Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

"I came to see you earlier." He moved toward her. "You were on the phone with Aunt Hannah."

How much had he heard? Probably enough to worry him. "She sends her love."

Ronnie looked at Donna, who was busily turning the pages of her book. "I want her to come home, Mom."

"So do I. But she'll be fine, Ronnie. She's very smart."

"The Beast," Donna prompted. "I'll read the first page."

"That will take you an hour," Ronnie said. "Let me do it."

"Will not," Donna said. "I'm good. Mama said so."

"She just wants to-" He stopped and then nodded. "Yeah. I noticed you were getting better yesterday when you were reading that Dora book."

"You did?" Donna's face lit with excitement. "Honest?"

"Honest." He dropped down on the floor at her feet. "Go ahead. Let me know if you have trouble with a word."

"I won't have trouble." Donna turned to the first chapter. "Mama, you just sit back and listen. I'll do the whole story. I told Ronnie this would make you happy."

Was that what this was all about? Good God, her five-year-old was administering therapy. The story made Donna happy, so she wanted to spread the joy? Cathy was touched. In the midst of sorrow, there was this sudden rainbow. "You were right." Cathy leaned back and her hand caressingly touched Ronnie's head as Donna turned the first page. "And that makes you very smart, young lady." She gazed down at the huge beast standing in the doorway of his castle. "He's pretty ugly, isn't he?"

"Beasts have to be ugly," Donna said matter-of-factly. "But that's okay, they always turn out to be princes in the end."

Only in fairy tales, Cathy thought. Hannah was dealing with a hideous reality right now and not letting her help. She was scared to death this Kirov would prove to be an uglier beast than the one in Donna's book.

And the finale of the story would bring not a happy but a deadly ending.

Hannah caught up with Kirov behind the motel, strolling in a surprisingly charming small Shakespeare Garden. Small plaques with quotes from the Bard were scattered among the lush, colorful flowers.

"I wouldn't have expected a garden like this behind an ordinary motel," she said.

"Beautiful flowers are a cheap way to dress up the ordinary."

"I never would have taken you for a botanist," Hannah said.

"I'm not." Kirov nodded toward one of the plaques. "I'm more interested in the Shakespeare quotes."

"Your stepbrother was a fan of Western literature. I guess that's something you shared."

"I suppose." He frowned. "But we certainly didn't share a love of mythology. I still don't know why there was a mythology book in his cabin. I did a few crude chemical tests on some of the pages last night, and I don't believe there are messages scribbled in invisible ink. That would have been too easy. Pavski had a chance to go through all those books before the Kremlin jerked the sub away from him and sent it to Finland. He obviously found nothing."

"Those are some of the most widely read stories in the history of the world. Maybe there's no special meaning to it at all."

"Possibly, but I knew all the men who might have occupied that cabin, and it doesn't seem like something that any of them would have cracked open. Strange."

"How well did you know them?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The crew? I tried to know them as well as I knew every piece of equipment on that sub."

"That's smart. I guess your life depended on each and every one of those people."

"More to the point, they were trusting their lives to me and their other officers. The least I could do is to try and get to know them."

"You knew some of them for a long time, didn't you? All the way back to the naval academy in St. Petersburg?"

"It was called Leningrad at the time, but yes. Some even earlier than that."

"Earlier?"

"I had known the assistant engineer since grade school."

Chalk one up for Kirov, Hannah thought. She'd read that engineer's mate Alexander Rotonoff had grown up in the same neighborhood as Ivanov.

"What was his name?"

"Alex Rotonoff. A good man, yet limited outside his narrow expertise."

Chalk up another one.

They rounded the corner and proceeded down another path. "If I remember your file correctly, your father was a sailor."

He smiled. "Your famous memory at work. Yes, my father loved the sea."

"And his father before him?'

"A wagon maker. My father and I insisted that our love of adventure came from my grandmother."

"Your father's first command was a supply vessel in the Aegean Sea, the Danitelvia ."

"Actually, that was his second. His first was another supply ship, the Lettenski , but his command only lasted about seventy-two hours. The ship developed engine problems and eventually had to be scuttled." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm surprised you didn't know that, since I'm sure a copy of his service record was attached to mine. I suppose there's a limit to that memory of yours, eh?"

The bastard knew he was being tested, but she wasn't ready to make an issue of it yet. In any case, he'd passed with flying colors. If he was lying about being Ivanov, he'd certainly done his homework.

She shrugged. "What are we waiting for now?"

"I'm waiting to hear back on a few inquiries I've made about McClary, and my computer is downloading the contents of that GPS device as we speak. By the way, how did your call with Cathy go?"

"Fine."

"Was it?"

"Yes."

His gaze held her own, and it was obvious he didn't believe her. Either he was extremely perceptive, or she was a bad liar. Both, she decided.

He didn't push it. "Good," he said gently. "I know you're worried about her. Let's head back to my room. The GPS download should be finished anytime now."

Hannah's gaze narrowed on Kirov's laptop screen, which was now divided into two distinct sections. One window featured a graphic representation of a GPS device, the other was littered with blue and white icons.

Kirov pointed to the icons. "These are the various destination coordinates still lurking in the GPS unit's memory."

"How were you able to do this on such short notice?"

"The Internet is a wonderful thing. I downloaded a recovery utility that people use when they accidentally delete addresses they need."

He double-clicked an icon, and a map appeared on the on-screen GPS device. "This is the Docklands area of London."

"Whoever owned this has been to that address?"

"Most likely." Kirov pulled up on online telephone directory and keyed in the address. "Club Oasis" came up on the screen.

Hannah nodded in recognition. "That's a dance club."

"Frequent the place, do you?"

"Some of the guys in my crew have been there. It wasn't easy getting them back to work after a night in that place."

"Fairly innocuous," Kirov said. "And we already know this man has a fondness for European pop music."

Kirov turned his attention back to the destination icons. One by one, he clicked them and checked the locations against his online telephone directory.

After he was finished, Hannah checked the notes she had taken. "Fourteen locations, all in either England, Scotland, or Ireland. All public addresses-restaurants, pubs, dance clubs, a racquet club. On their own, they don't mean very much."

"I agree. Perhaps we should just give it a rest until I hear something back about McClary."

"Fine." Hannah picked up the digital music player and earphones.

"What do you want with that?"

"Maybe it'll help me get to know the person who owns it better." She headed for the adjoining door. "Besides, I might like it. Just because you don't like anything recorded since 1970 doesn't mean I don't."

Static. Shrill, earsplitting static.

Hannah sat bolt upright in her bed and yanked out the earphones. At first she thought it was nothing more than the opening refrain of a bit of obnoxious techno pop, but there was no way this could be considered music. She had been listening to the player for over an hour, and while the songs certainly weren't to her taste, she didn't detest them the way Kirov did.