As the rival vessels steamed off in opposite directions, Austin radioed a good-bye message.
"So long, Ivan. 'Til we meet again."
Petrov had a short fuse in his younger days, and this arrogant American was annoying him. "You better hope that won't happen," he said with chilling directness. "Neither one of us will be happy with the outcome."
Eight months later, Petrov's prediction came true. During the Cold War, the United States pursued a daring intelligence operation. When the secret was finally unveiled years later, one writer called it Blind Man's Bluff, a dangerous game played by a few intrepid sub commanders and their crews whereby they would bring their subs within a few miles of the Soviet coast to gather intelligence. One scheme involved planting an electronic pod to listen in on underwater communications cables.
In his drab Moscow office, Petrov lit up one of the thin Havana cigars he had made on special order and puffed out a mouthful of smoke. His mind drifted back through the years, and in the purple cloud that swirled in front of him, he saw the morning mists rising off the dark, cold surface of the Barents Sea as his ship cut through the water at full speed.
He had been in Moscow trying to extract funds for new equipment from a strategically placed apparatchik who was complaining about tight purse strings. One of Petrov's assistants had called and said that a strange message had been picked up from an unknown ship close to Russian shores. The coded message was short, as if the operator were in a hurry. The Soviet cryptographers were trying to decipher the message. The only reason someone would risk sending a message would be if he were in trouble, Petrov thought, as the bureaucrat blathered on. Petrov was well aware that American subs had come into the Barents Sea. Could one of these boats be in trouble?
He broke off his meeting and caught a plane to Murmansk, where his survey ship was waiting. The vessel had supplemented its scientific gear with depth charges, guns and a trained complement of armed marines. By the time his ship was under way, the code had been broken. The message consisted of one word: Stranded. He ordered all ships and aircraft to be on the lookout for strange vessels on or under the surface.
Despite the Soviets' vigilance, however, the Talon carried out a picture-perfect rescue operation. The American ship came in during the night with a Russian-language expert on board who gave a phony identification when the ship was picked up on radar. The ID wasn't perfect, but it bought time. Another American submarine, whose propeller had been made to operate noisily, drew the Russians' attention away. The stranded submarine was in about three hundred feet of water, sitting flat on the bottom, its power out after an electrical explosion. The hundred-man crew was rescued in a matter of hours, using a special diving bell.
Petrov had finally figured out the decoy ruse and was speeding in his ship to the rescue site. The ship followed the communications cable until magnetometer readings showed a huge mass of ferrous material. It could only be the U.S. sub. A ship was rapidly moving out of the area, and Petrov recognized the Talon. Speaking in English, Petrov hailed the ship by its name and ordered it to stop.
A familiar voice responded over the radio. "Ivan, is that you?" said the man who called himself John Doe. "Nice to hear your voice again."
"Prepare to be boarded or your ship will be sunk."
A roar of laughter burst from the radio. "Hell, Ivan, I thought you Russians were better chess players than that."
"Frankly, I prefer stud poker."
"Which is obviously where you learned how to bluff. Nice try, comrade."
"This is your last warning. Aircraft will be overhead in five minutes, and your ship will be destroyed if you don't stop."
"Too little and too late. We'll be in international waters in three minutes. Our State and Defense Departments are aware of the situation. Looks like you're out of luck."
"I don't think so. We still have your submarine and its contents, Mr. Doe. Our scientists will have a field day dissecting your top-secret equipment."
"That's not going to happen, old pal."
"I think it will. The Glomar Explorer isn't the only boat that can raise a submarine." Petrov was referring to an earlier U.S. salvage of a Soviet submarine.
"I wouldn't get near that boat if I were you. It's heavily mined."
"Now who's bluffing, Mr. Doe?"
"I'm dead serious, Ivan. The sub carried two hundred pounds of HBX explosives in case something like this happened."
"Why would you care if I were killed?"
"Look, Ivan, the Cold War's not going to last forever. Someday we'll bump into each other in a bar and you'll buy me a Stolichnaya martini." His voice lost its levity. "No joke. This thing will self-destruct in about twenty minutes. I set the timer myself."
"You're lying."
"People like us don't lie to each other, old pal."
It was Ivan's turn to laugh. "You've seen too many episodes of Mission Impossible, old pal."
He clicked off the radio. There was noway the crew could have been evacuated and set charges. He didn't know about Austin's expertise. He could have waited twenty minutes to see if Austin was telling the truth, but he seethed with anger. His rage overcame his good judgment. Petrov's ship carried a one-person minisub that could be launched quickly for reconnaissance, and Petrov ordered the sub readied for a dive.
Sitting in his office years after that day, he examined the grayish-red glow of cigar ashes. How impetuous and foolish he had been as a younger man. He had jammed the bomb-shaped sub almost straight down. Within minutes, his lights had outlined the black hulk on the bottom, and he saw the pod near the cable and landed near it. The minisub's retractable metal arm had the pod in its grip-when there was a blinding flash of light and a muffled roar. Petrov felt himself flying into space. Then he blacked out.
He awoke to the antiseptic smell of a Soviet hospital. His broken and mangled leg was in traction, and the right side of his face was heavily bandaged where jagged shards of plastic or metal had torn his skin as the minisub had been blown to the surface, where it had been retrieved with him inside it. He had had to wear a hearing aid until his damaged eardrums healed. He spent four weeks in the hospital before being released to the care of a nurse at his dacha, the country home he maintained outside of Moscow.
Petrov had been sitting in the sunroom reading Tolstoy when the nurse brought him a bouquet of red, white and blue carnations. Tucked in with the flowers was a small card.
Thinking back to that day, Petrov pulled an envelope from the dossier. The card he extracted had yellowed with age, but the large block letters in English were clearly visible.
"Sorry you got nailed, Ivan. Can't say I didn't warn you. Get well soon so we can have that drink. First round's on me. John Doe."
Austin had almost ended his life and career. Now the same man was poking around where he could derail Petrov's carefully laid plans. Austin could not know how dangerous his meddling was. How precarious the situation was in Russia. Throughout his country's history, it had been afflicted with uncaring, inept, even psychopathic leaders. Petrov was one of thousands of faceless clones who did the bidding of their masters without question and kept them in power. Now his fragile nation seemed poised for another orgy of self- destruction. The furies welling up in the soul of Mother Russia would soon sweep across the country from Siberia to Saint Petersburg.
Petrov read the card again, then lifted the phone. "Yes, sir," answered a trusted assistant who occupied an office in another part of the agricultural building.
"I want a plane ready to leave for Istanbul in one hour." Petrov gave orders to call his mistress and cancel their dinner date.
"Is there any particular message you would like me to give Miss Kostikov?" the assistant asked.
Petrov pondered the question. "Yes," he said after a moment. "Tell her I must go to repay a favor to an old friend."
-7- NOVOROSSIYSK, THE BLACK SEA
" THE BEARDED MAN sat on the carpeted floor of the darkened cabin, legs folded in a lotus position, his rough peasant's hands clasped loosely in his lap. He had been locked in the same pose for more than two hours, the only sign of life the slight rise and fall of his narrow chest. His pulse was barely discernible, and his lethargic heartbeat would have alarmed a cardiologist. The heavy-lidded eyes over the prominent nose were closed, but he was neither asleep nor awake. The thick lips were curled in a beatific smile. Unseen, behind the thorny brambles that guarded the dense thicket of his mind, lurked the unfathomable musings of a madman.
A soft knock came at the door. The bearded man showed no sign that he had heard it. The knock repeated, louder and more insistent this time.
"Yes," the man said in Russian. His deep voice sounded as if it issued from the depths of a catacomb.
The door opened a crack and a young man dressed in the uniform of a ship's steward peered into the room. Light from the passageway fell on the face of the sitting man. The steward murmured a silent prayer his grandmother had taught him to ward off demons. Mustering the courage to speak, he said, "Forgive the interruption, sir."
"What is it?"
“Mr. Razov asks to see you in the main cabin."
Deep-set eyes of pale yellow opened and stared out of the bony skull. They were the hypnotic eyes of a predator, large and lustrous.
A pause. Then, "Tell him I will be there."
"Yes, sir." Under the spell of the unrelenting gaze, the terrified steward felt the strength start to leave his legs. He slammed the door shut and bolted along the passageway.
The man unfolded his body and stood to his full height of six feet four. He was dressed in a belted tunic of black cotton. The military collar of his shirt was tight against the neck, and his pants were tucked into low boots of shiny black leather. His dark brown hair was worn long over the ears, blending into a full beard that spilled down to his chest.
He worked the stiffness from his muscles joint by joint and took great gulps of air into his starved lungs. When all his vital systems were operating normally, he opened the cabin door, ducked his head, and stepped out into the corridor. Moving silently, he followed the passageway and climbed onto the deck of the four-hundred-foot yacht. Crewmen who saw him coming stepped aside.
The yacht had been designed with a wide uncluttered deck and low, streamlined superstructure that minimized wind resistance. Based on a design for a FastShip freighter, the vessel was built with a deep V-shaped hull that cut through the waves and a concave stem that reduced drag. Powered by gas turbines and using an innovative water jet propulsion system, the vessel could go at speeds that were twice those reached by vessels of comparable length.
The bearded man came to a door, opened it without knocking and stepped into a spacious stateroom as big as a small house. He walked through the living area with its sofas, chairs and a dining table of medieval size. The floors were carpeted with antique Persian rugs, anyone of which was worth a small fortune. On the walls were priceless masterpieces, most stolen from museums and private collections.
At the far end of the room was a massive desk made of the finest mahogany inlaid with gold and pearl. On the wall behind the desk was a stylized logo that depicted a military fur hat crossed by an unsheathed saber. Printed in Cyrillic letters under the symbol were the words: ATAMAN INDUSTRIES. Seated at the desk, talking into a telephone, was Mikhail Razov, president of Ataman.
Although Razov hardly spoke above a whisper, his seemingly gentle tone couldn't mask the cold menace in his voice. His pale white face could have been carved from Carrara marble, but no one would mistake the hard-edged profile as the work of a Renaissance sculptor. It was a face that countless victims had seen with their dying breath.
Two lean, white Russian wolfhounds lounged at his feet. When the tall man approached, they began to whimper. Razov hung the phone up and shushed the dogs, who crawled under his desk. Razov underwent an astounding metamorphosis. Unexpected warmth came into the slate gray eyes, the cruel lips widened in a smile and the rough-hewn features softened. Razov could have been anyone's favorite uncle. Career criminals like Razov become accomplished actors if they live long enough. Razov had cultivated his natural chameleon's talent under the tutelage of professional actors. In an instant, he could transform himself from a murderous thug into a hard-driving businessman, a charming host or a charismatic orator.
Razov's powerful shoulders and muscular thighs offered a hint of humbler beginnings. Born on the steppes of the Black Sea, the son of a Cossack horse breeder, Razov had ridden from the time he was big enough to climb into a saddle. He'd had a keen mind and quickly saw the disadvantages of the brutal farm toil that had killed his mother and was ruining his father's health.
He ran away to the city and put his muscle to work as an enforcer for a gang of extortionists. Razov's skill as a bone crusher and killer earned him top wages. He had forgotten how many times he had put a bullet into the kneecap of a recalcitrant merchant or the head of a tardy loan customer. He'd lost count of the wayward prostitutes he had strangled. In fact, he'd used his newfound wealth to buy a house of prostitution for himself.