“You are repatriating us? No prison?”
“Of course,” Pacino said. “Why would we put you in prison?”
“Our mission was to sink you,” Trusov said. “Our objective was to kill you.”
“You were just doing your job,” Pacino shrugged. “Just like we were, stealing this submarine. It was just business, not personal.”
Trusov stared at him as if he’d just walked off a flying saucer.
“But you will interrogate us first?”
Pacino shrugged. “Why? What’s there to know? You were sent here to escort the Panther, and when Panther ended up in our hands, you got search-and-destroy orders.”
“Are you not curious about who our orders came from, or things about our submarine, weapons, tactics? Things like that?”
Pacino waved. “We already know all that stuff. You think there are many secrets left, what with both of our intelligence agencies poking around, trying to stay gainfully employed?” He finished the coffee and stood to get more. “Besides, it’s urgent we get you to the rescue ship. You guys are all probably sick. Maybe you don’t feel it now, but in a day or two it’ll get bad. Radiation casualties are not fun. My dad got a huge radiation dose when I was a kid. He got a bone marrow transplant and could barely walk for a year. We wondered if he’d even make it.” He looked at her. “Maybe some tea?”
She looked at him for a long time, her gaze softening just slightly. “Some hot tea might be nice,” she admitted. Pacino put the hot water carafe on the table with a tray of cups, tea bags, sugar, sweetener and honey.
Trusov made herself a cup, pouring honey into it. “Honey is a luxury at sea,” she said.
“Where we come from, we take the best stuff to sea. If you’re going to be underwater, away from the sunshine and weather for weeks on end, you may as well have good food. And ideally, good movies, but that can fall flat.”
Trusov drank her tea, pouring more when she got to the bottom of her cup.
“Where are you from?” she asked him.
“Virginia, on the Atlantic coast. Virginia Beach. My dad was in the submarine force and operated out of the naval base at Norfolk, a thirty-minute drive away when the aircraft carriers are at sea, ninety minutes when they’re in port.” He smiled at her, realizing when she wasn’t frowning or glowering, she was beautiful. “What about you?”
“Moscow,” she said. “Then Murmansk. We are with the Northern Fleet.”
“Pretty cold, Murmansk,” Pacino said, mock shivering.
“Murmansk has its charms,” she said. “It is actually nice this time of year.”
Pacino smiled. “Maybe after all this, I’ll come visit you.”
Trusov smiled for just a brief moment.
“You sure you don’t want something to eat? For all of you, I mean?”
“Captain Orlov ordered us not to accept any food from the Americans.”
“Why? Poisoning? If we were going to hurt you guys, Grip Aquatong over there would just shoot you.”
“I’d use my knife,” Aquatong said. “Stray bullets in a submarine are unhealthy for the equipment.”
“See?”
Trusov stared at him again.
“How about a shower? We have hot water. Fresh uniforms. Great shampoo.” He smiled. “And conditioner. Great conditioner. Even hair dryers. For all you guys. One at a time, of course.”
Trusov turned to one of the men sitting aft in the seating area, and said something in Russian. He replied. Finally, after they talked for some time, Trusov looked at Pacino.
“A shower and fresh clothes would be very nice,” she said, “provided all the crew get the same treatment.”
“I’ll arrange it,” Pacino said, standing to get to the phone. He glanced at Trusov. “Naturally, we’ll need to escort you to the shower and stand guard. Hope you won’t mind. It’s not that we don’t trust you, just making sure there’s no uprising from your people. So I’ll have one of the female chiefs stand watch when you shower.”
Trusov blushed. “No,” she said. “I want you to stand guard.”
Fifteen minutes later, Trusov took her seat again, the grime of the sunken submarine washed off. Pacino could tell she felt better. She actually smiled at him, and he realized she was more than beautiful, she was stunning. He smiled back.
“Listen,” he said, “I know you guys have orders not to eat, but I’m starving. I’ll bring in some of the stroganoff. I’ll have a plate, and if you want it, great. If not, that’s fine too.” He made a call while Trusov and her captain exchanged more words. A third officer came back from the shower, escorted by two petty officers from the Vermont, and a fourth went with them to get washed up. When the fourth returned, Chief Goreliki came in with a tray of the beef stroganoff. Pacino got plates from the cabinet above the coffee machine. “Sorry, we’ll have to make do using spoons. Can’t give you guys knives or forks. Which means I’ll have to use a spoon myself.”
He put some of the food on a plate and slid it across the table to Trusov, then got some for himself. He felt silly eating it with a spoon, but it wasn’t that inconvenient. Trusov stared at the food.
“Anyone else?” He waved the serving platter at the others. The Russian captain lifted his hand, and Pacino brought him a plateful and a spoon. “You guys?” Two of the other Russian officers nodded. Soon all of the Russians were eating ravenously. Pacino reached into the adjoining pantry for something cold to drink and cups, finding lemonade and a cold bottle of water. He filled up cups for the Russians, then sat back down, waving the lemonade container at Trusov, his eyebrow lifted. She nodded. He poured for her, then finished his plate, washing it down with the too-sweet lemonade. He cleared his plate to the pantry, then sat back down. Trusov had cleaned her plate. He took it from her, piling it in the dirty dish bin, then collected plates from the other Russians.
He sat again. “We’ll surface at nineteen hundred,” he said. “I guess I should go do something useful.”
“No,” Trusov said. “Stay.” She coughed as if embarrassed that she’d been revealing. “Tell me more about this place, Virginia.”
Pacino smiled at her. “Sure. My dad had this house on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean in a place called Sandbridge, south of the city of Virginia Beach. He had this huge black lab that used to love to run on the beach.” Trusov looked into his eyes as if entranced. Pacino continued, and before he knew it, it was time to get ready to surface.
Lieutenant Commander Rachel Romanov stood behind the command console with the unit’s display selected to the number two optronic periscope. In the crosshairs, Panther was surfaced alongside the rescue ship. The rescue ship’s bright floodlights lit the scene. The Explorer II had lowered a long staircase down her side, medics in white coveralls helping the crew of Russians up the steps. On Panther’s aft hull, three men lay in stretchers, with the crane from the deck getting ready to hoist them to the rescue ship.
“Sonar, any contacts?” Romanov asked Petty Officer Mercer, who stood watch at the BQQ-10 stack. It wouldn’t do for them to get ambushed when they were vulnerable like this. While it was hard to imagine the Russians shooting at the ships that were rescuing their people, stranger things had happened.