Trident Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller)

by Thomas Waite

  Oleg woke early in his luxurious suite in Sochi. He splashed water on his face and headed down to the kitchen, finding the lazy cooks sitting around a television and smoking.

  “Not open till seven,” a swarthy man in chef’s whites said. He sounded surly as a hangover.

  Oleg flashed his FSB identification, conveniently provided for this foray to the coast. “You’re open now. Eggs, potatoes, bread. Coffee. Spit in it and I’ll have you arrested and beaten senseless.”

  He took no chances. Often threats weren’t enough. They could, in fact, instigate recklessness, so he watched them prepare his food to ensure they didn’t do to him what he would have done to them, if the circumstances had been reversed.

  He glanced at the small screen and saw a magnificent video of water. “Water everywhere, and not a drop to drink . . .” A westerner’s words, but who cares. It was he, a Russian, who had made those words blaze with truth: Water flooding the capitals of the United States, Britain, the major ports of Europe and Asia. And all of it saltwater from the rising seas. Nothing good for drinking, but plenty good for drowning.

  And, yes, some small problems in his homeland. But the Russian President was on TV right now, looking supremely confident. And who had made that possible? The right people knew the answer.

  He ate quickly. In thirty minutes he was driving up the coast. He wished he could have called in a helicopter or two, but there were limits, given the small-scale crises facing the defenders of the Russian shoreline. But he had placed calls to every rural police agency up to Tuapse in the north, telling them he was tracking down the Porn Star Spy in their jurisdictions, news that had excited every one of them—until he informed them in his gravest voice that if she escaped from any of their areas of responsibility, they would answer to Russia’s top cop, the minister of Internal Affairs. Those interrogations were not known for their concessions to sentiment.

  The officers were already calling him from hamlets all along the Russian Riviera, and from seaports used by the owners of magnificent pleasure craft, men mostly long accustomed to soaking up the sun in the company of whores and paramours.

  Nobody had seen PP’s Macan. All had seen boats heading out to sea. Of course they were: rivers were reversing their flow, flooding and breaking up homes that had withstood hundred-year floods. But with docks disappearing and homes ripping apart and floating away, this was a force much greater. This was a once-in-a-millennium flood caused by a millennial man. No human in the annals of recorded history had ever accomplished what he had done. Jesus might have turned water into wine, but only Oleg Dernov had turned water into the world’s most powerful weapon.

  Thanks to him, Russia had flipped the hegemony of the west on its head in a matter of days. So drown the river rats down there. Sink their shitty little homes. He imagined he could even hear them cracking apart from up on the highway. These people should be grateful to him. Most would live, unlike so many others. The great nation would have the resources to let them adapt to the new world forming all around them.

  Would the Dutch be able to do that for their citizens? The Americans? The British? The French? The Chinese? He smiled at the very thought of those Asian pretenders. The “Beijing Miracle”? The great growth monster was turning into a joke. They were no longer a rival. Russia had no rivals left. All were drowning, first and foremost in their own regrets.

  Water, water everywhere . . .

  His phone started ringing. Police officers with nothing to report. No sightings. But the fourth call came from an officer looking down from the highway to a village so small it had no name. Not officially, but the officer, who sounded as if he’d been running, said the village had a nickname: “Raghead City.”

  Oleg smiled.

  “And there are boats getting ready to leave,” the officer added.

  “Of course there are boats leaving.” What an idiot. “Have you gone down to look for her?”

  “The Porn Star Spy?” He sounded even breathier using her nickname.

  “Yes,” Oleg shouted. “The naked one on TV. In a silver SUV. Porsche. Go!”

  He ended the call, furious over the timidity of these rural officers.

  When the phone rang seconds later, though, he was furious over another man’s temerity: Numero Uno was demanding that Oleg approve the second missile launch now: “If you don’t make that decision, I will,” he threatened. “You can’t stop me.”

  “Can you give me a little time?” Oleg asked, sounding so timid himself that he wanted to spit—in Uno’s eye. But he could do better than that, much better.

  “How long?” Uno asked.

  “Just give me till tomorrow, six p.m. I promise the answer will be worth the wait.”

  “There is only one answer,” Uno replied.

  “Six, tomorrow?” Oleg asked again, grinding his teeth.

  “Yes, I will give you till then.”

  Oleg hung up, relaxing his jaw. All the time in the world.

  Galina had gone dark. Who can blame her? Lana thought.

  She and Don were in a small, powerful boat skipping over the waves. It looked like a seagoing version of an AFV, armored fighting vehicle. She felt them go airborne at times, but always under control. To her surprise, Don didn’t appear to relish the experience, calling the swift vessel a “stinkpot,” which she understood to mean a fossil-fuel-powered watercraft.

  The half dozen SEALs accompanying Don and her gave off the same vibe she’d felt last year when their cohorts had saved her life in Saudi Arabia. A little different now: they were putting Don and her in danger, while offering some short-term protection that would pass as soon as they sailed that boat into Russian waters.

  The wind that had buffeted the Clinton still howled, as the sailor had predicted, which did brighten Don’s mood:

  “Almost as good as it gets for what we’ve got to do,” he announced. “We’ll be on a broad reach heading into Russian waters. If the Dehler does the job as well as advertised, we’ll be carrying twelve to fifteen knots. That’s quick. You’ll love it.”

  “Love it?” He sounded as though they were about to embark on a day of sport racing.

  “Why not? Carpe diem,” he bellowed to the wind.

  She saw light creasing the dark sky ahead. Despite the whump-whump-whump of the hull hitting swells and cutting through whitecaps, she tried reaching Galina. She had signals. She lacked only Galina.

  Briefly, Lana wondered if she’d been set up by Russian intelligence. But she immediately worried that Galina and her seriously ill daughter were the ones fixed most firmly in those crosshairs.

  These concerns were not far off the mark.

  Galina’s persuasiveness, or cash—she wasn’t sure which—had convinced the captain that she was worthy of his assistance. He’d let her know that he himself had scarcely escaped death in fleeing Iran.

  He had just started his big diesel engine, black puffs rising into the gray sky, when a Lada with a cherry top drove down to the dock. The officer behind the wheel parked next to the Macan. The contrast was remarkable, but Galina didn’t notice, so concerned was she that Alexandra keep her head down.

  “You are under arrest,” the hefty officer said, squeezing out of the small car in such a rush that he didn’t have his handgun fully drawn.

  Before she was consciously aware of it, Galina had her derringer aimed at his chest, rushing him as though fearless.

  “Don’t try anything,” she warned him. “I’ve already killed Sergey the Beast. I will kill you, too, so keep your gun down.”

  He complied.

  She kept moving forward. “Back up.” As he obeyed, she had him drop his weapon, a Glock. The Lada might have been ancient but his pistol was impressive. She snapped the slide back, chambering a bullet, and slipped her empty derringer back inside her pocket.

  “Take his handcuffs,” she ordered the captain, “and p
ut them on him, hands behind his back.” As she spoke, she pointed the Glock at the ship captain just long enough to offer an unspoken threat to him. For her savior’s sake, she didn’t want him to appear to be collaborating with her. “So now I have two prisoners,” she told the officer.

  The Muslim captain appeared to catch on, cuffing the officer, but apologizing for what he was being forced to do.

  Galina saw more lights coming on in the houses. People were watching. She hoped there were no “Heroes of Russia” hiding behind those curtains. She doubted many Muslims had been so honored.

  “Are you going to kill me, too?” the officer asked.

  “We will see. Search him for other weapons,” she told the captain, who quickly found a knife sheathed inside his boot.

  “Throw it in the water.”

  The captain gave it a good toss, perhaps too enthusiastic, she thought.

  “Now get him in the boat and get some rope ready. I want him tied down, and if any of your neighbors come out, tell them to go inside and close their eyes.”

  The captain raised both hands and waved at the homes. Lights went out. It seemed they’d all had plenty of practice in not seeing.

  Alexandra exited the Macan and walked toward her mother, dragging her blanket. She looked pale in the wan light. Galina was glad to see her. She hadn’t wanted to leave the captain and cop to retrieve Alexandra. The most convincing words can unlock the heaviest chains, though the feckless officer hardly appeared a likely mouthpiece for effective personal propaganda.

  “We’re getting on the boat,” she told Alexandra. “You two first,” she ordered the captain and officer.

  Once on board, she checked the cabin. A hard bench with a couple of stained cushions. Fish blood, she guessed. “Tie him to that.” She pointed to the bench.

  She watched the captain carefully.

  “Now take us to sea,” she ordered him. “We’ll see if he ever comes back.”

  “Please don’t—”

  “Shut up!” she yelled, cutting off the cop’s words.

  She bundled Alexandra in her blanket and placed her on a bunk toward the bow.

  The captain cast off. She stuck the Glock’s muzzle in the officer’s face.

  “Where’s Oleg Dernov?” she demanded.

  “He’s coming up the coast.” The officer shook as he spoke. “Maybe thirty kilometers away.”

  Fifteen minutes at most.

  “Move faster,” she told the captain. “Don’t worry about your wake,” she added, with a glance at the other docked trawlers.

  He shoved the throttle forward. The big engine answered. They moved away from the disappearing dock at a rapidly increasing rate.

  “Do you have a wife and children?” she asked the captain.

  “Not yet.”

  She was happy to hear that: no one to cry behind curtains for him—or cooperate with Oleg.

  As they neared the opening to the harbor, Oleg’s Maserati barreled into the village. She watched with the captain’s binoculars. As soon as the vehicle rolled to the dock, all the lights in the homes went out.

  “Nobody ever sees anything,” the captain whispered to her.

  But he does, Galina thought, glassing the dock as Oleg raised his own binoculars. For a second they peered at each other. Then she waved.

  She hoped good-bye.

  CHAPTER 23

  OLEG DIDN’T BUDGE FROM the dock, and he held those binoculars on Galina as if he were aiming a weapon. She begged the captain to go faster. He toyed with the throttle. She might have sensed a bit more speed, but not enough to discourage Oleg, of that she was certain. Short of teleporting across the globe, she knew nothing was likely to stop his murderous pursuit of her.

  Oleg simply had too much at stake not to kill her. Galina had worked with him long enough to have strong ideas about how to crush his assault on Antarctica and, by extension, the entire planet. But to do that she had to stop running long enough to work on her computer, preferably with the American, Lana Elkins, by her side. Elkins had already displayed daunting skills in tracking down Galina. Now the Russian hacker hoped her American counterpart would prove just as effective in exfiltrating her so the two of them could team up to bring Oleg down—before the deadly flooding and radiation got even worse.

  Oleg bolted down the dock toward the nearest house. His sprint caught the captain’s eye, too. “I’m going faster here than I’ve ever gone,” he said before Galina could beg him again for more speed. “But I must be careful. There are old moorings in the water. You can see them at low tide. Maybe not now, when low tide is like high tide. I don’t want to hit them.”

  “The last thing we need,” she had to agree.

  “That’s him?” the captain asked. “The man who took those pictures of you?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me see him.”

  She handed over the binoculars. He stared at Oleg, who was nearing the door of the house. Galina expected he’d be rooting out one of the captains in the next minute or two to chase them down.

  “He’s ruthless, a killer,” she said.

  “I understand,” the captain said to her. “I had to do ruthless things to get out of Iran. And those people,” he pointed to the house, “can be ruthless as well. They won’t open their doors.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll have to,” Galina replied.

  As if to prove her point, Oleg kicked it in. A woman in a headscarf shrank from him as a man marched out of the interior shadows. Oleg held up his ID—and his gun.

  Galina refocused the binoculars as the man of the house slowed down and put up his hands. Oleg’s mouth moved and the man eased past the woman and edged out the door. He headed toward the dock, waving for Oleg to come with him. He reminded Galina of a mother bird faking a broken wing to try to lead a predator away from her nestlings.

  Oleg followed the man, gun trained on him, to a trawler that looked similar to the captain’s.

  “Is his faster than yours?” she asked him.

  “About the same. These are not speedboats. But last winter he rebuilt his engine. I’m going to do that this December.”

  “So what does that mean, rebuilt his engine?”

  “Not much, I hope. Maybe more reliable. But mine’s a good boat,” the captain said, slapping the wheel.

  Already black puffs of diesel smoke were belching from the other trawler’s stacks.

  Oleg and his captive captain were underway.

  Lana thought landing at Pitsunda was like hitting the beach at Normandy. A huge exaggeration, which she recognized, but the captain of the armored boat gunned the engine loudly as they raced down ten-foot waves, surfing them at times, until he ran the nimble vessel right up onto the sand.

  Fortunately, they were not met by gunfire. Instead, she heard the staccato command of “Get out-get out-get out” from the SEAL leader, a red-haired man with the unlikely name of Johnny Walker; he’d already been the subject of obvious jibes in Lana’s presence.

  But the SEALs took their commander’s words seriously; they moved rapidly onto the sand with their weapons drawn, scanning the beach with their night goggles. Lana, on the other hand, had her eyes on the rough shore break wondering where the Dehler 38 was moored.

  The same thought must have occurred to Don because words to that effect passed his lips seconds later.

  “The other side of this dune,” replied Johnny Walker Red, as he was known to his men. “That’s where the marina is, and where they’ll be waiting.”

  The dune rose about two hundred feet on a steep slope that was crowned with short trees; Lana guessed scrub pine. It looked like a perfect place for a machine gunner to open up on them.

  The slog up the dune proved exasperating: two steps up, one step down as the fine white grains gave away quickly under their weight.

  Three SEALs were deplo
yed in front of Lana and Don. Two moved on their flanks. One followed. She felt as protected as she could under the circumstances—until she received a text. She pulled out her phone thinking it was from Galina, worrying that Oleg had spotted his prey. It wasn’t from the Russian, though it was heartbreaking news: Tanesa’s mother, Esme, said Tanesa and Emma had been lost in a flood in Anacostia.

  What? Lana looked up, as if an answer to her horror might be written in the night sky. She recalled seeing the rising waters in Anacostia as they flew in the chopper to Andrews, but she’d had no idea Tanesa and Emma were down there.

  She returned immediately to the text, reading as she trudged up the dune that “Unknown to me,” Esme wrote, “the girls had volunteered to fill sandbags in Anacostia.” They’d been working on a headwall when the sea broke through. Tanesa’s mother wanted to know if Lana had any contacts who could help search for the girls.

  Damn it! It was just like Emma—and Tanesa—to jump into the fray. Emma had been feeling so useless during the crisis, and had said as much, compared to the heroics that she and Tanesa had displayed last year. And what was fighting a flood, the two must have thought, compared to going up against men with a backpack nuclear bomb?

  Lana did the only thing she could under the circumstances: she forwarded the entire text to Holmes. She didn’t need to add a single syllable. Her own desperation was so great it could have been etched in the sky—and would be immediately apparent to the deputy director. Then she sent a quick message to Esme saying that she’d alerted federal authorities who might be able to help.

  What Lana did not do was tell Don, struggling up the dune to her right. She didn’t believe a dope dealer, of all people, could do anything to help Emma right now.

  All the SEALs were looking side to side, which did little to protect them when floodlights poured down the dune and a man’s deep voice bellowed in accented English for them to stop.

  “Halt,” Red ordered a split second later.

  What choice do we have?