“During the Cold War, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. You’ve heard the rumors. There’s always been speculationspeculation with no basis in fact so farthat American POWs from Vietnam were transported to the Soviet Union for interrogation. That question might have been intended to get you thinking about that possibility, for some reason that we don’t yet know about. Or, it could have been what I think it wasan attempt to throw us off balance, to drive a wedge into the integrity of the U.S. negotiating team. That would be entirely reasonable and certainly in keeping with Ukraine’s style. I wouldn’t give it much more thought than that.”
“He’s trying to make me think that my father might have been alive after all?” Tombstone felt the blood drain from his face as understanding dawned. “He couldn’t have been.”
Tiltfelt shrugged again. “Who knows?”
He abruptly turned back to the delegates crowding the room, leaving Tombstone to try to interpret his last remark.
Tombstone watched Tiltfelt move about the room, glad-handing representatives with careful impartiality. Five minutes with this one, five minutes with that one, remembering each aide’s name long enough to greet them and then ignore them. While it looked random, Tombstone recognized the real skill that lay behind the man’s progress through the room. Recognized it, appreciated it, and had no use for it.
“Thank you for having us aboard, Admiral,” a voice said just behind his left shoulder. Tombstone turned and saw the representative from Turkey.
“If your pilots came any closer to my ship, I was going to wave them in for a trap,” Tombstone said. His face was pointedly neutral. Let the Turk try to decide how to take it, as a poor joke or blatant provocation.
Suddenly, Tombstone didn’t particularly care which.
The Turk’s smile wavered for a moment, then settled firmly on his face. “This is international airspace.”
Tombstone took a step closer to the man, and pitched his voice low.
“We lost an aviator the other day following an encounter with one of your freedom-of-navigation flights,” he said carefully. Suddenly, he wished he could retract his earlier remark. If this man could help, if he knew anything about their downed aviator, then it would be sheer folly to alienate him. Coming so soon on the heels of Tiltfelt’s speculation on his own father, the possibility that he’d done anything to jeopardize another aviator’s safety was unbearable. “Have you heard anything about him, by any chance? Perhaps one of your fishing vessels has seen him?”
The Turkish representative took a sip of coffee before answering him.
“No, I’m quite sorry. We have heard nothing.”
“Would you tell me if you did?” Tombstone asked, unable to keep a trace of bitterness out of his voice.
The Turkish representative drew away from him. “We abide by all international laws of armed conflict,” he answered. “These matters that we are here to discussthey are between nations, between states. Not between individuals. If your lost airman is found, he will be treated appropriately.”
“Appropriately according to whose standards?” Tombstone asked, his voice slightly louder.
“Admiral,” he heard Tiltfelt say. “Perhaps we could-“
“Answer the question,” Tombstone said.
“According to international law,” the Turkish representative said firmly. He put his coffee cup down on the table with slightly more force than necessary. He turned to Bradley Tiltfelt. “If you might excuse us, I have matters I need to discuss with my staff before our next meeting.”
“Of course,” Tiltfelt said promptly, shooting Tombstone a furious look. “May I have someone escort you back to your quarters? The ship is a maze if you’re not used to it.”
“Very kind.” The Turkish representative bowed slightly, carefully watching Tombstone. “We will see you at eleven o’clock.”
The Turkish entourage departed, flanked by the Marines ostensibly assigned as their escorts. That had been Tiltfelt’s one concession to security during a heated discussion over the dangers of having the delegations on board. The other delegations were provided with escorts only as requested to guide them through the maze of the ship’s passageways as a demonstration of trust and goodwill.
As the door closed behind the Turkish entourage and the low murmur of voices rose again in the conference room, Tiltfelt turned to Tombstone.
“Fuck this up, and you’ll be retired within twenty-four hours. I promise it.”
Yuri Kursk waited until the rest of the room was chuckling appreciatively at a mildly ribald joke told by the Turkish representative.
He slipped quietly out of the door to the conference room, and headed aft on the ship, walking purposefully.
Six frames down, he turned left and moved over to the starboard passageway. He nodded to the sailors he met walking past, maintaining a purposeful look on his face. One stopped, hesitating as though to ask him if he were lost, but Yuri brushed quickly by. Seventy feet later, he was at his destination. This was the only dangerous portion of the mission, for he had no ready explanation for his presence outside Tombstone Magruder’s quarters. He could always say he was lost, and indeed that explanation might hold up. The aircraft carrier was massive, far bigger than he had imagined it from studying its technical specs. Translating the one million square feet of living space into an actual map of this vessel was an entirely different matter.
Still, by watching the frame numbers engraved on metal strips on top of the main support members of the hull, he’d found his way to it with relatively little difficulty.
Now, if he could get his bearings…
The diagrams had shown a separate suite for VIPs on board the carrier, and it had been their estimation that that was where Tombstone Magruder would be berthed.
He walked past his target door, and cast a quick glance at it. He smiledthe Americans made things childishly easy sometimes. Posted in the small metal frame on the doorjamb was Admiral Magruder’s business card.
Yuri kept walking, careful to maintain his pace. He stepped over a knee-knocker and moved past the next frame, still looking for any hatch that showed the slightest possibility of granting him access to the compartment next to Admiral Magruder’s cabin.
He found it. The metal plate indicated it was a teletype repair facility. Yuri tried the handle. It turned. He pushed the door open.
At some time, the space must have served for repairing teletypes, but those days had long since past. Now it was a miscellaneous storage area, cluttered with mops and buckets and the normal equipment used for cleaning compartments.
Perfect. In fact, it could not have been more ideal.
Yuri closed the hatch behind him before he turned on the light to the compartment. He maneuvered between the buckets and wringers to the back wall. If he could only be certainno, this must be it. He’d seen nothing else that looked like it might do. And there was certainly not enough space between what he’d estimated to be the end of the admiral’s cabin and this compartment for there to be any problem.
Yuri knelt and dug in his briefcase for a moment, then extracted a harmless-looking radio. He adjusted the dials on it, then moved aside some cleaning supplies on a shelf and placed the radio behind them.
So easy. So simple, and easy enough when the foolishly open, trusting nature of the Americans labeled each compartment so clearly.
Yuri straightened, brushed a tiny bit of lint from his pants, turned off the lights, and left the compartment.
As he stepped out into the passageway, he glanced right and left. A young sailora female one, he noticed bemusedlyapproached him and eyed him oddly. “You need some cleaning gear, sir?” she asked politely. There was an undercurrent of suspicion in her voice.