Then his heart stopped. As he fell forward, Ilin caught him, lowered him to the floor.
Ilin dropped to his knees beside the president. He felt his carotid artery. “My God, his heart has stopped! He’s had a heart attack!”
To the guard, he said, “Quick, call the medics! The president has had a heart attack!”
As the guard rushed from the room, Ilin squirted another charge from the pen into Kalugin’s mouth just to be sure. The pen then went into his pocket. He pulled off Kalugin’s tie, ripped open his coat and shirt, and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
He was pumping hard on the dead man’s heart when the medical team rushed in thirty seconds later. Ilin had already cracked some ribs; he felt them go.
The white-coated professionals quickly checked the president’s vital signs as five loyal ones gathered around. A medic jabbed a needle straight through Kalugin’s chest into his heart and pushed the plunger in. Then they zapped him with the paddles. The body twitched. Again with the paddles. Nothing.
Janos Ilin blotted the perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his suit jacket. Marshal Stolypin stood watching the medics with a thoughtful expression.
Three of Kalugin’s lieutenants were hovering. One asked the guard, “What did you see?”
“He had a heart attack. That man caught him as he collapsed. It was a heart attack. I never took my eyes off him.”
At length, the medics decided the case was hopeless. They packed their gear and left the room. Kalugin was still lying on the floor, his shirt and coat wadded up on the floor beside him. The guard was nowhere in sight. The loyal ones followed the medics. The last one glanced at Ilin and Stolypin, shrugged, then hurried after the others.
Stolypin picked up the telephone and placed a call. It took several minutes to get through to the person he wanted. Meanwhile, Ilin closed Kalugin’s eyes and draped the dead man’s suit jacket over him.
“This is Marshal Stolypin. I am calling to rescind the order given by President Kalugin to attack Japan with nuclear weapons … He is dead Yes, the president is dead. A heart attack just a few minutes ago There is no mistake; I swear it … Don’t give me that! I’ve known you for twenty years, Vasily. I order you not to launch those planes.”
Stolypin listened a moment, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “He can’t stop them. They took off two hours ago. Five loyal ones are still in his headquarters, armed to the teeth. The pilots were specifically ordered not to turn back for any reason.”
Stolypin listened for several more seconds, then grunted a good-bye. Ilin wandered out of the room into the reception area. Marshal Stolypin followed him. The reception area was empty. The men walked along the corridor the way they had come in. They met no one. At the head of the grand staircase there was a window. Through it they could see the lighted grounds of the Kremlin and the main gate. The loyal ones were walking quickly toward the gate. Even as Ilin and Stolypin watched, the grounds emptied. Not a single person remained in view. “The pilots were ordered to bomb Japan, then return to Irkutsk.”
“Will they do it?”
“If they have wives and children, I imagine it will not occur to them that they have a choice.”
“Perhaps, Marshal,” Ilin said, “we should use the hot line to call Washington. The American president may be able to help.”
Side by side, they walked the empty corridor back to the president’s office. “He was mad, you know,” Stolypin said. “Yes.”
Pavel Saratov stood under the air lock in the forward torpedo room, watching Michman Martos check his scuba tanks and strap them on. “Three against one,” Saratov said. “I wish we had someone to send with you.”
“It will be all right.” Martos was trying to concentrate on checking out his gear, getting it on correctly. The captain obviously had other things on his mind, which was okay. That was why he was the captain. “Try to figure out how the timers work and turn them off.”
“It may take a few minutes.”
“Nuclear war, the end of the world … I won’t be a part of it.”
“I understand, Captain.” Martos glanced at Saratov, who looked years older than he had a month ago. These last few weeks had aged them all, Martos reflected.
“You’re all traitors,” one of the naval infantrymen put in. He had been disarmed and was sitting on a nearby bunk, watching Martos get ready. “General Esenin will—” Saratov glanced at the senior torpedo michman, who backhanded the infantryman across the mouth. “Any more noise, tape his mouth shut.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The michman wearing a sound-powered telephone headset spoke up: “Captain, Sonar reports two destroyers at ten thousand meters, closing quickly.”
Saratov smacked Martos on the arm. “Hurry.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Martos pulled his mask over his face and scurried up the ladder into the lock. As the torpedomen sealed the hatch closed, Saratov headed for the control room. White faces watched him every step of the way. He tried to keep his gait under control, but the sailors must have thought he was galloping. “Two destroyers,” the sonarman reported. “About ninety-five hundred meters. And two more helicopters.”
“Are they echo-ranging?”
“Yes, sir.”
Askold had been wearing the extra sonar headset, and now he passed it to the captain without a word. He looked very tired.
As he waited inside the dark lock while the cold water rushed in, Martos felt the dogged-down hatch above his head. Esenin had closed the hatch once he was outside the ship. Had he left the hatch open, no one else could have used the air lock. Was closing the hatch a tactical error, or was Esenin waiting for someone to come out through the lock?
Locked in this steel cylinder as the water rose past his shoulders, Martos recalled that Esenin and one of his men had gone out first, then the third man. That third man must have closed the hatch behind him. The cold water shot into the lock under pressure. This small, totally dark steel chamber with cold seawater flooding in was no place for a person suffering from claustrophobia. Martos had conquered his fear of the lock long ago. The water was over his head now. Breathing pure oxygen from the tank on his shoulders, Martos waited until the sound of water coming in had stopped completely. He could just hear the pinging of the Japanese sonars probing the dark waters. Saratov was right: they were running out of time. Martos reached above his head and grasped the wheel on the outer hatch. He applied pressure. The wheel resisted. Martos braced himself and grunted into his mask as he twisted with all his strength. The wheel turned ninety degrees, and he pushed on the hatch. It opened outward. Martos flippered up and out. The light was dim, visibility in the murky, dark water was very restricted. He could see, at the most, ten feet. He had his knife out now, in his right hand, ready. He cast a quick glance in all directions, including upward. Keeping his chest just inches off the steel deck plating, Martos swam aft. The first two containers loomed into view. They appeared to be closed, with the metal bands that encircled them still attached. As he got closer, he could see someone between the containers, someone in a semierect position, facing aft. The other two men must be beyond this guy. Martos’s adrenaline level went off the chart. He was ready. He flippered up and over the left container, which was about four feet high, so that he came at the man he could see from behind his left shoulder. As he closed he saw the other two, their heads bent. They had the container behind this one open and were bent over, working on whatever it contained. A light source near what they were working on silhouetted them in the murky water. Martos took in the scene at a glance as he closed swiftly on the nearest man, still motionless. The head of the man across from him jerked up just as he stabbed with the knife, burying it to the hilt in the side of the nearest man’s neck. With a ripping, twisting motion, he jerked the knife free as dark blood spouted like ink. Martos used his left hand to slam the victim away. His momentum carried him toward the man who had jerked his head up. He slashed with the knife, but the man kicked backward, so the knife missed its target. As he went by the third man, Martos slammed an elbow into his mouthpiece, causing it to spill out.
Scissoring hard with his legs, the Spetsnaz fighter shot toward the second man and slashed again with the blade. This time, the knife clanked into a wrench the man had in his hand. The man dropped the wrench. The human shark that had attacked him bored in relentlessly. Another slash with the blade at his oxygen line bit deep into his shoulder. The panicked man got a hand on Martos’s goggles and snatched them away. This time, Martos
