Good.

Let them live in the past. They had no clue that his ship was now a floating hydrogen bomb.

Sadir looked over at Salman Dudayev, who was fiddling with some electric wires inside a black metal box over on the right side of the bridge.

"How is the detonator coming, Salman?"

"My work is nearly complete, Kapitan. Should you like, we could vaporize the Rock of Gibraltar from this very bridge."

Sadir smiled at that thought. If they ignited the bomb now, at least the British would no longer pester Arab freighters entering or exiting the Straits.

"Save the fireworks for our real target. Perhaps one day the Rock will bear a monument that we sailed past it on this day toward our glorious mission."

"Praise be to Allah, " Salman Dudayev said.

"Radar officer, what do you see out there?"

"Nothing unusual, Kapitan. No one is paying us any attention. I predict smooth sailing all the way to our target."

"Very well, " Sadir said. "All ahead full."

"All ahead full."

Al Alamein surged ahead in the water, planing slightly as she headed into the open waters of the Atlantic.

The USS Charlotte Straits of Gibraltar

Alert one! Alert one! Incoming emergency action message! Alert One! Alert One! Incoming EAM!"

Commander Steve "Puck" Puckett, captain of the American nuclear submarine USS Charlotte, looked up at the loudspeaker blaring the announcement into the control room.

"XO, take the conn."

"Aye, Captain, I have the conn, " Lieutenant Commander Todd Swanson said.

Puckett barreled through the narrow passageways, passing sailors who stood back and shouted, "Make way for the captain!"

Puck stepped into the radio room.

"Attention on deck!"

"What have you got?" Pete barked.

"The Brits have spotted the freighter. They're right on top of us, sir."

Puckett took the message from the radio officer's hands.

EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE

FROM: NATIONAL MILITARY COMMAND CENTER – WASHINGTON, D.C.

TO: USS CHARLOTTE

SUBJECT: ACTION MESSAGE

REMARKS: British Patrol Boat HMS Sabre has spotted Egyptian freighter Al Alamein in Gibraltar Straits fifteen minutes ago, course bearing two-seven-zero degrees.

Sabre reports Al Alamein making run for open seas of Atlantic at fourteen knots.

Your orders are maintain surveillance of Al Alamein until ordered to break off by National Command Authority.

Be prepared to attack or board by SEAL team on orders of National Command Authority.

Commander Puckett rushed back to the bridge.

"Attention on deck!"

"I have the conn!" Puckett said. "Up scope!"

Puckett grabbed the periscope and swept the horizon. Within minutes the freighter came into view. She was cutting through the water about a mile to the submarine's east, making a run for the open sea.

"Down scope!" Puckett shouted, then picked up the microphone and dialed the sonar room. "Sonar, do you have a read on that freighter?"

"Aye, Captain, we've got her loud and clear. Single screw. Distinctive whine."

"Stay on it. Don't let her out of your ears."

"Aye, Captain."

"XO, get the navigational chart out for Gibraltar."

"Aye, sir." Lieutenant Commander Swanson complied, and the chart was rolled out on a small drafting table.

"Chief of the Boat, OOD, everyone gather around." Puckett called the officers in the control room around him. "All right, let's mark this for the log, " Puckett said. "Here's our position." With a grease pencil, he marked the positon of the submarine. "Here's the position of the freighter. She's headed west." He marked the freighter's position.

"We don't know where she's going, but Washington wants us to follow her and find out. If necessary, we're ordered to board her, or even sink her. So here's the plan. We'll let her pass over us, and then we'll maintain a depth of one hundred fifty feet, and we're going to follow in her wake. We'll use her noise to help camouflage our presence. Be ready and be alert." Puckett eyed his crew. "Any questions?"

There were none.

"Very well. Let's get on with it."

Pulkovo International Airport St. Petersburg, Russia

In a brown leather bomber jacket and blue jeans, and carrying a small black briefcase, Zack Brewer stepped out of the British Airways 767 into the enclosed jetway.

Like the faces of the Russian passengers returning home, the jetway was cold. A wet fog blanketed the land.

Hustling through the jetway and into the antiseptic-smelling hallway, Zack got in the customs line on the left, the line reserved for non Russians.

A stern-faced woman, wearing a green military suit, with a skirt cut at her knees, and clubbed, black leather laceup shoes, stepped out from behind the glass booth and walked down the line of foreigners waiting to come through.

"Commander Brewer!" the woman snapped in Slavic-accented English.

"Dah meen yazavoot Commander Brewer, " Zack stepped out of line and responded in Russian.

The woman raised her eyebrows.

"You speak Russian, Commander?"

"Neemeenoga, " Zack said.

"Your visa, your passport, and your military identification card, please."

Zack produced all three. The woman studied them for a moment. She took Zack's passport and visa, stamped them, and handed them back. "A car waits for you in front of the airport. Follow me."

They walked past the foreigners waiting in the customs line, and then stepped into the corridor of the airport. Two armed Russian soldiers joined them, trailing them all the way to the passenger pickup section at the front of the airport.

"Get into this car, please, " the woman said. One of the Russian soldiers opened the back door of the black Mercedes. "U.S. embassy personnel are in the car."

Zack stepped into the car, sitting alone in the backseat. The car sped forward, sandwiched between two Russian military jeeps.

An officer turned to greet him from the front passenger seat. "Welcome to Russia, Commander."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"I'm Captain Ann Glover, the U.S. Naval Attache to Russia."

"A pleasure, ma'am."

Zack looked out the window as the armed motorcade sped out past the blue and yellow buildings into the thick fog.

"You have to assume everything is bugged here, Zack. Even this car."

Zack thought about that. How would he communicate with his client if everything was bugged?

"You may wonder how you will represent your client under these circumstances."

"You're a mind reader, ma'am."

"I understand you've been briefed on the intelligence situation surrounding the capture of the crew?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You'll have to prepare your defense primarily based on that."

Talk about being handcuffed.

"You have a problem with that, Zack?"

"If those are my orders, those are my orders."

They sped down a freeway, leaving the airport behind in the distance.

"So what do you know about St. Petersburg, Zack?"

"Let's see. The city was known as Leningrad during the Communist reign. When the USSR fell, they changed it back to St. Petersburg. Homeplace of Catherine the Great and President Evtimov. Supposedly Russia's most beautiful city."

"You know more than most Americans, " Captain Glover said. "The city is on the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It is known as the Venice of the North because it literally sits on forty-four islands in the Delta of the Neva River."

The fog thickened, but the driver raced through it like he was Dale Earnhardt Jr. or something. This made Zack nervous. He did not want to be driving in such thick fog, let alone speeding through it at a hundred miles per hour.

"Why'd they change the trial from Moscow to St. Petersburg?" Zack tried distracting his mind from the specter of the Mercedes slamming into a concrete overpass.