America (11 page)

“Like a space shuttle.”

“Surprising,” Ilin said and helped himself to more coffee.

Callie served him an omelet as the group discussed what the thieves might do with a stolen sub. The telephone rang two more times. Each time Callie answered it, said a few words, and hung up. “Reporters,” she said.

“I have been asked to assist in the investigation of this matter,” Jake said, addressing Ilin. “Since several of the men involved were Russian nationals, I was wondering if you would assist me? On an informal basis, of course.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Not yet.”

“I assume,” Ilin said slowly as he buttered a piece of toast, “that you have discussed this matter with General Blevins?”

“Yes.”

“And other people?”

“Of course.”

“May I ask who they are?”

“I think I'll reserve that.”

Ilin ate the toast before he spoke again.

“The theft of the submarine is certainly a tragedy, but I fail to see how I can be of assistance in investigating that theft.”

“Maybe you will have a glimmer as we go along.”

“I tell you frankly that I know nothing of submarines. I have never even been aboard one. In fact, to the best of my memory, I have never actually seen one. They are an uncommon sight in Moscow.”

“Perhaps,” Jake said, also choosing his words carefully, “the news has been so unexpected that you have failed to grasp the implications. If Russian nationals were involved, persons in some quarters might suspect that they are acting on behalf of—or at least on the orders of—the Russian government. The event might have serious implications for U.S.-Russian relations.”

“I appreciate that. Yet I fail to see how I can assist you. I know absolutely nothing about submarines or ships or any of that.”

“Are you refusing?”

“No. Merely trying to force your expectations down to rational levels and make you air them. Just now I fail to see how I can be of any assistance whatsoever.”

“Ah, we'll have to await the event to see if you can aid me. But perhaps you can aid your government. If these … pirates … use the submarine against Russian shipping or naval vessels, the Russian government might be very interested in your observations.”

“Perhaps. And it might not. In any event, I tell you flatly that regardless of what I say, the people in Moscow will draw their own conclusions.”

“Would you care to call the embassy? Discuss this with someone there?”

Both men knew the Graftons' telephone was nonsecure, and both knew that the American government would record the conversation since it was made to the Russian embassy.

“Perhaps later,” Ilin said, refusing to close the door or pass through it. “How do you propose to begin your investigation?”

“The navy will have a plane pick us up at noon at Dover Air Force Base. Callie can drop us there on her way back to Washington. The plane will fly us to Connecticut. The FBI will have an agent there to brief us. They might have learned something about the thieves. No doubt we can also learn something about the stolen submarine.”

Janos Ilin helped himself to more coffee. “Admiral, I am sure my government will not object to my tagging along. You understand, I am under no obligation to withhold anything from my government, nor will I.” He grinned disarmingly at Jake. “I will of course also report this conversation.”

Jake Grafton grinned right back, his best I'm-holding-four-aces look. “Of course.”

*   *   *

He was upstairs packing when Callie came up. “Well?”

“I don't know,” she said. “He's a master at handling his face.”

Jake made a noise.

“So what are you going to let him see?”

“Everything. The technology is compromised anyway.” That was an oversimplification, which might or might not prove true. If the submarine could be found and destroyed and the thieves killed, they wouldn't compromise anything. If they hadn't already passed on the secrets. On the other hand, Jake didn't believe that Ilin was a technical expert … in anything. He was an intelligence professional. Showing him a sonar presentation did not mean he could tell Russian engineers anything they would find of value.

“They put Flap Le Beau in charge of the investigation so it won't look like the navy is investigating itself,” Jake explained. “He picked me to assist him, and I discussed bringing Ilin along. Having an SVR man involved is unconventional as hell, but … we've never had anyone steal a submarine before.”

“So heads will roll?”

“Oh, you bet. Finger-pointing, JAG Manual investigations, courts of inquiry, careers ruined, sackings, courts-martial, at some point a congressional investigation. We're going to get the whole military entertainment experience.”

“Do you think the thieves will torpedo the Goddard platform? Maybe shoot a missile at it?”

“At this point I don't know what to think. They might even fire off a missile at Moscow. If they do, at least the Russians will know that we didn't put these guys up to it.”

“If they believe that the submarine was really stolen.”

“Yeah. If.” He got his shirts the way he wanted them, then went to the window and looked out. Ilin was standing in the street smoking a cigarette, drinking another cup of coffee.

“It was a theft, wasn't it?” his wife asked.

Jake glanced at her, a startled expression on his face. Sometimes her insights stunned him. It was almost as if she could read his thoughts. He wondered if Ilin thought him equally transparent.

“I can't imagine that it wasn't, but I want to see the bodies,” he said.

He glanced again out the window at Ilin and froze. “The binoculars. Where are the binoculars?” he hissed at Callie. “Quick, get them for me, will you?”

She turned and flew from the room without a word. He heard her run down the steps, then back up. When she dashed into the room carrying the binoculars he was standing on the bed, well back from the window.

He focused the glasses on Ilin. Yep, his lips were moving. He was talking.

Certainly not to himself.

Either he was wired or someone was pointing a directional mike at him.

Jake did his best to scan across the street from his perch on the bed, where he should be essentially invisible from the street. Houses lined the other side of the street, many of them rentals, and vehicles filled every available parking space, the usual state of affairs this close to the beach. One of the parked vehicles was a van, a custom job without back windows. It was unfamiliar to him, but then most of the vehicles were. Who the heck ever noticed cars? From here he couldn't see the license plate.

He lowered the glasses, sat down on the edge of the bed.

He had underestimated Ilin. Underestimated the Russians.

This whole house could be wired. Probably was. The Russians had listened to every word that was said all weekend.

Callie was looking at him with an amused expression. “I wish I had a picture of your face wearing that look,” she said.

He took her into the bathroom, turned on the shower and the exhaust fan. Then he put his mouth near her ear. “Ilin is standing alone in the street smoking, drinking coffee, and chattering away. The whole house is probably wired. Someone is listening.”

She accepted his assessment without question. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take us to Dover and put us on the plane. Then drive back to Washington. On the way find a pay phone and make a telephone call. Don't use your cell phone. Call from an inside phone, like at McDonald's, so no one can aim a directional mike at you.” He gave her a number, told her whom to talk to, what to ask for.

*   *   *

“Oh, God! I am so sorry,” Sarah Houston wailed. “What a lover you must think I am! It must be jet lag. I must have fallen asleep in midkiss.”

“You were exhausted,” Tommy Carmellini said.

“That's never happened to me before. Is it old age? Already? Oh, my God! What you must think! Well, I'm wide awake now. I hope. Give me some hugs and kisses, big guy.”

Tommy Carmellini knew he wasn't enough of an actor to pull it off. He felt like a real jerk. He had wined and dined her and taken unfair advantage, and alas, sex hadn't been involved. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “I've got to be at JFK in two hours,” he said. “I'm catching a flight to London. The next time you're in New York, could I have another date?”

“London?” She brightened. “Perhaps we could have dinner this coming week in London. I'm going over on Wednesday.”

“Friday?” Tommy asked hopefully, wanting to end it on that note.

“Do you have any aspirin? Or Tylenol?”

There was a small bottle of aspirin in the bathroom cabinet. He remembered seeing it there. He got her two tablets and a glass of water, which she drained.

“Friday, lover,” she whispered as she handed him the empty glass.

Sarah was still naked under the sheets—hung over from the drugs—when he threw his toothbrush and shaving gear into his bag and zipped it closed. There was nothing compromising in the apartment, so he didn't need to worry about that.

Tommy kissed her, wished that they … kissed her again, then rushed for the door. “Friday evening. London. I'll call you. Lock the door on your way out.”

She blew him a kiss.

Down on the street he legged it toward Columbus Avenue. He would catch a southbound cab there, although he wasn't going to the airport. He was going to Penn Station to catch a train to Washington, and he had all day to get there. The trains ran practically every hour. On Columbus he slowed to a walk, ambled along thinking about things.

He had plenty of time. What the heck, why not stroll over to Fifth Avenue and look in jewelry store windows?

*   *   *

Two FBI agents met the plane in Connecticut. “Two cars,” Jake Grafton told them. He rode with the agent in charge, Tom Krautkramer, while Toad Tarkington and Janos Ilin piled in the second car. Krautkramer was a large man of about forty, with a frank, open face and huge, meaty hands.

“Ilin may be wired for sound,” Jake said after a look at Krautkramer's credentials. He told him about the incident this morning in the street outside Jake's house. “I doubt it, but I want you guys to check him out without letting him know he's being swept. Can you do that?”

“You bet,” Krautkramer said. “However, the better way is a thorough, quick search.”

“Okay, doctor. Do it.” Jake thought about all the things that had been discussed within Ilin's hearing since he reported to the SuperAegis project. There was nothing there that couldn't be shared—indeed, by disclosing it to the foreign liaison officers the American government was indeed sharing the information—but Ilin didn't seem to want to wait to get back to the embassy. He was passing along everything he heard as quickly as he heard it. One assumed that he was passing along only the information that Jake and Toad provided. If he had other sources …

“If he's wired,” Jake said, “there is a van somewhere with an antenna that picks up his transmissions. Maybe he isn't wired and they use a directional mike that picks up what he says when he goes outside for smoke breaks. He's probably been doing that since he got to the States. Left to himself Ilin is a three-pack-a-day man. He spends more time outside than a beach lifeguard. Find the van, if there is one.”

“Do you want us to stop it? Arrest the occupants?”

“Not yet. What I would really like is for Ilin to chatter away through this sub base visit, then after we leave for Washington, you bust the van and listen to what he had to say.”

“That's feasible. We're going to need more people, a lot more. We're already bringing in people to dig into the submarine hijacking; sounds like we may be facing a major counterespionage investigation.”

“I don't know what is going on,” Jake replied. “Let's get some idea of what Ilin is up to before we go to general quarters.”

“It'll take a little time to bring in the right people and equipment.”

“Check with Washington. They'll have to assign the priority.”

“They already did. General Le Beau has been on the telephone this morning with the director, who called me.” Krautkramer glanced at Jake, who was wearing civilian slacks and a sports coat. “That was the first time I ever talked to the director. Who are you, anyway?”

“Just a naval officer.”

“Yeah, right!”

“A stolen warship attracts a lot of attention. The next time your telephone rings, the president may be on the other end.”

“I hear you. Let me tell you where we are. There were fifteen men in that CIA team; they stayed in one wing of the BOQ while they were here for training, kept pretty much to themselves. Both the CIA and the navy had people with them every minute, and we are talking to those escorts.

“Yet when the CIA dropped the Russian project, they left the team in the BOQ for almost a week while they made up their mind what they wanted to do with them. During that week, indications are that no one paid much attention to them. The stewards say many of the crewmen played pool in the rec room, they watched television, whatever. It is entirely possible they sneaked out. One of them was supposedly seen at the base exchange buying junk food.

“Then the team left the BOQ. The CIA supposedly knows where they went, but we don't. We're talking to the CIA, but apparently they don't want to tell us much. Yet Saturday they were in the harbor on a tugboat, so they had to be nearby on Friday night. We're trying to find where they spent that night, who they talked to, how they got to the tug pier Saturday morning, find witnesses who saw these people, saw the vehicles that delivered them. The surviving sailors from the sub said there were seventeen people in the hijack crew, so we have an apparent discrepancy. They could also be wrong about that number.”