"Of course." Cabot smiled. The Russians must know that, by now, U.S. Navy SEAL divers had been all over the wreckage of the sunken Mike, submerged in just two hundred miles of water ten miles off the north Hokkaido coast. He wondered what intelligence coups they'd turned up already.
"We want your assurances, Mr. Cabot, that our property be respected. We want no CIA recovery attempts… like your theft of our Delta submarine in the 1970s."
"I can make no promises."
"This incident could hurt you personally, Mr. Cabot. You, a senior CIA officer? Betraying his country? You are already in far too deep to back out of our agreement."
Cabot sighed. "You can't threaten me, Grigor. I am not one of your agents to be ordered about like a clerk. I have my own connections. And my own security. If I was to name you and several of your… associates as the men who'd approached me, tried to get me to sell you secrets, who do you think they would believe? You? Or me?"
Grigor folded his hands. "Why did you turn traitor, Mr. Cabot? You seem to be a wealthy man. Respected. Secure. The money we are paying you… "
"Is a pittance, yes."
"Then… why?"
"Let's simply call it ideological reasons, Grigor."
Grigor would never understand, because he did not see his own country as did Cabot, who'd spent ten years as a high-level Agency analyst of the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union was very nearly bankrupt, and it was their military, as much as the rampant corruption and inefficiency of their bureaucracy-managed industry, that was running their treasury face first into the ground. They were spending hundreds of billions in an attempt to keep up with the United States in ballistic-missile defense, in space- and electronic-warfare systems, in ICBMs, and in submarine technology. The efforts of the Walker family and other traitors had helped them leapfrog their submarine technology almost on a par with that of the U.S., but they were not going to be able to hold that parity for long. It was simply too expensive.
If, however, they could capture and copy one of America's latest SSNs, they could not only achieve tactical parity, but they could anticipate coming technologies, and keep up with the United States, or even surpass her, for the next several decades. And they would save tens of billions of dollars in the effort.
And why did Russian tactical parity interest Cabot and a few of his highly placed, well-manicured friends? Simple, really. If the Soviet Union went bankrupt, the government could fall. Outright anarchy and civil war were possibilities, as was a military coup. In any case, the Soviet Union would be forced to drop out of the Cold War, no longer able to play the superpower game.
And if that happened, certain defense contractors and military-technology industries — including the Electric Boat Division, which built America's nuclear submarines, and several West Coast aircraft companies — might well suffer catastrophic losses as they stopped receiving government contracts for new weapons systems. Projects like the new Seawolf submarine project, or the almost magical Aurora hypersonic reconnaissance plane, might be canceled by a cost-conscious and myopic Congress.
And that would cost Cabot and his friends millions in secret investments, and potentially billions in future profits and dividends.
Ideology indeed. Cabot was a devout capitalist.
It would have been perfect, he mused. The loss of the Pittsburgh would have helped the Soviets in their race to catch up with American submarine technology, and would also have been a blow to American defense assets. The playing field would have been leveled.
The game would have gone on.
"I do not understand you, Mr. Cabot."
Cabot smiled. "It's not important that you do, Grigor. Cheer up! We lost our chance this time. But there will be another! I promise you!"
Yes, the game would certainly continue….
O'Brien stood beside Benson, Scobey, Boyce, Jablonski, and Douglas, watching as the bikers swaggered toward them.
"It's you pukes again, is it?" the leader sneered. "Didn't learn your lesson last time? Maybe you faggots want some special instruction!"
"We just came here for a drink, gents," Scobey said. "We don't want any trouble."
"You got trouble, sailor boy! We don't want your kind hanging around here, ain't that right, guys?"
The other bikers chorused their assents. There were twelve of them, all of them big and heavily built, most tending toward paunches and overweight, but all powerfully muscled. Twelve bike gangers and six sailors squared off against one another in the parking lot next to Macy's Ram and Ewe. The back of the lot overlooked the Mare Island Channel, with a view across to the southern half of Mare Island. The Pittsburgh was visible from there, tied to her moorings at Pier 2. A dozen motorcycles were parked en masse, up against the low guardrail that separated the parking lot from the twenty-foot drop to the channel.
"Maybe you guys don't understand," Douglas said. "This is a public bar, not your personal, private hangout. So, if you boys have a problem with us having a drink here, maybe you're the ones in need of an education."
"C'mon, Dutch," one of the bikers said. "I'm sick of this. Let's redecorate the pavement with these pansies."
"Yeah," said another. "Let's do 'em."
O'Brien touched the needle mike he wore, a loaner Motorola borrowed from the SEALs. "Rattlesnake, this is Sewer Pipe. We have positive target acquisition."
"Roger that," a voice said in his ear. "Stand by."
"Huh?" one of the gangers said. "What's that all about?"
"Reinforcements," O'Brien said. And then the motorcycle thundered around the bend, cornering off the street and tooling across the parking lot.
Randall pulled to a halt a few feet away, dropped the kick-stand, swung out of the saddle, and tilted back the visor of his helmet. He was wearing civvies — leather, mostly, but with a Grateful Dead T-shirt underneath. The crazy idiot had flown down to San Diego on a military hop as soon as Pittsburgh had docked and he'd been debriefed… then caught another transport all the way back to Mare Island. He'd claimed he wanted to make an impression, and that his bike was the way to do it.
A battered Chevy followed him in and parked. Fitch and McCluskey got out, banging the doors behind them.
"Nice bikes," Randall said, eyeing the herd. He picked out the leader with a glance. "Which one's yours?"
"The chromed panhead," the biker said. He spat, hands flexing. "What's it to you, shithead?"
"I just heard you weren't extending proper hospitality to out-of-town visitors. Thought maybe you needed a lesson in manners." He jerked a thumb at one of the machines. Fitch and McCluskey walked over, picked up the 450-pound machine between them, and slung it in one smooth heave over the guardrail and into the channel.
"Hey!" The biker took a staggering step forward, eyes bugging from his head. "You… you… " He sputtered a string of acid epithets, then shrieked and charged, hands outstretched.
Randall took two steps forward, caught the front of the biker's leathers, and tugged him forward, off-balance as he ran. The man yelped… then dropped gasping as Randall rammed his windpipe with fingers sharply folded at the middle joints.
"What the fuck?" a big ganger screamed. He reached into a pocket and produced a switchblade, which flicked open with a click, the blade shining in the sun.
Randall rolled aside as the ganger lunged. One hand slashed down, grabbing the knife hand and turning it inward. The knife spun from nerveless fingers … and then that biker joined his leader on the pavement.