Arctic Gold (39 page)

I don’t know, McMillan said. There was no love lost between those guys. Scientists and nutcase environmentalists. It was bad news, believe me.

You’re not serious!

She smiled. No, I honestly don’t think Commander Larson would have killed anyone not even someone as annoying as Richardson.

If it any consolation, the rest of the expedition people were being evacuated off the Lebedev

about the time I ran into you and Golytsin.

That good. She folded her arms and shivered. The storeroom was cold. Dean went to a storage shelf, pulled down a military- style wool blanket, and draped it over her shoulders. Thank you. Aren’t you cold?

He shook his head. This dry suit almost too warm. He was eyeing the door, the bulkheads, the overhead. We need to think of a way to get out of here.

I don’t suppose you brought along any James Bond gadgets? A thimble- sized laser to cut through the door, maybe? An origami flamethrower?

Dean made a face. Gadgets have their place, I suppose, he said. But the only thing that essential

is right here. He tapped his forehead.

In fact, Dean was wishing he’d brought along somethingthe components of a binary explosive, for instance, with which he could have shattered the lock. Lacking that, however, the possibilities included finding something here in the storeroom that would help them break outunlikelyand waiting for the bad guys to show up and overpower them.

Let check those crates and see what we have to work with, he said.

SSGN Ohio

Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1120 hours, GMT12

You knew

those guys weren’t going to shoot at us, Skipper! Lieutenant Dolby said. How?

Grenville gave a modest shrug. They zipped past south to north, pulled a major U- turn, and came straight back for us, north to south. But on that bearing, the Lebedev was between us and them. At their altitude, they weren’t about to drop anything nasty, not without hitting their own people. Hell, they were lucky if they didn’t clip the Lebedev

mast.

The Ohio

drifted once again in her preferred world, the abyssal deep, her screw turning over just enough to give her way.

Grenville picked up a microphone and keyed it. Sonar, this is the captain.

Sonar, aye, came the immediate response.

Talk to me, Chief. What out there?

It pretty much a hash, sir, Sonar Chief Kevin Mayhew replied. Ice grinding. Lots of incidentals from the Russian ships. There was a puzzled hesitation. I I think they’re cheering over there.

You can hear that, Mayhew?

That what it sounds like, sir.

What about submarines?

We had two on the waterfall for a while there, sir. Sierra One- one- five was the midget. The library tagged Sierra One- one- six as a probable Victor III. Right now, they’re both shut down. Not a thing on the boards.

Any sign of the Pittsburgh

?

Sir, they could be right alongside and all we’d hear would be the hole in the water.

Well, do your best listening, understand? I want to know the moment you hear a shrimp fart.

Shrimp fart. Aye, aye, sir.

The Ohio

had been in terrible danger while exposed on the surface. She might pack 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles in her vertical launch tubes, capable of striking targets fifteen hundred miles away, but she had absolutely no way to defend herself against an air strike save by seeking the quiet safety of the depths.

Now, however, she was in far greater danger. It was one of the axioms of submarine warfare: the best way to kill a submarine is with another sub, and somewhere out in all of that ice- noise hash, there was a Russian Victor III waiting and listening.

Victor IIIs were decent attack submarinesabout the same size as the American Los Angeles boats but a little lighter, a little slower. Some of them had an odd eight- blade screw consisting of two co- rotating four- bladed props, which gave them a unique signature on passive sonar. Grenville had dogged a Victor or two back when he’d skippered the Miami and, earlier, when he’d been the XO on the Cincinnati.

Now a Victor was dogging him.

When they surfaced, the surrounding ice had formed a protective bastion. The only way to hit the Ohio with a torpedo would be to have it detonate under her keel, and the chances were good that with all of that surrounding sonar- reflecting ice, the enemy wouldn’t even be able to locate the Ohio

well enough to target her.

Down here in the deep, though, it was different. The Victor was listening for them, trying to sort their sound signature out from the same background hash that Chief Mayhew had complained about. And the Ohio

was listening for the Victor.

The Ohio had three major advantages, however, and Grenville intended to take full advantage of them both. American subs were the quietest in the world; it would take some very good sonar people on the other side to pick her out of the background noise. American submarine technology was the best as well, especially as demonstrated by the Ohio

sonar suite and computers.

And finally, and more important by far, American submariners were the best trained in the world and their sonar operators were capable of seemingly magical feats of sensitivity and accuracy.

If that shrimp did cut a hot one, Mayhew and his team of sonar techs would hear it.

GK-1

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1122 hours, GMT12

Not much here, McMillan said. She slumped back, the set of her shoulders showing her despair.

Well, you didn’t think they were going to lock us in the storeroom with all the guns in it, did you? Dean said. But there stuff here we might be able to use. He held up a one- liter tin of stewed tomatoes, hefting it. This could make a nasty club.

Kind of awkward.

Yeah, Dean admitted, dropping the can back into an open crate. And it doesn’t quite have the same reach as a nine- millimeter Parabellum.

They’d been going through a sampling of the crates stored in the narrow compartment. Peeking into three of them, so far, they’d found only foodstuffscanned goods and boxes, all of it, and not a single bottle that might be judiciously broken into a makeshift knife. They’d examined the wooden slats of the crates themselves, but the

wood was soft pine, each slat only a couple of feet long, and they were fastened together with staples rather than nails. You could do some damage with the things, surelybut not against a couple of alert men holding pistols.

He’d considered bunching a wool blanket up in a big wad and using it as a shield as he rushed the guard. Would a crumpled blanket absorb the kinetic energy of a 9mm round with a muzzle velocity of about twelve hundred feet per second? Or would the bullet slice right through and kill him before he’d taken two steps? Dean wasn’t sure, and given the possible consequences, he wasn’t about to experiment.

The best plan Dean had been able to come up with so far was to bundle a blanket over a guard when he came in with a tray of food and pummel him into unconsciousness with a can of vegetables. That might work if the guard was aloneextremely unlikely if he was carrying foodand if

he carelessly stepped into the room without ordering the occupants back against the far wall with their hands in plain sight before he entered.

These people were not stupid. They weren’t going to make many mistakes, certainly not dumb- ass Hollywood villain goofs.

He leaned back against a damp metal bulkhead. Well, a fine James Bond I

turned out to be. Sorry, Miss McMillan. He was still wrestling with possibilities. Maybe if they could cut a thin strip from one of those sheets and use it as a garrote. The trick would be to get the tear started without scissors or a knife. Maybe he could do it with his teeth?

I’m Kathy. And you’re doing just fine.

He found he was almost missing the presence of Jeff Rockman or Marie Telach in his head. With his personal transceiver working, they would be feeding him all sorts

of helpful advice about now something involving turning urine and stewed tomatoes into plastic explosives, perhaps.

Of course, even without the problems of maintaining clear communications this far north, there was no way a radio signal could penetrate the thick tempered steel of this compartment, the pressure hull of the facility itself, and half a mile of water, plus the ice on top of that.

He was about as isolated from outside as it was possible for a person to be.

The way I see it, Kathy mused, they can’t really afford to just out and out shoot us. They need to know how much we know about their operation. About this base.

He nodded. Not only that; our side knows we’re here. They can’t make us disappear and hope our people forget about us. They won’t.

You know, I think the Russians, the organized- crime bosses, I mean, have been really scared of bad publicity. She looked pointedly at Benford. He

was put in to give Greenworld a bad name, I think. To discredit them, and anything they might say about Russian drilling in the Arctic.

Makes sense, Dean said. What can you tell me about Golytsin?

He seems to be the guy in charge of all of this. At least he was until the mean one with the scar showed up. Golytsin takes orders from him.

Braslov.

That him. She folded her arms and shuddered. He bad news. Golytsin? He made some pretty terrible threats when he questioned me, when he first brought me aboard the Russian ship things like turning me over to the crew if I didn’t tell him who I was really working for, or leaving me out on the ice to freeze, but I think it was all

bluff. He been looking after the needs of the prisoners, gave orders that they weren’t to be hurt or molested in any way. I think

What?

My impression is that he proud of being Russian a patriot, you know? But he sees the people above him being assholes, maybe even doing things that will hurt Russia in the long run. He has to obey their orders, but I don’t think he likes it.

Well, that something we might be able to use, then.

Keys rattled in the lock outside. Dean shoved the opened crate aside and stood up. The door swung open, revealing Golytsin and a man in a Russian naval infantry uniform, both of them holding Makarov pistols.

Golytsin glanced at the open crate. Hungry? he asked. He pointed the pistol at Dean and gestured with it. You. Come with me. No sudden movements, please.

Where are you taking him? Kathy demanded.

Never mind. Golytsin gestured again. Come!

Hands raised, Dean stepped out into the passageway and watched as Benford and McMillan were locked in once more.

It time, Mr. Dean, Golytsin said, that you and I had a frank chat. This

way.

Deep Black 7 - Arctic Gold

23

SSGN Ohio

Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1132 hours, GMT12

BRIDGE, SONAR!

Go ahead.

Sir the shrimp just cut a loud one.

Stay on it, Mayhew. I’m coming over.

The Ohio

sonar room was located just in front of the control room, adjoining it off the starboard passageway forward. Grenville walked down the passageway and stepped into the curtained- off room, a narrow compartment with four console workstations side- by- side, with a large acoustic spectrum analyzer at the far end.

At each station, display screens could be configured to show any of several key elements of the cascade of sonar data entering the Ohio

AN/BSY-1 combat system, pronounced Busy- One by the men riding the boards.

Sonar Chief Kevin Mayhew was the sonar watch supervisor. At the other workstations, an ST/1 and two ST/2s sat at their boards, headphones on, their eyes locked on their sonar displays.

Whatcha got, Chief?

An incidental, Captain. Wanna hear?

Play it for me.

Mayhew touched a key. His sonar display winked out, then came back on, with a green trace drawing out a horizontal line. Grenville held a headphone to his ear. A moment later, he heard a sharp scrape, a thump, and a hiss as the green tracing zapped up and down like an earthquake seismograph. As the initial sound faded, he heard something in the background, a fluttering rattle like the piece of cardboard he sometimes had attached to hit the spokes of his bicycle when he was a kid.

Hear it, sir?

He bumped the ceiling.

Yes, sir. And did you catch at the end?

Grenville smiled. He throttled up, probably to get the hell out of there, but he did it too fast. He was cavitating.

Exactly my thought, sir.

Increase your speed too quickly and tiny bubbles built up on the surface of your propeller blades. When they popped, it made a hell of a racket, an effect known as cavitation.

It not the ‘Burgh

, Mayhew added. Not a damned rookie trick like that. And we got enough of the engine noise to analyze. It a Victor III probably the same one we recorded a year ago in the North Atlantic.

Not such a rookie trick, Chief, Grenville said. Let not underestimate him.

If you scraped the ceiling of ice, it was because you were hugging the ice cap, staying tucked in close and the only reason to do that

was to lose yourself in the scatter of sound bouncing off the ice. In a way, it was like a helicopter pilot flying nape- of- the- earth in order to stay hidden for as long as possible.

Only very good

sub drivers would try that.

And here was another possibility as well, a chilling one. That Russian sub driver out there might have brushed against an ice ridge and put the pedal to the metal for just an instant deliberately,

knowing the American boat would hear and just possibly respond a little too hastily, a little too carelessly.

No, Grenville did not intend to underestimate this fellow.

Best guess on range and bearing, Chief.

Strongest registration was starboard side fairwater, sir. Range Mayhew screwed up his face, as though unwilling to go out on too slender a limb. Not close, like right alongside close. Maybe one mile. Maybe two.

Good enough. Grenville picked up an intercom mike. Control Room, Captain. Helm, come right nine- zero degrees. Ahead slow.

Helm right nine- zero degrees, ahead slow, aye, aye, was the response.

The Ohio

was turning directly toward the Russian boat, slowly and quietly. The only question was whether the Russians had spotted them yet.

GK-1

Beneath the Arctic Ice Cap

82a! 34’ N, 177a! 26’ E

1134 hours, GMT12

Golytsin and the Russian marine led Dean down the long passageway, up a stairway, and directed him at last into a small and nondescript office. It might, Dean thought, have been Golytsin office while he was aboard the submerged GK-1 platform, but it could as easily have been a workplace for any administrator who needed one. There was a desk and two chairs, a computer and a telephone, but nothing in the way of photographs or decorations, books or paperwork, no human

touch.

The marine stayed outside as Golytsin closed the door and gestured at one of the chairs. Have a seat.

Is this where the torture starts? Dean asked.

Golytsin shrugged, then dropped into the chair behind the desk and clattered an entry into the computer keyboard. If you like.

Dean was measuring the man. Golytsin was a little older than him, he thoughtprobably in his late fifties or early sixties. He had the look of a senior corporate executive.

He also looked lean and fit. If he spent much of his time behind a desk, he also must work out a lot, or get out into the country to work off the fat. Dean thought he could probably take Golytsin in hand- to- hand, but that assumption was by no means assured.

Besides, he still had the Makarov, and Dean chair was a good five feet from the desk. And

there was the marine outside.

Golytsin completed the entry, then turned his full attention to Dean. To tell you the truth, however, I dislike the idea of torture. I’m sure there are things we could do to you that would in quite short order have you telling us everything we want to know or everything you think we want to know, anything at all to stop the pain. And yet, what would be the point? At the end, we still wouldn’t know whether you’d told us the truth or not. We would, in fact, have to start all over, at the beginning, and go through the whole process again. And again. And yet again. And then again,

but this time with drugs, questioning and cross- questioning each of your answers. And then do it again with you wired to a polygraph.

And we keep doing it all again until we can tell from changes in your responses at varying levels of stress whether you are, in fact, telling the truth or making up stories, what you think we want to hear, simply in order to make us stop. That is the trouble with torture, you know. It takes so very long

to arrive at the truth.

That, and the fact that you can never be sure you’ve actually gotten there, Dean agreed. Have you broken the subject? Or is he a very talented actor? Or might he truly believe what he telling you but what he believes is a lie because someone lied to him?

Exactly! So you can see my dilemma. I very much want to know about you, Mr. Dean. Who you work for. Why you’ve come here. What you know about this operation. What your employers know. What your employers might plan to do about us in the future. I could

torture you until you told me but I’d never be sure I was getting accurate information.

I appreciate your predicament.

In fact, Dean was wondering where this line of conversation was leading. Golytsin evidently had tried threats of torture or sexual abuse to get information from Kathy. Why was he using such a markedly different approach with him?

I tend to believe, personally, that torture is counterproductive. Golytsin hesitated, then added, Of course, not everyone shares this belief, you understand. And not everyone cares that it counterproductive. There are people who enjoy torturing subjects simply because because they very much like

doing it. My colleague, Sergei Braslov, for instance

Then it clicked for Dean. Of course! Golytsin was trying different psychological approaches, probing for weakness. With Kathy, he’d seen a woman, vulnerable, alone, a prisoner on a ship full of hostile male strangers and he’d threatened her with rape, or with a cold and hideously lonely death exposed on the ice cap, with no one to help. With Dean, Golytsin was trying to engage him in an almost friendly, chatty relationshipnot comrades- at- arms but certainly with the feeling that they all were in this together with just a hint that the other

guy might be a psychopathic monster capable of anything. It was, in fact, a variant of the old good- cop/bad- cop ploy, where a prisoner would willingly confide in the nice interrogator in order to avoid the mean one.

Okay. Dean could play this game.

In fact, Dean thought, he had an advantage over Golytsin. The Russian knew nothing about Dean whatsoever, but Dean already knew some of Golytsin background. He’d been a submarine skipper. That meant he was smart and he knew psychology. He was also supremely loyal

back in the bad old Soviet days, Russian sub drivers were selected almost exclusively on that one factor alone. However, he’d been outspoken enough in his opposition to the war in Afghanistan that he’d been imprisoned. That suggested both a willingness to think for himself and the possibility that his loyalty might lie to his country, rather than to his government.

Feodor Golytsin, Dean thought, was a true patriot, a lover of Mother Russia willing to risk arrest and prison in her defense.

A patriot, but one working for the Organizatsiya, a criminal organization that had already done incalculable harm to post- Soviet Russia.

And at that moment, Dean saw Golytsin tragic flaw.

Ah, yes, Dean said, nodding. Braslov. We have quite a file on him, you know.

Dean saw the flicker of interest in Golytsin eyes. File. And you work for?

The Agency, of course. Carefully, he didn’t specify which

agency.

Really? Some of my superiors are of the opinion

that the American NSA has been rather interested in their activities recently.

Dean waved a hand carelessly, as if dismissing the thought. Don’t be ridiculous. The NSA are mathematicians, technicians, and electronic eavesdroppers. They tap telephones. They don’t even have field agents,

for God sake!

No. No, that what I always thought. Golytsin was looking at him strangely, as though wondering if Dean was being honest and aboveboard or putting on an act. He would be suspicious if Dean seemed too

cooperative. So, Mr. Dean. You claim to be a CIA agent?

Dean spotted what was either a bit of carelessness or a trap. CIA agents are foreign locals recruited to work for us, one way or another. The people working out of Langley, or running local agents in other countries, are called case officers.

Quite so. Quite so.

And I gather you’re with Gazprom, Dean said, taking the initiative. You play with the big boys.

Actually, Mr. Dean, I believe that I’m

the one conducting this interview.

Ah. And would the information you’re looking for be for you? For the Gazprom Board of Directors? Or Dean leaned forward in a properly conspiratorial manner. Or is it for the Organizatsiya?

Golytsin looked startled, then uncomfortable. What do you know about them?

Dean shrugged. Enough. I know Sergei Braslov works for them. As I said, we have quite a file on him. And we know he works for Grigor Kotenko, and Tambov. Kotenko would be the guy pulling the strings on this

operation.

And why would the American CIA be interested in

them? What happens inside Russia has nothing to do with American foreign interests.

Come, now, Admiral, Dean said. He paused. It was

Admiral, was it not?

Golytsin grimaced. Actually, I was deprived of that rank.

By the Politburo board that censured your stand on the war in Afghanistan. I know. The Soviet leaders of that era had gotten the Rodina into some serious trouble, and you tried to point that out. They didn’t appreciate the attempt, I seem to recall.

Anger flashed. What the hell do you

know about it?

Dean smiled. Enough. We have a thick file on you, too.

It seems to me you know entirely too much for your own good, American.

Yes, well, that been a failing of mine ever since I was a smart- assed kid. Poking my nose in where it not wanted. I tend to be the curious type.

You Americans have an expression, I believe? About curiosity and a cat

Believe me, Dean said, leaning back and doing his best to express an attitude of calm and relaxation that he was not even close to feeling, you and your people do not

want to kill me. Or Kathy McMillan. Enough people know exactly where we are that you can’t just make us disappear. Not without exposing your whole operation. To begin with, Russia will lose her claim to the Arctic Ocean.

The Arctic is ours by right.