C. Graham - The Solomon Effect

Rodriguez pulled the sweater off over his head and threw it on the maid’s bed. “What the fuck?” After taking care of the Yalena’s crew, they’d rigged the U-boat’s torpedo room with explosives. The first half-drunken Russian shipyard worker scrounging around for something to steal should have blown himself-and the sub-to perdition hours ago.

“The shipyard owner sealed off the U-boat and called the militia right away. They’re keeping everyone out of it.” Salinger stood up and stretched, his shirt hiking up to show the Special Forces tattoo on his side. In his late twenties, he’d done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan before leaving the Army for a higher-paying job in the private sector.

Rodriguez had modeled his operation on a scaled-down Special Forces team, just the way he’d been taught. Salinger was their communications expert; Ian Kirkpatrick, a former SAS man from Liverpool, was their demolition specialist; an ex-SEAL from Arkansas named Clay Dixon was their weapons specialist. Borz was their linguist. Rodriguez had been doing this sort of thing for more than half his life, and he was very good at it.

He’d grown up in the nurturing warmth of a big, loving family of Cuban exiles. Back in the days before the revolution, his grandfather had been one of Baptiste’s jefes. Rodriguez had seen pictures of the family’s house overlooking the Plaza Vieja, the graceful arched windows shaded by louvered shutters, the cavernous high-ceilinged rooms filled with tables graced with crystal and silver, all kept gleaming by a legion of soft-footed, respectful servants.

All that had ended with Castro and his band of hooligans, with their big talk of providing free medical care for all, of getting rid of the Mob and the giant American companies they claimed oppressed the people. Because of Castro, Carlos was born in the charity ward of a Miami hospital, and his grandfather died in the surf at the Bay of Pigs.

Carlos had grown up on the streets of Little Havana, watching his dad and his friends train with the CIA. His dad had run scores of attacks against Cuba from their Florida bases, blowing up oil installations and movie theaters, shopping malls and tourist hotels. Carlos had even gone with them one glorious night, when they’d roared in close to shore on a motorboat and sprayed the crowds on the beach with machine-gun fire. He’d been just sixteen at the time. A year later, at the age of seventeen, Carlos joined the U.S. Army.

He’d breezed through Airborne, then moved into the Rangers. It was his ambition to become the biggest badass in the Army. But in the Rangers, Rodriguez discovered it wasn’t enough to be tough; it was also important to be smart. And Rodriguez was smart. Smart and ruthless. By the time he put in his twenty years and took to selling his skills on the private market, he’d managed to acquire a college degree and become an officer.

He watched Salinger twist the top off a bottle of water and drain it in one long pull. “We shoulda just blown the damn thing when we had the chance,” said Salinger, wiping the back of one hand across his mouth.

Rodriguez shook his head. “No. We’ve already attracted enough attention with the hit on the Yalena. When that submarine blows, it needs to look like some idiot accidentally triggered one of the old torpedoes.” He shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and went to stand at the rear window overlooking the darkened gardens below. “The militia are some of the worst thieves in the country. Eventually someone’s going to go poking around in there. We just need to be patient. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

The sharp ring of the satellite phone brought his head around.

“It’s Phillips,” said Salinger, holding out the phone.

Rodriguez frowned and took the receiver. Captain Syd Phillips was the General’s aide de camp. “Rodriguez here.”

Phillips came straight to the point. “I assume you have someone you trust in Berlin?”

“Yes. Why?”

“The General has another assignment for you.”

South Beach, Miami: Saturday 24 October

9:10 P.M. local time

The night was hot, the air thick with the scent of salt and the sea and a peculiar, pungent odor like old brass. Hurricane weather, the old-timers back home in Texas used to call it. General Gerald T. Boyd gazed at the twinkling lights of Miami spread out around the dark waters of the bay before them, and found himself wondering what would happen to this city of pastel-colored Italianate villas and glass-walled high-rises and extravagantly flaunted wealth the day a Cat Five plowed into it.

“Smells like a storm,” he said, leaning his outstretched arms against the ornate stone balustrade that separated the flagged terrace from the sweeping floodlit lawns, the Olympic-sized pool, the private dock of James Nelson Walker’s waterfront South Beach estate.

Walker shrugged. “I hear there’s something out in the Atlantic. But it’s too late in the year to worry about.”

Boyd gave a sharp laugh. “Too close to Halloween.”

Walker didn’t crack a smile. He was a serious son of a bitch, all New England prep-school starch and boardroom business. While Boyd filled his leisure hours with fishing and hunting and all the rough-and-tumble of a boisterous family of six ranging in age from a twelve-year-old Little League dynamo to a daughter in her second year at Harvard Law School, Walker had only one daughter, whom he seldom saw and, apparently, never missed. As far as Boyd could tell, the man spent his days playing racquetball, running, and making money.

The two had met the previous winter, when Boyd presented the keynote speech at a CPAC conference here in Miami. Walker had listened to Boyd’s thunderous address on the need to solve the never-ending economic and military bleed in the Middle East once and for all. A few days later, the business tycoon had approached Boyd with a very interesting proposal.

Theirs was a partnership of military and technical expertise joined with lots of good hard cash. The two men had little in common besides a profound hatred of Jews and Arabs, and a willingness to do whatever was necessary to make the world a safer and better place for Americans. That was enough.

Walker said, “I hope you’re here to tell me everything is back on track.”

“The shipment left Russian airspace an hour ago. It should arrive at your facility in St. Martin by nine o’clock.”

“This is good news. I’ll fly down to the island myself first thing in the morning.” The sound of footsteps brought the man’s head around. He waited while a slim, dark-skinned, dark-haired maid set a tray with glasses and a glistening pitcher of what looked like carrot juice on the heavy limestone top of a nearby table, then withdrew. “No more complications?” he said, going to splash juice into two glasses.

“Nothing to worry about.”

“Oh?” Walker looked up, an eyebrow quirked in question.

“The CIA is sending one of their men to Kaliningrad.”

Walker set down the pitcher hard enough to rattle the ice. “Christ. They know?”

“They don’t know jack shit.”

“They obviously know something.”

Boyd felt a muscle jump along his tightened jaw. One of his boys had gotten sloppy a couple of days ago, blabbing on an unsecured line about the U-boat and dropping tantalizing hints about what they had planned. Boyd had taken care of the guy, but the NSA intercept had stirred up a hornets’ nest at the FBI and with Homeland Security.

“They know someone salvaged the U-boat,” he said. “But they’re still convinced they’re dealing with a bunch of rag-heads. They’re too busy raiding mosques from here to Timbuktu to cause us any trouble.”

“Then why are they sending this guy to Kaliningrad?”