Panic Switch полностью

“Then there’s the next problem — making it back to the New Jersey. And that presents the same issues as finding the Omega in the first place. Very easy to get lost underwater, but under ice? Assuming they find their way back. Based on the depth shown on the diver’s wrist computers, they’ll decompress in the dry-deck shelter.”

Quinnivan smiled. “Is that all? It’s a walk in the park.”

“Very funny, XO.” Fishman frowned.

“Based on what Mr. Fishman has said, gentlemen,” Seagraves said, “I think it’s safe to say we’ll wait for the SEAL team members to heal.”

“There is one exception to what I said, Captain,” Fishman said haltingly, as if he were regretting what he was about to say. “If the Omega, for whatever reason, decides to surface through the ice, this becomes much easier. No trouble finding him. He’d be visible. The water would be shallow. You could bring New Jersey up right under him. And there’d be no relative current. In that event, even if one team had trouble, the other could swim around the Omega hull and help the first team. It wouldn’t be a milk run, but I could do it with your men. That assumes I can conduct training with them for a day or two.”

Seagraves looked at Quinnivan, then Lewinsky. “What do you think, XO?”

“I doubt the Omega will surface, but we could have Mr. Fishman conduct the training anyway, just in case,” the XO said.

“So ordered,” Seagraves said. “Mr. Fishman, over the next four or five watches, I want you in the wardroom with Varney, Dankleff and Pacino conducting training.”

“I’ll need to make an entry into the dry-deck shelter to familiarize them with the Mark 76 propulsion systems,” Fishman said. “And your torpedo room will need to move weapons so I can familiarize them with the Mark 80 mines.”

“We can accommodate you, Mr. Fishman,” Quinnivan said.

“By your leave, Captain?” Fishman said.

“Thanks for educating us,” Seagraves said. “You can go. XO, Nav, stay behind if you would.”

When Fishman was gone, Seagraves said, “Well, men, what do you think?”

Quinnivan shrugged. “I sincerely doubt the Omega will surface. It can’t hurt to train the boys for the possibility. And in the time we get them trained, hopefully by then the SEALs will be well again.”

“What about you, Nav?” Seagraves looked at Lewinsky. “You’ve been awful quiet through this whole discussion. Care to grace us with your thoughts?”

Lewinsky pursed his lips. “No way this will work, Captain. Odds are, we lose the mines and the divers. I wouldn’t want to be at the board of inquiry for that mission failure.”

“I worry about it working even if the SEALs are healthy,” Quinnivan said. “Fishman’s description? Jaysus, I’d rather just fire a fookin’ torpedo at the bloke and be done with it. This whole mine scheme was thought up by an academic in a Pentagon basement cubicle. It’s nuts.”

“He said they’d practiced it on submerged submarines,” Lewinsky said.

“He didn’t tell us how many times they failed in practice,” Quinnivan noted. “I’m going to call the Panther lads to my stateroom and break the news to them, that they’re a backup contingency.”

“Dankleff will be happy to hear that,” Seagraves said. “Mr. Pacino and Mr. Varney? Not so much.”

“Hey, Skipper,” Quinnivan said, grinning, “what does your American Coast Guard say? You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.”

Seagraves laughed. “I’m sure that expression will be a great comfort to Pacino and Varney.”

Vice President Michael Pacino climbed down the stairs from the forward hatch of the massive 747, Air Force Two. The bright sunshine of Moscow in September at noon was blinding. One of the Secret Service agents asked if Pacino wanted sunglasses, but he shook his head. There was a minimal greeting party at the airstrip. The American ambassador, Alphonse Captiva, was there to shake Pacino’s hand. Captiva was a holdover from the previous administration whom Carlucci kept on because the Russians liked him. He was a former senator from New York who always had been surrounded by whispered rumors of his connection to the New York City mob families, but there had never been any solid evidence of any wrongdoing. The Russian prime minister turned out, a dull functionary named Platon Melnik, who had been briefly president of Russia when Vostov’s first two terms ended, the constitution at the time mandating that he step down. During Melnik’s four years as president, Vostov had had the constitution amended to allow for longer presidential terms. When Vostov had won the next election, he’d put his crony Melnik into the prime minister seat and used him as a mouthpiece for Vostov’s policies.