“I swear to you, sir, I don’t know what you’re talking-”

Whack saw the boot coming this time, but he couldn’t move anywhere near fast enough to dodge it. Another tooth came loose, and he choked on a fresh mouthful of blood.

When he could see again, he was sitting upright, looking into the face of the English-speaking Russian with the nerdy-looking black tie. He shook his head. “You do not look so well, Mr. Coulter. I will summon a doctor for you right away, but first you must tell me that it was you that was on the beach early this morning. If you tell me this is so, you will be treated by a physician and released. If you do not, we may be at this for quite some time.”

Whack’s vision blurred. He didn’t try to clear it, but instead let his mind drift. His vision, and then his conscious mind, went dark. To Wayne Macomber, darkness meant solitude, escape, rest, superiority over an adversary, and safety, and so he allowed his subconscious mind to expand and embrace the darkness. The pain was still there, but it was now tolerable, as if he were falling asleep on rocky ground.

“Mr. Coulter, are you still with us?” he faintly heard the Russian ask him. Whack could feel an eyelid pulled open, but his consciousness remained dark. The Russian said something in Russian, sounded like a curse; then, in English: “I have seen this before, Mr. Coulter. It is a technique that only the best field intelligence operatives and special forces commandos have mastered. Some men are able to shut down their conscious minds to such an extent as to block out pain and fear and thus make the muscles almost impervious to physical torture. So which are you, Mr. Coulter-an intelligence operative, or special forces commando?” Whack chose not to answer.

“Of course,” the Russian went on, “if the mind is even partially conscious, eventually a combination of physical and chemical torture will break down even the most disciplined and well-trained mind-break it, or destroy it, in a most painful and twisted manner. Can you hear me, Mr. Coulter? If you can, you are minutes away from the worst pain any man has ever experienced. You can save yourself the agony, Mr. Coulter, by telling me who you really are, and what this equipment really does, and what you were really doing out there last night.”

Whack’s eyes were partially open and partially rolled back in his head, his blue tongue hung loosely out of his mouth between partially clenched bloodstained teeth, and his breathing looked as if it had stopped. Antonov stood up and shook his head. “A real old-style warhorse, this one,” he mused. He opened his cellular phone, dialed a number, waited, then spoke in Russian: “It is me, Gennadiy. We found him; he tried to run, but we got him. He can hear us, but he shut down his body to resist interrogation…no…just shut up for a minute…yes, I said he shut down his body to resist physical interrogation…no, I am not making up a story, it can be done, and this one has done it. I have done all I can here. He will have to be evacuated to headquarters in Sana’a or to the carrier Putin to continue chemical interrogation.”

He noticed a splotch of blood on his boots, knelt down, and began to rub it off as he went on: “Oh, and one more thing, Gennadiy: Go over and talk to the commander of that new Strategic Defense Force unit at the radar facility…yes, you need to go over there and talk with him in person, because you need to impress upon him the importance of shutting his operation down and doing a thorough security sweep before…I know those bastards do not like the GRU and do not allow us routine access to do proper security checks. That is why you must convince them to do their own sweep to be sure everything is normal. I will…yes, I will call him first, but you must go over there and…just do it, Gennadiy. I do not care how stuck-up you think those Strategic Defense Force guys are…Me? I will be analyzing this man’s equipment. If it is who I think it might be, we may have stumbled upon the espionage event of the decade.”

IN THE GULF OF ADEN

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING

Seventy-five miles west of its nest, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Rourke, the SH-60 Seahawk helicopter continued its search grid for the downed bomber crew. The Rourke had been detached from its duties escorting the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which was about two hundred miles to the east, to help in the search. At the beginning of its third full day of searching, the outlook was not promising, although the weather was cooperative and the seas rather benign.

For the surface search-and-rescue mission, the Seahawk was equipped with a forward-looking infrared sensor on the nose and a rescue hoist on the starboard door, along with its usual APS-124 search radar. The enlisted aviation-systems warfare officer, trained in searching the surface of the ocean, was in the starboard-side-door station, while a rescue swimmer manned the port-side door. Since there had been no radar contact with the bomber except for an approximate position given by Armstrong Space Station operators, and the bomber had skipped through the sky uncontrollably after being hit, there was no precise location for the crew, so it was a hit-or-miss job, and so far the results had been a miss.

“Coming up on bingo fuel, guys,” the Seahawk’s copilot/airborne tactical officer reported. He entered instructions into the flight computer, which would catalog their grid pattern search and automatically relay updated grid-search instructions to the follow-on crew. “Station check, secure your gear, and-”

“Contact, port side, nine o’clock, one mile!” the rescue swimmer in the port-side door shouted on intercom. He immediately formed a gunsight with his left hand around what he saw so he wouldn’t lose contact as the pilot turned. “Clear to turn.” The pilot didn’t turn the full ninety degrees, but only forty-five degrees left, so the observer could maintain contact with what he saw out the door while giving himself a chance to spot it, too.

As they closed in, they could see why it had been so hard to spot: The orange life raft was covered with oil, obscuring the bright color, and it was partially submerged because it appeared both crewmembers were aboard a single one-person raft. That was not a good sign.

“I’ve got contact,” the pilot reported. “Swimmer, get ready.” The rescue diver began donning mask, snorkel, and fins.

“We’re coming up on emergency fuel, boss,” the copilot said. “Not enough fuel for a hoist. The destroyer’s too far away.”

The pilot thought he was going to go for it anyway-bingo and emergency fuel figures always had an extra margin included “for the wife and kids”-but there was another helicopter already en route, so why risk losing a helicopter if they screwed up the fuel flow and quantity numbers? “Paul, looks like you’re going to go swimming for a while,” the pilot said. “Feel up to it? Three-Two is only thirty minutes out. Last water temp was sixty-seven.”

“No sweat, Lieutenant,” the rescue swimmer, Petty Officer Paul Malkin, said. He wore a twelve-millimeter one-piece cold-water wet suit, which would keep him safe in water down to forty degrees. He sat on the open door’s sill, removed his headset, put his mask and snorkel in place, and gave the copilot a thumbs-up.

“Stand by on the rescue container,” the pilot said. He maneuvered over to the raft. “Now!” The sensor operator threw the orange-and-white fiberglass container overboard out the starboard door. When it hit the water, it automatically opened and deployed a four-person covered life raft with water, survival, and medical equipment secured inside. The pilot translated slightly, getting as close as possible to the survivors without flipping their raft or the rescue raft over with his rotor wash. When he was sure he was clear of both rafts, the rescue swimmer jumped out the door, holding his mask firmly in place.