by Peter Tonkin
ARCTIC OCEAN, 1986
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their future history ...
Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain
~ * ~
Chapter Three
Captain Alexeii Borodin looked past the ghostly outline of his reflection up along the streaming, rust-red weather deck of the Leonid Brezhnev towards the steel-grey convergence of the Arctic Ocean and the Polar overcast dead ahead. He felt the forward movement of his command lose the sedate steadiness which had characterised it during the last few hours, as she began to nose out of the coastal ice and into the open sea. On the starboard quarter to his right, the massive icebreaker Novgorod was already speeding away round the curve of the Kolskiy Poluostrov coast down towards the White Sea, her lights jewel bright against the smoke-grey background, until the fleeting squall drew its dull curtain across the scene and the ship disappeared behind it.
‘I’ve got a lot of static, but I can just make out that Novgorod says “Goodbye and good luck”, Captain,’ announced the radio operator, popping his head out of the shack like a badger from its set.
‘What’s his hurry?’ Borodin grumbled, more to himself than to anyone else on the bridge.
‘He’s going to open up the approaches to Archangel. I thought you knew, Comrade Captain,’ answered political officer Fydor Sholokov.
Borodin looked across at the big bull of a Georgian. With his stubble hair and walrus moustache, Sholokov clearly, if unfashionably, modelled himself on the late Comrade Stalin. Not much imagination there, thought the captain. He had a literal mind, too. A perfect Party man. A dinosaur.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Borodin persisted. ‘Think about it. He’s been treating us as though we have the plague since we pulled out of Murmansk behind him. “Don’t come to slow ahead until I tell you, Brezhnev. Sail the course I signal to you, Brezhnev. Don’t get too close to my lily-white stern, Brezhnev.” ‘
‘Did he actually say that? Lily-white stern?’ Sholokov was really offended. Borodin felt a stirring of affection. Then he felt sick as Leonid Brezhnev pulled free of the long white line of the coastal ice and slid down the back of the first big dark sea. Even though the freighter was on the edge of the winter ice she still rode the black water uneasily. Borodin was surprised to find the sea so lively, though the squalls were vicious and clearly the outrunners of an easterly storm. He had overseen enough of the loading in Murmansk to know that the cargo could not have been better stowed but still he found the manner his command was riding the swell a little disquieting. It was as though the ship had sentience and a will of her own; as though she was scared. As though she would rather be turning round and going back home.
‘Sail due north,’ he said to the helmsman. ‘Come to three-quarters ahead and keep an eye out for ice.’
She was on her own now, like a young son left suddenly to his own devices by an overbearing parent. Borodin had not enjoyed being bullied by the captain of the Novgorod during the hours the pair of them had bashed a channel out through the Barents Sea. But now that the massive icebreaker was gone, he suddenly felt almost lonely. Especially as he knew exactly why the pristine, state of the art icebreaker had wanted the battered old freighter to stay well clear of her skirts. It wasn’t just a social matter; someone had told the icebreaker’s captain what the freighter’s cargo was.
‘I’m going below,’ Borodin said to the political officer. ‘I want to check through the orders and the manifest again. Then I’m going to inspect the cargo before the weather deteriorates any further. Do you want to come?’
‘Of course. It is my duty.’
‘Good. Comrade First Officer Bulgakov, you are on watch and in charge. We will head due north until I personally order a change of course. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Captain.’ Tatiana Bulgakov was a modern woman; no ‘Comrade Captain’ for her. Modern and massively competent. She would be a captain herself within five years - as long as the current surge towards modernism continued to flow through the Soviet Union. If not, she would marry some fortunate mariner and make as impressive a mother and matriarch as she would have made a master and commander.
Borodin put the lieutenant out of his mind and crossed to the starboard bridge-wing door. If there was going to be a storm, he might as well get a breath of fresh air now, he thought, and stepped out into the bitter cold. He paused on the bridge wing for an instant, his eyes slitted against the wind as he watched the outrunners of the current rain squall which had swallowed Novgorod on her way east and south towards Archangel. He waited until he felt the first icy drops shatter against his face, then he crossed to the forward rail and looked down at the weather deck again. Leonid Brezhnev was 20,000 tons of Gdansk manufacture. She was old and battered but sturdy. He had a grudging affection for her and it was good to be back aboard after a winter in Murmansk. He still enjoyed looking at her for the simple pleasure of doing so, like a lover out with his girl for the first time in a while. The battering wind arrived, gusting strongly from the north-east, after its sister the rain. In the chill which suddenly descended then, Borodin noticed a strange thing: part of the wet metal deck seemed to be steaming. It was probably some kind of illusion. Or maybe it was a freak of the conditions. But, right far forward, just this side of the steps up to the forepeak, near the hatch into the Number One hold, the decking seemed to give off a wisp or two of steam.
Then the wind whipped it away, and in any case the captain’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the political officer who did not share his love for open air and Arctic rain squalls. Borodin turned away and thought no more about it. He had more important considerations.
Like his orders. And the manifest of his cargo.
Neither of which he liked.
~ * ~
Borodin’s cabin was only marginally warmer than the bridge wing so it was a blessing that the samovar he insisted should always be there was bubbling merrily and was able to supply two glasses of thick, dark, scalding tea. They cradled the heavy green vessels in their cupped hands, letting welcome warmth seep into their thick, calloused fingers, then sipped the first serving down before climbing out of their clumsy wet-weather gear. Sholokov hung the streaming black rubberised jackets as neatly as possible on the back of the captain’s door as Borodin beat his arms across his chest and puffed with the cold. ‘Another glass, please,’ he ordered, then crossed to his desk and pulled out the ship’s papers. Orders and manifest were on top of the pile, ready to be consulted first. By the time Sholokov turned from the samovar with the two little glasses looking faintly ridiculous in his great bear-like hands, Borodin had spread the documents on his desk top.
‘I hate being first out,’ confided the captain. ‘You always get the worst of it.’
‘Somebody has to do it,’ sympathised the political officer, his voice guarded and a little distant. ‘And orders are orders.’
Borodin glanced up. Perhaps he had gone too far; Sholokov and he had made two voyages together and he thought he knew the man well enough to risk expressing a little disquiet. Maybe not. It was difficult to tell with political officers. Everyone else aboard owed their first allegiance to the ship. Sholokov’s first allegiance was to Dzerzhinsky Street, via the Port Authority political section perhaps, but there was no question about it. He worked for the KGB, not the merchant marine.
‘I’m not questioning the orders, Fydor, I’m simply expressing a lack of satisfaction with our luck.’
‘Luck does not enter into it, Comrade Captain. We serve as we are required to serve and are fortunate to be able to do so.’
A Party slogan for every situation; that’s how you get to be a political officer, mused Borodin wryly. Sholokov registered the quizzical look in the captain’s clouded blue eyes and had the grace to
look just a little sheepish as he wiped drops of condensation from the ends of his walrus moustache.
‘Well, in that case, our luck is almost overpowering on this occasion, Comrade Political Officer. We are being required to serve almost beyond the call of duty - could we ever admit such a degenerate idea. You have studied the manifest?’
‘In the Port Authority office, before loading began.’
That gave Borodin pause. Most political officers would have quietly arranged another posting faced with that knowledge.
But Sholokov was still speaking. ‘And, like yourself, I oversaw some of the loading.’ He took a deep breath and leaned forward, his big hands spread on the desk. ‘It is the most dangerous cargo I have ever come across but, quite frankly, Alexeii, you were the best man in Murmansk to deal with it. I would not have allowed it on any other vessel. I would not have accompanied it aboard any other vessel.’
Borodin looked down at the broad peasant hands spread across his manifests. He saw the thick yellow nails and the thick black hair across their backs. He noticed the stark contrast the dark curls made with the white paper and, indeed, with the dead white skin, but he did so almost unconsciously. Between the powerful, stubby fingers, like stray curls from the hairy backs, the black ink of the manifest showed the figure 50.
That was the dynamite, Borodin knew. Fifty tons of dynamite, much of it beginning to sweat clear drops of deadly nitroglycerine, none of it safe enough for use any more, all of it destined for the disposal sites off the remote islands of Novaya Zemlya more than a thousand kilometres north-east of their current position. A thousand kilometres across the black waters of the storm-lashed, icebound Barents Sea.
All sorts of rubbish, from ancient ammunition to the nuclear reactors of decommissioned submarines, tended to find its way to the seaports along the north coast of the continent. In the summer they were sent north for disposal in small, relatively safe loads. But the movement of the dangerous rubbish did not cease during the winter although its shipment did. Along the great rail networks all through the dark months came rivers of waste from all over the Soviet Union. Rivers flowing northwards, dammed at their outlet by the shore ice along the southern edges of the six seas lying between the continent and the Arctic Ocean. There was no knowing what might pile up in the dockside warehouses of Leningrad, Archangel and Murmansk during the long black winters, and the first ship out in the spring often got the worst of it to take up and dump off the barren coasts of Novaya Zemlya.
Leonid Brezhnev’s cargo was almost entirely composed of such waste. In cases, crates, containers of all sorts, she was carrying a range of ammunition designed for use in everything from Kalashnikov rifles to MiG fighters, shells from tanks and Koni class frigates. Not just shells from the Konis, either; decommissioned warheads from their SA-N-4 missiles. There were dozens of torpedo warheads and two decommissioned propulsion units from Victor class submarines. And there was the dynamite - commercial explosive. Nobody at Murmansk seemed to know how old it was or where it had come from. There was general agreement, however, that it was in a highly dangerous state and needed to be moved carefully and immediately.
And there were the crates stowed in the forward hold. The paperwork on their contents was vague but the order for their disposal was quite clear. Given what he knew about the rest of the cargo, these crates hardly warranted a second thought from the less than happy captain; but there was something about them which just didn’t feel right. Perhaps it was the fact that the crates were so innocent, so obviously innocuous in among all the other lethal stuff. Perhaps it was the fact that there had been nearly a hundred tons of dynamite in the warehouse at Murmansk and he had had to leave half of it behind in order to get the mysterious crates aboard.
‘Let’s start in the forward hold,’ he said.
~ * ~
One of the few positive things about their situation was that they had no deck cargo. That at least was forbidden. The two men walked out onto the deck and paused. Borodin looked up at the sky. It was, if anything, darker. That meant the storm was going to be a bad one; it wasn’t as if it was even noon yet and already the day seemed to be drawing towards dusk. The sky and the sea were the same leaden colour and only the vicious white horses coming towards Leonid Brezhnev like a millrace on the skirts of the next north-easterly squall made any real differentiation between them. The air around the ship was still at the moment but the squall would beat them to the forecastle head, especially as Borodin had ordered the helm over to the north-east on the way down here, so they were heading directly up towards it.
The two men went down the broad red deck at a run, but they were still drenched by the time they got the hatch open. The lighting in the hold was elderly but reliable - like the ship herself. Borodin was a fine captain and was fortunate in his chief and engineers. Spares were few and far between of course, but the crew cheerfully spent much time making good and mending so that effectively she might have been refitted seven years ago when she had been renamed in celebration of Brezhnev’s receipt of the Lenin Prize for Literature.
The yellow brightness revealed piles of crates slotted together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle to within a metre and a half of the deck itself. Borodin jumped down onto the crates and, crouching uncomfortably, began to walk across them, pausing every now and then to check the way they fitted together. Sholokov leaped down behind him and performed the same simple checks along the other side of the hold. It was awkward, potentially dangerous work made worse by the cold, the wet and the roaring of the squall which caused the ship to pitch and heave in an increasingly frenetic manner. ‘I’m glad I’m not standing on top of the dynamite in this weather,’ called Borodin. The political officer grunted. He agreed, but failed to see the wry humour of the captain’s observation.
‘Any idea what we are standing on top of?’
‘No, Captain. No idea at all.’
‘You saw the paperwork in Murmansk?’
‘Of course.’
‘So did I. What there was of it. No decipherable description of the contents.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘No original point of shipment.’
‘Transshipped through Minsk and Belomorsk.’
‘Not much help. Anything on the crates themselves?’
‘Nothing—’
The full power of the squall hit. The ship seemed to stop like a car hitting a brick wall. Both men staggered towards the bow across crates which suddenly did not seem so stable after all. Borodin fell sprawling onto the patch of wet woodwork beneath the streaming hatch. Sholokov managed to remain on his feet, dancing all hunched over like an ape performing ballet. He looked quite ridiculous and Borodin, though winded, still managed to laugh.
The wheezing laugh choked into horrified silence almost at once as Sholokov’s dance was brought to an abrupt halt by the collapse of the crate he was moving over. It was not a partial collapse, the yielding of one or two boards to his bear-like weight. The whole crate simply opened beneath him like a trap door and gulped him down. One moment he was hopping and the next he was buried to his armpits in the box’s contents. The two men were no more than five metres apart and the accident brought their faces level so that it seemed to Borodin that they were suddenly very close together indeed. He saw the shock on Sholokov’s face. The widening of his eyes, the gape of the wide mouth revealing yellow teeth and steel fillings. The sudden absolute pallor of the skin.
The ship heaved again. The boxes shifted. The political officer screamed.
Borodin was up at once and stumbling across the restless wooden crates. Less than three steps brought him over to the side of the man he suddenly realised he regarded as a friend. He looked down. Sholokov was in what looked like a perfectly square hole filled with rough lumps of black, silver-speckled crystal. The depth of the hole was impossible to tell - more than two metres, or Sholokov’s legs would hardly have fitted. The ship heaved. The crystal shifted. Sholokov screamed again, and slid a little downwards.
Borodin realised the glass-like rocks were at once crushing and engulfing his political officer. Much more movement and it would be as though the sinister cargo had simply eaten the man. ‘Can you breathe, Fydor?’ he asked.
Sholokov shook his head, eyes bulging, mouth gaping. He looked like a fish out of water.
‘I’m going to take your arms and try to pull you free.’ Borodin suited the words with the action, but there was no chance of freeing Sholokov’s massive body from the grasp of the crystalline quicksand. As he heaved, Borodin looked around for something that might help. There was nothing.
‘I’ll have to get some help down here. Hang on.’
He was just about to release Fydor’s hands when another battering ram of wind made the ship pitch once again. The political officer’s agonised grasp came close to crushing his captain’s hands and they remained there, face to face, like children in a playground testing each other’s grip. Sholokov’s tongue came past the yellow line of his teeth. His nose began to bleed, a black worm of liquid oozing down into the hair of his ridiculous walrus moustache. Borodin realised that Fydor had not screamed since their grips had locked. And he realised that he was crying because he knew he was not going to save this man.