The Rybinsk Deception (19 page)

Ritchie’s eyebrows had gone up again. ‘I think I can assess the risk without your assistance, Mr Coburn – unless of course there’s more I need to know.’

‘There is. As soon as you’re satisfied Yegorov was so damn close to attacking your ship you’re lucky the
Sandpiper
’s still afloat, you’ll have to contact someone in the States who has the authority to arrest Shriver
before he can clean out his records and to stop him getting nasty. He’s already threatened O’Halloran’s family and he could make trouble for me, too.’

O’Halloran had sensed the need for diplomacy. ‘The FAL has recently come under investigation,’ he said. ‘If this goes down the way it’s supposed to, Washington will be able to indict Shriver for subversion.’

Since this was the first Coburn had heard about any investigation, was O’Halloran improvising, he wondered? And if so, why did he think he had to?

Ritchie’s expression made it impossible to tell what he thought of the plan, but if he wasn’t looking entirely convinced of its merits, at least he was looking more receptive than he had been a minute ago.

‘A two-second window,’ he said. ‘Not a three-or four-second window?’

‘Depends on you.’ Coburn smiled at him. ‘The quicker I get your go ahead on the radio, the quicker I can stop any missiles from being fired at you.’

‘And you’ll be where exactly?’

‘Not far behind you – somewhere up near the Demarkation Line.’

‘Well, well.’ Ritchie sat down. ‘In that case, seeing as how we seem to have a common interest and we’re all heading in the same direction, what do you say I give you a lift? If you and Mr O’Halloran would like to join the crew of the
Sandpiper
, I can keep an eye on you, and we can all keep our eyes open for a Korean patrol boat you’re saying is going to attack me. How does that sound?’

‘I’ll need to transfer from your ship a couple of days ahead of time,’ Coburn said. ‘Otherwise that’s fine by me.’ He glanced at O’Halloran. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Sure.’ The American nodded. ‘Why not?’

‘Right then. It’s settled.’ Ritchie picked up his phone. ‘If you care to tell me where you’re staying, I’ll have a staff car run you back to your hotel. The
Sandpiper
departs at 2300 hours on August 1st, but you’ll need to report here two or three hours before that so we can find somewhere for you to bunk down. If you haven’t been on board a minehunter before, there’s not much room so don’t expect to be going on a cruise.’

Because the offer made sense and had been made so casually, it wasn’t until Coburn was outside sitting in the car that he began to wonder how sincere it had been. A genuine invitation from a no-nonsense naval officer? Or a ploy that allowed Ritchie to detain the messengers of news he didn’t believe?

O’Halloran was looking as though he, too, had doubts, but decided not to voice them in front of the driver and made himself wait until they were back at their hotel and alone in the lobby.

‘Why do I have this feeling I’ve been out-manoeuvred?’ he said.

‘We’ve both been.’

‘There’s a difference. You told Ritchie you’ll be leaving the
Sandpiper
before the shit’s due to hit the fan. I’ll still be on board. He’s figuring on using me as his insurance.’

Coburn grinned. ‘Well, you’d better hope everything goes to plan then, hadn’t you? What was all that crap about the FAL being under investigation?’

‘It’s not crap. When I phoned the office to see if Yegorov was off to Korea, I was told his name’s been flagged, linking him to Shriver and questioning the reason for all his trips to Russia and Bangladesh.’

‘So someone else has made the connection,’ Coburn said.

‘Probably that guy who ran Yegorov’s facial recognition search for me. He could’ve put two and two together and made seven. Now you know why I changed my mind about coming with you. If Washington’s having a close look at the FAL, I’ll only get my share of those Brownie points if I’m in at the sharp end.’

‘So how far along is the investigation?’

O’Halloran shrugged. ‘No idea. I didn’t ask. You never know, though. I guess there’s always a chance you and I could be heading off up into the Yellow Sea for nothing.’

F
AR AWAY TO
the west where thin streaks of silver-edged cloud were gradually turning from pink to orange, the division between sea and sky had become indistinct. Of the six sunsets Coburn had observed from the foredeck of the
Sandpiper
, none had been as colourful as this one and he couldn’t remember seeing the ocean quite so flat or the air being this clear.

He’d been on deck for most of the last hour, wanting to be alone on what would be his last evening on board, hoping O’Halloran wouldn’t come to find him and telling himself that just because things had gone well up to now, it didn’t mean his luck was about to take a change for the worse.

Throughout the voyage he’d been counting down the days, but now the time for him to leave the ship had actually come, he felt unprepared, knowing that in a little more than twenty-four hours he’d discover whether his plan would be successful, or whether it would fail.

Until today he’d been able to exploit his unfamiliarity with life on board a minehunter as an excuse to avoid worrying about the consequences of failure, filling in his hours by learning about the
Sandpiper
’s capability and, with Ritchie’s approval, watching the crew operate some of the most sophisticated equipment Coburn had ever come across.

As well as having an I-band surface search radar, the ship was fitted with a variable-depth sonar system that was lowered by winch from a well in front of the bridge, and from which visual images were fed to data consoles that analysed all mine-like objects floating near or anchored to the seabed.

But by far the most advanced piece of equipment was the
Sandpiper
’s remotely controlled undersea vehicle, an SLQ-48 Raytheon neutralization device that could be deployed from a fantail on the side of the ship’s glass-fibre hull and tethered to it by a 1000 metre-long cable.

Since they’d left Chinhae, Ritchie had used the vehicle only once as an exercise, unwilling to waste time when tonight’s rendezvous with the
Selina
was vital, and when even a slight deterioration in the weather could have delayed their arrival time.

For a 900 ton vessel the
Sandpiper
was by no means a fast ship, powered by twin non-magnetic 800 horsepower Isotta Franschini diesel engines, but not able to travel at much more than ten knots, a speed that despite the calm summer conditions hadn’t given Ritchie the luxury of being able to hang around.

Hari hadn’t been hanging around either. Unlike the commander, who had charted a course that had taken the
Sandpiper
more or less straight up through the centre of the Yellow Sea, since Hari had made his last refuelling stop at Qingdao on the Chinese mainland he’d been hugging the coast, sounding increasingly irritable on each occasion Coburn had been in touch with him, until their conversation of this afternoon when he’d announced that he was standing by to collect Coburn as soon as the
Sandpiper
was close enough for the transfer to take place.

According to co-ordinates Hari had provided, the
Selina
was currently riding at anchor in the company of several Korean fishing boats four miles off the coast of a small island, and almost exactly sixty miles south of the Demarkation Line.

How accurate the co-ordinates were, Coburn wasn’t certain, although when this evening’s arrangements amounted to little more than him exchanging a bunk on the
Sandpiper
for a bunk on the
Selina
, his concerns were best reserved for tomorrow, he decided. It was then that Hari’s real skills would be put to the test in readiness for the crunch on the following night.

By now, although the last rays of sunlight had gone, he was reluctant to go below, trying not to wonder what Heather was doing in order to avoid cluttering up his mind with half-formed notions of the future and not wanting to think ahead too far.

He was still on deck when O’Halloran appeared. From the beginning of their trip from Chinhae, the American had been at pains to insulate Ritchie and himself from any direct involvement with either Hari or the
Selina
, spending more time with the commander than he had with Coburn, but since they’d received Hari’s last communication he seemed to be less on edge.

‘Skipper wants us on the bridge,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘He’s got what he thinks is the echo of a Korean patrol boat on his radar. It could be Yegorov making sure he’s picking up his target early. Come on.’

Of the forty-six members of the
Sandpiper
’s crew Coburn had met, he was able to remember the faces of the officers and some of the ratings, but this evening, so many people were coming and going that, apart from one of the young women from Baltimore who was leaving the bridge as they arrived, he didn’t know who he recognized and who he didn’t.

Ritchie was waiting for them, standing by the larger of two radar screens. ‘Got him,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’ Coburn studied the screen, uncertain of what he was looking at.

‘See there?’ Ritchie pointed to a number of glowing green dots. ‘Those are the fishing boats where your friend’s anchored. Now take a look at this one.’ Sliding his finger diagonally down the screen he let it come to rest beneath another dot. ‘For the last three-quarters of an hour, each time we’ve changed course, within a few minutes whoever it is has changed theirs. We’re being shadowed.’

‘Where did the boat come from?’

‘Probably out from one of these islands.’ Ritchie pushed a button to superimpose the outline of the coast. ‘Tokchok’s the biggest of them, but there are plenty of others where you could park up a patrol boat for a couple of days. An Osa only takes around nine feet of water, so you wouldn’t need much of an inlet to hide one in. Do you want me to order another course change so you can watch?’

Coburn shook his head. ‘If it’s Yegorov and you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, he’ll start wondering why the
Sandpiper
’s working in the dark.’

‘OK.’ Ritchie smiled. ‘How about this instead, then? First thing tomorrow I’ll head off north using the kind of search pattern he’ll be expecting us to use if we were hunting for mines. If the bastard stays with us all day, we’ll know he’s who we think he is.’ Ritchie spread out a chart. ‘See where I’ve marked that cross? As long as we’ve got a positive identification by evening, that’s where I’ll drop anchor for the night, so guess where he’ll be anchoring.’

‘Somewhere to the south of you,’ Coburn said.

‘Exactly, which means that if you and your friends are there waiting to do whatever it is I don’t need to know about, I can deliver him pretty much right to you.’

Which was going to significantly reduce the risk to Hari’s men, Coburn thought. Instead of them having to embark on what could have been a lengthy and dangerous trip from the
Selina
to the patrol boat and back again, at one stroke the problem had been largely overcome.

‘OK.’ Ritchie rolled up the chart and gave it to Coburn. ‘That’s settled then. Now all you and I have to do is finalize things for the 9th.’

‘Not that much left for you to do,’ Coburn said. ‘We know Yegorov will be banking on you being within a couple of miles of the Demarkation Line at some point, so he won’t be letting you get too far ahead of him. If we believe Shriver’s draft press statement, nothing’s going to happen until it’s dark, but it’ll be best if we keep a radio channel open all the time.’

O’Halloran wasn’t happy with the idea. ‘Forget the radio,’ he said. ‘If Yegorov’s been smart enough to overpower the crew of a Korean Osa, what makes you think he’s not smart enough to be monitoring every marine frequency he can find? It’ll be safer if you carry on communicating by satellite phone.’

Coburn looked at Ritchie. ‘What do you think?’

‘Sure. That makes sense. If you want to grab one of our phones now, you can tell your friend he can come and collect you in fifteen minutes. We’ll be at the rendezvous by then. In case someone’s looking, say we’ll be putting our hull between him and the patrol boat, and slinging a ladder over the starboard quarter for you near the stern.’ The commander stuck out his hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure. I hope this works out.’

Coburn hoped so too, keeping the doubt out of his voice and, after making his call to Hari, for the next quarter of an hour managed to avoid mentioning his misgivings to O’Halloran who had accompanied him from the bridge and was waiting with him on the afterdeck.

The sea was still as flat as it had been earlier, and because the
Sandpiper
had already started losing speed, the breeze generated by its forward motion was barely noticeable.

‘I’ve got to tell you this,’ O’Halloran said. ‘I can’t see Ritchie relying on you – not now he knows he’s being followed for sure. If you were in his shoes, you wouldn’t rely on anybody else either.’

‘Do you reckon he’ll open fire the minute he hears from Yegorov?’ Coburn had considered the possibility.

‘He’d have to be brave not to, don’t you think?’

‘Depends how far away from the
Sandpiper
Yegorov’s going to be. Styx missiles have twenty times the range of Ritchie’s guns. Either way, your job’s to make sure I get that two-second window.’

O’Halloran forced a smile. ‘Because if I don’t, this could be the last time I get to enjoy a nice starry night.’

‘Let Ritchie look after the
Sandpiper
,’ Coburn said. ‘It’s you I’ll be wanting to hear from on the phone.’

‘Count on it.’ O’Halloran peered out to sea. ‘Sounds like your ride’s coming.’

Just audible above the noise of the
Sandpiper
’s idling diesels, Coburn could hear the buzz of an outboard motor. A moment later the shape of an inflatable swam out of the darkness.

It was travelling fast, one of the three village Zodiacs Hari occasionally used for raids on shallow-draught freighters that ventured too close to the coast.

The man at the helm was blacker than O’Halloran and equally difficult to see. But Coburn recognized him. It was Hari’s friend, the skinny Somalian, cutting back his speed now he’d caught sight of the ladder and beginning to ease the Zodiac alongside.

Feeling slightly awkward, Coburn shook hands with O’Halloran. ‘I guess this is it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow as soon as I know everything’s ready to go.’

‘I’ll be waiting for your call. Good luck.’

‘You too.’ Coburn went to the ladder, turning to wave before he steadied himself against the hull and clambered down into the Zodiac.

As though the Somalian saw nothing unusual in picking up a passenger from a US warship, he nodded his hello. ‘Thanks to Allah, it seems we have all made a safe journey,’ he said. ‘There is no luggage you bring?’

‘Only this.’ Coburn showed him the rolled up chart. ‘How’s everything on the
Selina
?’

‘We have not been so good at rationing our food supplies, but for many days it has been too hot on board to eat, so it is only a small problem for us.’ Pushing off from the
Sandpiper
, the Somalian opened the throttle of the outboard and turned the Zodiac north towards some pinpoints of light that were twinkling in the distance.

The lights were those of the Korean fishing boats. They were anchored 4 to 500 yards from the shore of the island Hari had mentioned, strung out in an uneven line at the end of which, riding without lights, was the
Selina
.

To greet Coburn, Hari had assembled his crew on deck – not that there were many of them.

One was Indiri’s husband who, after saying a shy hello, handed Coburn a grimy and crumpled envelope that he said Heather had asked him to deliver. The other two men were strangers whom Coburn couldn’t recall meeting at the village.

Hari introduced them as Susilo and Ali, smooth-muscled, fit-looking Indonesians who, he explained, were experienced pearl divers from Bengkalis and therefore accustomed to working underwater.

They too were shy, keeping their eyes lowered while Coburn shook hands with them and then hurrying off as soon as formalities were over.

Although the strain of the trip was showing on Hari’s face, for the moment at least he seemed reasonably happy. ‘Not by sea before have I travelled this far so quickly,’ he said. ‘Never again shall I attempt such a journey. Come so we can talk and you can tell me if you are still confident of locating our target tomorrow.’

‘He’s shown up already.’ Coburn accompanied Hari to the deckhouse. ‘We got a radar fix on him earlier this evening. The
Sandpiper
’s going to lead him right into your lap tomorrow night. That’s why I’ve brought this chart.’

‘It shows where we will be able to find him?’

‘Pretty much. I’ll go over it with you later.’

‘After you have read your letter from Miss Cameron.’ Hari grinned. ‘Perhaps it is to say that when you return she will no longer wish to sleep with you.’

Like the envelope, the note inside it had suffered from the rigours of the voyage. The paper was so damp and creased that in places the handwriting was badly smudged, but the message was just about decipherable:

To stop Hari asking what it said, Coburn let him read it for himself.

‘Ah. I have heard of this argument before.’ He gave the note back. ‘When I first tell Miss Cameron I am not one hundred per cent certain I can help you, she says that because her godfather is the director of a big marine insurance company in London, he would be most interested to learn of my business. For a young woman she can be quite persuasive.’

‘I know.’ Coburn didn’t need reminding. ‘How many mines did you bring?’

‘You tell me we will need four, so, in case we chance upon a good opportunity to use one on our way here, we bring five. We have also conducted some experiments with them. If you will follow me I can show you how it is we have modified their magnets.’

After the comparatively civilized environment on board the
Sandpiper
, conditions below the deck of the stripped-out
Selina
were appalling.