How much do you love your daughter,Sergei? Do you love her enough to hit her?
Finally, he had looked at the wives and sadly nodded. “I will do as you ask.”
The opportunity had come that weekend while Magna was grounded and against her will was in the truck with Kovalov driving. He started in on her, that her behavior must immediately change. He calculated it would provoke her into cursing at him, and he was correct.
Fuck you, Dad!
As it turned out, feigning anger had not been required. Magna, his adorable little girl, had turned into a possessed demon. Fuck you, Dad! Fuck you fuck you fuck you—and he’d felt the anger rise in him, and instead of taming it as he would normally have done, he gave in to it. He made a fist and furiously punched her so hard on the side of her face that her head hit the passenger window, shattering it, glass flying around the car, blood running down her face, and the sound of her pitiful shocked and horrified shrieks sounded like a mortally wounded animal. How much do you love your daughter, Sergei? He’d turned the vehicle around and sped her to a clinic, where her scalp beneath her hair had needed a dozen stitches and a large bandage. They’d checked her for a concussion, but other than the cut and the emotional trauma from the punch, she was fine.
But there was nothing fine between him and Magna after that. On returning home with the girl sobbing, half her head shaved, a huge bandage wrapped around her head, both Ivana and Adele had waited for him, both of them in on this little conspiracy, but both had acted shocked and horrified that he had dared to lay his hands on Magna. How could you? They shot murderous glaring looks at him and shepherded Magna to her room in the back of the apartment. He could hear the wives’ low voices comforting her and her wailing loudly, barely able to be calmed. When the wives emerged from her room, their eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“You have to apologize to her,” Ivana said.
“What?” he’d said, not believing his ears. “You put me up to this—“
“Shhh!” Ivana hissed. “Never ever mention that this was a plan. This was just something that happened. You got mad and lost your temper. You got that?”
Kovalov nodded seriously. It was never good when his wife’s voice sounded like his mother’s, he thought. “But is an apology appropriate? Considering what she did?”
“It is now,” Adele said. “Trust us. This is the next step.”
He walked back to Magna’s room, knocked, and went in. She was still sobbing, her shoulders shaking, and she wouldn’t look at him. He sat on the bed and tried to touch her arm, but she wailed and retreated to the other side of the bed, crying pitifully.
“Magna,” he said sincerely, “I am so sorry I hurt you. I was much more frightened for you than angry, baby. But I will never hurt you again.”
She was barely able to be understood as she cried into her pillow, but he made out the words, “Get out! Get away from me!”
Those were the last words his daughter had spoken to him for two years. But the sneaking out, the drugs, the partying, the sex — it all stopped. She went back to studying, her grades rising from failing to exemplary. The clothes she picked out no longer looked suitable for a street hooker, but more of what a serious student would wear. She started to speak to her stepmother about going to the university.
But through it all, there was that black silence. Kovalov’s relationship with his daughter was over. He could only interact with her through his wife or his ex-wife, and the pain of it tore his heart out. He tried to console himself that he had answered the question, How much do you love your daughter, Sergei? He’d saved her, it was true, he thought, but in the same moment he had lost her. She’ll come back to you someday, Ivana would say, but he had serious doubts.
And what if this damned mission, this fool’s errand, went bad and he didn’t return? What would that do to little Magna? Just thinking about it made his eyes moist. He took out a tissue and blew his nose, surreptitiously wiping his eyes.
He looked at Vlasenko, who was on the radio with the yard tug that was tying up to the starboard side of the Losharik to tow her out of the bay. Vlasenko put the radio in his belt and shook out another cigarette. “Captain, the reactor is in the power range and the steam plant is started up, keeping the main engine warm by rotating the shaft every few minutes. Systems are nominal and the Second Captain AI has completed all self-checks. We’re ready to go as soon as you finish with the admiral.”
“How are the hydronauts?” Hydronauts were underwater commandos who reported to GUGI, the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, and would assist outside the hull when it came time to deploy the Status-6 units. Kovalov had met their stand-offish commander, Captain Second Rank Kir Krupkin, a tall, muscular, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed officer who had little to say to Kovalov. Kovalov got the impression that Krupkin disapproved of Kovalov’s fleshy submariner’s body, the rich food and lack of opportunities to exercise leading to a few kilograms around his waist he could well afford to lose. Just another thing to suffer in this mission, Kovalov had thought, and sent Krupkin off with Vlasenko to his and his men’s assigned bunks.
“Assholes, as I suppose you’d expect of elite commandos,” Vlasenko said. “Once we’re aboard Belgorod, I imagine we won’t be seeing much of them. They’ll keep to themselves.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t just leave port on the Belgorod. Why did they want to ship out with us?”
Vlasenko shrugged. “Maybe they just want to get acquainted with the boat.”
“They’ve been training in simulators for a year. Not sure what a ride on the boat gets them at this point. So who’s driving us out?” Kovalov should have known the action stations for the underway by heart, but he’d been distracted with all his thoughts about Magna and this operation.
“Systems Officer Trusov will take us out,” Vlasenko said.
“Iron Irina,” Kovalov said, smiling. Captain Second Rank “Iron Irina” Trusov had been weapons officer of the ill-fated Novosibirsk, lost in the Battle of the Arabian Sea, and in her file there had been a citation for her Navy Medal for Distinction in Combat — from her former captain, Yuri Orlov, stating that she’d saved the ship and the crew when everyone had been unconscious. Unfortunately, the ship hadn’t stayed saved very long and crew had had to abandon ship in the escape chamber. Yet there was no sign of cockiness, arrogance, or for that matter, trauma, in Trusov’s demeanor. She was a serious, calm professional. Unless he’d read her personnel file, he’d never know about the decoration for bravery or the things she’d done on that day of battle. “She’ll do a good job.”