There were no suburbs. The city just stopped and suddenly they were driving through empty tundra, heading for a horizon that had nothing at all to offer. They were fourteen hundred kilometres from the North Pole and there was nothing here. People with no life and a sun without a shred of warmth. Alex thought of the journey he had made. From Wimbledon to Cornwall. Then London, Miami and Skeleton Key. And finally here. Was it to be finally? What a horrible place to finish his life. He really had come to the end of the world.
There were no other cars on the road and no street signs. Alex stopped even trying to see where they were going. After another thirty minutes they began to slow down, then turned off. There was a crunching sound under the wheels as they left the asphalt surface and continued along gravel. Was this where the Russians kept their submarines? He could only see a chicken wire fence and a dilapidated wooden kiosk trying to pass as a sentry box.
They stopped in front of a red and white barrier. A man appeared, dressed in dark blue with a loose, flapping overcoat and, showing underneath it, a tunic and a striped T-shirt. He was a Russian sailor. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and he looked confused. He ran over to the car and said something in Russian.
Conrad shot him. Alex saw the hand come out of the window and the flash of the gun, but it all happened so quickly that he could hardly believe it had happened at all. The young Russian was thrown backwards. Conrad fired a second time. There was another sailor in the sentry box-Alex hadn’t even noticed him-and he shouted out, crumpling backwards. Nobody had spoken a word. Two soldiers climbed out of the front truck and went over to the barrier blocking the entrance. Was this really the entrance to a submarine base? Alex had seen more sophisticated security in a supermarket carpark. The soldiers simply lifted the barrier. The convoy moved on.
They followed a twisting, bumpy track down a hill and there, at last, was the sea. The first thing Alex saw was a fleet of ice-breakers, moored about eight hundred metres away, huge iron blocks sitting silently, impossibly on the sea. It seemed against the laws of nature that such monstrous things could float. There were no lights onboard, no movement at all. On the other side of the water, another grim stretch of coastline rose up, streaked with white; though whether this was salt or some sort of permanent snow, Alex couldn’t say.
The trucks bounced down and suddenly they were in a harbour, surrounded by cranes, gantries, warehouses and sheds. It was a devil’s playground of twisted steel and cement, of hooks and chains, pulleys and cables, drums, wooden pallets and huge steel containers. Rusting ships sat in the water or stood on dry land, suspended on a network of stilts. Cars, lorries and tractors, some obviously derelict, stood idle at the water’s edge. There was a row of long wooden cabins to one side, each one numbered in yellow and grey paint. They reminded Alex of buildings he’d seen in old World War Two movies, in prisoner of war camps. Could this be where the other sailors slept? If so, they must all be in bed. The harbour was deserted. Nothing moved.
They stopped and Alex felt the truck rock as the soldiers poured out behind him. A moment later he saw them, their machine-guns raised, and wondered if he was meant to follow them. But the driver shook his head, gesturing at him to stay where he was. Alex watched the men fan out across the compound, moving quickly as they made for the cabins. There was no sign of Sarov. He must still be in the car, which was parked round the other side.
A long pause. Then someone gave a signal. There was the smash of wood, a door being forced open, then the concentrated chatter of machine-gun fire. Somebody shouted. An electric bell began to ring, the sound all too small and ineffective. Three half-dressed men appeared round the side of the cabins and sprinted forward, trying to find shelter among the containers. More gunfire. Alex saw two of them go down, followed by the third, his hands scrabbling at the air as he was hit in the back. There was a single shot from a window. One man was trying to fight back. A grenade curved through the air and onto the roof of the building. There was an explosion and half the wall blew out, turned into matchsticks. The next time Alex looked, the window and presumably the man behind it had been destroyed.
The attack had come without any warning at all. Sarov’s men had been well armed and prepared. There had only been a handful of sailors at the yard and they had all been asleep. It was over very quickly. The ringing stopped. Smoke curled out of the damaged building. A figure floated past, face down in the water. The harbour had been taken. Sarov was in total command.
The driver got out of the truck, went quickly round the front and opened the door for Alex. He climbed down awkwardly, his hands still chained together. Sarov’s men had moved into the second phase of the operation. Alex saw bodies being carried out of sight. One of the other trucks reversed, moving closer to the water’s edge. The commander from the airport called out an order and the soldiers scattered, taking up positions that they must have worked out months before. It seemed unlikely that anybody would have had time to raise the alarm, but if anyone approached the yard from Murmansk, they would find it defended. Sarov was standing to one side with Conrad beside him. He was looking at something. Alex followed his eyes.
And there were the submarines!
Alex gasped. Here was what this whole thing had been about! There were just four of them, bloated metal beasts that lay half-submerged in the sea, secured by ropes as thick as a man’s arm. Each one was the size of an office building turned on its side. The submarines had no markings whatsoever and no flags. They seemed to be coated in black oil or tar. Their conning towers, set well back, were closed and solid. Alex shivered.
He’d never thought that a machine could actually emanate evil, but these did. They were as dark and as cold as the water that lapped about them. They looked just like the bombs that they had become. Three of the submarines were in a line, moored against the side of the harbour. The fourth was in a bay of its own, a little way out. Alex noticed a crane at the end of a quay, right next to the water. Years ago it might have been painted yellow but most of the colour had flaked off. The control cabin was only about ten metres above the ground with a ladder reaching up to it. The arm of the crane slanted up, then bent down, mimicking the neck and head of a bird. This was a crane with no hook. Instead there was a metal disc like an oversized bath plug dangling underneath the arm, connected to it by a chain and a series of electric cables.
Conrad shouted something and the driver led Alex over to a solid handrail on the edge of the quay. It had obviously been placed there to stop anyone falling in and it was securely bolted to the ground. The driver unlocked one of Alex’s hands then pulled with the chain, leading him like a dog. He walked him over to the handrail and cuffed him to it. Alex was left standing on his own in the middle of everything. He jerked at the chain but it was useless. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Alex could only stand and watch as two of the soldiers lifted the bomb out of the truck as carefully as they could. He saw the strain in their faces as they set it on the ground right next to the edge of the quay and only a few metres from the crane. Sarov walked over, Conrad limping along next to him. Conrad looked at Alex and one corner of his mouth twitched into a smile.
Sarov reached into his jacket pocket and took out the plastic card he had shown Alex on the plane. He held it for a moment, then fed it into the slot on the side of the nuclear bomb. At once, the silver chest came to life. A series of red lights began to blink on a panel. Alex saw a line of digits on a liquid crystal display. Hours, minutes and seconds. They were already counting down. The magnetic stripe on the card had activated the bomb. Somewhere inside the chest, electronic wheels were turning. The detonation sequence had begun.
Then Sarov came over to Alex.
He stood there, examining him as if for the first and last time. As ever, his face gave nothing away, but Alex detected something in the man’s eyes. Sarov would have denied it. He would have been angered if anyone had suggested it. But the sadness was there. It was plain to see.
“And so we come to the end,” he said. “You are standing in the Nuclear Submarine Repair Shipyard of Murmansk. You may be interested to know that the soldiers we met at the airport have all served with me in the past and are loyal to me still. The entire compound is now under my control and as you have seen, the nuclear bomb is primed. I’m afraid I cannot stay with you any longer. I have to return to the airport to ensure that everything is ready for our flight to Moscow. I will leave Conrad to place the bomb in position on the submarine, directly over the nuclear reactor that is still there inside. It is possible that the detonator in the bomb will also trigger the reactor, doubling or trebling the force of the explosion. This will mean very little to you, as you will be vaporized instantly-before your brain has time even to work out what has happened. Conrad is very disappointed. He had hoped I would allow him to kill you himself.”
Alex said nothing.
“I am so sorry, Alex, that in the end you were so much more stupid than I had thought, although perhaps I should have expected it. A Western child, brought up and educated in Britain… a country that is itself only a shadow of what it once was. Why couldn’t you see what I was offering you? Why couldn’t you accept your place in
