by Craig Thomas
"It's going splendidly, Captain Clark, don't you agree?" Clark snapped awake from his unseeing contemplation of the dregs in the plastic cup. Lt.-Commander Copeland, the anti-submarine warfare expert on the "Chessboard Counter" team, was standing in front of him, six inches shorter and exhibiting a grin that shaded into smug mockery. The lights of the perspex map were bright behind him. "You don't seem to be too pleased," Copeland suggested with a more pronounced mockery. He waved an arm towards the glowing map. "Everyone else is feeling on top of the world."
"You're really pleased, aren't you, Copeland."
"Your people will be delighted, too, and NATO will be over the moon."
"Sure." Clark shifted his weight on the edge of the desk where he had perched.
"Really, Clark!" Copeland's exasperation was genuine. "Neither the United States nor ourselves have been able to send a ballistic missile boat, or any other sort of submarine for that matter, east of North Cape for two months, ever since the Ohio was first traced, shadowed, and escorted from the area." Copeland turned to study the huge map-board. "We're helpless up there until we know how big, how good, and of what kind “Chessboard” is." He turned back to Clark. "Your Chief of Naval Operations saw that quite clearly, so did Supreme Allied Command, Atlantic. Proteus has the most distinguished sponsors." Again, the silent, mocking smile.
"What if we lose her? Then we" ve lost “Leopard” for good."
"Lose? Lost? What do you mean? Oh, Quin, I suppose."
Copeland shrugged. "If Quin is over on the other side, then “Leopard” will be useless in a matter of months, don't you agree?" Clark nodded. "Well, then? We must neutralise “Chessboard” now, while we have the means."
Clark looked up at the board again. A trelliswork of red dots. The carpet of active and passive sonar buoys, and other detection devices, began inside Norwegian territorial waters, less than four miles out, and extended, at present indication, perhaps fifty or more miles north into the Barents Sea. It could be a hundred miles. Proteus was moving between North Cape and Kirkenes like a tractor ploughing a field. The work could take weeks. Copeland was right, of course. The northern flank of NATO was imperilled by "Chessboard". The Norwegian coast was prohibited to British or American submarines, the coast of the Soviet Union rendered inaccessible to short-range attack; the Barents Sea finally transformed into a Russian lake.
"Sure. Yes, you're right, Copeland. You're right."
Copeland smiled with evident relief, and looked very young and enthusiastic. "I'm so glad you agree," he said without irony.
"Just one thing," Clark added maliciously, pointing towards the map. "Don't you think there's just too little Soviet naval activity up there?" The board's computer was feeding into the map display whatever the North Cape monitoring stations, the surveillance satellites, and air patrols were supplying via SACLANT's huge central computers. "Two “Kotlin”-class destroyers, one “Sverdlov”-class cruiser, two “Romeo” submarines and one “Quebec”. They're usually crawling all over the Barents Sea. Where are they?"
"Our information is Murmansk, old man. Perhaps they're taking things easy now they" ve got “Chessboard” to do their work for them." The suggestion was in earnest.
"Maybe."
Copeland was about to reply when the door opened and a Wren wheeling a tea-trolley appeared. "Ah, tea," he exclaimed. "Excellent!"
* * *
Richard Lloyd, captain of HMS Proteus, was suddenly aware, on entering the cramped computer room aft of the main control room and its almost cathedral-like spaciousness, of the claustrophobia that most people imagined was the inevitable lot of the submariner. He did not experience it, merely understood what it must be like for people who never inhabited submarines; or who had served in them forty years before. The computer room was more cramped than ever, since at least half of its available space was now taken up by the "Leopard" equipment.
"Don," he said, nodding. His senior electronic counter-measures officer, Lt.-Commander Hayter, had been nominated as trials officer for "Leopard" because of his existing special navigation and electronic warfare qualifications. Lt.-Commander Hayter's comprehension of the equipment had relieved Lloyd from all but superficial knowledge of the effects and benefits of" Leopard". Hayter was seated in front of a computer screen, watching the pinpricks of light that emerged from its bland grey surface blankness, then slowly faded. As Lloyd watched, one pinprick brightened while two others were fading. They formed a vague triangle on the screen. Then one was gone while another emerged, glowing brighter. To the left of the screen was another, an acoustical holograph screen which displayed the buoys seemingly in three dimensions, giving them an identity, a shape. Neither Lloyd nor Hayter regarded the holograph display. There was something more obsessive about the silent, brief lights.
"Sir," Hayter acknowledged. "Welcome to the broom cupboard."
"They had submarines smaller than this room in the last war," Lloyd observed dismissively. He glanced from the screen to the holograph display, then at the accompanying print-out.
"Weird," Hayter said, as if to himself. "Really weird."
"What?"
"This feeling I have that we don't exist. Not for any practical purpose, that is. Sonar buoys, temperature transducers, hydrophones —" He pointed at the holograph as the shape of a sonar buoy formed in light. "Mile after mile of them, but we just don't exist as far as they're concerned. Like limbo. Yet I ought to feel excited, sailing east." He turned to Lloyd, grinning. "Oughtn't I, skipper?"
"Something's missing from your diet, obviously."
"Much activity?"
"Very little."
"You sound puzzled?"
"Maybe. No, not really. I suppose they're relying on this stuff—" He indicated the two screens. They must be relying on “Chessboard”. One or two surface vessels, a few submarines. Something moving well to the north, one of their “Echo-II” missile boats off to take up station on the eastern seaboard of the States, no doubt. It wouldn't be much interested in us, even if it could spot us. Apart from those few items, nothing in the shop today."
"I can't say I'm sorry."
"You're not running down your pride and joy, are you?"
Lloyd nodded in the direction of the main cabinet of the "Leopard" equipment.
"No. But utter reliance on an incredibly complicated system of matching sonar signals, and emission dampers and the like — it's not the same as having a big stick in your hands or a suit of armour on, is it? “Chessboard” is the most advanced, extensive and thorough submarine detection system ever laid down. We both know that. Like tip-toeing through a minefield, or burgling the Chubb factory —" He smiled. "And here we are, same old faces and same old submarine, but now we're invisible. Mm, I think I feel excited, after all."
"How much of it have we mapped — just a guess? I won't hold you to it."
"My computers don't make rough guesses — just mistakes." Hayter typed on the computer keyboard below the screen. He waited for a few seconds before a message appeared, superimposed on the pin-pricks of light, making them more ghostly and unreal than before. "See. Twelve days and a few hours more."
That means this sonar carpet must extend at least a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles out into the Barents Sea." Lloyd's tone was one of surprise, even though he had half-expected "Chessboard" to be as impressive as he had now learned.
"It could be bigger. There's an assumed twelve to fourteen per cent error built-in at the moment. That'll get less the more we chart." Hayter turned to Lloyd again. "I'm willing to bet that there's a similar sonar-buoy carpet being laid to stretch south and west from Novaya Zemlya. The Russians, I think, are going to close the Barents completely as far as we're concerned."
Lloyd rubbed his chin, "Could be. Not our worry, old son. Even if we end up doing trips round the Isle of Wight because there's nowhere else we can go. Okay, twelve days it is. Don't let the men find out, will you?"
The intercom crackled above Lloyd's head.
"Captain to
control room, please." It was the voice of his first-lieutenant. Calm and urgent. Lloyd recognised the puzzled imperative in the guarded tone.
"So you think," he said, "that if ever “Leopard” conked out or was developed by the other side, we'd see the end of NATO's submarine strike power?"
"I wouldn't be at all surprised," Hayter replied without looking at him, and not entirely without seriousness.
"Captain to control room."
Lloyd shook his head at Hayter's back, and left the computer room, passing through the open watertight door into the control room of the Proteus. He straightened, stretching the unaccustomed stoop from his shoulders. Artificial light was almost his natural visual medium. The control room — his control room — was light, almost airy after the cupboard-under-the-stairs in which Hayter spent much of his time.
Lloyd's first-lieutenant, Lt.-Commander John Thurston, was standing near the main bank of communications monitors, leaning over one of the operators, a headphone pressed to one ear. He looked up with something akin to relief when he saw Lloyd at his side.
"What is it, John?"
"Listen to this, sir." Thurston pressed the headphone set into Lloyd's hand. The communications petty officer twisted in his chair, watching for his captain's reactions. A brief splash of code, repeated again and again. Lloyd looked questioningly at Thurston.
"One of ours — distress code isn't it?
"Not one of ours. The computer identified it as a quite low-priority Soviet submarine code, one we broke three months ago. Distress, yes."
"When did you start picking it up?"
"About fifteen minutes ago, sir," the petty officer replied. "It's being transmitted regularly. I fed it into the signals computer, and it came out as a distress call."
"Any ident?"
"Yes, sir," Thurston replied, acclaiming the drama he perceived in the situation by a lengthening of his saturnine face.
"Well?"
"It's a “Delta”-class ballistic missile submarine. The full works."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, sir."
"What the hell is the matter with her, using a low-grade code? What's her trouble?"
"Massive explosion in the computer room. Most of their ECM systems have gone, and there's gas in the air-purification system. They" ve shut down almost everything. They're sitting on the bottom."
Lloyd screwed his face up. "They're very descriptive."
"Panic, sir. Sheer bloody panic."
"Any idea where?"
"Yes, sir."
Again, Lloyd looked puzzled. "How did we get a fix?"
"We didn't. They told us where to find them. They're screaming for help. They could begin transmitting in clear any minute now, they're so scared."
"Where are they?"
Thurston, who had evidently prepared the little scene between himself and Lloyd in minute detail, nodded towards the chart table against the aft bulkhead of the control room. Lloyd followed him across.
"Here," Thurston said. "Right here." His finger tapped the chart. He had drawn a livid red cross, dramatic and oversized, on its surface. Tanafjord."
"What? You must have got it wrong —"
Thurston shook his head. "No, sir. They're wrong to be there, and to be using a broken code to transmit their position. But they're inside Tanafjord. They're in Norwegian waters in a ballistic missile submarine, and they're scared they're going to die!"
"My God," Lloyd breathed. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "We'll break radio silence for this one. Run up a transmission buoy. We'd better tell the Admiralty — and the sooner the better!"
* * *
Admiral of the Red Banner Northern Fleet Dolohov paced the gantry, his footsteps and those of his aides ringing on the metal catwalk. Continually, he stared down into the well of the fleet's central Operations Room beneath Red Banner headquarters in Murmansk. Below him, the huge map table glowed with light. He had just arrived, and the warm lighting of the room, and the pin-point glows in fairy-light colours from the computer-projected map seemed to celebrate and promise. It was a welcome. He paused, placed his hands on the rail of the catwalk, and turned to his aide. He might have been on the bridge of a ship.
"Sergei — status report, if you please."
The younger man smirked with pleasure, real and anticipated. "Sir. The British submarine is in this area—" He clicked his fingers, and a chart was passed to him. It was attached to a clipboard, and over the exposed fold was fixed a transparent plastic sheet. There were faint, reddish smudges on the plastic, one or two firmer images. "The infra-red satellite picked these up, sir. Very, very faint, but there. It must be the Proteus." He pointed out one of the brighter images. "This is the cruiser in the area. A clear image, even with the cloud cover. The faint smudges —"
"It works, then? This anti-detection equipment, it really works as well as we have been led to believe?"
The aide considered the possible implications of the question, then said, "The weather satellites promise the break-up of the cloud cover. It will improve our chances of getting a good infra-red trace."
"I didn't mean that, boy!" Dolohov snapped, his pale eyes fierce and alert. "I understand that it is a hit-and-miss, even with our new geostationary satellite and every unit of the fleet looking for this submarine. I am delighted that it works, that the prize will be worth the game."
"I see, sir — " the aide said shamefacedly. "When the submarine moves closer to the Norwegian shelf, into shallower water, we may have a better trace. Not much better, but enough, sir," he added with solemn candour. Dolohov laughed.
"It is a gamble, Sergei, a great game!" he explained. "As long as the prize is sufficient, then one accepts the chances of losing the game." He transferred his intent gaze to the map table below. The plotters moved about it busily, yet expectant, knowing that they were as yet simply filling in time, rehearsing.
"Oh, the prize is a good one, sir. It works, only too well. We have had nothing from our sonar carpet, nothing, even though the British have been in the area for two days now."
Dolohov turned his back to him, his eyes vacant, his gaze inward. The smile still hovered around his mouth. He nodded, like a very old, semi-senile man. Sergei would not have been surprised had an unregarded spittle appeared on his lips.
Then Dolohov was alert again. "Yes. Satisfactory." He looked down into the well of the huge room, at the map table. The different coloured lights. Cruisers, destroyers, the carrier Kiev, submarines, the special salvage vessel Dioklas and the submarine rescue ship Karpaty, all ready to sail from Pechenga and Poliarnyi, as soon as the word was given. Hours — mere hours — away from the Tanafjord and the distress signal. The thought spoiled his almost complete satisfaction. He turned to Sergei again. "If only we knew the precise moment when the Proteus picked up the distress call and her computers broke the code — eh, Sergei? Yes, I know when they transmitted to London, I know that. I would have liked to have known when they picked it up, though. The precise moment. What they thought, and felt, and said. Everything." He laughed. Then he spoke more softly, looking down on the map table once more. "Come, let us begin. Set course for Tanafjord, and sail into our elaborate trap. Come."
Chapter Two: CONTACT
The commodore was still closeted with a hastily assembled committee of staff officers, arguing for an investigation by Proteus of the distress signals from Tanafjord. In the "Chessboard Counter" room, Clark found himself a lone voice, disregarded and even derided, as he argued against any diversion of the submarine from her mission.
He could not have explained to himself the reasons for his reluctance. The cleanly-shaven, smartly-uniformed young men who surrounded him beneath the huge perspex map-board enraged him with their confidence, their boyish enthusiasm. It was their cheerful dismissal of any doubts on his part that had stung him to contempt and counter argument. He repeated himself again and again, and the baffled, kindly smiles and the frowns of dismissal greeted every statement he made. He knew it was the
commodore he needed to convince, yet he once more reiterated the central thrust of his argument in a snapping, irritated tone. He justified his own stubbornness by reminding himself that he was the Navy Department's — America's — only and solely responsible representative.
"Look, you guys — " Lips twisted in derision or disdain. "You already know her type, you might even verify which boat she is. Only ten per cent of their ballistic subs are out of Murmansk at any one time. If she's screaming for help, then there may be nothing left to investigate by the time Proteus reaches the fjord." He could see the disbelief opening on their faces, livid as blushes. It angered him. "Hell, why should she be in a fjord in shallow water with limited sea room if she was going to play rough? Use a nuke depth bomb on her — it might work out cheaper than sending in “Leopard”."
"Really, Clark, you're quite the hysterical virgin this morning," Copeland remarked waspishly.
Clark was about to answer when the door opened. He recognised Giles Pyott as soon as he entered the room. Pyott was in army uniform, and the commodore, who entered behind Pyott, was also in uniform. A glassy, urbane, impenetrable officialdom had suddenly settled on the room, the kind of formality that the Pentagon or the Navy Department could never muster or imitate. Thank God, Clark added to his observation. Pyott, grey hair immaculate, part of his pressed, polished uniform, looked pleased and elated. Clark was again reminded of children and their haste to please or to upstage.
"Shall I tell them, Commodore, or will you?"
"Carry on, Colonel Pyott," the commodore demurred, a smile leaking into his face and warping the firm line of his lips.
"Very well." The two men had approached the group beneath the map. Pyott studied it theatrically, glanced at Clark and nodded to him, then spoke to the group of Royal Navy officers. His manner implied that Clark had left the room. "Gentlemen, it has been decided that Proteus be ordered to proceed, with the utmost caution and all practicable speed, to the area of Tanafjord." A sigh of communal satisfaction, one or two murmurs of congratulation and pleasure; the empty compliments of sycophancy, they appeared to Clark. He was a man in a grey suit with a pocketful of unfamiliar and rather despised credit cards. Not a gentleman, they might have said of him. Worry twisted in his stomach again, and he knew he could not keep silent. "Yes, gentlemen," Pyott — who was from some faceless and important MoD/NATO committee called StratAn — continued, "the first Sea Lord and the Chiefs of Staff assign the gravest import to this intrusion into NATO territorial waters — " Again, the murmur of support. "The government of Norway, when informed, officially requested our assistance. Proteus will be instructed by yourselves to carry out a monitoring and surveillance action at the mouth of the Tanafjord." He smiled, at once the headmaster with his junior staff. "I leave the form of the task orders and encoding to you."