Change of Heart by Jack Allen

by Unknown

  card. He nodded and handed it back to the driver.

  “Please proceed,” the Marine said.

  He stepped back and saluted as the gates opened and the car drove through.

  The limousine stopped at the front of the White House. A pair of Secret Service agents were there, both in plain overcoats.

  The driver got out and opened Filmore’s door. She had a case to carry in each hand, one an aluminum covered case holding all the pertinent information for the Konstantinova briefing, excluding of course the most important information for the meeting: the whereabouts of Valeria Konstantinova. The other case, a thick black leather briefcase, carried as much information as Filmore could round up in the anticipation of answering whatever out-of-left-field question President Stephen Wrenbeck might ask her.

  He did this sort of thing to her once before and it made her look bad in front of Dick Vessey, his Chief of Staff. Filmore never let it happen again.

  She went up the stairs. Someone from the White House staff opened the door for her. She was led to a vestibule outside the Oval Office, where she waited until the President was ready for their meeting.

  This was all a part of the man’s manipulative games, and it always pissed Filmore off. The previous administration never gave her any problems like this. But then, the previous administration was Republican and knew she was a staunch Republican herself.

  More than that, President Wrenbeck seemed to have something against the Navy in particular and the military in general.

  His nonaggression policies were possibly the biggest influence in his election, and definitely the biggest reason why he was so vili-fied by the Republicans. However, everyone in the Navy, Filmore included, suspected he did not trust the military.

  And so Filmore endured subtle humiliations while President Wrenbeck exerted authority over her, which she did with patience Change of Heart

  129

  and tolerance. She had her job to do and the sooner she got Wrenbeck off her back, the sooner she could get back to doing it. There was no way to keep him from looking over her shoulder, she could only hope to get him to leave her alone for a while.

  He made her wait forty minutes before she was asked to enter the Oval Office. As she expected, Vessey was already there. At the White House, the two were never far from each other.

  She was invited to sit across the desk.

  “Good morning, Admiral,” Wrenbeck said once she put her cases down.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  He was already impatient, she noticed. He was not inclined to engage in simple pleasantries with people under him. How a man so lacking in tact managed to get this far in a political career was beyond her.

  He had his hands on the desk, folded in front of him.

  “I’m sure you know I had no intention of getting my hands dirty in this business of yours, but now that I am involved, fill me in.”

  Filmore cleared her throat. It was going to be difficult to get away with telling him nothing.

  “At approximately midnight last night we received confirmation from the USS America that our officer had successfully disembarked for the Monticello-”

  Wrenbeck raised his hand to stop her and Vessey leaned in.

  “The Monticello is a converted exploration ship operated by the CIA,” Vessey said.

  Wrenbeck nodded. “Continue.”

  Filmore glanced down at her papers, trying to remember where she had been cut off.

  “Yes ... the Monticello was already well inside Russian ter-ritorial waters and was observing radio silence.”

  “Were they using radar?” Wrenbeck asked.

  She nodded. He never missed a thing.

  “In order to pinpoint the position of the craft Ron Finn appropriated to get out of Chumikan, it was necessary for the 130

  Jack Allen

  Monticello to use its radar.”

  “I see.”

  “The Monticello was scheduled to break radio silence and contact us to confirm success or failure of the mission, but as yet there has been no contact and no new information since the report from the America.”

  Wrenbeck stared at her as if he completely misunderstood every word, but Filmore knew better. She’d seen that look before.

  His next move would be to tear her apart.

  “And what do we know about the girl?”

  “We know she was delivered to Finn and that he was able to get her out of Russia.”

  “And her location now?”

  Filmore hesitated. This was the hard part. With a straight face she had to tell a complete lie. If she told the truth, he would have her job and her career and there would be no way the mission could ever succeed. Everyone involved would be stranded without a rope to pull themselves in and the man seated across the desk would deny any knowledge. A lie might buy the extra time she needed. But, just as she opened her mouth to speak, she found herself unable to tell the complete lie she worked long and hard to create.

  “We’re ... fifty percent certain she’s in our hands,” she said, and immediately wanted to cringe.

  Why did she say that? It would have been so much easier if she had come out with a bald faced lie and told him she had complete control of the situation. He would have had no choice but to accept her word on it and send her off to keep doing her good work. A half truth just gave him more ammunition.

  “Fifty percent?” Wrenbeck said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He put his hands flat on the desk.

  “Is it just my impression that this Konstantinova is the key to the successful completion of this mission?”

  “No, sir. It is a fact that without her there is no way we can find Dr. Jones.”

  Change of Heart

  131

  “And you don’t know where she is?”

  “No, sir.”

  Wrenbeck was silent, staring straight at her.

  “Then this meeting is a waste of my time.”

  “You asked for the meeting, sir.”

  “And I expected you to have some answers for me,” he said, his voice rising. He took a deep breath. She could see he was forcing himself to be calm. “Yet you have none.”

  “It’s still early. I will have answers before the end of the day.”

  Wrenbeck disregarded this and turned to Vessey, who leaned down and whispered something in his ear. He turned back to Filmore.

  “Apparently you’ve superseded my authority and ordered one of my subs to abandon its previous orders and proceed into Russian waters as a special request of your own. Is this true, Admiral?”

  “It is,” she said, thinking, They weren’t his subs, damn it. He didn’t even want them.

  “Are you interested in starting an international incident?”

  “No, sir, I just wanted to-”

  “This is how you plan to get your answers, isn’t it, Admiral?

  Redirect a nuclear submarine into Russian waters, violating God knows how many treaties.” Vessey handed him a sheet of paper, which he quickly scanned. “The latest information from Leverett is that he lost three good men to deliver this Konstantinova woman into your hands, and you don’t even know where she is.” His voice rose again. Filmore boiled with anger. She wanted to lash out at Wrenbeck, to put him in his place, but she knew she couldn’t. She knew she stepped close to the boundaries of authority, but Wrenbeck’s attack was nothing more than an attempt at provocation, albeit a good one. She fought to remain calm. Wrenbeck was just looking for a reason to drum her out of the Navy and replace her with one of his own lackeys.

  She recognized the name of Leverett, the Director of the CIA, one such lackey Wrenbeck appointed himself when the 132

  Jack Allen

  man appointed by the Republican administration buckled under Wrenbeck’s attempt to provoke him. Filmore was well aware of the depth of Leverett’s involvement in this mission and the losses he had suffered to get this far. Filmore had only one man on the job, and from here on out everything rested on
his shoulders. If there was any way in hell this job was going to come off at all, that man was going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

  Filmore cleared her throat. This was her last card. She had no choice but to play it.

  “I have the Navy’s best man on the job.” Wrenbeck’s brow furrowed. He set the sheet of paper down and glared at her, leaning closer over the desk.

  “Who?” he said.

  Josh was tired, hungry, sore, cramped and sunburned. All in all this was turning out to be a fun trip. He was also worried. It was late in the day and they had yet to see another ship. Not that they had any way to signal it if they saw one, but it would be reassuring to know there were other people in the world.

  His hands and face and neck were sunburned. He gave his jacket to Valeria to use as cover and she hardly spoke a word to him all day. He didn’t really blame her. He wasn’t sure he’d have much to say to someone who dragged him into a hopeless situation like this.

  When he wasn’t searching for ships, Josh spent his time making water as fast as he could. The results were usually not much more than a couple of sips of stale water, but it was a whole lot better than nothing. Now the sun was dropping low in the sky and had cooled too much to make water. There would be nothing more to drink until the sun was hot enough in the morning, if there was no cloud cover.

  He heard something and looked at Valeria. She hadn’t moved in a long time. She was probably asleep and dreaming. Somehow he imagined her dreams might involve doing violent things to him.

  He heard another moan and looked at her again. She still Change of Heart

  133

  hadn’t moved. Was she getting sick? Was she hurt in some way he hadn’t noticed? Maybe she was shot, or maybe the shark got her. But there was no blood and she didn’t look pale.

  Then he heard it again and sat up. It wasn’t her. It was a horn.

  “Did you hear that?” he said, his voice cracking in his parched throat.

  Valeria stirred and pulled the jacket from over her head, looking up at him.

  Josh heard it again and turned around. It was not much more than a small dot on the southern horizon. He could hardly tell it was moving toward them. Valeria sat up and looked at it.

  They stared in disbelief, as if it was a mirage. The dot grew larger and turned into a small fishing boat with cranes and nets on the back.

  Valeria was squeezing his arm and Josh didn’t notice until her hands were cutting off his circulation. He guessed what she was thinking as he pried her fingers off. If this was a Russian boat they would be obliged to turn her in. He didn’t want that any more than her.

  As it got closer, though, Josh saw a Japanese flag flying on the mast.

  “It’s gonna be all right,” he said, then repeated it in Russian as Valeria slumped back against the raft.

  Captain Ekstrom shook his head. They were given exact coor-dinates and Carson laid out a grid for a search pattern, which they crisscrossed and double checked for hours, yet they found nothing. He began to suspect they had been sent on a wild goose chase. Whatever ship was supposed to be in this area was either long gone or was never there.

  This was the theory Carson proposed, and Ekstrom immediately dismissed. He hated to think the Navy would divert them from their mission for whatever reason. He refused to believe in conspiracies. He did, however, have his own beliefs.

  “This is a waste of time,” he snapped out loud. Every crew-134

  Jack Allen

  man on the bridge turned to look at him. “Commander, prepare to get us out of here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The intercom chirped.

  “Bridge, sonar,” came Grinch’s voice.

  Ekstrom stabbed the switch.

  “What is it, Grinch?”

  “I have a contact bearing one-six-five degrees, range about four miles. Sounds like a small surface ship.” Ekstrom sighed. Now they’d have to examine every surface contact they came across and compare it to the description of the ship they were looking for. If they were moving into commercial shipping lanes that could mean dozens of ships.

  “Let’s go up and take a look.”

  They moved toward the surface contact at periscope depth.

  Half a mile from the contact, Ekstrom raised the scope.

  It was dangerous for a sub’s periscope to be above the water.

  It could be seen on radar or even spotted by someone on the deck of a ship, giving away the presence and position of the sub. It was best for Ekstrom to minimize the amount of time the periscope was exposed.

  Ekstrom swept the horizon 360 degrees, searching for other ships or aircraft Grinch couldn’t pickup on sonar, then settled on the contact.

  “It’s a fishing trawler,” Ekstrom said. He increased the magnification. “Is the tape running?”

  “Tape’s running,” Carson said.

  Ekstrom examined the boat.

  “They’re flying a Japanese flag. What the hell are they doing-Oh,” he said, cutting himself short when a yellow raft drifted into the field of view.

  He lingered on the scene for a few seconds longer, watching the trawler close with the raft and begin to bring the occupants aboard.

  “Captain, I’m picking up EM radiation.”

  “Down scope,” Ekstrom said, stepping back as the periscope Change of Heart

  135

  descended into its well. “Rewind the tape. I want to get a better look at that boat.” Carson hit the rewind button. “Take us down to two hundred feet, speed four knots, heading one-eight-oh.” He received acknowledgments from each of his men as he went to the video monitor. “Ok, let’s see it.” Carson pushed play. The tape started with the periscope rising out of the water. The image was blurry for a moment until the water ran off the clear shield covering the lens. They watched as the only thing that changed on the image was the view of the water and the waves when Ekstrom did the 360 degree rotation. After a few seconds, the trawler entered the image from the left side of the screen. It was a shabby, dirty, wooden hulled boat that rocked on the waves. The image changed suddenly as the magnification increased. They could make out the faces of the crew leaning over the gunwale and lettering on the hull, although neither of them could read Japanese. One of the trawler’s crewmen held a line, which he tossed in the water. Then the raft drifted into the image from the right side.

  “Who are they?” Carson said.

  “I don’t know. And I don’t care. They’ve been rescued.

  They’re not our concern.”

  “What if they’re from that ship we’re looking for?”

  “If they are, then that Japanese captain can take care of them.

  I’m not surfacing in Russian waters to take them on board. The whole damned Russian Navy’ll be all over us.” The image ended. Carson hit the fast rewind button and the image reappeared, moving in reverse. He let it go to the point where the raft reappeared and pushed pause, freezing the image.

  “This one looks like a woman,” Carson said, pointing to the person with long hair seated in the raft. Ekstrom was inclined to agree it was likely a woman. “What’s this guy wearing?” Carson pointed at the person reaching for the rope, clearly a man.

  “Those are dress khakis,” Ekstrom said.

  “A Navy man?”

  136

  Jack Allen

  “Look at this.” Ekstrom pointed at the woman. She had a dark blue wind breaker over her shoulders, with lettering across the back. “What does that say?”

  Carson leaned close to the screen, squinting.

  “USS America?”

  “What?”

  The intercom beeped.

  “Bridge, sonar,” came Grinch’s voice again.

  Ekstrom reached up and stabbed the button. “Go ahead.”

  “Captain, I have a new contact.”

  Josh had his hands around Valeria’s slender waist, lifting her into the arms of the Japanese fishermen as well as he could from the pitching raft. Several times it
threatened to tip over and dump them both in the water. She was difficult to hold that way. His hands kept slipping up her sides under her shirt. She was reaching up and the fishermen were reaching down for her. Finally, they grabbed her by her wrists and lifted her out of the raft. It wobbled and Josh lost his balance, landing on his butt in the middle of it.

  The boat and the raft moved apart. Josh lunged for the end of the line that lay in the raft, grabbing it just before it dropped into the water, and pulled himself close to the side of the boat.

  Climbing aboard himself was much easier. The other end of the rope was tied to a cleat on the deck. He pulled himself up the side of the boat like he was scaling a cliff. As he pushed off, the raft moved out from under him and he slapped against the side of the hull, his legs dipping in the water up to his knees. He pulled himself up by the rope until one of the crewmen grabbed him by his shirt, and they lifted him into the boat.

  The smell of fish was strong even before the boat came alongside. Now that he was on it, the smell was strong enough to make his eyes water.

  He was sitting on the deck between the gunwale and a large closed hatchway that led to a cargo hold below the deck. Valeria sat on the edge of the hatchway. A pair of crewmen seemed eager to be the first to make sure she was comfortable. They both spoke Change of Heart

  137

  to her at once and it was obvious, to him at least, she had no idea what they were saying.

  “Do you speak Japanese?” a man standing over Josh said in Japanese.

  Josh looked up at an authoritative looking man with a round belly and bad complexion. He wore a black rain slicker and stood with his hands on his hips.

  “Yes,” Josh said in Japanese.

  “What is your name?”

  “Joshua McGowan.”

  The captain nodded, then pointed at Valeria.

  “Who is she?”

  Josh looked at her. She was looking back at him, desperately trying to get his help.

  “She is my wife.”

  The captain nodded again. He looked angry, like he was going to throw them back in the water if he answered a question wrong.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  He gestured to the ocean with a sweeping motion of his arm.

  This was the part Josh practiced the whole time he was waiting for them, or whoever, to arrive.