He knew she had a point. “Alright. Let’s remember Murmansk for the good times.”
“But not the cold.”
“Not the cold.”
After a long pause, she asked, “Where do we go from here?”
He explained what he had heard from the Agency, leaving out most of the details.
“That’s just a little more than six hours from now,” she said. “You need to make love to me.”
Karl was already hard. “Way ahead of you.” He rolled onto her and she drew him into her wetness. They moved together under the fan in the Aruban hotel, until they were both satisfied. Then they lay together in an embrace. Maya fell asleep first, and Karl pulled himself from her grasp.
He stared up at the fan and considered everything that had happened since Murmansk, through to the events of the evening. Karl wondered what his father would do under these circumstances. Probably exactly what he was doing.
What the hell were the Russians up to? Why potentially provoke a confrontation at this time? He thought about a chess board, and how a great player didn’t just think many moves ahead of his opponent, he would bait his opposition by moving a high-value piece into a vulnerable position — perhaps to be taken by a pawn. Once the other player took the bait, the chess master would move in for the kill, anticipating every potential move. He just hoped like hell he wasn’t the useful pawn.
19
Lt. Commander Rita Carlson woke to the sound of Waylon Jennings singing I’ve Always Been Crazy. She skipped the shower for now, since she had to work out down in the hangar bay for at least a half hour. After twenty minutes, she was beating the crap out of a heavy bag, sweating like a junkie going cold turkey, when she noticed the hatch open and the captain heading her way. She continued her relentless pounding until he stopped and stared at her, as if he noticed for the first time that she was not a delicate society woman that he was used to from the east coast.
She gave one last right cross and then hugged the bag. “You want a go at this?” she asked the captain.
Commander Wockovich laughed. “Afraid not, Rita. We have to talk. My cabin.” He started to leave but stopped. “Shower first.”
No, shit, she thought. “Aye, aye, captain.”
“Smart ass,” he mumbled and left again through the hatch.
Rita took a quick Navy shower and threw on her Navy blue digital camo BDUs. She was forced to quickly braid her blonde hair and pull it up to the back of her head while still wet. Then she went next door to the captain’s quarters.
Commander Wockovich was at his desk viewing something on his laptop. But he lowered the cover and turned his chair to her. “Take a seat, Rita.”
She pulled up a spare gray metal chair and took a seat. “What’s up, sir?”
“We’re alone. You can call me Randy.”
She knew that. He had told her the same thing since she came aboard the McGrath months ago. But she had been taught long before the Navy to use sir with her superiors. She simply nodded agreement.
“We just got word from Fourth Fleet about our mission,” the captain said. When she said nothing, he continued, “We’re to rendezvous with a Russian merchant ship at the coordinates they gave us.”
This was surprising. Especially since they were in the middle of the southern North Atlantic. “What’s the point?”
“They haven’t given us all the details yet,” he said. “The ship departed Murmansk destined for Sao Tome and Principe off the central African coast.”
“Where the hell is that?” she asked.
“Just off the coast of Gabon. Portuguese settled it originally. Heavy into oil now, with Russian interests.”
“But? There’s always a but.”
“Right. The Russian ship is way off course to that destination. The intelligence community is involved. They think the Russians aren’t just carrying oil production equipment on that ship.”
“Let me guess. Russian arms to some radical assholes?”
“Perhaps. But there’s more to the story.”
“I told you. Always a but.”
“Right. Anyway, the CIA has video evidence that the Russians loaded a mobile missile aboard this ship.”
“Nuclear?” she asked.
“That’s what it looked like to them. They think it’s an updated version of the old SS-20 Saber.”
“There’s an oldie but a goodie. I thought those were obsolete.”
“Supposed to be. They were eliminated under the INF Treaty in the eighties. But the Russians have a tendency to ignore these things. Besides, if it’s a different missile they would not have to comply with that treaty.”
“That’s splitting the baby,” she concluded. “More importantly, what the hell do they want us to do about it in international waters?”
“They want us to simply monitor the ship for now. Nothing more.”
Rita ran this information through her mind. The Russians did nothing for no reason. They had some grand scheme, she was sure. “What do we tell our crew?”
“Nothing yet,” the captain said.
The obvious question had not yet been asked. “What do you think the Russians have planned with that missile?” she asked.
The captain shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“If they plan on basing a mobile nuke on a transporter erector launcher in this hemisphere, then we should have a major problem with that.”
“I agree. The range could be four thousand miles. I’m sure someone higher up the food chain than us is figuring out the significance of that possibility.”
“From Cuba, they could hit damn near anywhere in America,” she said.
“I don’t think the Russians would try that again,” the captain said.
“Maybe not. But they could put that on any island in the Caribbean or even South America. They could even launch it from a ship.”
“Crap. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“What if this is a coordinated attack scenario?” she asked.
“You mean they could have missiles on other ships close to America?”
Rita shrugged. “Maybe not just America. What if this is just the tip of the iceberg? What if they have loaded a missile on a hundred ships worldwide and are set to make an attack on us and our allies simultaneously?”
“That’s a lot of ifs. My guess is that one of our intelligence agencies would have noticed more than just this one ship getting a nuke loaded aboard.”
“Maybe they did and are just not telling us,” she surmised.
“Okay. Join me for morning chow and then we’ll head to CIC and find the target ship.”
“Sounds good. I could eat.”
Rita followed the captain down to the officers’ mess, her mind a jumble with these recent revelations.
Dmitri Vladimirovich Samsonov paced his small cabin, holding onto his SAT phone with both hands. He had just gotten off a secure call from his headquarters in Moscow, and he was not happy with what he had just found out. The GRU was not normally prone to hyperbole. They were more likely to underreact than overreact. But this news was disturbing. Now he had no choice. He needed to brief the ship’s captain, Viktor Drugov. How the man reacted would depend on a number of factors. However, if his reaction was poor, he could find himself looking for a flotation device.
Dmitri locked up his SAT phone in his private safe and headed toward the bridge.
The captain was standing on the starboard side viewing the horizon as the sun rose on his back. The only other man on the bridge was the young man steering the ship. But even this man wasn’t really needed, since these ships could go just about anywhere on autopilot.