Sea of Greed

“Don’t,” Cheval warned. The Frenchman’s face was grim as if performing a task he would have rather avoided. “I’m sorry. But if we had not acted, your country would have. The power you’ve unleashed with your genetics can reshape the world we live in more easily than a dozen armies. It’s a weapon already. And it’s a threat to France in particular. We cannot allow it to end up in foreign hands.”

“No,” Ben-Avi said. “It’s a deterrent. No different from your atomic bombs. It would never be used.”

“I’m afraid my country cannot take that chance,” Cheval said.

The sound of additional gunfire reached them from the camp.

“So, you’re killing us?” Ben-Avi said.

“No one was supposed to be hurt,” Cheval replied. “Someone must have resisted.”

Ben-Avi didn’t doubt that. Though he suspected the French commandos might have hoped to encounter resistance. “And what about me?” he asked, his voice filled with disgust for his former friend. “Do I suddenly fall off the edge or are you going to shoot me first and then throw me in?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cheval said. He nodded toward the submarine. “You’ll be coming with us.”

2

FRENCH SUBMARINE MINERVE, APPROXIMATELY TWENTY-FIVE MILES FROM TOULON

EIGHT DAYS after leaving the island of Jaros, the French submarine Minerve was nearing her home port of Toulon. It was operating forty feet below the surface, running at eight knots and using the diesel engines, which gulped air through a long metal tube known as a snorkel. They’d been running in this configuration almost continuously since leaving Jaros and André Cheval could not wait for them to surface.

The claustrophobia of being trapped underwater was bad enough. That the Minerve was carrying extra cargo, plus the equipment, supplies and samples from the laboratory, made it worse. That the submarine was overpopulated and carrying nearly twice the number of people it was supposed to house — thanks to the presence of Cheval, the other French scientists and the ten French commandos who’d conducted the raid — made the situation nearly unbearable.

The gnawing guilt that the commandos had killed all the Israelis except Ben-Avi did not help and Cheval had taken to drinking each night to put himself to sleep.

Still, they were in French waters now and almost home. By this time tomorrow, Cheval would be sitting in a café in Paris, forgetting his sorrows in the fresh air with a bottle of fine wine.

Until then, he stood in the submarine’s cramped control room, watching everything that went on. Across from him, the Minerve’s captain leaned on the periscope handles with his face pressed into the viewer. Every few seconds he turned to scan a new section of the surface—dancing with the gray lady, as the sailors sometimes called it.

Finally, he flipped the handles closed and stepped back. “No vessels in sight,” he said. “Periscope down.”

As the periscope descended into its well, the captain turned to the radio officer. “Advise, Command. Weather deteriorating. Eight-foot swells and chop. We will remain at snorkel depth until we reach the channel.”

This news was like a kick in the gut to Cheval.

And he wasn’t the only one.

A man named Lukas stood nearby, hovering over the navigation charts. Lukas was the head of the commando team, a member of the SDECE, the French external intelligence apparatus. He was a harsh man in his mid-fifties.

“Must we crawl into port like this?” Lukas said. “We’ve achieved a great success. We should arrive with dignity, if not fanfare.”

The Minerve’s captain was a lifelong sailor. Like many in the regular military, he distrusted secret operatives, with their hidden agendas and lack of oversight. His reply was blunt. “Do you really want to surface the boat and become a target at this point?”

Lukas pointed at the chart and a red line, approximately four hundred miles behind them, that indicated the nearest possible approach of Israeli ships. “There are no Israeli ships within twelve hours of our position. They cannot possibly catch us.”

“They have aircraft, too, Monsieur Lukas.”

“None with this range. And nothing our Mirage fighters could not handle.”

“You might be right,” the captain said. “Regardless, we shall remain submerged until the very last moment. And you shall remain silent while a guest on my boat.”

Lukas fumed at the reprimand, turning his back on the captain and heading aft to join his men.

Cheval looked at his watch, fighting the claustrophobia. It was early morning on the twenty-seventh of January. They’d left the island on the evening of the nineteenth. They were almost home. Once they were back on land, he would report Lukas for what he considered war crimes.

Even though he could do nothing about those who’d already been killed, he told himself he’d would find a way to keep Ben-Avi from vanishing into an unmarked grave.

Three hours. He just needed to hold it together for three more hours.

• • •