Not Brandt and his super swimmers apparently.
Spinning the gold band around his finger, he wondered for the fourteen thousandth time if he'd done the right thing. Yet each time he tortured himself through convoluted logic he always came down to the same realization. He was going to be a father.
A father.
That still did not jibe with his career, with his life, with his love.
But there it was. Fatherhood on the horizon. A not so distant horizon.
Okay, was there anything he could think about on this damned boat that didn't put him in a worse mood?
"Did you hear that?" Lopez asked.
Brandt sat up. What in the hell could the corporal hear that put that sense of impending danger in his voice? They were on an attack sub for God's sake.
Harvish snorted. "Lopez's probably just hearing the sound of pizza dough thrown-"
"Shh!" Lopez hissed as he climbed forward through the bodies, inching past Brandt to get to the torpedo hatch. The corporal leaned his ear against the metal, listening intently. Finally he removed his ear. "There's another sub in the vicinity."
"Did I hear something about pizza?" the XO asked as he made his way to the tube, ducking to avoid a water pipe.
Harvish threw a thumb toward Lopez. "Nah, Lopez just thinks he's the sub whisperer."
"I am telling you that is the vibration of another sub," the corporal said. "A Chinese sub if I am not mistaken. Ming class."
"I can assure you that-" The XO stopped as the MC27 phone blinked red. The XO picked it up, listened carefully, and then hung the phone up with care. "It appears there is another sub in the vicinity. A Chinese sub."
Lopez whacked Harvish across the back of the head. "Told ya."
"It isn't that uncommon in these waters," the XO explained. "We are all trolling for information, especially on the Russians since the theft."
"Why would the Chinese be intent on that?" Brandt asked.
The XO shrugged. "Don't know, but we were briefed to be ready in case we bumped into them."
"May I add something?" Rebecca asked, sounding far more timid than usual. Guess being in a torpedo tube did that to a girl.
Brandt nodded for her to continue.
"While thought of as a manufactured good export country, much of China is still very agrarian."
The XO looked at the researcher much like Brandt must've when he first met Rebecca. "Which means?"
"Oh," Rebecca said, seeming to catch herself. "The Chinese now have over three million dairy cows. A sizable chunk of their internally generated GDP depends on those livestock and their products."
"My, my, sergeant," the XO stated, bordering on condescending, "you have your very own portable encyclopedia."
Brandt was going to rise to her defense, but realized he didn't need to as Rebecca continued.
"No. I Googled it back in London. Rinderpest started in China. It set back their livestock development centuries. They were also the first to call for eradication of the disease even before the African outbreak in 1982."
The XO inclined his head. "So sorry. Sergeant, let me correct myself. You have an excellent researcher on your hands."
And apparently a really pushy corporal as well.
"Don't you think it's weird the Chinese would send a Ming class on such a sensitive patrol?" Lopez asked. "The thing is as loud as a motorboat."
"Why the Chinese do anything the Chinese do is a mystery to us all," the XO answered. "It was probably the only vessel in the area. With less than a hundred subs, they've got to make do."
"But to push past your wake like that?" Lopez challenged. "It's like they're screaming, 'Look over here, look over here.'"
The XO no longer seemed charmed by their presence, if he ever had been. Brandt could feel the man's pain. Lopez was the one with the encyclopedic knowledge of anything that was rated by how fast it could go.
"And your point would be?" the XO exhaled.
"The Chinese have been known to show off a noisy sub to cover a quieter, later-class sub like a Yuan or even Shang to slip by unnoticed." Lopez turned to Brandt.
The XO tried to wave away the notion, however Brandt noticed that the navy man's shoulders had gone up and his jaw was about ten times tighter than it had been before. That wasn't just annoyance with the corporal. No, it appeared the corporal was onto something.
"Well?" Brandt asked the XO.
When the man didn't speak up, Lopez filled in the details. "That's what the whole 2009 Impeccable incident was all about. The Chinese tried to act like some 'fishing trawlers' got carried away practically attacking our ship, but we all know they did it because the Chinese were doing secret testing on the nuke-carrying Shang subs and wanted our surveillance ship out of there pronto."
At this point the XO didn't even bother to deny it. "We are, in fact, looking for a second shadow vessel."
"Thank you! Finally!" Lopez said, smacking Harvish on the back of the head again.
"But what exactly does that mean for us?" Brandt asked.
The XO shrugged. "Nothing. We've got a lot of water to cover. I doubt they are going to follow us all the way to the Netherlands." He angled back the way he came. "I'll send down some midrats, but after you grub I'd suggest you rack up and get some shut-eye. We won't be in position for another seven hours."
How Brandt wished he could just roll over and sleep. But with an unknown enemy in England and now the Chinese shadowing their submarine?
Forget about it.
Aunush caressed the wooden heel of the boot. By now her body curved around the master's feet, surrounding the boots. Claiming the boots as her own.
The heel came up an inch and she put her pinkie beneath it. The master stepped down. Not enough to cause injury but enough to hurt. Her groan of pain was met by the master's moan of desire. Passion beat from the master's form, enveloping Aunush.
If this was how the master felt after a stinging setback, Aunush might just have to fail a bit more often.
The door to the chamber was flung wide open. No knock. No warning. How crass. As the young acolyte rushed forward, Aunush did not untangle herself from the master. No, this Disciple needed to know the import of what he just interrupted.
The boy stumbled forward, a look of shock etched into the young features as Aunush drew a tongue across the upper leather of the boot. The Disciple's eyes jerked away, staring instead at the ground as he relayed his most urgent news.
"Initial reports have been confirmed, Master," he puffed. "An import/export cargo plane has been requisitioned by a Central Intelligence Agency front company from Heide Denmark to Moscow. They have arranged passage for six."
Ah. Dr. Monroe and her band of merry men headed east. Could the news not have waited a few more moments though?
"The rabbis believe that the researcher seeks-"
"Yes," Aunush said as she rose. "We know who she seeks."
Osip, clearly. The man should have been killed years ago. Spouting off about alternative interpretations of the Torah. Keeping controversy alive when it should have been extinguished years ago.
Stepping off the dais, Aunush bowed before the master. "I will not fail again."
But if she did, Aunush wondered if she would be so welcomed back.
Not waiting for that answer, Aunush turned to the boy. "What are you waiting for? Please your master."
The child's eyes dilated as he took an unconscious step back. As if the master would ever covet one such as him. Aunush turned the boy by the shoulders and urged him from the room.
"Do not think yourself so worthy."
Rebecca's aches and pains awoke fully before she did. Despite lying upon a row of splintery crates, her mind wished to stay in that lulling glow between sleep and the "real world." Her body though? Her body wanted to catalog each and every bump and scrape. Take her chin for instance. That abrasion probably had enough microscopic pavement in it to build a whole new road.
Male voices tugged her away from sleep and even away from her myriad of minor injuries. She recognized one voice in particular-Brandt. And he sounded none too thrilled. And if Brandt wasn't happy, that usually meant more sorrow for her.
Opening her eyes, she found all the men crowded in the narrow hallway outside the torpedo bay. Lopez's eyes crackled with an argument he obviously was forced to contain. Talli stood to the left, his hand secured on a conduit overhead, standing on his tiptoes trying to see over the taller Harvish. In the back of the group, Davidson hovered near the mouth of the torpedo bay, hood up and over his face, clearly trying to hear but equally clearly trying to stay out of the fray.
That left the prize fight between Brandt and the XO.
Sitting up, Rebecca glanced to her watch. Had she really slept for over six hours? No wonder she had a kink in her spine that started at her neck and didn't stop until her pelvis. She'd never been one for camping. And camping inside a torpedo bay? That was pretty much at the bottom of her list.
As she rubbed her shoulders, Rebecca tried to catch up on the conversation.
"It just isn't possible," the XO said, shaking his head to amplify his surety.
"Then how exactly are we supposed to rendezvous with the trawler?"
"That is not my problem," the XO stated, then nodded to Lopez. "Your man, himself, confirms our suspicions that we are being tailed by a Shang-class Chinese sub."
"But-" Lopez tried to retort, however Brandt held up a hand to silence his corporal.
Scooting over, making sure to avoid splinters, Rebecca sat next to Davidson. As Brandt engaged in a stare-down with the XO, she whispered to her assistant, "What's going on?"
Davidson's eyes flickered over to her, and then he leaned down to keep the conversation between the two of them. "We can't surface with another sub in the vicinity, and we only have a half an hour window to catch our ride from international waters to Denmark."
Ah. Hence the argument.
"We are on a highly sensitive classified mission," Brandt stated.
"As are we," the XO countered. "Which has been delayed to act as some kind of North Sea Special Forces taxi service. We can't risk the lack of maneuverability surfacing creates."
"Because what?" Harvish demanded. "They're going to take a potshot at us?
Brandt glared, clearly pissed that his point man had piped up. Equally clear that was the question Brandt wanted answered.
The XO turned to leave. "With a Chinese nuclear armed submarine in the vicinity, we do not take anything for granted."
The man was about to walk away. There wasn't a whole lot that the sergeant could do about it, which you could tell by the set of Brandt's jaw. They were so far outside his scope of authority. A pang of sympathy took Rebecca off guard. Guess her heart was far more forgiving than she gave it credit for.
"But I've got a solution," Lopez pleaded. When all eyes turned to him, he put his hands up in surrender. "I mean, no one is going to like my solution, but I have one."
"Fine." Brandt gave a curt nod to the corporal. "What is it?"
Lopez indicated to the torpedo bay. "Shoot us out."
"Excuse me?" Rebecca blurted, although none seemed to notice-they were too intent on the corporal.
"Come on," Lopez said, his words directed at the XO. "We wouldn't even have to slow down. You just flood the tubes, open the hatch, and whoosh we're out of your hair."
Harvish and Talli scoffed, but Rebecca knew Lopez too well. He meant every word of it. And by the way Brandt's eyes crinkled around the edges, the sergeant was seriously considering Lopez's plan.
"Is it doable?" Brandt asked the XO despite Rebecca's desperate psychic attempt to wipe the memory of the plan from his mind.
The XO hemmed a bit. "We've only done personnel placement through the tubes at a dead stop with trained SEALS who-"
"Oh man," Lopez protested. "Those are just semantics. We are chasing down a nasty bioweapon. We are all down with the risk."
"And what about those two?" the XO asked, indicating to Davidson and Rebecca.
While Davidson nodded his agreement, Rebecca sat there like a very startled deer in some rather large headlights.
Brandt turned to Rebecca. The plan was crazy. It came from Lopez, so of course it was crazy. However, it was the one and only way they were going to make their rendezvous window for the Netherlands. And if they didn't hit their window, they could forget about the cargo plane to Moscow. Getting to Russia quickly and quietly required them to get off this sub. Now.
Yet he could not be angry that Rebecca's eyes were wide with fear and her head shook back and forth.
She swallowed heavily before answering. "If we don't get off now, what is the backup plan?"
To anyone else, Brandt would have shut them down, telling them there was no other plan, but to Rebecca he couldn't. Instead he let the XO answer.
"You would need to ride with us to Sweden. We'd pull into Karlskrona's naval yard complaining of rudder issues. That would give us cover to unload you six and replace the rations you consumed."
Brandt watched as Rebecca's eyes flickered from face to face. You could see her thinking it through, trying to find some way, any way to avoid Lopez's plan. Brandt knew because he had just swung through the same mental jungle gym.
"You don't have to go," Brandt offered. "We could hit Russia, interface with this Osip Gershon, and have you catch up."
Rebecca cocked her head to the side though, shedding the fear and replacing it with confidence. "Please. Like even Davidson would know what questions to ask Osip. Plus, none of you have ever met him before. The guy is a hard-core recluse, suspicious because he has to be."
Brandt couldn't help but grin. "So that means you're on board with Lopez's plan?"