Page 80 of Gryphon

He looked down at his chest, then quickly set the button to rights as it should be. The coat’s fabric lay better as well.

“This general—” the man began.

“Oh, why did you say, who claimed to be?”

“Because, I’m Général de division aérienne, what you would call a two-star major general, Pierre Vachon of France. I was traveling to Sweden particularly to meet with you regarding your recent investigations when I heard you were returning to Reykjavik; my plane arrived an hour earlier than yours. I’m the NATO department head for Article 5 investigations. More importantly, we have no General Kurbanov on our staff.”

63

Kommendör Kerstin Holmgren studied the sweep of her sweet boat’s radar. She’d been issued an all-speed order last night to race to the eastern limits of the Gulf of Finland. At thirty-seven knots, the seventy-meter-long Visby class corvette HSwMS Karlstad had covered the four hundred kilometers from Stockholm in under six hours.

She wished she knew why she’d brought His Swedish Majesty’s Ship here but those details weren’t forthcoming yet. Typical military, a lot of hurry-up-and-wait without ever knowing quite why.

Thought it wasn’t hard to guess. Someone had downed a Gripen jet here at the edge of Russian territorial waters. Command was scrambling to get some serious assets into place in case it was the warning shot of a Russian putsch against Scandinavia.

So far, Karlstad was the lone naval asset along the edge of Russian territorial waters. She’d left the nearest submarine, moving at half her speed, far behind. Never had a forty-kilometer wide stretch of water felt as narrow. Estonia to the south, Finland north, and nothing but Russia dead ahead. Drift ice, some of it a half-meter thick, added to the clutter.

The pair of Saab Gripens patrolling overhead counted for some comfort—though less than she liked after yesterday’s events. She hoped for their sakes they didn’t know that her attack-rigged AgustaWestland AW109M helicopter had been switched out for the AW109LUH search-and-rescue bird even as they’d raced out of port. Though the pilots must know of Major Eklund’s forcible seat ejection and death by now, they might find it disconcerting to know that the Karlstad was more prepared to rescue them than to fight.

Karlstad boasted a complement of forty-three aboard plus the helicopter’s crew of three. She’d sent all she dared to the bunks as they roared across the northern Baltic. What little they’d slept, with all sixteen megawatts of the four gas turbines driving the twin waterjet drives at top speed, was all they were going to get for a while.

“Engineering, I want a full system check after that high-speed run.”

They acknowledged the order.

Tactical were at their scopes. She ordered battle rations. They were slower to distribute to the entire crew and less appealing, but the two cooks would deliver food and coffee to where the crew were rather than releasing them from duty stations to hit the galley.

The coming dawn was fast chasing away the darkest blue. If the Russians made a move, would it be in the short six hours of daylight? She hoped so. The Visby class corvettes were angular with stealth, fast with their big engines, had plenty of teeth for a fight, and had all the gear to fight at night.

But they were still a small boat stationed directly opposite St. Petersburg. And dodging through floating ice in the dark if fast maneuvering was required wouldn’t go well at all.

Worse, they were also two years from the scheduled refit that would give her anti-aircraft weaponry. All of her current armament assumed she’d be hunting subs or other ships. The recent Ukraine War had finally woken up the leaders to what their commanders had been saying for years. The next war was going to come mostly from the air: jets, drones, artillery, and more drones. The Karlstad remained ill-equipped to fend off those, though Kerstin would use her ship’s armaments to the limit.

Tactical showed that a Finnish missile boat should be arriving in two hours. They were half the size of her Visby-class boat, but they did carry two different surface-to-air missile systems and she’d be happier once they were alongside.

Where was an American destroyer when she needed one? Probably sitting outside the mouth of the Baltic, not wishing to appear provocative. Eighteen hundred kilometers by sea placed them thirty-plus hours away. Useless bloody Yanks. They’d only be helpful after she was dead.

64

“Hello, Holly. Is General Kurbanov still with you?”

As if that wasn’t the question of the year. “Hi, Miranda. No, he isn’t. Where are you?”

“Approximately thirty-five meters from the front door of the conference hotel.”

Mike waggled his hands with spread fingers and offered a smile to Holly.

Yeah, from Miranda approximately meant she was between thirty-four and thirty-six meters away from the door. Actually, there’d been enough of a pause she might have pulled out her range meter to measure the precise distance. No, then she’d have reported the tenths as well.

“Why are you asking about Kurbanov?”

“I didn’t.”

Holly stared at the phone where she’d placed it on the bar before answering. “You just did, Miranda.”

“Well, yes. That’s technically accurate. But the person who wanted to know the answer isn’t me. Does that mean that it’s still my question or is it his?”

“It depends. Who is he?”

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