Vassick smiled at Second Captain Dishlakov as he handed the laptop back to his man.
“Yes, the dawning of knowledge is sometimes rather startling, is it not?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You and many billions of others around the globe, Second Captain. Let’s just say that most people do not know that our great President Putin ever had a brother, much less a twin brother. A twin that our illustrious former KGB operative tried to hide from the rest of the world for over forty-eight years. I would say that he came in handy after we discovered the hiding place our president had buried him under.”
“What of the real president?” Dishlakov asked, not believing what it was he was hearing.
“Oh, Vladimir had a chemically induced heart attack seven years ago. Very sad. But he was a stupid man who thought he had the brainpower to take on those far more intelligent than himself. People you may have even met on your little adventure. This is the reason why our old Russian history of acting first without thinking has come to an end.”
Two men, also dressed in black suits, sat beside Dishlakov, one on each side.
“I am to be murdered now?” he asked bravely.
“Murdered?” Vassick chuckled. “My friend, you will become one of the true messengers of our new system of government. Very valuable indeed. No, you will make it home alive.”
“No matter what you do to me, my crew performed bravely, and they do not deserve to die.”
“My dear man, do you think us entirely without empathy or pride in what your crew and the brave Captain Kreshenko executed in the most hostile of worlds? No, your crew will go down in Russian history as the very men who began our new revolution.”
“And Captain Kreshenko’s legacy is what?”
“The same, my boy. He will be remembered with honor, as you all will. Yes, we have our disagreements with certain military leaders — Kreshenko was one of them.” Vassick took a deep breath. “You see, young man, there will be certain… citizens and professional military associates who cannot accompany the new Russia to where it is we are going.”
Before Second Captain Dishlakov knew what was happening, the man to his right plunged the syringe into the thigh of Dishlakov. As his eyes fluttered shut, his last vision was of the portly man smiling at him.
Vassick took a deep breath and then leaned back against the aluminum body of the helicopter.
“It’s a shame we had to lose Salkukoff; he was a very respected member of our society. He will be missed.” He again sighed. “But then we all have to make sacrifices for what is to come. Let us go home; we have many things to discuss and plan.”
An hour later, the Simbirsk was cast free of her towline from Ticonderoga, and the USS Houston moved away from the Nimitz battle group to a safe distance. Jack, Carl, Charlie Ellenshaw, Jason Ryan, and Will Mendenhall, along with Niles Compton, Virginia Pollock, and Xavier Morales, who was looking around the massive carrier with a child’s wonderment, gathered at the fantail of Nimitz watching the seas to the north. They were soon joined by Henri Farbeaux, who stood next to them.
“Get it done?” Jack asked.
Henri looked at his wristwatch and nodded. “In exactly one minute, my obligation to you and your president will be fulfilled, Colonel.” He looked at Niles, and the director nodded in agreement.
Their attention was drawn to the distant conning tower of the Houston as she paced the battle group three miles away. Unable to submerge with the damage she had sustained, she was still able to fulfill this one last task.
Henri tapped his watch as he looked up. “It’s time.”
In the distance, they saw Simbirsk as she bobbed in the calm seas. The Russian relic sat upon the sea proudly as she awaited her fate.
On the conning tower of the Houston, Captain Thorne looked through his binoculars and then leaned over and spoke into the intercom.
“Weapons, are you ready?”
“Aye, Skipper,” came the reply.
“Fire one!”
“Tube one, weapons release.”
“Fire two!”
“Tube two fired electrically. All weaps running hot, straight, and normal.”
“Conn, run the live feed to all compartments. This is for Shiloh and Peter the Great. We all deserve this.”
“Aye.”
Captain Thorne resumed his watch as his torpedoes sped to their intended target.
Three miles away on the battle bridge of the Russian battle cruiser once thought lost to the world, Colonel Salkukoff waited. His handcuffed hands were secured to the wheel of the navigation station, so he had a good view of his fate as the American Mark 48 torpedoes reached the hull. He cursed Henri Farbeaux for his last words to him.
“Remember the Ukraine, for this is the reason why I am sending you straight to hell.”
The members of the Event Group watched as the Mark 48s had done what the phase shift and Nazi submarines could not do. The explosions occurred separately. One weapon detonated below her keel and the other directly into the hull below the engine spaces. The resulting fireball could be seen by every ship in the battle group. They watched until the battle cruiser sank in two sections for the three-mile fall to her final resting place.
Jack slapped Henri Farbeaux on the back, as his orders had indeed been fulfilled. It was Virginia of all people who spoke up.
“Now, can I ask where that gruff bastard of mine is?”
“Right behind you,” Carl said with the largest smile Virginia or the others had ever seen the captain have.
Stepping onto the covered fantail came Charlie Ellenshaw and Jenks. The master chief was holding two small girls, and the others clung to his pant leg as if it were a maypole.
Virginia lost her own smile very fast.
EPILOGUE
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
The gathering of the departmental heads and other members of the Event Group, who had never been in one place off complex before, was something that Niles Compton had wanted to do ever since the conclusion of the Overlord operation. The Group needed to be reset, and this was the best way to accomplish that.
The expansive ranch, owned by Compton, was a property that had belonged to his family for generations and placed on display the beauty of Montana. The activity outside the large ranch house was festive as men and women doted over the guests of honor — the six children rescued from Compton’s Reef.
The gathering was far more than just a send-off of the children to one of the most expensive private schools in the country, where they would be assimilated into modern society; it was a get-together to celebrate each other and the recent achievements of the Group. To not take for granted the friendships they had developed and to take time to remember those no longer with them but who would forever be on the active rolls of Department 5656.
The large white tent housed the food and drink, and the orphaned children were wide-eyed at the activity. It had been Master Chief Jenks, the brutish bully of a man, who had fallen hard for the children. He was sad to be seeing them leave to start their new lives under the protection of the Group, but it was a necessary one, as explained to him by an eye-rolling Virginia Pollock. He and Virginia were spending the last few hours they had with the kids and looked to be having the time of their lives. The master chief had been transformed by his new charges and would be forever following their progress while they were away.