van Damm was his nanny. Useful things, nannies.

  55

  THE DIESELS chugged monotonously away as the landing craft headed back west. Vitaliy stood at the wheel, keeping a loose eye on the gyrocompass, watching the water slide by the blunt bow and down the sides. Not another ship or even a fishing boat in sight. It was mid-afternoon. The truck was back in its place. The beige-colored gadget they’d taken-stolen? he w
ondered. Well, probably yes-sat on the rusted steel deck. He’d have to scrape and paint it before the weather got too cold for that. Painting in freezing air was time wasted. Even if it dried, it would just flake off. Have to paint soon, he told himself. Vanya would bitch about it. As a former seaman in the Soviet Navy, he regarded such maintenance as an insult to his manhood. But Vanya didn’t own the boat, and Vitaliy did, and that was that. The charter party was relaxing, smoking their cigarettes and sipping at their tea. Strange that they didn’t drink vodka. He troubled himself to get the good stuff, not the bootleg trash made from potatoes. Vitaliy indulged himself in his drinking. Only proper vodka, made from grain. Sometimes he went overboard and drank Starka, the brown vodka once drunk only by the Politburo and local party bosses. But that time was gone-forever gone? Only time would tell, and for now he would not trouble his insides with bootleg liquor. Vodka remained the one thing his country still did well-better than any other country in the world. Nasha lusche, he told himself-Ours is best-an ancient Russian prejudice, though this one was factual. What these barbarians didn’t drink, he’d account for by himself soon enough.

  The chart table showed his position. He’d really have to get that GPS navigation system. Even up here, there was no substitute for knowing your exact position at all times, because the flat, black waters did not reveal what lay only a meter beneath… Too much daydreaming, he chided himself. A seaman was supposed to be alert at all times. Even when he was aboard the only vessel in view on a flat, calm sea.

  Vanya appeared at his side.

  “Engines?” the owner asked his mate.

  “Purring like kittens.” Rather loud kittens, of course, but smooth and regular for all that. “The Germans designed them well.”

  “And you maintain them properly,” Vitaliy noted approvingly.

  “I would not want to lose engine power out here. I am here as well, Comrade Captain,” he added. Besides, the job paid well enough. “Want me to spell you at the wheel?”

  “Fair enough,” Vitaliy said, stepping back.

  “What did they want that thing for?”

  “Maybe they have large flashlights where they come from,” Vitaliy suggested.

  “Nobody’s that strong,” Vanya objected, with a belch of laughter.

  “Maybe they want to set up their own lighthouse where they live, and that battery thing is too expensive to buy.”

  “What do you suppose it costs?”

  “Not a thing, if you have the right truck,” Vitaliy observed. “It doesn’t even have any warning stickers on it. Not about taking it anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t want it under my pillow. That’s an atomic generator.”

  “Is that so?” Vitaliy had never been briefed on how the generator operated.

  “Yes. It has the triple-triangle sign on the right side. I’m not going near the damned thing,” Vanya announced,

  “Hmph,” Vitaliy grunted from the chart table. Whatever it was, the charter party must have known, and they were close enough to it. How dangerous could it be, then? But he decided not to get overly close to it. Radioactive stuff. You couldn’t see or feel what it did. That’s what made it frightening. Well, if they wanted to play with it, it was up to them. He remembered the old Soviet Navy joke: How do you tell a Northern Fleet sailor? He glows in the dark. Certainly he’d heard all manner of stories about the men who’d been sent to serve on the atomic submarines. Miserable work, and as the crew of Kursk had discovered to their sorrow, they were still dangerous. No, what sort of mad-man goes to sea on a ship that’s supposed to sink? he asked himself. Plus a power plant that sent out invisible poisons. It took much to make him shudder, but this thought managed to do it. A diesel engine might not be as powerful, but it didn’t try to kill you just for walking by it. Well, fifteen meters away from that battery. It ought to be safe. His charter party was only five meters away, and they looked comfortable enough.

  “What do you think, Vanya?” the owner asked.

  “That battery thing? I’m not going to worry. Too much, at least.” His sleeping accommodations were aft and below the wheelhouse. Not an educated man, Vanya was clever enough with machines and their personalities.

  Vitaliy looked at the steel bulkhead forward of the wheel. It was steel, after all, and seven or eight millimeters thick. Enough to stop a bullet. Surely that was enough to stop radiation, wasn’t it? Well, you couldn’t worry about everything.

  It was just past sunset when they arrived in the harbor, where things were shutting down. At the big-ship quay a ro-ro ship was about half loaded with cargo boxes for the oil fields to the east, and the longshoremen were walking back to their homes in anticipation of finishing up loading the next day, and water-front bars were cleaning tables for the usual evening business. All in all, a normal sleepy evening for what was, mostly, a sleepy port. Vitaliy eased his boat into the dock, the one with a ramp for loading trucks and trailers onto boats such as his. The dock looked unattended, as was normal, the dockmaster doubtless on his way to one of the bars to drink his dinner.

  “Days getting shorter, Captain,” Vanya observed, standing left of the wheel. In another few weeks, they’d hardly see the sun at all, and it would be their winter maintenance period, with nobody chartering their craft. Even the polar bears would be looking for dens in which to sleep out the bitter winter, while humans did much the same, helped along the way by vodka. And one lighthouse would be dark all through the winter, not that it mattered all that much.

  “So we can sleep longer, eh, Vanya?”

  Always a good way to spend your time, the deckhand thought.

  The charter party was still in the well deck, standing by their truck. Not overly excited about getting back to port, Vitaliy saw. Well, they were businesslike, and that was fine with him. He had half his charter fee in his pocket, and the rest of the cash would join it soon enough, and maybe he would buy the GPS system to ease his navigation, if he could get a good deal for it. Yuriy Ivanov should have a goodly supply of the gadgets at his chandlery, and for a bottle of Starka, maybe he could get a decent bargain in what was still largely a barter economy.

  “Stand by the engines, Vanya.”

  “As you say, Comrade Captain,” the deckhand responded, heading aft and below.

  He’d just beach his craft, Vitaliy decided. The ramp was concrete covered with dirt, and his boat was made for that sort of thing. He carefully lined up and moved it at three or four knots, just about right. The light was fading, but not that fast.

  “Stand by,” he said over the intercom.

  “Standing by,” Vanya replied the same way.

  Vitaliy’s left hand found the throttle but didn’t move it quite yet. Thirty meters, approach gently, he told himself. Twenty meters. His peripheral vision showed only a fishing boat, sitting idle alongside, with nobody in sight. Just about… now.

  It was an awful noise, the sort to set a man’s teeth on edge, and his steel bottom grated on the ramp, but soon enough the noise stopped, and Vitaliy chopped the throttles back to zero/ idle. And the trip and charter were complete.

  “Finished with engines, Vanya.”

  “Yes, Comrade Captain. Shutting down.” And the rumble stopped.

  Vitaliy pulled the wheelhouse ramp-release handle, and the bow ramp fell slowly to the dock. With that done, he walked down to the well deck. The charter party walked to him.

  “Thank you, Captain,” their leader said with a smile. He spoke in English, which was accented, though Vitaliy didn’t really notice.

  “All is satisfactory?”

  “Yes,” the foreigner answered. He spoke in another language to one of his friends, but Vitaliy didn’t understand it. It wasn’t English and wasn’t Russian. It’s hard to identify a language you don’t speak yourself, and as the old joke went, it was Greek to the captain. One party member got into the truck and started it up, then backed it ashore, its cargo dangling from the A-frame crane on the flatbed. In the diminishing light, the triple-triangle radiation-warnin
g label was unusually bright, which was probably intentional. A moment later another truck appeared on the dock, and the former Army truck backed to it. Another member of the charter party activated the crane controls, lifting, then lowering the cargo into the second truck’s cargo area. Whoever these people were, they were reasonably efficient. One must have used a cell phone to call ahead, Vitaliy speculated.

  “So here is your money,” the leader said, handing over an envelope.

  Vitaliy took it, opened it, and counted off the bills. Two thousand euros, not a bad compensation for what had been a simple enough job. And enough to buy the GPS system, plus some Starka, and a hundred for Vanya, of course.

  “Thank you,” Vitaliy said politely, taking his hand. “If you need me again, you know how to contact me.”

  “I may come by tomorrow, say, about ten in the morning?”

  “We’ll be here,” Vitaliy promised. They’d have to start painting the deckhouse, and tomorrow was as good a day as any other.

  “Then I will see you,” the leader promised. Then they shook hands, and he walked ashore.

  Onshore, he talked to a companion, speaking now in his native language. “Tomorrow at ten,” he told his most senior subordinate.

  “And if the port is busy?”

  “We’ll just do it inside,” he explained.

  “What time do we meet the plane?”

  “Tomorrow at noon.”

  “Excellent.”

  They showed up just before ten a.m., Vitaliy saw. With the rest of his money, he hoped. Drove a different car this day. A Japanese one. They were taking Russia over. Too many of his countrymen still disliked German hardware, a lingering attitude that probably came less from history than from the war movies that the Russian film industry turned out like cigarette packs.