John Schettler - Fallen Angels - 9 Days Falling, Volume II

Volsky recalled the look on the Inspector’s face, a restrained jubilation, clouded by a squall of confusion and surprise. Yet he realized now what Kamenski was saying—they could now willfully create these control rods, experimenting with different materials and quantities of this strange substance mined from the perimeter of the Tunguska explosion, and yes, they would figure this all out in time. In time…Assuming they had any to spare in the enterprise.

What have we done? If these other control rods also work…if these effects can be duplicated any time we wish…What have we done? The implications of the discovery loomed like a massive eruption of that volcano in his mind, clouding his thoughts with the ashfall of a thousand generations.

“Youwant us to attack the operation?” MacRae had an astonished look on his face. “With three helicopters and thirty men?”

“Can it be done?” Elena Fairchild knew that if she wanted it done something would happen, but she wanted to know what her odds were.

“That depends,” the big Scott folded his arms, thinking. “What does Mack Morgan have for us on the situation?”

“They’re up to something. That much is clear. The activity is centered on this floating nuclear reactor site, the Anatoly Alexandrov I told you about earlier. Mack says they’ve moved in hovercraft from the naval base at Kaspiysk, and set up additional SAM batteries there. Now he’s learned there’s a contingent of Russian Naval Marines out on that ship, barge, whatever it is. And they’ve moved in a big helicopter as well. Drones got a good look at it before the Russians painted them with targeting radars and NATO pulled out. They’re loading a lot of aviation fuel, and something that looks like missile canisters.”

“Well there’s a war on, and you may have noticed that when Princess Irene went down.” MacRae was frustrated, and still bothered by his failure on that score. “Why and God’s name do we have to get involved? To even the score?” Now he realized his remark was a bit too pointed, and he apologized.

“Don’t worry about that, Gordon,” said Elena. “The oil doesn’t matter now.”

That took MacRae by surprise. “It doesn’t matter? Don’t tell me you’re giving up the ghost on this mission because we lost Princess Irene. Look, we’ve still got two million barrels of oil on the other two tankers, and we’re well protected now that the Turks have thrown in with their naval/air assets. And Mack tells me they were able to get a significant amount of oil off Princess Royal and pump it into another empty tanker. No room to bunker it at Fujairah now. The Iranians made a mess of the whole storage sector, and they’ll be fighting fires there for weeks. But we got a goodly amount off and you can count that toward your debt to Chevron. With the oil at $300 a barrel now you’ve still got good margins here.”

“That may be so, but there’s something else involved.” She seemed to hesitate, as if about to say something and then catching herself. He could see her thinking, wondering, as if she desperately wanted to tell him something but was holding back.

MacRae decided he had enough good will in the bank after his years of service to press her. “What is it, Elena?” There, he’d did it. He finally used her first name, dropping the veil of propriety and protocol now and taking the matter to a personal level.

She could hear it in his voice, the softening of his tone, and see it in his eyes now as he looked at her. He had the look of a man who would do anything he could to take the burden from her shoulders, and she had seen it in the eyes of few other men in her life. Deep down, she wanted to think she saw love there, real love, not mere concern and dutiful attendance from a subordinate in her employ. And when she looked at him her heart ached to tell him more, to tell him everything, and to finally feel that the burden she carried might be shared by the two of them, up on his broad shoulders where she knew he could carry it easily—everything she had dragged about in her life for decades, all in his big arms. And they’d carry it together.

The two of them…

“I… I can’t say more, Gordon. You’ll have to trust me on this.” The words stumbled out, even as she chided herself inwardly for not going further, for not reaching for what she longed to take hold of in her mind and heart. Gordon MacRae, she thought in a wink of her soul. My God, I love the man…

MacRae looked at her, seeing more there than she realized she had shown him. He put his hands in his jacket pocket, surprised to feel the note he had received from the Black Line days ago warning of the imminent attack on Princess Royal in the Gulf. He realized he was still wearing dress whites! One thing had led to another and he never found time to switch out to his navy blues. Now he stood there, his mind alert enough and perceptive enough to know that she was hiding something she dearly wanted to reveal. And the only big mystery in the woman’s life is right behind that movable bulkhead on the other side of the room, he thought. Then he spoke his mind.

“It’s that damn red phone back there, isn’t it?”

She looked at him, lips tightening.

“Another call came in, am I right? What is it, Elena? Is it government business? The Prime Minister chewing on your ear for something? Well, the Royal Navy has been able to see to the Crown’s business for the last thousand years well enough. What in God’s name have we got to do with this? It was good of them to lend a hand here with the Iron Duke, but we’ve no need to repay the favor.”

“It’s something more,” she said it before she could stop herself. “And it has a long, long tail, Gordon.”

“Yes, and you’ve had hold of that tiger since the first day I set foot on this ship. What is it, Elena? What’s so damn important about that red phone?”

She lowered her head, eyes glassy, her hand on her brow. The stress of these last days had been heavy on her, and she needed sleep. Her head suddenly felt as light as her heart as she imagined herself telling him everything, opening up the doors and letting him in at long last. Then she did what women have done for generations when there was simply no other way to cross that last impossible gulf between a man and woman so obviously drawn into the well of one another, but forever harried by the curse of forbidden love.

She fainted.

“Elena!” MacRae saw her legs go limp and stepped forward quickly as she fell, taking her in his arms. He lifted her easily, carrying her to the nearby sofa and laying her gently down. As he did so her eyes fluttered open again, unfocused, and she felt the heat of the moment, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

“You’re not well,” said MacRae. “Fainted dead away on me. Here, let me get you some water.”

He was up and over to the wet bar and soon had a glass of cool ice water in hand. He put one big hand behind her head to help her as she took a long sip. Then she closed her eyes, flushed with embarrassment, yet somehow feeling she had just leapt over a great crevasse between them.

“Oh Gordon,” she said softly. “If you only knew what I know…”

“What? About this business in the Caspian? Alright, so you’ve got your private line there and the Government leans on you from time to time for special favors. I understand. You’ve called in a number of favors yourself in your day, or why else is Iron Duke out there watching our backside, eh? What’s the big secret this time? You want me to send those men out there in after this Anatoly Alexandrov ? Why? Has the government gotten wind of something? What’s itching the Prime Minister’s backside this time?”