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“Toggle the last two frames.”
Petrov switched back and forth. Irina’s jaw clenched. At the far-left edge of the second frame, a figure was partially silhouetted by the dying flare. It was a woman’s figure. The head was surrounded by a halo of copper-colored curls.
Irina’s fists clenched the console in disbelief. Her jaw tightened. She wasn’t just angry. She was humiliated. And that was worse. She realized that for the first time in her entire life, she had failed to complete an assignment.
As Irina shoved her chair back, the wheels hit the metal grate in the floor. She glanced down and spotted a flake of ash hanging on the edge. She looked over at Petrov, then at Balakin.
“Somebody’s been smoking in here,” she said evenly.
Both guards blanched, but Irina noticed that Balakin’s eyes blinked faster. She stood up and walked to his chair. She crouched behind him, hands on his shoulders. She could feel him trembling. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered.
“Smoking will kill you,” she said.
Balakin released a nervous laugh.
“Don’t worry,” said Irina. “I won’t say a word.”
Balakin exhaled in a heavy rush. Irina felt his whole upper body relax under her touch. She cupped her forearm around his chin and yanked violently, breaking his neck in an instant. The pop of his vertebrae sounded like a whip crack.
Petrov flew out of his chair and stood shaking against the wall. Irina released her grip and let Balakin’s body slide onto the floor. She advanced slowly toward Petrov.
He reached down and fingered his gun holster. Irina rested her hand lightly on top of his. She was smiling now, strangely polite and composed.
“Plant him in the woods,” she said, “or sink him in the lake. Your choice.”
CHAPTER 85
The Bering Sea
FOR A SOLID hour, I went back and forth in my mind. I was so hungry I couldn’t think straight. I was getting weaker by the minute, and my mind was getting foggy. I knew I had to make the most of my body and my brain cells while they were still functioning.
The way I saw it, I had two choices, both of them bad. I could resign myself to dying a slow death inside my ancestor’s artificial iceberg. Or I could take a chance on getting out—in a machine that might kill me. I paced around the gaping hole in the floor, looking down into the chamber of seawater, watching the submarine bobbing in its berth. The more I stared at it, the more I felt like Doc Savage was taunting me—or daring me.
Then I thought about Kira again, and about the battle we were supposed to face together. She’d never told me her plan. Maybe she didn’t have one. Maybe she assumed that we’d figure it out as a team. I definitely didn’t feel up to saving the world on my own, but I realized that if I had a chance to complete the mission, I had to try. For her.
In other words, I didn’t really have a choice.
I grabbed my backpack. I tossed in a hammer, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers. I grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the wool blanket from the cot. I rustled through the rusty devices on the worktables, but nothing else looked useful.
I stood for a minute at the edge of the hole in the floor, then stepped onto the top of the sub. The metal shell was curved and slippery, and the whole thing shifted under my weight. I grabbed the edge of the lid. I figured that opening it was going to take all my strength. But it flipped up with no effort, as easy as popping a beer can. There was a thick steel wheel on the inside of the lid. I used it to steady myself as I lowered myself into the cabin.
Once I was inside, I could barely move. Even with my old physique, it would have been a tight fit. The only light came through the hatch from the space above. I took a chance and flipped a row of switches on the inside curve of the submarine wall. A row of light bars popped on along the sides, casting a weird bluish glow. I felt a sick wave of claustrophobia. The whole idea seemed suicidal.Suck it up, Doctor,I told myself.
I reached up and pulled the hatch shut. I cranked the wheel to the right and heard the opening seal tight. I felt like I had just locked myself in a tomb. The sub was still banging against the support post, but now I was hearing it from the inside—a metallic echo. Like a bell tolling.
I wedged myself into the single seat and looked around. For all I knew, I was sitting in an unfinished model or a decoy. I wasn’t even sure it had a working engine. I looked around, trying to read Doc Savage’s mind from the distance of a century. Some of the controls seemed obvious. I assumed the metal stick in front of me was the speed control, and that the foot pedals turned the rudder.
I ran my fingers over the maze of buttons and switches on the small console in front of me. A few of them actually had labels. One saidPWR. I hovered my finger over it, then pressed. I heard a low whine behind me, then loud thumping. The thumping got faster and faster until it turned into a throbbing hum. The whole sub vibrated and I could see white bubbles blasting up from underneath.
I took a guess thatRLSmeant “Release.” I pressed the button. I heard metal parts grinding and felt something give way. Suddenly the sub dropped a few feet lower in the water and rolled to the left. I pushed forward on the stick between my knees. The engine hum turned into a growl. The sub righted itself and began to glide forward out of the chamber.
All I could see through the small porthole in front was greenish-blue water filled with whitish fragments, like dandruff falling from the underside of the fortress. In a few seconds, I could see that I was emerging from under the far edge of the structure into the open sea. The water turned a lighter shade of green. I exhaled slowly.
If this was my tomb, at least it was moving.
CHAPTER 86
Eastern Russia
