Point Roberts, USA, was a five-square-mile enclave located at the seaward end of a peninsula that jutted six miles from Canada into the Strait of Georgia.
“I can just make out the breakwater,” Laura said. “The rest of the shore is too fuzzy.”
Yuri turned back to face the helm, choosing not to comment.
Laura thought about the private investigator Deborah Newman hired to check on Ken. Tom Hamilton was going to visit Point Roberts to restart the search for Laura’s missing ex. Laura had not heard back from PI Hamilton—and she hoped she never would.
Laura returned the binoculars to their instrument panel housing. She looked aft, checking her daughter. Madelyn was in the portable carrier that occupied part of a bench seat. She chewed on a teething ring, her lower gum enflamed from a new tooth. Laura walked to the far side of the bridge and gazed southward at the approaching San Juan Islands, an archipelago of over a hundred named islands. The scenic view did not register.
Later this morning, the Yangzi would sail over the watery grave of her estranged, revenge-seeking homicidal husband.
CHAPTER 83
“What is your target?” Yuri demanded, using Eng-Wlish.
Kwan stared down at the deck.
They were alone in the Yangzi’s operations center. Kwan, with his wrists still bound behind his back, sat uncomfortably in a chair at the main console. Yuri stood next to him. It was mid-morning.
“Your plan was to sink an Ohio-class sub from the onset—correct?”
Again, Wang refused to comment.
“I know you want to start a war between Russia and America, that’s obvious now. This whole operation was designed to use me as your scapegoat. Let Russia and America tear at each other’s throats while China remains on the sidelines—waiting. But waiting for what? That is the question, Mr. Kwan.”
Silence.
Frustrated, Yuri fought the urge to punch his nemesis. “What’s Elena’s involvement? I know you turned her. How much does she know?”
No response.
Yuri peered at the huge flat panel screen on the forward bulkhead. It displayed the contents of the op center’s computer system. Dozens of file names in Chinese characters filled the screen. With her computer skills, Laura had accessed the onboard system, calling up the encrypted files. During that process, she also discovered a mirror drive to the primary. It served as a backup and contained duplicate files of everything.
Yuri gestured at the screen. “What do you think is going to happen when the CIA and the NSA start tearing into these files? They will put you in prison for the rest of your miserable life.”
Kwan looked up, meeting Yuri’s eyes. “And your woman will be right there, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“We know her involvement with you and your submarine—the Neva. And so will the FBI.”
“Laura was forced to help. She has nothing to worry about.”
Kwan laughed.
Yuri whacked Kwan’s right cheek with an open hand. “You lousy son of a bitch!”
Kwan kept grinning.
Yuri struck again, using his right fist, propelling Kwan from the chair.
Kwan looked up at the towering Russian. The smirk replaced with a steely stare, Kwan said, “Free me and Laura Newman’s secret will remain safe.”
“Go to hell!”
* * *
Commander Wang Park chartered a helicopter and its pilot from a company operating at Boeing Field, located south of downtown Seattle. As a walk-in requesting immediate departure, he paid a premium hourly rate. But cost was not a concern. He gladly handed over his credit card.
His stated purpose for the charter was to view waterfront properties for potential purchase. He carried a Nikon that his team had used for surveillance of the Newman residence and NSD’s offices. Wang would take photos of Puget Sound shorelines but his real mission was to locate the Yangzi—and Kwan Chi. The superyacht remained unaccounted for on the AIS vessel tracking system.
If the U.S. military had snatched the Yangzi, as Wang feared and duly reported to Beijing via secure satphone, the CIA would stash Kwan Chi away in a safe house and work on him until he broke. And he would break—eventually.
Wang expected the yacht was currently southbound, returning to Seattle, and hoped it had Kwan still aboard. Beijing ordered Wang to prepare a strike plan to rescue Kwan. If that were not possible, his orders called for the destruction of the Yangzi and all those aboard. Wang’s zhongdui team was already assembling gear and preparing for the assault.
If the Yangzi was under way, Wang and his team had a fifty-fifty chance of successfully executing the mission. However, if the Yangzi ended up sailing into one of the several U.S. Navy or Coast Guard installations in Puget Sound, the chances of executing a successful attack were nil. All naval bases throughout the region were on heightened alert under DEFCON 3. Beijing warned Wang about the change in U.S. defense posture.
Worse yet, if Kwan had already been ferried away by helicopter or another vessel, attacking the yacht would only destroy evidence. Kwan would still end up spilling his guts to the Langley interrogators. The jackals in Taipei would then discover the ultimate outcome of Operation Sea Dragon—the invasion of Taiwan.
Any way Wang assessed the situation, disaster was imminent. His new job was to serve as the janitor—clean up the mess and get out. An important element of that sanitation effort called for the neutralization of the Mark 12 Viper torpedo mine.
Sinking an American warship now would spark a war—not between Russia and the United States as Beijing had schemed but between the USA and the PRC. China was not ready for that confrontation. It would lose—badly.
The looming consequences of a military defeat and the resulting worldwide condemnation of China’s treachery instilled absolute terror in the Communist Party leaders. China’s fragile economy would tank, bankrupting the once burgeoning middle class and empowering legions of the underclass. Overnight, the corrupt ruling Party would be squashed.
Wang had to recover the Mark 12 before it launched. But as he sat in the helicopter’s copilot seat, watching the seascape race by, Wang had no plan. Never once had the war-gaming scenarios called for disarming and recovering the weapon.
How the hell do we do that?
CHAPTER 84
The Yangzi loitered in Bellingham Bay about a mile offshore of Governors Point. Headed southward, the autopilot synced with the engines to generate just enough thrust to match the one-knot flood current. It was 1:54 P.M.
Yuri and Laura manned the bridge.
“I still don’t think you should make the dive. It’s too risky,” she said.
“It’ll be okay. It’s not that deep.” Yuri tried to sound confident.
“Two hundred feet is deep.”
“It won’t take long.”
“You don’t even know if it’s really there.”
“That’s why I’m going to check first.”
Laura changed subjects.
“Where will they take Elena to get help?”
“The consulate will take care of it. I suppose they have a private clinic someplace in San Francisco.”
“Nick must be pulling a lot of strings to make it happen.”
“What do you mean, strings?”
Laura smiled. Yuri’s English was excellent but he remained clueless to many American maxims.
“Call in favors.”
“Oh, I suppose so, but he also has a lot of authority as assistant rezident.”
Nick and Fredek had departed from the Yangzi nearly an hour earlier in the RIB, docking at the Port of Bellingham’s guest float in Squalicum Harbor Marina. Elena Krestyanova accompanied them. Capable of walking, she had her right arm in a sling. Underneath her jacket, a fresh dressing sealed the nasty puncture in her shoulder.
Laura said, “She seemed to be in a lot of pain.”
“Probably hurts like the devil. Movement causes the bone fragments to tear muscle and tissue.”
“She’l
l need surgery.”
“Nick said they would take good care of her.”
“What do you think will happen to her?” Laura asked.
“Prison, if she’s lucky.”
“Do you think she knew what the Chinese were up to?”
“If not directly, she knew it was bad—for both Russia and America.”
“You’re probably right.” Laura glanced at Madelyn. She remained in the portable carrier, her chubby hands spinning a built-in toy.
“How do you plan to turn Kwan over to the U.S.?” asked Laura.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Yuri was working on a plan to use Kwan as a bargaining chip with the American government.
“I suggest you start with the FBI,” Laura offered. “They have a large office in Seattle.”
Yuri offered nothing more.
Laura let it go, knowing he would reveal his plan after he fleshed it out. She again changed subjects. “Who from NSD is coming up?”
“Tom Donaldson. I don’t think you’ve met him. He’s a tech, hired a month or so ago. Mid-twenties, nice guy.”
“His name sounds familiar.”
“He’s the one who gave me the salmon.”
“That’s it.”
“Are you going to have him operate the ROV?”
“No. I don’t want any employees involved in this mess.” Yuri turned to face Laura. “Besides, I’d like you to take the controls of Scout, like you did with Little Mac. Piece of cake for you.”
“Okay,” Laura said, smiling. That was one adage Yuri embraced.
Laura broached another troubling subject. “Kwan must know what happened to Sarah Compton.”
“Probably, but he’s not going to admit anything.”
“You still think they . . . you know?”
“She was nothing to them—just an obstruction to eliminate.”
Laura was about to ask a follow-up question when she sensed the low-frequency vibration. It resonated within the bridge house. An instant later, she heard the racket—Thump, Thump, Thump.
“What’s that?” she said, looking through the windscreen.
“I don’t know.”
Laura stepped across the wheelhouse deck and pulled open a door. She stepped onto the starboard bridge wing. Yuri followed.
The helicopter hovered about two hundred feet away, its cockpit at eye level with the bridge. The furious downwash from the rotors churned the water surface into a mini-maelstrom.
“Govnó,” muttered Yuri. Over the din he shouted, “Back inside!”
They retreated to the bridge. Just as Yuri pulled the door shut, the helicopter pivoted and continued on its southward course.
As the beat of the rotors subsided, Laura said, “I think we might have just been found.”
“I was expecting it.”
“What do we do now?”
“Wait for Nick and then continue south.”
* * *
Twisting in his seat, Commander Wang Park fired off shots from the Nikon as the helicopter proceeded south. He turned back in his seat, facing the windscreen.
I found the damn boat!
It took all morning and then some.
Wang directed the pilot to fly to the airport in Anacortes, where his zhongdui team was standing by aboard the workboat Ella Kay.
Buoyed by the turn of events, Wang keyed the Menu button on the Nikon. He called up the digital photos he’d just recorded. He clicked through the images, stopping on a clear photo of the two individuals who’d appeared on a bridge wing. He increased the magnification to its maximum setting.
“Sh dàn”—Shit—Wang muttered as he stared at the images of Yuri Kirov and Laura Newman.
CHAPTER 85
It was late afternoon. Yuri and Laura were aboard the Yangzi’s runabout. The twenty-foot RIB was in the entrance to Admiralty Inlet, about two miles southwest of Whidbey Island’s Point Partridge.
Sixteen miles to the north, the Yangzi waited offshore of Deception Pass. The shipping lanes to and from Seattle were active with commercial traffic, preventing the superyacht from loitering in Admiralty Inlet. The runabout, on the other hand, was too small to be of concern. It could move about without raising red flags with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Yuri and Laura completed the second transect with the side-scan sonar unit, using the Yangzi’s GPS tracking history as a guide. Drifting with the current, they studied the laptop’s screen.
“Right there,” Yuri said, pointing to the screen. “That’s got to be it.”
Laura squinted, examining the faint smudge-like image that projected above the flat bottom. “Are you sure? That’s not much of a return.”
“The casing is coated with acoustic absorbing material to minimize sonar reflections. Without the GPS tracking data to pinpoint the search, you’d never know it was there.”
“So it’s time to break out Scout.”
“Yes, I need eyes on it to make sure.”
* * *
Nick Orlov commanded the Yangzi. He was in the wheelhouse with Fredek, who held Madelyn. She was fixated on the myriad multicolor gauges, displays, and LCD screens that populated the instrument panel.
The ship remained offshore of Deception Pass, jogging in a mile-diameter orbit at a couple of knots. Worried about the helicopter sighting, Nick and his men rendered the helipad inoperable by inflating one of the Yangzi’s twenty-person emergency life rafts. About the size of a heavy-duty pickup truck with its inflatable roof, the fluorescent orange raft filled up much of the open space of the landing pad.
Pyotr guarded Kwan Chi and the other captives in the salon one deck below the bridge. The three new SVR arrivals from San Francisco, ferried north on a charter jet arranged by Nick’s boss, stood watch on the yacht’s open decks. Each man carried an AKSU-74 submachine gun borrowed from the consulate’s armory. All of the Russians remained in contact by portable radio and were on high alert.
“What is he going to do if it’s really there?” Fredek asked.
Nick turned away from the helm to face Fredek. Maddy eyed the radar display. “Dive down and release it.”
“Then what?”
“It’s supposed to come to the surface, where he’ll disarm it.”
“He certainly has amazing skills.”
“That he does.”
“You know him very long?”
Nick turned back to the helm. “We’ve worked together before.”
“He’s military, correct?”
“He’s undercover.”
“I know, you can’t talk about it,” said Fredek. “Still, he’s impressive. And his woman, Laura. Is she an American or does—”
“Leave it alone, Fredek. Their mission is highly classified and must remain that way.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.”
Nick couldn’t fault Fredek’s curiosity. Yuri and Laura were extraordinary individuals. When they teamed together, their combined skill sets produced exceptional results.
Nick glanced at his wristwatch. Almost two hours had elapsed since Yuri and Laura had raced off in the runabout.
Nick was tempted to request a new progress report but decided against it. Still, he worried.
I wonder how they’re doing.
* * *
The USS Kentucky was under way at 1530 hours. Five of her crew who were en route would remain ashore as the sub commenced its emergency patrol. Primed with two dozen nuclear-tipped Trident ballistic missiles, the 560-foot-long behemoth proceeded northward up Hood Canal, shadowed by two U.S. Navy thirty-foot RIBs, each equipped with a fifty-caliber machine gun. A harbor tug cruised a hundred yards off the Kentucky’s starboard bow, ready to offer assistance if she were to lose power or steering.
After the Ohio-class submarine passed through the drawspan opening of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, she would rendezvous with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and two U.S. Navy workboats. With the cutter in the lead and the two-hundred-foot-long workboats positioned on each side of the sub as blockade vessels, the flotil
la would navigate through Admiralty Inlet and then head westward along the length of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Kentucky’s diving station.
Unknown to the crew of the Kentucky and the other local security forces was the presence of the Mark 12 Viper. Undetected during a recent underwater sweep by a U.S. Navy patrol craft, the torpedo mine remained armed and tuned in to the unique acoustic signature of the submarine’s power plant and propeller.
Designed to ignore other vessel noise in the water column and to track only the approaching submarine by the strength of its in-water acoustic footprint, the Mark 12’s torpedo would launch from its containment casing when in range. The weapon’s power plant would accelerate the underwater missile to sixty knots while homing in on its target. The 550-pound warhead would punch a two-foot-diameter hole through the bottom of the mono-hulled sub, sending it to the seafloor in minutes.
* * *
Laura hovered over the laptop’s screen while manipulating the joystick control with her right hand. A dark greenish tint dominated the image on the computer display. Tiny specks flashed as light from the ROV reflected off detritus in the water column.
“See anything yet?” Yuri asked. He sat at the RIB’s control station, monitoring the GPS unit while steering and adjusting the power level to maintain a stationary position.
“No, nothing is—wait. It’s coming up on something.”
Yuri leaned aft, straining to view the laptop’s display.
“Take a look.” Laura turned the Dell toward him.
Yuri stepped away from the helm and knelt next to her.
“That’s it—the Gadjúka.” He tapped the screen. “That’s the steel casing. The torpedo is inside.” Having trained with the weapon, Yuri had no doubts regarding its identity.
“So they really did it—the bastards!” cried Laura.
“Yes, they did.”
Yuri continued to examine Scout’s video output. About the size of a briefcase, the tiny ROV produced high-definition images of the Russian weapon. A pencil-thick fiber optic cable transmitted video signals from Scout’s camera to the Dell.
“Descend three meters please.”
“Ten feet. Okay.”
The Forever Spy Page 31
