“The information we were provided was good, Niki. Very good. She’s not so different from our boats. Same board”
“Status”
“All green, we’re ready to dive” Fedorenko said, his eyes shining.
Makayev studied the control room’s layout for just a moment, then motioned Kurshin toward the helm. “Just like driving an airplane, Comrade Colonel. Turn the wheel right and we go right. Push it forward and we go down. Make only small motions”
He hit the ship’s comms. “Prepare to dive the boat. Ivan, how do we look”
“Ready to give you turns for maximum speed, Captain”
“Stand by” Makayev said. “Aleksandr, what’s our friend doing out there”
“I put him at eight thousand meters” the sonarman said. “Nothing else in our vicinity” Makayev turned to his starpom. “Dive the boat, Gennadi.
Take us to one hundred meters, on a course of two-zero-five”
“Aye, Skipper”
“I’m ringing for one-fourth forward” Makayev said. “Colonel, push your wheel forward, to five degrees down planes The indicator is just over your head”
CPO Sally Powell suddenly sat forward and flipped a couple of switches on her console. Reid stood on the balcony just behind her.
“We’ve lost the downlink with Indianapolisshe called out.
Reid stepped forward, gripping the rail so hard his knuckles turned white. “Has she submerged”
“I don’t know” she said, looking up at him.
“We’ve just lost her”
They lay in each other’s arms watching the sun rise outside their hotel window. The last few days had been like a dream, unreal, events moving around them as if they did not exist in the world. McGarvey turned to look at her. She had let her hair down and it spilled across her pillow, framing her delicate face and neck. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath, the nipples still hard from their lovemaking.
“It’s almost time to get ready” he said softly. She looked at him, then reached out and touched his lips with her fingertips, a wan smile barely creasing her mouth. “I know”
“They’ve set up a safehouse for you outside of San Francisco. I want you to go there”
“There’s someone I have to see in Washington first”
“The general”
She nodded. “He won’t tell you anything about me”
“I don’t expect he will, but that won’t stop me from asking” Her eyes opened a little wider and she propped herself up on her side. “It’s the Russian. He got away and you’re going after him. That’s it, isn’t it”
“Don’t do this Just tell me that much, Kirk, please. I deserve it”
She laid a hand on his chest. “I promise I won’t make any trouble. I’ll go out to California and wait. For however long it takes” He disengaged himself from her, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and got up.
He padded over to the bureau where he lit a cigarette from his pack, and then went to the window. He could just make out the cathedral and old metropolis. So much old and consistent history here, he thought, whereas his own history was short and anything but coherent. “Is he that important to you, Kirk” she asked from the bed.
She was talking about Kurshin, who was after all nothing more than a handmaiden, nothing more than a tool, while McGarvey was thinking about Bamov. Was the man that important after all-to him or to the geopolitics that Trotter had been spouting? Often he’d asked himself that question, but he’d never come up with a really satisfactory answer, no matter who the target was. If Hitler had been assassinated long before he had come to power, would someone even more monstrous have risen in his stead?
Perhaps a more intelligent man who would have recognized the contribution that German Jews-especially Jewish scientists-could have made to the war effort. Had Einstein been a loyal Third Reich subject (he did love his country) would Germany have developed the atomic bomb first?
We’d made plans to assassinate Fidel Castro using Mafia hit men. That had backfired, and Kennedy had been killed instead. We all but gave our approval when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, but a monster had taken his place. Had Khomeini been killed in Paris, who would have taken over in his stead? McGarvey would forever remember the men he had killed.
Their faces were burned indelibly into his brain. Had their deaths made the slightest difference? He hoped so, but he thought not. “Kirk”
Lorraine said. “Get dressed, I’ll take you out to the airport-“
“Don’t do this”
“I don’t have any choice” he said softly. “None of us do” Someone had said that to him. She was dead now. One of Baranov’s legion of victims.
He wanted to tell Lorraine about her. He had tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen. None of them ever did. “Get dressed” he said again. He heard her getting out of bed and coming across the room to him. He waited for her touch, but it never came. She turned and went into the bathroom, leaving him alone again, as he had been for most of his life.
Turning, he stared at the bathroom door as the water began to run in the shower. He didn’t want it to be the same with her. Not this time. Not ever again.
Lloyd Yablonski was a big, red-faced Polack from Philadelphia who had followed John Trotter to the CIA from the Bureau. He met them in the TWA terminal at the East Hellinikon Airport a few minutes after eight. He and Lorraine shook hands when McGarvey introduced them. “So, you’re to be my baby-sitter” she asked. Yablonski grinned broadly. “The pleasure is all mine, Doctor, believe me” Lorraine smiled despite herself, instantly warming to the man. She sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t get into too much trouble because of what she was planning on doing. But nothing was going to stop her. Nothing.
“Any troubles on the way over” McGarvey asked him. “No, sir. You”
“We’re clean. She wants to stop in Washington”
“Yes, sir. She’s to be the director’s guest for a day or two before we head out to Frisco. “Watch yourself” Yablonski nodded. “You too, sir”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be” McGarvey said, turning back to Lorraine.
She could see the tension in his eyes. He was gone already. In the field, she thought the term was. “Don’t do this, Kirk, please”
“Take care of yourself” he said abruptly and he walked off.
Lorraine watched him head toward the exit. It was now or never, but then she’d never had any trouble being decisive.
“Do you have any aspirins” she asked Yablonski. “No, I don’t. What’s the matter, Doctor, do you have a headache”
“Splitting. Would you get me some? I’ll check my bag through and meet you at the ticket counter” Yablonski hesitated. “I would appreciate it.
Really”
“Sure” he said, and he headed toward the shops on the mezzanine.
Lorraine waited until he was lost in the crowd, and then sprinted across the ticket hall in the same direction McGarvey had gone.
Outside, she was just in time to see him pulling away in a taxi, and she shoved her way past a couple starting to get into the next cab, and scrambled into the backseat, slamming the door. “I want you to follow that taxi, II she told the driver. “The one that just pulled out”
“What, madatne” the driver sputtmd. “That is impossible.”
Lorraine had pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of her purse.
“Twice this if you don’t lose him. This is not illegal, I promise you, but it is very important to me” The driver hesitated only a moment longer, then snatched the bill from her hand and pulled ow into traffic.
Trotter’s safehouse was a whitewashed three-story building with a roof garden just off Askilipiou Street northwest of the city center and not far from the thickly wooded Lykabettoshe entrance was at the head of the stairs off a small, pleasantly sunny courtyard. “Did she get off all right, Kirk” Trotter asked, letting him in. Trotter still walked with a cane. “She wasn’t happy, but Yablonski seemed competent”