by Nina Bruhns
There was no doubt in his mind that Julie Severin worked for U.S. intelligence. Though shocked by his accusation, she’d never actually denied it. Was it mere coincidence that she was tantalizingly beautiful and seemed as attracted to him as he was to her? Nikolai did not think so. But it didn’t matter whether her attraction was real or fabricated as part of her covert mission. Either way, he could turn it to his advantage.
He’d whispered in her ear what benefit she might gain over him if she remained in his stateroom, if she used her body to tempt him into treason, but in reality he planned to turn the tables on her. He would use their sizzling connection to find out what she was up to, all right. And then he would do his damnedest to coax her into becoming an agent for Russia—using whatever means necessary, just as Cherenkov had ordered. If he succeeded, even the navy diviziya admirals would be forced to reconsider their unjust treatment of him. And reinstate his rightful command.
Da. Things were definitely looking up.
Both figuratively and literally.
Standing in the central command post on Ostrov’s main deck, Nikolai glanced skyward through the conning tower’s barrel trunk to the round patch of misty gray that sat heavily above the open hatch. The chilly bite of the northern summer air blasted through the opening, and he could see the mad flutter of his starpom’s long black coattails snap back and forth across the narrow cockpit. Nikolai grabbed his greatcoat from a rating who rushed up with it, along with his wolf fur ushanka, which only came out for trips up top. It wasn’t really that cold, but wearing the fur hat was his private tradition.
“Permission to come up to the bridge,” Nikolai called to the starpom—his executive officer, Captain Third Rank Stefan Mikhailovich Varnas, who was currently serving as officer of the deck. As OOD, Varnas held the conn as well. After clearing Avachinskaya Bay, Nikolai had gone below to make sure his passengers were comfortable and his crew was settling into the routine. This was their first real patrol together.
With a severely reduced contingent of less than two dozen of the usual fifty-two men, and being a strictly scientific expedition rather than a military one and carrying no weapons on board, he’d had to do some shuffling of assigned duties. In the Russian navy, men stayed at one post for life. But not on this patrol.
There’d been grumbling. Until, that is, Nikolai had given orders allowing everyone four hours on duty followed by a full ten hours off. Unconventional, yes, but it had immediately and dramatically improved morale and ensured the men’s loyalty.
If that made him a rogue, so be it.
“Come on up,” Starpom Varnas called down. “Hope you brought your ushanka, Kapitan. The wind from the north is a screaming bitch today!”
With a grin, Nikolai checked that his coat was buttoned up and fur hat was snug on his head before he ascended the ladder. Stefan Mikhailovich had been transferred from a cushy post on the Black Sea, and he hated the cold breezes of the Arctic latitudes. He’d ended up here because he, too, was on the Main Naval Command’s shit list.
Of course, so were nearly all the others among Ostrov’s crew—the three other officers and five senior enlisted and petty officers, and all but a few of the ten ratings. Official Disfavor was the running theme, the reason they’d all been mustered onto this assignment. It reminded him of an old American war film he’d once seen where a platoon of navy misfits was sent out on a garbage scow to deliver a spy to a remote outpost in the Pacific. The parallels were ironic. He only hoped his own ending was as good as Jack Lemmon’s.
Passing the midpoint landing and bypassing the small flying bridge compartment, Nikolai climbed up the ladder and into the cockpit at the top of the sail. He braced himself against a hard gust of wind as he clipped his safety harness to an attachment point at the rear of the bridge. The storm was still active, making the sea choppy and unpredictable. Normally on the sail they didn’t bother with the harnesses, but during a storm he had given orders that safety procedures be strictly observed.
He made a quick scan around the horizon, nodding to the rear lookout posted at the aft of the sail, then asked the starpom, “Anything to report?”
There shouldn’t be, not just an hour out of their sheltered home bay, but with this old tub he figured it was best to ask. After the fall of the Soviet Union, everything run by the government had descended into chaos and disrepair, nothing more so than the navy. Rusting, rotting ships and submarines littered every naval yard in the country, abandoned for lack of funds for upkeep or even proper disposal. The ships and boats left in service were hard-pressed to obtain needed spare parts or even the most rudimentary of required instrumentation. It had been getting better over the past few years, but not by much. It was a damned good thing the foreign scientists had brought a ton of modern equipment along with them. This obviously wasn’t their first ride on a Russian submarine.
“So far, so good,” Stefan Mikhailovich replied. “Just the usual noisy wingmen.” He jerked a grin at a persistent flock of seabirds swooping and dipping over the sub’s wake. “Oh, and a TU-142 Bear heading north,” he casually added, avoiding Nikolai’s gaze.
Great. Thanks to the Internet and Google, the whole damn universe knew the juicy details of Nikolai’s fall from naval grace.
He glanced northward with a frown. The TU-142 Bear was a Russian anti-sub-warfare plane loaded with all the bells and whistles needed to track the ultrastealthy U.S. nuclear submarines that regularly plied the northern seas. Unfortunately, the Bears were in as bad repair as the navy subs. It had been a TU-142 that provided the faulty positioning information that had caused the collision in Norwegian waters that was ultimately blamed on Nikolai. He was now a fervent Bear hater. Give him a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and he’d be tempted to shoot the damned thing out of the sky.
Псина чертова. Fucking dogmeat.
He didn’t comment on Stefan’s observation, just clamped his jaw and turned his face into the wind, gazing back toward the distant snow-covered slopes of Mount Koryakskaya. The icy slap of sea spray managed to cool his simmering temper. Somewhat.
He turned back to the starpom. “So, why are you here, Stefan Mikhailovich?” he asked, just to level the playing field. “What did you do to anger Naval Command so much they assigned you to this delightful joyride?”
The starpom’s mouth twisted wryly. “An affair with the wrong woman.”
That was a new one. Usually their superiors were not nearly so sentimental. Unless . . . “The wife of an admiral, I presume?”
“Daughter,” Stefan Mikhailovich admitted with a dramatic sigh.
Nikolai winced. “Ouch.”
“The woman has complicated my life considerably.”
An understatement, no doubt. “Women do have a tendency to do that.” One of the many reasons Nikolai had avoided involving himself with the creatures, other than for the occasional indulgence of mutual pleasure.
Until now, of course. But this was different. This was a job. And a means to an end.
“With any luck,” Stefan said, “I can distinguish myself enough on this patrol that the admiral will accept me as a suitable son-in-law.”
Somehow Nikolai doubted there’d be opportunity for anything close to that. But who was he to dash a young man’s hopes? “With any luck,” he replied neutrally, scanning the horizon again.
They were heading due east, in order to get out to deep water as soon as possible. The storm seemed to be drifting toward the west in the opposite direction, the black clouds already less angry than when they’d departed. The pouring rain had stopped, at least temporarily. He could even see a big patch of blue ahead. Good news for those who were feeling seasick—which included most of the new men on the crew, who refused to take the antinausea meds for fear of being labeled sissies, and the scientists who weren’t used to being out on the open water.
“Do you think the weather will remain decent for us all week?” Nikolai asked, tactfully changing the subject. Traversing the Bering Sea to the Arctic Circl
e was always a tricky endeavor, let alone with half a crew and a bunch of civilian passengers.
The starpom shrugged. “If I could predict the weather, I’d be a rich man, Kapitan. The ice pack is pretty far north this year, and the forecast says only a slight possibility of a storm over the Arctic for the coming week . . . but I wouldn’t even place my nonexistent government paycheck on that bet.”
Nikolai gave a humorless chuckle. Both on account of their oft-delinquent salaries and his starpom’s pessimistic weather forecast. At the moment, the latter was of most concern.
Contrary to popular belief, not all submarines were below-surface dwellers. Diesel-electric boats such as Ostrov stayed on the roof most of the time. While a nuclear sub could—and usually did—spend months on end hiding in the ocean depths without surfacing, a diesel boat could only go down for quick dives of four or five days max before having to come up again to recharge its electric batteries. To charge the batteries, the diesel engines needed to run, and for that they needed air. The sub was also forced to ride out storms on top of the waves, for fear the batteries would be depleted below and the sub would be unable to surface again. A submarine was at its most vulnerable during a dive or surfacing maneuver. One big wave hitting at the wrong time at the wrong angle could easily send it to the bottom—a fatal experience Nikolai would just as soon forgo.
“Still,” Stefan Mikhailovich mused, “these crazy scientists, they are probably praying for a big storm. More data for their damned spreadsheets.”
Nikolai grunted in agreement. It was bad enough dodging icebergs and sea ice without taking unnecessary risks. He’d heard rumblings about the hair-raising exploits of the last expedition. An annual event, these research trips were sponsored and paid for by some international circumpolar academic institute that wanted to get the maximum bang for its buck. He wondered idly who at the Russian Naval Command had been bribed—or fucked—into lending it a submarine once a year.
“The Admiralty,” Stefan Mikhailovich said with a sardonic smile, “is surely praying a cyclone will come and swallow us all. That would conveniently rid them in one fell swoop of about two dozen problematical thorns in their sides.”
Nikolai turned to Stefan with a little smile. How right he was. “Then we must try to disappoint them, mustn’t we, Starpom Varnas?”
Stefan Mikhailovich gave him a wicked grin. “Da, Kapitan. Typhoon or no, we will show them we submariners are not so easy to get rid of.”
Julie smoothed a hand down the thigh of the navy coveralls she’d put on over, well, over nothing. She was not comfortable wearing the coveralls. And not only because her underwear was still too damp to put on and she was forced to go commando. The coveralls were too large, and she’d had to roll up the long sleeves and pants into thick cuffs. Unfortunately, she’d had no option in the shoe department. She had to wear her red dress heels. She felt truly ridiculous.
Her outfit, however, was a big hit with the crew, causing grins, thumbs up, and comments all along her wobbly pinball walk to the expedition’s welcome-and-strategy luncheon. Which was far more attention than she’d wanted to attract. Blend, Julie, the boss had instructed her. Blend.
Right. Try doing that wearing coveralls and high heels.
A few minutes ago, Kvartirmyeister Misha had come to fetch her from the stateroom. She almost hadn’t answered the door. Except, oh yeah, Nikolai wouldn’t bother to knock. He had a key.
Tucking her trusty notebook computer into one of the coverall’s roomy cargo pockets—luckily it was one of those really small ones and just fit—she tried not to stumble or trip as Misha led her through the pitching and rolling submarine. At least keeping her balance gave her something to worry about . . . besides seeing Nikolai again. With any luck, the captain would be far too busy running his boat to attend the scientists’ luncheon.
But naturally, when she arrived at the dining area he was already lounging casually against the wall—or the bulkhead, as she’d learned from her briefing file on submarine lingo. She’d read the entire file twice, in an attempt to blot out her hovering anxiety. Anxiety over the deep ocean surrounding the boat, over the unnerving idea of sharing a bedroom with a high-ranking Russian military officer—just the term “hot-bunking” made her blush—but especially over the überdisconcerting thought of what might happen the next time she actually found herself alone with the man.
Nikolai stood next to one of the six small rectangular tables that had been squeezed into the open-sided dining compartment. When he saw her, his eyes swept over her outfit, then he gave her a neutral smile—without so much as a hint that he’d just accused her of being a spy . . . or seen her practically nude. He shifted aside, gesturing for her to take a seat at the table. She didn’t want to be this close to him, but once again she seemed to be the last team member to arrive, and there were no other seats open.
She sat down on the narrow bench and did her best to ignore the sexy captain. Which wasn’t easy. If not impossible, what with his firm thigh brushing her arm every time the boat rocked up and down. Which was constantly. Thank goodness she hadn’t gotten seasick. The motion’s perpetual reminder that the dark, fathomless ocean was just inches away was sickening enough.
She took a fortifying breath as a tall, white-blond man stood up at the front of the dining compartment, which was called the mess hall—a grand name for such a tiny room. The guy was so tall—or the space so short—that the top of his head nearly grazed the tangle of yellow pipes crowding the ceiling.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said in a melodic accent, loud enough to be heard above the constant background hum of the diesel engines. “For those few who don’t know me, I am Professor Björn Sundesvall from Umeå University, your team leader.”
He went on to thank the captain and crew for their efforts on behalf of the expedition. Nikolai nodded graciously and introduced the few submariners in attendance for the meal, though most, like him, had to stand along the perimeter.
As he spoke, he beckoned to two noncom sailors—called ratings on a submarine—who proceeded to pass out plates of food. To Julie’s vague surprise, it smelled delicious. She noticed that one or two of the scientists looked a little green around the gills and declined the food. But she was ravenous. Being in a state of constant panic took a lot of energy.
“Please, dig in,” Nikolai invited everyone, as his leg brushed her arm again.
She eased away. Surely he was doing it on purpose! “Thank you, Captain,” the professor said, catching the subtle touch between them. He narrowed his eyes briefly at her. She endeavored to look completely innocent. Which she was. The Swede wasn’t fooled, but mercifully, he looked away. “After we eat,” Professor Sundesvall continued, “we will go around the room and everyone should stand and introduce yourself. Tell a little about your project and the type of data you’ll be gathering on the voyage.”
She had already gotten all that information in the project briefing files. Which was a good thing, because she could barely concentrate with the warmth of Nikolai’s muscular thigh blazing through her coveralls like the heat of the sun. She picked up her fork, determined to ignore him.
“Hey, there,” said the guy sitting next to her, startling her attention back to the room. He extended his hand. His face was handsome in an older, well-lived-in kind of way, and he sported a long silver ponytail and twinkling eyes. “I’m Rufus Edwards. How you doin’?”
She shook his hand. “As well as can be expected for someone who seriously hates the ocean,” she returned with a crooked smile. “I’m Julie Severin.”
He chuckled. “Ah. The reporter.”
“Yeah. And you’re the DAMOCLES guy, right?”
Master Chief Rufus Edwards was one of the retired U.S. Navy men on the team, an old-school sonar operator who’d gotten bored sitting around his Florida pool sipping umbrella drinks and started volunteering his expertise to various ocean conservation groups. DAMOCLES was a much-lauded ice-atmosphere-ocean monitoring and forecasting system tha
t used sophisticated instrument buoys attached to drifting sea ice to collect weather and water data. No doubt his years of working with the navy’s SOSUS network didn’t hurt his expertise in the field.
“Done your homework, I see,” Edwards said with a pleased expression.
“A little,” she said. “This assignment was a bit last minute, so I’m still catching up on details. Looking forward to hearing more about your project.”
He smiled. “So, you really hate the ocean?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Almost drowned as a child. Never quite got over it. Being on a submarine is kinda testing the limits of my psychosis.”
He laughed. “Well, sugar, the good news is, if anything goes wrong on this tub, trust me, swimmin’ll be the least of your worries.”
Wow. “Gee, thanks. Ree-ally needed to hear that.”
Still laughing, he caught sight of Nikolai, who was silently following their conversation as he ate standing up behind her. Edwards slid over to the very end of the two-person bench and motioned for her to scoot in closer. “Have a seat, Skipper. We can squeeze in one more. I’m sure Miss Severin won’t mind the close quarters.”
Nikolai’s eyes met and lingered on hers for a nanosecond before he smiled at Edwards and shook his head. “Very kind. But I’m sure Miss Severin will have enough close quarters with me before too long.”
The master chief’s brows hiked. Julie’s suddenly queasy stomach did a somersault.
“We ran out of staterooms,” Nikolai explained, “so I’ve invited her to share mine.”
She couldn’t believe he’d made their arrangement public. She was sorely tempted to pack up and move to the torpedo room just to spite him.
Edwards blinked twice, then grinned. “I see.”
No. He didn’t.
Okay, fine. Maybe he did.
God help her.
“I’m afraid I must get back to my duties now,” Nikolai said, scraping the last bite from his plate. “I’ll see you later, Julie. Master Chief.”
