“I think he’s missed us, boys,” he whispered.
Just then, the XO returned.
“Sir, it was a small grease fire in the galley. Nothing’s been damaged.”
“Captain, the cutter’s engines just came back online. She’s gaining seaway.”
“Is she turning?”
The wait seemed endless, but the young sailor suddenly turned to look at his captain, a big grin splitting his face. “She’s headed due south and is already up to eight knots.”
“Well done, everyone,” the captain said in an almost normal tone of voice. He looked over at the stoic face of Admiral Pytor Kenin. He wasn’t sure what to expect, so he was pleasantly surprised that the man gave him a grudging nod of respect.
Kenin had been leaning against a bulkhead and suddenly pushed himself erect and called out, “Evolution complete.”
The red battle lights clicked off, and overhead lamps bathed the sub’s control room in stark white light. Technicians who’d been unseen moments before entered the space to check on equipment, while the sailors manning the various stations got up from their seats. Their bodies were as exhausted and tensed up as if this had been a real encounter and not a training exercise. And yet there was a feeling of self-satisfaction among them for a job well done.
“Congratulations, Captain Escobar,” Kenin said when he reached the man’s side, a hand extended for a shake. He spoke English, the only language the two men shared.
“For a moment I thought we had failed,” Jesus Escobar admitted. “A most inopportune time for a simulated fire.”
“A good sub captain can handle one crisis at a time; the great ones can handle more.”
Escobar allowed himself a smile at the compliment.
Kenin continued, “This completes your training, Captain. You and your men are ready to put to sea.”
“The cartel will be pleased to hear that. They’ve spent a great deal of money on this venture, and it is now time that our new toy be put to use.”
“Didn’t you tell me when you arrived here at Sakhalin that you would need just two runs up to California from Colombia for your cartel to turn a profit?”
“Yes,” Escobar replied, smoothing down his dark mustache. “With just a skeleton crew and enough fuel for the trip up and back, we can load several hundred tons of cocaine into this boat.”
“You’ve proven to me that you will manage much more than two runs, my friend.” Kenin threw an arm around Escobar’s shoulder, which emphasized the physical difference between the two. Where the Colombian narco-trafficker was built like most submariners, five foot six and lean of muscle, the Russian admiral brushed the ceiling at six foot three. He was a typical bear of a man, solidly built and possessing an iron constitution. “Tonight I will hold a celebration in honor of you and your men and the three long months you’ve trained here. Tomorrow you will sleep that off, and tomorrow night, under cover of darkness, we will release your boat from the floating dry dock and you will head home.”
“You do us an honor, Admiral.”
“Debrief your men, Captain, and I will see you later.”
Kenin turned to climb the ladder up into the Tango’s sail, where one of his men waited to open the outer hatch. The simulation had lasted for nearly five hours, and Kenin was desperate for some fresh air, but he would have to wait a while longer. The 300-foot sub lay in the bowels of a fully enclosed floating dry dock nearly three times its size, which itself was docked at a near-derelict Navy station that Kenin used as his own private domain. He dropped down an exterior ladder and crossed a movable ramp to a catwalk that ran the length of the dry dock. The cavernous space smelled of the sea on which the Tango floated, oil, and rust. Powerful lights on the ceiling could do little to dispel the gloom.
He walked with a long-legged, hurried stride, as was his custom, and reached a flight of stairs that would take him to an exterior hatch. It was only when he passed through that door and stepped onto the open deck that he filled his lungs with air. The sun had long since set, and the breeze was freshening. The temperature stood at about forty degrees, and he knew from experience that once winter hit, minus forty would be the norm.
Another ramp led to the old Navy pier. The dock was failing concrete and frost-heaved pavement with gnarls of weeds growing wherever the cracks allowed. Obscuring his view landward were dilapidated warehouses whose paint had long been scoured off by the winds that shrieked down from Siberia. A car was waiting for him, its driver standing erect at the first sign of Kenin’s emergence from the dock.
The man saluted smartly and opened the rear door. Kenin slid into the rich leather seat and immediately pulled his encrypted cell phone from his pocket. There was no signal inside the sub, and he’d missed a dozen calls. For now he’d return just one, from his aide-de-camp, Commander Viktor Gogol.
“Gogol, it’s Kenin.”
“Admiral, how did it go?”
“They’ll sail tomorrow night.”
“I’ve been assured by the dockworkers that the device is ready,” Gogol said.
“How the Colombians ever thought I would allow them to buy a surplus submarine to haul cocaine to America is beyond me. Escobar seems capable enough, but the U.S. Navy would be on him five minutes after he left South America. It takes years to properly train a crew to evade American sonar. These fools actually think they’ve mastered their boat in just three months.”
“If you recall, Admiral, originally they wanted just a week of instruction before they took possession of the boat.”
“I do recall. They wouldn’t even have known how to get her out of dry dock. Like I said, they’re fools. It’s better this way. The cartel will make their final payment to me just before the sub sails, and then when it dives to a depth of two hundred feet, the ballast intakes will jam open and it will sink to the bottom of the Pacific. No witnesses, and no blowback from the cartel. So tell me, Viktor, why did you call?”
“We have a problem,” Gogol said in such a way that Kenin leaned forward.
“Go on.”
“Borodin has escaped.”
Kenin went from contentment to rage as though a switch had been thrown. “What? How did this happen?”
“A new prisoner was brought in, part of a routine transfer. It appears that this man was an impostor sent to free Borodin. He somehow smuggled in explosives. They blasted their way out of the prison and had a helicopter waiting to pick them up.”
Rage couldn’t describe the emotions welling up from the void in his chest where normal men had a heart. “Go on,” he said with his teeth tightly clenched.
“The prison launched their own chopper in pursuit and shot down the first aircraft. When they investigated, they discovered that the helicopter was remotely piloted. There was no sign of Borodin or the fake prisoner. When they backtracked, they discovered a set of snowmobile tracks heading north. The last anyone heard from them was during the pursuit.”
“What do you mean the last anyone heard from them?”
“Sir, this happened three hours ago. There has been no word from the flight crew. Another chopper has been searching, but there’s been no sign. They fear it either crashed or was shot down over water and sank.”
Pytor Kenin hadn’t achieved the rank of admiral or created for himself a private army within Russia’s military without being both bold and ruthless, and never was he at a loss for decisions. “The guards who let the prisoner smuggle in explosives, I want them jailed immediately. Put them in general population, and let the inmates mete out our justice on them. I want the warden replaced immediately, and I want that man in my office when I return to Moscow.”
“Yes, sir,” Gogol replied.
Kenin went on. “We have to assume Borodin made it aboard some waiting ship. Track all known vessels that were in the area, where they came from, who owns them, everything.”