Kaplan circled the coordinates he had been given for his pickup and scanned the ship’s radar—a gift from the Turkish government to improve his fishing. He used the radar to search for transmissions between 9.2 and 9.5 gigahertz, the frequency of the transponder; which was below the frequencies used by the Russian Coast Guard. If he found the transponder signal, he would instruct his sons to lower an LED light beneath the hull of his boat to visually alert his pickup.
He’d been circling in the dense fog for nearly seven minutes without any sign of the transponder on his radar. He told his sons, well-trained in these missions, and the only men he fully trusted, to drop the LED light into the water anyway, hoping to lure the diver to the boat.
The dense fog was both a blessing and a curse. It would make finding a diver more difficult, but it would also make it more difficult for the Russian Coast Guard to find them. If the coast guard did find Kaplan, his excuse was well rehearsed. He would circle as if to drag in his nets, unaware that he had inadvertently drifted into Russian territorial waters. If the Russians did not buy Kaplan’s excuse, the penalty could be the sinking of his ship.
Kaplan again looked at his watch. He would not linger. He would wait exactly thirty minutes, as agreed, not a minute more or less. He would depart at seven o’clock, passenger or no passenger. He had twenty-three more minutes, but he could have twenty-three days. He would not find his package, not without a signal. Without a signal, he was blind, unable to see more than ten or fifteen feet in any direction in this cursed fog, making the chances of visually spotting a diver impossible.
He slowed his boat, stepped from the pilothouse, and turned on the spotlight, moving the beam over the water’s surface. The marine fog continued to plague them, and the light only made it more difficult to see, like turning on a car’s high beams on a foggy road. He kept the beam low to the water to try to cut the glare.
“Do you see anything?” Emir, the older of his two sons, asked.
“No,” Kaplan said.
“And nothing yet on the radar?” Emir asked, keeping his voice low.
“Nothing.”
“How much longer?” Yusuf said. The two boys looked and sounded apprehensive, knowing the potential consequences of being this far into Russian waters, which they had never done before.
Kaplan checked his watch. “Twenty-one minutes,” he said. He walked back into the pilothouse and noticed a blinking green light on his radar screen, initially thinking it the transponder, then quickly realizing the light was closing on his location at a high and unexpected speed.
“Bok!” He rushed to the door. “A boat,” he yelled to his sons. “Closing fast. The Russian Coast Guard. Quickly, drop your nets.”
Kaplan cut his engines and the boys moved with practiced precision, this process well rehearsed. A spotlight appeared over their bow and, from the thickening fog, the outline of a boat materialized like a ghostly apparition. The spotlight blinded Kaplan. He raised an arm to shield his eyes. As the boat moved from his starboard to port side, Kaplan recognized the blue hull with the vertical red, blue, and white stripes on the bow.
The Rubin-class Russian Coast Guard boat fell under the control of the FSB. This must be a high-value target Kaplan sought.
A voice came over a loudspeaker, talking in Russian. Kaplan ignored it.
The voice barked additional orders as the boat slowed, using thrusters to turn the bow and the stern to position it alongside Kaplan’s vessel. Kaplan could understand Russian, when he chose to. Tonight, he did not choose to understand. He’d play his part as the distressed Turkish fisherman with a tangled mess of netting.
He stepped from the pilothouse onto the deck and stood beside his two sons. The voice spoke yet again, telling Kaplan to prepare to be boarded. He looked at his sons, then to the netting. As the Russian skiff lowered and approached, Kaplan lowered fenders over the side of his boat. Moments later, he caught the Russians’ mooring line tossed up to him. His son, Yusuf, caught the second line and they secured the ropes to the cleats on deck. Kaplan lowered an aluminum ladder over the side of his boat and two of the three men climbed aboard—the second man armed with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder. This was not normal procedure.
The officer wore a pristine, double-breasted peacoat with the collar turned up to protect his neck against the cold. On deck, he fit his black cap on his head. His face looked prepubescent, far younger than either of Kaplan’s sons. His hands were soft and pink, and without calluses—an officer from the academy, not a man who had lived and worked on a boat. Kaplan knew his type. Officious, he would not deviate from regulations, and he would seek to enforce his authority. Kaplan hoped the man’s inexperience would act against his rigidness.
“Papers,” he said in Russian, trying to sound authoritarian. Kaplan stared at him, shaking his head as if not understanding.
“Kàğitlar,” the officer said in Turkish.
Kaplan nodded his understanding and said his papers were in the pilothouse.
“Get them, please.”
Kaplan moved to retrieve them. The officer and his guard followed. Inside the pilothouse, Kaplan pulled open a cabinet and retrieved his and his sons’ papers. As he did, he heard twelve short beeps coming from the radar, but he resisted the urge to look.
The transponder.
His pickup had arrived.
“What is taking so long?” The officer sounded agitated.
Kaplan tossed the papers onto the radar screen to conceal the blip, though he could do nothing about the beeping. He fished through the papers as if searching for something, then handed them over. The officer showed no emotion. Such a sullen people unless inebriated, Kaplan thought. He took the moment to consider the brass name tag on the man’s right breast pocket. Popov.
“Why are you fishing in Russian waters?” Popov asked as he flipped through the pages.
Kaplan shrugged. “I must have drifted in this damned fog. We are having problems bringing in our nets. They have tangled and I am concerned they will get caught in the prop. To cut them would be prohibitively expensive.”
Popov walked from the pilothouse back outside and crossed to the netting hanging over the side of the boat. He could not have helped but notice the knotted tangles. Kaplan looked past them, to the water, but did not see a blinking light in the fog.
“So you see,” Kaplan said, smiling. “We are far from fishing anywhere.”
“Do you have your fishing papers?” the officer asked.
“Yes, for me and for both my sons. Would you like for me to get them for you as well?”
“No. We wish to search your vessel.”
“For what purpose?” Kaplan asked.
“Because you are in Russian waters and we have the right to do so,” Popov said.
Kaplan shrugged. He was well past arguing with a snot-nosed shit. “Please,” he said, gesturing for them to proceed. “May I inquire as to what you seek?”
“No. You may not,” Popov said.
Popov nodded for the man with the rifle to follow him. They proceeded to the pilothouse. Kaplan looked to his sons but he did not speak or make any gestures, knowing that others on the patrol boat likely watched.
“You, Captain,” the second man shouted from the pilothouse door. “Come here.”
Kaplan nodded to his sons and walked to the pilothouse.
Popov stood near the radar. “What is this?” he asked.
“That is my radar,” Kaplan said. “The Turkish government provided it to improve fishing.”
“I know it is your radar. Why is it beeping?”
Kaplan stepped forward and pointed out the window. “Your ship,” he said. “I turned on the radar because of this damned fog. I don’t want to inadvertently drift into something that might cause damage. You see? The beep is stationary. It is your ship.”
The officer looked again to the radar. The blip on the screen was not his ship. It was far too small, but Kaplan hoped the ruse would work.
Popov dep
arted the pilothouse back onto the deck, and Kaplan exhaled a sigh of relief. The officer and mate descended a ladder into the ship’s hold. On these missions, Kaplan kept a pile of rotted anchovies in the hold, in case anyone decided to search. The smell would persuade them to be quick. Popov came back on deck with a foul look.
“Your fish are rotting,” Popov said.
“Bait,” Kaplan said. “Anchovies. The stronger the smell the better the attraction.”
Popov walked to the back of the boat. “What is this?”
“It is an inflatable, in case the ship was to sustain damage.”
“You are to leave Russian territorial waters at once.”
“I am sorry,” Kaplan said. “We are doing our best to get untangled and to move on.”
Popov displayed no sympathy. “Yank the netting out of the water and proceed back to Turkish waters. You can untangle your nets there. If not, I will cut them.”
“As you wish,” Kaplan said.
The officer nodded to his mate, and the two climbed over the side of the boat and back down to the skiff, which transported them to their patrol boat.
“Bring in the netting,” Kaplan said in a loud voice. He checked his watch: 6:57 p.m. He softened his voice. “We have lost this one.”
33
Jenkins kept watch from beneath the hulls of the two ships. He had one hand extended, having yanked down the transponder so it rested just below the water’s surface. He did not know for certain, but he assumed the larger vessel to be a Russian ship, navy or coast guard, most likely. He hoped the smaller vessel was his rescue ship, lured to his location by the transponder, though at the moment it was of little use to him.
Minutes before, a rubber raft had cut between the two ships and was now tied to the fishing boat.
He checked his SPG. The psi had dropped below 15, seemingly decreasing more slowly as he hovered, barely moving. Still, in minutes, he would be sucking on an empty tank and he would have no choice but to surface or suffocate. He tried to remain calm, tried to expend as little energy as possible. Despite the dry suit, now that he was no longer moving, his limbs had begun to ache in the frigid water. His fingers and toes had gone numb.
Minutes passed. Jenkins checked his gauge: 8 psi. He checked his watch: 6:55. Paulina said the rescue boat would leave at 7:00 p.m., though she had probably not anticipated the vessel being boarded. Would it stay? Could it? Would the Russian Coast Guard impound the boat for being in Russian waters?
He heard an engine and looked up. The small inflatable churned away from the fishing vessel, returning to the larger boat. Jenkins checked his gauge: 5 psi. Another minute and he heard the sound of engines starting, first the engines of the Russian vessel, then the engine of the fishing boat.
Both boats were leaving. His heart pounded: 4 psi.
The Russian vessel pulled away, the sound of the engine increasing in volume and intensity as it sped off, churning the water and leaving a wake of white foam. Jenkins unfurled the string wrapped around his wrist, let the transponder rise, and kicked hard for the surface. The water bubbled and churned. When he breached the surface, he saw the fishing boat slowly moving away. Two men stood at the railing, pulling in something. He spit out the regulator.
“Hey,” he yelled. “Hey!”
He lowered his head and swam, kicking hard, but the boat continued to pull away. It was too far to reach, but he sensed something in the water, something dragging behind it, kicking up turbulence. Jenkins kicked harder and reached. Netting. He missed it, kicked again, reached.
The netting pulled farther from his grasp. The ship increased speed, departing.
He’d missed his ride out of Russia. His SPG was on empty, and he was adrift, far from shore, his limbs freezing and quickly going numb, without hope of rescue.
34
Demir Kaplan watched the Russians hook the inflatable to the winch, and the skiff lifted from the water. Popov and his two men stepped back on board the coast guard vessel and disappeared inside the bridge. Moments later, the engines churned and the boat departed, picking up speed and disappearing into the fog until even its lights were swallowed by the gray mist.
Kaplan throttled back the power, not wanting to accidentally get their netting caught in the engine prop. Then they’d really have a problem. His radar continued to emit twelve short beeps from a location on his boat’s starboard side, but that was also the location that the Russian patrol boat had departed. He could not risk going back to look for his pickup. He could not risk the lives of his two sons, both married and raising families. He shook his head. He knew he was likely leaving his pickup to die, either in the Black Sea or, if the person made it back to shore, at the hands of the Russians. It made him sick. He could only hope the person would have another opportunity to escape.
He reached for the throttle, about to turn the wheel and head for home, when he heard one of his sons shouting.
“Bok!” Kaplan feared they had sucked the netting into the engine prop. His son stuck his head into the pilothouse, gripping the doorjamb, a wild look in his eyes.
“Tekneyi durdur! Tekneyi durdur!”
Kaplan stopped the engine.
“Emir thinks he saw something in the water!”
Kaplan hurried onto the deck, knowing he was taking a risk stopping to search the water. The Russian patrol boat could return at any moment. He turned on the searchlight anyway. “Nerede?” he asked. Where?
His son pointed. Kaplan directed the light beam in the direction of his son’s outstretched arm and finger. The fog lit up, looking like a spider’s web enclosing its trapped prey. Kaplan lowered the angle of the light to cut the glare, then slowly rotated the light to the right and to the left, sweeping the water’s surface.
“There is nothing,” he said.
“I saw something in the water,” his son said again.
Kaplan swept the light back to the right. He could hear the ping of water against the side of his boat. “Nothing,” he said again.
Jenkins listened to the fading sound of the engine and watched the fog engulf the fishing boat. His heavy breathing marked the chilled air with white puffs. He felt himself tiring, felt the heat being sucked from his body. He knew he had to keep moving, to keep swimming. The cold would kill him. It might kill him anyway. But now he was tired. So damn tired.
And which direction should he swim? In the gray shroud, he could not see the shoreline. If he swam in the wrong direction, he could end up swimming farther out to sea, a certain death.
Think.
He needed to calm his mind. He needed to think logically. Ironically, at this moment of high stress and desperation, he felt no anxiety. Maybe what he’d needed all along was a hopeless situation and a certainty of death. He smiled at the absurdity of it, not that he was resigned to his fate, not when he still had a chance. He would not quit, not on Paulina or her brother, not on himself, and, more importantly, not on his family. He wanted CJ to have lasting memories of his father. He wanted to impart whatever wisdom he could share to make his son’s life better than his own. He wanted his unborn child to know him, and he was determined to see that child’s face.
His compass.
He looked at the compass on his wrist. He had been following a course out to sea set on 210 degrees. If he reset the arrow on north and set the lubber line to that same reading, then he could determine the reading exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction, which, theoretically, should be the heading to take him back to shore. Yes, there were likely problems when he reached shore, but as Paul Newman had said to Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Redford refused to jump from a cliff into a river because he couldn’t swim, “Hell, the fall will probably kill you!”
No sense worrying about the shore until he got there. If he got there.
Another problem was his stamina. Could he make it? He was in good shape from running and dieting, but swimming used a different set of muscles. First thing he needed to do was to lighten his load.
He disconnected his weight belt and let it sink to the bottom of the sea, already feeling more buoyant. Next, he needed to release his tank. He’d never done this before and imagined it would be more complicated than the belt. He didn’t want to remove his buoyancy vest, which still had air in it and would keep him afloat. He recalled how he and Paulina had secured the tank to the vest with a strap just beneath the valve on top of the tank. Another strap pinched the tank tight to his back.
He reached behind him, feeling for the bottom strap, and followed it as far as his arm allowed. He gripped the unsecured end of the strap and pulled it loose. Then he reached over his head and found the valve to the tank. Just below it, he felt the fabric and inched along it until he found the clip, pinched it, and felt it snap free. The tank slid down his back and dropped like a stone into the depths.
He found the inflator hose attached to the buoyancy vest and blew air through it, inflating the vest and increasing his buoyancy. Then he slid on his mask and put the snorkel’s mouthpiece between his teeth. He lowered his head and put his right arm in front of him as Paulina had instructed, found his bearing, and began kicking, he hoped, toward shore.
Within seconds, he felt himself laboring, the cold kicking in, his muscles thick and his movements slow. He imagined his blood like oil in an engine in subzero temperatures. But he couldn’t fixate on those thoughts, or on the cold, or even on his labored breathing. Just keep moving. That’s all he needed to do. Keep moving. He had at least thirty minutes of kicking in front of him. He’d take one minute at a time. He’d resist the urge to lift his head, to take his mouth off the snorkel mouthpiece, to fall prey to his body’s desire to stop and rest, if only for a minute.
The Eighth Sister Page 18