Lewinsky guided the ship through two more turns as Fishers Island faded astern, the new course 090 until Block Island was behind them. At Point Charlie, the navigator had them turn to east-southeast to skirt Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
“Bridge, Contact Coordinator,” River Styxx’s voice came smoothly over the 7MC. “New visual contact, Victor One, bearing one one two, range two thousand yards by radar. Contact bearing rate is right. Sonar reports contact is shut down and drifting.”
Pacino trained his binoculars to the bearing. “There he is,” he said.
“What is it?” Cooper asked.
“Russian trawler. Or more accurately, a Russian spy ship disguised as a trawler. Lurking just outside our territorial waters.”
Cooper scanned it with his binoculars.
“Report it to the captain,” Pacino ordered.
Cooper picked up the 7MC and made the report to Seagraves, who simply said, “Captain, aye.”
“I see now why the captain decided to keep our radar off.”
“We’ll rotate and radiate once we turn to the northeast,” Pacino said. “The Russian will be well astern by then, and we’ll be seeing heavy traffic inbound to Boston Harbor.”
As Nantucket grew close, at the hour of 1800, their watch reliefs climbed up to the bridge — Varney and Short Hull — and Pacino and Cooper turned over the watch and climbed back into the submarine.
They hurried down the ladder to the middle level and found the captain seated at the end of the table, digging into the traditional meal he’d called for when the sub got underway, New York strip steak with mashed potatoes.
“Go ahead, Coop,” Pacino said to Short Hull.
“Captain, Mr. Pacino and I have been properly relieved of the deck and the conn by Mr. Varney and Mr. Cooper. Ship is steaming at full on course zero nine eight in the channel to the south of Nantucket headed to Point Foxtrot where we will turn northeast. Reactor is natural circulation and the electric plant is in a normal full-power lineup.”
Seagraves frowned up at Cooper for a moment, then said, “You did an adequate job up there, Mr. Cooper. Have a seat and get some chow.”
Cooper looked disappointed as he pulled up a chair next to Pacino. Pacino smirked at Cooper and said quietly, “The word ‘adequate’ means ‘perfect’ in the captain’s usage.”
“Why?” Cooper asked.
Pacino shrugged. “He worries we’ll get cocky and then something would go wrong. It’s his sailor’s superstition.”
“You Vermont-ers are fucking weird. No offense, Patch.”
Pacino laughed. “None taken.”
Vostov knocked on Anya’s door and opened it slowly. He found her in Nanny Roksana’s lap, being read a story. Her eyes were red and swollen, and when she looked up at him, tears formed and rolled down her cheeks. She jumped to her feet and ran to him and hugged him, her tears wetting his jeans. He sank to a crouch and hugged her tight, glancing up to the nanny and waving her out with his head. Two SBP security troops in tactical gear stood in the room’s corners away from the door, both trying to look inconspicuous and both failing.
“Let’s sit down together, okay?” he said gently to her and she nodded, sniffling. He guided her to the overstuffed chair where she liked to have stories read to her before bed. The room was almost identical to her room in the Kremlin complex apartment, which had taken some doing, since the north dacha was much different than the ornate apartment.
The north dacha was a three-story log cabin set in deep woods, with a yard big enough to land a military helicopter, but beyond that, the trees were too thick to see anything beyond the edge of the helipad. Vostov liked this house much better than his gigantic and official presidential retreat fifty kilometers south of Moscow, which was even more ornate than the Kremlin compound, all white marble and soaring halls, as if it had been built by a seventeenth century Tsar. This log lodge had been designed by Vostov personally — perhaps “design” was an exaggeration. He’d sketched on cocktail napkins and a team of architects had given birth to drawings and models, and he’d changed it over and over until it met his approval. Of course, Larisa had always hated it, and usually found an excuse to avoid coming here, but that was fine with Vostov, since it gave him more time to be with Anya by himself.
“I can see that you are very sad about Mommy,” Vostov opened.
“Daddy, did they shoot her?” She shot a glance at the SBP guards.
“No, Anya. Mommy was in a store and some very bad men came in and took over the store. They tried to get some of their bad men friends sprung out of prison. They threatened to hurt Mommy. But guards like those nice men over there,” he nodded his head at one of the SBP men, “went into the store to rescue Mommy, and they did. They shot all the bad men. But the gas they used to put the bad men to sleep, well, that’s what hurt Mommy. Mommy had a very weak heart and nobody knew that. They didn’t find that out until Mommy was in the hospital. They tried to save her, but her heart was too weak, baby, and — I’m so sorry — but Mommy died.”
For the next few minutes Anya just cried and wailed in his lap. What can be said to a six-year-old in the face of death, he wondered. He held her tight and waited for her to calm down.
“Now, in a few minutes, we’re going to get dressed in our best clothes and we’re going to travel to Mommy’s funeral. Do you know what a funeral is?”
“I think so, Daddy. They will put Mommy in a wood box, dig a hole, and put her in the hole, and then they’ll put dirt back into the hole. And then there’s a stone that goes there.”
Vostov nodded. “We’ll take Mommy to a big church first, where they will say some things about Mommy’s life, and there will be lots of people there, people who loved Mommy and lots of them who love you too, and we’ll all be together, we’ll all be sad together. And we’ll take Mommy in her coffin to a cemetery, which is a very pretty place where we put the people we love after they die. But you have to know that Mommy is not really in that box, sweetheart. Mommy is still alive, she’s just alive in Heaven. In the afterlife. Did Mommy ever tell you about Heaven?”
Anya nodded seriously. “She said it was a beautiful place where people go after they die, like my bunny rabbit. Do you think Mommy is there with Bunny?”
Vostov nodded, reaching to the side table for a tissue. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and blew his nose. This was much more difficult than he’d imagined it. But through it all, he noticed, he didn’t feel the slightest amount of guilt. Which was strange. He must still be in shock, he thought.
The rest of the morning was something out of a blurred fever dream. Nanny Roksana knocked and brought in a selection of dresses for Anya. One was white, another black, a third a pattern of primary colors. Vostov sank to one knee and asked Anya which one she wanted to wear, but told her, before she chose, that everyone at the funeral would be wearing black, because that was a sad color and a way to show sadness. Anya looked up him, her eyes filled with tears, and said, “Daddy, Mommy would want me to wear bright happy colors, because Mommy always hated it whenever I was sad.” Vostov nodded at Roksana, feeling a stabbing pain in his chest.
The next thing he knew, he was in the gleaming black presidential Aurus stretch limo, with Anya, Roksana, and Tonya Pasternak. He avoided eye contact with them and simply stared at the floor, only looking up when Tonya reached into the minibar and poured him a double vodka. He downed it in one gulp. Tonya lifted an eyebrow to see if he wanted a refill, but he shook his head.
The limo stopped in front of the newly built Cathedral of Christ the Savior. New, he supposed, in the timeline of cathedrals, the final touches put on the gold-plated domes in 2000, the year Putin had come to power. He walked in, Anya’s small warm hand in his. They walked by what seemed a hundred rows of grieving well-wishers and dignitaries from around the world. He tried mightily to keep his eyes dry, but when he’d hear Anya sniff, it seemed the wetness came anew.