BLACK COBRA (Aaron Quinn thriller series, No. 2) (18 page)

“Would you want him? If you weren’t already with Jason, that is?”

Brandy looked at her, surprised. “You mean as a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Brandy,” Katya said. “As a boyfriend.”

Brandy smiled to herself. Ekatarina was so young and naive. She could never understand what she and Aaron had been through together, and how close they really were.

She wanted to tell her about how whenever Jason was busy at the helm, they would sit together, just the two of them, talking for hours under a brilliant canopy of Caribbean stars.

She wanted to tell her about how Aaron had looked at her with desire in his eyes that morning on the Panama Canal, and how close they had come to making love.

But what good would it do to go on about what might have been? Aaron was Ekatarina’s man now.

“Yes, my dear,” she said at last. “Yes, I would want him.”

“I’m hoping to marry Aaron one day,” Katya said.

Brandy sighed. She could only dream of doing that. For better or for worse, she was with Jason, and she had a wedding ring to prove it.

Chapter 48

Uri Ruden was up on deck checking out something near the stern of the boat. He saw Aaron and acknowledged him. Aaron walked over and said hello, acting as if nothing was wrong.

“Just taking a look at some of the repairs,” Uri said. “This used to be the emergency escape hatch. Not much good now, though, since they welded it shut. Wouldn’t want to try and escape from
this
sub.”

Aaron thought about that for a moment.

“How’s the party going?” Uri asked.

“To be honest, it’s kinda not,” Aaron said.

“Commander Fagan should be here soon,” Uri said. “He’ll get things rolling.”

“Are you expecting anyone else?” Aaron asked.

“Fagan will bring his girlfriend, Martha, of course,” Uri said, “and Captain Pankov is flying in from Russia ... but I’m not sure if he’ll show tonight.”

Katya’s father’s coming?
Aaron thought.
It was appearing more and more unlikely that he and Katya could slip away from the party unnoticed.

 “What do you say we go below and wait for them?” Uri said. “I’m ready for another drink.”

“You go on ahead,” Aaron said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

Uri nodded and went below.

---

Aaron tried his cell phone, but there was still no service.

He was about to go below again to find Katya when he heard what sounded like a pair of high heels crossing the wooden gangplank. He stepped behind the fin, and when the woman stepped through the opening in the tarp he saw that she was alone.

He froze. The woman looked familiar.
Oh, my God,
he thought.

He blinked hard and looked again.
Could it be?
Her hair was different, and she was very thin, but it was definitely her. It was Aaron’s
mother! Ashley Quinn!

He wanted to leap for joy and yell,
Mom! It’s me. Aaron!
You’re alive! Oh my God! You’re alive!

But as he stepped out from behind the fin preparing to give her a huge hug, all she did was stop and look at him.

“May I help you?” she said.

For a moment Aaron could only stand there staring. His mother had never looked at him that way before. It was as if she were looking at a total stranger.

“Y-you don’t remember me, do you,” he said at last.

“No ...” she said, looking at him expectantly. “Should I?”

Is it because I’m older?
Aaron thought.
Or has something terrible happened to her because of the accident? Certainly she would recognize her own son — no matter how long it’s been. Has she lost her memory?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For a moment I thought I knew you. My name is Aaron.”

“I’m Martha,” she said, relaxing a bit now.

Martha?
What happened to Ashley?
His mother
had
lost her memory.

He noticed she’d been crying, and his urge to hug her, to comfort her, grew even stronger. But he refrained.

“Would you like for me to show you the way to the party?” he said. “Submarines can be very intimidating.”

Ashley looked back in the direction of the dock. “That’s very kind of you Aaron, but actually I’m waiting for someone.”

He could tell that she was extremely upset. Something had frightened her — and not that long ago. He wanted to take her away from there, but he knew that she would never leave with him — not yet, at least. He would have to figure out a way to get both Katya
and
his mother off the sub.

“Perhaps we’ll talk later,” he said. “It was nice meeting you, Martha.”

And with a little wave, he went below to find Katya.

Chapter 49

Aaron climbed down the ladder to the Control Room and then ducked through the hatch into Compartment Two, making his way to the Captain’s Cabin. But when he got there the door was open and Katya was gone.

Damn it
, he thought.
I should never have left her alone
.

Panic tugged at his heart as he turned to head back to the Control Room.

“
Pssst
,” a voice whispered from behind him.

He jumped, and then turned to see Brandy Fine waving to him from inside the hatch leading to the Forward Torpedo Room.

“
Brandy?
” he said. “What are you —”

“
Shhh
,” she said, gesturing for him to come. “
In here — I have Ekatarina
.”

Chapter 50

Jason had pulled himself together and returned to the Control Room. He would deal with the girls later.

Uri Ruden had just stepped off the ladder from the deck.

“Where’s Fagan?” Jason said to him.

“Oh, hi, Jason,” Uri said. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

Just then Fagan and his girlfriend came down the ladder. Jason did a double-take: it was the woman from the photo on Fagan’s mantel — and she was even more breathtaking in person.

Fagan straightened his naval officer’s dress uniform and shook Jason’s and Uri’s hands. “This is Martha,” he said, indicating Ashley. “Martha, I’d like you to meet my friends ... Uri Ruden and Jason Souther.”

Ashley went cold.
So you’re the infamous Jason Souther
, she thought. His features looked unsettlingly familiar but she couldn’t recall why.

Jason was totally enamored of her.

Uri offered Ashley his hand, which she shook with a polite nod.

Jason held out his hand as well. “It’s pleasure to meet you,” he said.

But Ashley only stared back at him, her throat dry. There was no doubt in her mind that there was some sort of connection between him and her forgotten past, and it wasn’t good.

Fagan was focused on the mission. “I’m glad you’re both here,” he said to the men. “I’d like to meet for a few minutes before the party gets underway.”

Uri turned to Ashley. “Martha, if you wish, there are drinks in the galley.” He pointed in the direction of Compartment Four and repeated the familiar instructions: “Through that hatch and down the corridor on the right.”

He turned to the men. “I’ll meet you gentlemen in the officer’s Ward Room in five minutes,” he said, and then headed to the Forward Torpedo Room.

Fagan and Jason stepped into the Ward Room and closed the door.

---

Ashley looked around the cramped Control Room, feeling utterly alone. The combination of the suffocating closeness and an anatomical maze of pipes and wires made her feel as if she’d been swallowed by some sort of bionic whale.

She looked back on her meeting with Aaron up on deck and wondered why he had made such an impression on her. It was like she had known him for years ... or maybe her whole life.

Her head hurt and she thought of trying to find the galley and mix herself a drink. But she hadn’t heard a word of Uri’s directions and the sub’s dim, cluttered interior
was
intimidating. Not knowing what else to do, she took a seat at the chart table and waited.

Chapter 51

“
Aaron!” Katya cried, giving him a big hug as he stepped through the hatch. “I’m so glad you’re all right. I was beginning to
worry
.”

Aaron saw that she’d been crying, and then he noticed the bruise. “What has
happened
to you?” he said.

 Brandy glanced at Katya. “She asked me not to tell you this, Aaron, but Jason just tried to rape her.”

“Oh, my God,” Aaron said. He thought he knew Jason pretty well. “Are you certain?”

“I think I’d
know
when I’m about to be raped,
Aaron
,” Katya said, her eyes filling with tears again.

He looked at her, feeling stupid. “You’re right. I am so sorry. Of course you would know.”

Brandy gave him a look that said,
Good one, you idiot
. “Ekatarina told me about the plot to kill the President,” she said.

“So you know,” Aaron said.

“I do,” Brandy said. “But I’m having trouble comprehending it.”

“There’s one other complication,” Aaron said.

The girls looked at him expectantly — as if they didn’t have enough to worry about.

“My Mom’s here,” Aaron said.

“
What?
” Katya said.

Brandy was unsure as to the real significance of this news, but she could tell that it hovered somewhere between really good and really bad.

Katya was incredulous. “But you said your mother was killed in the —”

“I know, Katya. That’s what I thought. Hell, that’s what the police put it in their damn
report
. They must have skipped the forensics investigation altogether and hauled the damn Aston Martin straight to the freakin’ scrap yard!” He paused. “All I know is she’s alive ... and she’s on this damn submarine with us.”

---

Just then footsteps could be heard coming their way.

“Over here,” Aaron whispered. “Quickly.”

Aaron helped Katya and Brandy tuck in with him in the small, dark space behind the starboard torpedo rack, just as someone stepped in through the watertight hatch.

It was Uri Ruden.

The three held their breath.

Uri opened torpedo tube 5’s inner hatch cover and saw that the green torpedo was still loaded and ready. He jumped, when out of nowhere Commander Fagan stepped through the hatch.

“Oh, hello, Commander,” Uri said. “May I help you?”

“I thought I’d stop in and check out our torpedo,” Fagan said.

“Oh — yes, of course,” Uri said. “But I was just leaving to go to our meeting.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” Fagan said.

He checked the red torpedo hanging on the starboard torpedo rack, but could tell by its markings that it was the dummy. Then he saw a green torpedo loaded in tube 5 and walked over to take a look.

Uri knew that in a few seconds Fagan was going to be very unhappy. “We really should get to our meeting. The party has already started.”

“In a second,” Fagan said. He noticed the unusual shape of the tail and the guidance fins, and the special electronics connector. He checked the torpedo’s markings:
VA-111 Shkval
.

“Hold on just a second,” Fagan said, the hair on his neck standing up. “This is a damn
Shkval.
A supercavitating rocket propelled bomb. It’s a freakin’
nuke
, Uri!”

Aaron and the girls couldn’t believe their ears. Things had just gone from terrible to horrifying.

“You are correct,” Uri said calmly, figuring the cat was out of the bag anyway. “The
VA-111 Shkval.
A solid-rocket propelled torpedo achieving a high velocity of 230 mph by producing an envelope of supercavitating bubbles which coat the entire weapon surface in a thin layer of gas, causing the metal skin of the weapon to avoid contact with the water, significantly reducing drag, and —.”

“Cut the crap, Uri. I know how the damn thing works. Nobody said anything about using a nuke! How did you get this?”

“From our guy in Seattle, of course,” Uri said.

“Okay, but you and I agreed to have him load one dummy torpedo and one conventional explosive.”

“Yes, and I told him to replace the conventional weapon with a nuclear warhead,” Uri said frankly.

“Why the
fuck
would you do that?” Fagan said. “And where the
hell
did he come up with a
Shkval?
Talk about
rare.
Not to mention that fact that it’ll probably explode before it exits the damn
tube
.” He slammed tube 5’s inner hatch cover closed. “The deal’s
off
, Ruden. You hear me? It’s
off!
I didn’t sign on for a damn
suicide mission!”

Suddenly from behind him a voice said, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Commander.”

Fagan whirled around to see the face of Vtorak Borisovich Pankov sighting down the barrel of his .45 caliber pistol at very close range.

“
Pankov!
” Fagan exclaimed. “You made it! Uh — Uri and I were just checking out our torpedo.”

 Aaron snuck a glance at Katya that said,
Your father’s in on this?
But she could only wish with all her heart it wasn’t true.

“The nuclear warhead was my idea,” Pankov said.

“But why? Fagan said. “What could you possibly hope to —”

“You know as well as I do, Commander,” Pankov said, interrupting him, “mission failure is not an option. We can’t take a chance on merely
damaging
the President’s sub. We must
destroy it
.”

“But we
can’t miss
, Captain,” Fagan argued. “We’ll be right on top of them.
How can we miss?
”

Uri Ruden stepped up to add his two cents. “Why squander a chance to take out one third of the United States’s entire Naval Pacific Fleet, as well as downtown San Diego’s financial district?”

Fagan looked at the two men and his heart fell. He knew it was futile to argue. He decided to take a different tack. “If you do this, Captain,” he said, “the explosion will take
us
out too, you know. You, Uri here, and Jason Souther.”