Sea Leopard

'Russian signals, I'm afraid,' he hurried on. 'We can't break the code, but it is evident that the Soviets are in command of the submarine.'

'Damnation!' Cunningham offered from the depth of the Chesterfield on which he was sitting. The Foreign Secretary's face dropped into lines of misery.

The PM must be informed at once,' he said, returning to his desk. 'Find yourself a seat, Kenneth.' He waved a hand loosely, and Aubrey perched himself on a Louis Quinze armchair, intricately carved, hideously patterned. Cunningham looked at Aubrey, and shook his head. The Foreign Secretary picked up one of the battery of telephones on his desk, then hesitated before dialling the number. 'Is there anything you can suggest, Kenneth? Anything at all?' He put down the receiver, as if to display optimism.

'Minister — I'm sorry that this incident has had to spill over into legitimate diplomacy. I can only recommend that all diplomatic efforts be maintained. There is nothing else we can do. We must press for details, of course, and demand that one of our people in Moscow is in Pechenga when the Proteus docks. He must be allowed immediate access, and there must be every attempt to preserve — by complaint, fuss, bother, noise, whatever you will — to preserve the security of “Leopard”.' Aubrey spread his hands on his knees.

'Pechenga?'

'The nearest naval base. Murmansk if you prefer — or wherever?'

'One of your people?'

Cunningham did not reply, but looked towards Aubrey.

'If you wish, Minister,' Aubrey answered. 'But I would prefer someone rather senior on the embassy staff, and someone legitimate.'

'Very well. I'll put that in motion.'

'I think, however,' Aubrey pursued, 'that the Russians will delay the travel permits, and that sort of thing, so that by the time our people are on the scene, they will have done whatever they wish and be waving Proteus goodbye from the quayside.'

'I'm inclined to agree,' Cunningham murmured.

'Then there is absolutely nothing we can do!' the Foreign Secretary fumed, slapping his hand repeatedly on the surface of his desk. He looked towards Aubrey as if he were to blame for the situation. Aubrey's features were impassive. 'This really is not the way to play the game. The Russians have disobeyed every rule of international behaviour. It really is not good enough.' There was a peculiarly old-fashioned inflection to the voice, to accompany the outdated sentiments.

'They are inclined to do that,' Aubrey observed mockingly and received a warning glance from Cunningham. 'I agree, Minister. Obviously, the Kremlin has fully involved itself with, and sanctioned, this covert operation. Because they have done so, they place us at a considerable disadvantage. It is, indeed, a mixing of the legitimate and the covert which is both improper and very difficult to counter. And it has worked. This sort of mixed marriage usually flops badly — like the Bay of Pigs. The Russians seem to have more success than we do.'

'You imply that any remedy is strictly the concern of the intelligence service?'

'I have no answer.'

'The PM will give her blessing to any counter-operation, I'm quite sure of that. Our hands are tied, as you say. We do not even wish to become involved. Our people are in no danger, they will be released within the next couple of days. Our submarine will be repaired. Only “Leopard” will no longer be our property. Therefore, if you can prevent the loss of “Leopard”, do so. But it must be— and the PM would wish me to stress this, even at the same time as she gives you her blessing— it must be an intelligence operation. It will be disowned, it must not endanger the crew of the submarine or any non-intelligence personnel, and it must be done immediately.' The Foreign Secretary smiled glumly, though there was a snuff-pinch of pleasure in his gloom because he considered he must have discomforted Aubrey. 'Is there anything, anything at all?'

Aubrey cleared his throat. 'NATO naval units are too far from the area to intercept. The Soviet government wish to apologise to us by repairing the damage they have inflicted. I have one agent-in-place in the Pechenga district. He is a grocer. I do not have a satellite-mounted laser beam whereby I can secretly and silently destroy half of the Red Banner Fleet— therefore, Minister, I am inclined to conclude that there is very little I can effectively do to secure the secrecy of “Leopard” and the remainder of the sensitive equipment aboard HMS Proteus.'

'Very well,' the Secretary of State said tightly, 'I will inform the PM of the state of play, and recommend that we have only the diplomatic alternative.' Again, he picked up the receiver and placed it to his ear.

'Unless,' Aubrey began, amazed at his empty temerity and observing his own words as if spoken by another; and that other a pompous ass without sincerity or resolution. 'Unless we can get one man into the naval dockyard at Pechenga or wherever, with a brief to destroy the “Leopard” equipment before the Soviets have time to inspect it.'

Aubrey was intensely aware of the eager, then disbelieving gazes of Cunningham and the Foreign Secretary. But, he told himself, attempting to justify what some obscure part of his mind or imagination had prompted him to utter, the whole capture of Proteus was the work of little more than one man, in the final analysis. Why not the reverse, then? The question echoed in his mind, but no answer appeared. Not so much as the first whisper of an answer. He asked himself a second, perhaps more pressing question.

Where the blazes was Hyde, and where the devil was Quin?

* * *

Kendal was asleep and windy. At one set of traffic lights, a board advertising ice cream outside a newsagent's shop, where the lights were on within as the proprietor marked up the morning editions for delivery, blew over in a gust, noisily startling the girl who was dozing in the passenger seat. Hyde had watched her face in repose from time to time since they left the M6. Her lips pouted, still greasy from her meal, and her features were pale, small and colourless. Obscurely, he felt responsible for her. She had passed from being the object of a search, the key to a security problem, into a chrysalis stage where she was almost a person, with human rights and human demands upon his time and energies. She hovered, waiting to be born into his emotional world. He did not welcome the change. It complicated matters. It was a pity he seemed to understand her. It would have been easier had she been a replica of her Left-wing, feminist friend Sara, whom he could have comfortably disliked.

He paused on the outskirts of Kendal and waited, but no cars approached in his mirror or passed him. He relaxed until they passed through Staveley and turned west on the main Windermere road. Headlights followed him out of the village, keeping behind him for almost two miles before turning off down a narrow track. He discovered himself sweating with relief the instant the headlights disappeared. Like a cat being woken by a tension in its owner, the girl stirred and sat up.

'Anything wrong?'

'Nothing. Go back to sleep.'

'I'm not tired any more.'

'Great. Pity you can't drive.'

The girl subsided into a sullen silence. There were people on the streets of Windermere, standing at bus stops, walking with bent heads beneath black hoods of umbrellas in the misty drizzle that clung to the town. The roof of a train gleamed darkly in the lights of the station, which lay below the main road.

By the time they were on the outskirts of Windermere again, the dog-leg of the long ribbon of the lake lay to their left, its further shore tree-clad, wreathed with a chill mist, its steep sides buttressing the low cloud that was just turning from black to grey. It was a slow, wintry, unwelcome dawn as they crossed Trout Beck, heading for Ambleside.

'I reckon Wordsworth lived in Croydon and made it all up,' he remarked. 'He never said it was always pissing with rain while he was having his visions of nature.'

'You have no soul,' the girl replied lightly. She seemed to warm herself at humour as at a small fire. He looked at her. She glanced away.

'It's all right,' he offered, 'I'm not about to pull the car into the side and take advantage of you.'

The girl did not reply. A tinge of colour in her cheeks, but no other reaction. He glanced at her from time to time, but she continued to gaze out of the side window, watching the far shore of Windermere slide past, the cramped, heavy firs crowding down to the water like a herd or an army, then giving way to damp, grassy outcrops, almost colourless under the low cloud cover. The land climbed away on his side of the car above the tree-line to