Sea Leopard

by Craig Thomas

  Every man in the room listened to him in silence, and the silence continued after he had finished speaking. A heavy, final silence punctuated only by the clicking of the keys of the encoding machine.

  * * *

  Ardenyev watched Vanilov's feet begin to slip, saw the white face surmounted by the facemask and half-obscured by the bobbing mouthpiece of his breathing apparatus, and felt the wave surge round his own ankles and calves. His hands gripped the rail of the launch, but Vanilov's grabbed for a handhold like clumsy artificial claws he had not learned to operate. Ardenyev reached out and gripped the younger man's elbow, almost as if he were about to twist Vanilov's arm painfully behind his back. He pulled the frightened, off-balanced man to him, hugged him upright, then pushed at his back and buttocks until Vanilov was over the rail of the launch and into it, a look of fearful gratitude on his face. They were all in.

  The sea flung itself against the Karpaty more ferociously than had been apparent on the carrier, as if encouraged by its success in making the rescue ship bob and duck and sway in the water. Amidships, where they were boarding the launch that would then be swung out on its davits, the sea boiled across the deck as each succeeding wave caught them in the trough behind its predecessor. Ardenyev watched a grey, white-fringed, boiling wall of water rise level with and above the deck, and tightened his grip on the launch's rail and widened his stance. Teplov offered his hand, and Ardenyev shook his head.

  "Get below!" he yelled.

  The wave smashed against the side of the hull, then flung its broken peak across the deck, drenching Ardenyev. He was deafened and blinded by the water, and he thought the thin, inhuman noise he heard distantly was merely illusion. When he opened his eyes again, there was one yellow-oilskinned figure less than before, gathered around the boat station— and other men were looking blankly and fixedly towards the boat's side. Ardenyev realised, as he shivered and tried to control his chattering teeth, the fragility of their enterprise, even its lunacy; resented to the point of hatred an old man ensconced in the non-climatic, antiseptic surroundings of the Red Banner headquarters in Murmansk. He wanted to open his mouth and yell his anger as the Karpaty wallowed her way into the trough behind the wave that had killed one of her crew.

  He swung himself up and over the rail, and hurried into the shelter of the launch's cabin, seeking the determination to order the officer in command of the frail little boat to issue his own orders for the launching of the vessel. A tiny yellow blob for a second, out there in the water—?

  Ardenyev shook his head, clearing the last of the water from his face and eyes with his hands. The air tanks were heavy on his back. He'd insisted— despite the discomfort and the loss of agility— that they don their full equipment, everything except flippers, in the comparative calm of the Karpaty, while the ratings of the rescue ship struggled to load their special equipment into the launch.

  The lieutenant in command of the launch watched him, immediately he entered the cabin, with a thin-lipped, colourless expression. His face reflected Ardenyev's thoughts, with its sense of the threadbare rationality of Dolohov's scheme that now made the old man seem mad. Dolohov appeared to have cobbled this operation together in a fit of lunacy.

  "Gone again, sir," the michman on the launch's sonar called out, and the lieutenant appeared to take this as a final condemnation of what they were doing, the last bitter irony of forces he could hardly comprehend but which controlled him.

  Ardenyev crossed the cabin to the sonar. "Show me," he said.

  The michman indicated a line across the screen with his finger, as if slicing the perspex surface of the sonar. "That bearing," he said. "Range six hundred."

  Six hundred metres from them, the British submarine lay on a ledge, less than fifty fathoms down. The invisible Norwegian coast had thrust out a hand, a fingertip, to aid her. Her anti-sonar was flicking on and off like a signalling torch.

  "That's it — let's go."

  Teplov's head appeared at the door at the rear of the cabin.

  "It's all in good shape, sir."

  "What about the men?" Teplov paused for a moment, then he nodded slowly. "Good," Ardenyev added. "Make sure everything's secure. Tell them to hang on tight, and be ready to move fast when I give the order." Teplov nodded again, and his head then disappeared as the door closed.

  The launch lurched off its blocks, swung fragilely outwards above the deck and then the grey water — they were in another trough between great waves — and the winches with their tiny, yellow-garbed figures working furiously at them, trundled them downwards towards the water. Speed seemed to lend stability and cancel the force of the wind, even still the water as it rushed up towards them. The rusty plates again of the hull, the thin wires above them, then the launch's keel smacking into the water, screw churning, its whine in air disappearing and its power failing to move the launch. Ardenyev grabbed a handhold and braced himself as the launch was lifted towards the grey-white peak of the next wave. It teetered there for a moment, deck awash, windows blind and running with water, the coxswain spinning the wheel feverishly and without apparent effect, then it began falling.

  Ardenyev heard someone cry out just after he registered a metallic, screeching slither from beyond the closed door at his back, then he was aware only of the ugly frightening sensation of being swallowed by a huge grey-fleshed, open mouth. Then they were in a trough and the rudder and the screw began taking effect and the boat moved with some of its own volition rather than that of the sea. A sense of stability returned to his legs and feet, the illusion of a firm surface, a level world.

  The warble of the sonar again, then, as if hearing were just returning.

  "She's there again, sir!" the michman called out.

  "Has she changed position?" Ardenyev asked.

  The michman calculated swiftly. "No, sir. Bearing now red one-five, range five-seven-eight."

  "Helmsman — port one-five."

  "Port one-five, sir."

  Teplov's face, white and drained and old, appeared at the door again.

  "Sir, it's Petrov — his leg. The hose broke loose, sir, wrapped itself around his leg — think it's broken, sir."

  "God," Ardenyev breathed, closing his eyes. Six of them now. Dolohov was a fucking lunatic —

  "Will you come, sir?"

  "It should have been stowed properly!" Ardenyev yelled in his enraged frustration.

  The launch teetered, then the bow fell drunkenly down and forward, the noise of the screw disappearing, sinking into the throb of the labouring engine. Six of them had to get themselves, their sleds, hoses and canisters, welding equipment and communications over the side of the launch, below the surface, down to the Proteus. There should have been thirteen of them. Impossible now.

  "I'll come," he said, suddenly weary and cold.

  * * *

  "One minute ten seconds, eleven, twelve, thirteen —" Lloyd whispered the lowering of his voice an act of mockery, pointless. "Sixteen, seventeen — twenty."

  Hayter and the sub-lieutenant were examining the mass of wiring and circuitry and microprocessors inside the main metal cabinet housing "Leopard". Hayter and the sublieutenant were checking the efficiency of each component manually, with multi-meters. The rating was removing the panelling of the second box, kneeling like a safecracker against the metal.

  Hayter looked up desperately, shaking his head. "It's no good, sir. We could be doing this for hours yet. Unless it switches itself back on, we're finished. It's no good pretending we're not. Everything here appears to be working, dammit!"

  "Get to work on the back-up system, will you?" One minute forty-two seconds. It wasn't going to come on again.

  "You know where that's housed. We can't work in there with the space and freedom we" ve got here. It'll take even longer —"

  "Christ, Don — what are you going to do, then?"

  "I don't know, sir!"

  One minute forty-nine, two minutes of visibility on any and every sonar screen in the area. On the Kie
v, the rescue ship, the subs, the destroyer, the aircraft overhead. Everyone could see them.

  The subs were holding off, not coming in for the kill. But then, they wanted "Leopard", not blood. And they were jamming every radio frequency they could. Proteus couldn't talk or receive. In a corner, beaten, defenceless —

  Two minutes ten. Hayter was back at his orisons in front of the exposed innards of "Leopard", kneeling in what might have been a prayer of desperation. If he could get it functioning again, if it would only switch itself back on, then he would risk the ship by moving her, limping off into another dark corner. At least he'd try to play hide-and-seek with them as long as he could, if only "Leopard" would work.

  Hayter looked at him again, shaking his head. Two minutes twenty-four. It wasn't going to work.

  Carr, the navigator, appeared at the door of the cabin. "Sir, sonar's picked up a very small vessel moving away from the rescue ship." As if there had been a public admission of failure, Carr spoke in his normal tone, normal volume. "Ship's launch, we think."

  "What does the First-Lieutenant think?"

  "Divers, sir. Some attempt to inspect our damage."

  "Very well." Two minutes fifty. It wasn't going to come on, now. Now it was too late. The rescue ship was less than half-a-mile away. They'd fixed her position by now. Lloyd looked with helpless vehemence at the exposed, purposeless interior of the "Leopard" cabinets. "Tell the First-Lieutenant I'm on my way." Carr disappeared. There was no attempt to modify the noise of his footsteps now. It was an admission of defeat, a surrender. "Keep me informed, Don— for Christ's sake keep on trying!"

  As he headed for the control room, the image of the opened useless cabinets remained with him, like a sudden, shocking glimpse of a body undergoing surgery. Hideously expensive, sophisticated almost beyond comprehension, impossible to repair. So much junk—

  A team of divers. A threat that somehow diminished even as it presented itself. Perhaps a dozen men, outside the twin hulls of the Proteus. His own crew numbered one hundred.

  The control room reasserted Lloyd's sense of authority, supplying also a fugitive sense of security. They were almost fifty fathoms down. He must consider moving Proteus, when the critical moment arrived. Thurston looked up from one of the sonar screens, and Lloyd unexpectedly grinned at him.

  * * *

  "Sorry, skipper — nothing. Just the howl of the jamming."

  "Make a guess— did Proteus pick up Aubrey's order?" Eastoe demanded.

  "Doubtful. Almost impossible."

  "So Lloyd doesn't know he must destroy the equipment?"

  "Don't you think he's done so, skipper? She's been on sonar for over four minutes now."

  "That could be the malfunction. Can we contact MoD?"

  "No."

  "Okay everybody. I'm taking her down again, for a look-see. It's almost dark down there. Keep your eyes wide open. Cameras ready. We might as well get any gen we can."

  * * *

  Hyde looked at his watch. A minute before eight. He got out of the unmarked police car parked in Watson Street, then looked back in at the Special Branch inspector before closing the door.

  "Half an hour. Just keep clear of the place for half an hour, okay?"

  "You're taking an unnecessary risk, Mr Hyde," the policeman offered without inflection. "Yours is a face they know. They'll pick you up on your way in, and bingo — "

  "Maybe. And if your lot go in, the girl will panic and either run off or refuse to talk when we" ve got her. Sorry, sport, we have to take the risk." He looked at his watch again. "Thirty minutes from now, you can come running blowing whistles, anything you like. But not till I" ve talked to the girl."

  "Have it your own way.“

  "I will. Look —" Hyde felt a sudden need for reassurance, a desire to ameliorate the police resentment of him. "The girl's almost paranoid about us. We 're the enemy, not the Russians. Christ knows how she came by that idea, but it's what she believes. I have to talk her out."

  "Okay. You" ve got thirty minutes."

  Hyde shut the car door softly. It was almost dark, and the shadows were black pools between the street lamps. Shop windows lighted, and a few pedestrians scuttling ahead of the wind. According to reports, there was one man at the back of the Free Trade Hall — but only one. Hyde thrust his hands into his pockets, and began slouching up the narrow street leading to the rear of the concert hall.

  The cars were parked and empty, the street lamps betrayed no pedestrians or loiterers. The weak strains of a country-and-western song came from a slightly open upstairs window of a flat above a shop. The pervasive odour of fish and chips fluttered on the wind, then was gone. It made Hyde feel hungry. He felt small, and alone.

  Dim, unlit shop windows. Dust in his eyes. Bookshop, sex shop, barber's. Then Hyde saw him, on the other side of the street, no more than a shadow that moved, perhaps a bored man shifting his weight on tired, aching feet. Hyde stopped, staring into the unlit window of a tiny record shop. Garish LP covers, posters, price cuts daubed in white. The language English but the place no longer Manchester. Some foreign place where he was outnumbered, known, sought. He shivered. If he passed the man, presumably his presence would be noted and reported. They would conclude it was him, even if he hadn't been recognized. On the other hand, if he removed the man from the board, his failure to contact Petrunin — still reported to be sitting in his car in the square — might similarly prove Hyde's presence in the area.

  The man had emerged from the doorway of a baker's shop, and was standing on the pavement. As Hyde turned slowly to face him, it was evident that the man was staring directly at him, aware of who he was. Hyde, hands still in his pockets of his corduroy trousers, shoulders hunched, feet apart, was helpless. A Volvo was awkwardly parked, pulled right up bumper-to-bumper against the rear of a Ford Escort directly in front of him. Between him and the man across the street.

  One hand of the bulky figure in a raincoat and a hat was moving towards his face, as if to feed himself the tiny R/T set. They hadn't picked up any transmissions all afternoon, Hyde thought, and had discounted R/T. In a moment, two or three paces of time, Petrunin would know that Hyde was about to enter the Free Trade Hall. The hand was moving, Hyde's foot was on the Volvo's bumper, his left foot on the bonnet of the car, the man's hand stopped moving — Hyde could not see the finger press the transceiver button — one step on the bonnet, then down half-way across the street. The man was surprised, the hand moved away from his face, his other hand fumbled in his raincoat, two strides, one more, collision —

  The man staggered back into the darkened doorway of the shop. Old mosaiced threshold, the man's mouth opening in a groan as the ornate, polished brass doorknocker thrust into his back. Hyde, one hand scrabbling at his side, reached for the transceiver in the Russian's hand, and punched at the face that had opened in pain. The Russian's head ducked to one side as if he had avoided the blow, but the knees were going, and the body sagged. Hyde felt the hand surrender the transceiver, and hit the Russian again, behind the ear. Then he lowered him in his arms on to the mosaic of the threshold. The Russian was breathing as if asleep, on the verge of snoring.

  Hyde dropped the transceiver, and was about to grind it beneath his shoe. Then he picked it up and put it into the pocket of his windcheater. If Petrunin tried to contact the man in the doorway, then at least he would know; know, too, that he would have only minutes after that.

  He hurried now, shaking from the brief violence, the surge of adrenalin.

  There were double gates at the rear of the hall. A uniformed constable opened a small judas-door to him, and closed it behind him. Hyde debated for a moment whether to tell the young policeman of the Russian in the doorway, or the others that might come looking for him, then decided against so doing.

  The Edwin Shirley trucks were drawn up in convoy, as if the Free Trade Hall were some cargo terminal. Hyde skirted them, searching in the almost complete darkness for the rear entrance that the Special Branch inspector had po
inted out on a plan of the building. He climbed three steps, his hand resting for a moment on a cold metal railing, then tried the door. It had been left unlocked by one of the plainclothes detectives who had been inside the building all day. Hyde went in and closed the door behind him. A lighted passage in need of a fresh coat of cream paint. Dark brown doors. Cramped, uncomfortable, draughty, strip-lighting the only modernism. There was no one in the corridor.

  Heat of the Day — Hyde paused to listen, Alletson's high, clear voice riding over the keyboards and guitar, part of the suite of pieces "No Way Back" — could be heard mutedly but plainly. He would have to hurry. Normally the band followed the suite with a keyboard display by Whiteman, the other four leaving the stage to him. He had only a few minutes, he realised, becoming aware at the same moment of the small transceiver in his pocket. He opened a dressing-room door. The room was empty and in darkness.

  The second room was locked and he saw, looking down, that there was a light on, gleaming beneath the door. Then it went out. He fished for the stiff little rectangle of mica in his pocket, and inserted it in the door jamb. He paused, listening. The noise of an opening window?

  Alletson's voice silent, the slow keyboard section of the suite, building to the ensemble climax. Three, four minutes. A window opening?

  He sprang the Yale lock and opened the door. In the light that entered the room from the corridor, he could see a small, slim figure at the dressing-room window, balanced on the sill. He crossed the room in three strides, knocking over a chair, hearing the slight, rustling twang of a guitar he had disturbed, then he had his arms around the figure, keeping his head back from the fingernails that instantly sought his face. He pulled Tricia Quin back into the room, clamping one hand over her mouth, pressing her against him with his other arm. Her body wriggled in his embrace, small, slippery. She backheeled his shins, and he winced with pain but did not let go. He felt the door behind him, raised his elbow, found the light switch, and held her against him after the light came on, but more gently. Eventually, he turned her head so that she could see his face. She stopped wriggling and struggling for a moment, then tried to tear away from him.