Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

"It's a mystery to me, sir," Marganin said softly, "how you can take so easily to Western trash."

Prevlov looked up from a file and gave Marganin a cool, disdainful stare. "Like so many of our comrades, you are ignorant of the world at large. I think like an American, I drink like an Englishman, I drive like an Italian, and I live like a Frenchman. And do you know why, Lieutenant?"

Marganin flushed and mumbled nervously. "No, sir."

"To know the enemy, Marganin. The key is to know your enemy better than he knows you, better than he knows himself. Then do unto him before he has a chance to do unto you."

"Is that a quote from Comrade New Tshetsky?"

Prevlov shrugged in despair. "No, you idiot; I'm bastardizing the Christian Bible." He inhaled and blew a stream of smoke through his nostrils and sipped the gin. "Study the Western ways, my friend. If we do not learn from them, then our cause is lost." He turned back to the files. "Now then, why are these matters sent to our department?"

"No reason other than that the incident took place on or near a seacoast."

"What do we know about this one?" Prevlov snapped open the next file.

"Very little. A soldier on guard patrol at the north island of Novaya Zemlya is missing, along with his dog."

"Hardly grounds for a security panic. Novaya Zemlya is practically barren. An outdated missile station, a guard post, a few fishermen-we have no classified installations within hundreds of miles of it. Damned waste of time to even bother sending a man and a dog out to patrol it."

"The West would no doubt feel the same way about sending an agent there."

Prevlov's fingers drummed the table as he squinted at the ceiling.

Finally, he said, "An agent? Nothing there . . . nothing of military interest . . .yet-" He broke off and flicked a switch on his intercom. "Bring me the National Underwater and Marine Agency's ship placements of the last two days."

Marganin's brows lifted. "They wouldn't dare send an oceanographic expedition near Novaya Zemlya. That's deep within Soviet waters."

"We do not own the Barents Sea," Prevlov said patiently. "It is international waters."

An attractive blond secretary, wearing a trim brown suit, came into the room, handed a folder to Preview, and then left, closing the door softy behind her.

Prevlov shuffled through the papers in the folder until he found what he was looking for. "Here we are. The NUMA vessel First Attempt, last sighted by one of our trawlers three hundred and twenty-five nautical miles southwest of Franz Josef Land."

"That would put her close to Novaya Zemlya," Marganin said.

"Odd," Prevlov muttered. "According to the United States Oceanographic Ship Operating Schedule, the First Attempt should have been conducting plankton studies off North Carolina at the time of this sighting." He downed the remainder of the gin, mashed out the butt of his cigarette, and lit another. "A very interesting concurrence."

"What does it prove?" Marganin asked.

"It proves nothing, but it suggests that the Novaya Zemlya patrol guard was murdered and the agent responsible escaped, most likely rendezvoused with the First Attempt. It suggests that the United States is up to something when a NUMA research ship deviates from her planned schedule without explanation."

"What could they possibly be after?"

"I haven't the foggiest notion." Prevlov leaned back in his chair and smoothed his mustache. "Have the satellite photos enlarged of the immediate area at the time of the event in question."

The evening shadows were darkening the streets outside the office windows when Lieutenant Marganin spread the photo blowups on Prevlov's desk and handed him a high powered magnifying glass.

"Your perceptiveness paid off, sir. We have something interesting here."

Prevlov intently studied the pictures. "I see nothing unusual about the ship; typical research equipment, no military-detection hardware in evidence."

Marganin pointed at a wide-angle photo that barely revealed a ship as a small white mark on the emulsion. "Please note the small shape about two thousand meters from the First Attempt in the upper-right corner."

Prevlov peered through the glass for almost a full half minute. "A helicopter!"

"Yes, sir, that's why I was late with the enlargements. I took the liberty of having the photos analyzed by Section R."

"One of our Army security patrols, I imagine."