Sea Leopard

know more, disliked having been kept waiting upon events. 'I'm sure you were most persuasive.'

'I think we might say that the moment was opportune,' Cunningham drawled. Aubrey understood. The Secretary of State, for his own reasons, had perceived and employed a means of impressing his authority upon another ministry. 'Your authorisation will be waiting for you here. I suggest you come over right away.'

* * *

They knew, and they resented him. Each and every one of the 'Chessboard Counter' team, with the exception of Ethan Clark, met his entry to the underground room with silence and a carved hostility of expression. One tight group stood beneath the map-board, Pyott and the commodore were at the latter's desk, standing as if posed for some official portrait which recaptured the aloofness and distance of ancestral oils; the communications and computer operators had their backs to him not so much in gainful employment, more in some communal snub.

Aubrey went immediately to the desk, shedding his dark overcoat, taking off his hat. Man from the Pru, he reminded himself, and the image amused rather than belittled him.

'Gentlemen — I'm sorry.'

'We're not simply going to lie down under this —' Pyott began, waving Aubrey's written authorisation, but Aubrey raised his hand. At the edge of his vision, Clark was moving towards them, triumphantly.

'I'm sorry gentlemen, the time for discussion is past. I regret having usurped your authority, but “Chessboard Counter” is now my responsibility. And I expect your co-operation.' His voice was heavy with interrogation. The commodore appeared, strangely, more reluctant than Pyott. It was the soldier who finally spoke. Clark hovered a few yards away.

'Very well, Aubrey, you shall have our co-operation. The damage you have done today to NATO's security, and to the good relations between the various intelligence branches, is something that will only emerge with time.' He paused, his lips smirking. 'I shall make every effort to see that this matter is fully and properly investigated.'

'I expect nothing less, Giles. When the time is right.' Aubrey smiled; challenge and sadness in the expression. Then he turned to Clark. 'Captain Clark, our first priority —' His voice invited the American into conference with himself and the two senior officers, 'is to recall the Proteus.'

'That, I'm afraid, is impossible,' the commodore remarked bluntly. Aubrey realised he had been mistaken. The posed and still expressions had not expressed resentment, not in Pyott and the commodore. Rather, the closed, secret blankness of card players. They did not consider themselves beaten.

'Why, pray?' Aubrey asked frostily.

'Proteus is observing the strictest radio silence until the mission is completed and she has returned to a position off North Cape. Only then will she transmit, and be able to receive.'

'Sorry, Kenneth,' Pyott added. 'I omitted to tell you before. It's quite true what the commodore says — no communications facility exists between ourselves and Proteus.'

Inwardly, Aubrey was furious, but his face retained an icy control. 'I see,' he said. 'Impossible?'

'Not quite,' Clark remarked quietly at Aubrey's shoulder. The old man looked round and up into the American's face. It was gleaming with satisfaction, with the sense of outwitting the two senior British officers. Clark was working out his private grudge.

'Go on,' Aubrey prompted.

'Proteus has pre-determined listening out times. She could be reached then. With a hydrophonic buoy.'

'Dropped from an aircraft, you mean?'

'Yes. One of your Nimrods. Highest priority code, continuous frequency-agile transmission. An unbroken, one-time code. Just tell Proteus to get the hell out.'

The commodore appeared deflated. Pyott was merely angry, but he kept silent.

'I want to look at the state of play,' Aubrey said with gusto, as if he had come into an inheritance and was about to be shown over the property. 'Ethan, come along. Giles —?'

Pyott shrugged, and followed. The group of young officers beneath the huge map-board dispersed a little. They sensed that Aubrey had won. They had been betrayed by the American who had opened the judas-gate into the castle. The enemy was amongst them; they had been routed.

Aubrey looked up, then turned to Clark and Pyott: 'Well? Where is she?'

'About here.' Clark flashed on the light-indicator's arrow. A cluster of lights surrounded it, very bright like falling meteors.

Those lights are all Soviet vessels, I take it?' Aubrey asked in a quiet voice.

'Right.'

'Explain them to me.'

Now the arrow dabbed at each of the lights as Clark talked.

'These positions haven't been updated for three hours — we have another hour before the satellite comes over the horizon and we can pick up transmission of the current picture. This is the carrier Kiev, the pride of the fleet. She's changed course three times, the last one took her from here to here —' Southwards. 'She was heading west. These two are “Kashin”-class destroyers, they left Pechenga yesterday. These three are ELINT vessels, probably spy-ships rigged as trawlers, but they're not with fishing fleets — they' ve change course, here to here — ' Southwards and eastwards. 'This, according to some very bad satellite photography yesterday is a rescue ship, the Karpaty. She left Murmansk a couple of days ago. Why she's in the area, I wouldn't know. It may not even be her, could be another ELINT vessel, but a big one. And there are the submarines — ' The arrow dabbed now at spot after spot of light. 'Hunter-killers, every one.'

'Thank you, Captain Clark.' Aubrey turned to Pyott and the commodore, who had now joined them. Behind them, the junior officers formed a knot of silent supporters. 'Is it because I am a mere layman that these Soviet naval dispositions frighten me, make me leap to one conclusion, and only one?' He paused, but there was no murmur of reply. He continued: 'Gentlemen, it would seem obvious to me that the Soviets have at least surmised that Proteus is in the area and making for Tanafjord. This activity is not directed towards the rescue of the crippled submarine. What is intended I do not propose to guess. If anything happens to Proteus, I am now required to accept responsibility. If I can prevent it, nothing untoward will happen. Clark, come with me. We apparently require the cooperation of the Chief of Air staff. Commodore, a secure line, if you please.'

'Thank God for sanity,' Clark whispered. Aubrey turned on him.

'Ethan, it may already be too late. It is simply a matter of deciding tenses, from what you have shown me. Proteus is walking into — has walked into — a trap. Pray that the present tense still applies!'

* * *

A bright yellow TR7. It was an easy car in which to be tailed, and the two men in the Ford Granada had stuck to him from Edgbaston through the centre of Birmingham — even in the afternoon traffic — and out on to the M6 motorway. Standing in the doorway of the cafe near the college, the Melody Maker tucked under his arm, one hand disguising the burping indigestion that the sausage and chips had given him, he had seen the car parked across the street from his own. It had U-turned and followed him. He had never lost sight of it in his mirror, and they had never lost sight of him.

Thus he passed his turn-off eight miles further back towards Birmingham, and now the signs indicated the next service area. He signalled, and pulled off the M6, up the slope into the car park. He got out of the car without glancing at the Granada sliding into an empty place twenty yards from him, and went into the foyer of the building. He slipped into the toilet, walked the length of it, and exited through the second door, leading out again to the car park from the side of the building. He approached the corner slowly, peering round it. One of the two men was standing by the Granada, the other was nowhere to be seen. Presumably, he had followed Hyde into the service station.

Hyde waited impatiently. If the second man didn't move almost at once, he would have to go back into the toilet and attempt to shake them later. And now impatience was a nagging toothache. The man by the Granada was smoking, and picking at his teeth with the hand that held the cigarette. Come on, come on —

The man patted his stomach, which was ample, resting over the lip of his waistband. He hesitated, then he