“Except for you, Captain Ahmadi,” Pacino said. “You and whatever Russian reactor technicians are aboard are coming with us. When we reach our destination, you’ll be repatriated. It’ll be a first-class ticket, I promise. After that drink at the Grafton.”
“There’s no going home for me if I come with you, Lieutenant. I’d be shot for a traitor, or imprisoned for my mission’s disaster. I’ll be forced to request asylum in the United States.”
Pacino looked at Ahmadi. “For you to be educated in London and Boston, you must have some pretty heavy connections to, you know, the guys who run things.”
“I do. I mean, I did. But after this, they’ll disown me, swear they never knew me, or knew all along I’d disappoint them.”
“Yeah. I get that. Damned shame.”
Ahmadi looked at the deck. “There was a woman I wanted to marry. I’d be leaving her behind.”
“Hey,” Pacino said. “Maybe we can get her out to join you.”
Ahmadi shook his head. “She’s a fundamentalist and has never left Iran and only speaks Farsi. She’d drown if she were to leave.”
“People change,” Pacino offered lamely. What else could he say? “Why don’t you help me get the Russian technicians in a room so I can talk to them? I’m going to need them, too.”
“There’s only one, that drunken infidel Alexie Abakumov.”
“Let’s go meet him.”
21
Every time he tightened up the laces on his running shoes, Michael Pacino missed his old black lab, Jackson. The enthusiasm that puppy had would overcome any thought of skipping an early morning workout. Pacino remembered when he came back from the sinking of the SSNX after the drone sub incident, Jackson seemed suddenly older, gray hair at his muzzle, still wagging his tail, but too tired to get up from his bed for a run. Pacino had taken him in to the vet a week later when the dog could no longer eat or drink, just lying in his bed, trembling. That last night, Pacino had put his pillow and blanket on the floor next to the dog and kept him company, the lab occasionally crying in what little sleep he did get. Finally, at sunrise, Pacino had packed him up into the Lincoln SUV and driven him to the Sandbridge Pet Hospital, that last walk through the door reminding him of all the times he’d taken the dog there in the past. Unlike most dogs, Jackson had enjoyed the vet’s office, making friends with the other animals and pet-owners in the waiting room, and smiling up at the nurse or the doctor. As the dog had shut his eyes for the last time, Pacino wept, and as if prepared for that, the vet had a box of tissues handy. The walk back to the truck had been a long one.
The wait for action in the SCIF had continued for hours until Pacino had decided to get some sleep, leaving Catardi to watch the display. But sleep had been impossible, what with worrying about Anthony. At 4 am, Pacino had made coffee and checked the screen, but still nothing. He figured he could squeeze in five or six miles running the circuit of trails around the facility before checking back in to see what was happening with the operation. As he shut the door of Holly Lodge behind him, Vice Admiral Catardi called out to him from a golf cart parked in front.
“Patch. I was just dialing your cell. There’s signs of action. Come on.”
“I’m not exactly dressed to see the President of the United States,” Pacino said, self-conscious in running shorts and a black T-shirt with a leering skull and crossbones on it, gothic script reading, “U.S. Submarine Force.”
“You look great. Come on.”
Catardi rushed them to Birch Cabin, parked the cart and hurried inside, Pacino behind him, half jogging to catch up.
“Oh, Patch, Rob, just in time,” President Carlucci said, smiling.
Gathered in front of the flatscreen were Vice President Karen Chushi and Vice Admiral Jehoshaphat Taylor. Both glanced at him, Taylor nodding respectfully, Chushi smiling slightly, then both returned their attention to the screen.
The television was in a split-screen mode, the right side an overhead view of the ocean with a timestamp and the notation, “Video age: 10 minutes 17 seconds.” On the left side, the modified Kilo submarine Panther was stationary on the surface, a large raft being inflated on the forward deck.
“Take a look at the clip from eleven minutes ago,” Carlucci said. Pacino stood in front of the display, watching the calm square of ocean.
A moment into the video, the nose of a submarine suddenly and dramatically burst forth from the water, the waves and splashing foam rising violently on either side of the hull as the black cigar shape came almost halfway out of the ocean, slowed to a stop and in what looked like slow motion, crashed back into the surface, almost disappearing underwater for a moment before resurfacing and rocking in the gentle waves.
“Now that’s style,” Carlucci said.
“They emergency blew to the surface,” Pacino said.
“Something else you’ll want to see, Patch,” Carlucci said, operating the remote and spinning the history video forward as divers on the port side of the Kilo submarine surfaced and were helped aboard by the SEAL commandos. Carlucci zoomed the screen of the history video so faces could be made out.
“The magnification of this drone is incredible,” Pacino said.
“Our facial recognition is online,” Taylor said. As each diver climbed aboard the sub, a name and rank appeared in a text box with an arrow leading to the person. Pacino saw Lieutenant M. Varney, a dolphin-qualified officer from Vermont, look at the sky, then a petite woman took off her mask, and her label read Chief B. Goreliki, RMC(SS) — a radio chief — and Chief T. Albanese, a sonarman, then FTC(SS) N. Kim, a firecontrol and weapons system tech and AI specialist.
“See, Patch,” Catardi said. “Your son’s not in the boarding party.”
“What about a translator?” Pacino asked. “And that’s a pretty slender crew to be manning a submarine for a long voyage, having to stand watches around the clock.”
“They’ve got my guys,” Taylor said.
“Yes, they have the SEALs,” Catardi said. “See, Patch? You son is safe and warm inside Vermont, probably sipping a black-and-bitter in the control room watching the success of this operation on the periscope display.” Catardi clapped Pacino’s shoulder, smiling.
The boarding party entered the ship, then two SEALs emerged from the hatch, both in full diving gear, and walked aft to the stern, diving into the water.
“Clearing the screw from their net,” Catardi said.
Once the SEALs had climbed back aboard the sub, the history video shrank to a dot, the entire screen now devoted to a real-time view. The large, black, oblong raft was fully inflated, and two of the SEALs were pulling Iranians out of the hull and loading them on to the raft.
“How big is the crew?” Pacino asked.
“We think forty, maybe fifty,” Catardi said.
After the SEALs loaded the last Iranian and lifted large containers into the raft — rations, water, the emergency locator beacon — they withdrew into the boat and shut the hatch after themselves.
“Any of these Iranians identified in our facial recognition database?” Pacino looked closely at the video screen.
“No,” Taylor said.
“I don’t see any Russians.”
“You can tell a Russian from an Iranian from thirty thousand feet?” Taylor was smiling to remove any offense from his comment.