That can't be right. The KGB Chairman was killed in a plane crash…
Goodley was taking furious notes now. Liz Elliot could not have known any of this, could she?
You're not looking for good stuff about Ryan, the White House Fellow reminded himself. Elliot had never really said that, of course, but she had made herself clear in a way that he'd understood… or thought he'd understood, Goodley corrected himself. He suddenly realized just how dangerous a game this might be.
Ryan kills people. He'd shot and killed at least three. You didn't get that from talking to the man. Life wasn't a Western. People didn't carry revolvers with notches cut in the handles. Goodley didn't feel a chill over his skin, but he did remind himself that Ryan was someone to be regarded warily. He'd never before met someone who had killed other men, and was not foolish enough to regard such people as heroic or somehow more than other men, but it was something to keep in mind, wasn't it?
There were blank spots around the time of James Greer's death, he noted… wasn't that the time when all that stuff was happening down in Colombia? He made some notes. Ryan had been acting DDI then, but just after Fowler took over, Judge Arthur Moore and Robert Ritter had retired to make way for the new presidential administration, and Ryan had been confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. So much for his work record. Goodley closed that portion and opened up the personal and financial side…
“Bad call…” Ryan said. Twenty minutes too late.
“I think you're right.”
“Too late. What did we do wrong?”
“I'm not sure,” Bunker replied. ”Tell the TR group to disengage and pull back, maybe?'
Ryan stared at the map on the far wall. “Maybe, but we've backed Andrey Il’ych into a corner… we have to let him out.”
“How? How do we do that without cornering ourselves?”
“I think there was a problem with this scenario… not sure what, though…”
“Let's rattle his cage hard,” Ricks thought aloud.
“Like how, Cap’n?” Claggett asked.
“Status on Tube Two?”
“Empty, it was down for maintenance inspection,” the weapons officer replied.
“Is it okay?”
“Yes, sir, completed the inspection half an hour before we got the contact.”
“Okay…” Ricks grinned. “I want a water slug out of tube two. Let's give him a real launch transient to wake him up!”
Damn! Claggett thought. It was almost something Mancuso or Rosselli would have done. Almost… “Sir, that's kind of a noisy way to do it. We can shake him up enough with a ‘Tango’ call on the Gertrude.”
“Weps, we have a solution on Sierra-Eleven?” Mancuso wants aggressive skippers, well, I'll show him aggressive—
“Yes, sir!” the weapons officer snapped back at once.
“Firing Point Procedures. Prepare to fire a water-slug on Tube Two.”
“Sir, I confirm torpedo tube two is empty. Weapons in tubes one, three and four are secure.” A call was made to the torpedo room to re-confirm what the electronic displays announced. In the torpedo room, the chief looked through the small glass port to make certain that they wouldn't be launching anything.
“Tube Two is empty by visual inspection. High-pressure air is online,” the chief called over the communications circuit. “We are ready to shoot.”
“Open outer door.”
“Open outer door, aye. Outer door is open.”
“Weps?”
“Locked in.”
“Match generated bearings and… SHOOT!”
The weapons officer pushed the proper button. USS Maine shuddered with the sudden pulse of high-pressure air out of the torpedo tube and into the sea.
Aboard USS Omaha, six thousand yards away, a sonarman had been trying for the past few minutes to decide if the trace on his screen was something other than clutter when a dot appeared on the screen.
“Conn, Sonar, transient, transient. Mechanical Transient bearing zero-eight-eight, dead aft!”
“What the hell?” the Officer of the Deck said. He was the boat's navigator, in the third week of duty in the new post. “What's back there?”
“Transient, transient — launch transient bearing zero-eight-eight! I say again, LAUNCH TRANSIENT DEAD AFT!”
“All ahead flank!” the suddenly pale lieutenant said a touch too loudly. “Battle stations! Stand by the five-inch room.” He lifted the command phone for the captain, but the general alarm was already sounding, and the Commanding Officer ran barefoot into the attack center, his coveralls still open.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Sir, we had a launch transient dead aft — Sonar, Conn, what else do you have?”
“Nothing, sir, nothing after the transient. That was a launch-transient, HP air into the water, but… sounded a little funny, sir. I show nothing in the water.”
“Right full rudder!” The OOD ordered, ignoring the Captain. He hadn't been relieved yet, and conning the boat was his responsibility. “Make your depth one hundred feet. Five-inch room, launch a decoy now-now-now!”
“Right full rudder, aye. Sir, my rudder is right full, no course given. Speed twenty knots and accelerating,” helmsman said.
“Very well. Come to course zero-one-zero.”
“Aye, coming to new course zero-one-zero!”
“Who’s in this area?” the CO asked in a relaxed voice, though he didn't feel relaxed.
“Maine's around here somewhere,” the navigator answered.
“Harry Ricks.” That asshole, he didn't say. It would have been bad for discipline. “Sonar, talk to me!”
“Conn, Sonar, there is nothing in the water. If there was a torpedo, I'd have it, sir.”
“Nav, drop speed to one-third.”
“Aye, all ahead one-third.”
“I think we scared the piss out of him,” Ricks observed, hovering over the sonar display. Seconds after the simulated launch, the 688 on the scope had floored his power plant, and now there was also the gurgling sound of a decoy.
“Just backed off on the power, sir, blade count is coming down.”
“Yeah, he knows there's nothing after him, now. We'll give him a call on the Gertrude.”
“That dumbass! Doesn't he know that there may be an Akula around here?” the Commanding Officer of USS Omaha growled.
“We don't show him, sir, just a bunch of fishing boats.”
“Okay. Secure from general quarters. We'll let Maine have her little laugh.” He grimaced. “My fault. We should have been trolling along at ten instead of fifteen knots. Make it so.”
“Aye, sir. Where to?”
“The boomer ought to have a feel for what's north of here. Go southeast.”
“Right.”
“Nice reaction, Nav. We might have evaded the fish. Lessons?”
“You said it, sir. We were going too fast.”
“Learn from your captain's mistake, Mr. Auburn.”
“Always, sir.”
The skipper punched the younger man's shoulder on the way out.
Thirty-six thousand yards away, the Admiral Lunin was drifting at three knots just over the thermocline layer, her towed-array sonar drooping under it.
“Well?” her Captain asked.
“We have this burst of noise at one-three-zero,” the sonar officer said, pointing to the display, “and nothing else. Fifteen seconds later, we have another burst of noise here… ahead of the first. The signature appears to be an
