She rummaged through underwear and toiletries and pinched a phone receiver between her shoulder and ear.
“How much of that did you hear?” she asked.
“Enough,” Robert said. “I don’t like it.”
“What can he do to me on the road that he can’t do here?”
“Who knows? It won’t take much if you’re doing high-speed turns in tight mountain roads. This is dangerous.”
“This mission’s dangerous. Life’s dangerous. Just cover me the best you can.”
“You think I’m going to keep up with you in a Renault Scénic hatchback?”
She grunted as the cap popped off her toothpaste and smeared a pair of panties.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m making a mess. He’ll be back with my bike soon.”
“I don’t like my options for keeping an eye on you while you’re tearing through mountain roads on one of the fastest stock motorcycles in the world.”
“We’ll take breaks. Your shoulders get tired riding hard. If he doesn’t stop enough, I’ll ask him to.”
She intuited that Robert was thinking through scenarios. She knew he was a genius at visualizing risks that CIA field officers could face.
“I’ll contact the field office in Geneva,” he said. “We can get some help. We have high enough priority. We need a helicopter, too. The local authorities should cough one up if I can get the right people talking.”
“Okay.”
“And when’s the last time you rode?” he asked.
“About four years ago.”
“Here’s the plan,” he said. “You buy a day to practice riding that rocket he’s renting you. I need the time to arrange your backup, and you need the practice.”
“Fine,” she said. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“It’s the least you can do after agreeing to this.”
With the extra day to prepare, she gave up on the toothpaste and released the tube.
“I know you don’t see it, but this is the right thing. It just feels right.”
“Your feelings are what bother me. He’s not your lover. He’s your pawn. Don’t forget that.”
She raised her voice.
“I know what I’m doing!”
She hung up, dropped the phone to her mattress, and cupped her head in her hands.
“No I don’t,” she said.
CHAPTER 12
Hayat swallowed bitter pills with a mouthful of water. A middle-aged man, his handpicked corpsman, took his empty plastic cup and gazed with concern.
“Captain,” the corpsman said, “I see the pain in your face increasing daily. We must increase your dosage.”
I brought this pain upon myself by turning my back on Allah, Hayat thought.
“What are the risks?” Hayat asked.
“Codeine poses an addiction risk, but we need only fear the acute lethal dose. You are far from it.”
“I do not want my thoughts clouded,” Hayat said.
“Let me maintain the dosage at sixty milligrams but double the frequency. This will minimize the effect of a high dose but will keep the concentration in your blood high. I can have pills dissolved in your tea to keep it discreet.”
Nausea swelled throughout Hayat’s chest. He cringed and waited for the sensation to pass.
“Very well,” Hayat said.
“I also want you to drink the bismuth fluid.”
“And how would you hide that from the crew?”
“Private doses when in your stateroom. While you are elsewhere, perhaps I can hide it in your food or drink.”
“You will think of something,” Hayat said. “You are a resourceful man.”
Hayat sent the corpsman from his stateroom. A bell jingled on the wall, and he picked up a phone receiver.
“Captain,” he said.
“Sir,” Raja said, “I request permission to take the ship to periscope depth and attempt a message download.”
Hayat glanced at the wall clock and realized that all but a handful of his crew were sleeping.
“Very well,” he said. “Ascend to periscope depth.”
He left his stateroom and followed the tight passageway forward. With Raja taking the ship shallow, Hayat stabilized himself against the tilting deck. Stopping short of the watertight door, he sat before electronic modules and reached for a keyboard.
He called up a screen that controlled the interface between radio mast downloads and the operations room, and then he typed a message header that indicated urgent traffic from squadron command destined for his eyes only.
Sliding a compact disk into the radio console, he launched an encryption scheme. He formatted the message like a formal naval template but typed gibberish into the body and scrambled it.
He pushed the message to the front of the queue and smirked as he noticed a real message being downloaded. He released his fabricated message to the operations room but froze the real message from Karachi at his console.
The unencrypted message from Karachi demanded that he contact squadron command and return to port immediately. He deleted the message, returned to his stateroom, and waited.
His phone jingled.
“Captain,” he said.
“Sir,” Raja said, “I have an urgent message from squadron command. For your eyes only — the body is encrypted.”
He walked forward again, opened a watertight door, and set foot in the Hamza’s operations room.
Automation permitted him a small crew of thirty-six men, and he noted this manning advantage in the ship’s nerve center.
The French-designed Subtics — submarine tactical integrated combat system — simplified the housekeeping and the dissection of data to track, analyze, and attack adversaries. It permitted few men to achieve with efficiency what used to require dozens.
With the Subtics automation, his minimal midnight watch crew consisted of five men. Raja stood behind the periscope, a chief petty officer sat beside a sailor at the ship’s control panel, and two sailors sat side by side on a long row of seats spanning the six Subtics displays along the hull.
“Welcome, sir,” Raja said.
“Lieutenant Commander Raja,” Hayat said and nodded.
A sailor stood and walked to a compact disk burner. He withdrew the disk, encased it, and extended it to Hayat.
“Your message, sir,” he said.
The sailor’s body language and vocal pitch carried confidence. Hayat sensed that his crew believed in their ship, their abilities to fight, and — most importantly — their captain. He banked that they’d follow him anywhere.
“Another urgent message from Karachi?” Hayat asked.
“Yes, sir,” the sailor said. “We’re seeing a lot of them lately. There must be some action headed our way.”
“Let me decode it on my stateroom laptop,” Hayat said, “and perhaps I will have news to share.”
Hayat returned to his stateroom, placed the disk on his desk, and drank from a bottle of bismuth fluid. He flipped open a leather-bound copy of the Qu’ ran and read a chapter.
He closed the book and returned to the operations room. Expecting news, each man on watch turned to him except for Raja, who kept his eye on the periscope optics.
“Lieutenant Commander Raja,” he said. “I relieve you of the deck.”
Raja released the periscope.
“I stand relieved, sir.”
Hayat handed Raja the compact disk.
“The orders require your concurrence,” Hayat said. “I decoded my half of the message, but you need to decrypt your portion with your personal codes.”
As Raja stepped away, Hayat placed his eye against the periscope optics. The Western Pacific Ocean’s placid waves shimmered in the moonlight.
“Shifting periscope to automated mode,” Hayat said.
He steadied the elevation angle and pressed a button on the periscope control console. Electronic relays snapped shut, valves porting hydraulic fluid clicked, and the periscope twirled a full revolution.
A printer produced a panoramic image of the world above the Hamza, and Hayat lowered the periscope. As he studied the image of the ocean’s surface and convinced himself the Hamza was alone, the chief petty officer spoke.
“Sir,” the chief said, “do you wish to stay at periscope depth? Since the MESMA propulsion unit is secured, perhaps we should snorkel.”
“We have enough battery charge to last the night,” Hayat said. “Let the resting men remain asleep.”
The chief pointed at a meter and instructed the sailor seated beside him to pump water overboard from the ship’s centerline tank. He returned his attention to Hayat.
“Do you need to broadcast a response to your message, sir?” he asked. “I’m holding depth easily.”
“No,” Hayat said. “We are out of range for a secure transmission, and our mission parameters include remaining undetected. Lower the radio mast and make your depth fifty meters.”
Hayat grabbed a polished rail for balance as the Hamza dipped forward. Raja passed through the watertight door.
“These orders are indeed urgent, sir,” he said.
“We’ll announce them to the crew in the morning. If we tell them now, none would be able to fall back to sleep, and I want a rested crew to carry out these orders.”