They secured one end of the rope to the helicopter’s landing strut, then tossed the other end over the edge. Tanner peeked over and saw the rope dangling into a three-foot gap between Toshogu and the cliff. The ship groaned and shifted, grating against the face. Ice popped, each as loud as a gunshot.
“She ain’t long for this world,” said Cahil.
High tide was less than twenty minutes away. Once it came, she would likely float free and capsize under the weight of the ice.
Tanner lowered himself over the cliff and rappelled to the bottom, where he swung out and hooked his foot over the encrusted railing. Ice snapped off and crashed to the deck below. He tied off the rope and belayed Cahil as he came down.
Every inch of exposed deck was thick with ice — a skating rink broken only by the derricks and J-shaped ventilators. The ice sparkled dully in the gray light.
Slipping and clutching for handholds, they left the railing and began picking their way across the canted deck. “Watch yourself, Briggs. If we fall in…”
“I know.” Three or four minutes to live, Tanner thought. “Check aft; I’ll go forward.”
Five minutes later, they met back on the forecastle. All entrances to the pilothouse were as good as welded shut. Even with blowtorches, it would take an hour to break through. They continued forward, scrambling and clawing until they reached the bow railing. Four feet below them, waves licked at the hull. Tanner shuffled forward, peered over the edge, then pulled back.
“Do you hear that?”
“What?” said Cahil
“Some kind of echo. Here, hold on to me.”
With Cahil clutching his belt, Tanner leaned farther over the railing. After a moment, he pulled himself back up. “There’s a hole about the size of a VW in the hull. The water’s filling it, but I think if we time it right…”
Cahil groaned. “Oh boy. We’re gonna get wet doing it. And you complain about Oaks planning bad excursions. So who goes first?”
“Me. It’s my bad idea.”
31
After leaving Philadelphia, Vorsalov stopped briefly for breakfast at an IHOP, then got on Highway 95 and headed south in the predawn darkness. Three hours later, he was approaching the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
Following ten miles behind, Latham was anxious.
He wanted to be on the front lines, but he knew it was impossible. Vorsalov knew his face too well. Even with the van’s bank of monitors that allowed him to see everything the cars saw, it was maddening being so far removed from the action. The feeling worsened as they neared the city.
“Command, this is Mobile Lead.”
Latham picked up the handset. “Go ahead, Paul.”
“Subject is turning, heading southeast on Old Dominion.”
“Roger.”
Sixty seconds later: “Another turn… onto Dolly Madison, heading north. Subject is turning into a Denny’s. Okay, units four and five spread out, give me a wide perimeter.”
Denny’s? Something didn’t add up for Latham. Vorsalov had eaten breakfast two hours before and made a bathroom stop in Essex outside Baltimore. Was this simply a coffee break? “Paul, stay sharp. I got a weird feeling about this.”
Randal took up position a hundred yards up the road from the restaurant. Through his binoculars, he watched the hostess seat Vorsalov at a window booth, then take his order. She returned a minute later with coffee.
Ten minutes passed. The Russian sipped his coffee and read a newspaper.
“What’s he doing?” Randal’s driver asked.
“Drinking coffee, looks like.”
“Why’s the boss getting hinky about that?”
“He’s out of pattern. Why drive this far off the interstate for coffee?”
After a second cup of coffee, Vorsalov paid his bill and walked outside.
“All units, this is lead. Subject is moving. Get ready to roll.”
As Randal spoke, another car — a black Oldsmobile — pulled into the lot and parked beside Vorsalov’s Taurus. The driver, a woman in a blue blazer, got out. Vorsalov waved to her. Randal focused his binoculars on the sticker in the Olds’s rear window: Avis
“Shit! He’s switching cars, he’s switching goddamned cars!”
Latham heard Randal’s report, but even as Vorsalov was transferring his bags from the Taurus to the Olds, his mind was elsewhere: Vorsalov was switching. Fine, he’s dry-cleaning. But why here? Why not at an Avis office?
In addition to a laptop and a satellite communications console, the command van was equipped with a library of maps that would’ve done National Geographic proud. Latham found one of the Georgetown Pike area and flipped it open. It took him less than a minute to see it.
“Mobile Lead, this is Command,” he called.
“Go ahead.”
“Paul, have you got a car to the east of the parking lot?”
“Negative. That’s a one-way street. He can’t…” Then Randal understood. “Lead to Four, head east to where the one-way dumps out. Move!”
“Roger, we’re rolling.”
Randal said, “I screwed up, Charlie. Sorry.”
“Forget it. Hold your breath.”
Latham cursed himself. He should have seen this the moment Vorsalov pulled into the lot. The road to the north was a two-lane, one-way street. If Vorsalov had chosen this Denny’s for a reason other than its superior coffee, it was because it was the perfect spot to lay one of the oldest countersurveillance traps in the game.
Vorsalov waved good-bye to the rental agent, got into the Olds, then pulled up to the exit, his blinker signaling a right turn. A dozen cars flew by. The speed limit was fifty miles per hour, but no one was doing less than sixty.
Randal called, “Four, this is Lead, are you in place?”
“Not yet. Almost there…”
“Push it.”
There was a lull in traffic. Vorsalov pulled out. Abruptly, he veered left, up the one-way, and sped around the corner.
“Go, go, go!” Randal yelled to his driver. “All units, this is Lead. Subject is running, I say again, subject is running. Four, are you in place?”
“Negative.”
Randal pounded the dashboard. Damn! Vorsalov had been a lamb all the way down the coast; now this. They’d gotten comfortable, and he’d nailed them.
As often as not, spies who suspect the are under surveillance do not try to shake their watchers; they try to expose them. In doing so, the roles are reversed and the watchers must work twice as hard to not only remain invisible but to maintain contact. If Vorsalov could lure someone down the one-way street, he would gain the upper hand. The trick for Latham’s team would be to reestablish contact without letting the Russian see them. That was now in the hands of the team’s only woman agent, Janet Paschel in Mobile Four.
“Command to Four,” Latham called.
“Go ahead.”
“Janet, this is Charlie. He won’t go more than two blocks. Any farther, and he risks attracting the cops. Just get in place and look sharp. If he gets even a whiff, we’re finished. Just slide in behind him and stay there. We’ll catch up.”
“Roger.” Janet’s voice was tight.
Paul Randal called, “All units copy that?”
The units checked in one by one. The net went silent, waiting.
Sixty seconds passed.
Ninety seconds.
Finally: “Command, this is Four. I’ve got him.”
The next two hours stretched Latham’s team to the breaking point. After leaving the one-way, Vorsalov headed southwest on Kirby Road, away from the city and back toward McLean. With Paschel in the lead, Latham juggled units until they were paralleling Vorsalov on side streets, invisibly boxing him in.