“I’m serious! This isn’t easy.”
“No sex underway,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to the rest. So we’re going to have to figure it out now.”
She could feel his erection push through his pants.
“It’s easy for you,” she said. “You just do what your penis says. I’m the one who has to think for both of us.”
“Then stop thinking.”
She extinguished her thoughts, faced him, and kissed him. Then she made love to him and enjoyed it.
The next morning, romance buzzed in her head. With the wall of secrets separating her from Jake torn down, she entertained fantasies of letting herself fall in love. Then she climbed down the ladder into the Hai Lang and realized it would remain a fantasy.
Rickets is supporting me, she thought. I may still be CIA, and Jake’s still a fugitive from justice.
Following her memorized path, she walked from the torpedo room to her private commanding officer’s quarters. She lowered her white blouse and jeans in a drawer. She tucked her hair under a “Hai Lang” ball cap and slid into a baggy jumpsuit.
A strange sensation crawled up her back as she realized that a confined room within a small submarine would be her home for weeks. With her focus on Hayat’s dossier, the two-day exercise that defeated two Kilos had passed in a blink. But she wondered if she might go batty during a month-long deployment.
She heard a knock on her stateroom door. Expecting Jake, she got up, opened it and tried to sound perky.
“Hi,” she said.
Cigarette smoke wafted into pipes overhead.
“May I come in?” Renard asked.
Puzzled, Olivia stepped back and slid the stateroom’s visitor’s chair in front of the fold out desk. He sat without asking and motioned for her to do the same.
“I don’t know if you intend to arrange my arrest when this is all done,” Renard said, “but your presence aboard makes me believe that you are allied with me until the Hamza is found — if by us or by another ship.”
“The Hamza’s a threat to world security. You’re not.”
“At least for the moment, you mean,” he said.
“I’ve gotten to know Hayat rather well,” she said. “I hope that’s what you’re here to talk about.”
He blew smoke into the overhead.
“For the record, I harbor no malcontent against you. Of course, I did at first, but you are a seductive woman with HIV and were a natural choice as a tool to manipulate Jake.”
“Is everyone just a tool to you?”
“Not everyone,” he said.
“But I am.”
“Please don’t take it personally,” he said. “But you are the only one on this submarine who arrived uninvited.”
“I brought Jake here, didn’t I?”
“And for that, I have trusted you this far.”
Unsure if she would return to the CIA even if it were possible, she lowered her gaze and tried to clear her head.
“But no further,” she said.
“You are CIA in spirit, and I am wanted,” he said.
“That was my past. I have a greater chance of undergoing trial for treason than returning to the CIA.”
“The data the CIA sent you about Hayat suggests that they have not abandoned you,” he said. “Perhaps your role in helping me track down Hayat can serve as redemption?”
The Marlboro’s tip glowed amber as Renard inhaled.
“No matter,” he said. “You are resourceful. I’m certain that you will navigate your future. It is our present that concerns me. Let us speak of Hamid Hayat.”
“I’m only about a quarter of the way through his dossier.”
“Eventually,” Renard said, “I will need every clue into his command style. At the moment, however, I want your confirmation that he’s going to the Indian Ocean. He has a six-day head start, and I have little leeway for error. I’ll need a day to clear the blockade to the east, but after that, I must choose my direction wisely.”
She played scenarios in her head, running down her mental checklist of Hayat’s potential objectives. Unless she could unearth a contradiction in his dossier, the evidence pointed to India.
“I’ll go through this tonight,” she said.
“I would appreciate it,” Renard said. “Be a good tool and study in earnest.”
She scowled.
“I jest,” he said. “Come now. We have several weeks together within this small cylinder. You must capitalize on every opportunity for levity.”
Renard chuckled and passed through the doorway.
“But in all seriousness,” he said, “while you research Hayat, I will have meals brought to you and order the crew to consider your every demand a top priority. I will make haste for the Straits of Malacca. Before I get there, I want to know who he is, where he’s going, and why. I do not jest when I say that I want to know what he ate for breakfast the day I engage him.”
“You’re asking a lot,” she said.
“And you my dear,” he said and blew smoke. “You are capable of a lot.”
He reached to close the door.
“For a tool,” she said.
“Touché,” he said.
The Hawaii tilted under Commander Rodriguez. Two sailors in blue cotton jumpsuits approached, one watching the other as he carried a communiqué folder.
“Commanding officer’s eyes only,” a sailor said.
“I got it,” Rodriguez said. “Thank you.”
He accepted the folder, and opened it as the men turned away. The air became heavy as Rodriguez noticed his executive officer creeping up beside him.
“What’s it say, sir?” Jones asked.
“Just give an old man a second,” Rodriguez said.
He lifted reading glasses from his pocket, slid them over his nose, and read.
“Well the good news is that Taiwan has confirmed that the Hai Lang is nowhere near us.”
“So we’ve been trailing the Hamza?” Jones asked.
“It seems that Pakistan is being tight-lipped about the location of its submarines. They stated that most of its units are deployed on naval exercises but won’t give more detail.”
“Nor do they have to, sir, by any agreement.”
“What we do have, though, is the process of elimination. We had satellite photographs of the other Pakistani submarines leaving port in the last couple weeks. They couldn’t possibly have reached this far east. It’s got to be the Hamza.”
Jones bent forward, although the motion looked more like a balloon twisting.
“That means we know who he is and where he started,” Jones said while tapping a keyboard. “Starting him in Ningbo makes it look even more like he’s in direct transit toward Hawaii.”
“That’s what I told squadron,” Rodriguez said. “They know. No need to tell them twice.”
“You don’t seem too thrilled, sir.”
Rodriguez grunted and bounced his fist on the railing surrounding the Hawaii’s elevated conning platform.
“I’m not. Our orders are to trail him to Hawaii.”
“Sounds like the cat and mouse Cold War games of the good old days, sir. And we’re in total control.”
“Of a game,” Rodriguez said. “But what if it’s not only a game?”
“Then we have to trust that someone with a little guts squeezes the truth out of some Pakistani diplomat.”
“Without tipping our hand that we’re trailing the Hamza?” Rodriguez asked. “That’s tough.”
“That’s what those people in Washington get paid to do, sir.” Jones said. “I wouldn’t worry about it. We’ve got him dead to rights anyway.”