Free Rasputin's Bastards by David Nickle

still no bottom for even his toes to touch; only the warm brine that smelled so distinctly of Kolyokov. Swearing to himself, Kolyokov began to tread that water.
    “Those bastards,” he said. “Those clever, vicious little bastards.”
    He meant it as a compliment. For trapped in what he was now sure was the baby girl’s metaphorical belly, his body inert in a dark tank hundreds of miles to the west, Fyodor Kolyokov found that he wanted all the children with him, more than he ever had.

THE IDIOT
    While the yacht followed its escort of Romanian-piloted Zodiacs, Alexei ran through what seemed like dozens of schemes for killing Holden Gibson. A push, a squeeze, with his Asp, a sharp
tap!
, in any one of five places on Holden’s body. Or more simply, a bullet.
    None of them satisfied him. There were too many witnesses about, and too many of those witnesses were carrying guns.
    And in any case, he had more to think about than Gibson’s impending doom. The presence of Romanians, for instance. Were these the same Romanians with whom Mrs. Kontos-Wu was planning her rendezvous? It seemed at once the most likely and unthinkable prospect.
    Which led to another obligation — one that would almost certainly override his pledge to kill Holden Gibson. If these were the same Romanians as had abducted Mrs. Kontos-Wu, Alexei would have to deal with them too, and extricate Mrs. Kontos-Wu from whatever trouble she’d found with them.
    And then there were the children on board
Ming Lei 3
— were they the ones that Gibson intended to lock in his children’s brig? Was he buying them from the Romanians in some kind of child slavery deal? They knew how to mix a drink and bring a blanket when it was cold — that was certainly a selling point — but, fingering his tender scalp, Alexei wondered if Gibson knew what he was getting into.
    Some of the others in the lounge had gotten up and were milling around, so Alexei joined them. He stepped around the projection TV, and squinted out the windscreen. There was something up ahead — the yacht’s prow obscured any direct view, but Alexei could make out peripheral activity on the water — a distant churning. Nearer, he saw their escort was beginning to fan out on either side of the yacht, and he felt the motor throttling down under his feet. The deck lurched as the motor yacht slowed down.
    Holden strode across the room and stopped beside Alexei, near enough to strangle. “So what are we meeting here? Where’s their Goddamn boat?”
    Alexei peered ahead at the water, which was boiling like a soup. He’d seen water like that before.
    “Underwater,” said Alexei softly.
    Holden didn’t seem to have heard Alexei. His face began to redden. “This is not good,” he hissed, and he glared down at Alexei. “You watch my back, Russkie.”
    “Do not worry,” said Alexei, and meant it: Holden’s worrying just made him a more difficult target. “But tell me who it is you are meeting?”
    Holden snorted. “None of your business,” he said.
    Alexei stood and walked to the fore section of the lounge. Ahead, the churning water boiled and broke as the conning tower surfaced.
    Alexei leaned against the railing below the windscreen. “Shit,” he whispered.
    “That’s a submarine!” said Holden.
    “Yes,” said Alexei. It was a Soviet Project 641 Attack Submarine. Diesel-electric powered, and too noisy by half, which was why the Soviet navy had decommissioned the last of them in the late 1980s. He didn’t see any point in sharing that insight with Holden just now though.
    “A submarine!” Holden cupped his hands together and shook them like he was rolling dice. “Shit and hell, shit and hell.”
    The sky overhead was a flat grey, and the light it threw added not a hint of colour to the black gleam of the submarine’s hull as it followed the tower into the air. Water fell from it in sheets, making froth that festered like infection along the length of its hull. The motor yacht pitched