The Emperor's Revenge

THIRTY

Golov was conducting a routine inspection of the Achilles’s engine room when the call came down that the Narwhal had been spotted. The yacht had raced ahead of the cargo ship so that Golov could pick out an isolated spot to sink it. The nearly thousand-foot depth in this part of the Mediterranean meant the Narwhal and the Jaffa Column it was carrying would never be found.

He was in no hurry to get to the bridge. He stopped at the galley to grab a snack of rolled blinis, the best he’d ever tasted. Then he checked on the assault team preparing its equipment for the upcoming raid in a few days. He was pleased to see that everything was progressing as planned.

Mitkin’s betrayal in Gibraltar and his subsequent punishment had been a rude awakening for the crew who had agreed to join him in Operation Dynamo. Just as Stalin had done, Golov had purged a third of Antonovich’s original crew after presenting them with the plan that he and Ivana had put together. Despite the rich rewards that were promised, some of the crew had balked, as he knew they would. They’d be allowed to leave, no harm done, as long as they vowed to remain silent.

Of course, that had been a lie to keep them from rebelling. The dissenters were rounded up, killed, and thrown overboard, vanishing into the ocean as Mitkin had. Curious family and friends were told that the crew members had resigned and taken jobs on other yachts. There had been some follow-up inquiries, but by the time any authorities could get involved, the operation would be over and the rest of them would disperse.

Mr. Antonovich protested about the deaths, but Golov assured him that there was no other choice. Since that day, Antonovich hadn’t left his plush cabin, and he got daily updates from Golov on the situation.

The remaining crew, and the new crew he’d had to recruit, were in all the way. With the number of crimes they could be convicted of for aiding and abetting, there was no going back. From the squad of mercenaries that Sirkal had handpicked down to the yacht’s cook, all of them knew what was at stake. If Dynamo went according to plan, they’d each be set with a fortune that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to acquire in a hundred lifetimes. The payday was worth whatever risk presented itself. And if some of them didn’t make it out alive, even more would be available for the survivors.

Thirty billion euros, distributed proportionally to the crew — thirty-five billion U.S. dollars, at the current exchange rate — that was the amount Ivana estimated that they’d swindle from the European banks, in the end. It was a sum that dwarfed any known heist. Four million dollars in gold from an armored car robbery? A hundred million euros in diamonds stolen from a Belgian vault? Those thefts seemed laughably petty compared to the ambitious scheme they were undertaking.

“Status,” Golov barked, and took a seat in his chair, which had a commanding three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view through the three-inch-thick polycarbonate windows surrounding him.

His faithful XO, Dmitri Kravchuk, who’d served with him in the Ukrainian Navy, pointed toward the bow. “We have confirmation it’s the false Narwhal, Captain. Twenty miles off the port bow.”

Golov flipped up the high-definition screen embedded in his armrest to see the feed from one of the digital zoom cameras mounted on the hull. He increased magnification until he could clearly see the Narwhal’s familiar shape.

“Didn’t I already kill you?” he mumbled to himself.

“They’re continuing, straight and true, at a steady twelve knots,” Kravchuk said.

“Any other ships in the vicinity?”

“No, sir. Nothing on radar, and we’re monitoring the transponders on all cargo vessels in the area. None are within eighty miles.”

“Excellent. Power up the railgun.”

“Aye, sir. Powering up railgun.”

Kravchuk flipped a switch on his console and the entire yacht hummed with the vibration of the capacitors building the charges they would need to fling tungsten projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

Golov pressed the button for the shipwide intercom.

“Attention. This is the captain. The railgun has been activated and is preparing to fire. Secure all breakables and clear the exterior decks. This is not a drill.”

After one minute, Kravchuk announced, “The capacitors are fully charged.”

“Very well. Open the roof.”

“Aye, sir. Opening the roof.”

Fifty feet of the white deck in front of them drew apart. When the doors were fully retracted, a sinister-looking, steel-gray barrel rose from the depths of the Achilles, riding atop a four-sided turret. Unlike the round barrel of a cannon, the railgun’s barrel was octagonal and lined with heat-dissipating fins to keep it from melting due to the fantastic temperatures generated by projectiles moving through it at eight thousand miles an hour.

When it had risen completely from its hidden chamber, the turret rotated around its full two-hundred-and-seventy-degree range of motion.

“Railgun ready to fire,” Kravchuk announced.

“Same firing profile we used on the real Narwhal,” Golov said. “I want to see that ship underwater in five minutes.”

“Aye, sir. Targeting profile entered and locked in.”

“Contact!” the radar operator shouted. “Thirty miles at bearing three four five.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, sir. It just appeared on the screen.”

“You didn’t see its transponder?”

“No, sir. It must not have one.”

That ruled out a cargo ship. Any ship larger than three hundred tons was required by international convention to carry a satellite-tracked automatic identification system.

“What’s its course and speed?”

“Same course as the Narwhal, sir. Speed twelve knots.”

“How big is it? A fishing vessel maybe?”

“No, much larger than that,” the radar operator said. “I’d say over five hundred feet long.”

Kravchuk frowned at him. “Naval warship?”

“Can’t be,” Golov said, but he had a bad feeling that’s exactly what it was. If some nation had sent out a destroyer to intercept the Narwhal, he’d have to come up with a new plan quickly.

He moved the exterior camera around and focused it on the ship that had intruded on their perfect, isolated location. He zoomed in until he had a good look at the ship’s profile.

He gaped when he recognized the outline. It was the wretched tramp steamer they’d passed when they were leaving Malta. The Nogero, as he recalled.

Did it follow the Achilles here?

“You said it’s running steady at twelve knots?” Golov asked the radar operator.

“Aye, sir. Almost perfectly in the wake of the Narwhal.”

So it was following the cargo ship with the Jaffa Column on it. But why?

He sat back to think for a moment. If he were trailing the ship, he’d be doing it to see where the next destination would be and then he’d take the container when the ship docked.

Therefore, ordering the Narwhal to come to a stop wouldn’t help. The Nogero would either do the same and wait or board the ship when they realized something was wrong.

“We’re going to sink them both,” he said to Kravchuk.

“Aye, sir,” the XO responded without hesitation. “Which should we target first?”

“Stay on the Narwhal, but we’ll wait until it’s closer. Five miles should do it. Then that rusty excuse for a freighter will only be fifteen miles away when we destroy her.”