Fortunes of War

14

They sat in the mud near the hole in the chain-link fence that they had cut going in. Martos arranged his scuba gear so that he could slip it on in seconds. Filimonov, on the other hand, sat morosely by his gear, staring out at the blackness of the bay. Martos checked the fluorescent hands of his watch: 01:12. They had finished sooner than he thought they would. The submarine would not rise off the floor of the bay until 03:30. Visibility in the muddy water was limited to a few feet, so their flashlights would be of little use finding the submarine underwater. He knew roughly where it was, a kilometer beyond that liquid natural gas tanker at the end of the tanker pier. Still, he would never find it submerged. They would have to wait for the sub to surface. Nor was it wise to swim out into the bay now, then spend two hours fighting the currents and tide, drifting God knows where. Although the refinery was well lit, the two men were nearly invisible on this mud flat between the water and the fence. Black wet suits, a black night, dark mud, rain misting down … The tanker pier looked like a bridge to nowhere, with lights every yard or two, stretching out across the black water to the anchored ING carrier. Now that was a weird-looking ship, with that giant pressure vessel amidships. Martos eyed his partner. “Viktor, it wasn’t your fault.”

Filimonov had reacted to a perceived threat without thinking. He saw a guard, wearing rain gear, possibly armed, so he had acted automatically. The other guards would come looking for the woman soon. When she failed to check in on the radio, they would probably assume that the radio had failed, perhaps a dead battery. They would wait a reasonable amount of time, then expect her to check in on her car radio. Finally, they would come looking. Damn! Things had been going so well. Even if the security force found some of the demolition charges, they would not find them all. Not before they blew. Yet every one they found was one less to explode, that much less damage to the installation. “We must expect the unexpected. Everything doesn’t always go as planned.”

“I was setting a charge,” Filimonov muttered. “She surprised me.”

“See, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know the guard was a woman. You are not the Japanese son of a whore who hired this woman, put her in a uniform, and sent her to guard a valuable national asset in wartime.”

Filimonov sighed. He laid down on his back in the mud. He stretched his arms out as if he were on a cross. “No one in Russia would be so stupid,” Martos said. Filimonov didn’t say anything. This withdrawal bothered Martos. “You must forget this, Viktor. I am your friend. You must listen.” The minutes passed in silence. There was only the lapping of the tiny waves at the water’s edge and the faint, distant hooting of a foghorn. Martos could feel the feathery caress of the mist on his face, and the miserable, slithery cold of the wet suit, which he had learned to tolerate years and years ago. A guard car came down the street, turned the corner, and disappeared in the direction of the tanks. In moments they would find the dead guard’s vehicle. Martos looked at his watch: 01:47. Ten minutes. Within ten minutes, they would find the body, call for help. He toyed with the idea of going back to kill these men. Or women. Unfortunately, they would probably call in the alarm to their office, wherever that was, before he could kill them both. Even if he did eliminate them, someone else would come looking. Martos pulled the top of the wet suit over his head and arranged it around his face. “Let’s get ready, Viktor.”

Filimonov didn’t move. Martos kicked his partner in the side — hard. “Enough! Get ready. I order you. Put on your gear.”

Filimonov still didn’t move. “You want to stay here? Do you want me to kill you, Viktor Grigorovich? Dead is the only way you can stay on this beach.”

Filimonov turned his head. “You are my friend, Viktor. My best friend. I know you did not mean to kill a woman — this woman, any woman. I know that God forgives you, Viktor. I know that somewhere in heaven this very minute your mother forgives you. She knows you did not intend to kill a woman. She knows what was in your heart.”

Another guard car came racing down the street, squealed its brakes on the turn, and disappeared, going toward the tanks. “They have found her, Viktor. They are doing for her what must be done. It is time for us to leave. We have responsibilities, too. The captain will be waiting.”

He tugged at Viktor’s arm. “There are fifty men on that submarine. They will keep the faith. They will be vulnerable there on the surface, waiting for us. We must keep faith with them.”

Nothing. Martos donned his flippers, put on the scuba tanks, arranged the mask on his face. He tested the regulator, took a breath from the mouthpiece. “Okay, you bastard. Lie here and get captured. Betray your country. Betray your shipmates. Over a dead guard. You stupid bastard. Your mother was a slut. A whore. She was sucking cocks the night some drunk stuck his—” Filimonov came for him. Martos dashed for the water. He moved as fast as he could in the tanks and flippers. Unburdened by gear, Filimonov was quicker. He dragged Martos off his feet in the shallows and went for his throat. God, he was strong. Fingers like steel bands. Martos was at a severe disadvantage. He wanted to use just enough force to cause Filimonov to cease and desist; Filimonov wanted to kill. Martos kneed him in the balls. Filimonov kept coming, got fingers around Martos’s throat, began to squeeze. Martos was under six inches of water, but he didn’t have the mouthpiece in. Not that he could have breathed, with Filimonov squeezing his neck. He pounded on Filimonov’s head with his fist, tried to get a thumb in his eye. He was losing strength. The vise around his neck tightened relentlessly. He pulled his knife and swung at Filimonov’s head — once, twice, three times — and felt the pressure on his neck ease. He swung the butt of the knife again with all his strength. Filimonov lost his grip on Martos’s neck. One last mighty smash of the butt end of the knife into his head caused Filimonov to lose consciousness.

The faceplate of his mask was shattered. Martos discarded it. Lights. A spotlight! A car, driving along the fence, the driver inspecting the wire with a spotlight. Martos got a firm grip on the headpiece of Filimonov’s wet suit, turned him face up, and dragged him into deeper water. When the water reached his waist he inserted the scuba mouthpiece in his mouth and started swimming, towing Filimonov. The tide was strong and the night was black. Martos swam with one hand, towing Filimonov with the other, looking over his shoulder at the refinery and trying to swim straight away from it. The salt spray stung his eyes. Why didn’t Filimonov regain consciousness?

He concentrated on swimming, on breathing rhythmically, on maintaining a smooth, sustainable pace. Occasionally he glanced over his shoulder. Filimonov didn’t try to help, didn’t move. A concussion?

Two cars were at the fence, near the hole, their headlights pointing over the water. A spotlight played across the water. It went by the swimming men. They were too far out to be seen from the shore. The Japanese would find Filimonov’s flippers and scuba tanks soon, if they hadn’t already. They would call in an alarm. Damn, damn, damn. If another P-3 caught the submarine in this shallow bay, they were all dead men. Hell, we’re all going to die. We’re all condemned. That is the truth that this fool Filimonov doesn’t understand.

“Mr. Krasin, take the boat up to periscope depth.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

Krasin was the OOD. He began giving orders. Everyone was at their post. Everyone was ready. For the last hour no one had said much. They had watched the clock, chewed fingernails, fretted silently. Now the waiting was over. Live or die, it was time to get to it. The submarine refused to come out of the mud on the floor of the bay. Without way on, the only means of lifting the boat was positive buoyancy. More and more air was forced into the tanks, forcing out the water that held the submarine below the surface.

The keel of the sub was eighty feet down, just below periscope depth. She’s going to go up like a cork, the captain thought, resigned. Seconds later the submarine broke free of the mud’s grasp and rose quickly, too quickly. “All ahead flank,” the captain ordered. “Full down on the bow planes.”

The submarine broached anyway, broke the surface. Then the water pouring back into the tanks took effect, and the boat got enough way on for the bow and stern planes to get a grip on the water. They helped pull her back under. “Watch it, Chief,” the captain said sharply, well aware that if they lost control now and drove the sub’s bow into the mud, they would probably have to abandon ship. The chief knew his boat. He got her stabilized and let her sink to periscope depth. “Up scope,” Pavel Saratov ordered, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. After a quick 360-degree sweep, the captain said, almost as an afterthought, “Perhaps we should stop engines, Mr. Krasin, wait for the Spetsnaz divers. They will not be pleased if we leave without them.”

The XO winked the OOD. “Stop engines.”

Saratov walked the scope around again, taking his time, looking carefully. Well, he could see the lights of the refinery, the tankers at the tanker pier, the ING carrier. Yokohama glowed in the misty darkness. Several dozen anchored ships were in view. The lights of Tokyo farther north were invisible in the misting rain and fog. He saw no ships or boats anchored close by. Saratov backed off from the scope and gestured with his palm for it to be lowered. “Gentlemen, I suggest we surface and collect our swimmers.”

The OOD gave the necessary orders, and the submarine rose slowly from the sea.

Martos was very tired. Filimonov had not moved since he knocked him out, and the current was running toward the entrance of the bay, which meant Martos had to swim north constantly in order to remain more or less in one place.

He had not managed to remain in that one place. When the submarine surfaced, he was at least a half mile south of it, swimming toward it while towing Filimonov. He spit out the mouthpiece. “It wouldn’t hurt”—he took a breath—“for you to help … swim a little…, you large piece … of horse’s dung.”

Filimonov remained motionless. Martos knew he had just dinged his friend four or five times with the butt end of his knife, hardly enough to stun a mouse. This hardheaded ox had been hit harder than that in barracks brawls and never even blinked. He heard the submarine break water. Heard the splash of a large object and heard the sucking sound as it went back under. He didn’t hear it surface the second time, but he heard the metallic clanging of the conning tower hatch being thrown open. He was already swimming in that direction, dragging Filimonov. “You foolish…, simple…, son of a bitch! Help me.”

Finally he stopped. Ensuring that Filimonov’s head didn’t go under, he shouted, “Hey! Over here.”

They would never hear him. He had a flashlight on his belt, so he reached for it. Gone, probably in the fight. Filimonov’s light…, still there. Something unnatural about the big man. Martos turned the flashlight on and waved it in the general direction of the sub. “Viktor, speak to me. Say something, my friend.”

He shined the flashlight in Viktor’s face. The glare of the light on the white skin took getting used to. It was several seconds before Martos’s eyes could focus. Filimonov’s eyes were open, unfocused. They did not track the light. The pupils did not respond. Viktor Filimonov was dead. What? How … “Viktor, you…, you …”

The sub glided up. The wash pushed him away from it. Two men on deck threw a line. Keeping a firm grip on Filimonov’s wet suit, Martos wrapped the line once around his wrist and called, “Pull us aboard.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Grab him. Pull him aboard.”

After they pulled Filimonov from the water, they dragged Martos onto the slimy steel deck. He was so tired he could barely summon strength to stand. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s dead. Get him below.”

The sailors lowered Filimonov’s body through the torpedo reloading hatch. Martos was still on deck when one of the large storage tanks at the refinery exploded. At this distance the noise was just a pop, but the rising fireball looked spectacular, even against the background lights of Yokosuka. “The captain wants to see you, on the bridge,” someone told him. Filimonov’s body lay on the deck walkway, between the racks holding the spare torpedoes. The corpsman was examining it. Martos made his way aft. From the control room he climbed into the conning tower, then on up the ladder onto the tiny bridge, or cockpit, atop the sail. Pavel Saratov was watching the receding refinery through his binoculars. “Sir.”

“How did it go?”

“We set the charges. Filimonov killed a guard — a woman. Cut her throat. He became morose. We fought. I thought I knocked him out. Apparently, I killed him.”

Saratov shifted his attention from the fires of the refinery, which was receding behind, to the lights of a ship far ahead, off the port bow. “Come right ten degrees,” he said to the sailor beside him, who was wearing a sound-powered telephone headset. The sailor repeated the order into the headset, then confirmed, “Right ten, sir.”

Martos wanted to get it off his chest. “When he was a boy, maybe seven or eight, Viktor Filimonov’s mother was killed. In Odessa. Some sailor slashed her. She,vas a whore. The sailor sliced her eighty-nine times. She bled to death.”

“So …” the captain said. “The authorities took Viktor to identify his mother’s body. I don’t think he ever forgot how she looked, sliced to ribbons, her entrails coming out, blood everywhere … Sometimes he talked about it.”

“I want to hear about this, later,” the captain said. “You did a good job on the refinery. It is burning nicely. I wanted you to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you mean to kill your partner?”

“No, sir. Absolutely not.”

“We’ll talk later. You may go below.”

Martos went.

The captain studied the ship off the port bow. It looked small, about fifteen thousand tons. Not worth a torpedo. They could do much better. “Not this one,” he said to the talker standing beside him. “All ahead two-thirds.” The talker repeated the order, and in seconds Pavel Saratov felt the diesels respond. Too bad about the swimmer. Several miles behind another fireball rose out of the refinery complex. The wind in his hair felt good. Saratov inhaled deeply, savoring the musky aroma of tidal flats and salty sea air and the tang of the land.

Martos was in the tiny galley eating bread when the corpsman found him. The diesel engines made the surfaced boat throb. There was just enough swell inside the bay to make it pitch and roll a bit. “Look at this,” the corpsman said. He opened his hand. “He had this between his teeth.”

It was a red plastic capsule, waterproof, but ruptured. “Poison,” Martos whispered. “Poison?”

“A suicide pill. He must have had it in his mouth.”

“Why would …”

“He must have been thinking about it,” Martos said slowly. “Maybe he accidentally bit it when I whacked him on the head. You bite it, death is nearly instantaneous.”

The corpsman looked at Martos strangely, then turned away. “An accident,” Martos murmured to himself. “He must have put it in his mouth as we sat there waiting … “Oh damn!”

The reporter’s name was Christine something. She looked like a caricature. Her hair was immaculately coiffed and lacquered so heavily that it reflected the television lights. She wore some kind of horrible safari jacket, something discount stores sell for two-thirds off the day after Christmas. Her makeup was heavily layered to cover the deep lines that radiated around her eyes. Caked, gaudy lipstick made her mouth look like an open wound. She glanced once at the camera, then stood staring at Bob Cassidy, waiting. She was the pool reporter, chosen by her colleagues to ask the questions because Cassidy had been willing to subject his pilots to only one interview. The television lights were hot. A trickle of sweat ran down Cassidy’s face. He wiped it away. Someone must have said something to the reporter through her earphone, because she started talking. “Colonel, I understand you are leading the Americans hired to fly the F-22’s?”

He nodded, once. “If I may ask, why you?”

They were looking for a bastard without a family, and they found me. He didn’t say that, of course. “I volunteered.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“How many Americans are with you?”

“About one hundred and fifty.”

“When do you plan to go to Russia?”

“Soon.”

“You aren’t very talkative, are you, Colonel?”

“That wasn’t one of the qualifications for the job.”

“How much are the Russians paying you?”

“You’ll have to ask the State Department that question. Or the Russians.”

“Rumor has it that you get a bonus for every plane you shoot down. Is that true?”

“Ask the Russians. They sign the checks.”

“Isn’t that blood money?”

“If they pay it, I assume the money would be for the plane, not the pilot. A plane doesn’t bleed, does it?”

“What do you hope to accomplish in Russia?”

“Shoot down Japanese planes.”

She made a sign to the cameraman, and the red light on the camera went out. “You are being uncooperative, Colonel.”

“This isn’t the NFL. I’m here only because the State Department said to make myself available. I am available.”

“I asked to shoot these interviews with an F-22 as background. You refused. Why is that?”

“They aren’t my airplanes, ma’am.”

“We asked to talk to the African-American pilot. Which one is he?”

She glanced at her list. “”The African-American.” That is really grotesque. I’ll pretend you didn’t say it.”

“You do have a black pilot, don’t you?”

“Alas, no.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It just happened. I’m politically incorrect. Rip me to shreds.”

“Couldn’t you say something about Russia? Perhaps you had a Russian grandparent…, something about aiding in the fight for freedom, something like that?”

Cassidy looked grim. “You say it,” he told her, then took off his mike and got out of the hot seat. Of course, the person the reporters were most interested in interviewing was Lee Foy, but he was having none of it. He was nowhere to be found. Cassidy asked Preacher Fain where Foy was, and was told, “Toy said something about finding a whorehouse. I’m to say that to this reporter if she asks.”

“Okay.”

Apparently the reporters didn’t know he was an ordained minister, so Christine didn’t ask all those juicy questions that Fain feared she would. Fain tried to play it straight. He was here to help keep peace in the world, doing his duty, fighting for victims of aggression, defending an American ally, et cetera. After fifteen minutes, Preacher looked greatly relieved as he got out of the chair. Most of the pilots gave Christine more of the same, until she got to Clay Lacy. When asked why he was here, he said, “The fighter-pilot ethos has a compelling purity, a rare strain of selflessness and self-sacrifice that too often we lose sight of in modern life. I find it”—he searched for words —“almost religious. Don’t you agree?”

Christine made a noise. Lacy continued. “I want to see how I will face a competent, courageous, dedicated warrior who seeks to kill me. Will I have enough courage? Will I be bold? Will I fight with honor, and die with honor if that is required his These are serious questions that bedevil many people in this perverted age. I’m sure you’ve thought about these things at length. Haven’t you?”

Christine sat staring, her mouth open. Lacy waited politely. “I see,” she finally managed. “I’m delighted that you do,” he told her warmly. “Most of these pilots”—he flipped his hand disdainfully—“are merely flying assassins, out to kill and be paid for it. They have no ideas, no insight, no intellectual life. I am not like them. I explore the inner man.”

When Lacy went over to the colonel after his interview, he asked, still deadly serious, “How did I do, sir?”

“Fine, Lacy. Fine. You are now the unit public affairs officer.”

Aaron Hudek gave a performance that was the equal of Lacy’s, or perhaps even better. When asked why he had volunteered, he told Christine, “This is the only war we have.”

“How do you think you will feel, killing a fellow human being?”

“It’ll be glorious.” Hudek gave Christine a wolfish grin. “I can’t wait. I’ll blow those yellow Jap bastards to kingdom come so goddamn fast they’ll never know what hit ‘em. Just you watch.”

Stunned, Christine recovered quickly. “How do you know that you won’t be the one who falls?”

“Oh, it ain’t gonna be me, lady. I’m too good. I’m the best in the business. The F-22 Raptor is good iron. I can fly that fucking airplane. I’m gonna go through those goddamn Japs like shit through a fan. Can’t stand Japs. I guess it’s personal with me, something about Pearl Harbor and all that damned so-sorry fake politeness — but I won’t let that interfere with what I have to do. I’m going to stay cool and kill those polite little sons of bitches.”

Christine didn’t know what to say. Hudek smiled at the camera, unhooked his vest mike, got up, and walked out, right by Dixie Elitch, who averted her gaze as he passed her. Dixie sat down in the interview chair and smiled sweetly as one of the technicians hooked up her mike. “Ms. Elitch,” Christine began. “Captain Elitch, please. That is my rank in the Russian Air Army. I am very proud of it.”

She managed to say that with just the faintest hint of a Russian accent. Watching from behind the camera, Bob Cassidy covered his face with his hands. “Captain Elitch,” said Christine, smiling brittlely. “All my life I have loved Russian things— furs, vodka, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, Pavlov …” Dixie’s recall of things Russian failed her here. She waved airily and motored on: “I am so thrilled to have this opportunity to actually go to Russia, to succor her people in their hour of need, to serve this magnificent yet tragic nation in my own small way, and, just perhaps, make a contribution to the betterment of the downtrodden proletariat. And even — dare I say it? — the bourgeoisie.”

“Are all of you people assholes?” Christine snarled. “Unfortunately, I believe so,” replied Dixie Elitch. She looked straight into the camera and flashed her absolute best “I’m available tonight” smile.

When he went to bed that night, Bob Cassidy found himself thinking of Dixie. This annoyed him. He had ten thousand things on his mind, and now he was thinking about a woman, one who was off-limits to him. Oh, he knew the engraved-in-stone rule of the modern, sexually integrated armed forces: no fucking the troops. And no flirting, sighing, dating, kissing, marrying, or loving — none of that male-female stuff. In the brave new Air Force middle-aged colonels who got to thinking night thoughts about sweet young things were usually gone quickly. The “grab your hat, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out” kind of gone. Bob Cassidy had spent his adult life in uniform, around women now and then, and he had never before gone to bed thinking about one. Except Sweet Sabrina. He’d thought of her every night when she was alive, and many, many nights since she died. He often dreamed of her, dreamed of touching her again, of kissing her just once more, of somehow reaching across the great gulf that separated them. Robbie was sometimes in those dreams too, sitting on Sabrina’s lap, running across a lawn or through the house or laughing while diving into piles of fall leaves. These dreams used to wake him up, drive the sleep from him. He would walk the empty house, so utterly alone. Thinking of anyone but Sabrina seemed disloyal somehow. He tried to conjure up her image to replace the grinning face of Dixie Elitch. He was thinking of Sabrina — or was it Dixie his — when he finally drifted off.