Patriot

CHAPTER 42

Most of the invited brass stood inside the warm, dry bridge where U.S. Coast Guard captain, Mike Wick, was describing the impending operation. When Stokely Jones and Harry Brock had arrived on board, they had been quickly escorted up to the bridge to join Hawke.

A fast-moving storm front up from Jamaica had brought sudden wind gusts and rapidly dropping barometers to this region of the Caribbean. Brick Kelly and Alex Hawke, who had donned regulation USCG foul-weather gear, had stepped outside to the exposed bridge wing deck, where they could speak privately.

Both men stood in the driving rain, staring out to sea. Both focused their attention about ten degrees off the port bow, waiting for a ghost ship to appear out of the mists. An old Russian warship descended from a war they’d thought ended fifty years ago. Hawke was peering through the fog, eyes squinted against the slanting rain. Brick had very sophisticated pairs of naval binoculars.

“So. Putin,” Brick said out of the corner of his mouth. “Time to talk Putin.”

“Putin. What about him? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Five words. Any order. Don’t even pause to consider. Go.”

“Terrified.”

“Why?”

“He’s terrified that his big dream is dying, and that means so is he.”

“Next.”

“Delusional.”

“Because?”

“He thinks he can stave off his own inevitable end through mass murder. And by taking down the world piecemeal through genocide. Hell, maybe he thinks he’s Hitler. I know he thinks he’s Napoleon. No, he’s convinced. They’ve got a couple of words for it in Russia now, as I’m sure you know. They call it ‘Putinism.’ Nearly 90 percent approval rating. And ‘Novorossiya,’ the New Russia. Compare Vlad’s poll numbers with Rosow’s latest numbers when you get a chance. Very enlightening.

“But with the precipitous fall of the ruble, the plummeting price of oil, the world’s starting to close in on him. His people are hurting. And so is he,” Brick said.

Hawke went on. “As long as he keeps feeding the citizens the line that it’s all America’s fault and they’ve been through worse and come out stronger? That their suffering is for the greater good of the motherland? He hangs in there.”

“I agree. But our people see a possible regime change just over the horizon if he’s not careful. And what’s number three?”

“Paranoid. He thinks the wolf is at his door. He doesn’t know the wolf no longer thinks he’s worth eating.”

“Good. Four.”

“Morally bereft.”

“Tell me.”

“He has a new weapon capable of killing millions that is completely undetectable. A tasteless, odorless, colorless liquid explosive. He’s ready to use the stuff without warning at the drop of a hat. Just because he can.”

“Holy crap. And you believe him?”

“I certainly do. He gave me an eyewitness undersea demonstration off the coast of Cannes. He used a thimbleful to vaporize a huge sunken Russian freighter.”

“You think he’ll use this stuff on us?”

“Yes. Now that the U.S. has kowtowed to the Castro brothers and opened up relations with them, Putin’s forging ahead with creating an offensive base ninety miles from Key West, for God’s sake. Tell me, Brick, what’s the difference between what Putin’s doing now and what Khrushchev did to Kennedy with the Cuban missile crisis?”

“No difference. Couldn’t agree more. Last one. Five.”

“Two words. Vicious and merciless.”

“Why?”

“He seeks revenge for what he sees as Russia’s humiliation by the United States. The last thing he said to me before I left for Washington was, ‘You tell your American friends this, Alex. I alone possess the sole nuclear arsenal in the world that can turn all of North America into a radioactive parking lot. Give me a good enough excuse and I will not hesitate to do it.’”

“You are shitting me Alex. Holy crap!”

“Nope. He thinks there’s something far worse than nuclear war, Brick. Soulless surrender of the dreams of Soviet glory. The slow and relentless decay of the Putin myth if he doesn’t fight like hell against it.”

“Jesus,” Brick said, dropping the binoculars to his chest and using his fingertips to massage his temples. He felt like a brick wall had collapsed on him.

“Worse than your guys thought, right, Brick?”

“Somebody shoot me.”

“Yeah. One piece of advice, not that you need any from me. Something my father taught me when I was still in short pants.”

“Yeah?”

“Never corner a rat. He has to bite you to get out.”

“Right. I’m glad I sent you over there to France to take the new tsar’s temperature, Alex. All the goddamn intel in the world doesn’t have one-tenth the juice of what you just told me. Do you know there are still sentient beings inside the Beltway who believe Putin bemoans the fall of Communism? Putin never gave a crap about Communism. He thought it was a joke. What he misses are the power trappings of imperial greatness.”

“You got it, Brick. And—”

Three short horn blasts sounded from a speaker bolted to the underside of the overhead. Now the two men heard the captain speaking via VHF radio to an approaching vessel still hidden in the fog. A few seconds later they saw the ship’s running lights fast approaching in the mist.