“Okay,” Ann said slowly. “Then what?”
“Then Mouse keeps an eye on the sub for us,” the captain said, “and lets us know if it comes within weapons range of the ship. When the sub gets close enough, we trigger the beacon so our torpedoes can lock on.”
“You want Mouse to be the finger man,” Ann said. “He doesn’t do the killing; he just points the finger, and you guys take care of the dirty work.”
“Well,” the captain said. “I suppose …”
“Just a second!” Ann’s voice came out much louder than she’d intended. Her words seemed to reverberate in the suddenly-quiet wardroom. “How many people are on that submarine?” she asked. Her voice was softer now.
“We don’t know exactly,” Chief McPherson said. “The crew compliment of a Delta III is 130, but we’re not sure if the sub got underway with full manning. Fighting had already broken out in Petropavlosk when the K-506 put out to sea, so they may not have a complete crew.”
“But it’s around 130 men?” Ann asked.
The chief nodded. “That’s about right.”
“What are their names?”
The question seemed to puzzle everyone in the room.
Captain Bowie studied Ann, a slight frown on his blandly handsome face. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.”
“The men on the submarine,” Ann said. “What are their names?”
No one spoke. Every pair of eyes in the wardroom stared at her.
“You tell me that there are 130 people on that submarine,” Ann said. “And you want me to help you kill them.”
She locked eyes with the captain. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life,” she said. She snapped her fingers. “Now, just like that, I’m supposed to help you murder 130 people I’ve never even met?”
She slumped back in her chair, letting her weight sag onto the base of her spine. “If I’m going to see the faces of more than a hundred strangers in my dreams every night for the rest of my life, I want to know their freaking names. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
The silence held for nearly ten seconds, before Sheldon broke it. “Ann, we should at least listen …”
“No!” Ann snapped. She looked around the table, meeting each pair of eyes in-turn. “I’m through listening.”
“Mouse does not kill people,” she said. “I do not kill people. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
She stood up. “If that’s what you brought us here to do, you’ve wasted your money and my time.”
Before anyone could respond, she walked out the door.
CHAPTER 37
The stocky old Russian lay in the hospital bed, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only movement in his body. The heart monitor mounted to the wall near his bed beeped in a soft continuous rhythm.
Agent Ross watched the unconscious man for several long seconds before turning back to Dr. Hogan. “How much longer is he going to be like this?”
Hogan glanced at the heart monitor, and then down at the medical chart in his hand. “There’s no way to know,” he said.
“Doctor, that’s not good enough,” Ross said. “We’ve got a madman holding three countries hostage with nuclear weapons. And some of those weapons are pointed right here, toward Japan.”
Ross exhaled through his nostrils. “This is a good sized naval base. Chances are, we’re standing at ground-zero for one of those nukes.”
He looked back toward the unconscious form of Oleg Grigoriev. “I’ve got to find out what that man knows. I need to know how much longer he’s going to be out.”
“I can’t tell you that,” Dr. Hogan said. “Because I don’t know.” He sighed. “The patient suffered a major pulmonary embolism, secondary to the gunshot wound in his chest. He coded on us, and we nearly lost him. Your partner was here when it happened. Ask him.”
“Agent DuBrul has given me his report,” Ross said. “But he’s not a doctor. He can’t tell me when the patient will be ready to talk again.”
“Neither can I,” Hogan said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you, Agent Ross. I know how important it is that you talk to this man. But I don’t know when he’s going to be conscious again. His vitals are fairly steady at the moment, but he’s not in good shape. We could lose him at any second.”
Hogan studied the patient. His voice was solemn. “This patient could open his eyes ten minutes from now, or ten days from now. Or he may never open them again. Even if he does, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be coherent. A pulmonary embolism restricts blood flow to the brain. The patient may have significant mental deterioration. There’s no way to know until he comes around.”
“If he comes around,” Ross said
Dr. Hogan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “If.”
CHAPTER 38
When Ann opened the door to her stateroom, she found Sheldon standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, or the bulkhead, or whatever the damned thing was called.
She shot him a quizzical look. “Are you waiting for me?”
Sheldon nodded. “Come on. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“A while,” Sheldon said.
“Why didn’t you knock?”
He shrugged. “I figured you needed your sleep. Anyway, it’s not like I’ve got anything to do today.”
He gave Ann a patented Sheldon smile. “You want some breakfast, or not?”
Ann looked one way down the hall, and then the other. “Lead the way. I can never find anything in this metal maze.”
“Follow me, Madam,” Sheldon said. “One guaranteed five-star military breakfast coming up.”
Ann followed. “Right. I’ll settle for not getting food poisoning.”
As usual, Ann was totally lost. Every door, valve, and electrical junction box was stamped or stenciled with a number. She knew the numbers were all part of some kind of coordinate system for locating equipment, and for finding your way around the maze. But she didn’t like ships enough to invest the effort required to learn the numbering scheme. So she was stuck with trying to recognize landmarks in a world where everything had the same utilitarian blandness about it.
She spotted the door to the wardroom, and was surprised when Sheldon walked past it without stopping. “I think you just missed our exit,” she said.
Sheldon started down one of the steep metal staircases. “I thought we’d go down to the crew’s mess, and eat with the enlisted personnel this morning.”
“Why? Have our wardroom privileges been revoked?”
“Not as far as I know,” Sheldon said. “But the Combat Systems Officer told me they’re holding a tactical planning meeting in the wardroom this morning. And we’ve sort of cut ourselves out of the tactical loop.”
“You mean I cut us out of the loop,” Ann said.
Sheldon stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned back toward Ann. “We’re a team,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who threw the penalty flag. We’re both out of the game. So I figure we should stay clear of the wardroom until they’re finished with the planning meeting.”