Silent Thunder

'That's the second time you used the word analyze.'

'Does it bother you? I admire that about you. You have such a clear vision. You see all the nuts and bolts, and most of the time can come up with magnificently creative answers. You transform confusion into clarity.' He smiled. 'What a wonderful gift.'

He meant it, she realized. 'Conner used to say that I was closer to machines than I was to people.'

He shook his head. 'Machines are easier than people, and maybe you found it easier to concentrate on them after your child died.'

She stiffened. 'Your dossier on me must have been very detailed. My little boy died after only a few weeks.'

'I didn't pay any attention to the personal stuff when I first got the report on you. It was after I started watching you at the sub that I went back and began to explore in depth.'

'Why?'

'I felt I had to know you,' he said simply.

'Again, why?'

'I wasn't sure.' He smiled faintly. 'Perhaps it was because I began to think of you in the same way I did Silent Thunder. It was most unsettling.'

Her brows rose skeptically. 'You thought I was like a submarine, and you still wanted to get to know me?'

'I've never thought of the sub with detachment. I've always had a personal feeling for her.' He lifted his cup to his lips. 'And, yes, I probed and dug to find everything I could about you. Your divorce, the loss of your baby. The death of a child can twist a person's soul. I'm sorry for your pain.'

His tone was absolutely sincere, and she found herself asking him. 'Do you have children?'

He shook his head.

'A wife?'

'My wife is dead.' He lifted his cup to his lips. 'Her name was Mira and she was… exceptional. I had her for seven years, and every one was a journey of discovery.'

'Discovery?'

'We were nothing alike, but that only made it better. She was smart and funny, and she cut through the crap.'

'That must mean she stood up to you. Did you argue?'

'Not much. I was away from home too much. Every minute we were together was too valuable to waste on arguments. About the only thing we argued about was the sub.'

'What?'

'She said I loved it more than her.'

'Did you?'

'Maybe at one time. I was obsessed. After she died I felt guilty, and that might mean I thought I hadn't given her all she needed from me.' He met her eyes across the table. 'But I did love her, Hannah.'

Intimacy. She could hear the traffic on the streets beyond the courtyard walls, but she felt as if they were cocooned in this green oasis in the city. She didn't want to feel this intimate with Kirov. She had meant to confront him and had ended with learning that he was not invulnerable and feeling a sense of bonding at the loss that they'd both suffered. She tore her eyes from him and reached for her coffee cup. 'I didn't mean to question you about your private life. It's none of my business.'

'Turnabout is fair play. I was curious about you, and I invaded your privacy. You have a right to know something about me too.'

It was an opening, and she had to grab for it. 'Yes, I do. It's my right to know a hell of a lot more than I do right now. I'm sick of 'classified.' I want to know what you know.'

'I thought that was where we were heading when you walked into the kitchen this evening.'

'And you tried to distract me by bringing everything down to a personal level.'

'No.' He smiled. 'I didn't need to do that. Everything has been on an intensely personal level between us since the moment we met. Haven't you noticed?'

She couldn't deny it. Fear, anger, frustration, and now pity had drawn them together in the most basic fashion. 'I want to know about those plates on the sub.'

He was silent a moment, then said, 'Ten years ago much of the Atlantic fleet, including Silent Thunder, was engaged in military exercises in the North Sea. Then the fleet commander radioed Captain Vladzar and ordered him to break off the exercises. We were told to navigate the sub toward a remote atoll about four hundred miles south of the fleet.'

'Why?'

'We didn't know,' Kirov said. 'Usually the fleet command would give us some indication why, but this time they were damnably cryptic. We were all nervous about this, because we were carrying warheads with bacteriological agents that were notoriously difficult to contain. The sooner those capsules were off the sub, the better for all of us.'

'Germs?'

His lips tightened. 'Why are you so horrified? The U.S. has its own germ warfare program. It was just a nasty fact of life. Anyway, I assumed we were going to a testing range for them, but I soon found out I was wrong. We were on a recovery mission.'

She frowned. 'Recovering what?'

'One large capsule, sixteen feet long.'

'A misplaced weapon?'

'No, the captain was being asked to endanger the lives of everyone on his ship for a treasure hunt.'

'What?'

'Oh, it wasn't just any treasure. This was special. The treasure was seized from Czechoslovakia during the years of Soviet occupation. There were the requisite jewels and priceless statues, but there was one object there that made the cache truly priceless.'

'What object?'

He leaned closer. 'Have you ever heard of Czechoslovakia's Golden Cradle?'

She shook her head. 'Should I have?'

'Most Eastern Europeans know the legend. Supposedly, a wise, mystical Czech princess in the second century A.D. tossed her son's golden cradle into the depths of the Vitava River, claiming that the country would emerge from chaos and reach greatness only after it reappeared. Both Princess Libushe and the story were thought to be mythology, only remotely linked with any kind of reality. Rather like the King Arthur legend.'

'Are you telling me the cradle exists?'

'Yes, I've seen it.'

'When?'

'Soviet engineers uncovered it during a construction project in the 1950s in the Vitava River. It's been authenticated. The cradle is almost two thousand years old, but it's beautiful to behold. There are markings on it that link it to Libushe's eldest son.'

'That's amazing.'

'Yes, it's something that many people would give anything to possess. Czech politicians, insurgents, tycoons, art collectors.'

Hannah could imagine that to be true. Both the legend and the prophecy would make it even more valuable than the actual material was worth. She had run across that factor during the Titanic expedition and this treasure was even more mystical. 'How did Pavski come into this?'

'Why, my dear, Igor Pavski was the fleet commander.'

'What?'

'Did you think he was a common criminal? Oh, no, Pavski is totally brilliant and was one of the youngest officers ever to become commander of the fleet.'

'And he'd risk losing that high office to go after the cradle?'

'He'd risk anything. Pavski had an obsession for obtaining the cradle from childhood. He had a general idea where the cache was located, and he spent months secretly directing resources to find it. It was under the