“No engineering specs?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Juan sighed and looked at Zakharin.
“What do you want to know?” the admiral whimpered.
“Unfortunately, I wouldn’t believe a word you told me,” Juan said. “See, I know you were instrumental in getting my old friend Yuri Borodin sent to that Siberian prison. You’d tell me a bunch of lies and send me on my way.”
“So what should I do? Do you have truth serum as well?”
“No. I need you to sit right here and be quiet until we get back. These two gentlemen will keep you company.”
Juan walked over to the secret door hidden in the wall. The latch was exactly where it had been when he’d last used it. It popped open, and he motioned to Gretchen. “After you.” She disappeared into the opening.
“Where are you going?” Zakharin demanded.
“You can either find out when I get back,” Juan said, “or you’ll never know.”
He looked pointedly at the vial in Eddie’s hand and then followed Gretchen into the dimly lit corridor.
THIRTY
Golov was conducting a routine inspection of the Achilles’s engine room when the call came down that the Narwhal had been spotted. The yacht had raced ahead of the cargo ship so that Golov could pick out an isolated spot to sink it. The nearly thousand-foot depth in this part of the Mediterranean meant the Narwhal and the Jaffa Column it was carrying would never be found.
He was in no hurry to get to the bridge. He stopped at the galley to grab a snack of rolled blinis, the best he’d ever tasted. Then he checked on the assault team preparing its equipment for the upcoming raid in a few days. He was pleased to see that everything was progressing as planned.
Mitkin’s betrayal in Gibraltar and his subsequent punishment had been a rude awakening for the crew who had agreed to join him in Operation Dynamo. Just as Stalin had done, Golov had purged a third of Antonovich’s original crew after presenting them with the plan that he and Ivana had put together. Despite the rich rewards that were promised, some of the crew had balked, as he knew they would. They’d be allowed to leave, no harm done, as long as they vowed to remain silent.
Of course, that had been a lie to keep them from rebelling. The dissenters were rounded up, killed, and thrown overboard, vanishing into the ocean as Mitkin had. Cu
rious family and friends were told that the crew members had resigned and taken jobs on other yachts. There had been some follow-up inquiries, but by the time any authorities could get involved, the operation would be over and the rest of them would disperse.
Mr. Antonovich protested about the deaths, but Golov assured him that there was no other choice. Since that day, Antonovich hadn’t left his plush cabin, and he got daily updates from Golov on the situation.
The remaining crew, and the new crew he’d had to recruit, were in all the way. With the number of crimes they could be convicted of for aiding and abetting, there was no going back. From the squad of mercenaries that Sirkal had handpicked down to the yacht’s cook, all of them knew what was at stake. If Dynamo went according to plan, they’d each be set with a fortune that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to acquire in a hundred lifetimes. The payday was worth whatever risk presented itself. And if some of them didn’t make it out alive, even more would be available for the survivors.
Thirty billion euros, distributed proportionally to the crew—thirty-five billion U.S. dollars, at the current exchange rate—that was the amount Ivana estimated that they’d swindle from the European banks, in the end. It was a sum that dwarfed any known heist. Four million dollars in gold from an armored car robbery? A hundred million euros in diamonds stolen from a Belgian vault? Those thefts seemed laughably petty compared to the ambitious scheme they were undertaking.
“Status,” Golov barked, and took a seat in his chair, which had a commanding three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view through the three-inch-thick polycarbonate windows surrounding him.
His faithful XO, Dmitri Kravchuk, who’d served with him in the Ukrainian Navy, pointed toward the bow. “We have confirmation it’s the false Narwhal, Captain. Twenty miles off the port bow.”
Golov flipped up the high-definition screen embedded in his armrest to see the feed from one of the digital zoom cameras mounted on the hull. He increased magnification until he could clearly see the Narwhal’s familiar shape.
“Didn’t I already kill you?” he mumbled to himself.
“They’re continuing, straight and true, at a steady twelve knots,” Kravchuk said.
“Any other ships in the vicinity?”
“No, sir. Nothing on radar, and we’re monitoring the transponders on all cargo vessels in the area. None are within eighty miles.”
“Excellent. Power up the railgun.”
“Aye, sir. Powering up railgun.”
Kravchuk flipped a switch on his console and the entire yacht hummed with the vibration of the capacitors building the charges they would need to fling tungsten projectiles at hypersonic speeds.