Shadow Hunter (32 page)

‘That would be prudent. Goodnight, Mr President.'

The PM immediately picked up her internal telephone.

‘Could you get me CINCFLEET on a secure line urgently, please?'

The Foreign Secretary suddenly thought of the orders he'd given the Secret Intelligence Service, to warn the Russians of the danger from
Truculent.
It now appeared the Soviets were expecting the boat anyway, and for some quite different reason. He hoped to God the PM never found out what he'd done.

* * *

Vice-Admiral Feliks Astashenkov found it impossible to sleep. His heart was racing from too much cognac, and his wife, who had a heavy cold, was snoring fitfully.

The green digits of his alarm clock told him it was just before one.

Despite his wakefulness, the knock at the door startled him.

‘Admiral Belikov wishes to see you immediately at his home, Comrade Vice-Admiral,' came the grumpy voice of his valet who'd been woken out of a deep sleep. ‘He's just telephoned.'

‘All right. Order the car,' Astashenkov whispered, hoping his wife hadn't been woken. He could have walked it in five minutes, but the wind was bitter, and if he was to be deprived of sleep he didn't see why his driver shouldn't suffer, too.

The heavy smell of spirits in the car almost made him change his mind. But even if the
starshina
driver was drunk, he shouldn't come to much harm on the short drive.

‘Left here, halfwit!' he yelled as they overshot the turning.

When they reached Belikov's house the driver slammed on the brakes, hurling Astashenkov against the seat in front.

‘Right, you animal! Give me the bottle!'

The driver turned and shrugged, feigning bewilderment.

‘That's an order!'

Grudgingly the
starshina
fished in the pocket of his heavy greatcoat and pulled out a flask. Astashenkov grabbed it from him, and emptied the contents onto the road.

‘Wait here!'

He left the car door open and marched up to the portal of Belikov's villa. The guard had been watching for him and opened the door before he could knock.

The Commander of the Northern Fleet was waiting in his study, a large brandy bottle and two glasses on a tray on the desk.

‘My apologies for this, Feliks. It can't be helped. No one's getting much sleep tonight. Grekov called me from Moscow an hour ago. He'd been woken by the KGB. Come and sit down. Brandy?'

‘I'd prefer tea, if you don't mind.'

‘Of course. So would I.'

Belikov signalled to the guard to arrange it.

‘What's happened?'

‘The operation we talked about yesterday – the British submarine that's bringing us a “Moray” mine . . .'

Astashenkov nodded expectantly.

‘Damned KGB! Arrogant bastards! You know what they've done? Screwed up the whole plan! That's just the word for it, too;
screwed up!

‘Their man in Plymouth had to end up in bed with the wife of the British commander who's working for us! The commander found out and is so goddamned angry he's coming here to blow our Fleet to pieces!'

‘What?' Astashenkov cried. ‘I don't understand!'

The guard brought in the tea, giving Belikov time to cool down.

‘All right, I'll explain the whole story,' he went on, when they were alone again.

Feliks listened with growing astonishment and anger. After five minutes he knew as much as Belikov.

‘We must find that boat before it finds one of ours,' Belikov insisted. He was a surface-ship man, ill-versed in the details of undersea warfare.

‘We must also face facts, Andrei. Our submarines make more noise than theirs. If we send out our boats to look for
Truculent,
it could amount to suicide. Do we want to risk that?'

‘The
PLA
I sent south managed to intercept it. It could do so again.'

‘The British boat was moving fast then. Now it'll be slow. Very slow and silent. We can hunt it from the air. It'll be safer that way.'

Belikov cursed and poured himself a cognac. He cocked an eyebrow at Astashenkov.

‘All right. I'll join you after all.'

‘Can we be certain he plans to attack us?' Feliks demanded. ‘He might still be intending to give us the mine so his father can go free.'

‘Nothing's certain. But we have to be prepared.'

Astashenkov's brow furrowed.

‘If he wants to catch us with mines, he'll have to lay them at the choke points, where he knows we have to pass. That almost certainly means close to the mouth of this very inlet.'

‘He could go further east, to the
Taifun
base at Gremikha . . .'

‘Unlikely. The further east he goes, the greater the risk we'll catch him. No. He'll come here. I'm sure of it. What was the original plan, Andrei? Where was he going to deliver the mine? To the harbourmaster at Polyarny?'

The Commander-in-Chief glared. It was no time for jokes.

‘He was to lay it about twenty kilometres off-shore, in less than one-hundred-and-fifty metres of water. The KGB promised to unite him with his father in Helsinki, after the mine had been recovered.'

‘Hmmm. Not bad. A pity it may not happen now.'

Belikov swirled the brandy in his glass.

‘Maybe it still will, but differently.'

‘Meaning?'

The Commander-in-Chief leaned forward, clasping his glass globe between the palms of his hands. His words came as a hoarse whisper.

‘If he comes into our territorial waters, we can sink him. The wreckage of
HMS Truculent
will give us a whole harvest of secrets –
and
a Moray mine.'

* * *

The Gulf Stream sweeps its warm water round the northern tip of Norway, keeping the fjords free of ice in the winter months, almost as far east as the entrance to the White Sea.

Off North Cape, Europe's most northerly outpost, the current flows eastwards at a steady half-a-knot carrying with it the smaller marine life like shrimps and krill that form the smallest components in the food chain, and create much of the background noise underwater.

HMS Tenby,
5,000 tons of steel packed with electronics, machinery and men, dipped in and out of that current deep below the surface, trailing her sonar array hundreds of metres astern. She was travelling at ten knots and heading east, hoping to hear
Truculent
coming up behind, but with no certainty the boat hadn't already passed her, further out to sea.

‘I don't bloody well believe it!' growled Andrew Tinker, folding the signal in half and tossing it onto the wardroom table.

‘May I?' inquired the commander, reaching across.

‘Yes. See what you think of it. Sodding signal makes no sense to me at all.'

Biddle whistled softly.

‘Shit! That's a bit strong! Phil Hitchens recruited by the KGB? Are we sure this isn't a joke?'

Andrew stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited for Biddle to finish reading.

‘Huh! The cheek!' exploded Biddle. ‘This bit at the end – “Decided you should know this, not because it materially affects your task, but to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation”.'

‘Bourlet's a pompous ass!' snapped Andrew. ‘I can just hear him dictating this crap! Does he think we're treating it as a game?'

He dropped into a chair and took back the signal.

‘You know, something I've realized in the last few days is that you can know someone for twenty years – think of them as a close friend, even – and yet not really know them at all. I'm stating the obvious, but it's sad, isn't it?'

Biddle nodded. It was approaching midnight and he was dog-tired.

They'd sped north and east after losing contact with
Truculent
earlier in the day. Every hour or so they'd risen to periscope depth, to receive messages from the satellite.

Two Nimrods were laying Jezebel barriers far to the north and east of North Cape.
Tenby's
instructions were to stay close to the Norwegian coast, listening in Norwegian waters where the Nimrods couldn't search without prompting awkward questions.

‘If you wanted to deliver a Moray mine to the Soviet Navy, how would you do it?' demanded Andrew.

‘Explosively!'

‘Seriously, how can Phil do it? Without the conscious support of his crew?'

‘I'd say it's impossible. He can hardly go alongside in the Kola Inlet and hand one over. And if he's going to pop one out of a torpedo tube, his WEO would have to prepare it and take part in the firing. No. I just can't see it.'

‘With the other plan we envisaged – to lay mines and activate them later – it's just possible he could convince his crew. But if he's trying to pass one of the mines to the Sovs, it'd have to be totally inert, otherwise the anti-handling devices would blow it up as soon as they tried to pick it up off the bottom. And to persuade a WEO to discharge a mine that hasn't been switched on? He'd never do it. Not in a month of Sundays.'

‘It's mission impossible, isn't it? He'd have to place the mine with incredible precision, otherwise the Russians would never find it. It's supposed to be almost undetectable on sonar.'

The wardroom door opened. First Lieutenant Murray Watson stared at them in surprise.

‘Sorry. Thought there'd be no one here. Just wanted a cuppa before turning in.'

‘Pickles your liver, all that tea,' Biddle answered. He glanced at the wall clock. ‘There's a watch change in a few minutes. Wardroom'll be busy. We'll continue this in my cabin.'

* * *

To the east of North Cape is Porsangen Fjord. Floating motionless in the middle of its ten-mile-wide mouth, 100 metres below the surface, was a
Kobben
class submarine of the Royal Norwegian Navy.

One of the midgets of the submarine world at just over 400 tons, the
Storm
was less than a tenth the size of
Tenby
and
Truculent.
Crouched inside were just eighteen crew, trained to say very little and to talk in whispers when they did.

Her task was to slowly criss-cross the North Cape current, silently and undetected, listening to the world go by. At this she was extremely effective. Powered by a 1,700 horse-power electric motor, she was completely noiseless when moving at a mere five knots.

Every twelve hours or so, within the shelter of the Norwegian coast, she'd raise a breathing tube for her oxygen-hungry diesels to recharge the batteries.

Tonight there was excitement on board, suppressed but still almost tangible. The young conscript crew had heard things they'd never heard before.

Sea creatures and passing tramp steamers were the normal acoustic diet of their bow-mounted sonar, but tonight there'd been submarines, friendly boats whose details should have appeared in the day's intelligence summary, and hadn't.

Norway's navy co-operated closely with Britain's, and expected to be informed when British boats passed through Norwegian waters.

The first contact had passed from west to east at about fifteen knots, two hours earlier. The noise signature had been that of a
Trafalgar
class submarine.

They'd guessed it passed within four miles for them to have heard it at all.
Trafalgars
were notoriously quiet.

The
Storm
had turned south again.

Then came the second surprise – an almost identical signature, moving more slowly this time, but on the same eastbound track.

The commander of the
Storm
smiled to herself and guessed they were heading for the Kola Inlet.

They must be on an intelligence operation, nothing to do with Exercise Ocean Guardian. That's why the British had said nothing.

This was the sort of thing her own navy would never indulge in. Living right next to ‘the bear', caution and correctness were the catchwords for neighbourliness.

Another twelve hours and their patrol would be over. She'd report what they'd heard to her intelligence officer, but it would go no further. An ally's secret would be safe with them.

* * *

Peter Biddle spread a chart on his bunk.

‘Nothing from the sound room. Not a trace. Looks like we've missed him. Hope to God the Nimrod does better.'

Andrew sighed.

‘Look, if the Russians are ever to find the mine, Phil's got to give it to them on a plate.'

‘Eh?'

‘So, let's look at the chart, and see if we can find a plate.'

Biddle frowned. ‘I'm not with you.'

The sheet covered a fifty mile stretch of the Soviet coastline, with the Kola Inlet at its centre. The main Soviet naval bases were clearly marked in the bays around the fjord. A peninsula to the west curved north and east creating a natural shelter against the Arctic storms.

‘That's the place!' Andrew exclaimed, pointing to a mark east of the Inlet. ‘Has to be. That rock, ten miles off the coast, “Ostrov Chernyy”. The chart shows a radar site on it, nothing else. But there's an underwater spit running north from it, covered with fine sand. Water's sixty or seventy metres deep, and the spit's not more than a hundred metres across. It's easy to find with bottom contour navigation; large enough for him to lay the mine safely; and small enough for the Russians to search with their bottom crawlers.'

Mission impossible? Not so impossible, after all.

He pushed the chart to one side and sat down on the bunk. Biddle dropped into his chair.

Andrew closed his eyes trying to remember exactly what had happened to the old
HMS Tenby
all those years ago, and to imagine the effect on a teenage boy of losing a father in such circumstances.

‘It's an odd feeling, being on board an
HMS Tenby
in circumstances like these.'