Sea Leopard

bearings. Still moving away. One moving back, one moving back —

Bearing green nine-five, almost amidships, range two thousand yards. Speed eleven point two five knots. Lloyd looked over his shoulder. Thurston saw him, raised his thumb. The aerial buoy was transmitting the message, a split-second blurt of sound, repeated and repeated. They would have to repeat at least fifty times to be anywhere near certain their message had been picked up by the Nimrod. Ten seconds, no more.

Speed twelve point three knots, bearing unchanged, range closing. Lloyd stared in disbelief. Twelve point seven knots and rising. Dead amidships, a Russian submarine. The buoy, or the message, untranslatable but audible to the Russians, had pinpointed them. Lloyd waggled his hand at Thurston, and the first-lieutenant ceased the transmission and began recalling the aerial buoy.

Thirteen point six knots. Closing.

Lloyd crossed to Thurston, and indicated in savage mime that he must release the buoy, a chopping motion of his hand, again and again. Thurston paused for a moment, then his hands flickered over the console's keyboard. The figures near his knuckles on the digital read-out slowed, then stopped. The buoy was gone, up to the surface again where it would be swept away from their position by the current. Lloyd wiped his forehead with his handkerchief in undisguised relief, not even beginning to think that they had now only the back-up aerial buoy.

He hurried back to the sonars. Speed fifteen point nine knots, bearing unchanged, closing amidships. Range little more than a thousand yards. He realised he had been standing mopping his brow for almost a minute after they released the buoy. Speed fifteen point seven, fifteen point five.

He sighed audibly, a ragged sound from an old man's asthmatic chest. Speed fourteen knots and dropping, bearing green eight-four. Change of course, uncertainty setting in, scent lost.

Scent lost.

The Russian navy had sea-bed maps they could feed into their computers, superimposing them on their sonars and infra-red. It couldn't last for much longer. 'Leopard' would be defeated by likelihood and by the concentration of vessels in their immediate area.

It couldn't last long. Lloyd felt weary, and depressed. It was hard to believe that the Nimrod had heard them, knew where they were and what had happened. No one knew. No one at all.

* * *

The decoded message from the Proteus unrolled on the screen of the Nimrod's display unit with the kind of stutter given to the pages of a book when they are riffled quickly. Squadron Leader Eastoe bent over the shoulder of his communications officer, and sensed the man's shoulder adopt the quiver of excitement that was evident in his own body. Like an audience of two. they were experiencing the same emotions, the gamut of surprise, shock, satisfaction, hope, and anxiety that the words had little apparent power to evoke.

When the message began repeating on the screen, Eastoe straightened and rubbed his cheeks with his hands. He yawned, surprising himself, then realised it was a ploy of the mind to gain time; time for consideration. Proteus on the seabed, position unknown, immobilised by a reduced warhead torpedo, surrounded by Russian vessels, surface and sub-surface. It did not bear consideration.

'Inform MoD immediately — Flash, code of the day. Poor sods.'

'Skipper — ' A voice behind him, the Nav/Attack officer in his niche in the fuselage of the Nimrod.

Eastoe crossed to him. Beyond the man's head the porthole-type window revealed the late slow grey dawn beginning outside; only at their altitude, and above the cloud cover. Below them, the Kiev and other surface vessels would be moving through darkness still, and beneath them Proteus lay in the permanent darkness of the seabed, where hunter-killers attempted to sniff her out.

'What is it, Bob?'

'Something's happening down there, on the rescue ship.'

'You mean in connection with last night's little party?'

''Karpaty is changing course, moving closer to the Kiev.'

'I wonder why. You think one of those two choppers crashed on landing, mm?'

'Yes, skipper, surface wind would have made a landing very dicey. There was that quick infra-red reading, and I'm almost sure only one chopper eventually moved off in the direction of the carrier.'

'Then what did they deliver, or try to deliver, to the rescue ship?' Eastoe considered, staring out of the tiny window, down at the roof of the cloud cover, lightening in its greyness, but thick and solid as the roof of a forest. Eastoe felt a detachment he did not enjoy, and which somehow interfered with his thinking. Being on-station, just watching, for so many hours had deadened the reality of what they could only see by means of radar and sonar and infra-red. Detachment; making thought and decision unimportant, without urgency. 'Some sort of team? Experts? People important enough to be ferried out in this weather, anyway. Now you think they're going to transfer to the rescue ship?'

'I do.'

'Okay, Bob, I'll tell Aubrey. Leave it up to him. We'll be off duty in a couple of hours, anyway. Someone else's problem, then.'

Eastoe went forward again, into the cockpit of the Nimrod.

'Anything, skipper?'

'Signal from Proteus,' Eastoe replied glumly.

'Bad?'

'She's been hit, Terry.'

'Christ — they're all right?'

'At the moment. But she can't move.'

'He was taking a chance, sending up a buoy.'

'Wouldn't you want someone to know?' Eastoe paused. 'Now who the hell was in those two Russian choppers, and why do they need to get aboard the Karpaty so desperately?'

'Skipper —?'

'Doesn't matter. It's Aubrey's problem, not ours.' Eastoe got out of his seat again. 'Call up Bardufoss — tell them we're off-watch in an hour, and we'll need to refuel. Meanwhile, I'll tell Mr Aubrey straight away. He might need time to think.'

* * *

'You saw what happened last night, Captain Ardenyev. I can't guarantee any greater degree of success this morning.' The captain of the carrier Kiev studied his hands, folded together on the table in his cabin. To Ardenyev he appeared carved, unyielding, even unsympathetic. Yet he was right. A helicopter transfer to the Karpaty could not be risked. He even wondered whether his team, Red Section, would board another helicopter. When they reached the Karpaty by whatever means, Ardenyev was uncertain of their reaction. The scorched plates, the damaged, twisted rail — he'd seen them through binoculars from the bridge as the grey, pallid light filtered through the heavy cloud — would be too potent, too evident a reminder of their mates, their rivals.

Then it will have to be by launch, sir.'

The captain of the carrier looked up. 'I'm not unsympathetic, Captain. I am as concerned for the success of this operation as you are. Which is why I must minimise the risks with regard to your — depleted forces.'

Dolohov had signalled the carrier during the night, when he had been informed of the MiL's crash and the loss of Blue Section. His message had been terse, steely, anxious. It had not been humane. He had asked, principally, whether the mission could now be completed. He had not expected a reply in the negative, and Ardenyev had not given him such an answer. Instead, he had assured the admiral that the Proteus could still be boarded by Red Section working alone, as soon as they found her.

For Ardenyev, it seemed the only answer he could give, the only possible outcome of his mission. His team wasn't ready, perhaps it never would be. He could only attempt to purge them of fear and shock and grief through action. Desperation might prove effective.

'I understand, sir. I'll assemble my men on the boat deck immediately.'

'Very good, Captain. And good luck.'