Black Sea Affair (30 page)

"Yes, I see that!"

She glanced at the children again. Aleksey's eyes caught hers, and he threw her a big wave. She waved back. He turned back to the other eleven. Good.

"I have heard of this game, volleyball. They play it in America."

"You play volleyball, Masha?"

"No, I have never played."

"You want to learn?"

"No, not right now."

"Why not, Masha?" Those long-lashed, pleading eyes melted her. These eyes would melt an iceberg in the Arctic Sea. What was she to tell the boy? That she could not play because if she walked out into the middle of the deck she might become a target for someone with a sniper rifle?

"I cannot play because right now we need to put more lotion on your back so you do not burn, that is why."

"Aw, Masha. Again?"

"Yes, Dima. Again. Turn around."

The boy complied.

She squirted the white sunblock into her hands, then rubbed his rough, leathery shoulders. The boy recoiled from the coolness of the lotion. Her hands moved from his shoulders down to the awful skin grafting that covered his entire back.

The skin, or what was left of it, was twisted and contorted and scarred hideously from the scalding water that was poured on him. To her fingers, his skin in the center of his back felt like a miniature mountain range.

She thanked God that he felt no pain from it anymore. She also thanked God that Dima was oblivious to it all, even though strangers who saw his back for the first time often grimaced.

"Okay, Dima, that's good. Go back out and play now."

"You come too, Masha?" He tugged at her hand and flashed those puppy dog eyes again.

"Maybe next time, Dima." She shooed him back out to the center of the deck and prayed that there would be a next time. Masha considered her predicament. There was no real possibility for escape. She couldn't swim to safety. They were planning to kill her, and if they did, what would become of the children? The question now was whether she should kill first or wait to be killed.

God, give me wisdom.

She remembered the words of the Allisons, that God would help her in all things.
God, please get me and my children off this ship alive.
Amen
.

CHAPTER 18

The USS
Honolulu

The Black Sea

Commander Pete Miranda stepped back into the control room of the USS
Honolulu.

"I have the conn, " Pete said.

"The captain has the conn." Lieutenant McCaffity stepped aside for his commanding officer.

Pete took his position in the center of the room. His XO, Lieutenant Commander Frank Pippen, who had followed him back into the control room, stood at his side.

"Mr. COB, any sign of Lieutenant Jamison?"

"Not yet, Captain. I'm sure Mr. Jamison will be right here, " the chief of the boat said.

Pete checked his watch. At that moment, Lieutenant Phil Jamison, the ship's intelligence officer, walked into the control room.

"You called, Captain?"

"Ah, Mr. Jamison. How nice of you to join us."

"My apologies, Captain. I was in the head, sir."

"Ah, " Pete said. "The proverbial call of nature."

"Yes, sir. No excuses, sir."

Snickering arose around the control room.

"No time for that, " Pete said. "As you know, Lieutenant, satellites have spotted our target in the area."

"I heard the broadcast on the 1MC."

"That ship could pop up any minute on our sonar."

"Yes, sir."

"If and when it shows, we are going to sink it. And at that point, we will float our antenna to the surface, and will be monitoring local radio traffic, probably from Russian ships. We won't have time for EAMS. I will need you here, immediately translating any Russian radio traffic that we might intercept."

"I can do that, sir."

"Until further notice, your duty station is here in the control room, with me and the XO."

"Aye, Captain. With pleasure."

The
Alexander Popovich
The Black Sea

Captain Batsakov thought about assigning the task to Joseph Radin. After all, the first officer was the leading proponent of killing her. Perhaps Joseph could find some satisfaction in it all.

If not Joseph, the other option was Aleksey Anatolyvich.

Aleksey could lead her to an isolated spot on the ship, shoot her in the head, and then toss her to the sharks after sundown. Nobody would notice. Aleksey would do whatever he was told. But then again, perhaps Aleksey did not have the stomach for the job.

Regardless of who did the job, Masha Katovich's death would be on the head of the bloodthirsty Russian government for forcing this idotic babysitting mission upon the
Alexander Popovich.

The telephone rang in the captain's stateroom.

Batsakov picked up the receiver. "
Dah
."

"
Kapitan
, this is the first officer on the bridge."

"What is it, Joseph?"

"Sir, we have been trying to raise you on the ship's intercom system. Did you not hear us?"

"I haven't heard a thing."

"My apologies,
Kapitan
, but we have tried a dozen times or so. Would you like for me to send an electrician to your stateroom to see if it needs repairing?"

"Hold on, Joseph. Let me have a look at it before you do that."

Batsakov laid the phone down on a table and walked over to the intercom. Something looked odd.
The volume knob!
It was turned all the way over to the
off
position.

This was odd. In all the years he had been the skipper of
Alexander
Popovich
, he had never touched that volume control, not even when he had women in the cabin, because the crew knew not to bother him unless it was an emergency.

Who did this? Perhaps Aleksey? That made no sense. The boy had never touched it in all these years.

What about one of the porters? Again, never in the ten years that he had commanded
Alexander Popovich
had anyone ever touched that knob that he could remember. Why would they? His crew members understood that their own safety could depend on the captain's ability to communicate with the bridge in times of emergency.

Batsakov scratched his head.

He thought back.

He had left Masha in the stateroom alone during the false alarm with the first Egyptian freighter. Perhaps in the frenzy of the moment, the bridge had neglected to turn off the microphone. What if she had heard something when he left her alone and did not want him to know that she heard it? What if she had overheard all the talk on the bridge about the Egyptian freighter and their precious cargo?

He turned the volume back up and returned to the telephone.

"Joseph, I think I have solved the problem, " Batsakov reached into his desk drawer and extracted the GSh-18 semiautomatic pistol. "Try the intercom now."

"Can you hear me,
Kapitan
?" Joseph's voice boomed over the intercom.

"
Dah
, I hear you clearly."

"
Kapitan
, I am sorry to interrupt, but we received a radio transmission from the Russian consulate in Sevastopol."

"What do they want?" Batsakov worked the bolt action on the pistol, then turned off the safety lock.

"They are requesting that all crewmen of
Alexander Popovich
wear dress uniforms upon arrival in Odessa. They also want to make sure all orphans are dressed in their best clothes."

"How far are we from Odessa?"

"Stand by,
Kapitan
."

If he had any doubts about Joseph Radin's recommendation to kill Masha Katovich, this little knob incident had erased those doubts.

"
Kapitan
, we are maintaining a course of three-four-zero degrees and are now approximately one hundred fifty nautical miles from Odessa."

At that distance and speed, they would sail into port in the morning, just about eight hundred hours.

"Very well, Mr. Radin. Radio Sevastopol. Tell them we will all be dressed nice and spiffy. Tell them I will pass the request about the children along to Miss Katovich."

Batsakov jammed the pistol under his belt. He donned a windbreaker to conceal the gun from her view. He knew what had to be done.

The USS
Honolulu
The Black Sea

They called him "the Bloodhound." At least that was his nickname in the Navy's elite sonar community. But it wasn't his nose that had earned him the reputation.

It was his ears.

The legend started when they gave him those hearing tests right after he enlisted. He remembered them vividly even thirty years later -- those blasted
diminishing beep
audio tests that so many recruits wound up going batty on.

They claimed he scored the highest ever on the initial screen. He was penciled in for the sonar school immediately. And when he had twice tried getting out of the Navy, the recruiters pulled some strings to double his enlistment bonus.

The money was too good.

He stayed.

Still, the Bloodhound understood perhaps better than anyone in the Navy that sound carried for miles under water. That was the whole idea behind passive sonar -- to simply listen, carefully and intently, to the sounds of the deep.

The problem for the average ear, however, was to distinguish the natural sounds of the sea -- the sounds of fish and mammals and currents and underwater volcanic activity -- from manmade sounds. This was challenging when the manmade sounds were off at a great distance, perhaps at a distance of several miles.

Master Chief King discovered long ago that the best way to listen to the sea was like listening to classical music. To sit back, close one's eyes, and drink in the washing harmony of notes and block out all else.

In the back of his mind, he knew that a Russian freighter was somewhere in the area. But to hear it, he would have to meditate on the symphonic orchestration of sounds that God had created for the largest kingdom on planet earth -- the kingdom under the sea.

He closed his eyes and slumped back, ever so slightly, making himself forget even the important fact that he was on board a United States nuclear submarine.

A faint gurgling in the water came from a distance.

The wake of propellers or natural whirlpools? Now the gurgling was gone. A minute later, the gurgling was back.

Master Chief King opened his eyes, and then closed them again. A faint whine came through the water. The whine was gone.

Perhaps whales mating.

Perhaps not. The gurgling got louder; then louder.

The Bloodhound opened his eyes again. The faint whine returned over the sound of the gurgling. The whine got louder. And then louder!

This was no whale. This was the screw of a ship!

"Soup!" the Bloodhound called out the name colloquially used for the sonar supervisor. "Check this out!"

Master Chief King gave headphones to Lieutenant Daniel Boers, the
Honolulu
's sonar officer.

"Hear that?"

The sonar officer strapped on the headsets.

The other sonar tech blurted out, "I've got broadband contact!

Bearing three-four-zero. Citing tracker sierra and ATF!"

King and Boers looked over the sonar tech's shoulder at the broadband screen, on the spherical array, known as a waterfall. The waterfall showed streaks of long, green fluorescent rain falling down across the black screen. But at the number 347, a bright white streak was flowing down.

Lieutenant Boers picked up the mike.

The sonar officer's voice boomed into the tension-filled control room. "Conn! Sonar! We have a possible freighter, single screw. Bearing three-four-zero. Speed ten knots. Designate contact master two-eight!"