Sea Leopard

maintain for silent running!' Silence. A bad joke. The protest of the propeller, the shaft, the bearings drummed in his head.

* * *

'Lieutenant, come about and set up another sweep pattern two thousand metres to the east. Sensor control — no relaxation. We can't have lost her! She's here somewhere. Keep looking.'

'Well done, John.' Lloyd tried to lighten the sudden, sombre silence. 'Light as a feather.' No one smiled. The tension in the control room tightened again like a thong around his temples. The din had ceased, the torture of the prop and shaft was over. Yet the silence itself pressed down on them like a great noise. 'All non-essential services off. Stand down non-operational crew and safety men. Get the galley to lay on some food.'

'Hayter to Captain.'

'Yes, Don?'

'The “Victor-II” is still sniffing around, but I think she's lost us for the moment.'

'Good news, Don.'

The lights blinked off, to be replaced by the emergency lighting. The submarine seemed to become quieter, less alive, around him. They were more than twenty fathoms down on a ledge jutting out from the Norwegian coast, and the Russians would now be looking for them, more determined than ever.

Part Two Search and Rescue

Chapter Six: LOST

Part of him, immediately he left the warmth of the headquarters building, wanted to respond to the driving sleet and the howling wind and the lights of the port of Pechenga gleaming fitfully like small, brave candles in the white-curtained darkness. He wanted the weather not to be critical, merely something to be endured, even enjoyed. Instead, there was the immediate sense of danger, as if a palpable, armed enemy was closing at his back. He turned up the collar of his heavy jacket, and crossed the gleaming concrete, slippery already, to the waiting car.

His driver was a michman — petty officer — from Pechenga base security, and he saluted despite the fact that Ardenyev was not in uniform. His face was cold and washed-out and expressionless in the purpling light of the lamps. Ardenyev had the strange and unsettling impression of death. Then the driver opened the rear door of the Zil staff car, and the momentary feeling evaporated.

The car wound swiftly down from the hump of higher ground on which the Red Banner Fleet's headquarters in Pechenga stood, towards the port and the naval helicopter base. Lights out in the roads, the glare of the arc- lamps from the repair yards, the few commercial and pleasure streets sodium-lit and neon-garish, like the stilled arms of light from a lighthouse.

Ardenyev was disturbed by Dolohov's manic desire for success. The admiral had never been careless of risks before. This adventure with the British submarine obsessed him. He knew the details of the met. reports as well as anyone, and yet he ignored them. Ardenyev had, on his own authority, delayed his departure for the rescue ship out in the darkness of the Barents because of the worsening conditions. Delayed, that is, until further postponement would have meant running behind the schedule of the operation; and that he was not prepared to do. Instead, he nursed his conviction that Dolohov was unjustified in ordering them out.

It was cold in the back of the staff car despite the powerful, dusty-smelling heater. Ardenyev rubbed his hands together to warm them. Then the staff car slid under the canopy of white light of the helicopter base and the driver wound down the window to present his pass to the naval guard at the gate. The guard took one swift look at Ardenyev, the cold air blanching his face from the open window, more out of curiosity than to identify him. Then the heavy wire-mesh gates swung open, and the driver wound up the window as they pulled forward. The car turned left, and they were passing hangars and repair shops where warmer light gleamed through open doors. Then a patch of darkness, then the sleet rushing at the windscreen again. Through it, Ardenyev could see the two helicopters, red lights winking at tail and belly. Two MiL-2 light transport helicopters, the only naval helicopters in current service small enough to land on the seemingly fragile, circular helicopter pad of the rescue ship Karpaty.

The car stopped almost in the shadow of one of the small helicopters. Snub-nosed, insect-like, frail. Ardenyev thanked the driver abstractedly, and got out of the car. The sudden wind and cold sleet did not drive out the unwelcome, crowding impressions that seemed to have taken possession of his imagination, leading into the rational part of his mind, polluting clear thought. The Zil staff car pulled away behind him.

'You changed your mind then, skipper — decided to come?' came a voice from the door of the MiL. A grinning, cold-pinched face, blown fair hair above a dark naval jersey. Senior-Lieutenant Andrei Orlov, Ardenyev's second-in-command and leader of Blue section of the special operations unit. Ardenyev summoned a wave he hoped was optimistic, then looked up at the sky, wrinkling his face.

'The pilot's moaning about the weather, skipper,' Orlov added. 'It's just having to turn out in this muck, I reckon.'

Orlov took Ardenyev's arm, and he swung up into the hollow, ribbed interior of the helicopter. The door slammed shut behind him. Someone groaned with the cold. Young faces, five others besides Orlov. Blue section. Ardenyev nodded at them, business-like. Then he clambered through into the helicopter's cabin. The pilot nodded to him. His face was disgruntled.

'Get your clearance — we're on our way,' Ardenyev told him, 'just as soon as I get aboard your pal's chopper. Take care.' Already, the inertia of the mission had affected him, sweeping him along like a current growing stronger each moment. An easy and familiar adrenalin invested his body. His mind was clear now. He clambered back into the passenger compartment. 'OK, you lot?' Each man nodded. Most of them grinned, nerves flickering like small electric shocks in their faces and arms. 'Good. See you on the Karpaty. Open the door, Andrei.'

The door slid back, and Ardenyev dropped lightly to the ground. He crossed the patch of wet, slippery concrete to the next pad, and the door to the second MiL opened with a screech. The senior michman who was his deputy leader in Red section hauled him aboard, wiping sleet from his jacket even as he slammed the door shut behind Ardenyev.

'Thought you weren't coming, sir,' he offered. His face was bony and angular beneath the cropped hair. Viktor Teplov.

'Thanks Viktor. Lieutenant Orlov thought just the same.' He looked round at the other five men, grinning. One or two older faces. Red section was the senior team in the unit. The faces were as they should be. A couple of good youngsters, too. 'Everyone keeping warm?'

'With difficulty, sir,' Teplov answered.

'Let's get going, then.' He clambered through to the passenger seat beside the pilot. 'Very well, Lieutenant, shall we proceed?' he said as he strapped himself into the seat.

'You're going to be very lucky, Captain, to get down on to the Karpaty. The weather out there is worse than this.'

'I have implicit faith in your skills, Lieutenant.' He gestured towards the windscreen of the helicopter where two huge wiper blades and the de-icing equipment struggled with the sleet. 'Shall we go? I take it you're cleared for take-off?'

'We are. We' ve been waiting an hour, fully cleared.'

'What's the matter, Lieutenant?'

'I' ve told my superiors — I' ve told anyone who will listen.'

'Told them what?'

The wind is force four plus. What if we can't get down, just can't make it?'