Terminal Run

The woman finished in the tub and dried him off. On the satin sheets she draped her silky body over him. He shut his eyes and luxuriated in the feel of the girl above him, and when he finished, he pushed her off the bed and dismissed her. Alone again, he faded back into the world between wakefulness and sleep, where the snow fell on his boots on the concrete pier and on his admiral’s epaulets and on his fur collar turned up against the wind as he stood and stared at the breathtaking beauty of the submarine Kaliningrad, the dreams rolling by until the Asian morning sunlight burned through his eyelids.

He rose quickly, energized by the idea that he would soon be back in business. The year of hiding was finally over. He dressed and entered the living room to find his partner, Sergio, standing at the window, smiling at him, seeming more relaxed than he had been in weeks. Krivak sat at the dining table and ate breakfast with Sergio while they read the Hong Kong news and lingered over coffee. When it was time, they adjourned to a cherry-paneled conference room with a massive Indonesian tiger wood table in the center. Krivak sank into a chair upholstered in soft glove leather and looked at his partner.

“When is he due?” His voice was no longer tinged with a Russian accent, his speech coach’s success evident in the British-sounding precision of his words.

“His jet lands in ten minutes. Until his car arrives here, we should prepare.”

Krivak nodded at Sergio, knowing the Chinese admiral was the most difficult client they had ever had.

Admiral Chu HuaFeng stepped off the jet to the humid Thai air, the crow’s-feet at his eyes wrinkling as he squinted in the sun. He glanced at his subordinates, young fools who thought the Peoples Liberation Army invincible. He had lived long enough to experience bitter defeat as well as combat success, and though his superiors were cut from the same cloth as his staff, he must find a way to protect them. Chu was the commanding admiral of Red China’s fledgling submarine force. He had spent time submerged launching torpedoes in anger at American targets, and he well knew that until every last vessel was on the bottom, the vicious American snakes would fight. And in the upcoming war with India, his fears centered on the U.S. fleet and what they would do. The brilliant consultants from United Electrics had helped with their expensive but valuable intelligence about the sleeping American Navy, but now he needed more. Much more.

The ride to the hotel was slow, the late-morning rush hour filling the streets of Bangkok with traffic, the traffic police under their surgical masks directing the streetlights. He was exhausted by the time he walked into the Oriental Hotel lobby. As he entered the United Electrics conference room in their opulent suite, he immediately felt the worry melt away from him. The larger man. Sergio, had a way of understanding Chu’s fears, and the thin one, Victor Krivak, had a penetrating intellect that solved all technical problems. An hour into the meeting, the food and pleasantries over with, Chu stared hard at the consultant executives.

“What you have been able to achieve so far is admirable, gentlemen, but we must do more. The battle network of the U.S. Navy is in your hands, but you must take command of their automated submerged platform, the Snare. I’ll need it in the Indian Ocean. And I’ll need it to respond to my orders in real time.”

Krivak and Sergio exchanged confused glances. Krivak spoke first.

“Snare? What’s the Snare?

Sergio shook his head as he stood at the window overlooking the trees of the courtyard far below. “I don’t think I’ve suffered a reprimand like that since grammar school.”

Krivak nodded solemnly. “He was right, Sergio. We should have known about this Snare vessel.”

“Tell me again why our penetration of the U.S. Navy’s command system doesn’t already grant us control of the Snare.”

Krivak glanced over the E-mail from his staff, tasked with entering the Pentagon combat system and surreptitiously retrieving what they could on the Snare. He shook his head. “She’s an independent node, with an onboard carbon processor. A molecular computer that is essentially a reverse-engineered synthetic human brain. She’s programmed — more accurately, educated — and sent on her way, and she responds to orders just as a human commander would.”

“So can’t we just give her orders to do what Chu wants?”