Splashdown

Chapter 16

“D.C. From here?” Dane asked Ivkin. Only Dane and Bones, Ivkin and two of his crew, no doubt serving as security guards, remained in the dining room.

“Yes, we are at the limit of our range but I believe it to be feasible.”

Dane wondered how much damage the small weapon of mass destruction would do in a populated city. He wasn’t sure, but if it was supposed to bring Havana to its knees then its power must be significant. And then there were the lingering effects of radioactivity…

Bones jolted him out of his gloomy thoughts by asking Ivkin a question. “Do you plan to issue a warning that the city will be bombed?”

“I am afraid that will not be possible,” Ivkin said.

Dane threw his hat into the ring. “Will you take responsibility for the bombing?”

Ivkin smiled. “Oh yes! Why do you think you two are still alive? I am not that desperate for dining companions,” he said, looking at his remaining officer who spoke English. That man laughed softly, never taking his eyes off of their two prisoners.

“What do we have to do with it?” Dane asked.

“You will serve as witnesses to the event. I believe you were sent here by your government. I confess that I do not know which branch or agency, but it is of no great matter. You were sent to bring back the bomb, but instead, you shall bring back a firsthand account of how I used that very bomb against your leaders. By the time they hear this account, we will long since have returned to our homeland.”

“Coward!” Dane accused. “I can't believe the Kremlin would back such a plan.”

Ivkin glared at him ever so slightly and then nodded to his two crew serving as security. They lifted rifles in Dane and Bones’ direction. “Perhaps I no longer care what the Kremlin thinks. After all, they were not overly concerned with my father's death in their service. But I will do them this last favor and retire here on my little piece of paradise,” he finished with a laugh, rubbing the stone.

“You think we’ll let that happen?” Bones said. “We’ll make sure the full force of the United States Armed Forces comes down on you like a hammer. Pun intended.”

Dane could have kicked him.

“Perhaps you are correct,” Ivkin said. “I shall have to find a more permanent solution for the two of you, but I can decide that later. I want you to live to see me exact justice on my father’s behalf. Now, let us begin!”

“Now?” Dane asked. “You’re going to fire a nuclear weapon on Washington, D.C. right now?”

“What better time?”

“How about never?” Bones suggested.

“You’re making a mistake,” Dane said. “That old thing probably doesn't work anymore, anyway, and you'll just blow yourselves up.” He hoped a dose of fear tactics might scare some sense into the crazed Russian.

“The nuclear device is relatively simple, being so old, and has already been primed by our nuclear technicians. During its flight to Washington, its reaction will be carried out and reach critical mass, causing a true nuclear blast upon impact. Even if that fails, the primer explosives will cause a conventional explosion that will release radioactive material. Either way, we are about to write our own postscript to a chapter of history the world thought was over.” Ivkin nodded to his security detail and they approached the prisoners.

“While my engineers are making the modifications to our missile firing systems in order to deliver the bomb to Washington, you will wait in your quarters, here in the house. I assure you it's much more comfortable than the one aboard my submarine. When it is time, you will be escorted to the submarine to witness this historic event."

“Well, he was right,” Bones said, resting on a velour couch. “The sub quarters makes this room look like The Ritz.”

Dane looked around at their second floor prison. Yellow carpet and drapes, pictures of seascapes adorning the walls, an old rolltop desk against one wall and a four-poster bed in the center of the room. There were windows on two walls, both barred on the outside.

“We must have gotten the guest room.”

“Just stay on your half of the bed and we'll be fine,” Bones said.

“I'm thinking, Bones, that maybe sticking around isn't such a good idea.” Dane walked to the nearest of the two windows and peered outside.

“You say that as if we have a choice. There's a trigger-happy Russkie right outside our door, you know.”

“But apparently none outside this window.” Dane strode across the room to the other window and looked out. “Or this one, but from here I have a view of the path we came in on, and some of the crew heading back to the sub.”

He walked back to the first window. He opened it, tensing when the wood creaked at first, then removed its screen. He examined the bars while he listened to Bones.

“Even if we did get out, then what? We're stranded on some little island and our sub is inside their sub, like one of those Russian nested doll sets. We'd have no way to get anywhere.”

Dane tested the strength of the bars by pushing on them. Little puffs of plaster fell into the air where the bars attached to the wall.

“I think our best bet is to hide in plain sight. While they're busy re-boarding the sub and preoccupied with the nuke launch preparations, we sneak aboard and hide somewhere. Then, we either wait until they stop in port next and sneak off, or…”

“We hightail it out of there in Deep Black!”

“Deep Black is an oxygen bomb waiting to happen, remember?” Dane walked over to the desk.

“Well, this is all academic, anyhow, since we can't get out of…”

Bones broke off mid-sentence when he heard a dull thud as Dane pulled a metal roller track from one of the desk drawers and brought it to the window. Using the flat end of it like a screwdriver, he held it outside the window and started turning one of six screws fastening the grate to the window frame. After a few turns he was able to pull the corner of the grate from the wall. It made a sawing noise as it separated from the exterior wall, and they froze, looking to the door. But their guard hadn't heard it, so Dane resumed undoing the screws while Bones kept a sharp watch on the door, eyeballing the sliver of light where it met the floor.

Once Dane got the rest of the screws out Bones helped him to ease the grate away from the window and tossed it to the dirt below, off to one side so that they wouldn't land on it. They shrunk back from the window while they waited to see if someone would come to investigate outside. When no one did, they looked out the unobstructed window.

Bones shook his head. “This is not the room you wanted as a teenager so you could sneak out at night.” Indeed, there was no roof to step out onto but only a sheer vertical drop to the ground about twenty feet below.

“Hang and drop. We can do it.” Dane climbed onto the frame, grabbed onto the sill and turned around.

“Go, I hear something in the hall!” Bones warned. Dane let himself drop. By the time the sound of his impact with the ground reached Bones' ears, the large Indian was already falling through the air himself.

He hit the ground next to Dane's impromptu screwdriver. Picking up the piece of metal, he ran, following Dane toward the foliage that bordered the path. Stealthy movement was second nature to the SEALs, and in two minutes they were ensconced in vegetation that afforded them glimpses of the path they'd walked in on. They watched a small contingent of Russians walk past carrying a pair of crates. Looking down the path toward the house, two more submariners walked side by side, each carrying a heavy box.

“We take these two down and put on their uniforms,” Dane whispered. In response, Bones smacked the metal bar against his palm and adjusted his footing in the loose dirt. Dane looked up and down the path, saw it was clear except for their two targets.

“I'll take the big guy,” Bones said.

“Go!”

Dane and Bones crept silently from the vegetation onto the path behind their intended victims. Bones approached the larger man, on the right, with the metal bar at the ready. Dane ran up to the one on the left. Just as the man turned around at the sound of footsteps, Dane snapped a crisp punch to his chin, sending him stumbling backward. Dane rode him to the ground, slamming the man’s head to the ground with a sickening crack.

The Russian lay unconscious, blood from his broken nose pooling in the dirt.

Bones had the taller man in a chokehold with the piece of metal across his neck. He was on his knees, clawing at the metal bar while gasping and wheezing. Dane assisted Bones by holding down the man's arms and soon he, too, was unconscious.

The two operators dragged the fallen submariners off the path into the brush. Hands patted down the bodies, but besides the uniforms themselves, nothing of value was found.

“Would have been nice to have a gun,” Bones lamented, pulling the sailor's jumpsuit from the unconscious man.

“A radio, too. Looks like we got the kitchen runners, though,” he said, opening the coolers they carried to reveal leftover food and cooking supplies. Dane changed into the Russian uniform and balled up his clothing, looking around for a place to hide it.

Bones struggled to fit into the uniform he had appropriated, but it eventually fit.

“You look like you're part of the Village People,” Dane said. He pointed at something a few feet away before Bones could respond. “There's a hole big enough to stash our clothes.”

Bones looked, a concerned expression overtaking his features. “Hole? That's damn near a small cave.”

The ground sloped down to a greenery-shrouded depression, and there at the bottom lay a large hole or perhaps tunnel, large enough for a man to wriggle into. A few feet in, it either ended or bent out of sight in darkness.

“C'mon, let's get a move on.” Dane took his clothes and slid down to the hole. He tossed his clothing inside, then turned around. “Bones, toss me yours.”

Bones knelt on the ground, clothes clutched in one hand, eyes widening.

“Bones, throw me…”

Dane froze. Down in the hole, something moved.