Red Heat (15 page)

He was appalled to hear that previous captains had not required this kind of safety drill. “These northern waters can be dangerous,” he said carefully, “and
Ostrov
is an older vessel. The safety of passengers and crew should always be a commander’s prime concern.”

“I understand that, but—”

“Every Russian submariner is required to carry an IDA at all times,” he interrupted as politely as he could. “I only want you to be as safe as my men.” He smiled benignly.

Professor Sundesvall nodded. “Yes, naturally we will all happily comply,” he said, cutting off any further protest by his team.

“Excellent. My XO will be back shortly to give you your assignments. Please feel free to come to me personally if you have any questions or requests.”

It took another ten minutes, but soon things were running smoothly, the IDAs were being correctly donned, and the scientists and crew were at least communicating without shouting. The war had been averted for now. Hopefully the date line–crossing celebration tomorrow would soothe any lingering ruffled feathers.

As he made a pass along the length of the sub to check on everyone’s progress, he came to an abrupt halt back where he’d started, in the mess. Julie was sitting at a table with a rating, frowning at her IDA canister.

He strode over in annoyance and waved off the rating, who scooted away in a hurry. “What are you still doing here?” he asked her. “I thought you’d been assigned to the sonar shack with Gavrikov.”

She pulled off the full black face mask that made her look like an insect, and bit her lip. “Sorry. He and Rufus—Chief Edwards—were heavily involved in listening to some sonar thing. A transmission? Transition? Anyway, I said I’d find someone out here to help with this alien space suit.” With a grimace, she held up the mask and the bright orange inflatable collar with attached blue canisters dangling from it. It was hopelessly tangled.

Nikolai frowned as he took the assemblage from her, straightened it out, and started checking it over. “You mean a transient?” he asked, going back to Gavrikov.

She brightened. “Yeah. That was it.”

A transient was a sudden noise picked up on sonar. It could be anything from a dropped wrench on board
Ostrov
to an airplane motor buzzing above to an enemy torpedo tube flooding miles away. “Was it something unusual?” he asked. It must have been
very
unusual to make both his chief sonar man and the American navy man ignore a safety drill. They knew better.

“They didn’t say what it was,” Julie said. “But when I left, they looked pretty . . . intense.”

Nikolai wondered about that as he felt over her IDA hoses and checked its air canisters.
What the
—He held them up. One of the valves was missing.

Angrily, he grabbed the 1MC mike and called
Kvartirmyeister
Kresney, who was in charge of equipment distribution and was scurrying back and forth acting as translator when teams got stuck in the language barrier. “This IDA is defective,” Nikolai growled when Kresney arrived, breathless. “How is that possible?”

“Sir, I don’t understand.” Kresney looked aghast as he checked the valve fitting. “I assure you, I inspected every one of these sets before issuing them.”

A chill went through Nikolai. Inwardly he swore. First the primary atmospheric equipment broken, and now this? How many other IDAs had been tampered with? Or other vital equipment?

He lowered his voice. “I want you to recheck every one of them,” he ordered. “Then check them again every day. I don’t want any accidental malfunctions. And Misha, do it discreetly.”

Watching the
kvartirmyeister
hurry away, visibly upset, Julie asked, “What is it, Nikolai? What’s going on?”

He shook his head. “I’ll explain later. For now, let’s get you another of these. One that works.”

There was a big box of the rebreather sets sitting on one of the six mess hall tables, easily accessible to anyone. This was an open compartment right off the main deck passageway. If there was a saboteur on board, he would have had no trouble fouling the whole lot if he’d wished.

Nikolai examined each one of them. All were intact and good to go. In one sense it was a huge relief. In another, it made his blood run even colder.

Was it just a coincidence that Julie had gotten the only one with a missing valve?

Or had someone targeted her specifically?

Unfortunately, the answer was all too clear. To Nikolai, anyway.

He was not the only one on board with a hidden agenda concerning the pretty CIA officer.
Another
spy was in their midst. One whose intent was far more deadly.

The question was . . . who or what was his target?

Only Julie?

Or should everyone aboard
Ostrov
be fearing for their lives?

Nikolai was very upset. Which made Julie very nervous.

He wouldn’t tell her what was bothering him. When she asked, he just kept saying, “We’ll talk about it later.”

Great.

He was trying to act all efficient and captainlike as he took it upon himself to show her how to put on and breathe through the emergency IDA gear, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere. And judging by the scowl on his face, it was
not
back in the stateroom, in his bunk. Which was where
her
mind had firmly stalled.

Oh, my God, she had really gone and done it. She’d ignored every personal edict, every professional directive, every dire warning from her training, and succumbed to sleeping with the enemy.

Although after what they’d shared together in his bed, he felt like anything but the enemy. He felt like her lover. And the man she was falling more for with every passing minute.

She had to be out of her mind.

She’d tried to stop herself. Really she had. She’d felt so overwhelmed by the emotional conflict of being with Nikolai that when she’d first touched him she’d given in to tears. Too bad the internal struggle had done her no good whatsoever. In the end she hadn’t been able to deny the need raging within her any more than she could stop the tides.

Nikolai had been incredible. He was an incredible man and an even more incredible lover. He’d made her feel things she’d never known her body could feel.

Or her heart.

Which was the real problem. For how could she go on deceiving a man after she’d made such passionate love with him? But telling him the truth would only force him to act upon that truth. And where would she end up then?

In Siberia.

Or worse. Facedown on a street in Moscow.

He’d warned her more than once that he’d have no choice but to turn her in if he knew she was a spy. Better to keep her mouth firmly shut. Much safer that way.

“Julie!”

With a start, she shot out of her disturbing thoughts. Nikolai was standing over her with a frown. Her IDA-59 was neatly packed in its orange carry bag, and he was holding it out to her. Lord, how long had he been trying to get her attention? “Sorry. What?” She took the bag.

“I said, come with me to the sonar shack. I want to find out what Gavrikov and Edwards are listening to that is so damn interesting.”

She rose and followed him out of the mess hall.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, letting her go ahead of him down the narrow passageway.

“You’d be wasting your money,” she replied.

“So you weren’t thinking about something so intently that you didn’t hear me call you five times?” A slight shade of sarcasm colored his words.

“Nope.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Liesha. How you ever got to be a
shpion
, I’ll never fathom.” The skepticism in his voice sounded more than sincere. Despite the fact that she
wasn’t
a case officer, she felt insulted.

“I keep telling you, I’m not a spy,” she repeated for the millionth time, an edge to her tone.

Damn it, she
wasn’t
! She was just an unlucky China desk analyst railroaded into a mission she was unprepared for and ill equipped to deal with. And pitted against an opponent she was even less prepared to deal with. The man was intelligent, irresistible, and completely relentless.

“Soon you’ll tell me the truth,” Nikolai muttered. He was starting to sound like a broken record.

She ground her jaw. Coming to a watertight door, she stopped with her hand on the round rim and swung around to face him, unable to bear the mocking any longer. “I
am
telling you the truth, Nikolai.” She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “I’m an
analyst
, okay? I sit at a computer all day reading and interpreting news and research.
That’s
what I do. I’m
not
a spy.”

He blinked at her owlishly.

Ho
-boy.

She should
not
have told him that. Total breach.

Before he could react, she swung around again and climbed through the hatch, leaving him staring after her in pure astonishment. Which lasted for about two nanoseconds. Then he was flying through the door after her, and his hand was gripping her arm. He whirled her back around and opened his mouth to blast her.

“Don’t,”
she said, cutting him off while she glanced around. There were at least a half dozen people occupying the compartment, in varying states of frustrated discussion over their IDA gear. She may suck at this, but even she knew better than to have this discussion here.

He snapped his mouth shut again, adjusted his grip on her, and instead hustled her toward the ladder that led to the lower deck where their stateroom was located. No doubt to give her the third degree in a more private setting.

What. Ever.

“Captain Romanov!” Rufus Edwards hailed him from the door to the sonar shack, which was tucked into a corner of the control room just ahead.

Nikolai halted, but didn’t let go of her arm.

“There’s something we think you should hear,” Rufus said, his brows flickering as he noticed Nikolai’s grasp on her.

“So I understand,” Nikolai said. “We were just coming to see you.”

Julie let out a breath of relief as he urged her—albeit none too gently—in front of him as he once again reversed direction back toward the shack.

Thank goodness. Now she’d have a bit of time to prepare a more careful explanation of her monumental fail.

Stepping into the teensy sonar shack, she backed herself against the wall, giving the men space. Between the equipment, two swivel chairs, occupied by the sonar guy and Rufus’s bulk, and Nikolai’s broad shoulders taking up the rest, there was hardly room to breathe.

The young sonar man, Gavrikov, immediately ripped off his giant headphones and launched into a mile-a-minute speech to Nikolai in Russian from his perch in front of the monitors.

Meanwhile, Rufus shot her a questioning gaze and mouthed, “You okay?”

She gave him a smile, nodded, and mouthed back, “I’m fine.”

He jerked his chin minutely at Nikolai and arched one disapproving brow. So he’d heard. Wonderful.

She answered with a wry “what’s a red-blooded woman to do?” shrug.

He grimaced unhappily, but dropped the silent inquisition. Thank God. She wasn’t sure she could justify her actions to herself, let alone to anyone else.

Meanwhile, Nikolai was quizzing Gavrikov while studying the various sonar screens intently. He waved off a pair of headphones when they were offered, and asked Rufus in English, “Do you agree with
Starshina
Gavrikov’s evaluation, Chief Edwards?”

Julie wondered why they all looked so grim.

Edwards swiped a hand over his mouth. “Like the kid said, it’s most likely nothing to be too worried about. Maybe a new captain using us to test his skills, hiding in our baffles, practicing his angles and dangles.”

Huh?

“Malicious or not,” Nikolai said, “I sure as hell don’t like being stalked. And I take it you’re suspicious about something.”

Rufus tapped a fingernail thoughtfully on the console. “He’s being too cagey. Doing his best to stay hidden behind the ambient noise. My question is, why bother hiding from us at all?”

Julie wasn’t following any of this. But apparently Nikolai was.

“Yes. I see your point,” he said to Rufus. “And you’re sure you’ve ID’d the vessel correctly?”

“Absolutely. We’ve checked the signature with both your software and my personal archives, and there’s no doubt about it, Skipper. She’s a Chinese Type 093 attack sub, all right.”

Julie came to abrupt attention. Wait. “A Shang-class submarine?” she asked in surprise . . . mixed with a little concern. “In the North Pacific?” The Chinese only had two attack subs of this class, and they were usually stationed in the Atlantic. Her gaze darted to the inscrutable sonar display. “Where? Is it close?”

Three sets of eyes snapped to her and held, even more startled than she’d been.

Double crap
.

God
, she sucked at this.

By way of explanation she said, “Um, I wrote an in-depth article about the PRC’s navy a while back.” Well. More like a sixty-page white paper for the director, with recommendations for intelligence strategies. But who was counting? “From what I remember, they don’t usually venture into this neck of the woods.”

Rufus broke the silence first. “Well, then. Since you’re so up on the subject, maybe you can tell us why the damn thing is tailing us?”

It was her turn to be startled. “
Tailing us
? As in, deliberately? Why would it be doing that?”

“Exactly.”

Oh. Now she got it.

Again, the two men regarded her levelly, Nikolai with a calculating mien, Rufus more circumspect. Anton Gavrikov glanced between them and her, puzzled by the sudden acute shift in tension.

“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s not like this international scientific expedition is top secret or anything. It’s been mentioned on every news program, website, and newspaper in the world.”

Then all at once it struck her. Sweet Lord.
The SD card she’d been sent to find
. Being tailed by a Chinese attack sub would make perfect sense if they’d learned someone aboard
Ostrov
was in possession of stolen Chinese military technology! Especially something as important as the UUV guidance system contained on the SD card.

Oh,
hell
. She swore silently.

Nikolai’s eyes narrowed as he watched her expression change from perplexed to horrified before she could mask her reaction and bring it back to neutral.

“Is there something you’d like to share with us,
dorogaya
?” he asked.

“No.” Her throat closed on the word and she had to clear it. “It just makes me nervous”—she cleared it again—“that they’re following us.”

“Julie,” Rufus interrupted, seeing Nikolai about to lay into her, “if you know something about this situation . . . God knows how, but if you do, seriously, girl, you’ve got to tell us.”

Guilt swamped over her. If a Chinese submarine was hunting them—
her
—the potential consequences of keeping silent could prove . . . awkward in the best case, disastrous in the worst.

On the other hand, deciding
who
to tell was another thing that could easily prove just as disastrous. If Nikolai’s hunch was correct, there was very likely another foreign intelligence officer on board. Someone who’d possibly sabotaged the sub’s air supply.

Rufus Edwards, maybe? Or Gavrikov?

And then there was the problem of Nikolai himself. Aside from the whole blowing-open-the-spy-thing issue. Which was bad enough. But . . .

Good Lord
. Suddenly an awful thought struck her. What about
him
? It had never even occurred to her that he . . . She’d always assumed he was working for the Russians. But what if he was a Chinese double agent?

Her pulse took off at a gallop. What should she do? God, what should she
do
?

She realized they were all staring at her. Hard.

Abruptly, she straightened off the bulkhead. “I need to make a phone call,” she said. Her boss had connections at the Pentagon. They’d be able to—She faltered at the look that swept over Nikolai’s face. Pure, unadulterated suspicion.

“To whom?” he asked.

“My newspaper,” she said. “If we’re being followed by a Chinese attack submarine, I want someone in the outside world to know about it.”

“Don’t bother. I’m radioing in to Russian Naval Command immediately.”

“My boss might be able to call in some Pentagon sources and find out
why
it’s tailing us,” she argued. “It’s worth a try.”

Before he could stop her, she scooted out of the sonar shack and didn’t stop power walking until she was inside their stateroom with the door shut. She didn’t have long. He’d be coming after her just as soon as he’d sent the dispatch to his superiors.

She retrieved her satellite phone from the desk, where she’d set it after returning from the bridge earlier, grabbed the heavy coat Nikolai had given her that morning, and headed right back up to the control room where the access hatch to the top of the sail was located. If her luck held, Nikolai would still be in the radio room sending off his report. She peeked around the corner. He was nowhere in sight.

A man she didn’t recognize glanced at her in consternation when she strode across the room and reached for the ladder. The officer in charge, no doubt. He said something to her in Russian, looking very much like he wanted to stop her from going up to the bridge.

She held her phone out for him to see and pointed at it, then upward. “Just need to make a phone call from the cockpit,” she explained, knowing full well he didn’t understand a word. He looked pained and glanced around at the others manning the various control consoles. They all shook their heads amid a smattering of discussion in Russian.

Seizing the moment, she grabbed hold of the ladder’s handrail and, taking a deep breath, started to climb up. The officer ran over and stopped her. She started to argue, but he just handed her a safety harness and gestured to her waist.

Ah. Right. She quickly belted it around herself and buttoned up her coat. The officer didn’t look happy, but he motioned her to continue climbing. She lost no time scrambling up.

He shouted something past her to whomever was posted up top. There was an answering shout. After a second, he shouted something else, a little longer this time, and there came a short,
“Da, Praporshchik,”
in reply.

She figured she had about five seconds before the deck officer was on the horn informing his captain of her movements. And maybe two minutes after that before Nikolai came storming up after her. She had to make every second count.

Bitter cold wind blew through the open top hatch, but at least no rain pelted her face when she looked upward. Above the round opening, the sky was still glowing a dull, luminescent gray.