Atlantic Run [Paperback]

Atlantic Run

Chapter One

Ukraine

THE WIND SWEPT IN FROM the Black Sea over the once-great piers at Sevastopol and took twenty degrees off the temperature of what should have been a glorious June day. Senior Captain First Rank Pari Avilov sealed his black slicker tighter and selected his incoming channel markers from the sail of the Northern Star, his Akula-class attack submarine.

“Right ten degrees rudder,” Avilov said into the headset mike connecting him to the control room. “Make minimum turns.”

Avilov’s touch was soft. Northern Star moved through the harbor chop like a languid otter.

Something darted across the horizon, and Avilov’s eye jerked to track it. Not a bird, just the same damn gray spot that had been appearing in his peripheral vision with ever greater regularity, followed by a brief pain in his head. Avilov probed his scalp trying to find the spot where it originated but it seemed always just out of reach. Maddening.

“Are you all right, Pari?”

Senior Lieutenant Yuri Pachenko, Avilov’s first officer,was a game, dark-eyed, black-haired little man with quick movements and a wrestler’s shoulders. He had been scanning the water ahead through binoculars for submerged debris. Now he looked concerned.

“The fresh air gives me a headache the first few hours, Yuri,” Avilov said, waving it off. Pachenko had served under him almost two years now, and despite their age difference they had become close friends.

Pachenko accepted the explanation and went back to scanning the harbor. He had come to know his captain well. Pari Ivanovich Avilov was the finest submarine commander in the fleet. His legendary exploits and tactical brilliance had earned him the nickname Orgule, the Hawk. It was appropriate phl“\