Silent Thunder

'I appreciate your agreeing to see us. I know you're busy when you come home to Boston,' Hannah said. 'I promise we won't take much of your time.'

'My pleasure.' Preston's smile faded. 'No, my duty. Cathy has always been my friend as well as my employee, and I have to find a way to help her… and you.'

'Thank you.' Hannah felt a surge of warmth. She had liked Preston the few times she'd met him. He'd gotten his start in politics over two decades before, when, as a high-school civics teacher, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives merely as a lesson for his students. The local media picked up the story, his support snowballed, and he eventually won the race by a narrow margin. Hannah glanced at the framed newspaper on his wall, with the headline MR. PRESTON GOES TO WASHINGTON. It said something about him that he identified with that Frank Capra classic.

'Again, I can't tell you how sorry I am about Conner. He was a good man.'

'He was an extraordinary man,' Cathy said quietly. 'Thank you, George.'

Preston glanced at Hannah. 'When Cathy first called asking for information about the Silent Thunder, I didn't know you were involved with the project. I suppose I should have guessed. You and Conner were so close. Anyway, here it is.' Preston gestured toward the two large file boxes stacked next to his desk. 'Most of this is stuff from the media clipping services. We use them to gauge media reaction to various people or issues, and they compile just about everything said or written about a subject in a designated time span. I doubt there's anything there you don't already know.'

'Are there photographs?' Hannah asked.

'Photographs, videos, maybe even compact discs of a news radio story or two.'

'This must have been expensive,' Cathy said.

'I'm on a committee that has a contract with this particular clipping service. We're not using them for much else right now, so at least this way they earn the money we're already paying them. After you're finished, I'll give all of this material to the maritime museum. I'm sure they'd like to have it for their archives.'

Cathy stood up and picked up one of the boxes. 'Thank you. We'll take good care of these.'

'I know you will.' He hesitated. 'And you know I'll continue to help you as much as I can.' He added gently, 'But don't you believe that others are more qualified and working hard to find Conner's murderers?'

Hannah didn't answer directly as she rose and picked up the other box. 'We just want to make sure all the bases are covered.'

'What makes you think they aren't?'

Cathy said quickly, 'This is for me, George. I need to do something. Can you understand?'

'Of course. I just want you to be careful. Ronnie and Donna need you now.'

'I know.' She tried to smile as she turned to leave. 'And God knows, I need them.'

Hannah Bryson and her brother's widow just left Congressman Preston's office,' Koppel hung up his phone. 'Trouble?'

'I'm sure she's trying to stir up as much trouble as she can,' Pavski said. 'And probably snooping.' He frowned. 'Keep the surveillance sharp on her and Cathy Bryson.' He sat back in his chair. 'This wouldn't have been necessary if your so-called experts hadn't fumbled.'

'They were experts,' Koppel protested. 'Something must have gone wrong.'

'They fumbled,' Pavski repeated coldly. 'That's what went wrong. Now we have to find another way. Contact Carwell and have him check his go-to list. I need a wedge to get under Bryson's guard. Have you transmitted my message to Danzyl in Moscow?'

Koppel nodded. 'He's working on it. He'll get it to you soon.'

'Soon isn't good enough. I need it now.' Keep calm. This trouble with Hannah Bryson was only a small glitch in the scheme of things. Danzyl would give him what he needed, and he could start doing the research to bring him what he wanted. He had several strings to his bow, and one arrow would strike home.

An hour after they left the congressman's office, Hannah and Cathy were walking around Hannah's Back Bay condominium, which had recently become a veritable bulletin board. Every inch of wall space was covered by hundreds of photocopied newspaper and magazine stories, photographs and broadcast transcriptions. A stack of DVDs rested on top of Hannah's television set, which displayed a marathon of television news reports relating to the Silent Thunder's arrival in the U.S.

'These pinholes are going to wreak havoc with your resale value,' Cathy said.

Hannah shrugged. 'The damage has already been done. I've spent too many nights pacing around here with blueprints for my new submarine designs tacked across every wall, window, and appliance. You wouldn't believe the inspiration that can come while scribbling on a shower door.'

'I'll take your word for it.' Cathy surveyed the newspaper accounts. 'You're featured in at least half these stories. You're more famous than I thought.'

Hannah glanced at a few of the clippings. 'Conner should have been in them, too.'

Cathy shook her head. 'No.'

Hannah gazed questioningly at her.

'Conner hated the limelight. I know you don't care for it, either, but he absolutely hated it.' Cathy smiled. 'He was happy to be quietly brilliant, then to come home to his family in blissful anonymity. He said that one star in the family was enough. He was so proud of you.'

Hannah felt the tears sting her eyes and looked quickly away. 'Thanks for telling me. Do you know, Conner and I talked about this in Rock Bay Harbor, and I was worried that he was feeling cheated. He denied it, but it's good to know that-' She had to stop to clear her throat and checked her watch. 'Cathy, if you need to go pick up Ronnie and Donna-'

'It's okay. I still have a few hours. They're with my mother. I think it's a relief for them to spend time with someone who isn't struggling just to hold herself together.'

'I've seen you with them. You're doing great.'

Cathy gazed at the photo-covered walls. 'I'd be doing great if we could find something here we could use.'

'There's some good background in this material, but we probably won't find what we need here. We have to find out what was scratched on those bulkhead plates, and to do that, we have to find out more about the Silent Thunder's history.'

'Didn't the Russians give you that when they sold the sub to the museum?'

'Not really. We don't even know how many miles it logged. The Russians are notoriously secretive about their submarine fleet. They're constantly renaming and renumbering them to make it hard for other governments to know how many they have in service. They're not about to give us details of its missions.'

'So what are you going to do?'

'One of the ships on my first Titanic expedition was a Russian scientific vessel. There were some former Soviet Navy officers on the crew, so I've made some calls to see if they can help us out.'

Cathy reached into one of the file boxes and pulled out another stack of articles and photographs. 'In the meantime, I'll find some place to plaster these up.' She turned away. 'You say you're partial to the shower door?'

Two and a half hours later, Hannah walked around the condo with a small stack of photographs in her hand. She studied another picture on the wall, then plucked it off and added it to the pile. She repeated the routine several more times as she worked her way from the living room to the kitchen.

'What did you find?' Cathy asked.

Hannah threw down the stack on the dining table and spread out the photos. 'Look at these. The four stops that the Silent Thunder made before arriving at Rock Bay: Baltimore, New York, Boston, and Norfolk. Notice something in common about all these shots?'

Cathy studied the photos. 'Other than the tons of ribbons and streamers littering the water in each of these ports?'

'It's all biodegradable and dissolves in just a few hours. Keep looking.'

She gazed a few moments longer, then finally pointed to a craft resting a few hundred yards off shore. 'This boat.'