Target 5 (4 page)

'Those Russians have gone!' Sondeborg's voice was un
steady, close to hysteria. 'They've got more sense than we
have - they've evacuated their bloody base while there was
still time. Why the hell
don't we wireless for our plane?
Everything's packed ...'

'That's enough!' Conway lowered his sextant and swung round to face Sondeborg. 'Everything isn't packed yet - and
you still have experiments to complete ...'

'Damn the experiments!' Sondeborg blazed. "There's a
queer feeling about this place ...'

'You've been on Target-5 eleven months,' Conway inter
jected. 'It's still the same place.'

'It isn't in the same place,' Sondeborg rapped back. 'We're
oft. the edge of Iceberg Alley ...'

'Get back inside and make some coffee,' Conway snapped. 'We could all do with something hot to drink.' The door slammed again as Sondeborg stormed back inside the hut.

'Better go with him, Jeff,' Conway advised, 'you know what he's like on his own. Then you can try and get through to Thule again - I want them to know our new position.'

'I'll try.' Rickard sounded doubtful. 'There's very bad
static building up. I think we're cut off. It could be a
weather change coming.'

Conway was frowning as he finished taking his star-fix.
The reference to bad radio communication - or no com
munication at all - worried him more than he cared to show.
He finished taking his star-fix and paused before going inside
while he scanned the familiar wilderness of frozen sea and endless ice. For a reason he couldn't fathom Conway felt afraid.

There was sub-tropical heat and tension inside Dawes's office, a heat and a tension which made the three men sweat. It was Beaumont who had introduced the tension. He sat in his shirt-sleeves, his hands clasped over his large knees as he stared up at Dawes. 'All right, you've given me the picture. Now - what makes this Russian, Michael Gorov, so damned important?'

'All you need to know is that he's important,' Adams
intervened. 'The specifics are top secret.'

Beaumont swivelled his head briefly to give the assistant a
hard bleak look, then he turned back to Dawes who
answered quickly. 'Michael Gorov is the Soviet Union's number one oceanographer. He personally supervised the laying of their entire Sosus and Caesar* system along the Arctic seabed. And he's bringing with him the Catherine charts - the complete blueprint of that system which guides their subs under the Arctic ice to our shores. Does that tell
you anything?'

'It suggests that Gorov is - important.'

*
Sosus and Caesar: American term for the cable and sonar buoy underwater
network which guides submarines along a predetermined course at great depth below
the polar pack.

'With those charts in our hands we could set about rip
ping up their whole offensive system - it could put them
back ten years,' Dawes went on vehemently. 'It means even
more than that - if the President goes to Moscow in May
with the Catherine charts in his pocket he would be talking from a position of real strength. It's as big as that, Keith. So
I need you in Greenland .. .'

'You're going too fast - I haven't agreed to go anywhere
yet.' Beaumont stood up and walked across the room to
stare at the wall map. For a large man he walked with great
economy of movement. 'This ship, the
Elroy . . .'
He pointed
to a marker at the bottom of the map. 'Is she the icebreaker,
the twin of the
Exodus?
7

'Yes. She's heading back for Milwaukee after a year in the
Arctic.'

'I may want you to turn her round and send her straight
back up to the icefield ...'

Adams's voice rippled with indignation. 'You seem to have forgotten that we're planning this operation, Beau
mont.'

The Englishman turned round slowly and stared. Adams found the stare uncomfortable as Beaumont took his time about replying, 'Maybe you'd like to come with me - across
the rough ice?' He turned back to Dawes. 'This thing is a
mess - and I don't like the sound of that security leak up at
Thule. I have to go there first to pick up Grayson and
Langer and get equipment before we fly on to Curtis Field.'
He stabbed a finger at the nearest airfield to Target-5- 'So
that leak is dangerous.'

'The FBI man, Callard, says they may have located
Crocodile within hours. Any advance instructions we can
radio direct to Tillotson - he's the security chief up there.'

'I still don't like it. Let me see that met report again.' Dawes handed him the faked weather report with a wooden face while Adams studied his fingernails. Beaumont read the report and shook his head. 'It means the three of us have to fly in to the edge of the fog bank from Curtis Field. Then we sled our way to Target-5 - if we can ever find it. We pick up
Gorov - assuming he ever makes it across twenty-five miles of broken ice - then we have to sled our way back across one hundred and twenty miles of moving ice, probably with the Russian security people on our tails . . .'

'We could pick you up off the ice once you get clear of the
fog and fly you back,' Adams suggested.

'You could,' Beaumont agreed, 'if you ever found us,
which you wouldn't. Have you any idea what it's like trying
to find four men and two sled-teams from the air at this time
of year? No, obviously you haven't...'

'People do get rescued by air,' Adams persisted.

'That's right,' Beaumont growled, 'they do. Something else you obviously don't know is that usually it's by accident - a plane that wasn't looking for them just happens to see them. Another thing I don't like,' he continued, 'is that we don't yet know when he's coming.' He waved the met report in Dawes's direction. 'Send an urgent signal to the
Elroy -
she's to turn round at once and head back due north for the icefield. This may be a rendezvous point .. .' Beaumont took out a pencil and marked a thick cross on the wall map.

'That's deep inside the ice,' Adams protested.

'So she has to ram her way in. I want to be on a plane for
Greenland within two hours,' he told Dawes, 'a fast machine
that can get me there non-stop.'

'There's a Boeing waiting for you now,' Dawes said.

Beaumont raised an eyebrow. 'You were confident,
weren't you? American organization - sometimes it
frightens me. Now, let's go quickly over this dangerous business of when we'll know Michael Gorov is coming.'

Adams began talking in a quick competent voice. 'We're waiting for a man to come back from Leningrad - to Hel
sinki. He's contacting a relative of Michael Gorov's and he'll
bring out the date when Michael Gorov is leaving North
Pole 17. We do know that it will be within the next few
days - and when our man gets out we'll know the exact
day.'

'Supposing he never leaves Leningrad alive?' Beaumont demanded.

'He should make it,' Adams said confidently. 'He's never
been behind the Iron Curtain before - that's why he was
chosen. But he's a very experienced man. When he reaches Helsinki he goes straight to our embassy and they'll signal us.'

'The whole thing depends on one man inside Russia,'
Beaumont said grimly.

'A first-class man,' Adams assured him. 'We'll know at
the latest by one o'clock Sunday morning, our time. As soon
as we hear we'll signal you at Curtis Field.' Adams's
optimism was carrying him along on a cloud. 'You don't
have to worry. You'll see - it will be a very simple operation.'

'It won't,' Beaumont rumbled.'That's the one and only thing I can predict - it won't be a simple operation.'

Friday, 18 February

A man was killed on Nevsky Prospekt in Leningrad at exactly five minutes past three in the afternoon of Friday,
18 February.

At three in the afternoon in Leningrad it is still only 7
am
in Washington. Beaumont had not yet even boarded the
Florida Express he was to be taken off so unceremoniously
seventeen hours later. But it was almost three in the afternoon when an American tourist, Harvey Winthrop, walked carefully down the five icy steps which led from the Hotel
Europa to street level.

A tall, serious-faced man of thirty-eight, Winthrop was described in his passport as a writer, but writing can hardly
have been on his mind as he checked his watch and walked out of the Hotel Europa. 2.55
pm.
Reaching street level, he
turned left and began trudging through the snow towards
Nevsky Prospekt.

Overhead the sky was swollen with the threat of more
snow to come and there were very few people about; in this northern latitude it would be dark within thirty minutes. In
fact, the street lamps were already glowing, their light re
flecting weirdly off the snow as Winthrop arrived on Nevsky
Prospekt and glanced cautiously along the broad avenue in both directions. He gave the impression of a man unsure
whether it was safe to cross, but really he was checking three
cars parked on the far side of the avenue.

The Intourist guide, Madame Vollin, who had accompanied him on each trip to the Hermitage since he had arrived from Helsinki five days ago was nowhere to be seen - not inside one of the
parked cars, not gazing into any of the dimly-lit shop windows behind the vehicles, so she must have accepted his word that he wouldn't be going back to the Hermitage today, that he was too tired to look at any more Rubens. He hesitated, waited until a trolley-bus was close, which gave him another excuse to wait a little longer, to double check.

On the far side of the almost-deserted avenue a youth in a black leather jacket rushed round a corner, rammed a key into a car door, opened it and then waited as a girl followed him round the corner. A red-haired girl, she wore a tight-fitting mini coat, and she began punching the youth as soon as she got close to him. Winthrop smiled dryly as the trolley-bus rumbled past, the traction flashing blue sparks off the ice-coated wire: even the Russians had a juvenile problem, especially when the juveniles were offspring of high-up Party officials. He began to cross the wide street.

Not by chance, Winthrop could easily have been mis
taken for a Russian: he was wearing a fur coat, a fur hat and
knee-length boots purchased from the GUM store three
days after his arrival. 'I didn't realize it would be as cold as
this,' he explained to Madame Vollin. As he reached the far
side
and walked past the young couple who were still
arguing, he checked his watch.

2.58
pm.
Two minutes to the meeting-place he could see as he walked, the little tree-lined park further down the Nevsky. He trudged along the avenue with his gloved hands thrust deep inside his coat pockets, the art catalogue tucked under his arm, taking the same route to the Hermitage Museum at the Winter Palace lie had followed for five days with Madame Vollin at his side. The little tree-lined park came closer. He could see the statue of Lenin by the path and in the distance a short, stocky figure had turned off the Nevsky, was already inside the park. Was this the seaman? Winthrop entered the park.

Winthrop had never met Peter Gorov, the brother of
Michael Gorov, the oceanographer, and he strained his eyes
to check three details before the man reached him. The
duffle bag - carried under the arm instead of over the
shoulder, the normal way Soviet seamen carried it. Check. A red scarf wrapped round his neck. Check. But there was one further detail and the light was fading badly. Winthrop kept his slow, casual pace. The third detail was a button, a
single white button at the top of the coat while the other
buttons would be dark-coloured. Jesus, he couldn't see
that at all. A militiaman - a policeman - trudged into the park from the far end and started walking up behind the
seaman.