The image of Boris sitting alone back home popped into Ekatarina’s head again, but to her surprise, this time she had no problem clearing it away.
“I’d love to,” she said, a little too quickly, and tried to slow it down. “I’ve been here two whole days and I haven’t had a chance to see anything. I’ll put together things for a picnic.”
Aaron checked his watch. 4:45 p.m. He hadn’t noticed how hungry he was, but now that she had mentioned it, he was starving.
Suddenly Ekatarina remembered she had to work late. “I don’t get off until 5:30, if that’s okay.”
“Not a problem,” Aaron said cheerfully. “I’ll meet you on the dock.”
He turned to leave, walking on air.
Point Loma
Chapter 36
Jason’s taxi dropped him off in front of a fabulous Tudor-style house along one of the narrow, winding streets in the exclusive Point Loma hills above San Diego Bay. He walked up a brick path bordered with moss-covered stones under a thick canopy of luscious greenery.
Fagan greeted him at the door and invited him into an expanse of hardwood floors, fine leather furniture, and antique rugs.
“May I offer you a drink, my friend?” Fagan said.
“You read my mind,” Jason said. “Scotch rocks, thank you. Nice place you have here.” Fagan had moved up in the world since Jason had left the Navy.
Jason stepped into a living room that offered a stunning view of San Diego Bay and the sparking blue Pacific Ocean beyond. The sun was sinking low in the western sky, turning the ocean a bright pink.
He stopped next to a framed photo on the fireplace manteclass="underline" a black-and-white portrait of an exquisitely beautiful woman in her mid-to-late thirties.
“Who’s the pretty lady?” he asked, indicating the photo.
“Oh, that would be Martha, my girlfriend,” Fagan replied from the kitchen.
“You were always the one who got the girls,” Jason said, only half kidding.
Fagan smiled. “What can I say? Some of us have it and some of us don’t.”
Jason walked over and stood next to the large windows overlooking the bay, far below him. Toward the south, in the distance, the sun reflected on the waters surrounding Naval Base Point Loma. Jason could just make out the dark shapes of the nuclear submarines docked there.
Fagan returned with drinks and the two sat in the living room.
“You never told me you were seeing someone,” Jason said.
“Martha and I met in a bar a couple of years ago, in a small town on the East Coast. She had recently been in a serious car accident, and although she wasn’t seriously injured, she was pretty messed up mentally. I guess her only son was in the car and was killed. When I met her she didn’t even know her real name. She’d started drinking a lot, so I cleaned her up and named her Martha and brought her out to San Diego, hoping a fresh start would help.”
He took a sip of his drink. “She’ll be my guest tonight at the party. I’ll make it a point to introduce you.”
“You do that,” Jason said.
“You seeing anyone?” Fagan said.
“Yeah.”
“Is it serious?”
“Not really.”
The conversation quickly turned to the details of the mission.
“The crew have already started on the security tarpaulin,” Fagan said. “They should have it completed in a few hours.”
“I assume they’re removing all of the temporary public access equipment,” Jason said.
“Of course. Tourist walkways, decking, handrails… all gone. They will weld up any holes in the deck and pressure hull that were cut for temporary stairs, and they’re charging Cobra’s batteries as well.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought this through pretty well,” Jason said.
“As I’m sure you have, Jason,” Fagan said. “That’s what we do, right? We are trained to think.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That will be Captain Henk Zaane,” Fagan said, “from the cruise ship Neau Islander. I asked him to join us so you two could meet.”
He stood and started for the door. “After this I have to head down to North Island to do my VIP greeting,” he said, then added over his shoulder, “I’d ask you to ride along, but we both know you’d never get through security.”
Jason flipped him off.
Fagan greeted Captain Zaane at the door and they joined Jason in the living room.
“How do you do, Jason?” Captain Zaane said. “I am excited to finally meet the man I’ve heard so much about.”
Jason had to presume that Zaane was the fifth team member that Fagan had alluded to during breakfast back in Coronado. “And I you, Captain,” he said.
They shook hands.
“If this mission is successful,” Zaane said, “it will send a clear message to the Imperialist United States that the Russian nation is once again a force to be reckoned with, a world power, and that retaliation of any kind would be an exercise in futility.”
Jason listened politely, but none of that really interested him. He was only in it for the money.
Just then Fagan’s girlfriend pulled into the driveway. There were no cars around, so she had no way of knowing that they had visitors. She parked the car and took her groceries around to the back.
She entered the kitchen through the back door, and as she set the bags on the counter she couldn’t help but overhear Fagan talking to someone in the living room.
Fagan quickly brought Jason and Captain Zaane up to speed, giving them all of the relevant details of the mission. Jason was careful not to show his surprise upon hearing for the first time that the target of the assassination was the President of the United States.
“… and at that point we move out from under your wake,” Fagan said to Zaane, “and you and your guests simply cruise on out to sea, as if nothing had happened. We will remain submerged, hiding Cobra under the bait barges near Ballast Point, while we wait for our target.”
“Perfect,” Zaane said. “They will be totally unaware.”
Fagan checked his watch then stood and proposed a simple toast. “To our success.”
“To our success,” the men echoed. They clinked glasses and threw back their drinks.
Fagan showed his guests to the door and they all shook hands.
“I’ll call you with the exact departure times,” Fagan said to Zaane.
Zaane nodded, and he and Jason turned to leave.
Fagan closed the door and turned to see Martha standing in the living room, hands on her hips.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Some friends stopped by is all. Nothing important.”
“Jason Souther was here.”
Fagan knew he was busted. “Okay… so what?”
“You promised me he’d never set foot in our house again,” Martha demanded.
“That you remember,” Fagan mumbled under his breath.
“What?”
Fagan’s comment had obviously struck a nerve and he knew he shouldn’t have gone there. “He was here for ten lousy minutes,” he said quickly.
“I don’t care if it was thirty seconds,” Martha said. “We agreed, did we not? Associating with someone who got kicked out of the Navy for going AWOL might be detrimental to your career as an officer.”