When Ustinov looked up, he was staring straight into the cold blue eyes of Marina Nosovitskaya. She was not smiling. “What have you done, Dmitri?”

“Fixed something we should never have broken.”

She looked at him strangely. Her eyes narrowed. “It is that Goldman woman. Why are you risking everything we have done to protect her?”

Ustinov rose from his desk. Even standing erect, the young computer tech barely reached Nosovitskaya’s shoulder. He was close enough to her to feel the warmth of her glorious body. Her perfume almost made him swoon. He fought to maintain his convictions with her standing so close.

“Marina, there is no reason to hurt her. To hurt anyone. By the time she knows for certain what is going on, we will be done and gone. Rich beyond our dreams and back to Russia or wherever we want to go. If she gets hurt, though, the Americans will be relentless. They will hunt us down. Manipulating their beloved stock market is one thing. Murdering a government official and the CTO of the stock exchange is quite another.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m doing this to protect us, not the Goldman woman.”

He tried to read the expression in her ice blue eyes. There was no way on earth to tell what she was thinking.

Brian Edwards looked across the plotting table at Joe Glass. The submarine captain was measuring out the distances between his boat, Toledo, and where they thought the three Akulas were by now.

“Skipper, how long are we going to tail along behind this train?” the young XO pointedly asked.

Toledo had been following the Russian submarines out of the Murmansk Fjord and east along the Kola Peninsula for a little over twelve hours. Safely tucked up against the coast of the motherland, the three were trucking along at twenty knots. They didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned about anyone trailing them.

Glass was satisfied with what he saw on the chart. He looked up at the XO and answered his question. “I’d say this is far enough. I’m guessing our friends are heading into the White Sea. Let’s break off now and head back. Gonzales and Beaman and the boys may get just a bit touchy if we don’t show up to pick them up.”

He glanced forward toward Jerry Perez. He was standing on the conn, between the two periscopes.

“Nav, slow to five knots,” Glass ordered. “When our friends have opened out to three thousand yards, reverse course to three-one-zero. We’ll come up to periscope depth when you get on course. I’d like to grab a quick communications download before we head back into the fjord.”

“Aye, sir,” Perez acknowledged. “Slowing to five knots.”