“Really.” Sasha was sincere in his surprise. “An old diesel. It’s been cut for scrap.”
“Sold. But not as scrap.”
“My, you are a knowledgeable woman. What was your supposed position on the Elbe?”
“Communications operator. I am well versed in digital and analog, along with various encryption programs.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Marina turned beet red with frustration. She was in trouble, and she knew it. It was a rare time when she couldn’t even think of a story to try to save her ass. Now was one of those times.
That was the most stupid, idiotic, bullshit story I’ve ever heard a woman try to pull, Nick thought in amazement. He saw that Marina needed help badly and fast. He just didn’t know exactly how. What could he say to help her out? It seemed that Sasha was about finished picking his crew because there was only one other man left that he needed to speak to. One of them had to be selected, and it seemed that Nick had already been ruled out. One of them had to be sent to the other end of the room, he thought. “She can operate a radio,” he interjected.
The statement was as much a surprise to Marina as it was to Sasha. “You know her?”
“Somewhat.”
“How?”
“She was on my ship for several months. Quite young, but it was her.”
“On the Catherine?” This story was pleasing to Sasha, and he waited for it to unfold. “She is full of surprises.”
“Communications was her technical position.” There was spit in Nick’s voice as he played up his part. “She was many things. She was in charge of smuggling goods from South Korea to Mongolia, since it was still a cargo ship. Technically. On the side she’d service the crew. For money, of course. Perform her duty when she had time, or if it was beneficial to her pocketbook.”
Sasha returned to Marina. “You look bewildered, my dove. This man suggests that you are a thief and a whore. That you’ll do anything for money.”
“I am sure he remembers it his way.”
“But I do,” Nick again interjected. “More than once you disrupted my team. It was difficult to test when she was present.”
Sasha approached him with a slight smile. “You seem a stickler for order.”
“I work then relax. I don’t try to mix the two.”
“How do you know it’s the same woman?”
“I, too, paid for her services one night. She left me with a nasty infestation of the crabs.” Nick narrowed his eyes. “My wife did not appreciate it, either. If it is her, she has a mole above her right nipple.”
Marina grasped her breast in reaction.
“Let’s see it, our radio operator.” Sasha became even more intrigued.
There was no hesitation. Marina stared at Nick as she exposed her nipple to Sasha’s satisfaction.
“Ha! There seems to be credence to his story after all, little girl. How interesting. You seem to be a true criminal — and slut, lest we forget.”
Marina still didn’t speak. The game had been taken totally from her hands. She had no answer for Sasha and let her fate depend upon what had been spoken.
“Go join the others,” he ordered.
She iced a glare at Sasha, then turned her face to Nick as she began walking. She tried to thank him with her eyes and showed pity.
“No. I’ve changed my mind,” Sasha retorted before Marina escaped into the darkness with the other men. He turned to the last candidate. “Can you operate a simple radio?” The man responded with a nod, and Sasha directed him into the black. He went gladly, and Marina returned, silently enraged.
No one spoke as they waited for the footsteps of the last man to reach their destination. In the back, they overheard the voices of the others greet one another in quiet triumph. What was left of the group glared at Sasha as he stood frozen in place.
“Congratulations are in order.” Sasha maintained his gaze on Nick, Marina, and the remaining men. “You will be joining me on our quest.”
This brought an objection from the darkness. “What? I am just as qualified as—”
The sentence was cut short by the obvious sound of strangulation. No one in the light moved. Nick began to sweat profusely, but Marina slowly pulled another cigarette and lit it as if she had never heard the man choked to death in the darkness.
“Any more objections?” asked Sasha as he slightly turned his head to his shoulder but never took his eyes of his new crew members. Silence was the response. “Good. Never a word from the rest of you. You even think of this, and it will be your end.”
His full attention returned to his selections. “You will sign your name in the tablet on the desk.” Sasha pointed by the door. “There is an address written there. Show up at that place at seven o’clock tomorrow night. If you don’t show up, we’ll come for you. Congratulations. You are all one hundred thousand dollars richer.”
The terror subsided in Nick’s veins. Sasha had thought the whole thing amusing.
“Perhaps you can keep the morale up on our ship, my dove. Don’t worry. I’m sure they will pay,” he remarked in passing. Marina refused to acknowledge.
These guys don’t fuck around. Nick couldn’t believe he had made the crew. To be alive was a big bonus. The dead man who lay at the other end of the room shrouded in darkness didn’t bother him. You fucker Sukudo quietly passed through him. He now estimated his chances for survival had soared from 20 percent to 25 percent. At least he was moving in the right direction. Then he noticed he had pissed his pants.
There was the anticipation for engagement about the crew on the War Eagle. If a soldier trains for battle his whole life and never is tested at least once, then sometimes there is a feeling of uselessness. Every man knows the risk of dying in a conflict, yet he still may look forward to the opportunity to perform his duty. To do the job the service trained him to do. So the men waited.
It was exciting. Jim had informed the crew that a sub was going to be hijacked and that they were probably going to be the ones to engage it — if it came to that. It was good for them to hear. It gave them a direction and a purpose. Knowing also eased the tensions around the ship.
The War Eagle couldn’t be acting more perfectly as it slipped past the Faroe Islands on its course to the Arctic. Drills were run every hour to prepare. It was another day and a half and several miles under the Arctic ice pack before they got near their destination.
“Conn, sonar,” the sonar supervisor, Bumper — as all sonar operators were called, so they didn’t run into things — said and watched his operator’s screens intensely.
“What do you have, Bump?” Lincoln replied over the intercom.
“Contact bearing two-nine-four. And I’m not quite sure what it is. Thousand yards and closing.”
“Captain to the bridge.”
Jim was on his way from the missile tubes and arrived in seconds. “What’s up, Linc?”
“Bumps got a contact, two-nine-four. Thousand yards ahead.”
Jim plotted the contact on the glass. “Can you tell how large it is, Bump?”
“Negative, sir. It seems to be fairly small,” the voice crackled over the box. “Five hundred yards and closing.”
“All stop.”
“All stop, aye,” repeated the helmsman.
A momentum shift was felt as the War Eagle slowed and glided to a stop.
“Battle stations, Cap?” Lincoln was apprehensive about the situation.
“No. This isn’t trouble.” Jim stepped into the RRCC with the XO behind him.
O’Neil and McLeary had just finished tying ODIS into the entire ship. Josh stood by as McLeary put the last panel in place.