He pulled off her helmet. A shower of seawater poured out, splattering the already soaked deck. Reaching around, Remo massaged her lower spine. With the other hand he worked the heart and lungs. Petrovina's pale face reddened. All at once her eyes shot open. Gasping desperately for air, she turned her head, coughing up water. Bleary-eyed, she twisted toward her savior, still gagging on seawater. "Who are you?" Petrovina demanded as she pushed herself up to a sitting position.
"My name is Mr. Thank-You-For-Saving-My-Life," Remo said. "But you can call me I-Would-Have-Drowned-If-It-Wasn't-For-You."
She hardly heard. Her attention was drawn to the side of the boat where the three former KGB men were pawing through floating trash trying to swim back to their vessel.
A light switched on in her eyes. "Korkusku," she hissed.
"God bless you," Remo said.
Petrovina scarcely noticed him. Scrambling to her feet, she pushed past Remo. Diving boots clomping the deck, she stormed around the cabin to the front of the boat.
She found the head of her SVR detachment sitting calmly in a deck chair.
Vlad Korkusku seemed uninterested in the action that had taken place on the other end of the boat. A pair of headphones was attached to a twenty-year-old Sony Walkman, and the volume turned up so loud that all ears could hear the blaring, scratchy 1950s Moscow Chamber Orchestra version of the Soviet national anthem. He had a copy of the latest People magazine in his hands and was flipping from page to page. Announcing every picture as decadent, he christened each with a glob of fresh spit.
The left rear leg of the big man's deck chair sat squarely on Petrovina's oxygen hose, which still hung useless over the side of the boat.
Petrovina marched up to Korkusku and slapped him so hard across the face that his headphones flew off.
"You tried to kill me!" she yelled.
At first he seemed shocked to see Petrovina Bulganin alive. Almost as surprised to find that she was not alone. He quickly got his bearings, scrambling to his feet.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Did something go wrong?"
"You deliberately crimped air hose," she snapped.
"Oh," Vlad Korkusku said with hollow innocence. "Is crimp in hose?" He looked straight down at the chair leg.
Beside Petrovina, Remo rolled his eyes. "Couldn't you pretend to look around a little first?" he groused. "Maybe a little look of surprise when you find it? Don't look down at the exact freaking spot where you stuck your chair leg. Cheez, you'd think after seventy years of communism you Russians would actually be good at lying."
Korkusku took a step back. "He is American," he hissed.
Petrovina ignored the words of both men. She shoved Korkusku hard in his meaty chest. She was ludicrously small compared to the big man. Korkusku barely budged.
"Is true you try to suffocate me?" she demanded in English.
The SVR man pulled his eyes off the American. His back stiffened. "No, no," he insisted with great bluster. "Was terrible, completely unscheduled accident."
"What about depth charge?"
"Accident," Viad Korkusku repeated, this time very quickly and very firmly. "We thought we saw phantom killer submarine on sonar, but was actually school of minnow fish." He pointed to Remo. "Do you wish me to kill American spy?"
This time when Petrovina shoved him, her fury was so great that Korkusku stumbled back against his chair.
"Yes, he is American," she snapped, shoving Korkusku again. "But that does not automatically make him spy."
Remo had stripped off his T-shirt and was wringing water out onto the deck. "Actually-" he began.
"And you will not kill him," she continued, shoving Korkusku one last time. "Because if not for him, I would be dead right now. Idiot!"
This time when she pushed him, Vlad Korkusku was not taken by surprise by her wiry strength. Korkusku stood his ground. His flabby face steeled.
"Ridiculous child," he said, sneering contemptuously. "You are the idiot, little girl. Out here playing at game of men."
She heard an angry grunt behind her. When she wheeled around she saw that the three men Remo had thrown into the water had found their way back aboard. Water ran off their drenched polyester suits. Their guns were drawn. Water dribbled out of the barrel of one.
Petrovina spun back to Korkusku. Her wet hair slapped around her neck like angry tentacles. "Have you gone completely mad?" she barked. At this Korkusku laughed bitterly.
"I mad? Little girl, I have seen the world go insane around me until all that is left is madness." He spit at her feet. "While you were still playing with dolls at your mother's feet, I watched a great nation collapse into anarchy. And now I am this. A baby-sitter to a slip of a girl. This is-as they say-last straw. I will endure no more." He addressed the three men. "Shoot them. Throw their bodies over side."
The three soaking wet men surrounded Remo and Petrovina.
She could see that there would be no reasoning with them. Obviously she had been assigned a group of relics who longed for the glory days of the Cold
War with the West. There was only one option open to her, and it was not one that filled her with much hope. She spun to the American.
"Do something," Petrovina insisted.
Remo was twisting the last drops of water out of his soggy T-shirt. He hadn't been paying close attention.
"Huh?" he said, glancing up. "Oh, yeah." Remo flicked his T-shirt. The end snapped the back of a Russian gunman's hand. The hand skipped, and the Russian fired into the shoulder of his nearest comrade.
As the bleeding man fell in agony to the deck, the other two disappeared. Vlad Korkusku and Petrovina Bulganin weren't quite sure what happened to them until they saw two faraway splashes in the Caribbean.
Korkusku turned to Remo, face growing pale. "I'm in a lazy American mood, so two options," Remo said, pulling his shirt back on. "In the first you put yourself in the water and you get to keep your arms. Guess the second."
Blinking shock, Korkusku headed for the rail. "And take him," Remo said, jabbing a thumb toward the bleeding man who was groaning in agony on the deck. "I hear enough Russian whining at the Olympics."
Korkusku took the man by the ankles. He dragged him over the edge of the deck where they made a single splash.
"You're welcome," Remo said once the men were all playing safely in the surf.
"What?" Petrovina snapped.
"What you said to Bruno the Bear just now. That if it wasn't for me you'd be dead right now. You're welcome."
Petrovina's full lips thinned. "Enough nonsense," she said. "What were you doing down there?" Realizing he had gotten as close as he was going to get to a Russian thank-you when she opted not to shoot him, Remo shook his head tiredly.
"Same thing you were," he sighed. "Looking for subs in all the wrong places."
"You know about submarine?" she asked.
"Know about it. Here to stop it. Unlike your pals there, who seem more keen on stopping you."
He aimed a chin at the water where Vlad Korkusku and his three companions were splashing amid the muck.