Terminal Run

Admiral John Patton paced the deck of the suite of the Chief of Naval Operations, wondering how a midshipman had been assigned to a ship on a wartime operation. But he knew the answer — it was the result of his own orders that no personnel orders should be suddenly changed as a result of the mobilization, lest the spies watching the fleet’s every move draw conclusions — such as the conclusion that a submarine was departing for a wartime patrol because the midshipmen were all reassigned at the last instant. Keeping the personnel orders as is had protected the operation’s security, but now Patton had a problem — the son of Patch Pacino was on the sub ordered to engage the Snare and then to fight on in the Indian Ocean. Patton would have to find a stealthy way to evacuate the youth, without impacting Piranha’s mission. He owed the older Pacino that much. The question was how he could do that.

7

The night descent over the coast of Thailand was breathtaking, the lights of the cities and villages like stars below them. The supersonic Falcon touched down lightly on the asphalt of Bangkok International, coasting to a halt at the general aviation facility near the customs building. They remained onboard until the agent, a pretty young Thai girl, came aboard and asked a few polite questions and welcomed them to the country. The two passengers on the jet — one heavy and one thin and tall, both wearing business suits — stepped off the Falcon, emerging into the steamy summer air. Their Thai assistant, a large man named Amorn with coarse features, dressed in a tailored suit, took their baggage and escorted them to the Rolls-Royce and drove them into the city. The wide city streets were deserted, but in a few hours would be jammed with commuter traffic. At the front entrance of the Oriental Hotel, the Rolls stopped and Amorn opened the door. They were taken to a private elevator in the rear of the ornate entrance hall. At the top, the doors opened to the plush penthouse suite. Both men retired in silence to their bedrooms.

The west room’s occupant took a warm shower, invigorating after the sticky walk from the Falcon. The water fell onto dark thick hair speckled with gray and down over a thick jet black beard, tightly trimmed to his face, then down past a thin muscular frame. He was sixty-three years old and in the best shape of his life, in part thanks to a thirteen-year Siberian prison sentence spent in vigorous exercise. He turned off the water and looked briefly in the mirror, amazed at the youthful face staring back at him. The surgery was intended to change his identity, but had nicely taken away the wear of the years. His thin cheeks were filled in, his pockmarked skin was smooth, his sagging chin was as chiseled as when he’d been thirty. His yellowed crooked teeth were white and even, his flaccid neck was smooth and toned, and his jawline was ruler straight. The grizzled former admiral and war-crimes prisoner was gone and replaced with a rich aristocrat. Alexi Novskoyy was dead — the man in the mirror was named Victor Krivak. He smiled, liking the sound of the new name and how it matched the new reflection.

He donned the tropical suit laid out by Amorn and met his companion in the center living area. The other man was five years younger but looked older. His name had once been Rafael, but now he was known as Sergio. He was the brilliant consulting company president who had rescued Novskoyy-rather, Krivak — from the Siberian prison and brought him into the business. He was a barrel-chested man with thick limbs and a massive neck, though he was several centimeters shorter. He had a gray beard that hid much of his face, and his features were large and coarse, except for his eyes, which darted over the room, missing nothing. His surgery had changed his nose and his formerly large ears and taken away much of the fat he had carried previously, although the laser could do nothing to change his large bone structure.

“You never did tell me how you got the American Navy codes,” Sergio said as they relaxed on the terrace.

“It was easier than expected,” Krivak said quietly. “There was a DynaCorp network architect who had the bad fortune to have a wife and three children. It is amazing what a man can accomplish when he sees a nine-millimeter automatic at the head of his firstborn. I sent him to perform the task of bringing back the code to his house. He brought an obsolete version. It cost him his dog. A second version came back with him, but it had bugs. That cost his wife. The third time the code was current, but the logic-hot on the system — the one that would alert us to changes or security modifications — was not installed correctly.”

Sergio waved his hand. “Don’t tell me any more. I take it that after several attempts all went perfectly.”