As it rippled outward from the detonation point, the shockwave’s power fell off rapidly, but even miles from the center, it was still strong enough to hurl the seaplane into a left-hand spin. Thrown suddenly out of control, the CL-415 corkscrewed down out of the sky.
Watching the ocean and sky whirling across her cockpit canopy with dizzying speed, Van Horn reacted instantly. One hand slammed both engine throttles back to idle. The only way out of this spin was to get her plane’s nose down and fly out it. Powering up would only make things worse, since it would tend to raise the aircraft’s nose. Next, she brought her ailerons to their neutral position, and applied right rudder to reduce the CL-415’s rolling and yawing movement as it twisted down out toward the sea.
Her final move was the most counterintuitive of all. Even though it felt as though they were falling straight out of the sky, she shoved her yoke forward — deliberately lowering the seaplane’s nose to reduce its angle of attack. For long seconds as they kept spinning, she was afraid her various measures weren’t going to work, at least not in time to stop them from crashing into the Atlantic.
But then the spin slowed and finally stopped. With her aircraft back under control, Van Horn quickly zeroed out her rudder, pulled back gently on the yoke, and carefully added power to level out the heavy twin-engine seaplane only a few feet above the white, foaming sea. Breathing heavily, she regained altitude and flew on.
At a thousand feet, she risked a glance over her shoulder into the cramped passenger cabin behind the cockpit. “Everybody okay?” she called out cheerfully.
Shaken, Flynn and the others slowly disentangled themselves from where they’d been thrown. Hynes looked at her reproachfully. “You know, ma’am, when you said that takeoff would be a little rough, I figured you were just exaggerating.”
“Mea culpa,” she said with a crooked grin. “But that little joyride wasn’t entirely my fault.” She banked the CL-415 around so that they could all see the vast seething cauldron below. “When you guys set out to sink a ship, you sure don’t screw around.”
Flynn whistled softly, staring at the foaming turmoil below. He shook his head in astonishment. “I guess not.” He looked back at her. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That we just saw that Russian warhead go off?” Van Horn said. “Uh-huh, that’s what I’m thinking.” Her expression turned serious. “And, Nick?”
“Yeah,” he said absently, still watching the ocean boil below them.
“I’m damned glad it went off out here. And not over the United States,” she said softly. “You and your guys did good today. Really good. No one died in vain.”
Having made her point, Van Horn turned back to the west and advanced her throttles to full power. The thundering roar of the two big Pratt & Whitney turboprops grew louder. She’d seen the grave look on the medic’s face while he kept working on the seriously wounded Tadeusz Kossak. The sooner she got them all back on the ground, the happier she would be. She’d lost two of her Quartet Directorate comrades that day. She wouldn’t lose any more. Not if she could possibly help it.
Epilogue
Nervously, President Piotr Zhdanov lit another cigarette. He took a single deep drag and then, viciously, ground the cigarette to ash on the polished table in front of him. For a time, he stared down at his hands before looking up again to glower at the group of senior military officers and government officials arrayed around the conference table. “Well?” he grated out. “What the devil is going on?”
Now there was a foolish question, Pavel Voronin thought with carefully concealed contempt from his place beside the older man. Zhdanov knew full well that no one in this subterranean room had any more information than he did at this instant. Fragmentary signals from the Podmoskovye had indicated that something had gone badly wrong in the final stages of MIDNIGHT. But for long minutes now, there had been only silence from the submarine. And so far, all efforts to reestablish contact with Nakhimov and his crew through Russia’s network of military communications satellites had failed.
A secure phone buzzed sharply next to Gennadiy Kokorin, the elderly minister of defense. He picked up. “Yes?” Slowly, his face turned pale. “I see,” he said at last. “I’ll relay the news to the president.” He hung up and looked at Zhdanov. “Piotr, our EKS missile warning satellites have just detected an underwater nuclear detonation in the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Show me!” Zhdanov snapped.
Kokorin murmured to one of his aides. The younger officer input commands on his computer. In response, an icon appeared on the large digital map displayed on the wall screen. It matched the last known location of both their strangely silent nuclear submarine and the Gulf Venture.
For a long, almost unbearable moment there was absolute silence in the room as Zhdanov and Voronin absorbed the catastrophic news. Somehow, their carefully laid and intricate plan to cripple the United States and permanently alter the balance of power in both the Middle East and the world itself had been wrecked.
At last, the president turned his baleful gaze toward Kokorin. “Signal the Forty-Second Rocket Division to stand its missiles down,” he snarled. “There will be no ‘retaliatory’ nuclear attack against Iran.”
Kokorin nodded gravely. “Yes, Piotr.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any other orders for us tonight?”
Zhdanov turned pale with barely suppressed rage. “Only one.” He gestured curtly toward the exit. “Get out. All of you. Now.” He swung his head to Voronin. “Except you, Pavel. You will stay.”
Ah, Voronin thought calmly. The moment of maximum risk. The moment of truth. He kept his countenance while all the rest of them filed out the room.
When they were alone, Zhdanov stared icily at him. “Well?” he demanded. “What now?”
Aware that he was now on very dangerous ground, Voronin projected an air of complete confidence. “True, the destruction of the Podmoskovye is a blow, but our navy has more such submarines in its arsenal, does it not? And wars, after all, cannot be fought and won without casualties.” He looked straight at the older man. “Today, we may have lost a hand,” he continued coolly. “However, the great game goes on. Our enemies were lucky this time. But they have to be lucky every time. We do not.”
Slowly, Zhdanov nodded. MIDNIGHT was not the only aggressive scheme Voronin had proposed. In the undeclared shadow war that he and the younger man’s Raven Syndicate were now waging against the United States and its allies, the side on offense had the edge. Sooner or later, one of their deadly covert operations was bound to penetrate the West’s defenses. His mood shift was apparent.
Privately, though, despite his outwardly calm demeanor, Voronin felt a wave of cold rage welling up deep inside. The failure of MIDNIGHT had cost him dearly — in money, in the loss of many of his most experienced and best trained agents, and, most bitterly of all, in prestige. His enemies in Zhdanov’s inner circle would undoubtedly try to use this setback in a bid to discredit him. For now, he was confident of his ability to retain the president’s trust, but he knew only too well that Russia’s ruler had limited patience with those whose promises went unfulfilled. Before that day came, it was vital that he hunt down whoever was responsible for inflicting this unexpected defeat on him. He would hunt them down, he vowed… and then he would destroy them utterly.