Mark Greaney: On target

"So I'll live, and you'll die. Which means you fucked up. If you would have helped me with the sub, we both could have made it, meaning you could have lived to kill me another day. Ultimate mission success by temporary delay of mission resolution. Even Denny Carmichael would agree that that is a valid strategy for a good soldier like you to take. You just aren't smart enough to know a good deal when you see it."

Still nothing from behind.

"I'm sure there's a better way to pop this hatch, but the only control I know how to work in this goddamned tub is the trigger of this gun. Wish I could leave the Glock behind for you to shoot yourself before you drown, but it may come in handy onshore."

Zack remained silent. Court hoped he was thinking and hadn't just fallen asleep.

Gentry's head was killing him. His sinuses felt like they would burst open any second with the pressure and the acidic puke in his nose.

"Passing one hundred ten feet." Court began filling his lungs with air. A rapid deep breathing to increase lung capacity. In between breaths he said, "It was a pleasure serving under you most of the time, Zack. I'll send a letter to Langley and tell them you went down with the ship." A few more deep breaths.

Court pushed the barrel of the gun to the Plexiglas's canopy, ducked down away from it.

Zack coughed weakly.

Fuck, thought Court. He's not going for it.

"See ya," Gentry said, stalling an instant more, and then he moved his finger to the trigger and sucked in a full, deep breath of the cabin air.

Here we go.

"Down by your right knee. Dial that says BAL. Turn it all the way to the left to neutralize the ballast. Next to that is a square button that says PROCON. That's propulsion control. Push it now." Zack's voice was weak, but the words sure as hell came out fast.

Gentry lowered the gun, found the dial, and turned it, then found the button and pushed it. Immediately a loud metallic noise filled his aching head. A 2-D computer rendering of the submarine appeared on the HUD. It started as a cigar-shaped image, but when the metal noise stopped, the image had wings and tail fins and looked like a single-engine fighter plane.

"Give it some thrust. Just a touch."

Court tipped the throttle, and he felt a slight engine rumble and sensed gentle forward movement. A HUD reading that had been zero slowly climbed from 5 percent to 10 percent to 20 percent as he pushed the throttle a bit more.

"Now, use the joystick to level her out. It's fly-by-wire. Pitch, yaw, roll, all controlled by the joystick. Kind of like an airplane." Zack coughed. "You crashed a plane once, didn't you?"

"Crash-landed," Court clarified. He'd gone from near post-panicked resignation of his imminent death to near jubilant euphoria at his high prospects for survival, all in the last thirty seconds.

"That was in Kiev, wasn't it?"

"Tanzania, Zack. You were there."

"But again, in Kiev? You crashed there, too, didn't you?"

"No comment."

Quickly he had the descent under control, and then the machine leveled out. A few seconds more, and he had the compass heading pointing due east.

"Headlights," instructed Zack from behind.

"Where?"

"Have you ever been in a car, dumb-ass? Same place."

Court reached to the left in front of him and, yes, the light switch felt just like it did in most wheeled vehicles he'd driven.

He flipped it on.

And shouted in shock. "Oh shit!"

The sub moved quickly along the sandy ocean floor, which was not more than ten feet below.

Court began hyperventilating slightly. He pulled back on the joystick and pushed the throttle forward to 40 percent.

"Okay. Now, a four-position dial on your left, about eleven o'clock."

With the dim red lights it was hard to find, but Court got his fingers around it.

"Turn it all the way. Oxygen scrubbers. We're breathing each other's carbon dioxide at the moment. This will clean the air."

"Roger that."

After Zack's tired voice instructed Court through turning on the O2 system and activating the sub's laser collision avoidance feelers, Court piloted the sub to the east for another minute, getting the feel of the craft. Once confident he had the hang of it, he called back to Hightower again, "How am I doing?"

"You suck. You can't drive cars for shit; you can't fly planes for shit. You'll probably steer this thing up a whale's ass in a minute."

Court could hear the relief secreted in the injured man's admonitions.

Two hours later, Court felt certain they were well out in international waters. He could hear soft moaning and an occasional wheeze from the man behind him. Zack babbled incoherently at one point. Gentry knew Hightower could still die from his wound or from an infection, even if he made it to top-flight medical care in the next hours. Sir Donald would have to come through big time to rescue them.

The irony was not lost on the Gray Man. He'd saved Sir Donald a few months earlier, told himself he'd never trust him again, and now the portly knight was Court's very last hope.

The sub finally surfaced at eight fifteen in the morning. The sun was well up now, straight off the bow of the little vessel. Gentry used it to orient himself as the HUD was difficult to read with the bright daylight penetrating the cockpit. Court activated the FM beacon and waited.

They bobbed up and down on the open sea.

A little after ten he saw the ship. It was a huge tanker, and as it loomed above the submarine, loomed above Gentry's head right at the waterline, it seemed as high as a skyscraper and menacing with its jet-black hull. The ship took nearly a half hour from first sight to the point at which a ladder was lowered to the sub and Court popped his canopy. He called out for help, and two men came down on separate ladders, secured Hightower in a harness, and had him lifted three stories up to the railing.

Court climbed up the ladder under his own power, though his shoulder burned with the strain, and he vomited in the heat as the huge ship rose and fell with him hanging on alongside. He'd nearly made it to the top when he passed the big letters on the port side bow. He had to lean back to read the name of the craft that rescued him.

"LaurentGroup Cherbourg."

"Perfect," he said. Court had had dealings with LaurentGroup, the huge multinational corporation that had tried to kill him the previous year. He never thought he'd willingly climb aboard one of their vessels but, again, desperate times called for desperate measures.

Court continued up the ladder to the railing and was pulled over the side by a crew of Indonesians.

Zack was laid out on a stretcher and rushed hurriedly away. Court himself fell to the deck, was lifted by his arms and legs, and then more dragged than carried into a cool hallway in the superstructure of the ship. Within minutes he asked for morphine, a syringe appeared, and shortly thereafter, he was out.

When he awoke, he'd already been transferred to another boat, a tall sailing ship owned by a Welsh media tycoon and, as it turned out, a friend of a friend of Sir Donald. Court asked about the condition of the man brought aboard the tanker with him, but the crew of his new vessel had no information.

Four days later, they made port in Alexandria, and Court Gentry slipped ashore and away. The crew of the sailing ship never saw him leave.

They just awoke one morning and found him gone.

Of all the eighty nations around the globe to which Rosoboronexport sold arms, Il-76 senior pilot Gennady Orloff most enjoyed his layovers in Venezuela. It was not because of Caracas's nightlife, which had taken a hit with the austere Communist demagoguery that President Hugo Chavez had advanced in the past few years. And it was not because of the natural, rugged beauty of the country, as Gennady rarely had more than one day until his turnaround flight back to Russia and therefore insufficient time to leave Caracas proper, the smoggy urban jungle of five million.