Acts of Vengeance

CHAPTER NINE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Startled sailors jumped out of the way as the Navy captain in the battered leather flight jacket, cigar jutting from his teeth, stormed through their midst. Astonished, they watched him clamber up the ladder to the O-3 level, taking the steps two at a time.

At the top of the ladder Boyce swerved around a corner, nearly bowling over a female yeoman carrying a stack of files. He mumbled an apology and bolted on down the passageway.

At the flag intel compartment, he saw that Maxwell had beaten him there. He removed the cigar and stood gasping for breath. “She’s alive.”

Maxwell grinned back at him. “I heard.”

Boyce barged on through the door to the intel compartment, hauling Maxwell along by the sleeve.

Admiral Fletcher, hunched over his desk, looked up as they entered. On either side, peering over his shoulders, were Guido Vitale and Spook Morse. At the far end of the compartment, arms folded over his chest, stood Whitney Babcock.

Boyce’s eyes went to the man standing across the desk from the admiral. He wore marine desert-colored BDUs — battle dress uniform. He had a bristly gray crew cut with an expanse of white on either side, a pair of round, steel-framed spectacles, and a ramrod-straight posture. On his collar he wore the insignia of a bird colonel.

“Gus Gritti!” said Boyce. “You bristleheaded sonofabitch, who let you aboard this ship?”

The marine regarded Boyce with icy brown eyes. “You’ve got a mouth like a megaphone, Boyce. When are you squids going to learn some manners?”

A huge grin split Boyce’s face. He and the marine shook hands and clapped each other on the shoulder. Boyce knew Gritti from their academy years. Gritti was a paradox in the Marine Corps — a legendary, mud-crawling infantry warrior with a passion for the operas of Puccini and Verdi, and whose credentials included a master’s in humanities from Stanford.

Ignoring the other officers in the room, Boyce turned to Maxwell. “You see this ugly jarhead? This is the toughest marine since Chesty Puller and absolutely the right guy to have on your side in a bar fight. He’s also the right guy to get our pilots out of Yemen.”

“Maybe,” said Gritti. His eyes were fixed on Admiral Fletcher. “My team could snatch your people out of there, but you have to convince the Battle Group Commander that we need close air support while we’re doing it.”

“Close air support? Hell, yes, you need close air support.” Boyce looked at Fletcher. “Sir? Aren’t we going to—”

“Of course they’ll get air support,” said Fletcher. “But Colonel Gritti has a problem with the amended rules of engagement.”

Boyce eyed the admiral warily. “What amended rules of engagement?”

“The altitude floor. By the new ROE, our close air support aircraft will be limited to a minimum release floor of twenty thousand feet.”

“Twenty thousand feet!” Boyce sputtered. “You can’t even see the gooks from there. Hell, Admiral, you can’t support troops on the ground from four goddamn miles up.”

A sour look was coming over Fletcher’s face. Before he could respond, Babcock cleared his throat and walked over from the corner of the room. He gave Boyce and Gritti one of his patronizing smiles. “Believe me, it won’t be a factor, gentlemen. The rescue of the downed pilots won’t meet any opposition from ground forces. The altitude limit has been imposed because sensitive talks are now in progress between the U.S. and Yemeni governments. They’ve lodged a protest with the U.N. Security Council, and we have strict orders from the White House not to further provoke them.”

Boyce’s face was turning the color of fresh lava. “Are you telling me, sir, that those terrorists are just going to let us saunter into their country and pick up our people? That they’re not going to shoot?”

“We have assurances to that effect.”

“Assurances from murderers? You mean someone from our side is actually talking to those thugs?”

Babcock’s smile was becoming strained. “I realize that these issues may be difficult for you to understand, Captain. You’re a technician, not a diplomat. All you need to know is that this matter in Yemen will end with a diplomatic solution, not a military one.”

Boyce’s face darkened further. “What I really need to know is how I’m going to cover Colonel Gritti’s marines while they’re snatching our pilots out of Yemen. From twenty thousand goddamn feet—”

“That’s enough, Captain,” said Fletcher in a sharp voice. “You’re coming very close to impertinence, and I won’t have it.” He gazed around the room. “I’ll remind everyone in this room that I’m still the Battle Group Commander, and that Mr. Babcock here represents the National Security Council and takes his orders directly from the President. He is the senior official in this theater.”

Fletcher looked again at Boyce. “Is that clear enough for you, Captain Boyce?”

Boyce hesitated for a second, then felt Gritti’s boot kicking his ankle. “Yes, sir,” he said in a loud voice.

Claire sniffed the air and took an instant dislike to Aden. The reek of garbage, and something that reminded her of death, wafted in from the harbor. As the caravan of taxis drove the reporters to the Sheraton, hard-eyed Yemenis glowered at them from the roadside.

About forty reporters and cameramen were camped at the Sheraton, which was guarded at the entrance by a squad of surly Yemeni soldiers. No one wanted to venture into the city. Aden had the feel of an enemy camp. Still fresh in everyone’s memory was the bomb attack on the American destroyer, the USS Cole, as it entered the port of Aden.

Mel Bloom, the chief of information for the U.S. mission in Aden, was standing at the lobby bar. He saw her coming and threw up his hands. “I don’t know anything.”

“C’mon, Mel. We know there are pilots down in Yemen, and another strike is in the works.”

“Media brief at one o’clock. No updates before then.”

“When will they let us go back out to the Reagan?”

“You gotta be joking.”

Claire resisted the urge to seize Bloom’s windpipe and choke the air out of him. He was a pompous bureaucrat, but she knew he was just doing his job. Anyway, he was probably telling the truth. He didn’t know anything. Whatever happened in Yemen was still happening, and the military wouldn’t disclose anything that might jeopardize the operation.

“Okay. Promise you’ll tell me as soon as you know something about the pilots?”

“Sure, Claire. You’ll hear.”

At the bar she recognized one of the reporters, a stringer for Reuters. His name was Lester Crabtree and he was plastered. She took the seat next to him and ordered a vodka tonic.

“Hope you have a positive-space ticket,” said Crabtree.

“To where?”

“Anywhere. This place is going to blow. When the Yemenis figure out we’re bombing them, they’re going to turn on us like a pack of jackals.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Same as you. We’re vultures. We circle around where we think the bodies will be.”

She remembered now that Crabtree was a world-class jerk. “Do you think there’ll be bodies in Aden?”

He shrugged and tossed down his drink. “Aden’s on the coast, right? That means the Navy will have to evacuate us from here when the sticky stuff hits the fan. The real bloodbath will be up north, in San‘a. That’s the capital and it’s where the rebels will go when they’re ready to take over.”

Claire sipped at her drink and watched their reflections in the mirror over the bar. Crabtree might be a jerk, but in this case he probably had it right. Yemen’s shaky coalition government was hanging on by a thread. A well-armed rebel force could march into town and take over anytime they wanted.

She ordered another round for Crabtree, then paid the tab. “Thanks, Lester. See you at the press brief.”

In her room on the third floor, she sat at the tiny desk and opened up her notebook computer. There was no direct Internet connection through the hotel’s phone line. She drafted an e-mail message, which she would later take to the hotel’s business center for uploading.

When she was finished, she picked up the phone and asked the switchboard operator to connect her to the reservations office of Yemenia, the state-owned airline.

The agent spoke excellent English. She asked which flight Claire had in mind.

“San‘a, the next available.”

The voices crackled over the speaker.

“I hear you, Leroi. I’m alive. Please don’t go away.”

“B.J.! I can’t believe it. You’re down there. Are you okay?”

“I’m hungry, thirsty, tired, and I think I’ve got a broken rib. Maybe diarrhea. Other than that, I’m just fine.”

“Sit tight, kid. We’re gonna get you out of there.”

Al-Fasr pushed the STOP button on the digital recorder. He advanced the recording to the next radio exchange. He listened again while the woman pilot authenticated her identity, then reported the grid coordinates of her hiding place.

Hearing the recorded voices, Al-Fasr found himself thinking about the woman pilot. What did she look like? Was she truly a female, with the softness and scent of a woman? Or was she one of those sinewy unisex creatures, like those in the American television shows?

Even with his background — his education and westernized attitudes — such a thing was anathema to Al-Fasr’s Arab soul. Women! They had no place on the field of battle. It ran against the laws of nature. Tomorrow, when they had captured the woman, he would make an example of her.

For a moment he allowed himself to fantasize about the female pilot. The thought gave him an instant arousal. Yes, it would be appropriate to use her for his own pleasure. He would make her whimper and beg for mercy like the whore that she was.

When he was finished, he would throw her to his troops. The spoils of war.

He would transmit an image of the violated woman warrior back to the Americans. They would learn in the most basic fashion what it meant when they sent their daughters to war.

He forced himself to return his thoughts to the recorded radio exchange. Time was growing short. As he listened, he studied the captured grid map on his desk. It was still a puzzle. Instead of using the actual latitude and longitude of her position, the pilot seemed to be referencing the coordinates to the grid map. But the letters of the grid were based on some sort of key, which could be changed daily and which the pilots must have committed to memory.

It had been good fortune that they captured the handheld radios and the grid maps from the F-14 crew. But it was incredibly stupid, Al-Fasr thought as the anger rose in him, that the goat-brained platoon commander had allowed his gunner to kill the pilots. It was typical of these unthinking primitives. Not only could the captured pilots have revealed the key to the grid map, they could have been pumped for other secrets. Ultimately they could be used as bargaining tools.

Or bait.

Al-Fasr had ordered the platoon commander — a Yemeni named Arif, who came from the north country — and his gunner to be shot in full view of the assembled garrison. Not so much as punishment but as an example.

It had made the correct impression. An hour later the search squad in the Dauphin helicopter located the downed Hornet pilot. Instead of shooting to kill, they had pursued the pilot. Then they lost her in the darkness.

Which was just as well for now. So long as the Americans believed the woman pilot was alive and free on Yemeni soil, they would come for her.

Al-Fasr picked up one of the captured survival radios, turning it over in his hands, examining it from all sides. A useful piece of equipment, even more advanced than the older models he had carried when he flew F-16s in the emirate air force. And the handheld GPS. Such exotic technology in the hands of the Navy pilots. It had done them no good.

His MiG pilots, of course, didn’t have such things. There was no need. Search and rescue was not a clause in their contract. He thought again of Novotny and Rittmann, his own downed airmen. Witnesses had observed Novotny’s low-flying jet taking an air-to-air missile strike. It had gone instantly into the ground. There was no chance that Novotny had survived.

Rittmann was another matter. It would be convenient if he were also dead. The impertinent German had outlived his usefulness. The troops who found the wreckage of his MiG reported that the ejection seat was missing. Perhaps he had survived.

Too bad, mused Al-Fasr. If he turned up alive, he would have to be dealt with.

Boyce was the last to come into the briefing room. He slammed the door behind him, then barked an order. “Everyone sit down.”

The air wing briefing compartment was only half the size of the flag intel space. Gritti squeezed into the end chair, while Maxwell, Guido Vitale, Spook Morse, and Gritti’s executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hewlitt, assembled themselves in a semicircle around the illuminated map table.

Boyce looked grim and haggard. He perched on the edge of the steel admin desk and said, “We just got some bad news. About an hour ago the CAP leader had another radio exchange with Yankee Two. She reported that she had witnessed our two Tomcat crewmen being shot and killed.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

Maxwell could see that Boyce was taking it hard. Burner Crump, skipper of the Tomcatters and a much-decorated fighter pilot, was an old buddy of Boyce’s. Crump’s backseater was Willie Martinez, a wisecracking flight officer from southern California, one of the best RIOs in the business.

“What happened?” asked Maxwell. “Were they evading?”

“No details,” said Boyce. “She verified it when he asked her again, and then the CAP lead told her to shut down and save her battery. She’s going to need it for the SAR.”

“How do we know she’s for real?” asked Gritti. “Maybe they’ve got her radio.”

“The first guy to talk to her, Leroi Jones on the CAP station, authenticated. She had the right password for the day. Leroi knows her pretty well, and he asked her some personal stuff, hometown, academy class, stuff like that. She’s the real thing.”

“Maybe she’s being coerced,” said Colonel Hewlitt. “What if it’s a trap?”

“Low probability. It’s part of our training that if you’re being manipulated, you give bogus authentication. Leroi was convinced that she was in the clear.”

“What’s her condition? Is she injured?”

“Nothing serious. Scared shitless, but she says she can run and hide.”

Gritti said, “That’s a tough one about your pilots, gentlemen. I’m sorry. But that simplifies our recovery problem. I understand she has a GPS and a grid map?”

“She gave her coordinates, which are X-Y coded off the grid map,” said Boyce. He leaned over the table and slid his finger in a circle over the illuminated map. “She’s right in here. High, rugged terrain. We gave instructions for her to find a decent landing zone for the pickup. When we contact her again at oh-six-hundred tomorrow, she’s supposed to pass the exact LZ location. If we can’t communicate, we go to the original grid coordinates and look for her.”

“What kind of team are we sending in?” asked Maxwell.

Gritti answered. “It’s what the marines call a TRAP team — Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel. After you guys have your air defense suppression package on station, my team launches from the Saipan in a pair of CH-53 Super Stallions.”

“How many marines are we talking about?”

“I’m planning a Delta-size TRAP package. Fifty, plus four corpsmen.”

“The helos need escort,” said Boyce. “What about the Harriers deployed on the Saipan?”

Gritti shook his head. “The kinder and gentler rules of engagement” — he paused and glared at Vitale — “prohibit using the Harriers. For the same reason we don’t get low air support from the air wing. Too provocative, they think. The Sea Stallions will be escorted by four Whiskey Cobra gunships.”

Vitale sat alone, looking like a kid ostracized from his playmates. The Group Operations Officer wasn’t a bad guy, Maxwell reflected, just a guy in a bad job. Vitale had once been a patrol plane pilot, and as the only aviator on Fletcher’s staff he was caught in the eternal friction between the battle group and the Reagan’s air wing. He received equal abuse from both sides. Even Spook Morse, who served under Vitale on the admiral’s staff, was openly disrespectful of him.

Boyce broke the silence. “That’s it, gentlemen. We play the hand we’ve been dealt. If anybody needs a refresher in the new rules of engagement, I have a copy you can read. Colonel Gritti and Colonel Hewlitt are heading back to the Saipan to do their own briefs. Commander Maxwell and I will stay in here and write the air plan. In three hours we do a full brief with the pilots. The SEAD package will launch thirty minutes ahead of the TRAP team.” SEAD was the acronym for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses — the mix of jammers, HARM shooters, and Super Hornet fighter-bombers.

At this, Vitale spoke up. “I need some information for the battle group tasking order. Who will be assigned as the flight leader in the SEAD package?”

“The best strike leader I’ve got,” said Boyce.

Vitale looked at him expectantly. “And who would that be?”

“The guy sitting next to you. Commander Maxwell.”

Vitale jotted the information on his pad. “And the TRAP team, Colonel Gritti? Who have you assigned to command the recovery package?”

“The toughest, meanest sonofabitch in the Marine Corps.”

Vitale lowered his notebook and peered at Gritti. “I give up. Would you mind telling us who that would be?”

Gritti gave him a half smile. “You’re looking at him.”

“Vincent Maloney,” said the bored voice on the phone.

“It’s Claire Phillips. You’re in luck, Vince. I’m in San‘a.”

Maloney’s voice came to life. “Claire! The girl who spurned me in Bahrain. The one who broke my heart.”

“I didn’t spurn you. I just declined to go to bed with you.”

“Same thing. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?”

“No, it means I’m giving you another chance at being a gentleman.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Take me to dinner.”

“I know you. You want to interrogate me.”

She laughed. “A little, maybe. That’s my job. Where are we having dinner?”

Maloney declared that her hotel, the Al-Qasmy, had a restaurant as decent as any other in San‘a, which didn’t mean much. They were all god-awful, but what the hell, it beat walking the streets. San‘a was a rough place these days.

Claire’s flight from Aden, a 727 with a cabin that smelled of stale cigarette smoke, had taken forty-five minutes. San‘a turned out to be even more polluted than Aden, located in a mountain bowl and lacking an ocean breeze to sweep away the smog.

She liked Vince Maloney, even if he was a dissolute character. He was a deputy political affairs officer who migrated from outpost to outpost in the state department, apparently never destined to rise above his present grade. She had met him at a consular party when she first arrived in the Middle East, and they went out on a few occasions.

Maloney was smitten by Claire. At regular intervals, she had to reexplain that their relationship was one of friendship, nothing more. Forget romance. Maloney accepted the situation with grudging good humor, but he never gave up.

They got together whenever they found themselves in the same port. He was good company, at least until he became too drunk to make sense. Sometimes he even told her things that were useful.

As she hoped he would this time.

Maloney appeared precisely at six o’clock in the lobby of the Al-Qasmy. He gave Claire a big sloppy kiss, and they took a table near the bar to catch up on the past months.

The place was busy, filled mostly with Arab businessmen and a few Europeans clustered by themselves at tables. Maloney ordered a double Scotch for himself and a vodka tonic for Claire.

He clinked his glass against hers. “You’re more gorgeous than ever, Claire. Still married to that Australian journalist — what was his name — something Twit?”

“Tyrwhitt,” she said. “That’s history. We separated, and then he died.”

“Too bad. But the silly ass never appreciated you. I, on the other hand, have always held you in the highest—”

“Too late, Vince. I’m spoken for.”

“Aaagghh.” He clutched his chest. “My heart. You’re breaking it all over again.”

“Have a drink. You’ll get over it.”

“Good idea.” He chugged down his Scotch and signaled the bartender for another. After he’d tested the fresh drink, he said, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“I don’t know about the lucky part. His name is Sam Maxwell. He’s a Navy pilot, a commander on the Reagan.”

“Navy pilot, huh?” Maloney thought for a minute while he peered over the rim of his glass. “It’s beginning to come to me. See if I’m getting this right. You’re here because you want me to blab some information about the little military exercise this morning in Yemen. Am I close?”

“Try this one. I’m here because I’m a journalist.”

Maloney didn’t reply. He sipped at his drink while his eyes scanned the room. In a lowered voice he said, “This is a lousy place to be a journalist.”

Claire waited a moment. “Listen, Vince, I know the terrorist is a character named Al-Fasr, and I know the Navy lost airplanes this morning trying to bomb him.”

Maloney took another sip. “That’s old news.”

“And I know there’s an operation under way to recover the pilot.”

“So?”

“So what am I missing here? Why doesn’t the United States just move in with massive force and squash this Al-Fasr character like a bug? If we can do it in Iraq, if we can do it in Afghanistan, it shouldn’t be a problem in Yemen.”

Maloney shrugged. “Decisions like that don’t get made at my level.”

“But you have an idea, don’t you? You always have an idea, Vince.”

He glanced around the dining room. Several other diners, mostly businessmen in Western clothing, were engaged in their own conversations. “You want the Maloney take on it? Off the record?”

“You know you don’t have to ask that.”

“The United States doesn’t want to wipe out Al-Fasr because that would cost us our one great chance to control Yemen. Al-Fasr is the key. A quid pro quo. First we engage him, allow him to gain credibility in the Arab world by backing down the mighty United States. Then he seizes power in Yemen and becomes our new best friend. We protect his new government from all his resentful Arab neighbors, and Yemen becomes an American colony. Does that make sense?”

“No. He’s a terrorist who murdered Americans. He’s as bad as Osama bin Laden. How can he be our new best friend?”

“C’mon, Claire, grow up. ‘Terrorist’ is a removable label. It’s a function of whether you’re on the inside or outside. Our founding fathers were terrorists until they won the revolution; then they were patriots. Menachem Begin was a very nasty terrorist until he became prime minister of Israel. Then they gave him the Nobel peace prize. It’s all bullshit.”

“Okay, it’s bullshit. So what do we care about Yemen anyway? What’s in it for us?”

At this, Maloney peered around the room again, checking the other occupants. In a lowered voice he said, “I can’t believe you’re a reporter, being this naive. Or maybe it’s just an act to get guys like me to run their mouths.”

“I’m not naive and I’m not acting. Don’t insult me, Vince.”

“Sorry. You want to know why we care about Yemen? Guess what the most valuable commodity in the whole Middle East happens to be.”

“Yemen doesn’t have oil deposits. British Petroleum and several other companies bored all those dry holes years ago and gave up.”

“Maybe they didn’t bore in the right place. You know that vast reservoir that lies under Saudi Arabia? Well, it extends all the way south to somewhere around the northern border of Yemen, which, for your information, has always been disputed. No one wanted to get into a scrap with the Saudis over it — until now.”

Claire put her fingertips together and reflected for a moment. “It all seems so cynical. Here we’re losing airplanes, pilots dying in Yemen, and it’s just for… oil. Nothing but economics.”

“To us, maybe. Not to Al-Fasr.”

“What does he get out of this?”

“Power, for one thing. Vengeance, for another. The story is that he’s still bitter about his family being wiped out in a failed coup attempt in the emirates. He blames the U.S., which might explain all this thrust-and-parry stuff with the Navy. But the outcome is already agreed upon. A done deal.”

“Deal? Who on our side would make such a deal?”

Maloney looked uncomfortable. He took a long pull on his drink, then looked at her. “Did you ever hear of someone named Whitney Babcock?”

By ten o’clock, Maloney was crocked. Claire steered him through the hotel lobby, past the desk and the gawking bellboys, out to the yellow-lighted sidewalk.

He looked at her blearily. “Whaddya say we go back to my place?”

She knew that was coming. Maloney never changed. “Is that another proposition?”

“Consider it an opportunity.”

“Opportunity for what?”

“To make amends for breaking my heart.”

She laughed. “We’re buddies, Vince. Don’t spoil it.”

“Lemme give you a ride home.”

“I’m already home. This is my hotel.”

He looked around. “Oh, yeah, so it is.”

“You’re in no shape to drive. I’ll get you a taxi.”

“No way. I do this all the time. Got lots of practice at this stuff.”

Claire knew she shouldn’t let him drive, but arguing with Maloney was a waste of energy. Anyway, this was San‘a. Not much could happen to you in the twisting streets of the old city. You couldn’t drive fast enough to do any real damage.

Maloney gave her a wet smooch. “Go on up to your room. Don’t talk to anyone. These people hate you. They hate all of us.”

After he had vanished down the sidewalk, she walked back through the lobby to the elevator. Again she sensed the hostile glares from the other guests watching her. Even the desk clerk gave her a baleful look.

When she reached her room, she locked the door, then fastened the clasp. For good measure, she slid the dresser away from the wall and braced it against the locked door. Just in case.

Maloney was right. They hate all of us.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Slumped over his console, Manilov listened to the steady pinging that resonated through the Mourmetz. He forced himself to appear unruffled by the sounds. In front of the other crew members, he must not appear to be frightened. Or indecisive.

His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Ilychin, seemed on the verge of an anxiety attack. Ilychin sat huddled at his own station, his arms wrapped around himself. His eyes darted around the control room with each new ping from the sonars.

Ilychin was a liability, Manilov decided. The executive officer’s palpable fear could infect the rest of the crew. Already Manilov was hearing whispered grumbles from some of the young warrants. They had not signed up for a suicide mission. They thought this would be an easy patrol — a quick torpedo shot at an unsuspecting target, then a submerged run to safe waters. That was all. Once they’d finished the patrol, they’d be rewarded with money beyond their wildest dreams.

Manilov would have to reassure them. They had to have confidence in him. Ilychin’s trepidation was poisoning them.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Still searching. If they had the Mourmetz tagged, the underwater sound signals wouldn’t be detonating in those random patterns and depths. The sound signals were dropped from a helicopter, and the fact that the pings were farther away now led Manilov to think they didn’t have a positive fix on the Mourmetz.

What if they did?

He remembered what he had been taught as a young engineering officer on his first patrol aboard the old Admiral Koblenko: Put yourself in the mind of your enemy.

Manilov forced himself to detach from his present role. What would he do if he were the American antisubmarine commander?

Kill the unidentified submarine?

No. Not without knowing whose boat you were killing and not without first seeing some indication of hostile intent. You didn’t risk starting a war because somebody’s submarine was watching you.

What then?

Manilov thought for a moment. You try to keep it locked up, of course. Make sure the sub commander knows he’s tagged so he doesn’t try anything adventurous. You might even drop some ordnance, not too close, just to generate some fear. To emphasize the seriousness of your intentions.

But the American commander hadn’t done any of those things. Why? It could mean only one thing: He was still fishing. He hadn’t found the Mourmetz, or at least he didn’t know within several kilometers where it was.

Manilov had chosen a good hiding place.

The Mourmetz lay motionless in the shelter of a protruding littoral shelf that dropped over three hundred meters to the ocean floor. It formed a natural blind from the enemy’s underwater signals and magnetic anomaly detectors.

Ping. Ping.

Yes, he determined, the pinging was definitely moving farther away. All he had to do was wait. That was what submariners had always done — wait. You waited for the enemy to give up and move on. You waited for your opportunity to strike. You waited to die.

While he waited, Manilov scribbled on his notepad a personal assessment of his enemy’s assets. By his own count the Reagan was escorted by four destroyers, and he had to assume there was one, possibly two more, screening the battle group from the south. He knew that antisubmarine helicopters were deployed not only aboard the giant carrier but also on the cruiser and maybe even on the amphibious assault ship with its complement of cargo and attack helicopters. Additionally, the Reagan carried in its air wing a detachment of S-3 Viking submarine-hunting jets.

Another chilling possibility nagged at him: The American Navy’s anti-submarine forces were often augmented by nuclear attack submarines of their own. These were usually Los Angeles — class multipurpose boats that could haul commando teams, launch cruise missiles — and hunt enemy submarines. Killer submarines were a boat captain’s most dreaded adversary.

American warships were not his only worry. The Mourmetz was now two days past its scheduled delivery to the Iranian naval base at Bandar Abbas, on the Strait of Hormuz. Since that time he had ignored the flow of increasingly urgent messages from the Pacific fleet command headquarters in Vladivostok. He had no doubt the Russian Navy was now at full alert, searching for its missing warship. He wondered if the Iranians had paid them yet for the submarine. He hoped so.

Manilov sat back in his metal chair and looked at his assessment sheet. The odds against him were staggering. One lone submarine against the two most powerful navies in the world.

He tossed the notebook onto the desk. Fuck the odds. When he took the Ilia Mourmetz into battle, none of that would matter. He was a Russian, and this was his destiny. Only fate mattered.