Saratov stepped forward for a look. “You armed that goddamned thing?”
“It was too dangerous to sail around with the bombs armed. They are armed now.”
Esenin’s hand came up. He had a pistol in it. He jabbed the barrel against Saratov’s chest. “No closer, Captain. You have had your fun at my expense. From here on, this is my show.”
Polyakov and the naval infantry michmen also had their pistols out and pointing. The major grinned at Saratov. “I will guard the box, Captain.”
“You have brought us far, Pavel Saratov,” Esenin said, flashing his Trojan Island grin, “yet we still have far to go. You will let us down if you let anything happen to you.”
“You don’t really give a damn if you live or die, do you, Esenin?”
“Sometimes it is easier that way.”
Saratov got back onto the stool where he had spent the last twelve hours. “You people better get at it. It is just a matter of time before the Japs arrive.”
The dinner hour had passed when Janos Ilin made an evening call on Marshal Stolypin at military headquarters in Moscow. He found the old man in a sour mood. When the door closed and they were alone, the soldier said, “Fool! Incompetent! Bungler!”
“What can I say?”
“This morning he gave the order to launch nuclear strikes against Japan. He sent three planes to bomb Tokyo and three to bomb the Japanese missile facility at Tateyama. And, of course, there is the submarine with four weapons aboard trying to put bombs on the ocean floor outside Tokyo Bay. I argued against it, told him no, no, a thousand times no, and he almost sacked me. Ran me out.”
“Oh, too bad. Too bad/h we heard anything from Admiral Kolchak?”
“Not a word. From all the intercepts of Japanese traffic, it appears Captain Saratov has gotten into Sagami Bay. Against all odds. It’s an amazing feat.”
“What does Kalugin say?”
“He doesn’t believe the Japanese have warheads on missiles that they can use as ICBMS. Refuses to admit the possibility.”
“I was hoping you had an appointment with him in the near future.”
“Umph.”
The old man sat looking out the window. He looked ten years older than he had a month ago. “You have done what you could, Marshal.”
“I should be home in my garden.” Stolypin sighed. “My legacy to Russia — I argued futilely against a suicidal course already decided upon by a dictator. Fifty years of soldiering I did, and he wouldn’t listen.”
“Perhaps it is time for the garden.”
“I just sent an aide over with a letter of resignation effective at midnight tonight. I should go home now and be done with all of this.”
Stolypin looked at his watch. “I have my last staff meeting in a few minutes. Perhaps I should sit in on it, say farewell.”
“How goes it? Truly.”
“The situation is not as bleak as Kalugin believes. We are building an army; we are equipping it, finding food and fuel and transportation. … We could whip the Japanese this winter. We will have half a million men to put against them. With air superiority, we will crush them.”
“Kalugin refuses to wait?”
“He says the UN will give the oil fields away before spring. Maybe he is right. The world has changed so.”
“I must see Kalugin tonight.”
“I tried to explain … Time is on our side. Every day that passes, we get stronger. Six months from now, they will be losing troops wholesale; we’ll be bleeding them mercilessly; the Diet will be arguing about how much money the army costs … Then we could have them!”
The telephone rang. Stolypin sat looking at it, listening to the rings, before he finally extended a hand and picked up the instrument. “Yes.” He listened a bit, then said, “Janos Ilin of the FIS is also here. He would like an audience, too. May I bring him along?”
He listened a bit more, grunted, then hung up. “One of Kalugin’s flunkies. The president wants to see me about the letter.”
“Of resignation?”
“Yes.” Stolypin ran his fingers over the desk, put the telephone exactly where it was supposed to be, and flipped off an invisible mote of dust. “They said you could come, if you wished.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. He’ll probably have me shot for treason and you for being in the same room.”
As they walked into the courtyard, Ilin put a hand lightly on the marshal’s arm and brought him to a stop. “Have you any indication that Kalugin suspects you or me of trying to kill him?”
“None. So far.”
“Kalugin will purge the bureaucracy, the military, and the Chamber of Deputies as soon as the military situation is looking up.”
“I am an old man. I am resigned to my fate. Rest assured, I will say nothing.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you or me. I was thinking of one hundred and fifty million Russians who deserve better than Aleksandr Kalugin.”
With that, Ilin walked on toward the car. The soldier holding the car door saluted the marshal, and he returned it. Stolypin and Ilin seated themselves in the limo and the soldier closed the door behind them. There was a glass between the passengers and the driver of the car. “Can he hear us?” Ilin asked.
“I want to tell Kalugin personally of some critical intelligence reports that I have just received.”
“With me there?”
“You might as well hear it now. Both Japan and the United States know of Kalugin’s determination to use nuclear weapons. The missions he has ordered may well fail.”
“How do they know? A spy? A traitor?”
“The Japanese call him Agent Ju.”
“You know this person’s identity?”
“It is someone in Kalugin’s circle, I think. Someone very close to him.” This was a lie, of course, but Stolypin didn’t know that. Stolypin goggled. “Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“Money, I think,” Janos Ilin told him. “Originally. Now, I do not know. Power? Insanity? I intend to tell Kalugin about this agent, tell him what I know. And tell him, again, that Japan has nuclear weapons.” “A traitor! In times like these!”
“Especially in times like these,” Janos Ilin replied.
The foul, stale air inside the boat was dead, unmoving. All the circulation fans were off to save the batteries and minimize noise. Each man was trapped in a cloud of his own stink. The boat had been lying on the bottom for an hour. Esenin and his two divers had gone out through the air lock twenty minutes ago. During the past hour, several ships had passed near enough to be heard without sonar. Only Saratov and the sonar operator knew more than that, because only those two wore headsets. Saratov had just concluded that there were six ships within audible range when the sonar operator whispered that there were seven. They were going back and forth near the location where the frigate had gone under, probably pulling sailors from the water. Right now Admiral Kolchak lay on the bottom six miles from that position. The number of planes was a more difficult problem because the beat of their props came and went. There had to be several, perhaps as many as four. The ships and airplanes would find the submarine before too long. Although the sub was sitting on the bottom, a MAD would go off the scale if a hunter came close enough. Pavel Saratov sat looking at Major Polyakov, who was seated on the navigator’s stool, facing the captain’s right. Without Esenin around, Polyakov had become lethargic. Saratov thought he had little imagination. He was not stupid, just unimaginative, without ambition or ideas. There are a lot of people in the world like that, Saratov reminded himself, and they seem to do all right. It is certainly not a crime to leave the thinking to others.
Given all of that, the question remained: Why would Polyakov push the button, killing himself and every man on the boat?
