The Emperor's Revenge

THIRTY-ONE

“Was this built as an escape route in case of attack?” Gretchen asked Juan as they crept down the admiral’s hidden passageway.

“I guess it was originally,” Juan said, keeping his ears alert for any indication that someone else was up ahead around the next corner. “But I think it’s more often used now to smuggle mistresses into the office.”

She rolled her eyes. “I should have known. Of course a man would use it for that.”

“In Russia, it’s considered a perk of command.”

“And on the Oregon?”

“Come on. Give me some credit.”

“So, offshore dating only?”

“When I have time.”

“Anything lately?”

Juan thought back to a torrid week with a U.S. Navy commander in Okinawa, but that was a long time ago.

He simply shrugged. “You?”

She shrugged in reply. “Been busy since my divorce.”

They locked eyes for a moment.

Before anything more could happen, Juan heard the sound of voices coming from beyond the passageway exit. He grabbed Gretchen’s hand and pulled her to the door to listen.

There was a peephole in the door. He looked out and saw two sailors ambling down a hallway, gabbing about which bar to visit later that night. Their voices faded as they turned the corner. When it was quiet, he eased open the door and looked out.

The corridor was empty. When the door was closed behind them, it disappeared into the wall, invisible to the naked eye. A clock cleverly placed over the peephole marked its location.

A set of stairs was directly across from the door. They went down two flights, carrying themselves like military investigators. A couple of sailors passed them on the way up but didn’t give them a second glance. Juan knew that once you gain access to a secure facility, everyone thinks you’re supposed to be there.

They went down eight flights to the basement, where they found the room marked Records.

They entered and found a young sailor posted at a desk, a sidearm on his hip. He adjusted himself from a slouch and looked up at them with mild interest.

“Da?” he said, bored with the duty.

Juan and Gretchen flashed the identifications that Kevin Nixon had prepared for them.

“I am Agent Bukir of the Far Eastern Military Investigation Directorate,” Juan said in fluent Russian, “and this is Agent Kamarova. We require access to your records vault.”

“May I ask what this is regarding?”

Juan leaned on the desk and glared at the sailor. “If you must satisfy your curiosity, seaman, we are investigating a serious breach of security here at Primorskiy Kray. That is all you need to know.”

“I… I understand, Agent Bukir,” he stammered, “but I am under strict orders from the admiral himself not to let anyone who has not been preauthorized to access the vault.”

Juan stood up and smiled. “Excellent, sailor. Although I don’t need your permission to enter the vault, I admire your dedication and willingness to put your prospects for promotion on the line.”

“But… But…”

“Why don’t you call the admiral’s office?” Gretchen said. “I’m sure he will confirm our identities.”

Juan nodded. “Very well. Put him on speaker when you get him on the line.” Since Eddie and Linc didn’t speak Russian, he wanted to be sure Zakharin didn’t try to sneak a coded message through.

The sailor nodded and punched the buttons on the phone so hard that Juan thought he might break a finger.

“I need to speak to the admiral,” he said into the handset. “Yes, now! It’s urgent.” Then he nodded and pressed the SPEAKER button before hanging up the handset.

Zakharin answered in a distinctly gruff tone. “What is it?”

“Admiral, sir, I have two agents here who want access to the records vault, and I told them—”

“What? You know your orders! Who are they?”

“It’s me, Admiral Zakharin,” Juan said. “Agent Bukir. We spoke in your office just a few minutes ago.”

The phone was silent for a few seconds.

“Admiral, are you still feeling well?” Juan could picture Eddie threatening him with the vial.

“Oh… Oh, yes,” Zakharin said reluctantly. “Now I recall. Seaman, you are to give every courtesy to the agents.”

“Aye, sir,” he said smartly, but the admiral was already off the line. He stood and said, “Come this way.”

He walked over to a heavy steel door and fumbled around with a set of keys. He swung open the door and let them in.

“Do you need any assistance?” he said, groveling now that he’d been chastened.

“No, we can handle it from here,” Gretchen said.

“We’ll need some privacy,” Juan said, “so make sure no one else enters while we’re conducting our assessment.”

He snapped his heels. “Yes, sir.” The door closed quietly behind them. It was thick enough that there was no chance of being overheard.

Rows of old filing cabinets filled the musty room. It would have been easier to find what they were looking for if everything had been computerized, but infrastructure upgrades were a low priority for a base so far from Moscow.

“Where should we start searching?” Gretchen said.

“I’ll take the engineering files. You look through the finances.”

After a minute of scanning the cabinets, Juan found one marked Commercial Operations. He yanked it open and confirmed that the files contained information about all of the naval base’s extracurricular activities. No wonder the admiral kept access so tightly controlled. Unfortunately, the files were in chronological instead of alphabetical order, so he started with three years ago and worked forward.

Halfway through, Gretchen, who was two rows away, called out, “I found it!”

“The Achilles?”

She nodded, her face buried in a file. “It’s the official accounting ledger. Wow, Antonovich opened up his wallet on this job and made it rain. You would not believe how much money is flowing through this base.”

Juan thought back to how much it had cost to refit the Oregon and said, “Actually, I think I would.”

“Zakharin is raking in millions a year.”

“Why do you think he wanted the job badly enough to send Borodin to prison?”

“Well, I don’t think his bosses back at headquarters know it’s this much.”

“Greed is never sated,” Juan said as he kept riffling through the files.

“Oh, the admiral has been much naughtier than he was letting on. It looks like Zakharin’s been keeping a separate account on the Achilles job. Probably does it with all the work here. It looks like the figures he reports get cut by twenty percent when they go to his bosses.”

“They wouldn’t be happy to find that out. Corrupt officers hate getting fleeced out of their fair shares. Does the ledger detail what the money was spent on?”

She shook her head. “It has the same coded entries. For example, this item is referred to as LaWS.” She spelled out the acronym in the Latin alphabet.

“It’s not written in Cyrillic?”

“Most of them are, but not this one.”

It sounded familiar to Juan, but he couldn’t place it without context. She whistled. “I hope they got their money’s worth. They could have built another yacht, for what it cost.”

He was about to ask her to read out more when he came across the engineering specs for the Achilles.

“Bingo!” Juan said, pulling out the thick file.

Gretchen joined him by the cabinet. Juan flipped through the file, feeling the blood drain from his face as he read.

“Does it say what LaWS is?” she asked.

“Yes, it does. Now I remember what it stands for.”

“What?”

“Laser weapon system.”

Gretchen laughed. “You’re kidding.” When she saw his ashen face, she stopped. “You’re not kidding.”

“It gets worse,” Juan said as he kept reading. “Much worse.”

He pulled out his phone. No signal.

“We’ve got to warn Max. Now!”

Juan grabbed the file and raced for the door, but something in the pit of his stomach told him that he was already too late.