and the hard black line where the water ended and land began was partially obscured by very tall grasses and bulrushes.
They all looked up as the captain suddenly switched on a couple of big lights up near the bow. Craning forward, Ray could see a low gray jetty, not more than three feet high, set deep into the rain-swept water’s edge. “This is it,” he muttered. “He’s gonna bring her right in against the jetty. Guess he’ll lower the gangway down onto the grass, so’s it reaches firm ground. That way everyone can just walk right off.”
“I hope he lowers it tonight, whatever the weather,” said Rick. “They did say the gangway would come down as soon as the ship docked, and stay down, so everyone can walk about.”
The
They moved quickly to a deserted part of the deck. Rick Hunter pulled the little black GPS from his pocket and switched it on. The green light on its square face glowed dimly in the dark. Rick held it out in the rain as its beam sought the satellite twenty-two thousand miles above. A minute went by, then another thirty seconds. Then the numbers flicked on:
“We’re right on the money,” said Rick, turning the GPS off and stuffing it quickly back in his jacket pocket. “Now, what can we see out there? Anything hopeful?”
“Not much. But there is a light close to the shore, just about fifty yards left of dead center where the gangway is supposed to go down. See it? Right there…” He pointed out over the long lake grass, and they could all see the glow of a light, coming and going, probably behind the swaying branches of a tree.
“Guess it’s a house,” said Chief Cernic. “Or maybe a shop. I don’t think there’s much out here…they said it was a kind of nature place, wild birds and lonely farmland…give everyone a real feel for rural Russia.”
“Yes,” said Rick. “But there’s supposed to be a few people around selling things, carvings and stuff to the tourists; possibly a little cafe selling coffee, brandy, and sausage late at night to the passengers.”
“Not in this weather there won’t be,” said Ray. “I wouldn’t be that surprised if no one left the ship, except us.”
“Jesus. I hope you’re wrong,” said Fred. Just then they heard the metallic bang as the gangway went down. Moving back to the port side, they could see the lights shining out over the grass from the interior of the ship. A brown dirt road lay just beyond. There seemed to be people out there, probably the rope handlers and a few locals out for a quick buck from the tourists. They could hear members of the crew calling out greetings in Russian.
“I hope the rain stops, that’s all I hope,” said Rick, turning away. “And how the hell are we gonna get back for dinner with Jane, and out by 2100? She’ll never buy we’re going for a walk…I’ll just have to come up with something.”
The SEALs quickly headed for the dining room. It was 1945, and they apologized to Jane and her daughter. Dinner was like all meals on the ship, plain and plentiful, light-years better than the old Soviet Union, but still no better than an American diner. The waitress was young and Russian, and eager to please. Mrs. Westenholz had ordered a bottle of red Bulgarian wine, but Rick shook his head and leaned over to her conspiratorially. “Not for us,” he whispered, “not while Fred’s here, perhaps later. He’s not feeling too well this evening.”
“Of course, Ricky,” the Connecticut divorcee whispered back. She touched his hand fleetingly, and added, “Perhaps later.”
They ordered some fizzy water from the Ukraine, and the food arrived with conveyor-belt speed. Large well- roasted portions of chicken, with mashed potatoes and cabbage. Jane and Cathy picked at their dinners, but the SEALs ate heartily, each aware of the long cold night that lay before them, and the need of their bodies for fuel, especially carbohydrates. They each requested second servings of potatoes with gravy. Ray had another breast of chicken as well, and between them they demolished a loaf of heavy nutritious Russian black bread. No one else in the entire dining room was eating anything except white bread, since the popular perception was that black bread was for the peasants. However they had been briefed directly from the White House. Admiral Morgan himself had passed a message through Admiral Bergstrom to the departing SEALs. It had read starkly: “On ops nights tell ’em to eat a lot of Russian black bread…it’s pure wheat and highly nutritious. That white crap they make is like eating the
“They don’t seem like lowlife,” whispered Jane to Cathy, “and they all look fit…but I can’t imagine how they can be, when they eat like that.”
All five of them declined dessert, which was a very sugary pastry and ice cream, but the two SEALs lieutenants both asked for cheese and “a bit more of that black bread with butter.”
“If I ate like that I’d weigh two hundred and twenty pounds,” said Jane Westenholz.
“That’s right, ma’am. That’s about what I do weigh. Gotta keep my strength up.”
The clock ticked on to 2040. Jane and Cathy sipped the wine. Rick Hunter had to get his team out of this dining room and back to their cabins to pick up the few things they needed, and out of that lower deck exit, on to the shore. Nothing would stand in the way of that, but he wanted to take his leave of the women as gracefully and smoothly as possible.
“Jane,” he said suddenly. “I’m afraid I am going to have to take these two reprobates away for a while. Every week they gamble too much on baseball scores. It’s a terrible weakness, and one I never had myself, but here’s the thing…we can only get the results on one of the American Forces radio wavebands, and I have to get it going up on the deck before nine o’clock.”
“But, Ricky, darling, it’s pouring out there…you’ll all get soaked.”
“No, we’ll get under the shelter on the second upper deck. The radio works fine in there. We do it often… these two clowns have three hundred dollars apiece riding on this, which is very bad news for Fred, who thinks the Reds are going to lose to the Dodgers, which is plainly impossible.”
“I’ll just go and get the pen and writing pad,” said Ray. “See you up there in five.”
Jane said, “Well, hurry back and let’s meet in the stern bar a bit later.”
“You got it,” said Lieutenant Commander Hunter. “We’ll try to get Fred to bed, then we can jump into some of that Armenian brandy.”
Jane Westenholz laughed, a quizzical look in her eyes. He really was a mystery to her, that Ricky. He was like a big country boy, but sometimes his eyes seemed so knowing, so hard. And they were so blue, and he had such a physique. But he ate like a long-shoreman, which was in total contradiction to his graceful southern manners. “I wonder who and what he could be?” pondered the lady from Greenwich.
In cabin number 289, Lieutenant Commander Hunter gave himself ten minutes to get ready. He strapped the big hunting knife he had bought in a backstreet in St. Petersburg onto his belt. He took out the laser beam target- marker, which had been designed to resemble a small transistor radio, and fitted the batteries into their slots. He crammed the high-tech device into the big, zipped side pocket of his parka along with the GPS, snug in its padded leather case. He put a pair of Russian-made sneakers into the inside pockets of the jacket, and two full-size black garbage bags, folded dead flat, into his other side pocket. He put his hat back on, and made his way down to the gangway.
He could see Ray and Fred chatting under the light in the doorway. They were talking to Cathy Westenholz. Ray could see the rain had just about stopped, and Cathy was dressed to go outside. He could not turn away. They had all seen him, and he walked boldly up to them. “Hiya, Cathy,” he said. “There’s some kind of electrical stuff on this ship that’s playing hell with the radio, we gotta get out on shore. Get some distance between us and the ship’s generators.”
Cathy laughed. “I’m going to the little cafe and shop. I just wanted a walk. It’s over there by those trees… wanna come?”
“Well, not really,” said Rick, whose mind was racing as he blurted out the first reasonable sentence he could think of. “I don’t want you to leave your mother alone in that bar, Cathy. I just came by, and there were some Russians getting kinda rowdy. The Colonel was in there, but they weren’t slowing down any.”
“Oh, Mom’ll be fine,” said Cathy brightly. “Come on, let’s walk outside for a bit. The rain’s stopped.”
Rick put his arm around her shoulders and moved her to the side. “Cathy,” he said. “I want you to do me a favor. Go up and get your ma out of that bar. I know I should have stopped myself, but then we’d miss the scores, and I thought you were with her. Please, Cathy,…go up and make sure everything’s okay. Please.”
“Okay…will you guys be right out here when I get back? Maybe I’ll take mom over to the cafe.”
