America (52 page)

Callie did the talking for the Graftons and only in response to direct questions. They were retired military—like Flap, they thought that cover story fit best.

The woman sitting beside her was from England, cruised all the time. She and her husband had both lost their spouses and met on a cruise three years ago. Cruises were
so
romantic, with the moonlight, the dinners, the dancing!

“And how,” she asked Callie in a delightful English accent, “did you and your husband meet?”

“Oh, I picked him up in a bar,” Callie replied with a wave of her hand.

Jake choked on something and had to leave the table.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sea Wind
got under way from Lisbon before most of the passengers were out of bed. Tommy Carmellini was up and strolling the decks when she passed the harbor light and hit her first North Atlantic swell. He wandered along watching the stewards, waiters, sailors, and cleaning personnel bustle about their duties. Fortunately most of these people were men.

The breeze was brisk and the sea was covered with whitecaps—all in all, he thought, another great day to be alive.

The ship itself was something to see, a medium-sized cruise ship about five years old that glistened in the morning sun. It had a rakish bow and stacks, a huge deck pool, and acres of topside deck to stroll. Carmellini covered most of the public areas by breakfast time, strolling, looking, eyeing locks and closed areas, most of which bore the sign, “Crew Only.” As the passengers began trickling into the dining rooms to feast on every breakfast food item known to man, Carmellini picked the lock of the ship's laundry. In minutes he was back in the passageway carrying a bundle. He went to his stateroom to change into his new outfit.

Lizzy was sound asleep in the double bed. Carmellini had slept on the floor last night. Lizzy was a bit miffed that he didn't make a pass at her. He had no doubt that she would have turned him down, but for the sake of her self-respect she wanted him to make a stab at it. The air was positively frigid when she turned off the light beside her bed.

This morning he dressed in the bathroom, examined himself in the mirror as he savored the motion of the ship in the sea.
Sea Wind
was equipped with stabilizers, of course, but it still had a subtle motion. Carmellini had noticed that the crewmen habitually walked with their feet wider apart, unconsciously bracing themselves against the ship's motion. He made sure the stateroom door locked behind him and went out on deck practicing that walk.

He walked purposefully, as if he were on an errand, and avoided eye contact with the passengers. One of them, an elderly woman, did put her hand on his sleeve and ask for help with a lounge chair. He placed it where she requested, smiled, avoided her eyes, and walked on.

The first problem, he decided, was finding Sarah Houston. Or Zelda Hudson. Whatever she was calling herself this week. He thought she would be easier to find than Willi Schlegel, who was probably buried in the owner's suite, surrounded by layers of personal staff. God forbid that the owner should have to mingle with common fare-paying passengers.

The crew quarters were the obvious first place to look for Zelda. There were no portholes or personal bathrooms on the decks under the passenger decks. Bunk rooms and lockers. Not many people about because most were busy with ship handling, cleaning, or making and serving breakfast.

Carmellini walked through the passageways as if he owned them, checked likely compartments, finally decided Zelda couldn't be there and left.

Ship's offices? A storeroom? The dispensary/hospital?

He found a guard sitting by the door of the ward in the ship's sick bay, which was equipped to save heart attack victims.

He started to walk by the guard, who stopped him with, “You not go there,” in a heavy French accent.

Taking a chance, Carmellini asked, “Has she had breakfast yet?”

“
Oui.
”

“I'm here for the tray.”

The man got up, went in. Tommy got a glimpse of Zelda as the door opened. He took the tray from the guard, nodded, and walked purposefully away.

*   *   *

Zelda could see herself in the mirror. She looked old, she thought.

Well, she felt old.

The bastards would probably kill her. Try as she might, she couldn't see Willi Schlegel handing her a plane ticket home and a check for $190 million. Willi didn't look the type.

They wouldn't shoot her. Another injection, probably. This one fatal. They would put her into a bag or something along with some old tools or pots and pans, then toss her off the fantail with the garbage in the middle of the night while the paying customers slept off the food and drink.

That was how it would be.

The truth was she had miscalculated. Played for all the dough and underestimated Willi Schlegel.

She sat listening to the blowers in the ductwork and the muted sounds of doors, people moving, machinery—the sounds of a ship under way—while she thought about dying, about how it would be.

Zip had warned her. The Zipper.

The guy was actually … Well, the truth of it was that he was the only man who had ever loved her. Plenty of them wanted her body, and plenty more wanted her money, when they realized she had some, yet few wanted a smart woman around very long. Not in this day and age. If only she had been a blonde with big boobs.

What was it her grandmother said? “Why do you want to be smart? Men are scared by women with brains. Practice being dumb.” How do you do dumb? “Ask them how things work—men love to talk about things. Ask them to do things for you. Ask them about themselves. Look interested.”

Zip had wanted her, though. He knew how smart she was and liked her for it.

She lifted her arms to the limits of the handcuffs that held her to the chair, then shifted her weight. She sat thinking about Zip, about her grandmother, about everything!

And waiting.

*   *   *

Willi Schlegel also found the waiting difficult. When recovering the satellite had first been proposed seven months ago, he had liked the idea. Heydrich could recover it; EuroSpace could examine and improve upon the technology, perhaps even make a bid for the second generation of SuperAegis. Schlegel knew that there would always be another generation of every modern weapons system, the contracts let long before the first generation was fully deployed. That was the defense business—everything was obsolete in a year or two, research and development never stopped. The demand for new technology meant there were always new profits to be made.

Billions of dollars.

And the people doing the dirty work could be stiffed. Working always through third-party cutouts, putting nothing in writing, he made sure no one had blackmail material.

This time there had been complications. When it became plain that publicly recovering the satellite and keeping it would be unacceptable to the French government, another way had to be found. Ergo,
America.

He had thought about stealing the technology from the sub too. Then he realized that hot as the satellite was, the submarine was even hotter. Once it was stolen it could never surface again. Ever. Reluctantly, he accepted that reality.

Now the satellite was in the water, the sub was hunting for it, the wheel was spinning …

Zelda Hudson was the weak link, of course. She was dealing with everyone! It was merely a matter of time before the Americans laid heavy hands on her, then she would tell everything she knew to save her pretty skin.

Schlegel was drinking coffee when a man came into the suite. “Well?”

“I have talked to Maurice aboard the fishing boat on the scrambled circuit. The submarine is still looking.”

“What does Kerr say?”

“He cannot understand why they haven't found it. He says he did the trajectory calculations himself. The satellite is there.
America
should have seen it.”

*   *   *

Jake and Flap met on the very bow of the ship. Their wives sat in lounge chairs in the sun nearby. The two men faced into the wind, away from the ship, when they talked. Jake had a backpack hanging from a strap over one shoulder.

“Carmellini has found Zelda,” Jake reported. “She's in the coronary unit in sick bay.”

“Okay.”

“Schlegel is in the owner's suite. Tommy didn't get in there but says one of the stewards confirms that. The stewards are carrying in food, and the doors are guarded.”

“Have they found the satellite?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Do we have someone watching that loading sponson?”

“Not yet. That minisub can't rendezvous until this ship slows down, probably at one of our anchorages.”

“I bow to the nautical expertise of the navy.”

“Right. One of the marines is always in the stateroom where we piled the weapons and ammo. We'll be in a heap of hurt if a maid finds those weapons or someone steals them.”

“Very well,” Flap Le Beau said. He put his hands on the rail and swept his eyes around the horizon.

“Wanta play shuffleboard?”

Flap eyed Jake with amusement. “It's been a lot of years since we were on a ship together.”

“
Columbia.
We were younger then.”

Flap nodded once, remembering. “Too many years.” He slapped his leg, then sat in a lounge chair beside his wife and closed his eyes.

*   *   *

“It isn't on this seamount,” Kolnikov said. Heydrich was standing beside him staring at the Revelation screens. Turchak was at his usual station, the helm. Eck and Boldt were on the sonar.

Cold fury played across Heydrich's features. “You're sure?”

“We've covered every inch. True, there were some fissures we couldn't see into, but you've sat there looking at this thing, just as we have. What do you think?”

“I think someone has lied to us. And I think I know who.”

“That won't do us much good,” Kolnikov pointed out. “Unless you know where the satellite might be.”

“Let me use the underwater telephone. We'll rendezvous with
Sea Wind.
Tonight if possible. Can you do that?”

Kolnikov worked at the plotting board for a moment. “If she holds her planned course and speed, we should be able to rendezvous in six hours, about oh two hundred. Have them drop their speed to two knots at that time.” He gave the course and speed he wanted to Turchak, who turned the boat to the new course and advanced the power lever for more turns. Eck handed the underwater telephone to Heydrich.

*   *   *

At dinner the service was superlative, almost too good. Jake Grafton swept his eyes around the room. Several people looked away, almost as if they had been watching him.

For dinner I'll have the roast with a side order of paranoia, please.

He stirred the food around on his plate. The truth was that he was too nervous to eat.

“Are you okay?” Callie asked under her breath.

“Not hungry.”

“Are you seasick?”

He gave her a withering look, then thought better of it. “No, dear.”

“I never saw such food,” Callie said with wonder in her voice. “I had no idea anyone on Earth ate like this four times a day. After two weeks of this I'll need a new wardrobe to cover my new width.”

“This is nothing,” the woman sitting on the other side of her declared. “We were on a cruise last year—an Italian ship and chef.” She kissed her fingertips.

“I'm going to walk around on deck,” Jake whispered and scooted back his chair. “Meet you in the room after a while.”

The backpack was by his feet; he snagged it and took it along. As he was going toward the door, he recognized a man sitting in the far corner. Jake gaped. Yes, it was Janos Ilin.

Sitting talking to someone whose face Jake couldn't see.

He walked toward the dessert table, groaning with two dozen kinds of sweets. Jake snagged a chocolate chip cookie and took another look. He remembered the man all right. Peter Kerr.

Cookie in hand, Jake walked for the door. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Ilin, who never looked at him.

*   *   *

In the control room of USS
America,
the hull of
Sea Wind
projected down into the sea on the port side. Vladimir Kolnikov gestured toward it. “There she is. We've matched speeds and courses. She's about a hundred meters or so to port. That sponson is on her starboard side. Do you want someone to come along, help with the minisub?”

“No,” said Heydrich, who probably refused help when he was born.

“I'll walk back there with you,” Kolnikov said.

On the way aft, he said, “There will be a lot of dynamic pressure pushing you away from the liner's hull. If you have difficulty getting alongside, the ship's officer will probably order the engines stopped.”

“Okay.”

“Take your time, think through every task. The bottom is a long way down.” They were well away from the seamount, in water a mile and a half deep.

“I have no intention of going there,” Heydrich snapped.

“Good. I repeat, take your time, think through every task.”

Heydrich climbed the ladder into the lock and dropped the hatch with a bang.

Kolnikov rotated a padded, spring-loaded seat down from the bulkhead and sat. He smoked a cigarette as he listened to the sounds of the minisub powering up. When he finally heard the hydraulic locks release he continued to sit, examining his shoes and thinking of Russia in the summer and this and that.

He was remembering scenes from his boyhood a lot lately. That was probably not a good sign. Paris … he should be thinking of Paris. Of that woman who sold hand-painted postcards by the Seine and smiled at him. They never spoke, but she always smiled.

He should have stayed in Paris. He knew that now. Life is like that—you always learn the important lessons too late.