by Nina Bruhns
“I keep telling you, I’m not a spy,” she repeated for the millionth time, an edge to her tone.
Damn it, she wasn’t! She was just an unlucky China desk analyst railroaded into a mission she was unprepared for and ill equipped to deal with. And pitted against an opponent she was even less prepared to deal with. The man was intelligent, irresistible, and completely relentless.
“Soon you’ll tell me the truth,” Nikolai muttered. He was starting to sound like a broken record.
She ground her jaw. Coming to a watertight door, she stopped with her hand on the round rim and swung around to face him, unable to bear the mocking any longer. “I am telling you the truth, Nikolai.” She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “I’m an analyst, okay? I sit at a computer all day reading and interpreting news and research. That’s what I do. I’m not a spy.”
He blinked at her owlishly.
Ho-boy.
She should not have told him that. Total breach.
Before he could react, she swung around again and climbed through the hatch, leaving him staring after her in pure astonishment. Which lasted for about two nanoseconds. Then he was flying through the door after her, and his hand was gripping her arm. He whirled her back around and opened his mouth to blast her.
“Don’t,” she said, cutting him off while she glanced around. There were at least a half dozen people occupying the compartment, in varying states of frustrated discussion over their IDA gear. She may suck at this, but even she knew better than to have this discussion here.
He snapped his mouth shut again, adjusted his grip on her, and instead hustled her toward the ladder that led to the lower deck where their stateroom was located. No doubt to give her the third degree in a more private setting.
What. Ever.
“Captain Romanov!” Rufus Edwards hailed him from the door to the sonar shack, which was tucked into a corner of the control room just ahead.
Nikolai halted, but didn’t let go of her arm.
“There’s something we think you should hear,” Rufus said, his brows flickering as he noticed Nikolai’s grasp on her.
“So I understand,” Nikolai said. “We were just coming to see you.”
Julie let out a breath of relief as he urged her—albeit none too gently—in front of him as he once again reversed direction back toward the shack.
Thank goodness. Now she’d have a bit of time to prepare a more careful explanation of her monumental fail.
Stepping into the teensy sonar shack, she backed herself against the wall, giving the men space. Between the equipment, two swivel chairs, occupied by the sonar guy and Rufus’s bulk, and Nikolai’s broad shoulders taking up the rest, there was hardly room to breathe.
The young sonar man, Gavrikov, immediately ripped off his giant headphones and launched into a mile-a-minute speech to Nikolai in Russian from his perch in front of the monitors.
Meanwhile, Rufus shot her a questioning gaze and mouthed, “You okay?”
She gave him a smile, nodded, and mouthed back, “I’m fine.”
He jerked his chin minutely at Nikolai and arched one disapproving brow. So he’d heard. Wonderful.
She answered with a wry “what’s a red-blooded woman to do?” shrug.
He grimaced unhappily, but dropped the silent inquisition. Thank God. She wasn’t sure she could justify her actions to herself, let alone to anyone else.
Meanwhile, Nikolai was quizzing Gavrikov while studying the various sonar screens intently. He waved off a pair of headphones when they were offered, and asked Rufus in English, “Do you agree with Starshina Gavrikov’s evaluation, Chief Edwards?”
Julie wondered why they all looked so grim.
Edwards swiped a hand over his mouth. “Like the kid said, it’s most likely nothing to be too worried about. Maybe a new captain using us to test his skills, hiding in our baffles, practicing his angles and dangles.”
Huh?
“Malicious or not,” Nikolai said, “I sure as hell don’t like being stalked. And I take it you’re suspicious about something.”
Rufus tapped a fingernail thoughtfully on the console. “He’s being too cagey. Doing his best to stay hidden behind the ambient noise. My question is, why bother hiding from us at all?”
Julie wasn’t following any of this. But apparently Nikolai was.
“Yes. I see your point,” he said to Rufus. “And you’re sure you’ve ID’d the vessel correctly?”
“Absolutely. We’ve checked the signature with both your software and my personal archives, and there’s no doubt about it, Skipper. She’s a Chinese Type 093 attack sub, all right.”
Julie came to abrupt attention. Wait. “A Shang-class submarine?” she asked in surprise . . . mixed with a little concern. “In the North Pacific?” The Chinese only had two attack subs of this class, and they were usually stationed in the Atlantic. Her gaze darted to the inscrutable sonar display. “Where? Is it close?”
Three sets of eyes snapped to her and held, even more startled than she’d been.
Double crap.
God, she sucked at this.
By way of explanation she said, “Um, I wrote an in-depth article about the PRC’s navy a while back.” Well. More like a sixty-page white paper for the director, with recommendations for intelligence strategies. But who was counting? “From what I remember, they don’t usually venture into this neck of the woods.”
Rufus broke the silence first. “Well, then. Since you’re so up on the subject, maybe you can tell us why the damn thing is tailing us?”
It was her turn to be startled. “Tailing us? As in, deliberately? Why would it be doing that?”
“Exactly.”
Oh. Now she got it.
Again, the two men regarded her levelly, Nikolai with a calculating mien, Rufus more circumspect. Anton Gavrikov glanced between them and her, puzzled by the sudden acute shift in tension.
“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s not like this international scientific expedition is top secret or anything. It’s been mentioned on every news program, website, and newspaper in the world.”
Then all at once it struck her. Sweet Lord. The SD card she’d been sent to find. Being tailed by a Chinese attack sub would make perfect sense if they’d learned someone aboard Ostrov was in possession of stolen Chinese military technology! Especially something as important as the UUV guidance system contained on the SD card.
Oh, hell. She swore silently.
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed as he watched her expression change from perplexed to horrified before she could mask her reaction and bring it back to neutral.
“Is there something you’d like to share with us, dorogaya ?” he asked.
“No.” Her throat closed on the word and she had to clear it. “It just makes me nervous”—she cleared it again—“that they’re following us.”
“Julie,” Rufus interrupted, seeing Nikolai about to lay into her, “if you know something about this situation . . . God knows how, but if you do, seriously, girl, you’ve got to tell us.”
Guilt swamped over her. If a Chinese submarine was hunting them—her—the potential consequences of keeping silent could prove . . . awkward in the best case, disastrous in the worst.
On the other hand, deciding who to tell was another thing that could easily prove just as disastrous. If Nikolai’s hunch was correct, there was very likely another foreign intelligence officer on board. Someone who’d possibly sabotaged the sub’s air supply.
Rufus Edwards, maybe? Or Gavrikov?
And then there was the problem of Nikolai himself. Aside from the whole blowing-open-the-spy-thing issue. Which was bad enough. But . . .
Good Lord. Suddenly an awful thought struck her. What about him? It had never even occurred to her that he . . . She’d always assumed he was working for the Russians. But what if he was a Chinese double agent?
Her pulse took off at a gallop. What should she do? God, what should she do?
She realized they were a
ll staring at her. Hard.
Abruptly, she straightened off the bulkhead. “I need to make a phone call,” she said. Her boss had connections at the Pentagon. They’d be able to— She faltered at the look that swept over Nikolai’s face. Pure, unadulterated suspicion.
“To whom?” he asked.
“My newspaper,” she said. “If we’re being followed by a Chinese attack submarine, I want someone in the outside world to know about it.”
“Don’t bother. I’m radioing in to Russian Naval Command immediately.”
“My boss might be able to call in some Pentagon sources and find out why it’s tailing us,” she argued. “It’s worth a try.”
Before he could stop her, she scooted out of the sonar shack and didn’t stop power walking until she was inside their stateroom with the door shut. She didn’t have long. He’d be coming after her just as soon as he’d sent the dispatch to his superiors.
She retrieved her satellite phone from the desk, where she’d set it after returning from the bridge earlier, grabbed the heavy coat Nikolai had given her that morning, and headed right back up to the control room where the access hatch to the top of the sail was located. If her luck held, Nikolai would still be in the radio room sending off his report. She peeked around the corner. He was nowhere in sight.
A man she didn’t recognize glanced at her in consternation when she strode across the room and reached for the ladder. The officer in charge, no doubt. He said something to her in Russian, looking very much like he wanted to stop her from going up to the bridge.
She held her phone out for him to see and pointed at it, then upward. “Just need to make a phone call from the cockpit,” she explained, knowing full well he didn’t understand a word. He looked pained and glanced around at the others manning the various control consoles. They all shook their heads amid a smattering of discussion in Russian.
Seizing the moment, she grabbed hold of the ladder’s handrail and, taking a deep breath, started to climb up. The officer ran over and stopped her. She started to argue, but he just handed her a safety harness and gestured to her waist.
Ah. Right. She quickly belted it around herself and buttoned up her coat. The officer didn’t look happy, but he motioned her to continue climbing. She lost no time scrambling up.
He shouted something past her to whomever was posted up top. There was an answering shout. After a second, he shouted something else, a little longer this time, and there came a short, “Da, Praporshchik,” in reply.
She figured she had about five seconds before the deck officer was on the horn informing his captain of her movements. And maybe two minutes after that before Nikolai came storming up after her. She had to make every second count.
Bitter cold wind blew through the open top hatch, but at least no rain pelted her face when she looked upward. Above the round opening, the sky was still glowing a dull, luminescent gray.
Wait. It was nearly eleven p.m. How could it still be light out? Then she remembered. Tomorrow was Midsummer’s Eve. At this time of year, and so close to the Arctic Circle, the sun would be up all night.
She puffed out a breath. This was so not the way she’d imagined seeing the midnight sun for the first time.
As she reached the top of the ladder and poked her head up through the hatch, she tried desperately to concentrate on handing her safety line to the man above, and not on peering out at the surrounding ocean that was still churning up whitecaps from the earlier storm. Spume crashed over the bow, sweeping across the flat deck of the sub in a wash of glittering foam. Her stomach did a somersault . . . and not only from the exaggerated up-and-down motion of the boat. A buzz of fear knifed through her veins.
She battled it back. She didn’t have time to be nervous or panicked. She swallowed down the agonizing tightness in her throat and forced herself to climb up into the cockpit.
Another man she didn’t know greeted her with a smile and a few words in Russian. She smiled back and waved her phone again, already punching up her boss’s number while it was searching for a signal. She clamped the set to her ear, ready to launch into a hurried report as soon as it connected, a report she knew would be taped, so she needn’t worry about going too fast.
She frowned.
She couldn’t hear a damn thing from the receiver. No dialing. No search tones. No static. And no blue light to indicate the set was switched on.
Worriedly she held it up and pressed the “on” button again. Still nothing. In mounting desperation, she shook it. Again nothing. Madly punching random keys, she prayed for a connection, or at least some kind of noise to indicate it was working.
“God damn it!” she exclaimed in dismay.
Nikolai’s angry voice rose behind her. “What’s the matter, your boss not answering?”
Her time had run out.
She ground her jaw. And rounded on him. “You did this. Didn’t you!”
His face didn’t alter. Even in the dim, golden midnight sun his expression looked dark and forbidding. “What are you talking about?”
“My sat phone. It’s not working.”
At that, his brows beetled. “Let me see.”
It wasn’t as if he could do anything else to it. Other than maybe throw it overboard. So she let him take it. He went through the same ritual she had . . . with similar results. Then he flipped it over, fished a pocket knife from his trousers pocket, and popped the battery cover off.
For a second he just stared. Then his lips thinned.
“Well, here’s your problem,” he said and held it up for her to see. A half dozen colored wires protruded from inside the phone every which way into the battery compartment. Every one of the wires had been cut.
Her jaw dropped. “What the— Someone sabotaged my phone!”
He slowly nodded. “I’d say that’s a certainty. And I assure you, it wasn’t me.”
Her pulse took off as she met his stony gaze. There was no way he was lying. He looked too grim. “What does this mean?” she asked hoarsely, though she knew exactly what it meant.
“It means,” he said with jaw set, “that it’s time we stop playing games, Liesha. You’re going to tell me what you’re doing here. And you’re going to tell me right now.”
14
Nikolai could tell Julie did not want to reveal a damned thing to him. He supposed he didn’t blame her. If what she’d told him was true and she was only an analyst, her spycraft would not be terribly sophisticated, but she’d know better than to confess her mission to the enemy. But then, he’d like to think they’d ceased being enemies when they’d joined their bodies together.
Before she could balk at his demand, he handed her back the ruined phone and said, “But to answer your question, it means this is proof there’s a saboteur on board. And that he is targeting you specifically. Which means he must know exactly who you are and what you’re doing here.” Unable to help himself, he ground out, “Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say.”
“Nikolai—”
He held up a hand. “I am not finished. It comes down to this, dorogaya. We can take our chances and continue working at cross-purposes, each trying to find this saboteur on our own. Or we can choose to trust one another and work together. You know which way I vote.”
Her lips parted. The night wind was blowing several ends of her hair out of her usually neat bun and whipping them madly about her face. His fingers itched to yank out the pins again as he’d done earlier and let the auburn locks go free to whip and tangle in the crazy breeze. She was so lovely when she wasn’t trying so hard to be . . . well, hard.
He reached up and skimmed a knuckle over her cheek. It was smooth and cool, like porcelain. “What’s it going to be, Liesha?”
Her eyes cut down to the useless sat phone. “Rufus could probably fix this.”
“Probably,” he allowed. There were a half dozen others on his crew who could, as well. Submariners tended to be a talented and resourceful bunch. Not the point.
He waited.
She met his gaze. “What do you know about China?” she asked.
His brows went up. “Other than the fact that one of their 093 attack subs is tailing us?”
She nodded, scrutinizing his face.
A gnawing started in the pit of his stomach. It had been a serious question. За ебис. Fucking great. He didn’t bother hiding his trepidation. “You better tell me what the hell the Chinese want with you,” he growled. “By God, if you’ve put my vessel and crew in danger—”
“It’s not me they’re after! Damn it, Nikolai, I told you—”
“Wait.” He glanced over at the forward lookout and snapped a quick order at him to continue his watch from the flying bridge below. As soon as the man had disappeared down the ladder, Nikolai said, “Go on.”
She bit her lip. “The Shang-class sub being here in the Pacific might mean nothing. And it could just be practicing on us, like Rufus said. Nothing sinister.”
“Then why are you so damned worried about it?”
She looked downright distraught when she said, “You realize if I tell you what I know it will mean my job.”
He took a breath. He was so close to breaking this wide open. But suddenly, learning her secrets seemed a whole lot less important than protecting his boat and his men from the potential danger that may be closing in on them. And after this afternoon, the thought of betraying her trust turned his stomach.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he told her, making a snap decision. “Read me in on your mission so I know what the hell is going on, and when we catch this saboteur, I’ll turn him in as the spy instead of you. I’ll make sure he doesn’t talk until you are safely back in the States.” That last part killed him. But he understood that was reality. The idea that they could be together, especially now, was just a pretty fantasy.
“You would do that?” she asked, shocked.
“This is too important.”
She stared at him. “But surely it would be trading your career for mine. I thought—”
“My career is already over,” he said, and for the first time he let himself see the painful truth of that, too. He was done. Maybe if Julie had been a major player in CIA, a field operative, an expert in espionage rather than just a junior analyst, and if he’d managed to turn her into a valued double agent, perhaps then the prestige involved might have been enough to salvage his career. But as it was . . . even Cherenkov couldn’t resurrect what was already as dead as the Soviet Union. It would take a damn miracle. And this much he had in common with his atheist father: he didn’t believe in miracles.
