Borodin stayed in the cabin until Kamarov relieved him. Shortly the captain himself came in.
"She's not spoken a word," the navigator confided. "I gave her some water anyway."
"Of course, Ivanovich. That was the correct thing to do." The other man left the compartment and the captain squatted before the captive coconspirator. "I do not trust you," he told her.
"That's probably very wise. I will say again, however, that I mean you no ill will. I don't want to make trouble for you. I just want to get back where I belong."
"So important to you, is it? Returning to the land of your birth?"
She nodded. "I'm an American first. An officer second. I need to go home. And it's part of my job description that should I find myself in enemy territory I will do my best to return."
"Why have you not provided us with your big four?" he asked.
It took a few seconds for her brain to comprehend what he'd asked. The term was no longer used frequently in her circles. It was a sign of her exhaustion that she answered in English. "Some shrink decided we'd fare better if we didn't antagonize our captors," she told him. "Repeating the same useless information is just going to piss them off. And you're going to crack eventually, give them something else. So our troops are taught now to be polite, to ingratiate ourselves to our captors so that they form an emotion bond with us and we can work our wiles on them and escape."
"You admit this...here, now, like this?"
"You hold all the cards, Captain. Where the hell am I going to go? I'm not sure where Capt. Borodin put my gun. My pack's been searched. And from all appearances your core group seems open to assisting me. What's not to like?"
Ramius shook his head. Aviators were all crazy. He was putting his entire crew's safety-and the lives of himself and ten other men-in the graces of an unbound prisoner.
"What is your name?"
"Cayes Austin."
She had to repeat it twice to make him understand that she had an unusual first name, that she wasn't just giving her last name.
"The arm is injured where, exactly?" Petrov asked in Russian. Cayes watched him with fearful eyes. Appropriately so, Ramius decided. Her situation was untenable. Instead of answering she gestured to her elbow, unsnapping the cuff and moving it over the joint so that they could remove the makeshift bandage.. Pain joined the tight expression on her face and she winced twice during the physical examination.
"I think an xray is in order, Captain Comrade. Don't you agree?"
"You are the physician," Ramius told the man as the woman turned to study him. He could almost read her thoughts. What kind of set-up involved the doctor seeking permission to xray a patient?
"If you can slip off your blouse I will arrange the machine," the slick bastard ordered. The American turned slightly away from both men to unbutton the dark navy work shirt she wore. It made her appear like any of a thousand dock workers, but for the pile of hair she'd captured at the nape of her neck.
"Can you do it, Ekaterina?" Ramius asked her.
"Da," she nodded, working the buttons through the holes quickly. She slipped the sleeve off her uninjured side first, gently guiding it over the severely swelling limb. Ramius had crossed his arms to watch, leaning against the bulkhead door.
"I wonder if we should remove the undershirt as well," Petrov ventured. The form of the young woman sitting in the chair was even more apparent. Good lingerie-probably lace-cupped high, full breasts beneath the thinner white cotton of the short-sleeved shirt.
"I should think that to see only the elbow it would suffice if we pushed it up a bit," Ramius countered, stepping forward to help his new captive/co-conspirator to do so. His angry eyes reprimanded the ship sawbones without saying a word. He also noticed-for the first time-the shapes of the bruises appearing lower on her arms. Apparently Vasili Borodin had used a very strong grip to subdue the woman. Else she bruised very, very easily. Still, the added bruises just corroborated their tale.
"I was only trying to be thorough," Petrov pouted. "I've not much experience with the device."
Cayes sighed a bit and rolled her eyes. Ramius would have laughed if the position he now found himself in had not been so utterly inconceivable.
It was exactly how he felt as well.
"I apologize for my man," Ramius told her gruffly as he swiftly traversed the gangways on the way back to the exec's cabin. She remained silent and when he ducked his head to look back at her she merely lifted her left shoulder and eyebrow.
"You shut him down. You are neither his mother nor his god. No apologies necessary."
Ramius nodded thoughtfully as he accepted her reply. This American had a brain in her head it would seem. Certainly her sense of fairness was in order. He would like his new country. It was too bad she was a woman. With that kind of pragmatism she'd have done very well as a naval officer. His thoughts quickly turned the other way and she watched the slow up and down motion reverse. He was shaking his head when he turned to her again.
"What made you think you could overpower a man like Vasili Borodin?" he asked, voicing his disbelief.
She smiled. "Firepower. And I had hoped to appeal to your good will."
"How did you choose his cabin?"
She ducked around, checking to see that there was no one else around. He could have told her that he'd be able to hear the motion. "It was near your cabin. In our navy your importance is ranked by how close you can get to the most important man available. If you're near him when he sleeps you're a big shot. Borodin's cabin is as close as you can get without bunking in your room."
"Why not mine?"
She grinned again, lopsided because of the swelling and bruising. "What if the men didn't like their captain? You could have been anyone, not necessarily Marko Ramius. In our service the captain is like the father. The XO is like the mother. Our XO is next in line to our CO. He's also the one we pout to."
Ramius was shaking his head. She switched to Russian. "XO is our executive officer. Second in command. CO is the boat commander. Most of the time men who disagree with their captains still adore their second. I didn't want to risk the men on duty saying, 'Go ahead, shoot him,' when I forced you out."
Ramius laughed aloud. "Clever."
She quirked her brow. "Not clever enough," she muttered.
"It is admirable that you were able to stow away at all. Our docks must have been murder to get through. And then to remain hidden for so very long."
"Only six days," she countered.
"A long time on a submarine that bases it's time shifts on six-hour increments. Vasili Borodin's schedule is not easy to grasp. And he is wakeful for even much of his down time. A risk indeed there was."
She agreed. "It was a poor choice. I'd have done better to hide in the medical closet and coax the good doctor into seeing it my way."
"We'd have let you kill him," Ramius noted without turning around. He heard her laugh softly behind him as they made their way back to her erstwhile home.
