America (7 page)

“I don't understand why it hasn't been found. It must be somewhere under the launch path. Shouldn't it?”

“Well, there's a debate about that. The trajectory was curving to the north when the third stage failed to ignite. Apparently. Then the tracking stations lost it. At that speed and altitude, it could be anywhere from Africa to the Bahamas.”

“You don't really think that something just ‘happened,' do you?”

“No. I think it was sophisticated sabotage. Someone changed a few lines of software here and there. After the missile was lost, he or she went back in and changed it back. Someone else could have killed the tracking stations for several minutes. The FBI is investigating and apparently coming up dry.”

“And the Russian response to the SuperAegis disaster was to send a spy to be a member of the liaison team?”

“It's that kind of world, I guess,” Jake said lightly. “Drop a satellite and here they come. But who knows, there's a chance—a small one, of course—that Ilin is indeed what he is says he is, a career paper pusher, a bean counter.”

“So why didn't he get a room at the Washington Hilton?”

Jake chuckled. “The times, they are indeed a-changin',” he said. “But they don't change overnight. Used to be a senior spook like Ilin couldn't leave the Russian embassy without an escort. They're afraid their people might defect or turn traitor or something. Presumably Ilin's chock-full of state secrets that Russia's enemies would pay huge money for. He says his boss thinks he's growing up. They would like him to sleep at the embassy, but now he can play outdoors without adult supervision.”

“How senior is he?”

“Equivalent of a major general, I think. Maybe a lieutenant general. The CIA says they think he's the number-two or -three man in one of the SVR's chief directorates.”

“Are you and Toad corrupting him?”

“I'm just trying to be a decent host. Toad is probably trying to rot Ilin's Cyrillic heart. I don't know. Or care. Ilin may be trying to show us that he isn't SVR because he can sleep outside the Russian embassy. Whatever. At some point you stop peeling the onion and let it be.”

“Is he going to defect?”

“God, I hope not! It would be a disaster if he did.”

“Do you like Ilin?”

Jake shrugged. “I haven't thought much about it. He is charming, but he's way too smart. Being around him makes me nervous.”

Callie laughed. “Phooey. You're in his league, Jake Grafton.” She shook her head. “Just for the record, though, I wish you and I had a little more time alone to practice this husband-wife thing.”

“Me too,” Jake agreed warmly and reached for Callie's arm. “I'm sorry the guys showed up. I could tell Toad to take him down to Ocean City this afternoon, get a hotel room with a good television and watch some football.”

“No, no. They can stay. I didn't mean that.”

“Honest. I can run 'em off.”

“I know. But it would be impolite.”

They walked on hand in hand.

“Last night was fun,” Callie said, remembering. Ilin had asked the origin of the name of the project—SuperAegis. Jake replied that the space-based missile defense system was first christened Galahad, after the good knight with the enchanted shield. “Galahad's shield,” Jake explained, “had a marvelous property; it would protect only those pure in heart. The president thought that this close to the Clinton era, people would think the name was some kind of political joke.”

That remark got Ilin started on political jokes. He regaled the Americans with an hour's worth, all of which Callie forced him to repeat in Russian. Then somehow the conversation turned to grandmothers. Jake Grafton grinned as he walked the beach this morning, remembering.

“My father's mother liked to invite her friends over for cards in the afternoon,” Callie had told her audience. “They smoked and drank gin until they were so snockered they could barely walk and thought they were so wicked. Grandmother would call me over to her and announce, ‘Callie is going to help me cheat. Look at the other ladies' cards, honey, and tell me if you see any jacks.' My other grandmother was also a pistol. She's the one who taught me to pee without taking off my swimsuit.” That comment brought a gale of laughter. “She also liked to skinny-dip and would wake me up at midnight to go skinny-dipping with her in her pool. She loved splashing around naked in the darkness, listening to the crickets and frogs, speculating about what the neighbors would say if they ever found out.”

That got Toad talking about his grandmothers. He then mimicked the way they talked. Jake and Callie had never heard him mimic other voices before, so they encouraged him. He did an excellent John Wayne, good Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny, Bill Clinton, and a passable handful of others. Although Ilin didn't know many of the voices, the Graftons did; Toad had them in stitches.

“What are you grinning about?” she asked her husband this morning as they walked the sand.

“Being alive,” he shot back. “Like your grandmother, I enjoy it immensely. Come on, let's get our feet wet.” Jake led Callie into the surf runout area. The water was cold on their ankles. In seconds a wave forced them to retreat. Back and forth they went, like children, as the surf chased them.

Eventually he misjudged a wave, which soaked his trousers from the knees down. He grinned ruefully at his wife, who was wearing a wide smile as the cold salt water swirled around her ankles.

They were crossing the beach, heading for the boardwalk across the dune, when Jake's cell phone rang. He removed it from his pocket and flipped open the mouthpiece.

“Grafton,” he muttered and inserted a finger into his left ear to block out the sighing of the wind and surf.

Callie sat down on the boardwalk to put on her shoes as Jake concentrated on the telephone conversation. He didn't say much. Callie felt her spirits sink. The cell phone was nonsecure, Callie knew, so official business could not be discussed on it. More than likely this was a summons to return to Washington. When Jake glanced at his wristwatch, she knew.

“Okay,” he said and closed the phone mouthpiece. As he put the phone into his pocket he looked at her and shrugged. He looked tired, she thought.

“Someone hijacked a submarine—if you can believe that. Big meeting in Washington. They're sending a helicopter. It'll be here in about an hour.”

“Oh, Jake. I'm sorry.”

“Damn!” he said. “You'll have to drive the car back to Washington.”

“A submarine?”

“New London,” he said. “This morning.”

“Is there any chance you could get back here tonight?”

“I don't know. Perhaps.”

“Why don't you call me from Washington, let me know? I could thaw steaks and Toad can cook them tonight on the grill. I'll thaw one out for you.”

“Okay.”

She touched his cheek. “You seem happier than I've seen you in years, Jake. You're fully engaged.”

“They keep me jumping, that's for sure.”

“And you love it.”

He grinned. “It's the niftiest job I've had in years. Maybe ever. The truth is that it's fun working with really smart people, like Ilin. Man, I didn't know there were this many geniuses in the world. At times I feel like I'm the dumbest kid in the class, but what the hey. I'm giving it my best shot. And yeah, that's fun.”

They found Toad and Ilin sitting on the screened-in porch drinking coffee. In his mid-forties, Janos Ilin was a tall, lean man with craggy features and lively, expressive features. He greeted Callie now with a phrase in Russian, and she fired a few words back at him.

“Good morning, Jake,” Ilin said to the admiral with a smile. Ilin liked to use first names. Apparently someone had told him that was the American custom and he took it to heart.

“So did you sleep okay?”

“Fine, Jake. Just fine.”

“I'm going back to Washington in a few minutes,” Jake said, more to Toad than Ilin. “You guys make yourselves at home. Callie is going to thaw steaks for tonight.”

“Will you be returning this evening, sir?” Toad asked.

“I don't know.”

Jake took his coffee with him when he went upstairs to pack. As he climbed the stairs he heard Callie speaking to Ilin in Russian, probably asking him what he wanted for breakfast. When Jake came back downstairs carrying his overnight bag, he found Ilin inspecting the bookshelf.

“Help yourself,” he told the Russian. “Toad, how about driving me down to the hospital helo pad.”

He kissed his wife, then went out to the car with Tarkington. As Toad piloted the car along the highway, Jake told him of the submarine hijacking. “USS
America,
according to the Pentagon duty officer. It's on television, he says; all the channels are running news specials. Turn it on when you get back, watch Ilin's reaction.”

“Why?” Toad asked, referring to the theft of the sub.

“I dunno. Someone wanted a sub.”

Toad whistled. “Holy…!”

After a bit Jake asked, “What do you think of Ilin?”

“He's sharp as a razor, Admiral. It's hard to figure what he's thinking, but I suspect that he has a low opinion of you and me. It's just a feeling I have, nothing specific.”

“We are sorta small-caliber guys,” Jake muttered.

“He speaks great English,” Toad continued. “Has an excellent vocabulary. Seems to know a lot about a lot of stuff. He has something to say about every subject I could think to raise. This morning you saw him checking out your taste in literature.”

As Jake mentally cataloged the thrillers, mysteries, and action-adventure novels that filled his shelves, Toad added, “He thinks we're nincompoops.”

“There's nothing on my shelves that will disabuse him of that notion,” Jake replied. “Let's let him hang on to it as long as possible.”

*   *   *

Kolnikov had
America
running at three knots, five hundred feet below the surface of the sea, when he engaged the autopilot. He had seen submarine autopilots before, of course, but not an autopilot that was designed to run the ship all the time, except in the most dire emergency. He had never seen a submarine with completely computerized, fly-by-wire controls operated with a joystick, either. No fool, Vladimir Kolnikov knew the reason that naval engineers didn't trust submarine autopilots—if a stray electron galloped sideways through the system, the boat could be endangered within seconds. An out-of-control submarine could easily dive too deep, past its crush depth. The faster the sub was going when control was lost, the sooner crush depth would be reached. This one, Kolnikov knew, was operated by three computers that constantly checked on each other and compared data. Any two of them could outvote and override the third.

Still, engaging the autopilot was an act of faith, Kolnikov told himself as he pushed the final button and took his hands off the boat's joystick controls. If Rothberg and the Germans didn't have the computer system functioning properly, this was going to get very exciting very quickly.

Now Kolnikov watched the attitude indicator and the depth gauge, waiting.

All steady.

The machine kept the sub on course, without varying the depth a detectable amount. But for how long? And if something went wrong, how long would he have?

He looked around. Turchak, Eck, Boldt, and the other two Germans were frozen, staring at the gauges. Leon Rothberg was working on the master combat control station on the starboard side of the control room.

“Don't go to sleep,” Kolnikov muttered to Turchak, who nodded in full agreement.

For the first time since he submerged the sub, Kolnikov left the captain's post. He was relieved to find the radio gear and encryption computer in the communications space, or radio room, in the area on the starboard side of the control room. No codebooks in sight, which meant they must be in the safe. He examined the safe, which, alas, was locked. He had been worried that the communications officer or his subordinates might have destroyed the crypto computer and the codebooks when they realized the sub was being hijacked. Apparently not.

As nifty as the sonar was, the codebooks and cryptographic computer were solid gold. Or would have been if the Americans hadn't known the submarine was stolen. No doubt they would change the codes within hours, if they hadn't already.

Yet any new system would be based on the encrypting algorithms contained in the computer, which meant that it was a prize without price for many of the world's intelligence agencies.

Kolnikov patted the machine once, then left the compartment and went forward through the control room into the crew's living area. He looked into the captain's cabin—very nice, bigger than he expected—and looked into each of the officers' staterooms, the wardroom, and the head. Finally he went down the ladder to the third deck. The galley and mess hall were under the control room. Right now the mess hall was jammed with Americans, packed like sardines. Two Germans were guarding them. Kolnikov didn't say a word, merely looked.

Under the mess hall were the cold rooms and auxiliary machinery space. After inspecting both compartments, Kolnikov climbed back up to the mess hall and went aft, into the torpedo room.

America
had only four torpedo tubes, two on the starboard side and two port. All were empty just now. Eight Mk-48 torpedoes rested on cradles, ready for loading. Two contained dummy warheads, but six were war shots. In the center of the compartment was a compact berthing module, which had bunks for the six SEALs who would use the minisub. This module could be disassembled and removed from the boat in port, and the space used for more torpedoes.

His inspection complete, Kolnikov went through the galley—avoiding the mess hall where all the Americans were being held just now—into crew berthing. The berths were tiny, about the size of coffins, stacked three deep. Personal privacy could not be had here. There were, Kolnikov knew, not enough bunks for all the American sailors the boat normally carried—the junior men took turns sleeping. None of this surprised Kolnikov, who had spent almost twenty years serving in submarines.