He placed the bundle of hessian sacks on the deck below his own cabin. Next he removed the vodka bottle from the inside of his thin coat. Taking one last precious sip, he poured the rest of the alcohol over the sacks.
He fished in a pocket for a cigarette lighter. Shielding the old fashioned guard, he attempted to get it to work. Each time the wind prevented a flame from forming. He sheltered the lighter under his coat, trying again and again for a light. Eventually he got a steady flame, nearly setting light to his clothes. He leaned over and put the light to the heap of sacks.
Waiting a second to ensure the spark had taken hold, he shouted ‘Fire!’ The sacks burst into a blaze, but he worried that the fire would die out too quickly. He scurried over to starboard side and hid behind the companionway. A soldier emerged, calling to his comrade to fetch a fire extinguisher. When the man appeared, Grigori shot up the ladder. The bridge was clear.
Grigori scooted in and peered around the radio room door. He offered up a silent prayer. It was empty.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The mammoth icebreaker came to a grinding halt, hard up against the pack ice. Men hurried down the starboard ladders and hammered in two steel poles. Once complete, they caught lines from the bow and stern and secured them to the posts.
Feliks was glad to escape from the control room. It was only a question of time before the control rod seals leaked. Even so, the reactor’s temperature remained steady. He took refuge on the helicopter deck, closely followed by his American minder. They watched as teams of engineers below begin clearing a space on the middle deck. Twenty feet away, a man dressed in full Arctic gear spoke into a walkie-talkie. He appeared to be directing the men on the ice where a large collection of vehicles and cranes had gathered a short distance from the ship.
Feliks staggered towards him, head-down, fighting his way against a gust of hail. ‘Are you going to load your equipment in these conditions?’ He had to shout to make his voice heard over the gale force winds.
The man glanced at him briefly and barked into his set. When he finished he turned back to Feliks. ‘We don’t have any choice.’
‘I’m the chief engineer on LK-80’ Feliks said, holding out his hand.
‘Dan - I’m the program manager.’ They shook. ‘I’m responsible for getting all the equipment on board and making sure everything works as it should.’
‘They are still alive?’ Feliks nodded to the water under the stern.
‘Yep. I heard there are over a hundred.’
‘That’s fantastic news!’ Feliks feared Grigori had killed all the crew.
‘Five people are dead down there. What happened?’ The man regarded him warily.
Feliks shrugged his shoulders, understanding the unspoken accusation. ‘I was below decks. I think someone made a big mistake.’
The man’s eyes flickered, but he said nothing.
Feliks motioned at the crane and the vehicles. ‘You brought a lot of gear. How do you stop the weight falling through the ice?’
Dan looked away, and then back at Feliks. ‘Steel matting.’ He pointed to the road they had created. ‘The lattice spreads the load and once frozen into the surface the roadway becomes much stronger than ordinary ice.’
The wind dropped a little and Dan barked further orders into his handset. More matting was rolled out towards LK-80 and a big derrick trundled forward on huge rubber tyres. Feliks stayed, ignoring the cold, fascinated by the developments taking place. Something of the engineer in him was impatient to learn how the Americans would set about the rescue.
Now that the frantic work was finished, deck hands positioned flood lights around the outside. A harsh acrid light lit the open space. Workers set to, and the sparks from their arc welders chased the deep shadows away. The gantry closed up alongside and Dan pointed as the first items of gear were lifted on-board. ‘The whole is called the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System. We call it SRDRS, for short.’ He waited as a great A-frame unit was hoisted aboard. ‘This is one of the most important sections. Basically it’s a crane which will be bolted to the after-deck. It’s part of the Assessment/Underwater Work System.’
‘Called AUWS I expect,’ Feliks responded.
Dan smiled. ‘You got it. All of the equipment sits on reinforced steel templates which we bolt or weld to the deck. The various pieces of kit are then positioned on top of the templates and bolted into place. That’s how we get the necessary structural integrity.’ Dan shouted into the walkie-talkie as the wind took hold of a particularly large steel section and swung it around. Two deck hands dodged in to clip lines and steadied the piece.
‘Dangerous stuff,’ remarked Feliks.
‘You can see why it’s so important to clear the deck,’ Dan replied.
‘Why are some items painted yellow?’ enquired Feliks.
‘Ha ha - I don’t really know!’ laughed Dan. I suppose the kit is easier to spot in these types of conditions.’
As Feliks looked on the team of engineers began the job of bolting the structures. Dan continued his running commentary. ‘To recover and rescue personnel from a disabled submarine, we have a Pressurised Rescue Module. He looked sideways at Feliks.
‘PRM?’ offered Feliks.
‘Correct. It’s a tethered, remotely operated submarine rescue vehicle - like a horizontal cylinder with hemispherical ends. You’ll see it in a minute when it’s taken on board. We send it down to survey the DISSUB.’
‘Hang on, DISSUB?’ asked Feliks.
‘Disabled/Distressed Submarine. We need to find out how the DISSUB is lying, what damage she sustained, and whether the access hatches are free.’
‘Do you have video?’
‘Yep. Navigation, video and propulsion are mounted externally.’
‘Can you communicate with it to the sailors in the submarine?’
‘You bet. Often it’s the first contact they have with the outside world.’
‘So, once you know where its lying, and they know you’re here - what happens next?’
‘We mate the PRM with a free access hatch, and take up to 16 personnel at a time.' Dan indicated the yellow crane, now bolted to the deck plates and overhanging the taffrail. ‘The A-frame hauls the PRM up. We transfer the men out and we go down for the next group.’
‘Supposing the pressure inside the submarine is too high?’
‘Our PRM handles that too, though we would need to transfer the crew under pressure to a decompression chamber. But we know the pressure inside has been adjusted to atmospheric.’
‘So when does the action start?’
Dan looked out over the deck. ‘We have to position your ship immediately over the DISSUB. While we’re doing that, the guys will be double checking everything to make sure we can begin the rescue as soon as we arrive.’
Feliks was impressed by what he had seen. You had give the Americans their due.
The operator pushed the lever forward, and the powerful lights of the Pressurised Rescue Module moved, picking out the seabed through the dense plankton.
'Anything yet Jim?'
Jim shook his head in response.
'Timings?'
Jim checked the readout on the screen. 'We're looking at over twenty minutes to get down.'
He turned his attention back to the computer. 'We should be coming up on the rear dorsal fin any minute now.' He pressed the joystick over to the left, and a grey mound appeared in the video feed. Another nudge, and the camera traversed slowly; the dark smudge filled the monitor. He altered a dial, and the display zoomed out to show a huge cowl, covering the submarine's propeller.
'Spot on Jim! Now can we see how she’s resting?'
'Right boss.' Jim glanced at the display. 'She's at 450 metres.'
'That's only just inside their theoretical crush depth.'
'Yeah. I bet they were shitting themselves on the way down.'
'Show some respect Jim.'
'Sorry boss.' As Jim repositioned the PRM over the downed sub he con
tinued his running commentary. 'She's canted slightly to port ... the rear escape hatch appears good - clear of debris and intact.' He adjusted the zoom to get a better view of the hatchway and the surrounding hull. 'Yep, looks fine. I'm moving up to the bow. Some dents to the exterior, but nothing... wait!'
'What have you got?'
'Take a look at this boss.' Jim pointed at the monitor. It showed a tangled mess of steel where the conning tower should have been.
'Good God! Take the PRM up a bit so we can get a better assessment from above.'
Jim tapped the keys, releasing a little ballast. The image drifted away. 'Got a current here.' Jim made careful adjustments to the external thrusters and the picture steadied.
'Looks like someone stomped on the sail!'
Jim's boss was grim. 'Somebody did. Can you make contact with the crew?'
'Yep, but I really should do a full check of the hull integrity first. I need to find out how much of a hit the forward section took.'
'OK. Give me a shout when we're ready.'
Jim's boss pulled a piece of paper and pen towards him. He murmured to himself as he made notes. 'Twenty minutes the first occasion - that includes the time to locate the sub. Let's say subsequent descents take 15 minutes now we know where it's located. Docking, transferring crew and un-docking will take about quarter of an hour each time, and the journey up is another 15 minutes.'
He added up the total. 'That makes 45 minutes for a round trip. Then we hoist the PRM onto the deck and transfer the crew. We’ll have to arrange for the wounded first, which will delay things. Say, 30 minutes to disembark the injured. We might get that down to 20 minutes on later trips.'
He drew a second column. 'There’s a total of 134 crew. We know five died, so they have to come last. Let me see.' He jotted more figures, and glanced across at Jim.
'I make it nine trips to get them all out. Say a minimum of 10 hours at least, providing there are no delays.'
Jim assented. Both were accustomed to holdups; shifting currents, movement of the submarine and the weather top-side had all delayed previous operations. Often the only thing they could do was to wait out until the situation stabilised. Jim worried about the increasing strength of the wind across the deck.
'What's the status?'
Jim pushed back from the console. 'Pretty much what we expected. The bow took the brunt of the impact with the sea bed. You can tell from the pictures.' Jim thrust some photographic stills across the table. Several showed the front of the sub driven hard in to the sea floor, as if it had tried to bury itself.
'That's bad' remarked the boss. 'Thankfully there's a lot of sediment down on the bottom which should have provided a bit of a cushion.'
'Yeah. Even so, they would have felt it,' replied Jim soberly.
'Let's give them something to cheer about Jim - let them know we’re here.’
Sean watched the road from his car, parked across the street from the flats. It was 7:55 am and the mother had left for work an hour ago. He turned to Lomax. 'Coast clear.'
Lomax got out of the car, opened the boot and took out a carpet bag. He moved towards the gate and tipped out his collection of home-made hedgehogs. He had fashioned the tyre puncture spikes by hammering inch-long nails into short pieces of dowelling. Slinging the empty sack away, he drew a gun from an inside pocket. Holding it close to his side and pointing to the floor, he calmly checked his wristwatch. It would be a pity if another car came out now, before Levushka and his guards arrived.
He didn't have long to wait. As the electric gate swung open, Lomax moved, keeping one step behind them.
Sean got out. One or two pedestrians were about, too far away to be a threat. He walked over to the spot where he estimated the Mercedes would come to a halt. The car came through the gate, accelerating as it turned right into the road.
Things started to happen fast. Sean heard a distinct 'pop' as the tyres hit the hedgehogs. Nevertheless the car kept on going, spikes flying off in all directions as the rubber spun. The car passed Sean. He could see the boy sandwiched between two men in the back. The Merc weaved against the kerb, but Lomax was already on the move. He held his gun out, running at the vehicle. It mounted the pavement and stalled. As he approached, the driver restarted the engine and the car jerked forward a few metres.
Lomax dropped to a crouch as the chauffeur opened his door and rolled out. Even before he stopped rolling he let off a round which went wide. Lomax aimed from a crouching position and shot him. The man dropped immediately.
The back doors flew open and Sean lined up the sights at the guard on his side. He was unable to fire for fear of hitting Levushka.
The second man crawled out of the Mercedes, letting off several rounds at Lomax. One of them must have connected, because Lomax fell.
Sean caught the drumming of leather shoes on hard ground. He glanced behind as two men appeared through the gate. Diving into his car, he closed the door fast. They hadn't seen him; their eyes remained focused on the gun-play on Lomax's side.
The man who shot Lomax ran to the Mercedes and got into the back to ensure the boy stayed put.
One of the men who had just appeared returned to the gate and kicked away the remaining hedgehogs. The other headed back down to the garage, appearing a minute later with a second car. They drew up behind the Merc, and the driver got out, waving his gun to ward off a second attack. They dragged Levushka out of the Merc and forced him the back of the second car, and drove off at speed.
Sean glanced at the fallen body of Lomax. There was no time to pick him up. He turned the key in the ignition and accelerated after the second car.
Despite the flashing blue light clamped to the roof, the car containing Levushka got bogged down in a traffic jam. Those in front didn’t have enough room to manoeuvre and get out of the way.
Sean was not surprised. In a city of over 11.5 million inhabitants he had had first-hand experience of Moscow’s rush hour. He swerved off into a side street, parked quickly and jumped out.
While the cars were at a standstill, he ran along the pavement to move ahead of the target. He crossed the road diagonally, making a line towards the car. Sean was confident he had not been seen by anyone inside.
He retrieved his gun and dropped to the ground, taking aim. Squeezing the trigger, he put a hole in the nearest front tyre and then holed the second. There was no point in shooting the driver since the car’s screen was security glass and would stop any of the rounds from his handgun. It was also quite possible the tyres were self-healing, but it was the best he could do.
Sean crouched low and retreated rapidly. Even with the silencer, some might have heard the sound above the noise of the traffic. Any astute motorist would have felt the rounds thudding into the wheel rims.
Sean reached the pavement and found a doorway with an excellent view. He checked the busy pavements to see if anyone had noticed. There were some puzzled glances from pedestrians nearby, but no-one was taking a particular interest in him.
The traffic began to creep forward and the car crawled on flat tyres. The driver halted as realisation dawned. He put on his hazard warning lights and cars behind started to flow around him.
From his observation point Sean saw the chauffeur speaking into his mobile. Cautiously he stepped out, drawing his gun and holding it pointed down, along the seam of his jeans. Sean drew a bead through the driver’s window and shot him. The man went down and some pedestrians screamed as they realised what was happening.
Sean darted into the moving traffic, dodging between the cars until coming abreast of the stationary car. He leaned in through the driver’s open window and placed his gun inside, over the top of the driver’s seat. At the last moment he glimpsed the bodyguard with his arm around Levushka, gun pressed against the boy’s head. Sean stopped.
Sweat beads lined the furrows on the man’s face. Sean let his gun hand dip behind the front seat. The bodyguard motioned for Sean to drop the gun altogether. Without changing his expression, Sean f
ired.
The round punctured the seat and entered the man’s gut. Surprise registered on his face. Sean wrenched his gun; it came away easily.
He studied Levushka. The boy was in shock, some of the bodyguard’s blood covering his clean white shirt. Levushka dabbed the stain helplessly. Sean ran round and yanked the rear door open. Reaching in, he pulled the boy out by the jacket.
‘Get the chauffeur’s mobile.’
Levushka looked puzzled.
‘Now!’ barked Sean.
Sean went back into the car to retrieve the dying bodyguard’s phone. Levushka crouched next to the fallen chauffeur, searching through the man’s jacket. He found the phone and lifted it high so that Sean would notice.
Arctic Firepath (Sean Quinlan Book 2) Page 18