Kilo Class by Patrick Robinson

Author:Patrick Robinson [Patrick Robinson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9783453199811
Publisher: Heyne
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The 9,500-ton tour ship Yuri Andropov was named in honor of the one-time head of the KGB, who presided, briefly, over the Soviet Empire in the early 1980s after the death of Leonid Brezhnev.

The ship was packed. The suites on the uppermost deck, of which there were two, were greatly sought after. They were newly designed and built, each comprising two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, and a small salon between them. They were much superior to the ten old single-bedroom suites they had replaced, and much more expensive.

Four Americans occupied these suites. In number 400 was seventy-six-year-old Boris Andrews, and his brother-in-law Sten Nichols, who was one year younger, both from Bloomington, in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis. In 401 resided Andre Maklov, a seventy-eight-year-old diabetic from White Bear Lake, St. Paul, and his roommate, the bearded Tomas Rabovitz, a somewhat youthful seventy-four-year-old from Coon Rapids, north of Minneapolis.

All four knew each other and had saved for many months to make the trip, each of them having once had distant ancestors from European North Russia. They were all in reasonably good health except for Mr. Andrews, who would soon require a hip replacement. He presently walked with the aid of a cane and used painkillers to deaden the endless hurt at the top of his right leg.

The four had shared the cost of a nurse to accompany them back to the land of their forefathers. She was accommodated separately on deck two. Her duties were to attend them throughout the trip, and to ensure that none of them were left alone for too long. Her name was Edith Dubranin. She was fifty-two and also had some Russian ancestry, although she had never before traveled outside the United States. Edith was a stern, no-nonsense kind of a lady who had spent much of her career as a staff nurse in a Chicago hospital. She was five feet tall, fair skinned with obviously dyed blonde hair. In her new job as nurse-companion she wore a gray skirt with a white jacket and favored formality.

She addressed her four charges as Mr. Andrews, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Maklov, and Mr. Rabovitz. She would attend to their laundry, arrange for their various medications, and accompany them to the dining room, where she would eat with them and deal personally with the waitresses. The table was for five only.

On the first morning Edith had walked her charges slowly around the ship for some exercise after breakfast, watching the banks of the wide Neva River slip by during the thirty-eight-mile trip to Lake Ladoga. Mr. Andrews, a big, stooped man made smaller by the pain in his hip, said very little, except to Mr. Nichols, but Edith Dubranin seemed to strike up rather serious conversations with Mr. Rabovitz. Mr. Maklov, who also walked very slowly, seemed quickly exhausted by two strolls around the upper deck.

The nurse arranged for a steward to make sure there were always five deck chairs placed outside the two suites in the small private area reserved for the passengers who had paid the most.

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