The Shield of Darius (25 page)

When Ben reached the plank dock on the boat’s port side, he scrambled down between the trawlers. They smelled of dead fish and wet wood stained with engine oil. Two thick ropes ran from the side of the small boat to sturdy dock posts and he loosened the one at the stern and lofted it softly onto the deck. Crouching up the short gang plank and onto the trawler, he froze suddenly as he stepped onto the gently rolling deck, realizing that a crewman might sleep aboard. Nothing moved. Only the slow rolling sway of the boat in the water. He hunched forward, peering into the black open back of the cabin until his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Seeing no one, he slipped down the two low steps into the compartment.

The simple instrument panel displayed fuel and oil pressure gauges, an RPM indicator and chronometer, a flotation type magnetic compass and a large dial that looked vaguely like a speedometer. Ben leaned forward, squinting to see the gauges in the darkness of the narrow, boxed room. A short handle on the right side of the cabin front appeared to be the throttle, with a neutral center position, forward and reverse. Beside it was a lever that looked like the handle of a miniature water pump, and above the throttle, an empty key switch and a starter button.

He dropped to his knees before the panel and reached up behind the key switch for the wires that connected it to the battery and starter button, ripping them downward until their ends protruded below the panel. Although he had never hotwired a starter, he reasoned that it couldn’t be that difficult. A circuit was a circuit, whether on a fishing boat or a computer. Shorting across the switch should open the circuit to the button, letting him start the engine without the key.

He let the wires dangle and returned to the deck, ducking below the bobbing cabins of the larger boats as he cast off the bow rope and pulled in the short gang plank. Back in the cabin he bent the wire ends into long pinched U shaped loops, slipped them into each other and twisted them tightly together.

At the end of the pier he could still see the silhouette of the watchman through the spray-spotted side window, swaying to the chanted music from his radio. Ben drew a long, slow breath, grasped the wheel of the drifting trawler firmly in his left hand, and pushed the button. Below his feet the heavy diesel engine cranked slowly over, coughing and churning like an iron dragon startled awake. The watchman leapt to his feet and spun around in confusion, looking frantically toward the market square for help that didn’t appear, then back down the pier toward the sound of the straining motor.

Ben jammed harder against the button as though additional pressure might make the engine catch.

“Come on, you piece of junk! Start!”

The watchman took three or four uncertain steps toward the boat, then turned and ran back toward the village, shouting a shrill panicked alarm. The struggling starter began to labor, sapping the life from its ancient sea-corroded battery. Ben released it and smacked the panel with the butt of his palm.

“Start, damn it!” He clasped his hands beneath clenched teeth and leaned forward until his forehead knocked against the spattered windshield.

“Dear God, help me. For Kate and Jim and the kids….”

The watchman reappeared at the side of the square, racing two pistol-wielding soldiers for the front of the pier. Ben jabbed again at the starter and in desperation, pulled upward on the mysterious pump handle. The struggling engine immediately picked up speed, whirring freely beneath his feet. He jammed the lever down and the engine caught, throbbing to a steady drone and shivering the small boat. The lead soldier reached the first trawler and stopped, crouching, his weapon leveled across the bows of the other vessels as the small trawler drifted backward. He shouted wildly in Farsi as Ben thrust the throttle into reverse and felt the propeller grip the water. As the boat slipped backward, a shot shattered the window to his left and he felt the sting of glass slivers slicing into his shoulder and cheek.

The soldier raced forward, measured the distance between the dock and the retreating boat and threw himself across the gap. Ben swung the wheel hard left, pulling the boat away from the leaping figure. The man peddled in mid-air, stretched desperately for the fading side, and fell inches short of his mark, catching the edge of the deck and flailing wildly backward. He twisted as he dropped, grasping the raised lip of the hull with one hand and splashing waist deep into the harbor. Ben whirled the wheel back to center and as the soldier twisted to seize the side with his other hand, released the controls and jumped back onto the deck. The man strained upward, pulling until his bulging eyes, then nose and chin and the flat of one forearm cleared the side of the boat. He looked up resolutely, then gasped sharply as the rubber-covered heel of Ben’s right foot caught him squarely cross the bridge of the nose, hung him for a fraction of a second above the swirling water, and dropped him unconscious into the sea,

Ben leapt back to the cabin as a second shot smashed into its side, spinning one of the life jackets that hung on the inner wall violently across the floor. The boat churned backward in a long arc to his left and he hunched in the cabin with bullets whining wildly about him as the remaining soldier continued to fire into the dark. When he sensed that the harbor opening was directly in front of the trawler, Ben rose quickly, reoriented the nose, and threw the throttle forward. The rear detent had kept the engine from taking too much power in reverse, but with the throttle full forward, it surged ahead. The soldier had run onto the arm of the breakwater and stood at the harbor mouth, saving his final rounds for the thief as he passed only a few yards in front of him. Ben steadied the bow, centering it on the gap in the stone wall, and dropped onto his back against the left side of the sunken cabin floor, reaching his left hand to steady the bottom of the shaking wheel. Two shots exploded against the far wall of the cabin as the trawler cleared the harbor, then there was only the steady, thumping rhythm of the engine beneath him.

Two hundred yards offshore he swung the boat northward, using the moon-brightened coastline to set an initial bearing. Once steady, he turned farther east toward deeper water, bringing the magnetic compass and the bow thirty degrees right to 035. There was at least one other village, Astara, between him and the border with Azerbaijan. Maybe others. They would have boats. But they would have to find him in the open sea, and they would have to do it before he reached what he hoped was the ever present surveillance and territorial protectiveness of the Russian Navy.

He held the course on the floating compass for nearly two hours. As if aiding his escape, the moon dropped below the mountains and he plowed forward into black sea, running without lights. Ben squatted to peer at the dark chronometer then looked behind as two tiny specks of light flashed in the southwest, pinholes in the black backdrop of sea and sky. He pushed again on the fully extended throttle, throwing his weight against the dash and urging the boat forward. Behind him, the lights grew steadily, appearing to blink on and off as they scanned across the water.

Ben changed his course, turning back northwest toward the coast and donning one of the faded life jackets. When he could no longer out run them, he would leap into the sea and hope to drift ashore.

The west-most light seemed to be tracking with him, closing with greater speed than the other until he could begin to see the beam’s shaft as it swept the surface. Ben locked the wheel in place and climbed to the outside of the cabin opposite the approaching boat, watching the light bear steadily down on his slower craft. The light found the trawler, moved momentarily by, then flashed back to hold the fishing boat in its blinding glare. 

“Stop your boat.” The Iranian voice boomed across the water from a giant speaker. “Stop your boat or we will shoot.” Ben crouched lower, measured the distance to the surface of the black, churning water where the trawler blacked the glare of the searchlight, then fell heavily back against the cabin side, crushed by a thumping downdraft and a blinding light from the sky above.

TWENTY-SIX

Falen took the Red Line Metro from DuPont Circle to Union Station to pick up his new file, thinking as he rode the bright, crowded subway that he should buy Kate a gift of some kind. Something intimate. She’d sounded interested over the phone. Maybe even a little anxious. Flowers? They may not last if he bought them now, and he could pick some up on his way to dinner. Maybe perfume. He wondered what she had been wearing when they met at the Mariner’s and decided he probably couldn’t pick it out again. Not worth the chance, and probably too intimate at this point.

He exited the Metro up the long escalators that brought him to the front of Union Station and instead of crossing to the post office, turned into the high vaulted entrance hall of the cavernous railway depot. She might like some jewelry – a gold chain or bracelet. There were shops all over the station and though he hadn’t seen her wear much jewelry – only a watch and ring – he thought he could find something she’d like. He’d like her to have something that came from him that other people could see, something that gave him a sense of connection.

The clerk in a small shop on the second level above the main ticket windows helped him select a woven gold chain necklace. Three hundred dollars. He held it up and looked at it against the light. He’d recently seen one like it. Had Kate been wearing it? He decided not and bought it, having it gift wrapped. As he left the station and started across 1
st
Street toward the post office, a tall angular woman left the federal building and walked rapidly past him toward Massachusetts Avenue. As he saw her he remembered where he had seen the braided necklace before. One just like it, also an expensive gift, had been around the thin neck of Amy Trossen.

.     .     .

For the first half hour of their dinner at the Hyatt, Christopher Falen seemed preoccupied and Kate was beginning to wish she had declined the invitation.

“I don’t want to be rude,” she said finally, “but would you rather be somewhere else?”

He looked at her with genuine surprise, then grinned and shook his head apologetically.

“I guess you’re right. I haven’t been too attentive.” He reached across the table and took her hand, gently massaging it between his thumb and fingers. She reddened and pulled her hand back, folding it over her other on the tabletop,

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Falen said, “but my mind’s been on you all the time. You’ve created a real dilemma for me.”

Kate’s flush deepened and she listened for a trace of insincerity in his voice, hearing none.

“What kind of dilemma?” she asked, thinking immediately that it would have been better to remain silent.

He pulled his own hand back and wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin, looking thoughtfully out over the harbor, than back at her.

“I’m a pretty independent guy – I’m sure that hasn’t escaped you. I’ve never had much time for relationships. They seem to get in the way of what I want to do.” He extended the hand again but didn’t touch her, studying her slender manicured fingers as he spoke.

“I know that this might not be appropriate, given your circumstances, but I’m afraid I’ve developed more than just a casual interest in you.”

Kate pulled her hands into her lap and looked at them thoughtfully. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I haven’t been giving you the wrong impression. I enjoy your company as a friend, but I’m not ready for anything more than that. I’m still very much Mrs. Sager....”

He held up a quieting hand. “I’m not asking you to give up on Ben. You just asked where my mind was, and I decided to be honest. Can’t help it when I’m with you. It’s creating for me a lot of those days like you were having when I called. Days when I just can’t seem to figure out what to do next. But it’ll work out. Things always do.”

“Do you believe that? Really?”

“I think I do. Life’s pretty much a matter of being ready…and of taking advantage of the moment when it comes. And it always comes if you’re watching for it.”

“Then why don’t more people get what they want?” Kate asked, not certain what she meant by the question.

“They’re either not ready, or they don’t recognize the moment when it arrives. One of the two.”

“Maybe I’m at one of those points,” she said. “I don’t know what’s in front of me, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it when I find out. I think I’m a bit afraid of it.”

“Do you mean ‘directly in front of you?’” Chris asked with a wry smile.

She felt herself redden again and returned the smile. “I was thinking more of the business,” she said.

He decided to press. “I’ll help with the decision. It’s time you got out of that deal and took some time off. Let me take you somewhere for three or four days.” He waved away her concern with a quick gesture. “I mean separate rooms. Whatever you like. Arrange with your mother to take the kids for a week, and let’s spend time just talking this through. Ben, the business, whatever would help.”

She felt her smile sadden. “I’m enjoying dinner, Chris, but I still haven’t quite recovered from my last little vacation trip. And I certainly haven’t given up on Ben. I need a lot more time.”

Falen shrugged. “Time is something I have. But I couldn’t let the evening pass without letting you know where I am on this. In fact, I brought something along to let you know I’m interested in you ….” He drew a narrow box from his jacket pocket and placed it in front of her.

“Chris, I….” Again he quieted her with a wave.

“Open it when you get home. And think about the invitation.”

She fingered the edge of the box with her free hand. “You should have been married before, Chris. Even if it hadn’t worked out, you’d realize that someone you’ve loved and cared about doesn’t just evaporate from memory in a few months – and never completely. Even if Ben never comes back, there’s a lot of healing to do.”

“I’m just trying to help…and being a little awkward and selfish at the same time.”

She touched his hand gently.

“I know you are. You’ve made a big difference already. But I’m really just needing a friend.”

He lifted her hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m happy to be that,” he said. “Let me know if you ever need more.”

.  .  .

An electronic warfare specialist aboard an Anatov An-12 surveillance aircraft on a routine flight from Makhachkala, the capital city of the Russian Republic of Dagestan on the western Caspian coast, first noticed the trawler leave the Iranian village of Hashtpar and head northeast into open water. On a normal day, the boat’s movements would not have attracted particular attention aboard the lumbering four engine turboprop. But the small Hashtpar fishing fleet never operated at night, and ground sources along the Iranian frontier with Azerbaijan were reporting unusual military activity on the Persian side in villages between Rasht and Astara. Forces on the Azeri side of the border had been placed on yellow alert following the recent air strike against targets in the Iranian capital, and the crew’s commander had asked his units to be alert for unusual activity.

The radar man, sandwiched into a closet-sized compartment just aft of the cockpit, tracked the vessel on his florescent green display for five kilometers to insure that it was more than a simple pleasure cruise. Though his headphones muffled the incessant drone of the engines, he pressed them more tightly about his ears and leaned into the scope, as if focusing all of his attention on the blip would tell him why the boat was out of the harbor. At 10:14 p.m. he reported the observation to his ground station at Makhachkala.

Colonel Nasib Topchbashi, commander of the token naval fleet assigned to Makhachkala by the Russian Navy, instructed the Anatov’s crew to assume a thirty kilometer elliptical orbit over the sea south and east of Neftecala to continue to track the stray craft. He then radioed a message to the
Saratov
, an aging twenty-five foot
Pchela
class hydrofoil gunboat patrolling off the Azeri coast a hundred kilometers south of Baku. The eighty ton
Saratov
had been built in the mid-1960s and was one of the last
Pchela
class fast attack craft still in service – a hand-me-down to the Caspian fleet from the Russian’s Black Sea operation. But none was prouder and had a more experienced crew than the
Saratov.
Its captain had already picked up the lone fishing boat on the hydrofoil’s surface scan radar and was slowly moving his craft to intercept, sounding general quarters for his crew of eleven and readying the four twenty-three millimeter guns.

At 10:38 the airborne electronic warfare specialist reported three other boats leaving the Hashtpar harbor, apparently in pursuit, and twenty minutes later, additional boats from Bandar Anzali and Astara. In Makhachkala, Col. Topchbashi launched an Mi-28 helicopter gunship to overfly the fleeing boat, and at 11:27 the pilot reported he had located the trawler on radar but could see nothing on the black water below without illuminating the surface. The boat was running lights-out and was in neutral waters, but within fifteen kilometers of the Azeri coast. Col. Topchbashi ordered the gunship to remain dark and the
Saratov
to close to within three kilometers and stand by.

For nearly an hour the Soviets watched the sea chase, seeing that one of the launches out of Bandar Anzali was an Iranian gunboat with twice the speed of the fleeing trawler. Topchbashi estimated that the Iranian craft would reach the fishing boat within minutes of the time it passed an extension of the Azeri border, and ordered the helicopter to move to within strike range.

At 12:15 the call came from the orbiting surveillance plane.

“He’s beyond the Iranian border. The gunboat is within four kilometers and must have the
Saratov
on radar. Looks like it’s trying to beat us in.”

“Stop the gunboat and seize the other vessel,” Topchbashi ordered. The
Saratov’s
two huge diesel engines thundered to full throttle, lifting the craft from the water onto streamlined bow-mounted foils and accelerating to thirty knots. Above, the attack helicopter swept ahead, illuminating the sea below with a powerful, sweeping spotlight.

On the deck of the small fishing trawler, a lone man fell back against the cabin wall as the whirring beat of five rotor blades sounded overhead and a crushing downdraft washed him against the bare planks. The helicopter dropped nearly to the sea, charging the beam of the approaching Iranian boat whose light quickly died as it wheeled and fled. In front of the trawler, the Caspian suddenly lighted like day as two blinding spotlights from the
Saratov
illuminated a fifty foot circle around the boat. The helicopter made another pass, then rose to two hundred feet to hover overhead as the sleek gray hull of the Russian
hydrofoil eased closer, a stone’s throw off the trawler’s port side.

As the man crouched against the cabin of the struggling fishing boat, a black uniformed sailor stepped into the lighted circle on the deck of the Russian craft and jerked back swiftly with a raised fist.
Throttle back!
The man rose, looked uncertainly at the black water, then up at the hammer and sickle emblazoned on the prow of the launch, and stepped down into the cabin to kill the engine.

In the radio room at his headquarters in Makhachkala, Col. Topchbashi stood expectantly beside a receiver. After ten minutes of silence, the report came.

“Makhachkala, this is the
Saratov
. The Iranian gunboat has turned back and we have boarded the trawler. There is one man aboard. He claims to be an American and says he has escaped from an Iranian prison. He asks for asylum.”

Col. Topchbashi leaned over the radio operator’s shoulder and activated the mike.

“
Saratov
, repeat. Did you say ‘American?’”

“Affirmative, Sir. He claims to be an American civilian who was being held hostage. Awaiting your instructions.”

“Bring him in,” the Colonel said.

“And the trawler?”

“Leave it adrift. They’ll pick it up. Then they won’t be able to say we are holding one of their boats.”

“Understand, Makhachkala. Have a doctor ready. I think the man has been shot. He is in very bad condition.”

Col. Topchbashi straightened and rubbed his chin briskly with the knuckles of his right hand.

“Keep this to yourself,” he said to the radioman and walked into his office. Two telephones sat side-by-side at the front corner of his desk. He lifted the receiver of the one with the broad yellow band around its base and dialed three numbers.

“This is Topchbashi,” he said sharply. “Connect me with Naval Headquarters in Moscow immediately. This is top priority.”  

Ben lay on a low bench in the cabin of the
Saratov
and listened to the engines reverse, then return to a cautious forward as the boat slipped into an enclosed dock. It bumped softly against a pier and he heard running feet and men shouting as they tied the hydrofoil to its mooring. A sailor stepped down into the cabin and jerked his head toward the deck.