have our people check it out. You’ll want to debrief them as soon as they return, I imagine.”
“The SEALS?” Busby asked.
Batman smiled grimly. “They’ve spent the last three months running laps in the hangar bays, taking up hours on the Stairmaster machines, and generally chafing at the bit. I imagine their commander is going to be more than eager to jump on this one. And what better way to check out a spurious radio signal from an island than to send in the SEALS?”
The ocean was peculiarly calm, cloaked in an uneasy, expectant hush Rogov had come to associate with the quiet before a williwaw. The covered lifeboat, pressed once again into service as a shuttle between the submarine and the shore, bobbed gently against the hull.
Rogov set one foot on the first rung of the ladder, paused, and turned back to the executive officer, now in command of the boat. “You understand your orders?”
The executive officer nodded. “We remain surfaced until you signal that you are ashore, then maintain the original communications schedule for the next two weeks. If you fail to make four consecutive scheduled contacts, I am to return to base immediately and report the lack of contact to the man you have designated.”
“And?”
“And to no one else,” he added quickly. “My word as an officer, it will be done.”
Rogov studied him for a moment, then let a grim smile of approval cross his face. “Very well. On your word. That will mean as much to you as it does to us.”
“You may depend on it.”
Rogov put his other foot on the first rung and started descending the ladder to the boat. Halfway down, the expression that had lulled the executive officer so easily melted into something that would not have calmed the most junior sailor on board that boat.
Rogov fingered the transmitter in his pocket. Cossacks never left enemies at their back. In this situation, four pounds of high-explosive plastic compound cemented to the wall of their dead skipper’s stateroom would ensure it.
Two thousand meters later, he pressed the button. The Kilo shivered, then the ocean around her fountained up in a gout of metal, machinery, and men.
“Goddamned carrier jocks,” Lieutenant Commander Bill “Ramrod” McAllister grumbled. “Be nice if they could learn to tell the difference between a civilian craft and a tanker.” He put the P-3 into a gentle, left-hand bank, circling the large commercial vessel located below. “Even at this altitude, I can tell what it is.”
“We going in for a closer look?” Lieutenant Commander Frank “Eel” Burns asked.
“Not unless you really think it’s necessary. I can tell what it is from here,” the pilot replied.
“Yeah, well, if we drop down and rig it out, it might be good practice. Not damned much else to play with out here,” Eel replied.
“All right, all right,” the pilot snapped. “If it’ll keep you guys in the backseat from playing with yourselves, we’ll go take a look.” He nosed the P-3 Lockheed Orion over and headed toward the ocean below them.
Eel glanced uneasily at the antisubmarine warfare technician sitting next to him. AW1 Kiley Maroney, an experienced technician with five cruises under his belt, shrugged. He made a small movement with his hand, signifying a continuation of a discussion they’d dropped before boarding the aircraft. Pilots had their moods, and all a decent backseater could do was put up with it. When it came down to tactical command, they both knew that the man sitting in front of them would do what they needed.
“How ‘bout we take a look at the island at the same time?” Eel suggested. “Jefferson claimed she got some strange signals coming off that island last night. Wouldn’t hurt us to take a look.”
“I tell ya, it comes from too many arrested carrier landings,” the pilot said, continuing the diatribe he’d started earlier that day. “Scrambles their brains, it does. Just look at that,” he finished, standing the P-3 on one wing to circle around the massive foreign-flagged tanker below them. “That’s exactly where they reported that Greenpeace ship at. Does that look like a converted fishing vessel to you?”
“No, it certainly doesn’t,” Eel said slowly. “And I don’t think even an F-14 jock could get the two confused.”
“Well, if that’s not what they reported, where the hell is the Greenpeace ship?” the pilot demanded. “I tell you, slamming into the deck that many times a day just rattles their brains. Ain’t a damned one of them that’s got a bit of sense.”
“Let’s go back to your first question,” Eel suggested. “Where the hell is the Greenpeace ship? We know she’s out here — too many people besides that Tomcat jock have seen it.”
“Oh, it’s out here, all right; I don’t doubt that,” the pilot answered. “But we try to work these things out so the carrier turns over some decent locating data to us. Some hotshot just made a bad report, and now we’re going to have to research the whole area. And it’s not like they’ll get tasked to do that themselves — nothin on the carrier’s got long enough legs to pull the shifts that we pull.”
“The S-3 might-” the technician started.
The pilot cut him off with a sharp laugh. “Yeah, like we can get them to agree to do surface surveillance,” he said angrily. “If it doesn’t involve dropping sonobuoys, they try to snivel out of the mission. People, we’re gettin’ screwed on this one.”
Ten minutes later, after completing a detailed report on the superstructure of the tanker as well as a close scrutiny of the flag flying from her stern, the P-3 climbed back up to altitude.
“The island?” Eel suggested again.
“Give me a fly-to point,” the pilot replied.
Eel busied himself on his console, laying in course and speed vectors to take them directly over the last island in the desolate Aleutian chain. Finally satisfied with his plan, he punched the button that would pop it up on the pilot’s fly-to display.
“Got it,” the pilot announced. The P-3 immediately leaned into a sharp right-hand turn. “Looks like about twenty minutes from here.”
Eel flipped the communications switch over to the circuit occupied only by himself and the enlisted technician. “What you thinking?” he said quietly. “Me, I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Me neither, sir,” the technician said uneasily. “Too many ghosts. That same F-14 jock reported a disappearing radar contact right before his Greenpeace locating data. Me, I’d want to check that out a lot more carefully.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. Especially with these EW — electronic warfare — signals that keep cropping up. Too many unexplained oddities in this tactical world.”
“I’m staying heads up on the ESM gear, sir,” the technician replied. “And the frequency they reported is well within our capabilities. If somebody’s talking down there, we’ll know it.”
“They landed, cleaned the fish they’d caught, ate, then left,” the commando reported.
“And your men weren’t seen?” Rogov demanded.
The Spetsnaz officer shook his head. “There was no sign of it. The men were well hidden in the cliffs, and the natives left immediately after they’d eaten.”
“Then why did they come ashore at all?”
The commando shrugged. “Who knows why these people do anything? Maybe their gods told them to; maybe one of them had to take a crap. All I can tell you is that they came, they left. I’ve left two men on watch there, but we won’t be able to keep that up forever. The hike across the cliffs takes too long.”
“Keep me advised.”
Rogov stared up at the clear sky, which was already starting to darken as the short day ended. At this latitude, there were no more than a few hours of daylight out of every twenty-four. Dismal living conditions, especially when the frequent winter storms obscured even those few hours of sunlight. He shook his head,
