Once Kurt had control, he decided to test the wings to make sure all was working well. He banked right and then left. He put the glider back into a dive and then leveled off, and used its momentum to enter a climb.
All systems were go, and despite the danger ahead and all Joe’s pessimism, Kurt could not remember feeling such exhilaration. It was the closest thing he could imagine to being granted the power of flight, like a great bird.
The little glider responded instantly to his touch, and he found he could turn it by using his weight and leaning this way or that like a motorcyclist racing along an open road.
All was dark around him, save the dim illumination of the heads-up display and the pinpoint lights of the stars.
As he maneuvered, he almost wished it was daylight, to enhance the sensation, but to reach the Onyx unnoticed required a night approach. Recreation would have to wait for another day.
Done playing around, Kurt set himself on course, adjusted the glide slope, and settled in. He was at twenty-seven thousand feet, losing five hundred feet per minute, and cruising at 120 knots. According to the target icon, the Onyx was seventy miles away.
51
KATARINA LUSKAYA SAT in a chair in a small cabin on the lower level of the accommodations block of the Onyx. She could only guess at the time, but it seemed like evening. It didn’t matter. The light never changed in her windowless cabin.
She tried to stretch but couldn’t. Her hands were tied and her feet shackled. She’d only been given a minimal amount to eat or drink for the past five days.
As she tried unsuccessfully to rest, the cabin door opened. Andras came in. He was alone. He’d come every day, her only visitor, always to regale her with bad news.
The other scientists were gone, dumped in a foreign country and made slaves. She remained here because he wanted her there, but he could change his mind. No one was looking for her, he insisted. He’d told everyone she was dead.
And so it went, every day. At no time did he mention his plans for her, but from the way he leered and almost drooled she doubted they were anything less than horrible.
Normally, she greeted him with absolute silence, refusing to talk or answer questions. The day before that had ended with a slap across the face and his removal of the water bottle she’d been given. Her throat was so parched now, her mouth devoid of saliva, she didn’t know if she even could speak.
Andras stood across from her, carrying a new bottle of water with him, and she found herself staring at it. He set it down just out of her reach, much like the knife with the key tied to it that he’d offered to Kurt.
“Visiting hours already?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Ah,” he said. “At last the caged bird sings.”
Defiance and silence had done nothing for her. She decided to be more aggressive. “You’ll be the one in the cage soon. If someone doesn’t kill you. The Americans might be interested in arresting you, but my country has a different way of dealing with aggression. We like to teach people lessons.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I’m well aware of that. You are still clinging to the notion that you are a great power. Like a child with bad self-esteem, you resort to bullying in hopes of proving your strength.”
Some of what he said was true. “It doesn’t make you any safer,” she said. “Your people killed Major Komarov, that was one strike. Taking me will be the second. They will have no choice but to cut you to pieces or look weak, whatever you do with me.”
He almost seemed moved. “Interesting that you use the word choice,” he said, pulling up a chair, spinning it around, and taking a seat, “because we all have choices to make.”
He grabbed the water bottle, twisted the top off, and took a sip. Then he put it back down, once again just out of her reach. He leaned toward her, his arms resting on the chair’s back, his face uncomfortably close.
“Your friend Austin, for instance,” he said. “I gave him a choice. He could choose to save himself or he could choose to die with his friend. I offer you the same choice. Live and prosper or die with those who are about to suffer.”
She held silent again, not sure what he was getting at and yet finding herself thinking only of the water.
“And,” he added with a flourish, “I offer your self-esteem-challenged nation an option as well. A chance at revenge against myself or… a way to restore its power and former prestige.”
He pulled a stiletto knife from some hidden pocket and pressed the switch on its side. The blade shot out and locked in place instantly. He held it toward her face.
“I’d ask what destiny you pick for yourself, but words can be so deceptive. Let us see what your actions tell us.”
He grabbed her hands, sliced the rope with the stiletto, and then stepped back.
She waited for a second or two, but her thirst was overwhelming. She reached for the water, conscious that he’d already sipped it. She took a sip and then a gulp, even though she worried that it would make her sick. It took a supreme effort not to gulp the whole thing down.
She stared up at Andras, who hadn’t moved a muscle. She reached for the key. It fit the shackles on her feet. She turned it and she was free.
“You’re letting me go?” she asked.
“Where will you go?” he said. “We’re a thousand miles from the closest speck of land. What are you going to do? Swim for it? Steal a longboat and row yourself to Gibraltar?
He laughed. And of course he was right. There was no escape.
“You have a choice: you can be a prisoner or a guest,” he added.
“What do I have to do to be a guest?” she asked suspiciously.
His eyes traveled over her body admiringly. “You think highly of yourself. You are… somewhat desirable, I must admit, but I deny myself the pleasure of having you because there are more important things you can offer.”
She was happy to hear that. “Like what?”
“This ship is not a tanker, as it appears to be,” he said. “It’s a floating weapon of incredible power. This ship can destroy ballistic missiles in flight. It can eradicate an entire naval task force in the blink of an eye. It can be used to sterilize a city without ever blowing up a single building.”
He moved to a couch, put his feet up, and continued.
“The world doesn’t know all this just yet,” he added. “But it will soon. And once it does, I want you to contact your superiors in Russia, tell them who I am, and begin a negotiation for the sale of this weapon. I offer, for half a billion dollars in diamonds, the weapon of the future.”
Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she had a vague idea. “Why don’t you contact them yourself? Surely you know a few people?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “And they know me. But the last time I sold them something, your friend Austin snatched it from their grasp before they could really enjoy it. I’m afraid it left a bad taste in their mouths. It was their incompetence, really, and I felt no need to offer a refund or an apology. Since then, they don’t trust me like they should.”
He did need her help, she thought. Perhaps need was the wrong word, but wanted fit nicely. If he really intended to do what he was saying, her presence could certainly make it an easier sell. But then what? She had no desire to be part of the weapons trade and couldn’t be sure she would survive the transaction once she’d done her part.
Still, there had to be a way to use it to her advantage. Perhaps if she could move around the ship, she might be able to increase her options.
“So I’m supposed to call them, tell them the story you just fed me, and ask for a truckload of diamonds in return for an old tanker hull? They don’t trust me that much either,” she said.
“You are an expert in advanced forms of energy production and transfer,” he countered. “You have a working understanding of particle physics. I’m sure once you’ve had a look under the hood, you’ll be able to convince them what I have is the genuine article.”
He stood.
This was what she’d hoped for. She had no idea what to do next, but getting out of that cabin came first.
“A tour of the ship?” she asked.
“I will show you what you’re selling,” he said and then smiled. “They will be very impressed with what their junior agent has discovered.”
“And when it’s all over?”
“You go with the ship,” he said. “Taking your prize back to Murmansk like a conquering hero returning home.”
She didn’t believe it would end so nicely for her, but there was no sense in showing that now.
“And what about your friends, the Africans?” she asked. She’d heard the argument on the motor yacht. She knew the name Djemma. “Won’t they be upset?”
He smiled. “You’re sharper than I thought,” he said. “Tell me, why do you think I shot that man back there on the boat and left him in the water to float away? Because he made me angry? No. Because he will lead the Americans to Djemma. He already has. An American carrier group is moving in position right now. They will force his hand. I will get my demonstration. And after that, he will be too busy with the barbarians at his gates to do anything but wave good-bye to me.”
She grabbed the water bottle, took another sip, and spoke. “I’ll look,” she said. “And if what you say is true, then I’ll tell them so. And maybe we can trade this water in for something more pleasant, like wine.”
She doubted he would accept the change in her as being anything more than an obvious ploy, but she’d seen the way he looked at her. She would do whatever she could to get him off balance.
52
AFTER THIRTY MINUTES in the glider, Kurt was nearing the tanker. The little green readout on the HUD had his airspeed locked in at 120 knots, and things were looking good. He could even see the tanker in the distance lit up like a monument of white marble in a sea of black.
Two miles out, Kurt released the cowling-like cover that Joe had locked into place. It flew off behind him, and the smooth ride suddenly reverted to a wild one, like cruising the autobahn at top speed in a Porsche convertible.
He slowed to 90 knots, and actually crossed over the ship at thirty-five hundred feet. A silent blackbird in the dark of night.
He continued forward for half a mile, and flicked on a rudimentary autopilot that would keep the nose pointed forward and the wings level. Satisfied that he was far enough out, Kurt released his boots and hands simultaneously and was literally sucked out of the glider.
In an instant he was free-falling and popping his chute.
The glider would fly forward for another four or five miles before splashing into the sea and disappearing from sight. A scout with night vision binoculars wouldn’t see it touch down, but if he were watching the sky he might spot Kurt Austin dropping from the heavens.
To reduce that possibility, Kurt was clad in black, and his maneuverable chute was black. At two thousand feet, swinging beneath it, Kurt turned in a wide arc and locked onto the approaching ship. He had one minute.
Thirty seconds later he was a quarter mile from the ship’s bow, nine hundred feet above it, and in the process of realizing a giant flaw in his plan.
The ship’s blazing lights had seemed like a boon from long distance, making it easy to spot the ship and hone in on it, but Kurt suddenly realized it could prove disastrous now.
The blazing quartz lights reflecting off the white-painted deck were almost enough to blind him. And far worse than that, he would be spotted the minute he touched down like a giant bat landing on a lighted patio in the midst of someone’s outdoor dinner party.
Realizing his mistake, Kurt pulled tight on the chute’s reins, slowing his descent. He drifted to his right, the port side of the ship, and continued to drop.
He could see only one way to land on the ship without being noticed. The last section of the main deck out behind the superstructure was unlit. He would have to pass up a thousand feet of flat space, circle in behind the ship, and hope to keep up enough speed to reach the last few feet of the deck there.
It seemed almost impossible. But it was either that or splash down in the ocean, call for a pickup, and float around for several hours, hoping not to attract any hungry sharks.
He drifted past the ship, four hundred feet high and wide to port. He had twenty seconds. As he passed the superstructure, he could see a figure on the bridge but no lookouts. He doubted anyone on the blazingly lit ship could see him. Their night vision would be nonexistent in all that light.
He started to turn.
Turbulence from the accommodations block caught him and threatened to spill the air from his chute. He recovered, and swooped in behind the boat.
Below him he saw the end of the deck and the churning white water of the ship’s wake. Beneath that wake, a pair of twenty-foot screws would be spinning at a hundred rpms, like a monster-sized blender just waiting to dice him up.
He angled himself forward, picked up some speed, and began dropping fast. He pulled hard on the lines, but it was too late. The wind whipping around the ship blew him backward. He missed the deck, and dropped farther, headed for the white water below and a grisly death.
He tried to turn away, but the swirling wind reversed, sucking him forward like a scrap of paper swept along in the wake of a passing car. The surge of wind threw him toward the aft end of the ship. He saw a flash of huge white letters reading “ONYX,” and then he was tumbling into an open space between the main deck and a deck beneath it.
The impact jarred him, and then flung him forward, as the parachute’s lines caught on something around the opening. He landed flat on his back and was almost immediately yanked backward toward the rail. The turbulent air behind the ship had filled the chute again, which now threatened to drag him off the deck and back out once again.
Backward, forward, backward. Kurt had had enough.
He hit the instant release on his harness, and the parachute was sucked out over the water. It fluttered and faded and finally vanished in the gloom behind the great ship.
He was on board. Despite all risks and logic to the contrary, he’d landed safely on the Onyx. He thought about Joe’s long list of warnings regarding what could go wrong and almost laughed. None of those things happened. But Joe had never once mentioned lighted decks, wind shear, and getting chopped up by the ship’s propellers.
Looking around, Kurt had to wonder exactly what he’d landed in. The dark open space reminded him of the fantail at the aft end of an aircraft carrier, the huge area between the main deck and the hangar deck.
A few ladders descended toward the water. A pair of hatchway doors looked to be shut tight, and to his left were a few ratty deck chairs and a bucket filled with cigarette butts. Fortunately for him, no one had been sitting out there, having a smoke, as he came in for a rather ugly landing.
Fairly certain no one had noticed his arrival, Kurt pulled off his helmet and disconnected the oxygen bottle. With a hard fling, he launched both out into the night.
He heard no splash. The wind and the wake of the ship were too loud for that.
With those items gone he moved to the darkest corner of the unlit opening and dropped to one knee.
Kneeling in the dark, Kurt slipped a 9mm Beretta from a side pocket and began screwing a silencer into the barrel. His senses were on overload. He listened for movement.
He could hear little beyond the throbbing of the engines and the hum of machinery. But before he could move, the handle on one of the doors turned. The starboard hatchway opened, and Kurt pressed himself farther into the dark like a spider trying to hide in a cracked bit of concrete.
Two figures walked out illuminated by the interior light until the hatch door slammed shut.
They walked to the rail.
“I can tell that you’re impressed,” he heard a male voice say, a voice he immediately recognized as belonging to Andras.
Unable to believe his luck, Kurt’s hand tightened on the Beretta. But then the other voice spoke, and Kurt recognized it as w
ell. A female voice. A Russian voice. Katarina’s voice.
“I don’t know how you people built such a thing without the world knowing,” she said. “But much as I hate to admit it, it’s rather an incredible design. I suppose I should thank you for the tour, and the food and the wine.”
“Now you understand why your superiors will be interested,” Andras said.
“Yes,” she said. “I suspect they will be fascinated with what I have to tell them.”
Kurt’s mind whirled as he listened to her speak. He certainly didn’t blame her for using any method she could think of to earn her captor’s trust and a chance at freedom, but the words she used made it sound like something bigger was in play here.
Before anything more was said, a crewman opened the hatchway door.
“Radio call for you, Andras,” the man said. “Coming in from Freetown. It’s urgent.”
“Time to go,” Andras said.
He led Katarina toward the door, guided her through first, and then followed. The swath of light widened and then narrowed and vanished as the heavy steel door clanged shut.
If there had been any doubt in Kurt’s mind before, it was gone now. The Russians wouldn’t be interested in a random supertanker. The ship had to be something more, which meant all the odd structures and anomalies probably had some purpose. Kurt was pretty sure it wouldn’t turn out to be a benevolent one.
Getting to his feet, he moved to the bulkhead door which Andras and Katarina had gone through a minute before. Silently, he applied torque to the handle. He moved it slowly until it clicked.
He cracked the door a quarter inch and looked down the passageway. With no one in sight, Kurt opened the door wider and slipped inside.
53
GAMAY TROUT STOOD beside her husband Paul in the operations center of the USS Truxton. The activity aboard it and the other ships in the battle group had increased to a frenetic pace over the past few hours.
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