33

MITCH AND ED LEANED AGAINST THE RAIL AT THE STERN OF THE GRASP II. The ship’s diesel engines chugged below them. Despite a breeze, the air smelled of exhaust fumes. It wasn’t a pleasant place, which explained why Mitch and Ed had it to themselves.

“So why’d you drag me up here?” asked Ed, raising his voice to be heard over the engines. He took a sip from his mug and made a sour face. “This is a Sumatran blend with complex and delicate flavors—and this stink makes it taste like I stirred it with a tailpipe.”

Mitch was in no mood to trade pleasantries. “I wanted to go someplace we could talk privately. You see what I saw?”

“Where?”

Mitch pointed at the churning ocean below them. “Down there. That submarine. Don’t tell me you thought it was a Nazi wreck.”

Ed looked into his cup and swirled its contents. “What’d you think it was?”

Mitch looked around quickly to make absolutely sure no one was nearby. Then he leaned close to Ed. “Russian nuclear missile sub,” he hissed in Ed’s ear. “Typhoon class. And I don’t think, I know.”

Mitch leaned back and watched his friend’s reaction. Ed nodded slightly and took another sip of his coffee. “Yep, that’s what I saw too.”

Mitch leaned in to whisper again, but Ed shoved him away with his shoulder. “Would you quit that? No one can hear us out here, but they can see. They’re going to think we’re up to something. Or that you’re going Brokeback on me.”

Mitch shoved him back. “Okay, fine. I was just going to say that Lee and Cho didn’t look surprised. I’ll bet they knew there was a Russian sub down there.”

“Really? I’ll go you one better and bet the sun will come up tomorrow. Of course they knew. It all fits together, don’t you see?”

Mitch thought for a moment. “You mean like Lee and Cho and, uh…”

“I mean like everything.” Ed held up thick hairy fingers and started counting off points. “One: the nonferrous metal detectors for Eileen. They’re looking for uranium or plutonium, not gold. Two: the Nazi treasure sub cover story they fed Jenkins.”

“And Jenkins fed you,” Mitch interjected.

“Yeah, exactly. Think it’s a coincidence that setting up Eileen to look for gold also sets her up to look for a nuclear sub? Three: the Koreans. They’re obviously military. I wondered why a military unit would go treasure hunting. Nuclear missile hunting, though—that makes sense.”

Mitch’s stomach dropped and he felt sweat prickling his scalp. The dark portholes of the bulkhead opposite him suddenly looked threatening. “What do you think they’re gonna do?”

“To us? Nothing. At least not ’til they’ve got the bombs or whatever it is they want from that sub. After that?” He shrugged.

Mitch swallowed hard and clenched his fists on the railing. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t find a way not to. It all made too much sense in a brutal way. He’d been in plenty of fights and thought of himself as a pretty tough guy, but he suddenly realized he was soft next to Lee and Cho. There was a hardness in their way of thinking that Mitch had never come up against in any barroom brawl. I’m going to have to start thinking like that. He set his jaw. “So what are we gonna do?”