“Fifty-six, sir. And by the way, your support jumped three points after Larisa died. But I see what you’re doing. It seems to make sense. But why the nuclear torpedo if you really just want to stall the program?”
“I read the file on the loss of the Kaliningrad. Once the Americans knew she was going under ice, they sent an attack sub up there after her. Kaliningrad had a Gigantskiy torpedo. It might have saved her crew — it busted through thick ice and allowed the escape capsule to surface. I figure, number one, that nuclear torpedo might come in handy in the event there’s an emergency and Belgorod has to surface and the ice is thick. And number two, if there is an American sub shadowing it, the torpedo may come in handy neutralizing it. After all, the way I see it, we get two free shots.”
“Free shots?”
“The Americans sank two of our submarines not two months ago and we let it slide for some good reasons, but it still goes without saying that Carlucci owes me two free shots. He can’t very well retaliate if he loses a sub under the icecap after sinking two of ours. And the Americans would have trouble blaming us for the loss of their sub under the ice anyway — too many disasters can befall a submarine under the ice. In any case, politically, I can’t afford to lose another submarine. If that got out, we’d definitely be moving our personal effects out of the Kremlin.”
A knock came at the door. Pasternak hurried over, spoke to the administrative aide, said something quietly and turned to Vostov.
“The American vice president is here, sir. Are you ready to receive her?”
Tonya Pasternak opened the door and greeted Vice President Karen Chushi. Vostov stood and smiled at her, shaking her hand. Chushi looked shorter than he remembered her, and her face was newly lined and her complexion seemed almost gray. She didn’t look well at all, he thought. God, he hoped she hadn’t gotten some kind of food poisoning while visiting Moscow — that’s all he needed, accusations that his SVR had attempted to assassinate an American vice president. He made a mental note to take a meeting with SVR’s chairwoman, Lana Lilya, to make sure the foreign intelligence service wasn’t doing any covert operations he hadn’t authorized.
Vostov waved Chushi to a chair at the fireplace. “Madam Vice President,” he said, nodding at her, careful to make sure his expression remained somber.
“Please, Mr. President, call me Karen.”
“And you should call me Dimmi,” he said. “At least when we’re behind closed doors, yes?”
“Dimmi it is,” she said.
“Do you mind if I have Miss Pasternak translate for us today, Karen? My English, it is a bit weak.” And Chushi’s harsh, nasal west Texas accent was much too thick for him, Vostov thought.
“That would be fine, sir,” she said.
He said something in Russian to Pasternak, who replied with a raised eyebrow, and he nodded at her.
“Madam Vice President,” Pasternak said, “President Vostov is asking if you are feeling quite yourself. You look, what is the expression, under the weather?”
Chushi nodded gravely but bit her lip. When she answered, she said, “You’re right, but I’m just getting over a stomach flu. I should be fine soon.”
After Chushi gave her condolences and the two talked, somewhat awkwardly through Pasternak’s translation, of some inconsequential matters, Chushi stood and excused herself, saying she knew Vostov had many other members of the visiting officials to meet.
When she left, Vostov frowned at Pasternak.
“She’s seriously ill, isn’t she?”
Pasternak nodded. “She looks like my aunt just before she died. Stomach cancer. Metastasized all through her body. Cancer ate her internal organs.”
“I wonder, if that’s the case, how long she has. Did we have any of the FSB’s doctors at the funeral today or the dinner last night?”
“I can check, sir.”
“See if any of our physicians agree with your theory. Not that it matters, though. I understand that in American politics, the vice president is just a figurehead. Ceremonial.”
Pasternak nodded. “Just waiting around for the death of the president, so she can step in.”
“That lady isn’t stepping into anything but a chemo chair, if your guess is correct.”
“For her sake, I hope we’re wrong. She seemed like a nice person.”
Vostov smirked. “She’s a politician. We all seem nice when you meet us. It’s in offices like this, alone with our chiefs of staff, that we’re evil sons of bitches.”
Pasternak smiled briefly, then went to bring in the British prime minister.
As she did, Vostov made a mental note to have the office swept for bugs when the last of the foreign delegations left. He wouldn’t put it beyond any of them to try to plant a listening device in his inner sanctum.
10
He ran south on the smooth packed sand of the beach, almost to the halfway point, his father’s black lab Jackson bounding enthusiastically beside him, looking up at him and smiling that euphoric canine smile as if giving thanks for being taken on the run. It didn’t seem strange that Jackson, four years before, had made his final trip to the vet to be put to sleep. Today, Jackson was as young and energetic as he’d been as a puppy.
They were almost at the halfway point, three miles from his father’s Sandbridge house, where today’s workout plan called for him to turn around and run back. But a quarter mile farther on, he saw the figure of a beautiful woman in a bikini strolling in the surf, and there was something about her, something achingly familiar. He decided to continue the run south, knowing Jackson wouldn’t mind. As he got closer to the woman, she turned her face up from the waves to look at him and it was her. Carrie Alameda, his first love. Dead now, going on two years. He slowed his jog to a walk and approached her slowly.
Her hair blew in the wind and she beamed at him, her lips curving around that gorgeous smile. He could see the constellation of freckles arrayed around her nose and those deep brown almost liquid eyes. He came close enough to touch her, but as he started to reach out to her, he noticed another figure coming from the west, and when he turned, he saw it was Lieutenant Commander Rachel Romanov, clad in starched dress whites with her ceremonial sword, wearing full ribbons, her gold submariner’s emblem shining in the bright sun, her long gleaming dirty blonde hair combed down past her shoulders. He looked over at her, then at Carrie, and he realized both women were gazing at him, soft smiles on their faces.
He tried to find his voice. “Why are you here?” he heard himself ask.
“To wake you up, like you said you wanted,” River Styxx’s harsh voice said. He heard the awful sound of his bunk curtain being yanked back suddenly. He blinked in the dim light of stateroom three and saw Styxx’s face. She was wearing her at-sea black coveralls, a form-fitting one-piece uniform with the American flag on the left arm, the New Jersey patch on the right, embroidered gold dolphins on her left pocket.
“What time is it?”
“Midrats will be out in fifteen. If you hurry, you can get a shower in before you partake in tonight’s delicacies of beanie-weenies and cornbread.”
Pacino put his legs outside the rack and spun so his back was to Styxx and lowered himself to the deck. Getting out of a top bunk in the crowded stateroom without knocking over Styxx’s laptop or smacking her in the face with his foot took acrobatics. He pulled his hand through his tousled hair and rubbed his eyes. He’d gone down after watch relief and dinner, hitting the rack at 1900. If midrats were fifteen minutes away, it was 2315.