Shadow Hunter (6 page)

‘You told him
everything
?'

‘Almost everything,' she corrected herself, carefully.

Andrew's unease grew.

‘What exactly did you tell him about Gunnar?'

‘I told him my present lover was a Russian spy,' she whispered, stroking back some hair that had stuck to her moist cheek.

It had been at that point that Philip's temper had finally snapped.

He'd lashed blindly at her, punching her with his fists. The high-necked pullover she now wore concealed several purple and yellow bruises.

‘For God's sake! You told him that? What did he say?'

‘He went berserk. Knocked me round the bedroom. Then he stopped. For a time he didn't say anything. Just stared out of the window. Then he told me to try to remember everything I'd ever said to Gunnar about him, about the Navy, about our family. As I told you before, there wasn't much . . .'

Her voice tailed away.

Suddenly an alarming question occurred to Andrew. If Philip knew about the spy, why hadn't he said anything to the police, or to Captain Craig at the submarine base?

‘Did Philip say anything to you about going to the police?'

‘No. He didn't want anyone to know about
my shame
, as he called it. Kept asking me which of our friends knew. I said I hadn't told anyone. That was true.'

‘But did he say he was going to do something about Gunnar? There must've been something. He wouldn't have left it. Not if he really believed Gunnar was a spy.'

Andrew put down his glass and leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees. Sara was holding back further tears. Her lip trembled. She was scared.

‘I don't know what he was going to do. He made me swear I'd end it with Gunnar. That's what I was doing when the police saw us in the restaurant. But Philip hardly spoke to me again. He behaved like a robot. And on Wednesday morning he went to the boat.'

‘Did he say anything to you about the patrol he was going on?'

‘Nothing. He never did.'

‘No mention of where he was going?'

‘Heavens, no!'

Inwardly Andrew sighed with relief. Craig's prime security worry seemed to be unfounded.

‘Why do you ask? Where
is
he going?'

Her voice sounded alarmed.

‘I don't know,' he answered stonily.

She stared into his eyes, trying to read his thoughts.

He stared back, trying to imagine the hell Philip must've gone through, discovering what sort of wife Sara had been to him.

‘He
had
decided to do something about Gunnar.'

Her voice cut through the silence that had descended on the room.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘I don't know, exactly.'

She rubbed her forehead, trying to order her thoughts.

‘When he left, it was as if he'd taken some monumental
decision. He looked . . . ,' she fumbled for the words, ‘grim, but in some way – satisfied. It's the only way I can describe it.'

‘I'm not with you. What do you mean?'

‘As if he'd decided on some sort of revenge, or thought of some way of getting even with Gunnar, or the KGB or whoever sent him here.'

‘What sort of revenge?'

‘I don't know. He'll find a way. Philip hates Russians, you know. He'll do something. I don't know what. Fire a missile at Moscow? Is that possible?'

She'd meant it as irony, but started when she saw the shock on Andrew's face.

‘He couldn't! It's the wrong sort of boat, isn't it?' she gasped. ‘What
could
he do to them, Andrew?'

‘I shudder to think.'

Two minutes later Andrew drove away, his mind in turmoil. He hardly noticed the shabby Ford Escort parked in a gateway fifty yards up the road from the Hitchens' home.

Behind the wheel a dark-haired man in his twenties appeared to be taking a nap.

Andrew put his foot down and headed for the naval base. Philip Hitchens had to be got off the
Truculent
, and fast.

* * *

HMS Truculent
was in her element. By Saturday afternoon her huge black hull was sliding silently through dark waters west of the Hebrides where the Atlantic is over two thousand metres deep.

Cruising north at eighteen knots,
Truculent
had stayed a hundred metres down for nearly twenty-four hours. Above and below, water layers of different temperature created acoustic barriers. The submarine moved in a ‘shadow zone' where the risk of being detected by surface ships was minimal. That depth was also good for detecting other submarines. With her sensitive towed sonar restored to working order,
Truculent
could hear other boats over a hundred miles away if conditions were right.

The executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Tim Pike, had completed his rounds, looking for gripes to deal with before they became a problem or a danger. There'd been few.
Truculent
was a well-run submarine.

The control room watches lasted six hours, the tactics officer (TASO) and the navigator (NO) alternating as watch leaders.

Pike had little to do at that stage of the patrol, with the sea around them so deep and so empty.

He came into the zone for promotion in a month and was using his spare time for studying. He'd already passed the course to command a submarine, aptly named ‘The Perisher'; if you fail it you have to leave the Submarine Service for good.

He'd commanded a diesel sub for two years after that, but was now lining himself up to take charge of an SSN.

‘Day-dreaming again, Tim?'

The weapon engineer, Lieutenant Commander Paul Spriggs, nudged his arm.

‘Yeah. Wondering what's in store for us.'

‘This patrol, you mean? The captain's special orders. Hasn't he briefed you yet?'

‘Nope. Not yet. I expect he will soon.'

‘On the other hand . . .'

‘He may not.'

‘Exactly. Something's up with him. You've noticed how preoccupied he is. Hardly speaks at meals. Only smiles at my jokes out of politeness.'

‘We all do that, Paul.'

‘Oh, really? How extremely depressing.'

His chubby face looked genuinely perplexed. He pushed back the dark hair that fell across his forehead.

‘But you're right,' Pike agreed. ‘He doesn't seem to be with us on this trip. I might try to draw him out later. We've got a communications slot coming up in fifteen minutes. Perhaps he'll get a “family-gram” that'll cheer him up.'

‘Be safer to write him one yourself!'

Tim Pike pulled a long face and crossed the cramped
control room to the navigation table. Three paces and he was there.

‘Where are we, Nick?' he asked the navigator who was duty watch leader.

‘Here, to be exact.'

The young lieutenant pointed to a cross on the continuous pencil line he'd drawn on the chart.

‘The SINS puts us northeast of Rockall and west of the Vidal Bank. In about an hour we should alter course to zero-four-zero to keep us in the deep water east of Rosemary Bank.'

‘We'll need a little dog-leg for a communications slot before that. Almost due east? What do you think?'

The navigator pulled out a chart with a different scale, showing their position in relation to the British Isles. To listen to the signals from CINCFLEET at Northwood, they used a long wire antenna that floated just below the surface so as not to reveal themselves to watching radar. To receive signals they had to align the antenna by pointing it towards the transmitter in the north of England.

‘Almost exactly one-one-zero. Done this before, sir?'

‘Once or twice. I expect you'd like an Omega fix, too?'

‘Certainly would. What's the time of the comms slot?'

‘18:00 to 18:30. We'll be at four knots and sixty metres.'

‘Right.'

Cavendish plotted the details. The wire would also pick up low-frequency signals from Omega coastal navigation beacons. He'd get a position fix to within a mile, enough to confirm the inertial navigation system hadn't drifted. For a more accurate fix they'd need to poke a periscope or satellite receiver above the water, and risk revealing their presence.

Pike slipped out of the control room and rapped gently on the door frame of the captain's cabin. A curtain hung in the doorway, and Pike heard a hurried scuffling behind it.

‘Yes?'

He pushed aside the curtain. Commander Hitchens was at his desk.

‘Good evening, sir. We're proceeding as planned in
deep water at eighteen knots. We have a broadcast we're scheduled to monitor in about thirty minutes. With your permission, sir, I'd like to reduce speed to four knots, bring her up to sixty metres and deploy the floating wire.'

‘Any other submarine activity?'

‘Nothing at all, sir. We'll check the surface picture before we deploy the wire.'

‘Very good. Carry on, Tim.'

‘Er, one other thing, sir . . .'

‘Yes, what is it?'

‘I was wondering if sometime this evening might be an appropriate moment to discuss our mission profile.'

Hitchens fixed Pike with his unnervingly blue eyes.

‘Sorry. Not yet. I'll brief when the time's right.

‘From Wednesday we're dropping out of the exercise. Special op. I'll tell
you
that much, but it's not for general knowledge yet. This one really is very sensitive. You'll have to trust me.'

‘Oh. Right. Okay then, sir; I'll carry on if I may.'

‘Yes, please. And make the pipe to the ship's company, will you?'

‘I will, sir.'

Pike returned thoughtfully to the control room. There was nothing he could put his finger on, but something wasn't right with his captain.

Philip closed his eyes and held his breath.

Damn it! Pike's request had caught him by surprise. He should've been ready for him, and he wasn't.

He ran through their brief conversation. It had been okay. He'd handled it. But he had to be prepared for next time, have an answer for their questions.

He expelled the air from his lungs.

Philip needed the men under his command. He was driving a nuclear-powered, hunter-killer submarine – one of the most deadly weapons-systems in the world. Those bastard Soviets would soon be finding out just how deadly, he told himself. But he couldn't operate it on his own. Co-operation and obedience from men like Pike and Spriggs would be vital if his mission was to succeed.

Philip knew what he had to do. That much was clear. How to manage it, however, was a different matter. There was still time to think the details through. Until Wednesday he'd follow the exercise brief. After that, he'd be his own master.

The loudspeaker clicked. Pike's voice boomed forth authoritatively.

The ‘pipe' was heard on loudspeakers throughout the submarine. The broadcast to update the crew was made at least twice a day, a communication essential to team spirit on board.

The first lieutenant spoke for two minutes, telling the 130 men on board of the day's sonar contacts. They'd included a school of whales.

He talked of the upcoming communications slot, knowing some of the crew would be expecting the forty-word ‘family-grams' that kept them in touch with their homes. He ended by reading the menu for the evening meal.

The next pipe – that'd be the time, Philip decided. Start to prepare them for what was to come. Little by little. Step by step.

His eyes strayed to the photograph he'd doggedly kept on his desk, to preserve his mask of normality.

He looked at her image and his guts turned inside out again. He closed his eyes tightly. Would he ever be able to look at Sara's picture without wanting to kill her?

She'd been everything he'd dreamed of when they'd met fifteen years earlier. He'd been serving on a
Swiftsure
class submarine at the time, circling the globe as part of a military sales drive. They'd gone ashore in Hong Kong, to a reception at the British High Commission. Their host had been accompanied by his stunningly pretty daughter – Sara. He'd fallen in love with her instantly.

Sara had glowed that evening; as they circulated socially, her eyes reached across the room to him like a light-house beam. Excitement had almost choked him. Until then, apart from brief relationships, the only woman in Philip's life had been his own straitlaced mother. Sara was vivacious, sensual and provocative; if his mother had ever had such qualities, she'd successfully repressed them after
the trauma of her husband's disappearance. In Hong Kong he sensed he'd finally met a woman with the power to cut through his shell of inhibition, and free him from the dour restraint of his upbringing.

His mother had tried to prevent their marriage. Nineteen was far too young for a girl to marry, she'd declared. He'd ignored her, terrified that if he didn't bind Sara to him quickly he'd lose her to someone else.

Now he'd lost her anyway.

They'd been immensely happy together for their first two years. He'd had a shore-based job in Scotland, and the sense of personal liberation he'd hoped for became a reality.

Then he'd been given a commission at sea. Sara had been devastated by the separation and had applied intense emotional pressure on him to change his job. Philip had retreated into his shell, as he had learned to do as a youth when pressured by his mother.

Her face smiled at him from the frame. Deceptive, cruelly deceptive. Laughing eyes. Laughing at him? Mocking him?

In the control room, Pike hung the microphone back on its hook and bowed theatrically to the navigator.

‘All yours, Pilot!'

Cavendish raised an eyebrow at the mock courtesy, then turned to the helm.

‘Ten up, planesman. Keep sixty metres. Revolutions for four knots.'

The rating at the controls pulled back on the control-stick and watched the gauge. The deck began to tilt as the hydroplanes lifted the nose of the submarine. Pike grasped one of the overhead cable-ducts to steady himself.