Chasing Ivan by Tim Tigner Page B

exits. Like game show curtains, I could only choose one. I could go aft. I could go up. Or I could go down. My odds of randomly picking the one Ivan had selected were just one in three. Bad enough, but illusory. The real odds were much worse. My odds would halve and halve again with every turn thereafter.  
    I paused to think. It wouldn’t do to pick a path. I had to pick a destination.
    I thought back to everything I knew about Ivan, and blended it with everything I knew about the yacht. Ivan the Ghost was a grand master at evasive tactics, and arguably better than anyone else in the world at operations planning. He was meticulous. He was audacious. And he was hell bent on remaining invisible. How would a man like that plan to escape the Anzhelika if the shit hit the fan?
    The general answer was trademark Ivan. Ghosts vanish. That was a start, but I had to get more specific.
    How would I vanish on a superyacht? I supposed I might just hide and hope to emerge in Bermuda. Perhaps in some prepared hideaway, already stocked with food, water, and weapons. But that didn’t feel right. Stowing away was both passive and somehow unoriginal. It wasn’t a personality fit. Ivan wouldn’t risk the possibility of his legend ending with the headline, “Discovered by dogs.”  
    Disguise was an option, but also risky. He’d have planned for the worst-case scenario, which had to include the yacht being surrounded and searched by competent pros. Hard men who would look twice and then again, regardless of whether the subject was wearing a ball gown, or surgical scrubs, or a police uniform.  
    That was the stumbling block.  
    A meticulous planner like Ivan would assume that everyone exiting the Anzhelika would be processed through a tight filter.
    It was also the solution.  
    I knew where Ivan had gone.  
    I went down.  
    There was only one deck lower. The aft end of the bottom deck was occupied by fresh water storage and the engine room. Closer to the bow were the cold storage and wine cellar, where I’d begun the hunt. Descending the stairs I found myself further forward still. The trapezoidal room wasn’t very deep, and it hummed with an odd gurgling mechanical noise. If my eyes had been closed I’d have been hard-pressed to place the sound, but they weren’t, and the answer was right at my feet.
    The C-Explorer submarine was a big glass sphere centered between the two arms of a C-shaped orange body. Looking like a pea wedged between a fork’s two tines, the sphere was reminiscent of a helicopter cockpit, offering its occupants largely unobstructed views both horizontally and vertically. By the time I leapt down the last six stairs, only the top of the sphere still breached the water’s surface.
    “He’s getting away by submarine,” I yelled for the benefit of the mike.  
    If I’d had a gun, I could have shot the sphere, although I suspected most bullets would either pancake harmlessly or ricochet off what was no doubt the equivalent of bulletproof glass. But I didn’t have a gun. I scanned the room for weapons, but came up blank. Nothing but basic scuba gear.  
    Oscar said, “…ay …ain …les,” which my brain translated to, “Say again, Achilles.”  
    “He’s about to launch a submarine off the bow!”
    Oscar’s reply translated to, “Say again. We’re not reading you.”
    “Submarine!” Transmission was even worse than reception. They couldn’t hear me. My signal wasn’t penetrating all that steel. I had no time to fiddle with it. The sub was descending. What could they do anyway? As passionate as Director Rider was about killing The Ghost, he wasn’t about to order a missile strike on Monaco.
    I didn’t have time to assemble the scuba equipment neatly stacked and stored in wall racks, so I checked the oxygen levels on the two used systems abandoned on the floor by pampered guests. The best read only one-third, good for about ten minutes. I grabbed its tank through the wet BCD’s armholes,