“Of course, major,” Renard said. “The link’s already established. I’ll connect him to the Goliath.”
A middle-aged man with peppery hair wearing a green military top appeared and began talking with Dahan in Hebrew. After she received her update, she switched to English.
“The colonel confirms it,” she said. “It’s over.”
Renard’s face supplanted that of the Israeli officer.
“I’m sending rendezvous coordinates to Terry and Dmitry to pick up and protect Jake. I’ve sent word to Jake over the low-bandwidth link to shut down his outboard motor and wait for you.”
An urge to be alone with Dahan overcame Cahill.
“Pierre, I need to debrief the major. Liam can handle things up here and take us to Jake.”
He darted down the stairway, paused midway down, and looked up to verify she followed. At his beckoning, she came.
She trailed him through the control room where handshakes and congratulatory embraces slowed him, and then he continued to his stateroom. He heard her gentle steps three paces behind him.
“Join me, major. We need to debrief portions of the mission in private.”
She entered the room, and he locked the door behind her. He moved to her, grabbed her waist, and pushed her against the bulkhead. His passion lifted her from her feet as he kissed her, but her response seemed rote.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“This was only a dream. I couldn’t tell you on the bridge, but my colonel is sending a helicopter tonight to retrieve all the Aman teams from your ships.”
“Then I’ll keep you as me prisoner.”
“Terry!”
“I’m serious. I’ll have Pierre make up an excuse that we need you aboard for a debriefing.”
“We can debrief via satellite.”
“Not if I need to be submerged at all.”
“All this for what? A couple days together?”
“A chance to get to know each other. No combat stress. No subterfuge. Just us.”
She shook her head.
“It can’t work. I have my career in Israel. You have your career traveling the world, and in your free time you live on the other side of the planet.”
“I have lots of free time, and I’ll find me way to you.”
“In case you haven’t figured it out, you need to avoid Israel for a long time.”
“Right. But there are plenty of ways we can make it work.”
“When did you become an optimist?”
“It must’ve been the last time we were here and you let me believe we had chemistry together.”
Inner conflict cast shadows on her face.
“You’re just setting us both up for disappointment.”
“Then I’ll live every moment with you like it’s me last.”
She lowered her chin and looked away to hide a grin.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll stay as long as you and Pierre can keep me. I can’t disobey orders. So I hope he’s a good negotiator.”
Cahill smiled.
“You have no idea.”
He held her and kissed her for minutes that flowed like ages but receded into the memory of an ephemeral moment when he released her. Freeing her of his grasp, he ushered her ahead and waited several minutes before following.
While walking, he realized something about him had changed. A gap was filled. A vulnerability was removed.
He felt safe, and he questioned if he’d seen the last of his drowning nightmares.
When he reached the bridge, he saw Walker talking to the image of Jake’s face.
“Look who’s shallow and communicating,” Cahill said.
“I just connected with him and let him know we’re coming to pick him up,” Walker said. “But that was hardly news since he had his low-bandwidth orders from Pierre.”
Jake seemed distant. Cahill wondered if his being last in line for the news flow accounted for the phenomenon, of if he should credit his colleague’s latest bout of mortal terror.
“I was just thanking Dmitry for saving my ass,” Jake said. “I was getting ready to surface and jump into the water when he forced the Israelis to shut down their weapon.”
“He says you would have done the same for him,” the translator said.
“Hey, hold on,” Jake said. “I’m safe, and that’s great, but everyone looks so happy. Or at least relieved.”
“Yeah. Isn’t that a good thing?” Cahill asked.
“Well, sure, but clue me in. Something big happened while I was deep. What’d I miss?”
CHAPTER 22
Volkov liked Cahill’s rule changes as he invented them, and he let his Australian colleague defend himself from the American as the screens portrayed the verbal exchange. His translator’s intervention became a murmur feeding his subconscious mind.
“Last time, Dmitry got to ride forward because he got to you first,” Jake said. “Now I’m here first, I have to ride fifty miles as your only passenger, and he still gets to ride facing forward?”
“Last time, I didn’t have a guest of honor,” Cahill said.
“Oh, that’s nice. I’m not a guest, or I don’t have honor?”
“You’re a guest alright, mate. And you have honor. You’re just not the guest of honor, as in, there’s only one.”
“All of a sudden, Dmitry’s king of the world?”
“Let me review the scorecard. He defeated the Splendor, he defeated the Revival, he defeated the Crocodile, and he defeated the Leviathan—twice. In contrast, you ran from a bunch of robots before you lost to the Crocodile. Per my reckoning, that’s five points for Dmitry and minus one for you, giving a net six-point advantage for our Russian friend.”
The Australian’s tally flattered Volkov, and he was unsure if he should interject. But as the realization that his troubled childhood and his alcohol-hazed adulthood had denied him any memory of someone he admired like Cahill praising him, he swallowed back the rising lump in his throat.
“The second Leviathan doesn’t count!” Jake said. “That was a gift.”
“A gift counts,” Cahill said. “If I gave you a gift of money, wouldn’t you spend it like your wages?”
“It’s a moot question. You’d never give me money.”
The Australian grinned.
“True.”
“Well, technically, half his points should go to Mikhail and Andrei,” Jake said. “And I didn’t lose to the Crocodile. I was ambushed trying to clear the way for your backwards, backwoods, outback ass.”
“Would you prefer that I give Dmitry two and a half points, the dolphins two and a half points, and stick you with minus one — which really should be minus two for getting crippled by rusted guppy chaser?”
The American rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Dmitry’s the guest of honor. Just hurry up and lock him down so we can get out of here.”
The Australian’s eyes angled away from the monitor, and Volkov checked a view from an external camera to verify his connection to the Goliath.
“While you were complaining, Liam locked him in. Now that our successful submarine commander has arrived, we can go.”
“Bite me,” Jake said.
“And you can kiss me bare hairy arse.”
Feeling free for the first time to poke fun at his colleagues, Volkov entered the verbal fray.
“It sounds like you two are getting romantic,” he said.
The translator hesitated but then transformed the words into English.
“Well, shit, Dmitry,” Jake said. “I think that’s the first time you’ve insulted either one of us, and you got both of us with one insult. Welcome to the team.”
Volkov exhaled, hoping he’d impressed his colleagues with the timing and content of his joke. He’d been afraid of offending them or worse, being ignored.