Black Sea Affair (48 page)

"What was that?" Sadir demanded. "A collision with a ship? What is our depth here?"

"Depth one-three-zero fathoms, sir, " the helmsman said. "We must have struck something that we missed on the radar."

"Bridge, engineering, " the voice came over the bridge loudspeaker from the engine room.

"What is it?" Captain Sadir asked.

"Sir, we've lost propulsion."

"I will be right there." Sadir motioned to Dudayev. "Salman, come with me."

Captain Sadir stormed out of the bridge, headed for the engine room.

They moved swiftly through the icy Baltic water. In black wetsuits and black fins, twelve United States Navy SEALs glided under the dark hull of the disabled freighter.

On their backs, they carried oxygen tanks and weapons. Some carried flotation devices to be deployed, while others carried lightweight harpoon guns with rigging line.

Lieutenant Michael W. Reel, United States Navy, was their leader.

Making handsignals illuminated by underwater flashlights, Reel directed his team members into a semicircle just below the aftsection of the stern.

It was time.

Reel pointed to his second in command, Lieutenant JG Leo Maloney, then pointed at his watch.

Reel gave Maloney a full five fingers, signaling to set stopwatches at five minutes. Maloney complied, then clicked the stem of his watch, setting off the five-minute countdown. Maloney mimicked his leader.

Reel followed with a thumbs-up, and the SEAL team parted -- five SEALs following Reel to the waters off the starboard side of the ship, the other five following Maloney to the port side.

Captain Sadir rushed into the ship's engine room. The whine of turning gears and spinning shafts made it difficult to hear. Crew members were scurrying about, and the ship's chief engineer was turning a valve with a wrench. "What is the matter?" Sadir demanded.

"Something is wrong." The chief engineer laid down the wrench and raised his voice above the level of the noise.

Sadir nervously struck a cigarette. "Elaborate."

"Our engines are spinning, " the engineer said, "but the screw is not pushing us through the water."

Salman Dudayev spoke up. "Could this all be related to the sinking of the
Alexander Popovich
? Have the Americans found us?"

"I have considered that, " Sadir said. "But we are not sinking. If the Americans know about us and wanted to torpedo us, we would be at the bottom of the ocean now."

"I do not like the feel of it, " Salman said.

Sadir turned to his engineer. "What are our options?"

The engineer cast a worried glance. "If this were a matter of repairing our engines, our options would be good,
Kapitan
. But the propeller is in the water. It is hard to access. We would need to send a diving party overboard to assess the problem. And even then, we may have to call for assistance. We are not prepared for major underwater repairs."

Sadir considered that. He could not afford to radio for help. That would attract too much attention. And if he drifted in the sea lanes for too long, he would attract attention like a sitting duck.

"Salman, what would be the effects on St. Petersburg if we blow the ship from here?"

The physicist's eyes lit. "
Kapitan
, we have constructed a five-megaton nuclear device in the bowels of your ship. When we detonate this device, within ten seconds, the fireball will be over three miles in diameter! Fifty seconds after the explosion, the blast wave will reach the shore of St. Petersburg, just thirty-six miles away.

"When it hits the shores of St. Petersburg, it will destroy or damage even the most heavily fortified concrete buildings and kill most of its inhabitants! And then there is the tremendous radioactive fallout, which will be intensified by the fact that we are blowing the bomb out on the water."

Perhaps Salman was right.

Perhaps they should blow the ship right now.

Sadir looked at his engineer. "Send a diving party overboard to examine the screw. I want your report back within the hour. If this job is irreparable, or if we have to request assistance, we will blow the ship from here."

"Yes,
Kapitan
."

Lieutenant Mike Reel popped out of the water, just beside the starboard hull. He looked up at the side of the ship as the heads of Petty Officers May, McCants, Williams, Manuel, and Felton popped up out of the water in a semicircle around him.

On the left side of the ship, Reel knew that another circle of Navy SEALs, the squadron headed by Lieutenant JG Leo Maloney, was bobbing in the water, waiting for the time to deliver a coordinated strike against the rogue freighter.

Reel gave a thumbs-up, which was reciprocated by his group. The SEALs were ready.

Reel checked his watch. Ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight. Seven . . .

Floating in the water on the left side of the crippled ship, Maloney watched the countdown on his watch.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

"Now."

Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow.

Lightweight harpoon guns shot steel hooks upward, stringing rope from the water up to the gunwales of the ship.

"All secure, " announced Petty Officers Black, Doherty, Perkins, Jordan, and Worthy.

"Let's go, " Maloney ordered.

The SEALs dropped their oxygen tanks in the water, then, like Batman and Robin, began pulling themselves up the rope, rising up the side of the ship.

Maloney was the first to reach the top. Already, Lieutenant Reel had scampered onto the deck, and his men, all in black wetsuits and carrying knives and rifles, were gathering just across the ship.

The SEALs had not been discovered. Not yet anyway.

That would change.

St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral
St. Petersburg, Russia

W
hat's going on?
Pete wondered, as he sat alone with his Russian-appointed counsel, Lieutenant Peter Vaslov, at the table in the front of the courtroom. Zack Brewer had not returned to counsel table, at least not yet, and Pete wondered if he would ever see Zack again.

Probably not.

Perhaps this was the beginning of the end. He looked out the windows of the great cathedral. The weather was turning uglier. Clouds darkened, threatening rain, or even hail.

Pete turned and glanced at his crew. They were all there, sitting on the rows between the stone-faced Russian guards. Frank, Walt, Darwin, the Bloodhound.

He'd seen their look before. Their eyes begged for leadership -- for a command decision that would suddenly make all this go away. They were looking to him for answers, but he had no answers, other than to wait and die.

Pete could bear their faces no more. He looked away, only to find the stares of the orphans that had been on board the
Alexander Pop-ovich
and then the
Honolulu.
Theirs were the looks of confusion -- of fear. He felt a surging rage that the Russians would require them to behere for theater and political show. Then his eyes caught the face of the boy named Dima.

The boy's eyes -- they looked almost crossed -- were magnified by the gawky glasses on his face. These eyes he had seen before. They were the eyes of a son looking at a father figure. How strange -- these longing eyes of the orphan. And then, it hit him. The orphan felt a bond with the man who had rescued him and Masha from the sea.

His son, Coley, had once looked at him this way.

Pete turned away, lest the international media spot the tears flooding his eyes.

The
Al Alamein
Gulf of Finland

Salman Dudayev looked up. Captain Sadir was climbing the ladder from the engine room to the main deck of the ship. Salman was under him and had just stepped onto the ladder when he heard Sadir yelling, "Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?"

The physicist double-stepped up the ladder behind the captain, quickly reaching the open air of the main deck.

Waving a pistol in his hand, Captain Sadir turned toward the stern area of the ship, toward a group of ten wet, dripping frogmen who had appeared out of the sea.

"Get off of my ship!" Shots rang out from the pistol. The frogmen ducked under and behind boxes and crates on the stern area and fired back. Bullets whined and ricocheted off the ship's steel superstructure.

Suddenly the captain's head exploded like a burst watermelon. His body flopped to the deck, pumping a stream of blood from the head wound.

Salman crouched low, and then took off across the deck, towards the hatch and the interior ladder that led back up to the bridge.

"You! Freeze!" He recognized the English from his days at MIT. Sal-man ignored the command. He sprinted through the sounds of bullets ricocheting through the steel superstructure. Salman ducked into the passageway and headed up the ladder.

The thunder of stampeding feet rumbled in pursuit behind Salman's back. He was a scientist, not an athlete, and they were closing fast.

To the bridge. He had to get to the bridge. He had to reach the detonator.