According to Sanderson, Daniel and his team were stacked up against nearly impossible odds, which was why he didn't want the two of them communicating right now. Daniel couldn't afford the distraction.
He watched her lean her head back against a cushion and close her eyes. He knew she'd been through a lot in her life. Before yesterday. Before Daniel. Maybe she deserved a second chance, or was this her third? He had no idea. He just hoped Daniel made it back alive. He couldn't imagine what she might do if Daniel was killed.
Chapter 46
EW1 (SW) Robert Wegner studied the AN/SLQ-32(V)2 display screen again and checked the entire console. He'd done this several times over the past fifteen minutes and nothing had changed, except for the number of personnel lurking over his shoulder. It had started out with his chief, division officer and department head, which was bad enough, and had quickly expanded to every officer standing watch in the Combat Information Center. The crowd's seniority culminated with the presence of the ship's executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Shelly Davis, who would report Wegner's assessment to DECATUR's commanding officer and await permission to transmit the report to mission planners onboard the USS BOXER. At least Captain Higgins had stayed on the bridge. The last thing he needed was DECATUR's commanding officer breathing down his neck too.
"Everything still looks clear, Petty Officer Wegner?" Davis said.
"The scope is clear, ma'am. I have a few commercial maritime radars, but these are typical for the fishing vessels in these waters. Nothing land based or airborne," Wegner said.
"What are the effective ranges for the radars you've detected?"
"24 to 48 nautical miles…best case scenario. In this visibility, they'll probably have the radar picture set to a modest range…maybe 12 nautical miles. Signal strength confirms low output associated with reduced power transmission settings. They won't be able to detect DECATUR at any range with those radars. BOXER is a different story. Nothing stealthy about that ship, ma'am."
"That's why we're here first. I'll let the captain know the area is clear of any contacts of interest," she said.
DECATUR would loiter in the area, scanning for radar signals with its AN/SLQ-32(V)2 Electronic Warfare Suite, while at the same time employing a time tested, low budget method of surveillance. Lookouts. On this particular night, DECATUR employed three times the normal number of lookouts, all equipped with powerful night vision optics to spot vessels far out on the horizon. Just thirty nautical miles from the Chilean coast, this section of ocean needed to be clear of maritime traffic at 0200, when BOXER arrived to launch the strike force. The radar invisible destroyer had a few more hours to ensure that the BOXER would arrive undetected.
Chapter 47
Feliks Yeshevsky knocked on the thin wooden door and waited with a cracked smile on his face. To the right of the door, his partner pressed up flat against the wall with a retractable metal baton held tightly along the side of his black trousers. Feliks listened for movement inside the apartment. Nothing. For a few desperate seconds he wondered if Mr. Kaluzny had somehow slipped past them on the street. Dragging him out of his office downtown would be less than optimal given their time constraints.
He couldn't see how they had missed him. They had seen his wife exit the aging apartment building with their six-year-old daughter. They had walked hand in hand down the street toward the local primary school. Mrs. Kaluzny was dressed formally and carried a large handbag, so they didn't expect her to return to the apartment. They had waited fifteen minutes before entering the apartment building's unlocked main door.
He knocked on the door again and heard a voice from inside the apartment. He widened his smile and saw the light behind the peephole disappear.
"Can I help you?" Vanko Kaluzny said.
"Do you mind opening the door? I'm one of your neighbors from a few floors up. I saw something strange yesterday when your wife and daughter were walking into the building," Yeshevsky said.
He heard the deadbolt slide open, followed by a small click from the doorknob. He reached behind his back, underneath his thick wool coat, and gripped the compact Makarov pistol tucked into his belt. The door opened a few inches.
"I'm sorry. What exactly did you see happen to—"
Yeshevsky didn't allow him to finish the sentence. He kicked the door as hard as he could into Kaluzny's face, knocking the man several steps backward into the apartment. The man hidden along the wall sprang forward through the door and hit the stunned man squarely on the head with the metal baton, adding to the confusion and pain suddenly thrust into his life.
Mr. Kaluzny barely made a sound when hit, which was odd in Yeshevsky's experience. His partner shoved the man to a sitting area in front of an old television and forced him down onto a flimsy wooden chair. Yeshevsky locked the door behind him and removed a bulky suppressor from one of his inner coat pockets. He started to screw the suppressor to the Makarov's threaded barrel as he walked over to Vanko Kaluzny.
"What in hell do you want? Is my wife all right? My daughter?"
"That all depends on you, Mr. Kaluzny. We're interested in your university roommate, Anatoly Reznikov. We need to know where to find him."
"I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him in years," Kaluzny said.
Yeshevsky nodded imperceptibly and his partner's arm flashed, bringing the metal baton down on Kaluzny's left shoulder. The man screamed.
"Hold on! Hold on! I don't understand. Who are you? Russian Federal Security? You have no jurisdiction to—"
The baton crashed down on the man's collarbone, audibly cracking it. The force from the blow nearly collapsed the chair under Kaluzny.
"Fuck! Stop! Stop! Why are you doing this? I haven't seen him in several years," he said, exasperated from the pain.
"That's not what your mother told us."
"You visited my mother?"
"She's fine, for now, but she's not very fond of Mr. Reznikov. Said she found some false identity papers while snooping around his things. Isn't that why she refused to let him stay there? She could never understand why the two of you were such good friends," he said, tightening the suppressor on the pistol.
"Look, I don't know what he's doing or—"
"But you know he can't travel under his real name?"
"A lot of people from Russia seem to have that problem nowadays."
"Maybe we'll ask your sister next. Your mother said the two of you were close. Following in your footsteps were her words. I have a few nice pictures of her on my phone. Sent to me this morning. She was on the way to classes at Volgograd State University. Would you like to see them? Maybe my colleagues should yank her out of class for a chat."
"You people are crazy," Kaluzny whispered, staring at the floor.
"Not crazy. In a hurry. I was really hoping that you would help us right now. I won't be in such a good mood if I have to wait around all day for your wife and daughter to return. Especially if I'm cooped up all day with your rotting corpse. Just the thought of their screaming and crying at the sight of your bloated body puts me in a foul mood. I've never been good around kids."