The ship’s commander was a short, sinewy man who had somehow managed to keep his face clear of wrinkles despite having spent his life at sea. He looked at Sattari as if he didn’t understand, and the commando leader felt compelled to explain further.
‘You see,’ Sattari said, ‘these Americans are clever people. They love puzzles, and they love to piece them together. In this case, the fact that the pieces don’t fit will confuse them. Their instincts will be to press ahead and attack. They will realize it’s a decoy soon enough, then they will look for the submarine in earnest.’
‘You speak of the Americans as if you know them very well,’ said the ship’s captain.
‘I speak from unfortunate experience.’
Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 0218
‘Ship is turning to port. I wouldn’t say they’re burning up the ocean,’ reported Starship.
‘Take a run over them. Make sure they see you.’
‘Have to be blind not to,’ said Starship. But he did as he was told, moving the Werewolf down toward the tanker. Again he passed so close that he could see a man on the ladder of the superstructure. Again he felt a chill and a moment of premonition, sure he was going to be shot down.
I’m not even on the stinkin’ helicopter, he reminded himself as he circled away, unfired on. Relax.
‘We have a decoy in the water,’ Eyes told Storm. ‘Loud. Imposter.’
Imposter was a nickname for a Russian MG-74 decoy, a versatile torpedo-tube-launched noisemaker that could employ a variety of techniques to confuse a tracking ship, including jamming sonar and simulating the sound of a large submarine.
‘You have a contact with the sub that launched it?’
‘Negative. We didn’t hear the tube flood or launch, either. Tubes could have been open for a while. Not adding up, Captain. Now we don’t have any contacts at all.’
‘Nothing!’
‘I know, I know,’ said Eyes quickly. ‘We’re looking, Storm. I don’t know why we can’t find it.’
This was the point in the chase where a hunter had to be patient; sooner or later the prey would make a mistake and give himself away. No matter how clever – and the captain of the submarine had proven himself quite clever – he would eventually slip.
The problem was, Storm was not a patient man. He stared at the holographic display, trying to puzzle out where his adversary had gone.
‘You’re sure he’s not trailing that tanker?’
‘Negative.’
Oh my God, thought Storm, what if he managed to get underneath us?
Impossible.
But a logical explanation.
‘Change course – hard to starboard,’ he shouted to the helmsman behind him on the bridge. ‘Eyes – make sure the SOB isn’t hiding right beneath us or in our wake somehow.’
Starship skipped over the waves, staring at the infrared feed and trying not to let it burn through his eyes. There was nothing on the surface of the water – no periscope, no radio mast, no nothing.
Navy guys stared at the sea all the time, and claimed to love it. How sick was that?
The submarine wasn’t under them. But neither was it anywhere in the five-mile grid they marked out in the ocean as its most likely location, nor in the wider circle that Storm had the ship patrol after the grid proved empty.
They’d been beaten. And the worst thing was, Storm didn’t even know who had done it.
A hard-ass Russian submarine captain in a Kilo, who’d wandered close to Port Somalia by accident and then thought it best to get away before he got blamed?
Or the captain of a submarine who had in fact picked up the saboteurs and scooted clean away?
‘All right,’ he growled into his microphone. ‘Eyes – we’re going to have to call off the search. We can’t stay here forever.’
‘Aye aye, Captain.’
Storm’s anger flashed as the command was passed and the crew began to move, tacitly accepting defeat. His right hand formed into a fist but he restrained himself from pounding the bulkhead.
He thought of that later, in his cabin, when he stared at the ceiling instead of sleeping. It was a measure of how much he had changed in the months since the fight with the Somalian pirates.
Whether it was a change for the better, he couldn’t tell.
Las Vegas University of Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada 5 January 1998 1723
The day’s worth of tests were mostly variations on ones Zen had already gone through before Christmas. He was injected with a series of dyes and then X-rayed and scanned, prodded and listened to. The technical staff took a stack of X-rays, MRIs, and ultrasounds. Then they hooked him up to a machine that measured nerve impulses. This involved inserting needles into various parts of his body. The doctors had done this several days before. Now they inserted more, and left them in for nearly two hours.
He didn’t feel the ones in his legs, but he did get a prickly sensation in his neck when they were inserted along his upper back. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but lying there was more difficult than he had imagined.
‘Done,’ said Dr Vasin finally. Two aides came over and helped Zen sit up.
‘So I can walk now?’
‘Jeff.’
‘Hey, Doc, loosen up. Just a joke.’ Zen pushed his arms back. His muscles had stiffened. ‘Tomorrow I go under the knife, right?’
‘Laser, and then the injections. Bright and early, but listen –’
‘I know. No guarantees.’
‘This is a really long process, Jeff. And I have to be honest, brutally honest –’
‘Ten percent chance. I know.’
‘Ten percent is very optimistic,’ said Vasin.
‘It’s OK. I understand.’
‘Operation one is tomorrow. The procedure itself is relatively simple, but of course it is a procedure. No food after seven P.M., just in case we have to put you out.’
‘Beer’s not food, right?’
‘Not after seven. And for the duration of the test period, alcohol and coffee are forbidden.’
‘Well, there goes the bender I was planning. Don’t worry, Doc,’ added Zen, ‘I’m just joking.’
Needles and sensors removed, Zen got dressed and wheeled himself out into the hallway. He headed toward the lounge area, where he could call for a taxi before taking the elevator down. He was surprised to see Breanna waiting for him.
‘Bree?’
‘You called for a taxi?’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Like I said – need a taxi?’
‘I thought you were snowed in.’
‘I shoveled the runway myself.’
She leaned over and kissed him. Zen grabbed her around the neck and hugged her, surprising himself at how much he missed her.
‘Everything