Sea Leopard

by Craig Thomas

  "We'll get on with it, Colonel," Pearson, the communications officer, offered, wiping his spectacles. Without them for the moment, he seemed more to suit the dark uniform and the gold cuffs. Returning them to his aquiline nose, he became clerkish again.

  "Are you certain of all this, Pyott?"

  It was as if Clark had cheered for an opposing team. Pyott turned a lordly glance to the American, who was as tall as he was and more muscular but who did not pose his figure in quite the same seignorial manner.

  "I beg your pardon, Captain Clark?" The mention of rank was a reminder of good manners and the proper forms of address. "I don't quite catch the drift of your question." Outsider, the tone cried. Buccaneer. Pyott took in, with a raking glance that went from face to feet and back again, the civilian clothes, the muscular chest and shoulders, the tanned, square features. Clark was evidently a pretender engaged in some dubious masquerade.

  "I asked if you were certain? Are their Lordships certain? Are the Chiefs of Staff certain? Is NATO certain?"

  "The proper channels, the protocol, all have been observed, Captain Clark," Pyott replied frostily.

  "What in hell do they think the Russians are up to in Tanafjord, with a ballistic missile boat?" Clark almost bellowed, goaded by the imperturbable arrogance and self-assurance of the army officer. Like a line of automatons, the operators in front of their screens and terminals snapped to attention in their seats. The group beneath the map seemed to move slightly away from him, as if he had begun to exude a powerful, offensive body odour. "You think they're invading Norway, starting the next war?"

  "I do not know," Pyott said icily, his face chalk white. "I do not make assumptions, especially ones that might be dismissive and therefore comforting. That is why Proteus must do our investigating for us. Your own Navy Department has been consulted, and has agreed. Brussels is in agreement. You are out of step, Clark."

  "Proteus has “Leopard” on board. Doesn't that worry you?"

  "That fact weighed heavily with everyone at the meeting, and with everyone consulted. It is to our inestimable advantage that Proteus is the submarine on station, so to speak —"

  "Bullshit! Crap and bullshit, Pyott! You people — you want to play games, you want to really try out your shiny new toy. You want to walk close to the cliff. Now I understand —"

  "Perhaps we could continue this conversation outside," Pyott remarked through pressed, almost unmoving lips. His face was now livid with anger. The naval officers, including the commodore, had moved away from them, sensitive of the embarrassment they knew Pyott must be experiencing.

  "I wouldn't want the time of day from you, Pyott. You're an asshole. A pompous asshole, at that."

  Clark brushed past Pyott, who avoided him like an experienced matador. Clark had allowed the situation to escape him. He was angry with himself, angry that it was Pyott he resented more than Pyott's suggestion concerning Proteus. As he prepared to slam the door of the "Chessboard Counter" room behind him, he could hear Pyott already reiterating StratAn and NATO's orders concerning Proteus to the assembled company. His voice was laconic, controlled, smooth as glass.

  It enraged Clark, and he knew he had to talk to Kenneth Aubrey. Something in him, deep as a lust as yet unfocused, knew that he had to stop this adventure with "Leopard" and Proteus.

  He slammed the door loudly behind him.

  * * *

  Aubrey studied Hyde's face. It was evident the man's challenge with regard to the fact of Quin's disappearance was intended to irritate, and intended also to disguise the Australian's own new doubts.

  Aubrey smoothed the last, vestigial wings of grey hair above his ears, and leaned back in his chair. Shelley, his aide, watched Hyde from the tall windows of the office in Queen Anne's Gate.

  "You're not sure now, are you?" Hyde repeated.

  "Don't jump to conclusions," Aubrey remarked severely. "What you saw was the girl. We know that she is unreliable, something of a failure, a drop-out. Is there any reason to suppose that she knows where her father is? She wasn't just trying to keep her mother calm?"

  “The KGB chased her to the bus stop. Those two blokes were like rape on legs."

  "Perhaps Quin won't play ball with them in Moscow without having his daughter with him?" Hyde shook his head vehemently. "Your own source at the Russian embassy gave you quite clear — almost categorical — indications that a snatch squad had stayed overnight, and left again on Aeroflot the day after Quin disappeared. You believed your man then. Why not now?"

  "Wait till I see him again. I was led up the garden, taken walkabout if you like. I admit that. But don't you go on believing there's nothing we can do. Quin dropped out of sight for his own reasons — he could have had a breakdown, for all we know — and the girl's gone back to him now, or she's on her way back. I know the Russians haven't got him yet, but they will have as soon as they get their hands on the girl." Hyde was patting Aubrey's desk, gently and continuously, to underline his words. He looked at Shelley when he had finished speaking, then asked, "You think they" ve got him?"

  Shelley shrugged. Hyde, understanding his influence with Aubrey, wanted him on his side. Shelley plucked at his bottom lip with thumb and forefinger, then said, "I don't know. There's some room for doubt, I think. It seems too good to be true, after the last few weeks —"

  "I will make the assumption — because it is preferable to do so — that the appearance of the girl means that the KGB have not taken Quin to Moscow, Patrick," Aubrey said slowly. Hyde exhaled noisily and relaxed in his leather chair. "I still believe that Quin has gone east —" He held up a liver-spotted, wrinkled hand. "Until there is stronger evidence to the contrary. Therefore — " he smiled slightly, "your first task is to contact your helpful but possibly misleading friend at the Soviet embassy."

  Hyde nodded. "Today's pick-up day. He's not likely to stay away after yesterday, whether he's straight or crooked."

  "I suppose we might have to consider him planted, or at least re-turned?" Aubrey mused.

  The abortion was a long time ago. Perhaps he's back in favour with his bosses," Hyde suggested.

  "Ask him. Then find the girl. Simply that. What about her college, for instance?"

  "CID talked to some of her friends last night. Nothing."

  "You will go back over the ground. And you will be careful, Patrick, if you are going to begin crossing the path of the gentlemen who were in Sutton Coldfield yesterday. You'd better draw a gun." He waited for Hyde's reaction. The Australian nodded after a lengthy pause. "Good. Don't draw attention to yourself. If your theory is correct, then they might soon begin following you as their best lead to Miss Quin."

  "Anything else?"

  Aubrey shook his head. "Not for the moment." Then he added, “This girl — " He tapped a file near his right hand. "Unreliable. Unconventional. Is that your impression?"

  "Her Mum loves her. If she isn't just a nut-case, then she might be more difficult to find."

  "I think we'd better find her, don't you? She's in danger, whether Quin is in the country or not. They want her, apparently."

  "How much time is there?"

  "I don't know. We have “Leopard”. It can be manufactured in large numbers, eventually, without Quin. From that point of view, there is a great deal of time. But we are no longer alone. The girl's time, at least, would seem to be running out."

  "I'll get on with it, then," Hyde said, getting up. The leather of the chair squeaked as his frame released it. "Pardon," he said with a grin. "You can talk about me when I'm gone. I'll let you know this afternoon what Comrade Vassiliev has to say." He smiled, and left the room.

  Aubrey's returned smile vanished as soon as the door closed behind Hyde.

  "What do you think, Peter?" he asked.

  Shelley rounded Aubrey's desk to face him. Aubrey indicated the Chesterfield, and Shelley sat down, hitching his trousers to preserve their creases as he crossed his long legs. Shelley lit a cigarette, which Aubrey watched with a dry, eager concentration. He
had obeyed his physician for more than a year in the matter of smoking. The occasion when the service lift at his flat had not been working for a week, and he had had to walk up three flights of stairs every evening — shortness of breath, body's fragility indicated to him like a sound blow on his shoulder. No more cigarettes, not even the occasional cigar.

  "I'm afraid Patrick's right, however irritating that may be." Shelley smiled.

  "We have been misled — and principally by his source of information at the Soviet embassy."

  "Agreed, sir. But we all accepted Vassiliev after Hyde cleared up the matter of the abortion and the girl in the case was paid off. Vassiliev had walked into our honey-trap, we let Hyde go with him as chief contact. If Vassiliev is forged, then he's an expert job. Of course, he may just have been trying to please Hyde. The swagman's not often fooled. That's why he's so angry now. I can't say that I blame him."

  Shelley exhaled, and Aubrey ostentatiously wafted the smoke away from himself by waving his hand. Shelley appeared not to notice the inconvenience to his superior.

  "This incident in Sutton wasn't an elaborate charade, for our benefit?"

  "I doubt that, sir."

  "So do I. The problem is, this “Leopard” business is so damned important. It really is one of those pieces of military technology the Russians haven't even begun to develop. Or so they tell me at MoD and Plessey. It would put us perhaps years ahead in the anti-submarine warfare game. I really would like to believe that they haven't got Quin. It just seems too good to be true."

  "Agreed. But there is such a thing as not looking a gift horse, et cetera, sir —"

  "Perhaps. Another thing that worries me — what price the safety of Comrade Vassiliev? If he fed us duff gen at their orders, then they know Hyde will be coming back now with more questions." Aubrey shook his head. "I don't like that idea."

  "Bruce the Lifeguard can take care of himself."

  "I hope so. Peter, get some Branch people to check around Bracknell again — the avenues we haven't explored or didn't give much credence to. Holiday rentings, cottages, that syndrome. People usually run for the hills not the city if they want to hide. I don't know why that should be."

  "Very well, sir."

  "And this file —" He tapped Tricia Quin's folder. "Get all the material out of it for Hyde. A list of people and leads. I have the distinct feeling that very little time is available to us, don't you?" Aubrey looked up at Shelley as the young man got to his feet.

  "No comment, sir."

  * * *

  "Well?" Lloyd, slumped in his chair, seemed to embrace the small, neat captain's cabin of the Proteus as he opened his hands for an answer. Then, as if drawn by some new and sudden gravity, his hands rested on the chart on his desk. Thurston had brought the chart with him from the control room. He and Carr, the navigator, had marked the course of the Proteus as far as Tanafjord. Thurston sat opposite Lloyd, Carr standing stockily and red-haired behind the first-lieutenant, Hayter leaning against the closed door of the cabin. The air conditioning hummed like a sustained note of expectancy. "Well, John? You two? Any comment?"

  Thurston cleared his throat, and in the sidelong movements of his eyes Lloyd saw that these three senior officers had conferred. They were some kind of delegation.

  "No," Thurston said at last, "not now we know its position."

  "Why not?" Lloyd looked up. "You two are in on this, I presume?"

  Carr said, abruptly, "It makes the whole thing messy, sir. I can't understand what MoD thinks it's playing at, ordering us to the mouth of Tanafjord. It smells, sir."

  "It does, sir," Hayter confirmed. "A “Delta”-class sub in a fjord. Why? What good can it do there? It could loose any missile it wanted to from its berth in Murmansk as well as from that fjord. Why was it there in the first place? Shallow water, no sea room. Sir, we both know it's a very unlikely beginning to the next war." Hayter smiled, ingratiating his nerves with his captain.

  Lloyd rubbed his face, drawing his features into a rubber mask, then releasing the flesh. It assumed a kind of challenged look. Thurston observed Lloyd's expression with a mild dismay.

  "You're suggesting we disobey a highest priority instruction from the Admiralty?"

  "No. Let's request confirmation. We could do that —"

  "We could." Lloyd looked down at the chart again. "How many hours" sailing, rigged for silent running, taking all precautions?"

  "A little over thirty-seven," Carr replied. Hayter looked at him in reproach, as if he had changed allegiance or betrayed a secret. "But I think we should request confirmation, skipper."

  "Thirty-seven." Lloyd tapped the chart with his forefinger. "Our course alteration is minimal for the first six hours or more. We're to continue our work on “Chessboard”. For six hours, at least, nothing's changed." He smiled. "In that time, we'll send one signal to MoD, asking for confirmation, and for a fuller definition of our mission status. Does that satisfy you trio of doubting Thomases?"

  "I still don't like it," Thurston volunteered.

  "You were as excited as hell when we picked up the signal from our Russian friend, John. What's changed?"

  "I used to like watching boxing — it never tempted me to take it up as a hobby."

  "Don, I want a full tape test and computer check run on “Leopard” as soon as we alter course."

  "You'll get it."

  "Are we still getting signals from the Russian boat?"

  Thurston nodded. "Sandy's been monitoring them since we got a reply from MoD."

  Carr said, "She's broadcasting in clear now. Being careful, of course. But the power's down on the transmission. I think they're using a low-power emergency backup set, and they're altering the frequency with preprogrammed cards. It's a bloody mess."

  "Any more details?"

  "No. Code-names, damage indications in some Cyrillic alphabet sequence. Can't decipher that. The letters and numerals could refer to anything."

  "What other traffic?"

  "Murmansk's been pouring out coded stuff — " Carr shook his head at the light in Lloyd's eyes. "We don't have it broken. Code of the day only, frequency-agile transmissions, the lot. But there's a lot of it. They're panicking all right."

  "Okay. Sandy, time to fetch Lt.-Commander Hackett."

  Lloyd nodded at the cabin door, and Hayter moved out of his way as the navigator went in search of the engineering officer. When Hayter closed the door again, Lloyd said, "You don't really think MoD are wrong on this one, do you?"

  Thurston pulled a melancholy face. "They aren't infallible. I think they like the idea of the game, that's all."

  "We're risking this ship, and ourselves, and “Leopard” on this wild goose chase," Hayter added with a quiet vehemence. That doesn't seem to have struck their lordships. I think the intelligence yield from this “monitoring action” won't be worth a candle, anyway."

  "I agree with Don."

  Lloyd was silent for a time, his hands over his face, the fingers slightly parted as if he were peeping child-like at them or at the chart on his desk. Then he rubbed his eyes, and shrugged himself upright in his chair.

  "I'll ask for confirmation from MoD. Meanwhile, we'll rig for silent running — and I mean silent from now on." A grin, unexpected and gleaming, cracked the seriousness of his expression. "It isn't for real, you two. We won't be responsible for starting the next war. Nothing is going to happen to us. It's Norwegian, the Tanafjord. Cheer up. Just look on it as another sea trial."

  Thurston was about to reply, but fell silent as they heard a knock on the cabin door. Lloyd indicated to Hayter that he should open it. The grin was still on Lloyd's face when Carr ushered Hackett into the cabin.

  * * *

  The wind seemed to follow Hyde into the entrance of Lancaster Gate underground station, hurrying pages of a copy of the New Evening Standard ahead of him, with chocolate bar wrappers. He hunched against the wind's dusty, grubby touch at his neck. He went through the barrier, and descended past the framed advertisements t
o the Central Line eastbound platform. A woman's legs, gigantic and advertising tights, invited him from the opposite wall. Lunchtime had swelled the numbers of passengers. Hyde lounged against the wall and observed Vassiliev further down the platform. Even here the wind moved the dust in little eddies or thin, gauzy scarves along the platform. Vassiliev wore a dark overcoat across his shoulders, over a pinstriped suit. He looked English enough despite the high Slavic cheekbones and narrow nose, yet he appeared nervous beneath the clothes and the residential veneer England had given him. Hyde was still unsure of him; whether his crime was one of omission or commission.

  The train slid into the arched bunker of the platform. Hyde watched Vassiliev board it, then waited until he was the last still person on the platform, then he got into another carriage as the doors shunted together behind him. He stood watching the retreating platform as the train pulled out. Nothing. There was nothing to be learned from nothing.

  He and Vassiliev left the train at Tottenham Court Road, Hyde staying twenty yards behind the Russian, closing with him as they transferred to the Northern Line and then getting into the same carriage of the first northbound train. He studied the carriage and its passengers until they pulled into Euston, then took a seat next to Vassiliev. The Russian embassy official, in making a pronounced movement away from him, squeezing himself against the window, suggested either dislike or nerves. Hyde placed his hand on Vassiliev's arm in a gesture which he knew the man — superficially confident of his heterosexuality but with sexual doubts nagging at him like toothache spoiling good looks and appetite — loathed. The arm jumped beneath his touch.