ounce of fat. He actually weighed the equivalent of two jockeys, and he had quarters on him like Man O’ War. Rick Hunter had been a swimmer all of his life, a collegiate champion from Vanderbilt University, and he had very nearly made the Olympic trials for the 1988 Games but had dropped out of college suddenly. A year later he was accepted at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.
His third-generation farmer’s strength, combined with his coordination and dexterity in the water, made him a natural candidate for the SEALs. The fact that he was a deadly accurate marksman, and a man used to exercising authority from a very young age on the two-thousand-acre farm in the Bluegrass, made him a potential team leader right from the start. Rick Hunter disappointed no one. Except maybe Bart.
And now he sat, frowning, staring through the big stern windows at the lowering sky. “Fuck it,” he thought to himself as the
It was not quite the phrasing the young intellect for whom the ship was named would have chosen, but the nineteenth century romantic author of Russia’s first major psychological novel,
He and his two colleagues had spent some time in the little ship’s museum, which was devoted to the life of Mikhail Lermontov — all Russian tour ships these days are like cultural theme parks built around the person the ship is named for. The three SEALs had watched the illustrated account of Lermontov’s demise, killed in a duel at the age of only twenty-six. “Shoulda rolled off to the right when he’d fired his one shot,” thought Chief Petty Officer Fred Cernic, “then come right back at him with his knife…low off the ground…leading off his right leg…blade forward… one movement.” Then, aloud, the Chief observed, “He’d probably still be around if he’d been properly taught.”
“Yeah, right,” said Rick. “He’d’a been about two hundred years old.”
The third SEAL was Lieutenant Junior Grade Ray Schaeffer, a lean, dark-haired twenty-eight-year-old native of the Massachusetts seaport of Marblehead, where his family traced their lineage back to the time of the Revolutionary War. There was a Schaeffer pulling one of the oars when the Marbleheaders rowed General Washington to safety from the lost Battle of Long Island to Manhattan. Ray was proud of his heritage. His father was a fishing boat captain, and the family home was a medium-size white Colonial down near the docks. The Schaeffers were a deeply religious Catholic family.
Ray had gone from high school straight to Annapolis. A lifelong seaman, expert navigator, swimmer, and platoon middleweight boxing champion, he had SEAL written all over him. Both he and Rick Hunter were considered destined for high office in this unorthodox branch of the US fighting forces.
All three men were traveling along the Russian waterways on false passports. They kept their given first names to avoid any careless errors but had changed their last names. They mostly kept clear of other passengers, but not in any way that would attract suspicion. In fact the slim, dark-haired divorcee Mrs. Jane Westenholz, and her doe-eyed nineteen-year-old daughter Cathy, had taken quite a shine to Rick and his friends. Mrs. Westenholz was apt to call them Ricky, Freddie, and Ray Darling, as if they were three hairdressers, which sure would have amused Admiral Bergstrom.
Lieutenant Commander Hunter looked at his watch. They were still four hours from the Green Stop, and because the tour boats were not yet on their summer schedules, they were due to arrive at 1930. Tonight they would dock in a grim, damp northern twilight. The Russian tour boat would secure alongside the jetty overnight and allow the passengers to sight-see in the morning, when a barbecue lunch ashore might be possible, weather permitting, before the ship returned to St. Petersburg.
Right now Rick could feel the boat altering course to the west for their scheduled swing around the island of Kizhi, the treasured national historic site. Some boats made a four-hour stop here for tourists to see the three carved eighteenth-century churches and visit other historic wooden buildings in this strange place where time has stood still for three centuries. The
The three SEALs pulled on their parkas and baseball caps, paid and tipped the young Russian waiter, and went out on deck to see the island. Fred brought a camera with him, and they all leaned over the port-side rail on the upper deck while the Chief Petty Officer shot pictures. Ray said he didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell that any of the photos would come out because of the poor light. At which point Mrs. Westenholz stepped out on deck wearing a fluorescent scarlet raincoat with bright yellow boots. “You boys shouldn’t be out in the rain, you all could catch severe chills in this awful Russian weather.”
“Ma’am,” Rick said, “I been walking around big fields in the pouring rain all of my life back home in Kentucky…doesn’t affect me now…’cept I sometimes get a little rust creeping up under my eyelids.”
Mrs. Westenholz squeaked with laughter, and opened her own dark eyes wide. “But this isn’t proper American rain,” she said. “This is Russian rain, and it’s colder, comes from the Arctic…it’ll freeze you right through.”
“Don’t worry about him, ma’am,” said Ray Darling. “He’s insensitive. That chill couldn’t get through to him.”
“Ooh,” said Jane Westenholz. “I think Ricky could be very sensitive…and I think you should all come inside now and I’ll get us some coffee and a glass of brandy to warm us up.”
Chief Cernic actually considered that an appealing idea. He also considered, very privately, that Mrs. Westenholz might be a bit of an athlete in the sack. Trouble was she plainly had eyes for only the big, straw-haired team leader from Kentucky. And at forty-four, Fred also realized that he was too old for her good-looking daughter. His wife and three sons, back home in San Diego, would probably have been pleased about that.
Rick grinned at Jane Westenholz. “Okay, you go ahead, we’ll see you in the stern bar in five minutes…but hold the brandy. I forgot to tell you, Fred here is a reformed alcoholic…gets really difficult after even one drink. Ray and I never drink when he’s around…we try to go along with his program…just to help him through it.”
Chief Cernic raised his eyebrows at the enormity of the lie. “Oh, darling Freddie,” Mrs. Westenholz said, “we mustn’t allow you to slip back, must we? One day at a time…and no drinkie-poohs for anyone this afternoon.”
Ray Schaeffer shook his head. “Jesus,” he muttered. “This old broad could be a real fucking nuisance. We may end up heaving the bodies of her
The identical thought occurred to Rick Hunter, but he thought it would be better if they could get through this without taking anyone out. “We’re going to have to make ourselves a bit remote this evening,” he said quietly.
The ten-thousand-ton
The rain stopped as they turned away from Kizhi, and a watery sunlight lit the surface of the lake intermittently. The high rolling cloud banks to the southwest remained in place, but the dying afternoon breeze had slowed the low pressure system as it moved northeast. Lieutenant Commander Hunter had baleful forebodings of the night’s weather, and he was already shuddering at the thought of the forthcoming conditions in which he and his team would almost certainly be working.
To Rick, this strange and foreign place was merely an operational zone, and he tried to view it dispassionately. But the sight of the hills, climbing away in a misty purple shroud on the eastern shore of the glistening silver lake, was almost overwhelming in its desolate beauty. Lieutenant Commander Hunter, no stranger himself to breathtaking landscapes, shook his head at the thought of three Soviet-designed submarines moving innocently, yet somehow obscenely, like huge black stranded slugs, across these waterways of God.
The light began to fade again, and the air suddenly seemed colder. The SEALs left the deck and wandered down to the stern bar, where Jane Westenholz and her daughter Cathy were ensconced with two large pots of coffee and a plate of small pastries. Rick and Fred, whose nerves were beginning to tighten now as the Green Stop grew closer, managed only to sip coffee. Ray, full of confidence in his own ability to survive anything, ate seven pastries with deceptive speed.
By 1800, the bar was full and smoky, and filled with the aromatic smells of coffee and alcohol. Many of the 140 Americans on board were coming in now for a drink before dinner, which was served early, in one sitting, during these springtime weeks before the tour ships became really crowded to their three-hundred-passenger summer capacity. Things were even busier in the big horseshoe bar in the bow of the ship, where there would later be Russian folk dancing and then a disco for the younger passengers.
