Chapter 4

I watched closely as she matched the speed of the ship and brought us back into the pool. When we surfaced, the doors were closing and I left the sub to reattach the lifting mechanism, which I now noticed had a remote release on it. It would enable someone to release the sub and then get in to drive it.

We were lifted out of the water and Katiya joined me as we got back onto the deck. We hosed the mini sub with fresh water and then went to change back into normal clothes. Katiya acted as if it had been a normal training trip, telling the others that I had picked up the controls well. We went back up to the saloon after shutting everything down.

The rest of the journey to Monaco was restful, and I was getting to wonder what arriving there on a superyacht would be like. A lot different from hitching in with a backpack on, I expect. I wasn’t surprised when we anchored well offshore but was when the helicopter was quickly brought up. Instead of going ashore by launch, our bags were loaded onto the helicopter, and we flew to a hotel with a helipad. We were welcomed by uniformed attendants and followed them, and our bags, down one floor to the penthouse suites.

We had three, with Yuri and Alyona in one, Natasha and Dimitri in another, and the three of us in the third, with Svetlana and me in one bedroom and Katiya on her own in another. Once we had settled in, the three of us went down to the lobby where a car waited for us.

“We thought that you might enjoy a tour of the place, Mikhail. I’ve been here several times, and Katiya has been here before, but it would be fun to show you around.”

I was sat in the back with Svetlana, as the driver took us to all the best places. We lunched at the Casino but didn’t gamble. Lana said that life was too short to bet on chance. In the late afternoon, we were back at the hotel to dress for dinner, after which, we all went to see a ballet performance. It was, of course, Swan Lake, and was spectacular. I was sitting between the two girls and each one had a hold on an arm.

Back in our suite, Katiya went to her room and both Lana and I prepared for bed. She was in our ensuite to remove her make-up while I undressed and got into the very big bed. She came out, wearing a red see-through nightie that made my loins twitch. Then, the connecting door opened, and Katiya walked in, wearing a black version. Lana smiled.

“We thought that Katiya would like to really thank you for helping remove my brother. I’m off to sleep in her bed, while she will be sleeping here. Later, I might join you.”

They hugged and Lana left us. I was already in a state of readiness as Katiya got into the bed and kissed me a lot more forcibly than she had done so in the sub. What could I do but reciprocate. She helped me remove the pyjamas, but kept her nightie on, as it wasn’t a great impediment to what we were both looking forward to, with her releasing her pent-up frustration with her need to be loved, rather than ravaged. I hoped that I was up to the task.

Afterwards, we were laying together and Lana joined us in the bed, with me between two gorgeous women. I found myself on my back, kissing Katiya, fondling her breasts, and a finger rubbing her to another orgasm, while Svetlana rode my new-found virility. I was finally allowed to sleep, with one each side of me.

When I woke up, in the morning, I was still crowded by the pair of them. They took advantage of my morning glory with Katiya riding me while Lana sat herself on my face for me to tongue her to a climax. Only then did they both kiss my wet face and Katiya went back to her room. I needed a pee and a shower, with Lana joining me as we washed each other.

When the breakfast was delivered to our room, the three of us were fully dressed and sitting at the table, talking about today’s plans as if the night hadn’t happened. It was still vivid in my mind, though, as it had been so different from anything I had ever experienced. The big thing was that both girls now treated me as their own, without any trace of jealousy or possessiveness.

The girls wanted to visit the Japanese Gardens, followed by the African Gardens, and then go shopping at the Metropole. It was all to see if we were attracting followers. Both gardens were open enough for us to spot anybody taking an interest, other than the two crewmen who kept a distance from us. The gardens were worth the visit, and then we entered the expensive confines of the Metropole area.

I was dragged into the Society Club menswear shop, where I was re-outfitted in the typical off-white suite that was worn by all the trendy men in town. There was a couple more added to my bags, with Lana paying for them and telling the store to deliver them to our suite in the hotel.

Then, I was hovering while they visited several dress shops and tried on so many things I lost count. In the end, there had been more than one shop paid and told where to deliver the bags. I could see how so many bags had come off that ferry in Palma. When Lana shopped, she made sure she got what she wanted, and she wanted an awful lot! We ended the shopping across the Avenue, in the Louboutin shoe store. There, it was Lana as the main buyer, spending more than my old yearly salary on shoes that didn’t look safe to walk in, but did look good on her.

We had a simple lunch in the Lucas Allner café back inside the Metropole. In the afternoon, we visited the Prince’s Palace and then the Rock, before going back to our hotel to dress for dinner. All day, the girls spoke Russian to each other and only spoke English when they spoke to me. I must have looked like their chaperone during the day. That evening, during the meal, Yuri told us that we would all be returning to the ship next day, with the helicopter taking the three of us, and a load of luggage, around ten. He, and the other three, would be joining us later, and we would lift anchor before dinner. He told me to make sure that I was ready for a dive the day after.

The other four went off to the theatre, while the girls and I went to the bar for a few drinks to fortify me before an early night. It may have been early, but they ensured that it was a long one, with me exhausted when they allowed me to sleep. This attention was making me worry. I’ve always been a one-woman man, and two at once was odd. What was odd was that Katiya was more loving than Lana, who was just using me as a means towards her orgasms.

We were taken back to the ship next day as planned, and our shopping packed away in the wardrobes. The three of us were back at our usual status, with Katiya not as close as before. The following day, we were tracking south down the Italian coast as I was sent to suit up for a shallow dive, no deeper than fifty metres. I put a three-cylinder air pack on, and the ship slowed to a steady few knots. I went in at the lifting pool, seeing a Russian submarine below us with the doors of two launching tubes open.

I had a small sled that had enough speed that I could keep up with both vessels and pulled the hawsers with me as I went down to the open hatch. Dimitri had told me that it didn’t matter which one I pulled up first, so I went to the nearest hatch and peered in, seeing the body of the missile inside. I hooked the sled to the hatch and entered the tube with the hawsers. My training on board the ship stood me well as it didn’t take very long to hook it up. I pressed the button on the sled which sent the lift message.

The missile came up, out of its launch tube, and I steadied it as it came clear and trailed in the flow. I unhooked the sled and followed the missile into the ship. Katiya gave me a drink of water while the missile was lifted out and hooked on the travelling crane. I went back in the water and pulling the hawsers back down to the submarine. The second one was easier than the first, and I saw the doors closing as the submarine dived deeper as I was heading back to the ship.

When I had stripped and had a freshwater shower, Katiya gave me a hot drink and told me that I was worth every penny I was being paid. The problem was that I was wondering if I would stay alive long enough to pick up the money. Lana and Dimitri were with the missiles, making sure that they were properly stored. While I dressed, Katiya closed the doors and stored the sled. Then she gave me a loving kiss before we went up to saloon and a rest with a drink.

Yuri showed up and congratulated me on a job well done. All that was left now was to pick up the warheads, which he said would be waiting for us off the coast of Alexandria, in three days’ time. I stopped wondering about how he was certain that they would be there. I wondered if any Russian Navy captain would be brave enough to ‘lose’ a nuclear warhead. The only cruise missile submarine that I knew of that still had the missiles on board was the K-219, which sank near Bermuda, and was last known to be close to six thousand metres down. That was sixty years ago.

I spent the next few days reading, resting, and making love to two beautiful women, with them taking alternate evenings in my bed, with Lana being there every morning when the steward came in with breakfast. I was advised that the dive would need the pressure suit. We continued our leisurely course, seeing some sights on the way. Yuri stayed in his quarters, probably making sure everything was on track.

When we hove-to off of Alexandria, we stayed on station with the small propellors, while Katiya sent the explorer sled down to locate our target. They were lying on the seabed, at just over four hundred feet. Each one had a single lifting hook, so I would be taking down two hawsers and bringing them both back together. The operation went as planned, with me taking the hawsers down behind the sled. When I hooked them up, I noticed the writing on them. I hadn’t let on that I could read Russian, and these were both marked as made in nineteen-eighty-five, so they must have been from K-219. I thought long and hard about it on my long return to the ship. Them being here was a real twist in the story.

The only way that I could see them supplied was if the Americans had salvaged them from the lost submarine. Salvage at six thousand wasn’t unheard of in this day and age, with remote controlled units that could do remarkably delicate things. If it had been the Americans that were in this game, perhaps the story about it being a group of like-minded Russian Naval captains wasn’t totally true.

When we had visited Alexandria and done our tourist things, we set sail north, towards the Greek Islands and the Dardanelles Strait. The atmosphere on board was starting to get tense. Svetlana started a bad period and returned to her old room, so Katiya joined me every night.

It was during the afterglow of our lovemaking that she whispered in my ear,

“When we launch the missiles, be prepared to head for the mini-sub. I believe that Yuri is going to drop Alyona and Natasha in Istanbul. That will leave us on board for whatever happens after the launch. If the helicopter is ready to leave during the final moments, then it means that Yuri is leaving. He’s not a man who will die for a cause, and the might of the Russian Navy will be wondering why a private ship launched a pair of cruise missiles. It’s something that cannot be hidden. They’ll have radar tracking and will be able to trace it back to us.”

“You have a plan?”

“I do. If we can get away in the mini sub, I have a rendezvous with a friend off the mouth of the Dardanelles. I would like it if you were with me, Michael.”

I was just dozing off as I realised that she had called me Michael for the first time, and that I liked the sound of it.

When we arrived at Istanbul, we anchored offshore while a launch carried a lot of luggage to the port. I watched, through binoculars, as it was all loaded into vans and carried away. There was no goodbye affair as Alyona and Natasha left the ship, with Yuri and Dimitri waving to them as they were taken away. Once they had left, we were under way once more and sailing into the Black Sea.

Katiya and I were now left out of the events as the ship was made ready for action. We had free run of our usual areas, but the missile area was out of bounds. Katiya had a pass which would take us to the weapons deck, where we saw all the guns ready for action, with the ammunition loaded. Without having to discuss anything, we went to the gun range and took a couple of pistols, loaded them and loaded extra clips.

She and I were thinking the same, that we may be targeted after the launch, so that we could never tell the story. She was as handy with the weapon as I was, which made me wonder at where she had been trained in driving submersibles. I hoped that we had the time, afterwards, for me to find out.

Two days later, it was dark as we approached Sevastopol. I was in the saloon with the lights out and looking out with night-glasses. I could see some navy ships at anchor. I saw the doors on the deck open and the helicopter rolled out to the take-off point. When the lifting deck retracted, the doors stayed open. I could smell the perfume that Katiya liked as we watched. Yuri, Svetlana, and Dimitri ran out to the helicopter and got in, with it lifting off almost immediately. That meant that it was just us and the crew.

It was heading for one of the other ships when I saw the curling tracer from a pom-pom gun rise up and blow it out of the air. A few seconds later, the sky lit up with the flames of missiles launched from every ship, including ours. We raced to the lift to take us to the sub. We had put a few things inside that were easily carried, as well as a pair of rebreathers that Katiya had told me we would need. We opened the doors and she got into the sub to turn everything on. I was at the release when the door of the room opened, and an armed crewman rushed in. I shot him, just as I heard her call to release. I hit the release lever and dived for the hatch as we dropped. As I closed the hatch, I heard the distinct sound of the gun deck firing.

We dived away from the ship as I was getting strapped in. There was an almighty pressure wave that tossed us around like a cork, and I could see bits of the ship sinking past us as Katiya took us clear. The fleet must have been very quick or had been expecting us. I stayed quiet as she took us to a manageable depth, and we crept away from the scene.

“This has the sonar return of debris, and there’s a lot of that around at the moment. Hopefully, we can get far enough away that the Russians won’t bother chasing us.”

We headed south at a speed that almost made me scream. We spoke in whispers in case there were microphones listening. It was a very cramped cabin, but so is the back seat of a car, and it didn’t restrict our slow and quiet lovemaking. After about five hours without someone trying to kill us, we increased the speed and set a course directly towards Istanbul. The distance we needed to go was close to seven hundred kilometres, so I asked if we had the battery power.

“No. We will have to lie low until dark. We have a generator but will have to be close to the surface to run it, with clean air coming in and exhaust going out.”

When the power gauge was showing only a quarter power left, we slowed down to an idle until we were sure that it was dark. Then we rose towards the surface until we could put our camera up. It had the same purpose as the old periscopes but had zoom capabilities. We did three full circuits to make sure there was nothing near us, then extended the intake and exhaust for the small motor. We were sitting ducks for the two hours before we had full power, but we didn’t need to use extra to get away from a sinking ship this time.

It took us two more days to reach the mouth of the straits that took us past Istanbul, sleeping when we could, renewing the power twice, and living on bottled water and meagre rations. There was a chemical toilet that we used, but it was a long trip, only made pleasurable by our need to make love every now and then. Close to the mouth of the straits, we put the camera up to find a ship heading our way, then went to a depth of about fifty feet and crept up under it.

It was a very tense thirty kilometres as we kept position and made our way past Istanbul to the Sea of Marmara, diving as we reached deeper waters and veering away from the ship. From here, it was close to three hundred kilometres to Kat’s rendezvous point. I wasn’t going to ask who we were meeting as I didn’t want to spoil our bonding in this cramped space. It wasn’t as if one of us could walk away in a huff.

Another two days and more recharging later, we were at the Dardanelles, following another ship as it passed through. As we emerged into the Aegean Sea, we changed the course, heading north.

“Not long now, Michael. The rendezvous is between the two islands to the north, where there’s a deep trench. Our ride is waiting, and we will sink this glorious machine in the deeps. I’ll be sad to see it go, considering how much it must have cost. It was never meant to have two people living in it for a week, but it has worked well.”

As we rounded the first island, she sent out a message on the undersea radio. Five minutes later we had an acknowledgement. It wasn’t long after that I heard the distinctive pinging on the hull of a sonar tracking. After an hour, a long shape appeared beside us, and we had a radio message to shut down our motion.

“Time for the rebreathers, I think.”

We helped each other put them on and then made sure we had our possessions in waterproof packs, leaving the pistols and ammunition behind. There was a tapping on the plexiglass, and we could see two divers outside. They gave us the thumbs up, and we went to the one-man escape hatch. Katiya went first, and I could see her being escorted to the submarine by one of the divers. I followed, after I had opened the stopcocks, emerging into the open sea as the mini sub started to sink. The other diver escorted me to the big submarine and to the hatch.

Katiya was nowhere to be seen as I emerged from the escape hatch and two seamen helped me out of the rebreather and my wet clothes. I was given a towel to dry myself and then a dressing gown and soft slippers that are usual for submarines. They didn’t speak and I didn’t ask any questions. The diver was being looked after by another two ratings. When we were both dressed, he led me through to the sort of passageway that I’d seen before. There was no mistaking that I was on board an American submarine, and, by the size of the shape that I had seen, was probably one of the newer ones.

He led me to the officers’ quarters and a tiny cabin. It was only then that another officer met us. He held out his hand and smiled as we shook.

“Welcome to the ‘Montana’ Lieutenant Brown. I hope that your stay will be a happy one. When you have rested, we’ll give you a full medical, make sure that you’re well fed and rested. No interrogations here, but we will be transferring you and your partner once we’re in the open waters of the Med. She is in the women’s quarters and will get the same treatment. They haven’t told me what you’ve been up to, but I’m sure that it was worth bringing us here to pick you up. Now, the main thing is for you to stretch out and have a good sleep, a rating will be by with a hot drink and a couple of sleeping pills.”

At that, he left us, and the other diver showed me the light switches and pointed out where the latrines were. I took off the dressing gown and got into the bed. A rating came by with the drink and pills. I knew that I needed a good sleep to get through my immediate future. If things had gone tits-up, I would have been in chains in the brig by now. I dozed off, thinking about the fact that this officer, in a submarine a long way from anywhere, knew my name and rank!

I must have slept the clock around, although day and night aren’t a factor in a submarine. When I woke, I dragged the gown on and found the latrine that had been pointed out. I did my business and then used the tiny shower and the cleaning supplies. When I went back to the small cabin, there was a full kit waiting for me. It was white, but nothing like the white suit that I had purchased in Monaco.

I was dressed and ready for action when a rating appeared to take me to the sick bay. I was hungry but knew that the medical had to come first. They weighed, measured, listened to my internal sounds, took blood, and then allowed me to be taken to the mess, where I joined some of the crew, although at a separate table. The mess was not gender-specific, with female ratings. I was well into some real food when Katiya joined me.

I stood and we hugged before she sat down with a plate of food put in front of her. We both ate ravenously and enjoyed a mug of real coffee before we said anything. I looked at her.

“Let me guess. Your name isn’t Katiya?”

“No, Michael. It’s Katherine, so you can keep calling me Kat. This doesn’t change our relationship, I hope.”

“Seeing that I’m dead, as far as the world is concerned, I’m not sure what I can offer you as far as a future goes.”

“I’m sure that we will be looked after. If things had gone pear-shaped, we would be fish food by now, with no-one prepared to own up to knowing us.”

“I still don’t know what happed after the launch.”

“Nor do I. I expect that the only person on board that does know is the Commander, and he would only let on if there’s a war in the offing. I think that we’re good but won’t know until we’re passed on up the chain.”

“I suppose that the whole plan was hatched in America?”

“All I knew was that I was inserted into a position where Gregor was able to recruit me into the ship’s company as a submersible driver. I was told was that Yuri was planning something big, but nobody had any idea at just how big he was thinking. I got a message drop that you were joining us while I was in Barcelona, before we sailed to Palma.”

“How long had you been on board by then?”

“Close to six months. It was well worth it when you turned up and helped to put Gregor out of the picture. He had no idea what his father was planning, but Dimitri and I were working closely enough for him to tell me some of the detail. I needed to know what we were picking up to plan the dives. Svetlana’s husband was supposed to be the main diver until Gregor shot him. That put the cat among the pigeons for several weeks before you came on the scene.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024