Amber (6 page)

A hard rain
drummed out a staccato beat on the deck of the boat as the second SDV surfaced alongside them. Maddock was both relieved and disheartened at the sight of it. Bones and Willis rode together on one of the side-runners, so at least they were alive, but a Russian diver perched on the opposite runner aimed a snub-nosed automatic weapon at them. A second Russian at the helm of the craft pointed a similar weapon at Maddock and Professor on the boat. Neither Yu nor Jiminez were anywhere to be seen.

The Russian SDV pilot spoke to them in heavily accented English. “Do not move. We are coming aboard.”

The gun-wielding pilot had to use one hand to draw the SDV up close to the boat’s rail and hold it steady there, but Maddock was under no illusion that he would be able to try anything. The automatic weapon remained trained on him as the Russian threw one leg after the other over the boat’s rail and then dropped onto the deck. He quickly backpedaled to the stern, beyond arm’s reach for either of the two SEALs already on board. Then the other Russian interloper herded Bones and Willis onto the boat next to Professor. Finally, Maddock was directed to stand beside his fellow SEALs, making it easier for the two Russians to keep watch on them all at once.

Maddock noticed with distaste that although Professor no longer held the cherub in his hands, which were high in the air, the piece of the Amber Room lay on the deck at his feet in plain sight. This did not escape the Russians’ attention either.

The one who had piloted the SDV was about the same height as his compatriot, but heavier set. Both of them wore hoods with their drysuits, making it difficult to see what they really looked like, although their dive masks were dropped around their necks.

The heavier set man spoke directly to Professor. “You will hand the artifact to my associate. He pointed to the cherub with his gun muzzle. The other Russian quickly dashed over to the SEALs, obviously nervous about doing so but knowing he was being covered by his partner’s automatic. He scooped up the cherub and backed away. He then stood next to the heavier man, taking turns glancing at the recovered item in detail while the other covered the SEALs with his weapon. Finally the one who had piloted the SDV said something in Russian to his partner and that man placed the cherub into a waist pack.

Suddenly the radio blared with U.S. naval chatter that made the Russians extremely jittery. The rain intensified at the same time, and when the heavy-set man shouted something to Maddock he had trouble hearing it over the raindrops bombarding the deck. Apparently it had to do with the radio, however, because suddenly the thinner of the two captors pointed the business end of his weapon toward the VHF transmitter and fired a short burst at it, shattering it to pieces.

Maddock was the first to speak following the shots. “What happened to our two associates who were piloting our underwater vehicles?”

The heavier Russian responded. “They join the many souls claimed by the
Wilhelm Gustloff
. But it is I who will be asking the questions here today. Why did you come here seeking artifacts?”

Silence. It was clear that to extract any information from the four SEALs, although the Russians had no way of definitively knowing who they worked for, would be a time-consuming and challenging process. A crack of thunder followed by a spectacular bolt of cloud-to-sea lightning added to the discouraging factors, and the Russian who had remained silent said something to his heavyset comrade.

Quickly and without a further word, both Russians backed up to the rail of the boat while keeping their weapons trained on the four SEALs. Deciding that stealing the recovered artifact was enough for them, at least for now, they leaped on to the same SDV they had come on. The heavier man again assumed the cockpit position while his associate rode on one of the runners. As the SDV started to move away from the boat, the man on the back fired his automatic weapon at it, riddling the hull with bullet holes.

Then the Russians pulled their masks in place and descended beneath the rain-pelted waves.

Maddock immediately moved to assess the damage. He confirmed that the radio was non-functional. “Killed in action,” he said, plucking off one of the broken knobs.

“We have worse problems than that.” Bones was leaning over the rail and checking out the damage sustained from the machine gun fire. Willis also leaned over to take a look.

“Bullet holes below the waterline.”

Bones pulled his big frame back inside the boat. “Turn on the pump.”

Maddock found the switch for it on the control console and flipped it on while Professor removed a hatch cover in the deck and checked the bilge. He yelled over the sound of the rain, which somehow managed to come down even harder still.

“We’re taking on water fast. With the rain this bucket is flooding from both ends.”

“Pump’s on.” Maddock’s tone lacked any kind of conviction that this would solve their problem.

Professor voiced a plan. “Just start it, point it toward the harbor and we’ll ride her until she sinks, then we’ll hop on the SDV.” It didn’t sound good to anyone, but it was all they had.

Wordlessly, Maddock fired up the engine while Willis and Bones wrangled the SDV back inside the boat. He consulted the compass and angled the boat’s prow to the proper heading to take them back to the
Gettysburg
. He looked over at his fellow SEALs when all there was left to do was push the throttle up to full speed. The unspoken question ate at them all.

Were they really going to leave without Yu and Jiminez?

But what choice did they have? They did not have enough air to conduct a scuba search of the area for their bodies. Not without adding more bodies, at any rate. And they had already visually searched the surface with no sign of them swimming. The Russian had mentioned that their souls had been added to the
Wilhelm
. Maddock hoped that wasn’t true, but he had no way of knowing. The best thing they could do at this point, without a working radio, was to get back to the
Gettysburg
and let them know what happened so that a full-scale response could be mounted.

Maddock hit the throttle and the flooding boat jumped up out of the water as it tried to gain speed. Though sluggish, it still had some horsepower to offer and soon the waterlogged SEAL team was bouncing their way across the Baltic toward the harbor, rain and wind pelting their faces. Maddock flipped on the windshield wiper and hunched below the windscreen as he piloted the boat along his course heading. Meanwhile, Bones and Willis were using buckets to bail the water that now filled the aft portion of the deck, while Professor was down beneath a hatch looking at a rat’s nest of wiring that was about to be submerged.

He looked up, saw Maddock watching him as the boat slowed, and shook his head.
Not going to make it much farther.
Water was swamping the boat. They had gone a good distance, farther than Maddock would have guessed, given the condition of the vessel, but he could tell that the ride was about over. Keeping the craft nose into the waves was becoming more and more difficult, and when it turned broadside to a swell the wave broke over the side, drenching them all and swamping the boat even further.

Maddock pointed to the SDV, which had broken loose from the makeshift tethers they had lashed it down with. It slid across the deck with a torrent of incoming seawater, narrowly missing Professor’s knee while he bent down to try to fix some piece of equipment. “Let’s go!”

He eyeballed the compass one more time and  stepped away from the wheel. With the heavy rain, the coast was not yet visible in any direction but he knew the SDV had a compass as well so he only needed the heading. He ran to the rapidly flooding deck area and helped the others to lift the underwater vehicle high enough for them to push it over the side.

“Go, go!” The SEALs abandoned ship after their impromptu lifeboat, not wanting to lose that as well in the chaotic conditions. Bones was first to put a hand on the wet sub, and he righted it and pulled it into position as best he could so that his colleagues could board. Once all four of them were in position on the SDV, Maddock shouted the compass heading up to Bones, who aimed the craft accordingly.

Without dive gear, they had no choice but to slog along on the surface through the heavy swells, but Bones occasionally took the sub on a deliberate nose dive directly through the middle of a wave rather than be slapped in the face by going over the lip of it. Maddock shook his head at hearing Bones whooping and hollering like a surfer as they sledded down the face of another crazy wave. Somehow he managed to find the fun in just about any situation.

But where was the harbor? Where was any land at all for that matter? The batteries in this thing wouldn’t last forever, Maddock was all too aware. No sooner did he have the thought than the sky split apart with a spectacular forked lightning bolt and ear-shattering thunderclap.

Very close.

“Floor this thing, man!” Willis urged Bones, who nosed into another powerhouse wave in response. But when Maddock felt the vibrations beneath his fingertips begin to lessen he knew that the inevitable was now happening.

“Batteries, Bones?”

Bones tapped one of the SDV’s gauges. “Dying fast.”

It wasn’t a fault with the systems. All four SEALs were well aware that the SDVs were designed with a range of a mile or so in mind, not to be used for long distance travel as with a boat, like they were using it now, and burdened with a full crew of four men plus gear, to boot. Maddock checked his dive watch. It was good they’d made it this far, wherever it was they had reached. He called out to Bones again, shielding his face from the wind-whipped spray with a hand.

“What’s our position?”

Bones glanced at the GPS unit a second before it blinked out with lack of power. “Two mile swim to the nearest land.”

They felt the SDV slow to a stop and bounce with the waves. It floated because of the air bladders, but no longer had power for the electric motors.

“We’re dead in the water, guys.” Bones grabbed his mask and fins and put them on. “Let’s start swimming.”

Maddock vented the air from the bladders so that the SDV would sink to the bottom instead of being found floating around or washing up somewhere. Then the SEAL foursome slipped into the water.

The rain let
up as Willis trudged up onto the rocky beach and let himself drop. He lay there in an exhausted heap as his three associates followed quickly behind. Somewhere behind all the gray clouds the sun was setting. The day so far had been long, grueling, and not particularly productive. But they still had work to do, and they were SEALs and so would stick to it.

After a few minutes of lying in the sand to rest, Maddock was the first to break the silence.

“We need to get back to the
Williamsburg
so we can debrief with the Admiral over the secure phone line.”

Professor turned his head so that he was no longer face down in the sand. “Can’t wait to break the news to Metcalf, who didn’t want us here anyway, that we lost two of his men.”

At this all of the SEALs became somber. Unless they had been picked up by another vessel—probably Russian—there was a good chance that Alex Yu and Raul Jiminez were dead. It was a sobering thought, but one that pushed Maddock to his feet as he brushed off some of the caked-on sand. He didn’t know how long it would take to walk to somewhere they could find a ride back to the harbor, but he did know one thing.

The amber mission had just become deadly.

USS Williamsburg

Maddock had to
admit that he did not at all relish the thought of confronting Underwater Operations Coordinator Andy Metcalf. But men had been lost—he hoped literally—that they were in Russian custody and would be deposited back to U.S. personnel, tail between their legs, the Russians’ feathers bristling while they made noises about acts of war. But deep down Maddock knew that wouldn’t be happening. Alex Yu and Raul Jiminez had perished on that ghostly wreck at the hands of the Russians.

They had already called Metcalf by telephone as soon as they had been able to reach one, so that a search for the missing men could be launched. Now, as they were escorted up the
Williamsburg’s
boarding gangway by yet another stone-faced sailor, they were here to deliver that debriefing in person. Maddock wouldn’t have it any other way. But that didn’t mean he looked forward to it.

Walking through the ship, this time they were greeted with stares of outright hostility, as though it were their fault two of their sailors had not returned. And in a way, Maddock thought grimly, it was, wasn’t? He had personally briefed Yu and Jiminez, given them their orders. The ship’s walkways, stairs, bulkheads and machinery passed by in a blur as the four SEALs made their way to the fantail of the massive war machine. But no, he argued with himself, it was the Russians who were responsible. Moreover, Yu and Jiminez were well aware of the Russian presence and threat before they embarked on the mission. They were the ones who had informed Maddock about the escalating activity, after all. It wasn’t like they were completely blindsided. Had they refused or even expressed reservations about participating in the mission, Maddock would have requested someone else. They had willingly participated.

So it was that Maddock had his thoughts prepared for the debriefing with Metcalf, his various questions anticipated, but like so much in the business of war and national security, you could prepare, but there was no guarantee whatsoever things would play out the way you had thought. Metcalf was standing there with a sat-phone to his face, talking on it as he watched the SEAL visitors approach with their sailor escort, who stopped and saluted.

Metcalf said, “Yes sir, right away sir,” into the phone before clipping it back to his belt and saluting his sailor.

He glared ever so slightly at Maddock. Was that a tear in his eye? But his voice was hard as steel as he spoke. “Admiral Liptow has been informed that you have returned from your dive and that both of the sailors who accompanied you did not. That is the extent of what he has been told at this point. He requests an immediate briefing via teleconference with the four of you. We have set up a secure conference facility on board for this purpose. Ensign Peterson will escort you there. Good day, SEALs.”

Metcalf turned on a heel and strode off before any of them could say anything. What was there to say?

“This way.” The ensign pointed toward the superstructure of the ship and began walking toward a high stairwell. A few minutes later he deposited them at the doorway of a third level conference room, the door to which was open.

“The Admiral is waiting on a secure line. Just hit unmute on the closest phone to the end, there. When you’re done, hit the intercom on the wall here and someone will escort you off the ship.” With that, the ensign left them alone in the smallish room, which featured not much more than a simple table and chairs to support a bank of conference phones.

The four of them took seats and Maddock unmuted the phone. “Admiral Liptow, Dane Maddock here with fellow SEALs Uriah Bonebrake, Willis Sanders and Pete Chapman. The
Navy tells us this line is secure.”

“Liptow here, Maddock. Line is secure. Proceed with your briefing. I understand things turned out less than optimal.”

Professor rolled his eyes. Dane flashed on them nearly drowning down in that gloomy wreck.
Less than optimal. Understatement of the century.
Maddock took the prompt.

“Yes sir. We lost—“

“Two Navy divers, Alex Yu and Raul Jiminez. I know. Give me the particulars.”

Maddock took a deep breath and then began recounting the details of their dive, with occasional input from Bones, Professor and Willis. When he finished, there was a lengthy pause on the other end of the line, at the end of which the Admiral said, “That’s a substantial loss of Navy life and property for a golden cherub that was stolen from you by the Russians.”

Maddock and the others agreed, but he pointed out the positive outcome. “I did take a few photographs of it before it was taken. We feel it indicates that the Amber Room was not completely destroyed in the war, Admiral. If this piece survived, other pieces may have, too.”

“I concur. It tells us more about the Russian angle, too. As it turns out, we have some new intel that points to a possible lead on the whereabouts of the room in an inland location not far from your current position. In addition, we have a contact we’ve been working with who we’d like you to rendezvous with in order to carry out the next phase of the operation.”

Maddock’s ears perked up. “Who would that be, Admiral?”

“Her name is Zara Leopov. She been working with—“

Bones couldn’t suppress an exclamation as he exchanged glances with Maddock. The two flashed on a harrowing situation in Russia, on a submarine locked in ice, strange creatures...It figured that they would tangle with her in Russia again.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” The Admiral’s voice boomed through the speaker. Maddock held up a hand in Bones’ direction. Bones was making lewd gestures at Willis and Professor while presumably describing Leopov.

“No, sir, it’s just that we already know Leopov from a previous mission, sir.”

“Problems? Any reason you can’t work well together now? Because we need her, Maddock. We need the information she can get for us. I wish we didn’t, but right now that’s the way it is.”

“We’re happy to work with her, Admiral.”

Bones grinned mischievously.

“Good. Because time is most definitely of the essence here. Now listen up...” The admiral went on to give them details on how to meet up with Leopov, as well as a few more operational fine points as to what they were looking for next. Then he signed off and Maddock got up from the table. He walked to the door and held his hand over the intercom before turning back to his colleagues.

“Ready for Phase Two?” They all nodded and Maddock hit the button.