Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

He shrugged. "It will take as long as it takes. She can't work miracles." He smiled. "Though she might deny that. Eugenia doesn't lack confidence."

"I could tell she was no shrinking violet." She started up the stairs. "But I'd rather deal with someone who believed in herself than a wimp. I'm going to go settle in and explore that shower you were talking about."

"I have a few calls to make and then I'll shower and check out the kitchen." He pulled out his phone and dropped down on the couch. "Relax. Take a nap."

"Not likely." She reached the top of the stairs and opened the first door. The bedroom had the same comfortable ambiance as the furniture downstairs, and there was a door that probably led to a bathroom. She threw her duffel on the bed.

A few minutes later she was stepping beneath the warm spray of the shower. God, it felt good. Some of the tension was flowing out of her. She had been on edge since the night she had met Kirov. Even in their more peaceful moments when they were working together, she had been acutely aware of both him and the bizarreness of the situation. But then everything in the world had taken on a nightmare strangeness when Conner had died.

And she couldn't live with that strangeness for much longer. She couldn't allow herself to go forward blindly over a cliff. Events had moved so quickly that she had been more accepting than she would ordinarily have been. She had let Kirov lead her to his friends, his turf, and she knew little more about him than the night she'd met him. She'd been swept along by that dynamic forcefulness and the hope that they could quickly put an end to Pavski.

It was time to stop, slow down, ask questions.

And Kirov had better be prepared to answer them.

I heard from Eugenia." Kirov was taking a carafe of coffee off the stand when Hannah came into the small kitchen. "No luck yet. She's still putting out feelers." He studied her. "You look more rested. Though a little grim. Have you been brooding?"

"I've been thinking," she corrected.

"I thought you'd be analyzing the situation as soon as you had time to take a breath. It's an integral part of your character." He picked up the carafe and two cups. "There's a tiny courtyard out back. Let's go outside and drink coffee and look at the stars."

"I don't want to look at the stars."

"Then let's go outside so that I can look at the stars while you interrogate me." He was already heading for the door. "It will relax me. You might find me more accommodating if I'm communing with nature."

"Not likely." She followed him out into the courtyard. "Accommodating?"

"I can be accommodating when it suits me." He sat down at the mosaic bistro table and gestured for her to sit across from him. "And when it doesn't foul up my plans."

"I don't give a damn about your plans."

"Yes, you do, because now you're part of them." He filled up the cups and set the carafe down on the table. "And we have a joint objective. While you were analyzing our partnership, didn't you throw that into the mix?"

"That's the second time you used the word analyze."

"Does it bother you? I admire that about you. You have such a clear vision. You see all the nuts and bolts, and most of the time can come up with magnificently creative answers. You transform confusion into clarity." He smiled. "What a wonderful gift."

He meant it, she realized. "Conner used to say that I was closer to machines than I was to people."

He shook his head. "Machines are easier than people, and maybe you found it easier to concentrate on them after your child died."

She stiffened. "Your dossier on me must have been very detailed. My little boy died after only a few weeks."

"I didn't pay any attention to the personal stuff when I first got the report on you. It was after I started watching you at the sub that I went back and began to explore in depth."

"Why?"

"I felt I had to know you," he said simply.

"Again, why?"

"I wasn't sure." He smiled faintly. "Perhaps it was because I began to think of you in the same way I did Silent Thunder . It was most unsettling."

Her brows rose skeptically. "You thought I was like a submarine, and you still wanted to get to know me?"

"I've never thought of the sub with detachment. I've always had a personal feeling for her." He lifted his cup to his lips. "And, yes, I probed and dug to find everything I could about you. Your divorce, the loss of your baby. The death of a child can twist a person's soul. I'm sorry for your pain."

His tone was absolutely sincere, and she found herself asking him. "Do you have children?"

He shook his head.

"A wife?"

"My wife is dead." He lifted his cup to his lips. "Her name was Mira and she was… exceptional. I had her for seven years, and every one was a journey of discovery."

"Discovery?"

"We were nothing alike, but that only made it better. She was smart and funny, and she cut through the crap."

"That must mean she stood up to you. Did you argue?"

"Not much. I was away from home too much. Every minute we were together was too valuable to waste on arguments. About the only thing we argued about was the sub."

"What?"

"She said I loved it more than her."

"Did you?"

"Maybe at one time. I was obsessed. After she died I felt guilty, and that might mean I thought I hadn't given her all she needed from me." He met her eyes across the table. "But I did love her, Hannah."

Intimacy. She could hear the traffic on the streets beyond the courtyard walls, but she felt as if they were cocooned in this green oasis in the city. She didn't want to feel this intimate with Kirov. She had meant to confront him and had ended with learning that he was not invulnerable and feeling a sense of bonding at the loss that they'd both suffered. She tore her eyes from him and reached for her coffee cup. "I didn't mean to question you about your private life. It's none of my business."

"Turnabout is fair play. I was curious about you, and I invaded your privacy. You have a right to know something about me too."

It was an opening, and she had to grab for it. "Yes, I do. It's my right to know a hell of a lot more than I do right now. I'm sick of 'classified.' I want to know what you know."

"I thought that was where we were heading when you walked into the kitchen this evening."

"And you tried to distract me by bringing everything down to a personal level."

"No." He smiled. "I didn't need to do that. Everything has been on an intensely personal level between us since the moment we met. Haven't you noticed?"

She couldn't deny it. Fear, anger, frustration, and now pity had drawn them together in the most basic fashion. "I want to know about those plates on the sub."

He was silent a moment, then said, "Ten years ago much of the Atlantic fleet, including Silent Thunder , was engaged in military exercises in the North Sea. Then the fleet commander radioed Captain Vladzar and ordered him to break off the exercises. We were told to navigate the sub toward a remote atoll about four hundred miles south of the fleet."

"Why?"

"We didn't know," Kirov said. "Usually the fleet command would give us some indication why, but this time they were damnably cryptic. We were all nervous about this, because we were carrying warheads with bacteriological agents that were notoriously difficult to contain. The sooner those capsules were off the sub, the better for all of us."

"Germs?"

His lips tightened. "Why are you so horrified? The U.S. has its own germ warfare program. It was just a nasty fact of life. Anyway, I assumed we were going to a testing range for them, but I soon found out I was wrong. We were on a recovery mission."

She frowned. "Recovering what?"

"One large capsule, sixteen feet long."