Red Heat

by Nina Bruhns

  “For as long as we choose,” he said.

  She sighed. “No. That’s not possible. I wish it were, Nikolai. I really do. But we have to face reality. This is just sex. Nothing more.”

  It was more. She just didn’t see it yet. But she would. Eventually. He wasn’t about to argue when there were much more pleasant diversions with which to occupy themselves in the meantime. He grasped her jaw and kissed her again.

  All at once there was a loud rapping at the door. “Kapitan!”

  He cursed under his breath. He loved being a submariner, but privacy on board was nonexistent. Not that it usually mattered. But this was not the usual underway. Not remotely.

  He gave his lover a regretful kiss on the nose. “Talk to me!” he called out in Russian, already sliding off her and reaching for his discarded towel.

  “The IDA-59 drill, sir,” a voice called back. Borovsky. “It’s scheduled to start in fifteen minutes, in the mess. And, uh . . .”

  Nikolai swung the door partially open, the towel hastily wrapped around his middle. “And?” he prompted when the OOD’s ears turned bright red.

  “I-I’m truly sorry to i-interrupt, Kapitan.”

  “Don’t be. I expect you to do your job. Was there anything else?”

  “Miss, um, Severin should report to Kvartirmyeister Kresney to collect her breathing apparatus. As, um, soon as possible.”

  Nikolai nodded and combed his fingers through his mussed hair. “We’ll be there shortly. Thank you, Starshina Borovsky.”

  He closed the door and turned to Julie. She’d sat up and was holding the blanket over her naked body. Her face was as red as Borovsky’s ears.

  “Drill?” she asked, mildly surprising him by not dissolving into mortified maidenly laments at being discovered together. He liked that about her. She wasn’t given to drama like most other women he’d known. Besides, there wasn’t much they could do about it. Nor did he want to. It was far more honorable to acknowledge their relationship than to try to deny it, leaving her to fend for herself. This way she was under his protection. The crew would treat her with respect.

  As he got dressed, he explained about the IDA drill and the reason for it—Yasha finding a malfunction in the atmosphere production equipment. He observed her carefully as he talked, watching for any sign of guilt or recognition. He saw only alarm.

  “Are you saying someone may have sabotaged our air supply?” she asked, clearly appalled.

  He hadn’t said it. But now that she had . . . “Are you saying you didn’t?” he asked bluntly.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure death by toxic asphyxiation isn’t a whole lot better than death by drowning in icy water. And you know how I feel about that idea.” She shivered violently.

  He did up the buttons on his fresh uniform shirt. Call him a fool, but he believed her. “In that case, any clue who might have done it?”

  She blinked. “Me? How would I know?”

  He puffed out a breath. Her prevarication was really starting to grate on him. Okay, so she was a spy, and her job was to lie. But devil take it, now that they’d—

  He cut off the thought.

  Nothing.

  They’d fucked. For now that was all it was. He’d wanted it to mean more—to him it did mean more—but she’d soundly rejected that idea, not five minutes ago. He had to remember that, and not be deluded into thinking she was on the same page with him.

  Not yet, anyway. That would come later.

  “Liesha,” he said, unconsciously transforming her first name to its Russian diminutive, a token of affection and familiarity. To call her Julie after such intimacy would be an insult. He sat down on the disheveled bunk next to her and took her hand earnestly. “Can we not be honest with each other now? If indeed there is a saboteur on board that neither you nor I know of, he is surely an enemy to us both, nyet?”

  She was silent for a moment, and he could see her weighing the situation’s implications. “You said it might not be sabotage,” she said at length, skirting the real issue.

  Irritation flared within him. “True. But it would be folly to ignore the possibility. Why not work together to find out for certain?”

  “How?”

  He gave her a stern look. “You could start by confessing why you’re here on Ostrov. Tell me why they sent you and what you’re looking for.”

  Her gaze slid away. “You know I can’t do that.”

  Well. Miracles. At least she’d finally admitted—if obliquely—she was looking for something. “You are determined to make my life difficult, aren’t you?”

  “You call this difficult?” With a curve of her lips, she slanted the bunk a glance.

  And just like that, irritation or no, he wanted her again.

  Difficult? Hell, he was maddeningly easy when it came to this woman.

  “Get dressed,” he ordered with a swallowed curse, checking the clock. He rose and snagged his cap from its hook by the door. “You are not excused from the IDA drill just because you’re . . . making the captain’s life difficult.”

  She grinned shyly, and for some unfathomable reason he was sure she thought they’d reached some kind of unspoken understanding. He wasn’t sure why, or even about what, but even he felt the wall between them had become a little less solid. And not because of the incredible sex they’d just shared.

  Da. Maybe it was a little about the sex.

  Okay, a lot.

  Or . . . maybe he’d simply lost all capacity for reason and gone completely delusional. That was not outside the realm of possibility, either.

  He paused on the way out and looked over his shoulder at her. “You will tell me,” he said by way of warning. “If you trust nothing else, trust me on this, dorogaya moya. Sooner or later, you will tell me what you’re up to.”

  He left her staring after him, a look of consternation on her face. Because she must surely know he meant every word.

  “Как дела?” Nikolai asked Kvartirmyeister Kresney.

  Not that he needed to ask how the drill was going.

  “Пиздец,” came Kresney’s quick reply. Goatfuck.

  Yeah. That was pretty obvious.

  Nikolai had left the kvartirmyeister and Starpom Stefan Mikhailovich Varnas in charge here in the mess hall, and slipped out to check on things in the central post—which had been fine—then stepped into the radio room to see if there’d been any further dispatches—which there hadn’t. Ostrov was still being ignored by fleet headquarters. Big shock.

  “I looked at that microcard you dropped off earlier,” Lyeĭtenant Danya Petrov had said then. “Not much on it.”

  “Really?” Nikolai said, somewhat surprised. “Are you sure you found everything?”

  “Da. It’s not really possible to conceal anything on a small device like this. Not like a packed mega-terabyte computer hard drive with plenty of nooks and crannies to hide things in.”

  Nikolai nodded. “Okay, so what did you find?”

  “It looks like it was used for a phone of some sort.”

  “A satellite phone.”

  “Yeah. There was a directory of phone numbers stored on it, and an article written about one of the scientist’s projects. On coral gardens. I checked, and the article has already appeared online, on an American newspaper’s website. There were a few differences in some of the words and phrases.” Petrov shrugged. “My English is not good enough to tell if they’re anything important. I printed copies of both for you to compare.”

  Nikolai took the printouts. “Excellent.”

  “I assume the phone belongs to the woman reporter on board,” the lyeĭtenant said leadingly. Had word already gotten around about them?

  Nikolai didn’t comment. “What else did you find?”

  “A bunch of photos of the interior of the submarine. And that’s it, sir. Nothing more.”

  “Anything unusual about the photos?” he asked.

  “Not that I could tell. God knows why she wants them.�
� The lyeĭtenant grabbed a thumb drive off his console. “However, I took the liberty of making a copy of the entire card for you, sir, photos and all.”

  Nikolai took it from him. “Well done. Perhaps I shall borrow Miss Severin’s laptop to take a look at them.”

  Danya Petrov grinned at him. “Da, Kapitan. Very good idea.”

  As Nikolai had made his way back to check on the IDA drill, he considered the likelihood of whether or not she’d allow him to touch her precious notebook computer. It seldom left her possession. The only time he’d seen her without it was up on the bridge—no doubt due to the rain. But as he’d approached the mess hall, all thoughts of Julie’s laptop had fled.

  The place was in chaos. People shouting. IDA devices flying. Tempers flaring.

  Thinking it would be a good way to get everyone mingling, initially he’d had the officers task the off-duty crewmen with teaching the scientists how to don the masks and work the IDA rebreathers. But the language barrier had turned the exercise into a circus. Apparently too few of his men spoke any English, and of the scientists, only Edwards, Professor Sundesvall, and the Finnish professor, Arja Lautenen, spoke Russian. It was unbelievable how many otherwise competent people thought merely shouting could make someone understand a foreign language.

  Goatfuck? More like clusterfuck.

  Nikolai now strode straight to the comm, grabbed the 1MC mike, and in a firm voice ordered the crew to stop what they were doing.

  There was instant silence.

  “I want everyone not on duty to report to damage control stations,” he ordered his crew, then keyed off the mike. “Starpom!” Nikolai turned to Stefan Mikhailovich.

  The starpom’s dark head swiveled from where he stood overseeing a rating who had been adjusting a mask strap for Julie. “Da, Kapitan?”

  “Assign each of the scientists a post as his or her battle station. And make damn sure someone in that compartment can act as a competent interpreter. Quickly, before a war breaks out.”

  “Da, Kapitan.” Stefan Mikhailovich hurried off to poll the men as to their language skills.

  Then Nikolai gathered the scientists together and explained that they would each be assigned a place where they were supposed to go immediately in case of an emergency, any emergency. There would be one person at every station who spoke the other language.

  “Is there a reason we’re doing this?” Arja Lautenen demanded. “We’ve never had to put on these things before or keep them with us. Are you expecting an emergency, Captain?”

  He was appalled to hear that previous captains had not required this kind of safety drill. “These northern waters can be dangerous,” he said carefully, “and Ostrov is an older vessel. The safety of passengers and crew should always be a commander’s prime concern.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “Every Russian submariner is required to carry an IDA at all times,” he interrupted as politely as he could. “I only want you to be as safe as my men.” He smiled benignly.

  Professor Sundesvall nodded. “Yes, naturally we will all happily comply,” he said, cutting off any further protest by his team.

  “Excellent. My XO will be back shortly to give you your assignments. Please feel free to come to me personally if you have any questions or requests.”

  It took another ten minutes, but soon things were running smoothly, the IDAs were being correctly donned, and the scientists and crew were at least communicating without shouting. The war had been averted for now. Hopefully the date line–crossing celebration tomorrow would soothe any lingering ruffled feathers.

  As he made a pass along the length of the sub to check on everyone’s progress, he came to an abrupt halt back where he’d started, in the mess. Julie was sitting at a table with a rating, frowning at her IDA canister.

  He strode over in annoyance and waved off the rating, who scooted away in a hurry. “What are you still doing here?” he asked her. “I thought you’d been assigned to the sonar shack with Gavrikov.”

  She pulled off the full black face mask that made her look like an insect, and bit her lip. “Sorry. He and Rufus—Chief Edwards—were heavily involved in listening to some sonar thing. A transmission? Transition? Anyway, I said I’d find someone out here to help with this alien space suit.” With a grimace, she held up the mask and the bright orange inflatable collar with attached blue canisters dangling from it. It was hopelessly tangled.

  Nikolai frowned as he took the assemblage from her, straightened it out, and started checking it over. “You mean a transient?” he asked, going back to Gavrikov.

  She brightened. “Yeah. That was it.”

  A transient was a sudden noise picked up on sonar. It could be anything from a dropped wrench on board Ostrov to an airplane motor buzzing above to an enemy torpedo tube flooding miles away. “Was it something unusual?” he asked. It must have been very unusual to make both his chief sonar man and the American navy man ignore a safety drill. They knew better.

  “They didn’t say what it was,” Julie said. “But when I left, they looked pretty . . . intense.”

  Nikolai wondered about that as he felt over her IDA hoses and checked its air canisters. What the—He held them up. One of the valves was missing.

  Angrily, he grabbed the 1MC mike and called Kvartirmyeister Kresney, who was in charge of equipment distribution and was scurrying back and forth acting as translator when teams got stuck in the language barrier. “This IDA is defective,” Nikolai growled when Kresney arrived, breathless. “How is that possible?”

  “Sir, I don’t understand.” Kresney looked aghast as he checked the valve fitting. “I assure you, I inspected every one of these sets before issuing them.”

  A chill went through Nikolai. Inwardly he swore. First the primary atmospheric equipment broken, and now this? How many other IDAs had been tampered with? Or other vital equipment?

  He lowered his voice. “I want you to recheck every one of them,” he ordered. “Then check them again every day. I don’t want any accidental malfunctions. And Misha, do it discreetly.”

  Watching the kvartirmyeister hurry away, visibly upset, Julie asked, “What is it, Nikolai? What’s going on?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll explain later. For now, let’s get you another of these. One that works.”

  There was a big box of the rebreather sets sitting on one of the six mess hall tables, easily accessible to anyone. This was an open compartment right off the main deck passageway. If there was a saboteur on board, he would have had no trouble fouling the whole lot if he’d wished.

  Nikolai examined each one of them. All were intact and good to go. In one sense it was a huge relief. In another, it made his blood run even colder.

  Was it just a coincidence that Julie had gotten the only one with a missing valve?

  Or had someone targeted her specifically?

  Unfortunately, the answer was all too clear. To Nikolai, anyway.

  He was not the only one on board with a hidden agenda concerning the pretty CIA officer. Another spy was in their midst. One whose intent was far more deadly.

  The question was . . . who or what was his target?

  Only Julie?

  Or should everyone aboard Ostrov be fearing for their lives?

  13

  Nikolai was very upset. Which made Julie very nervous.

  He wouldn’t tell her what was bothering him. When she asked, he just kept saying, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Great.

  He was trying to act all efficient and captainlike as he took it upon himself to show her how to put on and breathe through the emergency IDA gear, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere. And judging by the scowl on his face, it was not back in the stateroom, in his bunk. Which was where her mind had firmly stalled.

  Oh, my God, she had really gone and done it. She’d ignored every personal edict, every professional directive, every dire warning from her training, and succumbed to sleeping with the enemy.

  Altho
ugh after what they’d shared together in his bed, he felt like anything but the enemy. He felt like her lover. And the man she was falling more for with every passing minute.

  She had to be out of her mind.

  She’d tried to stop herself. Really she had. She’d felt so overwhelmed by the emotional conflict of being with Nikolai that when she’d first touched him she’d given in to tears. Too bad the internal struggle had done her no good whatsoever. In the end she hadn’t been able to deny the need raging within her any more than she could stop the tides.

  Nikolai had been incredible. He was an incredible man and an even more incredible lover. He’d made her feel things she’d never known her body could feel.

  Or her heart.

  Which was the real problem. For how could she go on deceiving a man after she’d made such passionate love with him? But telling him the truth would only force him to act upon that truth. And where would she end up then?

  In Siberia.

  Or worse. Facedown on a street in Moscow.

  He’d warned her more than once that he’d have no choice but to turn her in if he knew she was a spy. Better to keep her mouth firmly shut. Much safer that way.

  “Julie!”

  With a start, she shot out of her disturbing thoughts. Nikolai was standing over her with a frown. Her IDA-59 was neatly packed in its orange carry bag, and he was holding it out to her. Lord, how long had he been trying to get her attention? “Sorry. What?” She took the bag.

  “I said, come with me to the sonar shack. I want to find out what Gavrikov and Edwards are listening to that is so damn interesting.”

  She rose and followed him out of the mess hall.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said, letting her go ahead of him down the narrow passageway.

  “You’d be wasting your money,” she replied.

  “So you weren’t thinking about something so intently that you didn’t hear me call you five times?” A slight shade of sarcasm colored his words.

  “Nope.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Liesha. How you ever got to be a shpion, I’ll never fathom.” The skepticism in his voice sounded more than sincere. Despite the fact that she wasn’t a case officer, she felt insulted.