Panic Switch полностью

She nodded, sipping the broiling hot brew. “In Havana a few years ago. This is weaker, but I think I like it better, Patch. Do you mind if I call you Patch?”

“Yes, please call me Patch.” Pacino said.

She looked at him closely for a moment, and she put her hand on his forehead. “What happened here?” She gently touched the bandage on his forehead and the top of his skull.

“I cut my scalp. I got tossed pretty hard into a bulkhead after the first Gigantskiy explosion.”

“Let me look,” she said, pulling the bandage aside. “Oh, it’s deep. That will leave a red scar on your forehead.”

“Our corpsman says I can have plastic surgery to make it go away.” Pacino shrugged. “I’ll see how it looks after we get home.”

“Patch, what was that sonar signal you pinged at us? It was music. From the 1812 Overture. Why did you do that? Were you trying to say you knew we were Russian? I mean, that was obvious. Or were you trying to say you were friendly?”

Pacino laughed. “That sonar ping was trying to send a detonation command to two mines we’d placed on Belgorod’s hull when it was surfaced at the polynya before you launched the first Gigantskiy. Later, we got orders to fire upon you but I think you got the same orders first. We pinged the command detonate signal, but obviously the mines either failed or were blown off by shock waves and nothing happened. The signal itself was just a happy coincidence — the cannon fire and trumpets make for a lot of acoustic contrast and the sound is unmistakable. No way the mines would hear that particular twelve or fifteen seconds of sound from nature or your own pings. No sense having mines detonating due to some random noise source.”

“You planted mines on Belgorod before there were hostilities ordered? How could you do that?” Trusov sounded hurt, as if she were taking it personally.

Pacino shrugged. “It was just a contingency. Just in case. At the time, our leadership showed no intentions of us engaging with you. Something must have changed or happened. Suddenly our orders became much more aggressive. I don’t know the whole story. Not yet, anyway.”

For a long time she was silent, staring at the deck of the shelter, as if she were pouting. He tried to change the subject.

“So, Irina, how much trouble do you think we’ll both be in with our bosses after we’re rescued?”

She looked at him. Those deep blue eyes again, he thought, blinking and looking away. At least her crying had stopped, but there were still the tracks of her tears on her dirty face. “We need rescue first. For all we know, this is our last stand.”

“Don’t let yourself think like that,” Pacino said. “Think positive thoughts. The universe will listen. At least, that’s what my friend Fishman, a professional bad-ass frogman, says.”

“I’m cold,” she said. “Do you think you could hold my hand?”

Pacino blushed. “Of course,” he said, putting her small, soft, ice-cold hand in his. She squeezed his hand. He could feel his pulse race for a moment.

And suddenly, the sound of the roaring wind stopped.

“Mr. Vice President? The Virginia delegation is here,” President Carlucci’s secretary announced. Eve LaBelle was seventy-two years old and couldn’t weigh more than eighty-five pounds, Michael Pacino thought, with a big head of hairsprayed gray hair.

“Please show them in, Eve,” Pacino said, slapping down the folder he’d been scanning on the huge desk, the label on it reading TOP SECRET / SCI / SPECIAL HANDLNG / RELEASE 12 / OPERATION POSEIDON. As he did, Carlucci’s chief of staff, Remi O’Keefe, scooped up the dossier and left by the door to the presidential study.

Pacino smiled at the two women from Virginia. So far, everyone had learned that Pacino did not have a politician’s smile, and that if he smiled, it was genuine.

“Madame Senator. Madam Governor, please come in. I’m honored by your visit. And a little stunned by your cross-aisle cooperation. Please sit,” he said, waving to the floral-patterned couch facing the coffee table, and taking the wing chair opposite. He looked at the pattern on the couch, thinking that Carlucci’s taste was odd — the couch looked like it had been upholstered using Great Aunt Maude’s curtains from the 1940s. Same décor as Carlucci’s cabin at Camp David, Pacino thought. It probably reminded the president of comforting times in his childhood.

The women seated themselves. Pacino paid attention to how closely they sat — close enough to hold hands if they’d wanted to — and their tense body language, which was formal, both sitting up straight on the couch, on the front five inches of the cushions, their feet on the floor rather than crossed, their hands on their knees. He judged they were here to ask for a favor.