“Ma’am,” Rick said, “I been walking around big fields in the pouring rain all of my life back home in Kentucky…doesn’t affect me now…’cept I sometimes get a little rust creeping up under my eyelids.”
Mrs. Westenholz squeaked with laughter, and opened her own dark eyes wide. “But this isn’t proper American rain,” she said. “This is Russian rain, and it’s colder, comes from the Arctic…it’ll freeze you right through.”
“Don’t worry about him, ma’am,” said Ray Darling. “He’s insensitive. That chill couldn’t get through to him.”
“Ooh,” said Jane Westenholz. “I think Ricky could be very sensitive…and I think you should all come inside now and I’ll get us some coffee and a glass of brandy to warm us up.”
Chief Cernic actually considered that an appealing idea. He also considered, very privately, that Mrs. Westenholz might be a bit of an athlete in the sack. Trouble was she plainly had eyes for only the big, straw-haired team leader from Kentucky. And at forty-four, Fred also realized that he was too old for her good-looking daughter. His wife and three sons, back home in San Diego, would probably have been pleased about that.
Rick grinned at Jane Westenholz. “Okay, you go ahead, we’ll see you in the stern bar in five minutes…but hold the brandy. I forgot to tell you, Fred here is a reformed alcoholic…gets really difficult after even one drink. Ray and I never drink when he’s around…we try to go along with his program…just to help him through it.”
Chief Cernic raised his eyebrows at the enormity of the lie. “Oh, darling Freddie,” Mrs. Westenholz said, “we mustn’t allow you to slip back, must we? One day at a time…and no drinkie-poohs for anyone this afternoon.”
Ray Schaeffer shook his head. “Jesus,” he muttered. “This old broad could be a real fucking nuisance. We may end up heaving the bodies of her and her daughter over the side before long.”
The identical thought occurred to Rick Hunter, but he thought it would be better if they could get through this without taking anyone out. “We’re going to have to make ourselves a bit remote this evening,” he said quietly.
The ten-thousand-ton Mikhail Lermontov turned back to the southeast, toward the narrow strait that divides the headland of Bojascina from the island of Kurgenicy. The fifty-mile north-south channel up to the Belomorski Canal lay just beyond.
The rain stopped as they turned away from Kizhi, and a watery sunlight lit the surface of the lake intermittently. The high rolling cloud banks to the southwest remained in place, but the dying afternoon breeze had slowed the low pressure system as it moved northeast. Lieutenant Commander Hunter had baleful forebodings of the night’s weather, and he was already shuddering at the thought of the forthcoming conditions in which he and his team would almost certainly be working.
To Rick, this strange and foreign place was merely an operational zone, and he tried to view it dispassionately. But the sight of the hills, climbing away in a misty purple shroud on the eastern shore of the glistening silver lake, was almost overwhelming in its desolate beauty. Lieutenant Commander Hunter, no stranger himself to breathtaking landscapes, shook his head at the thought of three Soviet-designed submarines moving innocently, yet somehow obscenely, like huge black stranded slugs, across these waterways of God.
The light began to fade again, and the air suddenly seemed colder. The SEALs left the deck and wandered down to the stern bar, where Jane Westenholz and her daughter Cathy were ensconced with two large pots of coffee and a plate of small pastries. Rick and Fred, whose nerves were beginning to tighten now as the Green Stop grew closer, managed only to sip coffee. Ray, full of confidence in his own ability to survive anything, ate seven pastries with deceptive speed.
By 1800, the bar was full and smoky, and filled with the aromatic smells of coffee and alcohol. Many of the 140 Americans on board were coming in now for a drink before dinner, which was served early, in one sitting, during these springtime weeks before the tour ships became really crowded to their three-hundred-passenger summer capacity. Things were even busier in the big horseshoe bar in the bow of the ship, where there would later be Russian folk dancing and then a disco for the younger passengers.
Outside a light rain was slanting in from the southwest, glistening in the bright lights of the three upper decks. Rick Hunter could see the warning lights on the big channel markers as the ship headed north, into the rain, into the drop zone. He was dreading the condition of the fields, worried about the mud and the mess they would surely find themselves in. Worried more about the return to the ship, when they would be trying to look normal. It would be long after midnight.
Jane Westenholz chattered on and invited the three Americans to join her and her daughter at dinner in the big dining room. Trapped, unable to use Fred’s “alcoholism” as a way out, Rick found himself agreeing to meet at 1930—just about the time the ship was scheduled to pull up — knowing that it was unlikely they could get to the dining room at the correct time; he wanted to get a GPS “fix” on the anchorage location and, assuming they were in the right place, a damned hard look at the surrounding country, and that might well keep them occupied past 1930.
Once out in the dark, they would have only numbers to go by: 62.38N, 34.47E. That’s where the Mikhail Lermontov must be when she came to a halt, the precise spot Fort Meade had designated for the Green Stop. Those were the numbers Rick must see when he switched on the Global Positioning System. Four hours later, less than five miles northwest of that position, the SEALs would light up their electronic beacon in the middle of some godforsaken Russian field and pray the laser homing device on the canisters would locate it. At 2330 exactly. Five hours from now.
Meanwhile, as the tour boat ran on up the lake, leaving the town of Sunga to her port side, a 220-ton United States Air Force B-52H long-range bomber was thundering at 440 miles per hour through the ice-cold skies forty-five thousand feet above the Arctic Circle. Lieutenant Colonel Al Jaxtimer, a seasoned front-line pilot out of the Fifth Bomb Wing, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, was at the controls, concentrating on maintaining precise airspeed over the ground in the north-westerly jet stream. It had been a long day for Jaxtimer and his crew, copilot Major Mike Parker, electronics warfare officer Captain Charlie Ullman, and the two navigators, Lieutenant Chuck Ryder and Lieutenant Sam Segal.
They had first flown the B-52 up from Minot to Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles. They had taken off again at 1000 (Moscow time) that morning, except that it was 2300 the previous evening for them in California. The big Edwards tanker aircraft had waited high above in the dark as they roared upward to their climb-out refueling point. They then headed north with full tanks, a ten-thousand-mile range, and a light cargo load of 750 pounds, plus 180 pounds of parachutes. Deep inside the bomb bay were three 250-pound bomb-shaped canisters, attached to furled black parachute containers. Each one had been personally packed by the senior petty officers at Coronado. The kit was detailed right down to a couple of shovels, and the SEALs’ twin godsends of a flashlight and a plastic-sealed three-pack of towels.
Since the climb-out refuel, they had been arrowing up over the Northern ice cap, through several time zones en route to the drop point over the western shore of Lake Onega. No one was bored or tired — the adrenaline took care of that. All five men understood that even a minor foul-up could cause the most embarrassing international crisis for the USA. Each of them was determined not to let that happen. Not in their bomber, not in MT058.