The door they’d left from remained open and four burly men in black tactical uniforms stormed in, with automatic weapons, full-face helmets and body armor. Their weapons were raised and aimed at Melnik. He stood from his desk, the tablet computer crashing to the carpeting. As he opened his mouth to speak, a man in a suit came into the room, wearing a black suit and red tie, exactly like Melnik’s. He was Melnik’s height and build and had the same baldness pattern. And as he grew closer, Melnik felt like he was looking into a mirror. The stranger was an exact duplicate of him.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Another figure walked slowly into the room and shut the door. It was President Dmitri Vostov, in a sweater and jeans, limping in on crutches. He answered Melnik’s question, gesturing at the imposter.
“Why, this is Prime Minister and Acting President Platon Melnik. Say hello, Mr. Prime Minister.”
The imposter opened his mouth to speak, and Melnik’s voice came out. He said, “who is this man, Mr. President?”
“That man, Platon, is a man who violated my trust and almost started a war. He ordered our submarine to attack and destroy an American submarine. He ordered the Status-6 units be launched knowing that their navigation systems would be, at best, approximate, losing us control of the weapons, perhaps placing them in American hands. I do not know if he is incompetent, a traitor, or both.” Vostov looked at the tactical team. “Take him away.”
“Where am I going?” Melnik asked, watching the imposter calmly pick the computer back up and sit at the desk.
“To a dacha out of town,” Vostov said. “Don’t worry, it is luxurious. Fully stocked with food and alcohol. Fully staffed by beautiful hostesses. With news and internet and everything you could want, with the exception of a phone or the ability to send emails or digital information. You’ll remain under house arrest until I say you can return to society.”
Melnik swallowed hard and tried to resist the tactical team manhandling him out the door. They rushed him to the elevator, down the hall and out the building entrance doors. A waiting black panel van waited and he was loaded in the back. The van doors shut, and he was handcuffed into restraint hardware on the van wall. The van drove for hours, until it must have been hundreds of kilometers outside Moscow.
The van finally parked. The engine stopped. The back door opened. It was dark outside. Melnik was marched into a clearing of the woods.
“What’s happening?” he asked. “Where are you taking me?”
He felt the pistol barrel on the back of his head.
After that, there was nothing.
The tactical SBP officer behind the body of Melnik picked up his legs and his deputy picked up the body’s shoulders. They rolled him into a deep grave. A concrete truck’s engine started and it backed up to the grave. A chute came out and the truck driver pulled a lever and cubic meter after cubic meter of concrete flowed down the chute and into the grave. The truck drove off, and the SBP officers scattered topsoil and brush over the concrete, then returned to the van. The van’s engine started, and it turned back toward Moscow.
Captain First Rank Sergei Kovalov walked down the jet ramp into the Murmansk terminal and through the doors from the secured area. The terminal waiting hall was filled with people.
He recognized the teenage girl running toward him, her mother smiling behind her.
“Daddy!” Magna Kovalov squealed. “You’re alive!”
She ran to him, almost knocking him down, and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. By then, Kovalov’s wife, Ivana, came up to him and hugged both Kovalov and his daughter.
“The news said your boat and
“We had to debrief with President Vostov in Moscow,” Kovalov said. “It took longer than anticipated. Vostov had a thousand questions.”
“What happens now?” his wife asked. “Your
“We have a meeting with Admiral Alexeyev tomorrow morning. I suppose he will let me know then. I’m hoping he’ll put me in command of one of the Yasen-M attack boats coming out of the drydock after atmospheric control modifications.”
“I’d be happy if you just had a nice, safe, boring shore duty,” Ivana said.
He smiled at her and his daughter, thinking that if there were anything good about this horrible mission, it was that it had returned his daughter to him. And his wife.
“Follow me,” Anthony Pacino said to Rachel Romanov, leading her to the rear of the Naval Academy chapel, where concrete steps led down to a black brass double door. Pacino tried the knob, but it was locked. He pulled the knob upward and the door groaned. He pulled on the knob and the door slowly opened.
“What are you doing? Are you breaking into the chapel?” Rachel asked.
