Jake felt happy until he remembered that the career move to submarines had led him to the accident that had left the damage lurking inside him that no one else could see.
Two hours later, Jake stared at tortilla crumbs, empty shot glasses, and beer pitchers. A waitress cleared the mess and took an order for two more pitchers and a plate of nachos.
Feeling his mind melting into a puddle of beer and tequila, Jake drifted in and out of a conversation about hockey returning to Hartford, but he woke up at the mention of a single word.
“…Severodvinsk,” Lieutenant Keller said.
“I read about the ‘Miami-Severodvinsk Encounter’ in the top-secret publications,” Jake said. “I didn’t expect to hear about it here.”
“When you get Miami sailors around pitchers of beer, you’re going to hear about it.”
“Eighteen months ago,” a bleary-eyed Brody said, “the technologically advanced superstar Russian Severodvinsk submarine went on its maiden deployment. So we sent the Virginia to spy on the bastard, but the Virginia had reactor problems and had to limp home on its diesel.”
“The Virginia had reactor circuitry failure after they botched some maintenance, and that’s end game for the reactor,” Keller said, “but it gave us a chance to kick ass!”
“We were deployed in the Atlantic when we got the radio message to take over the hunt,” Brody said. “I knew the Severodvinsk would be quiet, but it turns out this thing was practically a ghost.
“That Severodvinsk had all the newest goodies — updated hydrophone hardware and data processing. But we still kicked its butt. And I’ll tell you how. We outsmarted him, and we were better trained.
“I figured the Severodvinsk would conduct training attacks against the Truman battle group that was transiting to the Mediterranean. Russians still can’t resist stalking aircraft carriers. If they can still do it, they can sell the hardware and training to plenty of buyers.
“So I estimated an intercept course and waited on the Russian’s track. Then I slowed the Miami to reduce our noise signature and to listen. I caught that Severodvinsk moving by us at fifteen knots.”
The waitress returned with beer and nachos. Brody took a long swallow.
“We were taking in frequency data, sound power level, direction, screw blade rate and even heard his hull pop as it expanded when he ascended to periscope depth,” Brody said. “We had this guy nailed.
“Then we radioed in his position. The helicopters from the Truman used their dipping sonar to play ping-pong with him. The Russian had to turn tail and sprint home!”
Beer glasses clanked, Jake paid the bill, and the group staggered onto the curb in search of a taxi.
During the ride home, Jake regretted that his mentor, Brody, the legend of the ‘Miami-Severodvinsk Encounter’, had been passed over for promotion, reduced to heavy drinking, and now faced a failing marriage.
Everything he had believed about patriotism and the United States Navy imploded and filled him with rage. In his revenge, he would take no prisoners.
CHAPTER 6
The next day, Jake blew off steam at his tai kwon do dojang studio. It was almost midnight.
He bounced on the balls of his feet. A springy carpet energized him as he envisioned a face on a kicking bag. The top of his bare foot struck padded vinyl. The thump echoed. Jake imagined his victim doubling over in pain.
He jumped back and pulled his knee to his chest. Whipping his torso toward his imaginary target, he slashed a foot across the bag. The imaginary victim dropped to a knee.
“Get up,” he said.
Bouncing, Jake adjusted the black belt around his waist and pulled up the white pants of his dobak uniform.
“Get up!”
Jake’s heel sent the bag into orbit. As the bag swung back, he unleashed a flurry of kicks to an imaginary jaw until he was exhausted.
Heaving and muscles burning, Jake slumped to the ground. Wheezing, he clasped his fingers atop his head and raised his rib cage to let his lungs expand. As his breathing quieted, he listened to the silence.
Glaring at the kicking bag, Jake took a last look at the target of his anger: Commander Thomas Henry, the commanding officer of the USS Colorado. What had happened to him had been no accident.
Jake craved revenge, but violence alone would not satisfy him. He wanted to ruin Henry without spending the rest of his life in jail and needed a better method than mock beatings to help him even the score.
At Jacksonville International Airport, Pierre Renard’s lover and assistant, Marie Broyer, slid into the driver’s seat of a rental Taurus. A few turns led her to I-95 northbound where she let cars pass as she admired the greenery lining the four-lane highway.
Educated at the Sorbonne, Marie had never done spy work, but Renard assured her that her charm and tact were sufficient qualifications. Now she would find out if he was right.
Five minutes after crossing into Georgia, Marie brought the Taurus down a subdivision’s entry road, drove by small houses and arrived at 1206. She noticed a Jeep Grand Cherokee in the open garage and committed the license number to memory.
She rounded a cul-de-sac and passed the house again. She would find a hotel and sleep. At night she would return to the main road to await the Jeep. If it came, she would trail it to a bar or restaurant where she could approach the lieutenant.
Her heart skipped a beat as she glanced in her rearview mirror. The Jeep had backed out of the garage. Fearing that Slate had seen her, she accelerated.
The Grand Cherokee reached the intersection behind her but turned the other way. She circled through the gravel shoulder and followed Jake onto I-95 southbound. After twenty minutes, his right turn signal flashed. Marie smiled as she followed him, retracing her path to the airport.
She parked near Jake’s Jeep and followed him on foot to the terminal. She had committed his image to memory. He had broad shoulders and a thin waist. His jaw line was strong.
A woman could not fail to recognize him, she thought.
He approached the ticket desk, and she moved closer, hoping he would stop, but instead he went straight to the security line.
Marie studied the departures. Only three flights were leaving Jacksonville within the hour — one each for New York, Chicago, and Denver — and Jake Slate looked like the type of man who wouldn’t waste time playing it safe by arriving early for a later flight.
She gambled and bought a first-class ticket for a flight to Chicago that was departing in thirty minutes.
After passing through security, she looked for Jake. She had guessed right. He was waiting for the flight to O’Hare International Airport.
Exhausted from a day that had begun twenty-eight hours earlier in Paris, she boarded the 737. Once seated in a first-class chair, she fell immediately asleep.
At the airport, Marie deplaned and waited for Jake at a magazine stand. As he approached, she lowered her face.
He passed, and she followed him through the twists and turns of O’Hare to the elevated subway. Boarding the train, she worked her way forward car by car until she found him. Then she retreated and sat one car back.
Thirty minutes later the train stopped, and Marie followed Jake onto a wooden platform and down stairs to the corner of State and Lake.
Reaching street level, she saw Jake turn east onto Lake Street, and she broke into a trot to close distance. A heel slipped out from under her, and her ankle bent over. She mumbled an obscenity, wiggled her foot, and placed weight on it.