again: the lights of the Sikorsky which appeared to be sitting on Kometa 's bridge; the flitting back and forth of Smithy in his float-plane across the path of the Soviet vessel to discourage any movement. Then the searchlight beam shone out from Regula 's stern.
'Go!' said Johnson.
Henderson led the twenty-man team over the port side of Regula. Once in the water, his face-mask in position, he passed under the keel of Regula before swimming underwater direct for the hydrofoil. The magnetic compass attached to his left wrist showed him the precise course to follow and this was very important considering what Johnson was going to activate in the near future. It was also the aspect of the assault that had most worried Johnson when discussing it with Henderson earlier.
'The underwater vibrations will be terrific,' he had warned.
'So we make sure we're far enough away, we get the timing right and we don't feel a thing — or very little,' Henderson had replied.
'Bloody tricky. I wouldn't like to be coming with you.'
'You'd manage.'
'Then there are the bubbles from your breathing apparatus — from the apparatus of twenty men. Those damned bubbles could easily be spotted by lookouts aboard that Soviet hydrofoil.'
'Which is where Jules Beaurain's scenario comes in — to make them look in the wrong place — or places — at the crucial moment of our approach.'
'There's always the unexpected factor,' the dour Johnson had replied. 'Like the sonar room on the Soviet vessel.'
Alone inside the sonar room aboard Kometa the Pole, Peter Sobieski, who had agreed to co-operate with Telescope, was studying the screen which clearly showed the approach of Henderson's assault team. On such a calm night it was impossible that they should not show up on one of the screens.
Peter Sobieski, a thin, nervous but intelligent man in his early forties, was worried. He had taken all possible precautions. The door behind him was locked so no-one could walk in and surprise him. As he continued staring at the screen, one thing above all else preyed on his nerves. The presence of Gunther Baum aboard as head of security. Sobieski knew he could turn a dial which would fog the scanner, obliterating all tell-tale trace of what was moving steadily closer to the hydrofoil second by second. But, try as he might, he was unable to stifle his anxiety about Gunther Baum.
Gunther Baum was suspicious. As he patrolled the open deck on the port side he tried to work it out: the combination of that ridiculous float-plane, the Danish coast guard ship and the large helicopter hanging over the bridge like a time-bomb. He had suggested to Viktor Rashkin that six of his men riddled the machine with automatic fire.
'Very clever,' Rashkin had commented. 'Positively brilliant.'
Baum had basked in the glow of apparent approval. He was totally unprepared for Rashkin's next statement. 'Suppose the chopper is also Danish coast guard which seems likely since there is an airfield on Bornholm. We don't want an international incident with the guests we have below! And if I had said, yes, where would the chopper have crashed? Right on top of our bridge! So could you please return to your duties of patrolling the ship and overseeing its defences
All this had been taken into account when Beaurain worked out his original plan: if the helicopter hovered low enough no-one aboard would dare open fire for fear of causing a conflagration to break out on Kometa. And Baum returned to the open deck fuming, with his companion at his heels, still carrying the brief-case holding the silenced Luger.
Checking that his men were on the alert, he wandered slowly along the port side staring at the inky blackness of the water. Standing by the rail he found First Officer Glasov, a mean-faced man whose every action was based on how it would advance potential promotion.
'Everything does not seem to go according to plan,' Baum said.
'If you had been at sea as long as I have that is what you would expect,' Glasov replied rudely.
Baum was under the distinct impression that the rudeness was calculated, that Glasov wished to get rid of him. Shrugging his shoulders he moved over to the starboard side to check the position there. Glasov watched him go and then turned back to stare at the sea. In the distance a searchlight aboard the coast guard ship was probing for something, but immediately underneath where he stood Glasov saw the light from a porthole reflecting on the water. Glasov clenched the rail tight with both hands and stared again to make sure his eyes had not played him a trick. Then he saw it again. A circle of bubbles…
First Officer Glasov practically threw open the door into the sonar room — at least that was his intention. Unexpectedly the door, locked from the inside, refused to budge and he slammed into what felt like a brick wall. When he had recovered he began hammering his clenched fist against the upper panel. Sobieski took his time about unlocking the door quietly, turning the handle and opening it suddenly. He confronted Glasov, fist raised in mid-air for a fresh onslaught.
'Have you gone mad?' Sobieski enquired calmly.
Glasov stared at him in sheer disbelief. He outranked the controller of the sonar room and Sobieski was a Pole which, in Glasov's view, made him a member of an inferior race.
'You cannot speak to me like that!' Glasov snapped and pushed past the Pole who closed the door and quietly locked it again. Glasov swung round. 'Why was the door locked?'
'Security,' Sobieski replied with a wooden expression. 'On the instructions of Gunther Baum,' he lied.
To hell with Baum. I think skin-divers are at this very moment approaching us and you should have detected them on the sonar by now.'
Sobieski had returned to his seat in front of his screens and controls and he folded his arms over a half- closed drawer. He had to play for time.
'These skin-divers,' the Pole replied in a flippant tone, 'you have seen them riding across the sea blowing trumpets?'
'I have seen the bubbles which rise to the surface from their breathing apparatus,' Glasov told him between clenched teeth. 'So you also must have seen them on your sonar.' He stared for the first time at the screen. 'What is wrong with the sonar screen?'
It was the question the Pole had been waiting for and had been dreading. Since he had deliberately fogged the reception with a turn of a switch nothing showed but static. The Russian walked a few paces further and stood in front of the equipment, the corners of his mouth turned down as he glared at the meaningless image. And Glasov knew enough to work the switches — Sobieski surreptitiously checked the time. This was the very moment when the screen must not be clear. And still the ship vibrated with the roar of the Sikorsky's rotors.
'It is interference,' Sobieski explained.
'We are being jammed? Enemy interference!'
'Nothing of the sort.' Sobieski sounded weary. 'No machine is perfect and they all develop bugs. It is likely that there is a…'
But then Glasov turned the switch, the static vanished and a clear image showed of an unknown number of swimmers approaching Kometa.
'You bloody traitor! You will be shot! And your family will be
…'
Sobieski raised his right hand out of the half-open drawer holding a Walther PPK and fired two shots at point-blank range. Glasov staggered, spun round in a semi-circle and crashed to the deck. The Pole dragged Glasov by the ankles across the planks and bundled him into a huddled heap which fitted the inside of the bottom of a cupboard. Fetching Glasov's cap, which had fallen off, he crammed it over his slumped head, closed both doors and locked the cupboard, then ran to the sonar screen and turned the switch again in case of fresh visitors. The invading force would be aboard within minutes or less provided they were not sported by Gunther Baum's security patrols.
In the large dining-room of Kometa many small tables had been brought together to create one huge and impressive table around which were seated the guests from so many nations. Even aboard the Titanic there was less power and influence than was gathered that night aboard the Soviet hydrofoil in the Baltic.
At the head of the table, as befitted his status, was the American industrialist, Leo Gehn, occasionally drinking mineral water, while the rest of the guests consumed ever larger quantities of champagne, encouraged by
