Skydancer

by Geoffrey Archer

  The captain’s wall-safe was wide open, just as Simpson had hoped.

  ‘What the hell . . .?’

  The stream of gas hit Carrington right in the face. Eyes screwed up with pain, he reached out to try to close the safe, but Simpson lunged forward and punched him on the head with his free hand, knocking him off his chair and on to the floor.

  Carrington had held his breath in an instinctive reaction to seeing the gas-mask on Simpson’s face. So far the pain only burned his eyes. His own mask hung on the wall. Without breathing, he crawled across the floor and began to grope his way up towards it, expecting at any second to receive another blow on the head.

  But Simpson was scrabbling amongst the papers in the open safe for the leather holster which he knew would be there. There it was!

  Smiling grimly under the mask, he unbuttoned the retaining strap.

  ‘That’s enough, Captain!’ his muffled voice threatened as he pressed the muzzle of the automatic pistol into the back of Carrington’s neck. ‘This is your gun, and I’m ready to use it! Now just get back to your chair and sit down.’

  Simpson quickly closed the cabin door and locked it.

  Carrington had staggered to the chair and was dabbing a handkerchief to his eyes and nose. His lungs were inflamed and burning though he had only received a small dose of CN.

  Suddenly the tannoy on the ceiling crackled into life.

  ‘Gas, gas, gas!’ the voice of the officer of the watch bellowed from it. His message was being relayed throughout the submarine. ‘Gas, gas, gas! This is no drill! Repeat, no drill! Gas-masks on immediately!’

  The air-conditioning system of the boat had carried some of the tear-gas into the control room. Simpson heard heavy feet pounding the metal decks as men raced for their bunks to retrieve their masks. Outside the captain’s door there were shouts as someone found the chief steward slumped against the wall, coughing uncontrollably – and then the feet of the executive officer poking out into the corridor from the supply officer’s cabin.

  There was a sharp rap on the door.

  ‘Tell them to go away,’ Simpson ordered in a whisper.

  But Carrington could only cough.

  ‘This is Lieutenant Simpson,’ the supply officer shouted towards the door. ‘I’m holding the captain prisoner. I’ve got his gun and I’ll shoot him unless you do as I say!’

  There was complete silence from outside. Then someone tried the doorknob and swore.

  ‘Go back to your posts!’ Simpson yelled.

  After a moment, he heard footsteps moving away. So far, so good! But this was as far as he had planned. The next part would not be so easy.

  ‘Captain, sir? Control room here!’ A voice came from the intercom on the table.

  Carrington was still wheezing and gasping for breath. Simpson leaned forward and pressed the key on the communications box.

  ‘This is Lieutenant Simpson. The Captain is my prisoner. I have a gun. If you do what I say he won’t be harmed.’

  ‘What do you want, Simpson?’ the voice answered angrily. At first he could not identify it; the man must be wearing a mask, too. Then he realised it was the PSO, Phil Dunkley. As a lieutenant-commander he would be the most senior man left, since the executive officer was out of action. For a moment he was fearful of what he had done to Mike Smith. He had given him a hell of a dose of gas; perhaps he’d killed him.

  ‘The test launch is cancelled,’ Simpson called back. ‘There must be no missile firing, do you hear?’

  There was a pause, with only static on the circuit.

  ‘Anything else?’ the PSO asked icily.

  ‘Yes . . . there’s a lot else. But I’m not going to tell you yet. I want you to send the surgeon in here, with some handcuffs for the captain. But no tricks! I don’t trust any of you, and I’ll use this gun if I have to!’

  There was a longer pause this time.

  ‘Very well,’ Dunkley said eventually.

  Five minutes passed before there was a tap at the door. Carrington’s breathing had become easier.

  Simpson tightened his grip on the pistol and trained it at the captain’s head. Slowly he stood up and edged towards the door, turning back the bolt in the lock.

  The surgeon-lieutenant stood outside nervously, wearing a gas-mask and carrying a set of nylon wrist-restraints. Simpson had selected him as the intermediary because of a vague feeling that a doctor should seem less of a threat than the other officers.

  ‘Come in. Stand over there,’ Simpson ordered, pointing towards the captain. He locked the door again.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Bob?’ the doctor asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘Put those on the captain and loop them round the leg of his chair.’

  The doctor fumbled with the restraints, unsure how they worked.

  ‘Sorry about this, sir,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Carrington replied hoarsely. ‘Just do as he says.’

  The task completed, the doctor stood up again. Through the lenses of the mask, his eyes looked frightened.

  Simpson stared, uncertain how much to trust him.

  ‘Have they told you what I’m being accused of?’ he began.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Didn’t know you were accused of anything.’

  ‘They’re saying I passed secrets to the Russians!’

  ‘What?’ The doctor turned towards Carrington. The captain nodded in confirmation.

  ‘But it’s not true! I just wanted to save millions of people from being killed . . . that’s all,’ Simpson insisted.

  The doctor shifted uneasily. He still did not understand what this was about, but it looked as if Simpson had gone off his head.

  ‘Well, we’re all in the same boat there,’ the doctor replied calmly. ‘None of us want to see people killed, so why don’t you just put that gun down, Bob?’

  Simpson glared angrily at the surgeon-lieutenant, the pistol wavering between the doctor and the captain.

  ‘Well, what exactly do you want?’ the doctor pressed. ‘It looks as if you’re in command of the boat, at the moment. They want to know what to do.’

  He gestured over his shoulder in the direction of the control room.

  ‘I’ve got to get off,’ Simpson explained, removing his mask. Carrington seemed to be recovering, which suggested the air had cleared. The doctor followed suit.

  ‘I’ve got to get off this boat. Somewhere where I can be free,’ he continued, holding the gun firmly in both hands. The gas canister was stuffed into his trouser pocket. ‘I’m not going back to Britain!’

  ‘But we’re in the middle of the Atlantic, Bob,’ the doctor explained reasonably, keeping his voice as smooth and even as he could.

  ‘Yes, I know that!’ Simpson snapped, ‘but we’re not too far from America, and there are islands. Cuba. What about Cuba? If we got near there, I’d get ashore in a Gemini. The captain’ll come with me – as a hostage.’

  ‘Well, what shall I do? Shall I tell the control room that you want to go to Cuba?’ the doctor asked mildly.

  Simpson hesitated. Cuba was some way away, and he was not sure what sort of reception he would get there.

  ‘I want to see some charts. Bring me some charts so that I can see where there is that’s closer.’

  Simpson edged to the door, keeping the gun trained on the doctor.

  ‘And no tricks!’ he growled as he unlocked the door, and the doctor went out. He locked the door again and turned to look at the captain.

  Carrington’s breathing was easier now, though his eyes remained red and moist.

  ‘What were you keeping that gas for, Simpson?’ he rasped curiously. ‘When were you planning to use it?’

  Simpson laughed awkwardly.

  ‘Well, sir, I’ll tell you this. You’d never have launched the missiles if the order came. Somehow I’d have stopped you from genocide – that’s what I planned.’

  ‘On the orders of Moscow? So that the Russians would be free to commit genocide
against the British people, when they had no means of retaliation?’ Carrington snapped back.

  ‘This has nothing to do with Moscow! It’s to do with conscience, something you don’t know anything about.’ Simpson sneered.

  There was a tap at the door. ‘It’s me,’ came the doctor’s voice.

  Simpson turned the key, then strode back across the cabin and pressed the gun against the captain’s head.

  ‘Come in!’

  The door opened gingerly, and the doctor entered, clutching a roll of charts under his left arm. His gas-mask was in his right hand.

  ‘Lock the door!’ Simpson ordered.

  That done, the doctor stood waiting for the next instruction.

  Reassured that the surgeon-lieutenant had returned alone, Simpson lowered the pistol.

  ‘Bring them over here,’ he said, indicating the captain’s bed. ‘We can sit here and spread them out.’

  The doctor obliged, handing him the roll with a smile.

  ‘They’re all here, Bob. I’m sure we can sort something out.’

  Simpson took the charts in his left hand, but still clutched the gun in his right. He paused for a moment, realising he would need both hands to study the charts properly.

  He shot a glance at the captain to see that he was securely fastened to his chair. The doctor was still smiling benignly.

  He hesitated, then slowly and carefully Simpson put the gun down on the bed beside him.

  ‘Let me help you spread those out,’ the doctor suggested.

  He leaned forward as if to take hold of the first chart with his left hand. But suddenly his right arm lunged forward, jamming the gas-mask hard against Simpson’s thigh! Bob felt the needle of the concealed hypodermic jab into him.

  ‘You bastard!’ he screamed, scrabbling frantically for the gun.

  The doctor threw himself forward, punching with his left hand, and knocked the weapon to the floor. Carrington’s foot reached out and kicked the gun into the far corner of the cabin.

  Simpson struggled frenziedly, but the surgeon was a deadweight across his body.

  ‘Five, six, seven, eight,’ the doctor counted the seconds in his head, praying for the knockout drug to work. He had reached eleven before Simpson slumped across the bed.

  Slowly, waiting to be sure the drug had taken full effect, the surgeon-lieutenant eased himself up, shaking from the shock of what he had just done. He carefully extracted the syringe from Simpson’s leg, then pulled the lieutenant’s head straight and checked his breathing. The man who had terrorised the submarine a moment ago was now his patient.

  ‘Well done!’ Carrington shouted hoarsely. ‘Bloody brilliant!’

  There was a hammering at the door and the doctor unlocked it. The chief petty officer burst in with two of the heaviest members of the crew, carrying clubs. He stared down at the supply officer, unconscious on the bed.

  ‘Fuck me! You done it all on your own!’ he exclaimed.

  On the Caribbean island of Antigua, one thousand miles south of HMS Retribution’s position, the giant telemetry dishes of the US Navy Space Tracking Center rotated their bearings slowly and in unison, so that they were all pointing north, ready for the test firing of the British missile.

  A further two thousand miles to the south-east, on the British island of Ascension, a further set of antennae lined up on the part of outer space where the Skydancer warheads would begin their dive into the atmosphere, obscured amongst clusters of decoys and behind a barrage of electronic deception techniques.

  Both monitoring stations had been sent signals in unbreakable code, giving the time and position of the Polaris launching.

  Halfway between Antigua and Ascension, the 21,000 tons of the Soviet vessel Akademik Sergey Korolev wallowed in a long, slow, mid-Atlantic swell. The crew had been on stand-by for over forty-eight hours already. The Akula had signalled three days ago that it had lost the trail of the Retribution, and had warned that the missile test could take place at any time. The heat and the lack of sleep had made Kapitan Karpov extremely irritable.

  On board HMS Retribution Simpson’s abortive mutiny had jolted the entire crew and had created a greater than usual tension on board.

  Carrington was again in command in the control room, his eyes red and swollen and his voice still hoarse. His executive officer was recovering in the sick bay.

  Inside the missile control centre the dials on the launch control panel certified that the guidance gyros of the missiles were up to speed. The final countdown could begin.

  They had had to sprint at nearly thirty knots to reach the launch position at the appointed time, but now they were in the right place, with a few minutes to spare. Carrington paced between the sonar operator’s booth and the navigator’s table. The signal from Northwood three hours earlier had predicted the ocean here would be empty, and the sonar equipment seemed to confirm it. If this had been war, he would have launched the missile without further checks, but in peacetime the demand for absolute safety was such that he needed to put up his periscope for a visual crosscheck.

  ‘Better be sure there are no Atlantic oarsmen bobbing about above us!’ he joked, as the officer of the watch peered through the eyepiece. After Simpson’s attack Carrington did not trust his own eyes to be clear enough to see.

  ‘Not a soul, sir,’ the officer confirmed, sliding the scope down into its housing.

  ‘Right! Descend to launch depth and zero knots!’

  The rating at the helm pushed his control column gently forward, his eye fixed on the depth gauge.

  On the engineering panel, the dial registering the rotation of the propeller shaft slipped back to zero.

  The captain stood at the back of the control room and inserted a key into the switch with which he would give the final authority to launch the missile.

  ‘Prepare to fire!’ he called into the intercom.

  On the deck below in the missile control centre, the Polaris Systems Officer opened the combination lock of a small safe on the floor below his control panel, and pulled out the pistol-grip with its red ‘fire’ button, which in war could execute millions of people at a single touch.

  ‘Open missile hatch! Flood the tube!’

  Dunkley dabbed on the buttons in the sequence prescribed in the control manual.

  Behind him the computers had verified the coordinates of the target area, and had beamed the data into the missile itself.

  ‘Ten, nine, eight . . .’ he began.

  In the control room above, Commander Carrington turned his key in the switch that activated the firing button below.

  A green light appeared on the panel in the launch centre.

  ‘One away!’ the PSO yelled, clamping his finger round the pistol-grip.

  With an explosive roar, the gas generator at the base of the missile tube burst into life, pouring gas into the space below the rocket, propelling it upwards, out of the submarine and up to the surface in a cocoon of bubbles. As the tip of the missile appeared above the waves, the rocket motor ignited and with a brilliant flash the Polaris hurtled towards the sky.

  ‘Up periscope!’ the captain yelled.

  The officer of the watch trained the lens upwards to see the missile arcing away towards the sun.

  Carrington grabbed the microphone and pressed it to his lips.

  ‘Your attention, please! This is the captain. I should like to inform you all that we have just enacted a perfect launch of one of our Polaris missiles. In the extraordinary circumstances of this day, to achieve our aim in any form would have been worthwhile, but to do it at the right time, in the right place, with such perfection, amounts to nothing less than brilliance on the part of everyone on board. Congratulations, and thank you very much.’

  He hung the microphone back on its hook. There was an urgent radio signal to be sent but once he had completed that, he could at last get stuck into a long-delayed lunch.

  The first inkling Kapitan Karpov had of the impending launch was the appearance of an aircra
ft on the Korolev’s radar. It soon became clear that the RAF Nimrod which had taken photographs of them a few days earlier was paying another visit. This time it was flying much higher.

  Suddenly the giant radar dish that scanned the horizon over which the Polaris missile was due to rise detected its first blip. There was no mistaking the echo, rising fast into the sky overhead: it could only be a rocket.

  At that very moment, six miles above the decks of the Soviet ship the RAF Nimrod began to scatter millions of tiny strips of aluminium foil which fanned out into an enormous reflective umbrella. Deep in the bowels of the Korolev, the radar screens suddenly became a blur of false echoes.

  The operators knew instantly what had happened, and cursed the British. For days they had sat in sweltering darkness, waiting for the test launch, and now it looked as if they were going to be cheated of their ability to track it. Frantically they flicked switches and spun control knobs in an effort to filter out the unwanted echoes from the ‘chaff’ that had been scattered above them. The missile seemed to be aiming unerringly for the part of the sky that had now been obscured.

  But their fury turned to delighted astonishment when they realised that the RAF had scattered its confusion in the wrong place. High-altitude winds were blowing the ‘chaff away from the line drawn by the trajectory of the rocket. The radar operators turned to one another and laughed at the incompetence of the British.

  The missile’s path had flattened out and they had seen the rocket section fall away from the ‘space bus’. Suddenly the echo from it multiplied into a score of blips, as the decoys were released and the warheads ejected in that vital but indecipherable pattern which would dictate where they would strike the earth.

  In the radar control room, giant data-recorders spun their spools to soak up everything that could be detected. The full analysis of the results would take weeks to accomplish, though preliminary data samples would be transmitted to Moscow that very day.

  As the cloud of echoes from space began to descend towards the atmosphere, the aluminium-coated balloons used as decoys began to fall back and burst on contact with the air. Then a new pattern of blips began to confuse the screens as electronic jammers projected echoes forward, giving the Soviet observers the impression that the warheads were much closer to the ground than they were in reality.