“That’s just part of what I wanted to show you,” Tambor went on. “Zoom in on the mouth of the fjord. Look over near the coast.”

Donnegan panned the picture up until he was seeing where the Murmansk Fjord dumped into the cold, stormy Barents Sea. There, hidden behind a bend in the channel, was what Ward Tambor was talking about.

“Looks like a Udaloy II–class destroyer,” Donnegan said through pursed lips. “Where in hell did he come from?”

“He showed up between satellite passes. It’s bearing the side numbers for the Admiral Chabanenko, their newest antisubmarine warfare destroyer. Projections show it has a Plinom sonar suite and two Helix ASW helicopters. Its torpedoes will reach clear across the channel and those SS-N-15 Starfish ASW missiles will take out any sub it can find.”

“He looks like he’s hiding there. Somebody is setting a trap.”

“Looks that way,” Tambor answered grimly. “Tom, you better warn your boys before they swim right into the jaws of the damn thing.”

“Lord knows I wish I could. No way to get hold of them now. They’re on their own, I’m afraid.”

“Then let’s pray that God’s with them.”

“Ward, I’ve already been praying as hard as I can.”

Catherine Goldman was facing yet another deadly quandary. She had just finished a hot bath and was brewing a cup of tea when Dmitri Ustinov called. There for a moment she had been feeling back to normal, the fear washed away with the soothing bathwater. She had managed to put out of her mind the look on the dark-eyed man’s face when she shot him to death. The horror she felt as she ran through the wet snow, escaping the farmhouse. The awful hours, waiting in the back room of the truck stop for Charlie Gruver to come rescue her.

The call had caught her off guard.

She sat in Gruver’s thirty-ninth-floor apartment and stared out at the East River. Fear was threatening to take hold of her again. She could sense it creeping around the edges of her resolve. She didn’t like the way it made her feel out of control, no longer in charge of her own fate.

She took a sip of the tea and glanced around the living room. This place was definitely a guy’s apartment, complete with cheap Crate & Barrel furniture. Some awesome electronics on the shelf at the far wall, though. Even that was covered with thick dust. Magazines were piled on top of the gear, and a couple of empty beer cans rested on the shelf alongside the expensive equipment.

She allowed herself a smile. The place could use a woman’s touch.