The pair passed through customs without a problem and walked out to the curb. Less than an hour after they landed, they were in a cab headed for Brighton Beach. As they wound along the Shore Parkway, Bogatinoff watched Jamaica Bay flash by out the taxi window while Vujnovich pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. He listened as it rang twice. A female voice answered.

“Marina, my dear, it is Uncle Nicholas. We have arrived. Let’s meet for supper at the usual place.”

He smiled as he hung up and then nodded to Bogatinoff. Marina Nosovitskaya now knew that they were in New York and the meeting place was confirmed. It would be Murphy’s Bar on Third Avenue. It was so crowded and loud that no one could monitor any meeting that took place there.

First they had to meet their contact in Brighton Beach, to gather their weapons and arrange for a place from which to operate. It was so much easier to get weapons in the United States, no worries about having to smuggle them in. Renting a place required nothing more than easily acquired papers and some cash. Everything was so much easier in such a free country.

He winked at Bogatinoff and turned on the first smile he had used since leaving Moscow.

“It is a great country, right?” Vujnovich asked the cabbie in the best English he could muster.

The driver didn’t seem to understand his question. Vujnovich studied the man’s unpronounceable name on the driver’s ID placard. He likely spoke less English than the Russian Mafiosi.

The cabbie shrugged and kept his attention on the tangle of traffic ahead of them.

Chapter 21

The weather during the helicopter ride out from Thurso, Scotland, was as rough as any Jon Ward had ever experienced. Strapped into the Sea Hawk’s passenger seat, he was pitched around violently. The SH-60 didn’t seem to mind the weather, though, as it rushed across the dark sky, six hundred feet above the storm-tossed Norwegian Sea.

This is no fun, he thought. The way to traverse seas like this is down six hundred feet below the surface in a nice, smooth-riding nuke boat. Far better than up here in this contraption, a machine that somebody had once described as ten thousand spare parts flying in loose formation.

Had to hand it to the SH-60 pilot, though. The guy unerringly located the cruiser they were aiming for in the turbulent gray sea. He kissed down on the tossing, postage-stamp helo deck the first try with barely a bounce.

Ward was glad to jump out of the helicopter and down to the deck. He was almost blown off by the wicked crosswind as he exited the chopper and dashed across the platform toward the hangar. Two of the deck crewmen grabbed the grateful submarine commodore and helped him into the shelter of the hangar.