“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam ended the satellite phone call.
Tom said, “What did she say?”
“She said it wasn’t in the U.S. waters and both victims are part of the European Union — at least until the British formalize Brexit — so we’re to sit tight and stay out of it.”
Tom raised an incredulous eyebrow. “What do you want to do?”
“Is your father still the admiral of the submarine fleet at Pearl Harbor?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Let’s go see him about what’s going on and what needs to be done.”
Tom grinned. “The admiral, my father, isn’t the type of guy who’s going to bend rules or break state secrets for his family. So, what makes you think he’ll talk?”
“Nothing, but it’s the only lead we’ve got right now. Whatever secret technology just went missing was originally headed for Quonset, Rhode Island. Given they both went missing, and the parts were stolen, after someone went to the trouble to carefully have them transferred by separate modes of transport, I’m guessing, that constitutes a threat to national security.”
“Right. Which means the secretary of defense would have jumped at the opportunity to interrogate you for information.”
“Which she didn’t.”
“You’re right.” Tom shook his head. “Which means, she’s lying and her hands are tied, or possibly, that she’s lying because the U.S. government did something very wrong, and now it wants to cover it up.”
“Either way, we’ll get an answer from your father when we mention the story over a nice family dinner.”
“He won’t break state secrets,” Tom said, emphatically.
Sam shook his head. “It’s all in the telling. We’re not there to pry out information — we’re just catching up because we’re in the area, all we’re going to do is mention the two bizarre circumstances and watch his face.”
“What reason do I give to tell my father that I’m in the area?”
“You need a reason to see your father?”
Tom gave Sam a look that implied not to go there and then shrugged. “Yeah. Don’t you?”
“Touché.”
Sam’s father was a businessman who never took a day off, and family affairs needed to be penciled in as company meetings.
Tom said, “So what are we going to do?”
Sam opened up the internet and pointed to an amateur surfing competition in Oahu… “It looks like we’re finally going on that vacation you’ve always wanted.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Svetlana raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as the captain of the Vostok approached her surveillance room, informed her that her room was being shut down for the next twelve hours, before locking her in the intelligence gathering room.
Buried in the bowels of the hull where the cold fish storage would have been — had the ship really been a fishing trawler — she was used to being locked out of the rest of the ship but being told her surveillance systems would be externally shut down for the next twelve hours was a new one for her.
She didn’t argue with her captain. He outranked her, and after all, the Vostok was an intelligence gathering vessel, if he wanted it to keep secrets, who was she to argue? She could have screamed like a caged animal, but who would listen? After all, the entire surveillance room was covered in a nearly foot-thick layer of soundproof absorbing foam. To listen to the intricate sounds she received, her office needed to be completely isolated. At least it maintained a perfect temperature all year round.
Instead, she watched as each of the complex instruments scattered across the walls of her office, including, an array of technology for long and short-range listening devices, radar, sonar, and satellite hacking equipment, were each prevented from functioning.
She made a coy smile.
Her captain had gone to the trouble of sending divers overboard just to conceal her listening devices and hydrophones with impervious batons. The curiosity piqued her natural interest as an intelligence officer.
What was he up to?
An hour later she heard the obligatory clank of a submarine secretly docking with the hidden chamber at the bottom of the Vostok’s hull.
A memory of the phone call she’d witnessed, in which her captain had spoken with an unknown person who’d offered to sell the USS Omega Deep and its invisibility cloak, flashed up in her mind.
Her heart raced.
Was it possible, as she waited in the dark, the Omega Deep was being transferred to her captain? Who would take it into the custody of the Russian Navy? She doubted it. If that was the case, why had he bothered to make sure she didn’t record the truth?
None of it made sense.
She paced about for a few minutes, wondering what she should be doing. Her consciences twisted in conflict between honor for her country and her integrity with her captain.
In the end, her country won out.
All her external instrument arrays were covered by divers before the submarine approached. But not her internal recording devices.
She grinned.
There was something about a government that knew the value of spending just as much time spying on their own personnel as others.
She smiled, placed her headphones on her head, and pressed play.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Svetlana closed her eyes and listened.
Her hidden listening device relayed what she needed from within the ship. She heard the voice of a man say, “My best man was killed in the process of retrieving the second device.” Svetlana’s well-trained ear recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it.
Her captain appeared unmoved. “That’s unfortunate, but it’s not my problem.”
“It just became your problem,” the stranger replied. “He was paramount to the mission.”
The next voice she heard was her captain’s raised voice. “And what about my fucking submarine?”
The stranger sounded nonplussed, answering almost in a whisper. “What about the submarine? It’s there, where we said it would be.”
“No, you didn’t!” The captain slammed his hand or possibly the stranger’s head against the steel bulkhead wall. “We paid for the submarine to be delivered to us. Where is it?”
“I gave you the location, didn’t I?”
“Sure, but you said you couldn’t move it.”
“No. That’s right. It seems not everyone thought it important to abandon their ship.”
The captain swore and threatened to renege on their original deal.
The stranger said, “You’re not going to do that.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ve brought you a small piece of the material used to line the hull.”
“You brought me a piece of blackbody?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the U.S. military got the last piece?”
“They did. That’s how they built the Omega Cloak. What’s more, I have the detailed engineering schematics for how they did it.”
“And that’s all I need to camouflage my entire ship?”
“Yes and no. I think you’ll find the device is a little more unstable than given credit for…”
“All right. But what about my submarine?”
“It appears someone’s insisted on staying on board and changing the access codes.”
“So, override them!”
“I’m afraid you underestimate the Americans. They didn’t just spend nearly 30 billion on research and development only to turn around and lose it!”