Waste Not, Want Not td-130

by Warren Murphy

  "Come with me, Gennady," Garbegtrov whispered.

  The former premier led the captain back to the quarters he used whenever he was aboard the Novgorod.

  "What precisely do you think we are doing here, Gennady?" Garbegtrov asked once the door to the small cabin was closed and locked.

  "I thought we were working to restore Lenin's great vision to Mother Russia," the captain replied. Garbegtrov sat on the steel edge of his bunk. "And how will we do this with only one submarine?"

  "I assumed, Comrade Premier, that we were the first in a new Soviet fleet. We would build strength, and when the time came our forces would seize control."

  Garbegtrov's frown deepened. "I will let you in on a secret, Gennady," he said. "A secret I assumed you knew. We are not only the first ship in this mighty fleet you have invented, we are the only ship."

  Captain Zhilnikov's face clouded. "I do not understand," he said.

  "Gennady," the ex-premier said, "do you know the cost of keeping this one vessel afloat? We can barely afford it as it is."

  "Finance is something capitalist Americans fret over."

  Garbegtrov nodded. "You are lying to yourself if you believe communism cares nothing for money. If we did not, this ship would never have been decommissioned. She was left to rust because Mother Russia could no longer afford her. Capital has always been as important to Russia as it is to America. Except they knew better how to spend it."

  Captain Zhilnikov didn't like what he was hearing. "Respectfully, Comrade Premier, the pursuit of money is not the goal of a good Communist."

  Garbegtrov smiled sadly. "You and your men are being paid well, are you not?"

  Zhilnikov frowned. "Yes," he admitted. "But that is because we are the new chosen ones. The vanguard of the new order."

  "You are. But it is not the order that you think." And Garbegtrov went on to tell the captain how he had gone to a meeting not long before the theft of the Novgorod. At this meeting he found a group of people who had given him hope for a new future for the global Communist movement.

  "Was it in Moscow?" Zhilnikov asked hopefully.

  "California," Garbegtrov replied.

  He explained to the former Russian navy captain about environmentalism and an organization called Green Earth. How the Green Earthers were more devoted to socialist dogma than any Duma member. Garbegtrov told the captain that the people who had been ferrying supplies out to the Russian sub were wealthy Americans who belonged to the organization.

  "They hate their country, these rich, spoiled children of privilege," Garbegtrov explained. "They hate its freedoms and strength. They loathe the military. Anything that weakens American power and prestige in the world gives them joy. When I mentioned Russia's own diminishing military strength, they were crestfallen. There was a time, Gennady, when we would have destroyed their way of life-crushed the very freedoms that allowed them to act like the stupid children they are-and these people were actually upset that Russia was no longer a threat to their survival.

  "It was when I told them about the situation with our decommissioned warships that they became particularly interested. One got it in his head that it would be a fitting slap in the face of his own country if Green Earth could have its own Soviet submarine. A way to strike fear in the hearts of illegal dumpers, whalers, oil tankers and the like. Before I knew what was happening it was being voted on by the Green Earth board. The project was green-lighted, I was put in charge and-not long after-you and your men stole me my submarine."

  Captain Zhilnikov couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was absolutely crushed. His legs were wobbly. He had to sit down in the little chair near the bolted-down desk in the corner of the tiny cabin.

  "We will not use the Novgorod to take back Mother Russia?" he asked weakly.

  Garbegtrov sighed. "Russia is not as strong as she once was," he admitted. "But Moscow will not surrender to one little obsolete submarine that has to beg for its supper."

  And that was that. Out of financial necessity, Captain Gennady Zhilnikov had become a tool of environmental zealots.

  For several years the Novgorod was kept afloat by Green Earth money. During that time, Garbegtrov moved up the ranks of the organization just as he had risen to the top position of the Communist Party. As time went on, the former premier spent less and less time involved in matters of the Novgorod, he was too busy staying in plush hotels paid for by Green Earth. Funding and supplying the sub was turned over to a minor American Green Earth member. The ultimate insult.

  By now the men on board knew the truth. Though it sickened them, the pay was good and the work was undemanding. In fact, it was almost as if they had been forgotten.

  Then one day two weeks before the Globe Summit in Mayana, Captain Zhilnikov learned that this was indeed the case.

  His American Green Earth contact had met the sub in international waters off the coast of Florida. With him was one of the ranking members of the Green Earth board.

  The board member was a dotcom millionaire who had cashed out before his online birdseed store had collapsed along with the rest of the Internet market. He was twenty-six, had a social conscience and was a lot more concerned with the bottom line than the rest of the organization's membership.

  "You gotta be fluffing kidding me," he said as he climbed down from the deck of the Novgorod. He looked around at the sailors-still dressed in their Soviet-era uniforms. "No fluffing way, dude," he said, shaking his blond-highlighted head.

  "Is something wrong?" Captain Zhilnikov asked.

  The kid laughed. "Dude, this is all wrong. We've been paying to keep this tub afloat for years." He glanced back at the man who had been Zhilnikov's liaison with Green Earth. "Years, right?"

  "Yes, sir. Approximately a decade."

  "Dudes, that is way nuts," the kid said. "I know some of the older guys thought this was a cool idea and all, but this thing is tapped. I think they were high when they okayed this 'cause there's no way they could ever have used it."

  "What do you mean?" Zhilnikov asked. He had taken an instant dislike to this callow American.

  "It was stolen, dude. The Russians would freak if they found that out. Someone up in Green Earth figured that out, so they kept this floating money pit a secret. But they thought it was cool, I guess, so they kept you around. No more, dude. You're history."

  "What does this mean, 'I am history'?"

  "You, your little barnacle-butt buddies-you're all gone. Take this tub out and sink it in the Atlantic. We'll get you back on our boat."

  Captain Zhilnikov was appalled. The Novgorod had been home to himself and his crew for years. He would not surrender without a fight.

  "Out of the question," the captain said. "I demand to speak with Nikolai Garbegtrov. He is powerful man in your organization now. He will not stand for such outrage."

  The kid laughed. "Dude, who do you think signed off on scuttling this tub?"

  Captain Gennady Zhilnikov couldn't speak. He blinked in disbelief. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

  He had believed in Garbegtrov when the politician was first selected premier of the old Soviet Union, only to be betrayed.

  Again he personally trusted that Garbegtrov had arranged to steal the Novgorod to take back Mother Russia. Again betrayal.

  And he had surrendered all dignity to work for these demented Americans who loved trees more than children, only to have Garbegtrov-incompetent, decadent, slave-to-the-West Garbegtrov-betray him one last time.

  Zhilnikov tried to gather thoughts now filled with images of rage and hate and revenge. Through the haze he heard a voice.

  "It's kinda too bad and all," the youthful visitor to the Novgorod was commenting. He was glancing around the sub's bridge. "This is pretty cool. Das Boot and all. Hey, dude, you got torpedoes and everything on this scow?"

  Captain Zhilnikov's face steeled. He personally took his two American guests to the torpedo room. He made sure several of his men were accompanying them. Zhilnikov spoke low orders i
n Russian. His guests didn't understand Russian.

  "Hey, that's pretty cool, dude," the blond-haired American said as he peered in a torpedo tube. "Hey, are those real torpedoes over there? Hey, what are you dudes doing? Hey, put me down! Hey, open this up!"

  The last words were shouted from the wrong side of the locked torpedo tube door.

  The second man was loaded into another tube. Both men banged and screamed as the Novgorod sank below the waves. The tubes were flooded and the banging stopped.

  When their bodies popped to the surface a few minutes later, there was very little time for their companions on the boat that had brought them there to panic. A single torpedo strike from the Novgorod sank the boat and all hands.

  And on that very special day-a day of liberation for the old Soviet captain-Gennady Zhilnikov had finally found a post-Cold War mission for the crew of his small stolen submarine. The utter humiliation and destruction of the man who had put the Novgorod and Mother Russia out to sea.

  Zhilnikov already knew through the Green Earth newsletter (printed on 100% recycled paper) that Nikolai Garbegtrov intended to act as the organization's ambassador to the Globe Summit. With the eyes of the entire world squarely on Mayana, there would be no better place to seek public revenge.

  On occasion the Novgorod had returned in secret to Latvia or one of the other breakaway republics for supplies. It was, after all, a nuclear attack submarine and there were some items that just could not be procured from even the wealthiest American fools. On the black market they were able to purchase scavenged parts from ships rusting all along the west coast of the former Soviet Union.

  Captain Zhilnikov had made certain that he had a full complement of torpedoes on board at all times. No matter what Green Earth claimed about peaceful motives, Gennady Zhilnikov had no intention of putting out to sea unarmed.

  His torpedoes had come in handy removing the Green Earth boat that had delivered Nikolai Garbegtrov's doomed envoys to the Novgorod. And now, two weeks later, they were proving instrumental in Captain Gennady Zhilnikov's scheme to ruin Russia's untrustworthy former premier once and for all.

  UNSEEN BY EYES on sea or shore, the dark shape of the Soviet-era submarine Novgorod slid silently through the midnight-black waters of the Caribbean Sea.

  After sinking the first two garbage scows three days earlier, the old submarine had slipped out to deeper waters between Haiti and Mayana. There it had waited patiently among coral and schools of swimming fish.

  Captain Gennady Zhilnikov expected some news. The world was watching Mayana. The two scows had obviously been sunk by torpedoes. A simple investigation would reveal that fact. Even Mayana with its limited resources would be able to figure it out with just a cursory examination of the scows.

  The news would create fear and panic, especially with the leaders of the world converging on the small South American country. The world would focus like a laser beam on the treacherous Caribbean and the unknown danger that lurked beneath its surface. And then, then Gennady Zhilnikov could surface, pop the hatch and point a finger squarely at the great betrayer, Nikolai Garbegtrov-the man behind it all. His men listened in on radio signals for hours. There were no news reports of the torpedo strikes. That the two garbage scows had sunk was mentioned a few times. But it was attributed to a human error. One scow had struck another, resulting in an explosion that consumed both ships. As the hours dragged into days, no corrections were issued. The captain of one of the scows was to blame for both ships sinking. There was no mention of a submarine. No one knew of the stolen Novgorod. No one knew that Nikolai Garbegtrov, the lying, former dog-of-a-Soviet-premier, was to blame.

  It was all too much.

  "Human error," Captain Zhilnikov growled. "I will give them human error. Take us back," he ordered.

  Even when they returned to the coast of Mayana, the Russian captain thought they might be sailing into a clever trap. But there were no submarines or warships lying in wait for them. Just a cluster of fat blips on the sonar screen.

  There were many more scows than had been there just three days previous. The green dots of the scows stretched from one side of the sonar display to the next.

  Sitting ducks.

  Zhilnikav watched the screen through narrowed eyes. The monitor bathed his pale face in a wash of watery green. He looked like a seasick Martian.

  "That one," Zhilnikov commanded, pointing randomly at a blip on the screen.

  The order was relayed, the torpedo tubes loaded. "Periscope," Captain Zhilnikov commanded, spinning from the sonar station.

  Far above, the periscope rose like the neck of a steel sea monster.

  He found the scow. Silhouetted against a backdrop of lights from the hundred ships beyond it.

  Captain Zhilnikov paused for a moment.

  They had gotten away with their first attacks. He and his men could slip off and the world would not be the wiser.

  He thought of Garbegtrov-the bloated betrayer-sprawled on a bed of American dollars. Laughing at Zhilnikov, laughing at the Soviet Union. Laughing at Russia.

  The old Russian officer's face steeled. "Fire!" Captain Zhilnikov bellowed.

  And the word launched frothy spittle from between the bitter old captain's furiously sputtering lips.

  Chapter 20

  Remo and Chiun stood on the damp deck of the speeding Russian trawler. Beside them, Petrovina Bulganin and Vlad Korkusku studied the Caribbean night. The rest of the SVR agents were up on the bridge.

  The two Russians on deck were damp from the spray of the waves that broke across the boat's prow. Both Sinanju Masters remained bone-dry.

  The first scows were moored a half mile off the coast.

  There had been more torpedo strikes since they left the hotel. In a dozen spots fires now toyed with the twinkling stars in the warm sky. The scows were so tightly packed that flames from the explosions had spread to other boats.

  Mayana wasn't equipped for such an emergency. Here and there in Garbage City could be seen flashes of red-and-blue lights-official boats sent from shore. Two undermanned fireboats squirted high plumes of water onto two separate blazes.

  When the attack began, some scows had tried to flee. The slow-moving craft were easy targets. The remaining scows were hemmed in by miles of floating trash heaps.

  The unnatural firelight cast visions of Hell across the calm sea surface. Petrovina Bulganin's beautiful face was bathed in a ghoulish wash of flickering orange.

  She had regained her full senses during the ride from the hotel and the trip out on the boat. Her anger toward the men around her worsened as she grew more alert.

  "So you try to kill me for Garbegtrov and his idiotic environmental movement?" she said, sneering at Vlad Korkusku. "That is why you try to blow me up and suffocate me?"

  "No," Korkusku grunted in reply. He was watching the sea. "At first it was because I just do not like you."

  Remo raised his hand. "Me, neither."

  "Make that three," chimed in Chiun, who knew only too well his pupil's soft spot for beautiful Russian spies.

  "And you," Petrovina said to Remo. "You are a menace, with your kicking in of doors like macho American Rambo. You could have gotten me killed. "

  "Could've, should've, would've," Remo said. "Sue me for saving your life. And for those of you keeping score, that's the third thank-you I didn't get from you."

  "Russian women never show proper gratitude," Chiun confided. "You would think being tractor wenches with cement-mixer hips and shovels for faces they would be grateful for any little attention they receive. But their ugliness has made them resentful. Do not talk to Russian women, Remo, unless you wish to be disappointed or need to know 1001 ways to abuse a cabbage."

  Vlad Korkusku-whose mother, sisters, aunts and grandmother were all Russian women-decided to say a word not for Petrovina Bulganin, but for Russian females in general. He spent the next minute dangling by his ankle from the back of the boat with his head underwater and his face an inch away from the p
ropeller. When he was allowed back up for air, Korkusku vehemently agreed that all Russian women were ugly, nasty harpies.

  "You see?" Chiun said. "Even through his alcoholic delirium this Russian male understands."

  "I don't think he's drunk, Little Father. Just wet."

  Chiun patted Remo's hand. "You are still young in so many ways," he said paternally.

  Searchlights were cutting across the water. The others concentrated on the spots of white. Remo and Chiun searched the darkness between the light. They all scanned the surface of the water for any signs of the Russian submarine.

  "This is stupid," Petrovina said. "We have no weapons or defenses even if we do find it. What do you plan to do?"

  "Don't know," Remo said. "Maybe toss you at lt."

  Another five minutes passed before he spotted the sub sliding up from beneath the sea. The dark, curving shape of a periscope was lost in the darkness. A thin froth of white water broke as it barreled through the waves.

  "There it is," Remo said tightly.

  Chiun had spied it, too. Petrovina and Vlad Korkusku squinted but could see nothing.

  "Where?" Petrovina asked doubtfully.

  Remo wasn't paying attention to her. "That way," he hollered up to the bridge. "Angle us that way." The SVR helmsman had twice seen Remo in action. He dared not disobey. Picking up speed, he eased the boat to port. The line of moored scows drew closer.

  "I see nothing," Petrovina said. "How do you see it?"

  "You got thirty years, I'll show you," Remo said. "Otherwise butt out. Okay, we're good here," he called up to the bridge. "Stay on this course."

  Petrovina opened her mouth to express further doubt, but was interrupted by an excited voice. "We have submarine on sonar!" an SVR agent called down from the bridge.

  Remo and Chiun had already moved to a break in the rail. Remo kicked off his loafers and Chiun shed his sandals.

  Floodlights were sent searching the sea. They found the periscope gliding along forty yards off the port bow.

  The fishing boat had no torpedoes of its own. Korkusku had squandered their one depth charge. Petrovina Bulganin threw up her hands, helpless.