Lofton eyed Kirby's pad. "That's right. Ivy Bells sounds like a neat, tight little operation and guess who runs it?"
Kirby penciled out "FELIX RENKIN - NSC."
"Right again. That's one of the reasons they took over the X-3 program. They want to use mini-subs for listening instead of big ones. The cost-benefit tradeoff is enormous. Makes the NSC happy and the Navy gets their regular subs back."
"Makes sense." Kirby paused. "Except you say Renkin has told the Russians about it. That means..."
"I know. It scares the hell out of me. The Russians know we're in there. It's shallow. They could blow 'em up or something."
"International waters."
"Doesn't matter. They're experts at saying `so sorry.' At the very least, the operation is compromised. And so is the Truman. She's there right now." Lofton's voice drifted. "She's an old boomer, almost thirty years old. Her missile systems have been disassembled. She has an SDV chamber on her back, they call her an auxiliary submarine now." Lofton nodded to himself. "That would be an easy job for her."
He looked at Kirby. "Walt, her exit route is through the Kuril Straits, and those damn mines are on the Pacific side of the Straits, right along the Truman's track."
He tapped a finger on the table. "Those guys won't have a chance. There are two of those mines; one is programmed for the Truman, and another for--"
"All right." Kirby scrawled on the pad. "Let's get this right. Why does Renkin want to sink the Truman?"
"I found a CIA top secret memo addressed to Renkin in his briefcase. There's a Russian signals officer in Petropavlovsk who wants to defect. His code name is PITCHFORK, and from Renkin's scribblings, it seems that PITCHFORK knows about Ivy Bells. That means this guy can spill everything about Renkin if he comes to the U.S.. And since it's a CIA operation, not NSC, Renkin has no control over the defection or what the guy says when he's debriefed.
"There's another asset in the memo called PARALLAX. I think his name is Katsunori Nagamatsu and he is PITCHFORK's CIA control. PARALLAX works aboard a Japanese fishing trawler, the Kunashiri Maru, which calls regularly at Petropavlovsk. That's how they intend to extract the defector. PITCHFORK sneaks aboard and the ship sails for Japan."
Lofton leaned forward, his eyes glimmering, "PITCHFORK could provide enough evidence to expose Renkin, Walt. That would clear me, too. The thing is, Renkin can't afford to have that happen. That's why he had those CAPTORs laid. He wants both ships sunk at the Kuril rendezvous. He doesn't know which one PITCHFORK will be aboard."
Kirby's pencil twirled furiously. "So he doesn't mind sinking two ships and killing all those people just to make sure the guy doesn't reach the U.S."
Lofton nodded. "Another CIA memo in Renkin's file said the Kunashiri Maru is supposed to drop a load of fish in Petropavlovsk on the twentieth. Then she leaves on the twenty-third. If I can get out of here within the next day or so, I can make it. That's what I'm thinking of doing, Walt. Going to Petropavlovsk and grabbing this guy PITCHFORK off the Kunashiri Maru. If I can bring him back here, then I have a case against Renkin. I also would have time to swing south to the Kuril Straits and disarm those two CAPTORs before the Truman exits."
"Why not just disarm the CAPTORs and let the two ships rendezvous?"
"Yeah. I thought of that. The trouble is, Renkin is very resourceful. I'd like to grab PITCHFORK before he gets lost in all those covert channels and safe houses. One of Renkin's boys could get to him and kill him before he has a chance to talk about this operation. Lofton shook his head. "I can't see a better way, Walt. PITCHFORK is the key to exposing Renkin. He's the key to getting me off the hook. And I can save a lot of lives besides, if I disarm the mines, too."
"How the hell would you do it?"
"Phase one is the easy part. Lie on the bottom near the trawler, exit Brutus and board her. The specs on the Kunashiri Maru are in the folder. She isn't very big; only five hundred tons or so, 175 feet long. So it shouldn't be too hard. I can leg up an anchor chain or crawl up a piling if it's moored alongside a dock."
Kirby snorted. "Just like the old days."
"It gets sticky in phase two. I have to sort out Katsunori Nagamatsu from the crew. Then phase three, is an even harder job; get Nagamatsu to talk, sign a statement and get him to lead me to PITCHFORK." Lofton cracked his knuckles. "I'll beat it out of him if I have to."
Kirby shook his head.
"All right. I'll persuade Nagamatsu and his buddy, PITCHFORK, that they've been set up. I'll show them a marginal note on one of the CIA memos. It's in Renkin's handwriting: `Terminate both assets @ Captor site.'
"When they see that, Nagamatsu and PITCHFORK can't ignore the fact that they have been set up. That Renkin wants them killed by a Mark 46 torpedo which was manufactured and sown by the same benevolent government that feeds their Swiss bank accounts."
Kirby snorted, walked into the kitchen, clanked his coffee service, and returned with the pot. "You don't have a good plan."
"Maybe not, but I'm running out of time. My biggest problem is that I need to refuel Brutus right away. I have a full load of hydrogen peroxide but the damn thing's almost out of JP-5. If I don't bring him up, he dies right there. I have him on a low auxiliary load but he'll only keep for a couple more days."
Lofton eyed Kirby. "If Brutus dies I not only lose the submarine, but Renkin's stuff and the computer disks are still on board. They would be gone as well. Problem is, Renkin knows what's on my mind, since I have his briefcase. He also knows I need JP-5, so he'll do everything he can to keep me from getting it and doing something rash like taking a quick trip across the Pacific."
Lofton paused. "So, old buddy, I need you to help me find some JP-5. Quickly and quietly."
"Brad, I dunno. This is all happening so fast."
"You did say there's C-4 planted under my hood?"
"I did."
"So maybe we can work it from both ends. Say I shoot over to Petropavlovsk, make the pickup, and disarm the CAPTORs. In the meantime you figure out a way to go through channels and stop Renkin from this end."
"God, who would believe we're talking about Felix Renkin this way?"
Lofton said, "One of us should make it. If we don't a lot of people will be dead."
"Like Thatcher," Kirby said softly.
"Like Thatcher." They stared at the lights on the water. Thatcher. Lofton waved off a refill.
Kirby poured coffee for himself. "Let's go over it again. You really saw Felix Renkin kill Thatcher."
"Yes."
"And then you decked Renkin?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure Thatcher was dead?"
"Yes."
"What did you do then?"
Silence. Lofton put his head in his hands.
"Brad, what did you do after you knocked out this Renkin guy?"
"I tied up Renkin and called the cops."
"Hell, why didn't you say so? What happened next?"
"They were there in five minutes."
"Good. And then?"
Lofton looked at Kirby through spread fingers. "You wouldn't believe it. Carrington's guards wouldn't let 'em through the gate. I watched through a window. A ten-foot chain-link fence with barbed wire surrounds the place and they just wouldn't let the cops through the gate. I watched 'em haggle. Carrington drives up and joins the discussion, then I see him flipping out IDs." Lofton snapped his fingers. "The cops take off just like that. The next thing I know, Carrington is heading for the building without his orange roughy and the phone line goes dead while I'm trying to call the Shore Patrol."
Kirby nodded. "I think I remember this guy Carrington. Ted Carrington? You said he was CIA? About six three, six four, blond curly hair?"
"Yeah."
"He's pretty good. Isn't he the guy we had to take ashore that night in Beirut?"
"Uh‑huh."
"And then we extracted him two nights later. Yeah, I remember. We knew he had some big-time scalps in his belt, but he wasn't talking much, just a few words to pu
t us down. A real wet‑job man in more than one sense of the expression." Kirby looked at Lofton. "Did you remember your BUDS training?"
Lofton said, "I did. He wasn't quite ready, didn't know what to expect. I stood behind the lobby door and chopped him on the back of the neck. He went down without a sound. Then I tied him up and took his .38 and all his money. He had plenty, too, over thirty‑two hundred bucks."
"Beautiful."
"Then I went back and took Renkin's money. Twelve bucks." Lofton smirked. "There was nothing else on him, no ID, no nothing."
"OK. Look. Why did you steal the sub? Why didn't you just jump in the bay?"
"To what? There was a two-knot current running and these guys have boats all over the place. But the real reason was that I was curious to see what was on Thatcher's computer.
"It was fairly simple. I locked the doors, then ran to my office and grabbed my seabag which I had packed for the Bandit trip this weekend. I threw that aboard, along with my diving gear. I punched the hoist button and Brutus plopped in the water. But then, Walt, I remembered Renkin's briefcase. I went back to the office and grabbed that, too."
Lofton unwound. "I opened the outer doors, jumped on Brutus, and backed out of there on battery, right to the middle of the channel."
"I thought you said the batteries were weak when Thatcher brought the submarine back."
"Right. So I submerged and sat on the bottom for a half hour while I let the fuel cells and the rest of Brutus's systems wind up. Plus, I needed time to think."
Kirby shook his head. "I can see why the whole world is looking for you now. No wonder those guys planted C-4."
"Not the whole world. I checked the L.A. Times this morning. Nothing was there about Brutus or Thatcher. Have you seen anything in the past couple of days?"
"No," said Kirby.
"I don't think Renkin can afford to tell the Navy. For that matter, I don't think he can tell anyone outside his own shop. But still, his world is nonconventional, covert, weird alliances. It's one I don't understand."
Lofton sipped his coffee. "There might have been a better choice. But all I could think of was Les Thatcher lying there with a screwdriver in his back, and something he said about CAPTOR mines programmed to take out the Truman and a Japanese trawler."
"So you took your submarine to Catalina."
"Right." Lofton watched a late evening cruise boat meander down Newport Bay. He got up, walked to the windows and came back.
"But I took a side trip first. Almost got killed."
"What?"
"Well, I sat there on the bottom and I thought. Walt, I couldn't believe it. Last Wednesday evening, I was punching on my PC and working late like any other slob. Hell, the screen was still lit up when I left. Then, a half hour later, I'm sitting on the bottom of San Diego Bay and a guy's dead.
"I got Brutus moving and experimented a little with him to make sure I could operate the damn thing. Then I headed in and parked him under the Star of India."
"What?" Kirby remembered the nineteenth century bark, now a maritime museum moored at San Diego's Embarcadero.
"Safe place, steel hull overhead, plenty of depth. Who would have thought to look for me there?"
"No one. Unless someone decided to drop a sonobuoy over the side."
Lofton gave a shallow smile, "No sonobuoys aboard the Star of India. I exited from the divers' trunk, surfaced, and climbed up the pier pilings and hid for a few minutes in my swim trunks and shirt. Then I walked to the hotel across the street and checked in.
"Boy, did that girl look me up and down! Thought I was some reconstituted drunk."
"Stupid."
"Uh‑huh. Next morning I bought some clothes in the gift shop and then called you."
"That's why you sounded so weird."
"Yeah, except I thought you were going to cancel the Catalina trip. That's what I was trying to get you to do."
"Didn't work."
"Walt, I ran some of those disks while I was in Brutus. After that, my mind wasn't working right. I had this crazy plan, and everything fell apart. I had to get out of San Diego. I had to provision Brutus, and I knew San Diego would become too hot."
"Hot isn't the word for it. Why didn't you--?"
"I decided on Long Beach. Luckily my car wasn't at the old tuna factory. I'd had it lubed that day at a garage two blocks up the street. So I picked it up, drove to Long Beach, and hid it in that stall where you found it. Then I took a bus back. I don't think I was followed, at least it didn't seem like it."
"You sure?"
Lofton sipped his coffee, "No, especially now after those guys you saw with the C‑4. But they'd have grabbed me if they'd seen me, don't you think?"
Kirby shrugged.
"When I got back to San Diego I took a cab out to the sub base on Point Loma to check on the Truman. I wanted to make sure."
Kirby rolled his eyes and slapped a palm to his cheek.
"I know, I know, it was stupid. But, what would you rather do? Try to stop the sub here or out there?"
Kirby nodded.
"I wanted to know if this wasn't an exercise or some hideous spook screwup. My ID got me on the base but I didn't get past the OD's office. I didn't have to. All I had to do was look out the window. The Truman wasn't there. I talked submarines with the OD for a while and he finally let on she had been gone for some time. And I got the guy to tell me when she returns. He checked his schedule and said the first of October. She's due for an extended overhaul alongside the tender. Walt, that means she really is on station now. In the Sea of Okhotsk!"
"But you're not positive."
"As positive as I am that Thatcher's dead."
"All right. Let's say the Truman really is on station. What did you do next?"
"I got out of there. I found another cab, went downtown, and, what do you know? I was about two hundred feet from the hotel when I saw Carrington and Renkin walking out of the lobby."
He watched Kirby. "Yeah, now you're getting the idea. Thatcher's dead, no cops have been called, no Navy search. The Truman is sitting out there and doesn't know a bomb is on her doorstep. Renkin and his people are all over San Diego and probably the whole West Coast now, looking for me. If I try the FBI or anybody else, the Truman will have been blown up by the time my story is verified. If she's warned, fine. But I still need to gas Brutus and pick up those guys in Petropavlovsk to prove my case against Renkin. And I want to get them before somebody else does."
"OK, OK. What happened when you took off for Catalina?"
"Yeah, I detoured around the hotel, snuck down to a pier, jumped in the water and swam back to the Star of India. Then, like you and I learned, I held my nose and dove to Brutus's escape trunk. I had left a diving tank stashed in there and used it while the trunk emptied.
"Then I powered him up and picked my way out of San Diego Harbor, and if you don't think that was hairy! It was one in the morning and I steered out by periscope. Trying to pick up the nav lights from all the shore lights was a nightmare, especially with the periscope only a foot or so above the water. One time, I think I was abeam of Shelter Island, I was taking fixes all around and feeling pretty good about myself when I looked ahead. I see a green light and a red light and they're getting wider apart and higher, and the lights are on the wrong side of the channel. Damn! It was a destroyer. Almost ran over me. I got Brutus down and listened to that thing howl over me, it sounded like a freight train. After that I was able to clear the harbor, that was Friday night. I spent the next day getting used to Brutus and then put into Avalon Saturday--last night."
"OK." Kirby folded his arms; his face became clinical. "Brad, I understand what you're saying. But I still believe you shouldn't take this on. Are you sure there isn't somebody who can help?"
Lofton shook his head, "Who? Not with Renkin and his NSC connections. Besides, there isn't time, not with the Truman sitting out there."
Kirby propped an elbow and laid his cheek in his palm. "I'm in overload. Let's sle
ep on this. Maybe tomorrow we can figure out something else."
"O.K.. But I really do I think I'm out of options. I need three weeks' provisions and thirty‑six hundred gallons of JP‑5. The food is easy, but how the hell do I get JP‑5?"
Kirby looked at him. "You're crazy." He grinned.
"I don't think Thatcher was crazy."
Silence.
"JP‑5, Walt, how do I get JP‑5?"
"I dunno. My Mercedes must have at least twenty‑three gallons of ninety‑two octane. How do I know?" He looked at his watch. "Damn! Eleven thirty. This sounds menial but I have patients to see tomorrow, a knee arthroscopy at ten. Tell you what, after I do the surgery I'll turn my schedule over to another guy in my building for the rest of the week. Then we'll figure out what to do about JP‑5 and the rest of this crap, including whether or not you really have to go to Kamchatka--OK?"
Lofton nodded.
"Where is Brutus now?"
Lofton waved a hand, "Sleeping in forty‑two fathoms of water off Hamilton Cove parked among some rocks. He's nearly invisible and on a very low hotel load."
"What load?"
"Auxiliary load. There's not much time."
"Scratch ten million," Kirby yawned. Then, "That's a tough dive down to two hundred fifty plus feet. You sure you're up to that at your advanced age?"
Lofton rolled his eyes.
"Seriously, that's what I'm talking about, Brad. This deal is too--"
"No," said Lofton. "No, Walt. I don't do two-hundred-fifty foot dives anymore. It's pitch black down there and I'm scared of the dark and the creepy‑crawlies. No, I have a pinger."
"Pinger?"
"Yeah, like a miniature sonar signal. It puts a bleep into the water. I've got Brutus programmed to rise to thirty feet and a small light goes on. I stashed my scuba near an inshore mooring so I can swim right to him." Lofton looked down. "I...I was about to install a new system next week. Brutus shoots a blue‑green laser. The beeper receiver detects it and gives the swimmer a digital compass vector. That way others can't see the light from shore or nearby boats, or even searching aircraft. But now..."
THE BRUTUS LIE Page 7
