He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched in a number. A woman answered on the first ring.

“Marina, my love, I have a little errand for your new uncles.”

After relating what needed to be done and hanging up, he brought up his e-mail program on the computer screen. He needed to contact Catherine Goldman now that she had been fired from the project.

Catherine,

You are in great danger. Stern has a mole in the SEC. They know that you have discovered their plot. They mean to take you out of the picture. I am sending friends to protect you. Go with them, please. They will identify themselves as Marina’s uncles.

Your friend,

Dmitri

That should do it. The smirk was back on his broad face as he clicked the mouse on the SEND box.

Admiral Tom Donnegan read the little yellow sheet of paper with great interest. So, the Russian, Captain Andropoyov, was right. He had been telling the truth. It appeared that Admiral Alexander Durov’s unbelievable scheme was a reality after all and it was already in progress. Beaman’s SEALs had caught one of the mysterious Akula boats, the subs that were supposed to be rusting alongside the pier ready for the scrap yard, trying to slip out of the covered dock. Its treachery was confirmed when they saw it diving before it ever entered the open sea. They still needed to know where it was going and what it would do once it got there. They also needed to know how many more would emerge from the covered pens behind it.

Damnation! The clock was ticking now. Amid the confusion over a contrived international incident involving Donnegan’s submarines, that old fool Durov was going to attempt a coup! It would not be a bloodless one. Of that they could be assured. One of Donnegan’s worst nightmares was coming true. A rogue Russian with enough military might to be able to pull it off was about to set loose something that could blow up into Armageddon if it went unchecked!

The admiral yelled out the open door of his inner office to his aide, “Get this out to Jon Ward and Joe Glass right away. Use the SpecOp Intel channel. The ocean up there is about to get real busy!”

Joe Glass stepped up onto the periscope stand. He had just spent a very trying ten minutes wrestling with the geographic realities of the navigation charts. The little detour to medevac Oshley had cost them twelve precious hours that they couldn’t make up. They would have to run hard, directly to Murmansk, just to get there in time to rescue the SEALs. No time for fancy maneuvers, just a straight run in.

Pat Durand stood at the forward port railing, watching his ship control team handle the complex task of driving the sub.

“Pat, you ready to go to periscope depth?” Glass asked.