underside of the hull. It would plainly be a few weeks before she was seaworthy, but the other one, Hull K-239, had already been in Sea Trials and would resume in late May when the new RADUGA missile system was complete.
They left at noon, the same way they had arrived, car to Polyarny, patrol boat to Severomorsk, military aircraft south to Moscow. Commercial jet to Ankara, then change for Tehran, Navy jet to Bandar Abbas. General Rashood would not complete his 2,800-mile journey back to Damascus for four more days.
But the news was excellent. The first Barracuda would clear Araguba by July 20, in time to make the summertime easterly route along the north coast of Siberia, south of the ice pack. She would be accompanied by an Udaloy Type 1 frigate, and the gigantic 23,500-ton ex-Soviet Arktika Class icebreaker Ural, a triple-shafted nuclear- powered monster with a reinforced steel bow, enabling her to ride up, and then bear down on ice, as much as eight feet thick, and smash it assunder.
The waters ought not to be frozen at all in July, but there would be ice floes, and the Russians proposed to take no chances whatsoever with the safe delivery of the first Barracuda. Not with $200 million awaiting them in the port of Petropavlovsk. You can pay a lot of electricity bills with that.
On the journey home, Admiral Badr could hardly contain his excitement about the new purchase. And he talked ceaselessly about her speed, her lethal missiles, and, above all, her ability to run endlessly in near silence through all of the world's oceans, without ever needing to surface, either for oxygen, water, or fuel.
He was also aware that any missions mounted by the Barracuda would enjoy the clandestine protection of both the Russians and Chinese, both in the release of misinformation regarding their whereabouts, and in the case of China, a hiding place not yet revealed but one so secret, so unexpected, it was entirely possible they would never be located. Not in a thousand years.
Even the somewhat taciturn, closemouthed Ravi thought that last part was pretty nifty. Though he was unsure whether the men from the Pentagon would accept defeat that lightly. He doubted it, but China was still one hell of an ally.
And he looked forward to hot, peaceful spring and summer months with Shakira, interspersed by short planning visits to Bandar Abbas, before he returned to northern Russia to join the Barracuda on the long, working journey all along the icy waters of the northern coastline, and into the Bering Strait.
Right there they would begin their deep-run down the Pacific, south along the barren wasteland of the Kamchatka Peninsula to Petropavlovsk, where they would put the finishing touches to the plan for a sophisticated attack on the United States that would never be forgotten.
'Are you looking forward to our adventure?' asked Admiral Badr.
'Yes, Mohammed. I am. And may Allah go with us.'
7
General Ravi headed back to the cold north of Russia in the last week of July 2007 with no further price upon his head. The twin murders of Alf Rowan and Rupert Studley-Bryce were never solved in London, indeed the Brits never even admitted to the faintest suspicion that the Member of Parliament had been taken out by a professional. At least, they never admitted anything publicly. Neither, however, did they remove their constant surveillance and permanent phone-tapping at 86, The Bishop's Avenue.
As Vice Admiral Arnold Morgan was often at pains to point out… the Brits talk funny, and because of their weird upbringing, they find it damn near impossible to speak plainly… but stupid they ain't. So don't underestimate 'em. Ever.
In fact, MI5 had interviewed Richard and Naz Kerman on eight different occasions in the past twelve months, but the Iranian-born couple had revealed nothing, and flatly denied they had ever laid eyes on their only son, not since he was posted to Israel and then vanished in the Jerusalem Road, Hebron, more than three years ago. MI5 even tried telling the Kermans they knew, beyond any doubt, that Ray Kerman had attended Royal Ascot. Richard and Naz said if he did, they never saw him. For the record, MI5 did not believe them.
There it remained, at a strange and frustrating standstill. Two SAS men murdered in Hebron, two gigantic bank robberies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the incredible liberation of every important political prisoner in Israel, and a brutal double murder in London: the same man suspected of committing each and every one of those crimes; the same man everyone knew, but no one knew.
Lt. Jimmy Ramshawe had essentially blown the whistle six times, every time. And everyone believed him, at least everyone who mattered at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade believed him. And they had relayed their deductions to MI5, and MI5 believed him as well. MI5 was even on close speaking terms with his mom and dad.
But no one even knew his name. Not now. And no one ever found him. No one ever even saw him, except for Alf Rowan. And no one really knew whether he was dead or alive, which country he was in, or which hemisphere. Nor what he might do next. The Mossad offered nothing. Jordan offered nothing. Neither did Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia. But they wouldn't, would they? MI5 had even had the Queen's Ascot Representative search the offices in St. James's Palace for any badge application for a Major R. Kerman, and of course they drew a blank.
They did find an application for an R. Kerman, Esq. from the Syrian Embassy. But the highest possible government authority in Damascus told them it was for a professor of poetry named Dr. Rani Kerman, who was writing an ode to Hafiz al-Assad. They even enclosed a photograph of the man, and his address and office phone at the university in Damascus. MI5 never even followed up on this exercise in futility. Neither did they wholly believe the Syrians.
Jimmy Ramshawe, on receipt of the information in Fort Meade, summed it up with Australian terseness… 'Lying towel head bastards.' And the fact remained clear in his mind: 'The NSA and MI5 are trying to find a Bloody Phantom. And they know it.'
Which made it all the more astounding that the Bloody Phantom was right now striding, large as life, across the jetty in the top-secret Russian Naval Base in Araguba, which stands behind several miles of razor wire, out on the frozen edge of the universe. He was accompanied by two Admirals, ex-Soviet Captains, and three Commanding Officers, one of them the son of the Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Navy. The Bloody Phantom had just popped in to inspect a $300 million cruise-missile nuclear submarine someone had just bought for him.
Ben Badr, after almost eight months in Araguba, was delighted to see Ravi, and keen to regale him with his expertise on the workings of a nuclear-powered warship. For the journey to Petropavlovsk, along the Siberian coast, Captain Gregor Vanislav would be in command, and Ben would be his number two, the Executive Officer of the Barracuda. Ravi himself would be given no rank during this 4,000-mile voyage of learning. But the next time she sailed, he would be her Operations Director.
When they boarded the submarine, the entire party headed straight for the torpedo-proof Reactor Room, constructed on all sides with walls of lead, eight inches thick, the area containing the power plant of the ship, the impenetrable stainless steel, domed nuclear reactor, its core of U-235 uranium, the business end of a nuclear bomb.
The reactor is the steel heart of the pressurized water system, which creates the steam to drive the turbines of the submarine almost endlessly, requiring only water to keep moving along on full power. The pressure inside that system heats the water to a searing 200 degrees centigrade, under a phenomenal two thousand five hundred pounds pressure per square inch. As a point of comparison, we live in fifteen pounds pressure per square inch.
Ben Badr led them immediately to the reactor control room where Captain Gregor Vanislav awaited them. He was standing quietly behind three watchkeepers, all Petty Officers, who were operating separate panels of the keyboard control, each one containing six computer screens. The three areas under such close observation were the propulsion system, the reactor itself, and the auxiliary panel.
One of the screens in this latter group records the tests that reveal the efficiency of the condenser. This is the machinery that turns seawater into fresh water of the purest type, hopefully devoid of every molecule of the dreaded, ultracorrosive NaCl, sodium chloride. Two parts NaCl per million in the pure water system of a nuclear reactor is two parts too many. Way too many.
It was this screen to which Gregor Vanislav was turned when Ben Badr led his team into the Control Room. 'Hello, Gregor,' he said, cheerfully. 'Always checking on our purity, eh? Pristine water to make us run good, the first
