The Bronze Frog

By A. Denis Clift

The Bronze Frog is a violent, fast-paced, global thriller shaped by the author’s Navy, intelligence, foreign operations, and White House expertise. Commander Linc Walker, a sharp, combat-seasoned Navy SEAL is on a clandestine mission against the People’s Republic of China when he is betrayed by leaders in The White House. The Bronze Frog follows Linc’s plans for revenge. Walker and SEAL Chief Gunner’s Mate John Hall move out from the nuclear attack submarine USS Burlington after she punches up through the ice at the North Pole, to reconnoiter a secret Chinese installation camouflaged in the polar white. After a firefight, Walker lashes his wounded partner to their ice buggy and speeds back to the submarine recovery point. The Burlington misses the scheduled rendezvous by 12 hours. Hall succumbs to his wounds on the ice as a U.S.-Chinese political crisis erupts. Once aboard, Walker—furious with the missed rendezvous and Hall’s unnecessary death—knocks out the submarine’s skipper. Forced to retire, Walker learns that the President’s National Security Adviser, a fellow Stanford graduate, together with the National Security Council’s China expert, gave the orders blocking the submarine’s scheduled recovery of the two SEALs. They alone are responsible for Hall’s death—traitors in Linc’s eyes. Determined to see them pay, Linc moves out on his plan of revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781682473061

Book preview

PROLOGUE

L inc, you’ll want to have a look. We’re locking in. Cdr. Andy Cross, skipper of the nuclear attack submarine USS Burlington , beckoned to the officer on the far side of the darkened control room. Embarked SEAL Cdr. Linc Walker moved away from the combat control consoles he had been studying, gave a nod to the diving officer of the watch, placed both hands on the scope handles, and put his eyes to the glass.

The submerged submarine had slowed beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean, gliding to a near stop, holding depth steady, the ringing ping of the Chinese beacon directly overhead. In the blackness of the Arctic waters, the enhanced optics of the submerged periscope gave Cross and Walker their first look, off and above the port bow, at the Chinese covert installation. They could see now what had been invisible to the intelligence watchers on shore months ago looking from above. A circular hoop skirt protruded from the cylinder’s bottom. At first glance it looked like a direct steal from the submarine-mating skirts that U.S. deep submergence vehicles used to make a watertight coupling with a submarine’s hatch.

That’s her! Walker swiveled the scope slightly, taking in every detail. The bastards; we’ve got them. You’re a good team, done some nice tracking. He stepped back from the scope, gave Cross a thump on the shoulder. My squad’s ready. I’ll let them know we’re moving out. He exited aft.

With the change of the morning watch, they had begun cruising in a southerly direction, slowly expanding a circular search pattern. The passive sonar had had the first hit 150 miles south of the Pole, a pattern of repeating pings that provided a homing beacon. Running silent, the Burlington moved in on the sound, the top of her sail well beneath the jagged bottom of the polar ice, beneath whatever it was the Chinese had in store for them.

The Burlington and her crew were creatures of the Pole, aware of the hazards for those above the surface, relying beneath the surface on inertial navigation systems as the sub’s enormous streamlined black hull glided silently through this unique, forbidding realm. The submarine circled, her watch taking periscope photography and recording the sonic evidence. The Chi-nese in their first submerged polar attempt had done the Americans and the Russians one better. They were right here at the Pole, sitting pretty in the onward march of their ballistic missile submarine menace.

The Burlington’s skipper was tasked with capturing pictures—photographs, film, TV—and sounds of the Chinese unit. Commander Walker and his SEAL squad were ordered to surface, attach sensors up on the ice and underwater—sensors that U.S. technicians could monitor—to take measurements of as many details as possible. They were to do this undetected—their orders underlined undetected—exfiltrating and reentering via one of the Burlington’s lockout hatches.

Now, the skipper was conning the Burlington’s withdrawal to a location where she could break through to the surface. Walker and his mission partner, Chief Gunner’s Mate John Hall, were to reconnoiter the installation undetected, make visual records and measurements, and place a perimeter of sensors fixing the precise location of the cylinder’s camouflaged surface fin for future monitoring. If possible, they were to place remote bugs above and below to be monitored by U.S. listeners.

The orders from Washington had specified no weapons above or below during the mission and no contact with the presumed Chinese crew in the cylinder. Walker officially acknowledged the no weapons despite knowing that Hall had already fitted one of the cargo pods of the snow buggy skimobile they would use on the surface not only with the sensors to be implanted but also with two dull white M-16 carbines and two 9-mm pistols fitted with silencers. For any close-up fight, the eight-inch double-edged blades he and Hall kept sheathed above their right ankles (in the way others kept a band of gold on their left ring fingers) fitted within his interpretation of the no-weapons restriction. A SEAL is not a SEAL unarmed.

They had talked about the restrictions in their orders on the run north: wardroom talk, circumspect, in the same breath respectful and skeptical of their four-star and the White House. Given the scrap between State and Defense, the betting had the president’s national security adviser, Harley Rossett, slicing the baby in half, recommending the green light for the mission but siding with the secretary of state on a mission disarmed.

Rossett! Walker was disgusted. He and the Honorable Harley Rossett had been chosen by fate to go to the same college, the Harvard of the West, Leland Stanford Junior University. Their paths had never crossed—not likely when Walker’s favorite pastime was wheeling at top speed across the grassy fields at night chasing rabbits locked in the beam of his motorcycle’s headlight. Harley, the debating champion and student government leader, would have been elsewhere on the campus, in one of the university’s great chambers surrounded by leather, wood, fine drapes, and portraits of past leaders, savoring praise, sipping sherry from crystal etched with the university’s seal.

Linc Walker today looked much as he had back then: lean, muscled, six foot two with hard brown eyes and sharp nose and chin, though his brown hair was showing the first touches of gray. He was single, a SEAL, a Texan, and a patriot. He had moved up through the ranks swiftly, leading SEAL squads, platoons, and teams in combat. He and his men had infiltrated and carried the fight to the enemy in six nations on three continents. He had taken Taliban scalps in Chiga Sarai, Shkin, and Kandahar.

His teams had reconnoitered Iranian missile forces and exfiltrated undetected through the outskirts of Bandar Abbas. Another of his squads had notched an al-Qaida cell and an eighteen-foot python on their rifle stocks during three weeks in the Indonesian jungle. There was no better life. Walker treasured the individual skills, teamwork, and trust. The teams were his total existence whether he was moving upriver through neck-high waters at the mouth of the Java Sea or on board the lead of two desert fast vehicles in Southwest Asia dashing blind through sand and dust storms, dodging rocks and automatic fire. Throughout, as he continued to serve, he was convinced that the United States had one true, new, and deadly enemy—the People’s Republic of China.

The Burlington’s upward-scanning fathometers sketched a saw-toothed graph of the distance to the undersurface ice. They were moving carefully, ever closer to the Chinese, slowing, keeping an eye through one of the scopes for light or a bright patch indicating a lead—thin ice suitable for surfacing.

One of the six chronometers in the control room and the watches Walker and Hall wore were set on Beijing time. The U.S. intelligence geniuses had it that the schedule of Chinese satellite messages in the twenty-three-hour late spring Arctic light indicated that the Chinese were operating on a Mainland China schedule. The U.S. mission was planned for the middle of the night in Beijing.

The Burlington’s break through to the surface was executed with smooth perfection. They were three miles from their target, eliminating a chance sighting and reducing the possibility of detection by unknown sensors. Walker and Hall were up and out immediately. The trussed sections of their vehicle followed through the hatches onto the snow-covered ice. Hall removed his gloves and parka and quickly joined, clipped, and bolted the tubular metal frame, the stubby paddle skis, the power tread and engine module.

Walker, on the radio with the Burlington’s control room, confirmed a match on their current GPS coordinates and the coordinates and hour, minute, and second set for their postmission rendezvous. A member of the sub’s crew ran two white backpacks out to them—their medical kits and water and food sufficient for seventy-two hours—then dashed back into the mother ship. Walker glanced over at Hall, caught his nod, turned, and saluted the officer of the deck standing in the Burlington’s conning station. The salute was returned and the decks cleared. The towering, dull black sail stood motionless for ninety seconds. A groan and creaks followed. The chunks of ice that had been thrust upward when the submarine surfaced scraped loudly against the sail with her descent until the only trace of the Burlington was the churning, bubbling blue-green-white of ocean and ice in the slit left by her departure.

The white-clad SEALs on their white machine charged across the dry snow toward the first line of low, hummocked ice ridges. The snow buggy’s engine silencer was nearly perfect, with the bite of the cleats on the main drive tread the only barely audible sound. Hall, at the controls, slowed the buggy, bringing it up to the left, across and over the ridge. Both men were scanning left, right, and ahead for broad cracks, crevasses, and any threat of a lead of open water.

At regular intervals Walker flipped up the snow-glare lens of his goggles to take a fresh GPS reading of their position. When he calculated the target was a mile out, they stopped, strapped on their weapons and backpacks, and divided the array of miniature listening and positioning sensors, repacking them in sacks clipped to the harnesses beneath their parkas. They eased ahead again, crossing the estimated three-quarter, half-mile, and quarter-mile marks to the target.

They were in a maze of irregular ice hummocks now with limited line of sight, moving almost at a crawl. Walker was searching with his field glasses, giving Hall steering directions with a tap on the left or right shoulder.

Both of them spotted the target at the same time. The buggy had climbed up and over a complex of hummocks. Off to the right, a good thousand feet away, they saw a tall cone constructed of fiberglass or tough plastic with ribs evident underneath, camouflaged white with irregular flowing washes of pale grays and blues that to an observer blended with the polar patterns of snow and ridged ice.

The next time check told them that it was coming up on 3 a.m. Beijing time. They moved into the next phase of the operation: a 360-degree reconnoitering at distance. The buggy eased ahead, and they started their circular sweep, pausing frequently for Walker to take high-definition stills in addition to the running video. Halfway around the circuit, Hall stopped abruptly, checked, and then steered the buggy behind a hummock to give them better cover.

There was a secondary structure covered in the same polar camouflage extending fifteen to twenty feet out from the cone, with a pitched-tent roof and vertical sides, lines and stays running to the ice. The sharp Arctic light highlighted detail, showing no evidence of outside activity, no supplies or equipment. There was no smell of fuel or food outside the structure, and no heat waves trembling on the low horizon.

A breeze had freshened. The initial circuit completed, they pointed their handhelds to the sky to get a fresh set of coordinates. The rangefinder gave them the distance to the structure and the exact spots for the first of their implanted audio sensors to be placed in a hexagonal pattern around it.

Roosters would be sounding their morning calls in Beijing. The two men pulled back to a distance of about two thousand feet. They topped off the buggy with fuel from the auxiliary tank, broke out a round of rations, and ate in silence. They readied for the main event, which called for them to move separately, stealthily, on foot to tag the Chinese cone and shelter with the dull white nanotech listening devices.

Hall navigated the buggy back to the bearing of their first sighting of the cone on the far side of the shelter, one thousand feet out. They split, moving away from each other in opposite arcs, keeping low, occasionally dropping to hands and knees or flat on their bellies to shimmy toward the target. After twenty minutes Walker had traversed his half of the base of the cone and planted the second of the twenty-first-century ears. He was lying flat, stifling his breath, listening. Silence. A fold of the cone’s heavy outer skin protruded on the snow crust ten feet in front of him. The serrated edge of his knife made short work of it. He stowed the sample in his harness pack and started working ahead again on his elbows and knees, the third of the bugs ready to be tucked in next to the shelter’s wall.

The unmistakable snapping of Hall’s carbine brought him upright. Giving the bug a heave, Walker unshouldered his weapon and reversed his tracks back around the cone on a dead run searching for his partner. There was noise inside the target now, faint yelling and shouts. Then a flare burst overhead to the right. He could not know if the Chinese had seen the flash of green. He swung toward it.

Ahead, behind one of the hummocks, he spotted his partner. Hall was on his knees, forehead on the snow’s crust, goggles flung aside, his unmittened hands pressed against his eyes. They had a watch posted, Hall said, hissing through his clenched teeth while fighting the pain tearing at his eyes. He had spotted the member of the Chinese crew, and in that glimpse he had seen a weapon going to a shoulder, big, looked like a grenade launcher. Hall had fired twice in the same split second that the piercing laser beam had slapped him to the ice.

Walker kept him low, wrapped a strip of the medical kit’s gauze around his head and eyes, pulled his goggles back into place, worked the mittens onto his hands, and tethered him to a length of line. With no sounds from the Chinese and no one in sight, he took a fresh GPS reading and clapped a hand under the chief gunner’s upper arm. They headed back to the buggy, negotiating the ridges, working together. They fell together on the glaze topping a hummock, retrieved Hall’s M-16 that had dropped beside him, and pushed ahead. More weapons sounded. An AK-47 round knocked Walker backward, blowing half the toe off his boot, kicking his right leg out from under him, dragging him down by the tether. The Chinese had them in their sights. The rest of the AK-47 clip rained around them.

Walker cut himself loose, spun around on a knee, and returned fire. A fresh volley of fire sprayed from the shelter’s mouth. Walker had his target now and pumped another six rounds. He slapped in a fresh clip, listening and watching. Hall was curled on his side, blood barely visible on the outer white of his parka. A Chinese round had punched through his back and out through his chest. Walker peeled back the layers of cloth and harness, pressed two compresses hard, wrapping them tightly around the sweating, bloody torso. He dug again into the kit and followed the dressing with a jab of morphine.

Walker knew he had drilled one of the Chinese, maybe two. They must have retreated to hit the airwaves, the emergency satellite, sounding the alarm in Beijing. He was moving at a dogtrot now, Hall across his shoulders. He figured the buggy to be three, four minutes away, somewhere inside his 60-degree framing track. Nose on; he had the skinny little beast in sight. With air screaming in and out of his lungs, he eased Hall down on the rear seat and lashed him to the buggy’s frame. The engine kicked over silently and they were moving, putting as much distance between them and the target as the main tread could deliver.

His eyes caught the clotted, freezing blood on the shot-away mess that had been the front of his right boot. Lady luck had been with him; no pain, at least none that was a problem, and part of the foot was still there. Hall was beginning to bob around in back. Walker yelled at him to lean forward, hug him around the waist. He mounted a steady chatter ordering the gunner to respond, yelling if he felt the arms begin to slide away, worried that the lines must be loosening. He stopped, cinched them tighter, then misread his position and lost valuable time speeding off on too broad an angle and then having to refuel again before retracing and correcting their track.

Another GPS reading told him that they should be in the Burlington rendezvous box at least four hours ahead of recovery time. Hall’s bleeding seemed to have slowed. He had been badly wounded, and his life was slowly slipping away with the bleeding inside. The rubber drinking tube from Hall’s water sack was dangling over his shoulder, cut by the Chinese round. Walker pressed his own tube into Hall’s mouth. The spray of water made him jerk his head back. He was still alive. Walker made him drink, ordered him to swallow.

He got off the buggy and worked off his outer boot and felt liner. What had been his foot was glistening in soupy blood, bits of bone, and torn flesh. He still had a big toe. He broke out the roach-killer antibiotic and shook the packet on, bound it up as best he could, pulled his outer gear back on, and stuffed the hole in the boot with gauze. His effort to wind the entire foot of the boot in adhesive failed. Giving the roll of tape an angry heave, he turned back to his partner.

The overcast sky was bringing a light snow, swirling and blending with the old snow. He leaned close to Hall, told him it was his duty to hang on, and they were on the move again, bumping, sliding ahead across the snow and ice.

Whoever had figured out polar grid navigation had done it right. Walker’s eyes dropped periodically to the screen between the buggy’s steering handles, an electronic chart with verticals and horizontals plotting a track sliding across the tightly curving row of longitudes descending from the Pole to the Burlington’s plotted pop-through zone.

Walker gunned the engine, and the buggy shot out a white rooster tail, climbing a weathered ridge and banging down onto another. Visibility was near zero in the jets and veils of blowing snow. Walker was flying on instruments, racing for the rendezvous with the mother ship. In minutes he had the buggy circling slowly. He took a fresh reading, then reconfirmed it with a second. They were on-site with a couple of hours to spare.

Hall was in deep shock and barely breathing. Walker lowered him onto the crusted ice and lifted the buggy onto its side, turning the main tread broadside against the oncoming snow. He slid Hall’s backpack under his head, found the waterproof cloth in which the weapons had been stowed, and knotted the two upper corners to the buggy’s top tubing. Pressing in beside his partner close enough to increase the windbreak, he pulled the cloth over them and held fast against the snapping, whipping fabric fighting to break free in the suction of the wind gusts.

His own damaged foot hurt more than he wanted to admit. He pulled his knee toward him, wedging the boot toe against his other boot top. The frostbite drill, let alone the training on the impact of an AK-47 round, had been pounded into him many years before: blisters, swelling, blackened flesh, skin loss. But the doc would have it all under control as soon as they were back on board the Burlington.

The polar wind increased and changed direction, slashing through the unprotected ends of his shelter, coating both SEALs with snow. Walker shouted at Hall through his parka hood, ordering him to hang tight, telling him he had to move him. He eased him a quarter turn. If he could bring him to just long enough to squeeze some more water down his throat, he stood a better chance. He brushed the dry snow from the mouth of the parka hood, carefully raised the goggles, and unwound the turns of gauze. Hall’s eyes were open in a bloodshot stare. Walker ripped open Hall’s parka, fought through the harnessed gear, put his ear to the bloody chest. The lungs had stopped. The muscled frame had stilled. The heartbeat had vanished.

He closed his partner’s eyes, zipped the parka, and stretched him out with his arms straight and tight beside him. Hall would come back proud when they brought him back down the Burlington’s hatch. They would see this SEAL in death looking as sharp and professional as when he had sped away from the sub on his final mission. He worked the weapons cloth under the chief’s body, wrapped and tied it, stood and saluted. Hall was gone.

Staggering from the pain of his own wounds, Walker righted the buggy, his mind suddenly flooding with anger. He checked his watch against the digital clock. The Burlington was long overdue. Hall would have lived, could have been saved if the black whale had kept to her schedule. Stabbing the preset frequencies on the radio again and again produced no response. He knew he was dead square on the rendezvous site. He slumped half-frozen in the front seat of the buggy looking without interest at the black hole in his right boot’s toe.

The buggy’s jolt and tremble snapped him awake to the crunch and sight of ice yielding to the upward pressure of the submarine’s sail. The cold had penetrated to his marrow. The air was still now, the sky clear. Forcing himself to his feet and lurching forward peg-legged, he was waving his arms like a waddling penguin straining for balance. He heaved himself around in a circle on his good leg searching for the submarine. The radio had come alive. He staggered back to the buggy and grabbed it in mittened hands, triggering the transmit and barking out his identity and location. The search party from the Burlington found him on his hands and knees blowing away the last traces of snow from Hall’s shroud and bindings.

Silent, shoulders squared, Walker stood at attention, his eyes never leaving the careful hands receiving Hall’s body and easing it back inside the submarine. Hoisting himself on board, cursing the pain and waving off efforts to take him to the sick bay, he thumped along the main deck, ignoring the crew’s silent, questioning eyes. The officer of the watch told him the captain wanted to see him as soon as the doc had finished. He pushed the lieutenant aside and limped forward to the captain’s cabin.

There were no pleasantries. They were alone. Commander Cross, lips tight, voice low, spat out the firestorm that had erupted in Washington following a protest from Beijing condemning American intruders at their research station. The Chinese demanded immediate withdrawal, an apology, punishment for the American criminals, and compensation.

The Burlington had received flash orders to lie low beneath the ice while Washington came to grips with the crisis. I messaged back my aye, aye, Cross growled, glaring at Walker. I reminded them that I had men on the ice, that you and the chief would be topside ready to be recovered, that you had been out there for a long time. The reminder was acknowledged. I repeated the permission to recover request three times. When the OK finally came through, we were up through the ice and with you in fifteen minutes. Why did you disobey orders? Why did you disobey the ‘no weapons’ and trigger a potential world crisis shootout?

Walker listened, stone still, his eyes looking beyond the compartment and the submarine to a new hell on earth in Washington. He shifted back to Cross. "When I entered this Navy, I took an oath, a sacred oath, to support and defend the Constitution, to lead my men and look after my men every step of the way against enemies foreign and domestic in defending this nation.

When the president and his White House crowd entered office, they took that same oath, hand on the Bible, right hand raised, to support and defend the Constitution and look after their people. He paused, shifted slightly, ignoring the pain surging in his wounds. They betrayed that oath and turned their backs on their people, Skipper, men giving their all serving faithfully.

After another moment’s silence he continued, They said screw our men. The Chinese are more important. Let our men die up there on that ice. Tell you what, Skipper: that’s treachery and treason. They’re the enemies domestic. They are going to pay. Avenging that treason is what my life is now about, the new mission, the sacred mission.

Walker pushed himself to his feet in the tiny cabin, grabbed the submarine skipper by the front of his shirt, pulling him close, swatting away his protesting hands. And you! You killed John Hall right along with those bastards in Washington. You killed the best sailor this Navy has ever known! His right fist crashed into Cross’ jaw and knocked him senseless.

Chapter

ONE

Walker lay listening to the sound of the archipelago ferries arriving outside his window. His eyes shifted from the brass knob of the frosted lamp globe to the venerable molding of the high-ceilinged room. The minute hand of the Victorian marine chronometer on the far wall jerked forward. Nice touch , he thought. He surveyed the rubbed-wood gray of the desk and chairs, the stripes of the green bedspread, upholstery, and drapes all matching the pale green walls. The room, the huge bed, the big wide-countered marble bathroom suited his needs: a good surgery.

The next advance of the clock’s minute hand brought him to his feet. Ten minutes. He stripped off his shirt, rubbed the stiff muscles of his neck, chest, and shoulders, pulled open the casement windows, and took in the water traffic. The Royal Palace stood beyond, and far off to the right the tall brick tower of Stockholm’s city hall, topped by a delicate rod offering Heaven the gift of three golden crowns.

The parade notes of brass, snares, and bass rolled toward him. The regimental band was leading the King’s Guard along the quay fronting the palace—past the first of the surging waterfall fountains, then the second at the south end, then a smart wheel right with only a slight bounce to the rifles and caps and up the climbing red granite esplanade to the great gate. The king’s play soldiers, he smiled, leaning out the window to glance at the genteel face of the city’s Old Town. Play soldiers, the best kind to have; less trouble for everyone.

He turned from the window. Twelve o’clock high. You should just have arrived, Viktor Petrovich Zotov. Remember, he whispered to himself, foot and lower leg; head, neck, hand, foot, and lower leg. He turned and crossed to a black zippered bag on the luggage rack at the room’s entrance and lifted out the gift box of bourbon. He opened it and carried the bottle to the light of the window holding the neck high, examining the seal. Satisfied, he closed the box, returned it to the rack. If you want to know the taste of the pear, Viktor Petrovich, ole partner, you must change the pear by giving it a chomp . . . thus sayeth the sage Chairman Mao.

The telephone rang. In the lobby. Room 429?

Yes.

Give me half a minute.

Been waiting for you. Click.

The door swung in at Zotov’s single rap. Peter Bellows?

That’s me. Pete, Pete Bellows, Colonel. Walker rolled the first and last names out as if they had been his all his life. They were the names in his passport and his hotel registration, the fictional names he had used in making contact with the Russian. Give you a hand with those bags?

No need, thank you, Zotov said, bending slightly to retrieve a strapped leather suitcase. He had a smaller physician’s satchel in the other hand. The bigger bag was heavy. He stepped inside and heaved it up onto the luggage rack beside Walker’s black bag. He looked at the American’s naked torso. You are dressed for the weather. The heat gets the best of me. He shrugged out of his gray raincoat. Walker took it, looped it on a hook in the entryway.

The two shook hands, stood for a moment facing each other.

Thanks for making the trip, Colonel. Your reputation precedes you. Who knows you are here?

Zotov’s face was sincere, inquiring in its broad smile; strong lines in pale, tight flesh framing his gray-blue eyes. He was of medium build, bald pate with a close-cropped fringe of black. At six foot two, Walker was half a foot taller.

I come, how do you say it, unannounced. This is where we will work?

The communication said you would need a workspace, hot and cold water, a chair or two, a bed . . . right? Looks to me like we meet the specifications.

The physician nodded. May I look around?

Walker gave an approving wave of his arm. Be my guest.

Zotov opened the armoire, riffled the stack of large paper laundry bags, closed it, and turned into the bathroom. He ran the tub, shower, and sink taps until they were scalding hot, then cold again. He drew a glass of cold water, drank it, and returned to the room. He checked the upholstered armchair for strength and the stability of its back and arms.

Excuse me, please. He stepped sideways past the American and gave the edge of the bed a sitting bounce, stretched out flat and turned from one shoulder and hip to the other. He returned to his feet. You will have to be still for a while. It is important to have the right surfaces. The Swedes do it right. He looked around for a moment, spotted the switch for the overhead light, poked it on, pointed to the American to do the same with the floor and desk lamps and the twin lamps over the bed.

Allow me to take a look at you, the face, I believe . . .?

The head.

Good, the head; both ears?

Port and starboard.

More work, not a problem. The neck, yes?

Walker nodded.

And, if I remember my notes, one hand . . . left or right?

Walker frowned, looked down at his outstretched fingers. Right.

Excellent, Zotov said in the physician’s encouraging voice, "and the