The Solomon Effect

11

Kaliningrad, Russia: Sunday 25 October

3:45 A.M. local time

The Major pulled into the darkened driveway in the leafy suburb of Mendeleevo and cut the engine. Once, this large stuccoed house with its expansive lawn and carefully tended garden had been the home of a German banker, or maybe an industrialist. Now it belonged to some Russian mafioso who rented it to those seeking a quiet, out-of-the-way property in a district where neighbors were hidden behind high walls and no one asked any questions.

A dog barked somewhere in the distance and was quickly hushed. The Major let his gaze rove over the building and its perimeter. Satisfied, he opened the door and stepped out into the chill of the Baltic night.

His name was Carlos Rodriguez. At forty-two, he was a leanly muscled professional soldier with olive skin and short-cropped dark hair. He wore the simple cotton trousers and closely knit sweater of a local, but he was not a local. The house served as headquarters for the team he’d assembled: two Americans, a Brit, four Russians, and the Chechen, Borz Zakaev. He needed the locals because they knew the geography and the people. But Rodriguez didn’t like Russians, and he didn’t trust them. He was glad to have Borz and the Americans there to watch his back.

It was the damned Russians who’d assured him the salvage ship captain, Baklanov, was reliable. Not honest-no honest man would have done business with them. But reliable. Instead, the man turned out to be an idiot. Only an idiot would try to cheat Carlos Rodriguez.

“What’s the status on the U-boat?” he asked, letting himself in the house’s side door.

The door opened into an enormous kitchen recently renovated with rich cherry cabinets and marble countertops and stainless steel industrial appliances. They’d set up their communications equipment in what was meant to be a nearby maid’s room, a simple chamber with a single bed, a chair, and a low dresser.

The house was quiet, the rest of the men asleep. But Ben Salinger, the towheaded kid from Nebraska who served as Rodriguez’s communications expert, looked up from his laptop, his eyes glazed with amphetamine-revved exhaustion. “We just got a report from Kirkpatrick. The sub still hasn’t blown.”

Rodriguez pulled the sweater off over his head and threw it on the maid’s bed. “What the fuck?” After taking care of the Yalena’s crew, they’d rigged the U-boat’s torpedo room with explosives. The first half-drunken Russian shipyard worker scrounging around for something to steal should have blown himself-and the sub-to perdition hours ago.

“The shipyard owner sealed off the U-boat and called the militia right away. They’re keeping everyone out of it.” Salinger stood up and stretched, his shirt hiking up to show the Special Forces tattoo on his side. In his late twenties, he’d done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan before leaving the Army for a higher-paying job in the private sector.

Rodriguez had modeled his operation on a scaled-down Special Forces team, just the way he’d been taught. Salinger was their communications expert; Ian Kirkpatrick, a former SAS man from Liverpool, was their demolition specialist; an ex-SEAL from Arkansas named Clay Dixon was their weapons specialist. Borz was their linguist. Rodriguez had been doing this sort of thing for more than half his life, and he was very good at it.

He’d grown up in the nurturing warmth of a big, loving family of Cuban exiles. Back in the days before the revolution, his grandfather had been one of Baptiste’s jefes. Rodriguez had seen pictures of the family’s house overlooking the Plaza Vieja, the graceful arched windows shaded by louvered shutters, the cavernous high-ceilinged rooms filled with tables graced with crystal and silver, all kept gleaming by a legion of soft-footed, respectful servants.

All that had ended with Castro and his band of hooligans, with their big talk of providing free medical care for all, of getting rid of the Mob and the giant American companies they claimed oppressed the people. Because of Castro, Carlos was born in the charity ward of a Miami hospital, and his grandfather died in the surf at the Bay of Pigs.

Carlos had grown up on the streets of Little Havana, watching his dad and his friends train with the CIA. His dad had run scores of attacks against Cuba from their Florida bases, blowing up oil installations and movie theaters, shopping malls and tourist hotels. Carlos had even gone with them one glorious night, when they’d roared in close to shore on a motorboat and sprayed the crowds on the beach with machine-gun fire. He’d been just sixteen at the time. A year later, at the age of seventeen, Carlos joined the U.S. Army.

He’d breezed through Airborne, then moved into the Rangers. It was his ambition to become the biggest badass in the Army. But in the Rangers, Rodriguez discovered it wasn’t enough to be tough; it was also important to be smart. And Rodriguez was smart. Smart and ruthless. By the time he put in his twenty years and took to selling his skills on the private market, he’d managed to acquire a college degree and become an officer.

He watched Salinger twist the top off a bottle of water and drain it in one long pull. “We shoulda just blown the damn thing when we had the chance,” said Salinger, wiping the back of one hand across his mouth.

Rodriguez shook his head. “No. We’ve already attracted enough attention with the hit on the Yalena. When that submarine blows, it needs to look like some idiot accidentally triggered one of the old torpedoes.” He shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and went to stand at the rear window overlooking the darkened gardens below. “The militia are some of the worst thieves in the country. Eventually someone’s going to go poking around in there. We just need to be patient. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

The sharp ring of the satellite phone brought his head around.

“It’s Phillips,” said Salinger, holding out the phone.

Rodriguez frowned and took the receiver. Captain Syd Phillips was the General’s aide de camp. “Rodriguez here.”

Phillips came straight to the point. “I assume you have someone you trust in Berlin?”

“Yes. Why?”

“The General has another assignment for you.”