George Wallace - Hunter Killer [Movie Tie-In]

There was a grunt all the way from Moscow, then a long sigh.

“Let us hope, for the sake of both our necks, that what you say is true, Admiral.”

It was cold, so very cold.

Captain Sergei Andropoyov huddled in a bunk in the dark berthing room. The numbing chill made even thinking difficult. Still, he had to continue to plan what to do in order for his crew to survive.

It was growing more and more difficult. All his thoughts were a slow jumble. He was fighting the palpable sense of shadowy dread that seemed to envelop him as surely as the black coldness.

All the crew, or at least the thirty-five who remained, were huddled together there in the berthing room, trying in vain to use their shared body heat to keep each other warm. The battery was now so depleted that Andropoyov had decided they could no longer afford to use the heaters. They would have to use the trickle of power left for the underwater telephone should rescuers approach again. Otherwise, no one would be able to find them.

He motioned for his first officer to join him beneath his blanket. He kept his voice low when he spoke. “Dimitriy, we must do something. We will all freeze here, even if the air lasts,” he whispered. It wouldn’t be good if any of the huddled, shivering crew members overheard their captain, even though they knew what was happening as well as he. Still, until their leader gave up, there was hope. “There must be something we can do. Do you have any ideas?”

Pishkovski shivered. He pulled the edges of the blanket closer around him and answered through chattering teeth, “Captain, it is still warm in the reactor compartment. A little radiation is better than freezing.”

Andropoyov rose from the bunk. The air was fouled to the point that any quick movement left him breathless. He wondered how much longer they could hold out in the forlorn hope that help would arrive. The calcium hydroxide would be depleted by now and there was little more to scatter about. He figured another day or two and the carbon dioxide would kill them if the cold hadn’t done so.

He pondered his choices for a moment. A morbid thought tried to capture him.

Maybe it was better to wait here and freeze. Andropoyov had read somewhere… maybe in one of Pushkin’s books… that freezing was a quiet, peaceful, painless way to die.

He shook himself and cleared the idea as best he could. He must keep fighting, use every trick he could think of to bring his crew through this if he had any chance of getting them home alive.

There was still the matter of what might have sunk them in the first place. If there were some fault in his boat that had caused this catastrophe, they would need to make certain it didn’t happen again to some other crew. That was something they could never hope to do if they lay dead and silent at the bottom of the Barents.

“Come, Dimitriy,” he growled as he turned. “Let’s move everyone to the reactor compartment.”

The remnants of the crew stumbled as best they could through the hatch and into the relative warmth.

Marina Nosovitskaya glanced up from her desk when the dark shadow fell across it. Sure enough, Dmitri Ustinov stood there above her, smiling wickedly as he stared down the opening at the front of her blouse. The lovely young programmer abruptly sat erect, pulling her blouse pointedly taut.

“What are you staring at?” she snarled in Russian.

Ustinov leered right back. “Now, is that any way to treat your boss? I was just admiring the lovely view and here you are, getting all indignant with me.” His smirk grew even more pronounced. “You should be nicer to me. You never can tell what I might be able to do for a new immigrant to America like you. I have connections in this country, you know.”

Nosovitskaya leaned back, drawing the gauzy pink material even more tightly across her breasts. An odd, seductive smile played on her full lips. Her nipples protruded invitingly.

Ustinov gulped. Beads of sweat broke out across his broad brow. The light in the office cubicle seemed to darken. Except for a ray of sunshine that played on those wondrous orbs. He could barely restrain himself. He fought the overpowering urge to reach out and grab them, right then and there, and show them some proper appreciation.

She leaned forward and leveled a commanding look at him, her eyes narrow and menacing. She spoke in a low, yet powerful, voice. “Uncle Boris warned me about you. He told me you were nothing more than a Georgian pig and that I should cut your balls off and jam them down your throat if you threatened me.” She paused to savor the sudden look of terror that crossed his face. “You remember Uncle Boris Medikov, do you not?”

Ustinov’s face went pale. He reached out to brace himself on her desk to avoid keeling over as the blood left his head.

Boris Medikov, Ustinov’s boss several times removed, was her uncle? Medikov would kill him for doing no more than he had done already, let alone the scenario he had been playing over and over in his mind since the first day he had laid eyes on the man’s lovely niece. The truth was that Medikov could reach from Moscow to New York in the blink of an eye if he had reason to do so.

Nosovitskaya smiled a little easier now. She threw back her head, shaking out her mane of long blond hair. She seductively licked her lips with the tip of her tongue before she spoke again.

“I see you remember my beloved uncle Boris. He has a message for you. You are to make certain that the OptiMarx system is in full operation, with our modifications in place, within one month from today.”

Ustinov looked around the office. Fortunately the room was still empty. Everyone else was out for lunch.

“One month?” he whined in protest. “That is impossible. It cannot be done. The ARP takes two months to complete. The system cannot be used until that test is done and the SEC gives its approval to go online.”

It appeared that she wasn’t any more interested in his frantic pleas than she had been his clumsy advances. She was idly staring down the aisle between the rows of cubicles, out the window at the far end of the office suite that opened onto the Manhattan skyline. He sputtered on for a few seconds. He stopped when it dawned on him that protesting was futile.

Nosovitskaya smiled. “Uncle Boris said one month. One month or you will find the bottom of the Hudson to be a very cold and dark place. I am here to make certain you are not distracted.”

She stood and brushed past him, her breasts pressing against his arm. She stopped for a moment to look up at him through her thick lashes. Then she walked away, her hips swaying hypnotically.

Still, it was neither Marina Nosovitskaya’s beauty nor the strong, lingering aroma of her perfume that had Dmitri Ustinov struggling to find enough air to breathe.

Mark Stern eased his bright red Porsche Boxster into the parking space that was marked PRIVATE—PARTNERS ONLY! He hopped out of the little sports car, and, despite his age, showed no stiffness at all from the morning tennis game at the club. Ignoring the KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs, he strode across the immaculate green lawn, the straightest line toward the stone and glass two-story building that was set back in a grove of large old California black oaks. From the outside, the structure resembled one of the red-roofed classroom buildings down at Stanford, but those were on the other end of Sand Hill Road. The only external difference was the discreet polished black marble slab that stood near the stone walk. The gold letters on its front read PRIVATE PACIFIC PARTNERS.

That was the only indication that this was the Palo Alto home of one of the country’s most powerful but secretive venture capital investment companies. It was no indication of the heady financial dealings that went on inside its walls.