by Stuart Woods
At Burlington, she rented a car and headed for Stowe, timing the drive nicely. She passed the scarred mountainsides that were ski runs in winter, passed pseudo-alpine motels that looked closed for the summer. She found the road south; when the Texaco, station came into view, she pulled over and waited until a minute to three, then drove the last few hundred yards to the station and pulled in. Hers was the only car in the place. She got out of the car and filled the tank, which didn’t take long, considering it was three-quarters full, looking up and down the highway for her contact. The road was strangely empty. She walked into the station and paid for the gasoline; when she got back to the car, there was a yellow Jeep wagon idling at the roadside. Ed Rawls was at the wheel. With no sign of recognition, he pulled away and drove south. She scrambled into her car and pulled away after him, keeping as far back as she could and still keep him in sight. Three or four miles further south, he turned left onto a graveled road, and she followed, marveling that, in the five or six minutes of their drive, she saw no other vehicle. Midsummer Sundays in skiing country were quiet, she thought.
Rawls turned left again, then right, and shortly pulled off the road into the paved forecourt of a schoolhouse, an archtypal New England, little red schoolhouse, with a weathervaned belfry and white trim. From a quarter mile down the road Rule saw him get out of the wagon and go into the school. She drove into the forecourt, parked next to the Jeepster, and got out of the car. It was hot, sunny, and still. The weathervane atop the building pointed east, unmoving. The front door was ajar, and Rule stepped inside. A short hallway led her past a closed door and into the single schoolroom. It became obvious that the building was no longer a school. There was a raised stage to her right, which instead of a teacher’s desk, now held a modern kitchen. The open floor of the schoolroom now held a dozen pieces of comfortable-looking, if dowdy, upholstered furniture. The blackboards around the room were still in place, and there was a potbellied wood stove in one corner. Her eyes were drawn back to the kitchen/stage by the sound of a refrigerator door opening. Ed Rawls bent over and peered at the lower shelves. “Want a beer?” he called.
“Got anything diet?”
He walked across the stage toward her, carrying a green beer bottle and a can of Diet Coke. “You wired?” he asked, coming down the steps to the main floor and handing her the soft drink.
“Nope.”
“Good. You can’t take any notes, either. Leave your bag here, and listen, Kate, this is deep background; you can’t use anything you get here in any report or conversation at the agency, you understand that.”
Rule nodded. She wished that weren’t a condition of the meeting, but she understood Rawls’s need to protect himself. She put her bag on the edge of the stage and followed him back toward the front door. He stopped at the door she had passed earlier. “He doesn’t know who you are or what you want, but he has an idea that where he goes from here might depend on the kind of answers he gives you.”
“Thanks for that, Ed,” she said.
“His appearance has changed, and I thought of hooding him, but he wouldn’t have thought you were important if I’d done that. I thought of blindfolding him to enhance your status, but, in some of his early interrogation, that didn’t work very well. He’s more comfortable, more talkative, less mechanical, when he can see who he’s talking to. That’s natural, I guess. He’s been accustomed to rank for a long time, and he responds to respect. Since the very beginning, I’ve been treating him as a senior colleague instead of a defector, and it’s gotten results. He’s had chats with half a dozen others, mostly technical people looking for stuff on communications and hardware, but he’s done ninety percent of his talking to me and a tape recorder. You’re the first woman he’s seen, except the lady who’s been doing the cooking and the housekeeping around here. He’s pretty horny; that might be of some use to you, if you don’t find it too chauvinist an idea.”
Rule ignored that. “Does he have a pattern when he’s lying?”
Rawls shook his head. “He’s never once lied to me—or at least, I’ve never caught him at it. If he’s lying, he’s too good at it to have a pattern. Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” Rawls looked at his watch. “You’ll have to leave here in forty minutes to make the last plane to New York.”
“I take it he’s leaving soon, too.” She didn’t think Ed Rawls would have let her come here unless Malakhov was about to depart.
Rawls grinned. “He’ll be out of the state before you get to the airport.” He opened the door and stood back. “Good luck.”
Rule stepped inside and heard the door close behind her.
20
HELDER opened his eyes and listened. The quiet whine of the submarine’s engines was blotted out by the rumble of the Helsinki-Stockholm ferry, only a few meters above and ahead of the sub, as the two, like a whale and her calf, picked their way in tandem through the Stockholm Archipelago.
Helder thought he had heard the squeak of deck shoes in the corridor, but no one came for him. He looked at his watch. Soon, now. He had not slept deeply the whole night, but he had kept his eyes closed and made an effort to think about something other than his mission. Except for the intervals when Trina Ragulin had popped into his consciousness, he had failed. He had rehearsed every maneuver he might be required to make during the next eight hours; he felt he could reach his destination point without a chart by now. The chart was engraved on the frontal lobe of his brain, every characteristic of every buoy, every promontory, every shallow. No Soviet officer had ever been better prepared for a mission, he was sure of it. Still, the prickle of fear stayed with him, constantly stabbing, like the fibers of rough, Soviet service underwear. He thought every soldier who had ever raised his head from a foxhole to see an advancing enemy must feel as he felt now. The only way he could deal with the feeling, keep it at bay, was to resolve to do what he had been ordered to do, and the hell with safety; surely, that was how men had brought themselves to combat for centuries.
But each time he gathered that resolve, the thought of Trina broke it, and he had to start all over again. He had too much to live for, now, to put his safety aside. She was at Malibu, waiting for him, and he struggled to keep that from being more important than his mission.
The squeak of shoes again, and this time it was real. Helder swung his legs over the side of the pipe cot and put his feet on the deck as the rating brushed the curtain aside and spoke.
“It’s time, sir. We’ve just disengaged the ferry and are going to the bottom, now.”
“Tell the captain I’ll be with him directly.” Helder got into his track suit and running shoes, tied a rough pullover around his shoulders, should he need a bit of extra warmth, tucked the heavy, plastic envelope containing his emergency clothing under one arm and his chart case under the other, and stepped into the corridor. Valerie Sokolov, similarly equipped, stepped into the corridor from the adjoining cabin a moment later. He motioned her to follow him, and he was not happy with his glimpse of her face, which was drawn, haggard. He hoped she could get through this assignment without caving in on him. He wondered if he was capable of Majorov’s orders to kill her, if circumstances warranted. No matter, he wasn’t going to execute anybody in cold blood.
He led the way forward to the wardroom, where breakfast waited for them. There was hot porridge, smoked herring, black bread, and tea. He ate heartily, to his surprise; Sokolov did not. There was little conversation. Helder ate quickly then stood. “If you’re going to move your bowels today, you’d best do it now,” he said to Sokolov, then went for the head. Ten minutes later, he was back, and so was Sokolov. The captain came into the wardroom.
“We’re ready when you are,” Helder said.
The captain nodded. “By the time you’re buckled in, we’ll have completed our sonar sweep. If there’s nothing about, you’re off.”
Helder led the way forward again, through the sub to the specially constructed launch and recovery ro
om where the Type Four minisub waited. He motioned Sokolov to board first, then he followed her up the ladder to the top-mounted hatch. He dropped his bag and chart case onto the seat below him, and swung his legs into the sub. Just as he was about to drop below, something caught his eye, something that was, somehow, the wrong color. It was lying on the floor of the chamber, and it was one of the yellow radiation badges he had seen the loaders wearing; only it was no longer yellow, it was blue.
“Sir,” a crew member shouted through the open pressure hatch, “Skipper says you’re all clear. Flooding chamber as soon as you’re battened down. Good luck.”
Helder jumped, not expecting the nervous boy’s shout. He gave him a thumbs up, dropped into the minisub, and closed the hatch behind him, cranking the pressure wheel tight. He stowed his bag under his seat and opened the little chart case. As he clipped a strip chart to the little table at his elbow, he heard a valve crank open and water begin to rush into the chamber. He ran through a final check list with Sokolov, as much to calm her with routine as to ensure that everything was shipshape. He could hear the clicks of switches as she closed circuits, and the glow of red lights changed to green as they were completed.
“I’ve got a red light persisting on the main board,” Sokolov said, suddenly. “That means malfunction of the grapplers.”
Helder swore under his breath; the mission was off if the grappler wouldn’t work. “Check the box,” he said evenly. “Maybe it’s just the switch and not the hydraulics.”
Sokolov’s hand came into view at his right, as she reached for a screwdriver from a set in a wall bracket. “Just a minute.” He heard the switchbox open and waited impatiently for her answer. “Yes! Yes!” she said. “It’s the switch; a wire has come adrift from the crimping.”
“Fix it, then,” Helder said, impatiently. Water had covered the forward ports, now, and Helder could see the red chamber lights casting wavering shadows over the dull, black skin of the buoy, which rested on its shelf, just under the ports.
“Got it,” Sokolov said, a little triumph in her voice. “All lights green for go.” Her hand came forward again and replaced the screwdriver.
A low whine rose from behind them somewhere, the forward doors of the launch and recovery chamber swung slowly open, and the steelplate ramp unfolded and settled to the bottom. Helder switched on the minisub’s forward lamps and cut in the track mechanism. He pushed the control lever forward, and the sub tractored out of the chamber, down the ramp, and onto the floor of the bay called Trälhavet. As soon as they had cleared the mother sub, he stopped the minisub and switched off the tracks, which used three times as much power as the props. He switched off the forward lamps, too. “Ten percent buoyancy,” he said to Sokolov.
“Ten percent buoyancy,” she repeated, and he heard her work the controls. The sub did not move.
Damn, he thought, it was the extra sixty kilos of the buoy. “Twenty percent buoyancy,” he said, and she followed his order. The sub began to rise from the seabed, and Helder kicked in the twin propellers. The sub moved sluggishly forward; he pulled back on the joystick and got almost no response. Damned extra weight. He increased engine revs, and the sub slowly came up to a climbing attitude. On the way to the surface he checked responses to the controls. Everything was satisfactory except the upward response to the diving planes; the buoy’s unplanned-for extra weight inhibited that. He could live with the situation, but it was going to cost him battery power; still, he had a lot in hand. He did some quick calculations; his six-hour mission would be increased to eight hours, and he had, he reckoned, nineteen hours of running power, even with the extra weight and the running speed required for good maneuverability on the outward leg.
The mother sub was lying in thirty-five meters of water, and watching his depth gauge, he allowed the minisub to rise thirty meters. Then, he operated the periscope and let the machine rise slowly until the scope broke water. He did a quick, 360 degree sweep with the periscope, its mirror mechanism allowing him to remain facing forward while it turned. There was no other craft visible in the halflight of the subarctic night. He brought the scope dead ahead, then swept the horizon in a 30-degree arc. There, there was his first light, kindly placed there by the Royal Navy of Sweden. Satisfied that his ship was alone and on course, he allowed himself his first look at Sweden. He saw nothing but distant, lowlying lumps of land. He would have another look in more confined waters. He lowered the periscope.
“We’re on course, Sokolov,” he said, half turning his head. “Report.”
“Everything is in perfect order, Captain,” she said.
He was surprised at her respectful tone, and she sounded calmer than she had looked before they launched. He relaxed a little.
Three hours passed uneventfully. Helder followed his course with ease, popping up the periscope for a few seconds at a time. He saw comfortable-looking houses ashore, some of them quite grand, and an occasional street light winked in the dim light, but no one stirred. The houses slept behind the thick blackout curtains that separate every Swede from the midnight sun. By full dawn, they were through the first narrow channel and into more open water. Moments after they left the channel, Helder saw the first patrol boat. He immediately cut his engines and let the sub sink a few meters before establishing neutral buoyancy.
“Two hundred meters distance,” said Helder, the sonar’s phones pressed to her ears. “Two-fifty; three hundred; five hundred.”
Helder restarted the engines and came to periscope depth again. A few minutes later, he encountered another patrol boat, and an hour later, another. After leaving the open water and entering his next channel, he saw no others. Leaving the island of Saint Hoggarn astern, he continued in a southwesterly direction, and, almost exactly eight hours after launching, he drove the minisub into the open water of Lilla Värtan, due east of Stockholm. He made one last periscope sweep. There were three merchant vessels ahead in the distance, and one mere dot behind him. The spires of Stockholm rose before him. He felt the thrill of trespass.
Reluctantly, he lowered the periscope and slowed the minisub, gaining depth rapidly. Then Sokolov spoke.
“Craft dead astern, seven hundred meters, closing rapidly.”
Why the hell hadn’t she heard it before he saw it? He didn’t much care, now; he was at his destination. All that remained was to find a suitable site for the buoy and deploy it. He switched on the sub’s forward lamps and waited. At thirty-one meters of depth, the bottom swam toward him. He slowed the sub’s descent and let her take the bottom gently. He was on a nearly level, rocky seabed, ideal for his purposes. He switched in the tractor mechanism, moved it into forward, and stopped after no more than ten meters. Jesus, he was here! The bottom was perfect! What could be easier? “I’m deploying the buoy,” Helder said.
“Craft at four hundred meters and closing more slowly,” Sokolov said, a note of tension creeping into her voice. “Estimated speed fifteen knots and decreasing.”
Fifteen knots? Patrol boat. What else would be moving that fast? He switched off everything and sat back. “Silence,” he said, “except for reports.”
“Craft at one hundred meters, speed steady at ten knots,” Sokolov said.
Helder didn’t need the sonar, now; the drum of the boat’s engines was clearly audible. It passed straight over them.
“Craft departing at ten knots,” Sokolov said, her voice relaxing a bit. Three hundred meters and increasing.”
Helder sat up. “Prepare to deploy the buoy,” he said. “Switch to hydraulic power.”
“Switching to hydraulic power,” Sokolov replied, throwing switches. “Ready.”
Helder grasped the control levers for the grapplers and lifted the buoy. With its additional buoyancy in the water, it came up easily enough. He pushed forward, and the buoy moved away from the minisub, off its storage shelf. He moved the grapplers downward, and the buoy settled onto the bottom, creating a small cloud of silt. He brought the grapplers back into their stowed position. “S
witch off hydraulic power,” he said.
“Hydraulic power off, full battery power available for propulsion,” Sokolov said.
Helder checked the display on the inertial navigation system. “Fifty-eight degrees, twenty-one minutes, ten seconds north; eighteen degrees, twelve minutes, two seconds east,” Helder said aloud, simultaneously writing the coordinates in his log book and memorizing them. The numbers burned into his brain; he thought he would never remember anything so well ever again. God, he had done it! He had piloted this ridiculous machine into Swedish waters and dropped the bloody buoy on the nose!
“Craft approaching from dead ahead,” Sokolov said, suddenly. “Speed approximately ten knots.” Her voice wavered. “My god, I think they’ve turned!”
Helder’s first thought was to move away from the buoy. He grabbed the controls, asked for buoyancy, and when the sub had lifted three or four meters, pushed the controls ahead. Freed of its burden, the Type Four moved quickly forward, over the buoy, and into the open waters of Lilla Värtan.