Sea Leopard

Copeland turned to study the huge map-board. 'We're helpless up there until we know how big, how good, and of what kind “Chessboard” is.' He turned back to Clark. 'Your Chief of Naval Operations saw that quite clearly, so did Supreme Allied Command, Atlantic. Proteus has the most distinguished sponsors.' Again, the silent, mocking smile.

'What if we lose her? Then we' ve lost “Leopard” for good.'

'Lose? Lost? What do you mean? Oh, Quin, I suppose.'

Copeland shrugged. 'If Quin is over on the other side, then “Leopard” will be useless in a matter of months, don't you agree?' Clark nodded. 'Well, then? We must neutralise “Chessboard” now, while we have the means.'

Clark looked up at the board again. A trelliswork of red dots. The carpet of active and passive sonar buoys, and other detection devices, began inside Norwegian territorial waters, less than four miles out, and extended, at present indication, perhaps fifty or more miles north into the Barents Sea. It could be a hundred miles. Proteus was moving between North Cape and Kirkenes like a tractor ploughing a field. The work could take weeks. Copeland was right, of course. The northern flank of NATO was imperilled by 'Chessboard'. The Norwegian coast was prohibited to British or American submarines, the coast of the Soviet Union rendered inaccessible to short-range attack; the Barents Sea finally transformed into a Russian lake.

'Sure. Yes, you're right, Copeland. You're right.'

Copeland smiled with evident relief, and looked very young and enthusiastic. 'I'm so glad you agree,' he said without irony.

'Just one thing,' Clark added maliciously, pointing towards the map. 'Don't you think there's just too little Soviet naval activity up there?' The board's computer was feeding into the map display whatever the North Cape monitoring stations, the surveillance satellites, and air patrols were supplying via SACLANT's huge central computers. 'Two “Kotlin”-class destroyers, one “Sverdlov”-class cruiser, two “Romeo” submarines and one “Quebec”. They're usually crawling all over the Barents Sea. Where are they?'

'Our information is Murmansk, old man. Perhaps they're taking things easy now they' ve got “Chessboard” to do their work for them.' The suggestion was in earnest.

'Maybe.'

Copeland was about to reply when the door opened and a Wren wheeling a tea-trolley appeared. 'Ah, tea,' he exclaimed. 'Excellent!'

* * *

Richard Lloyd, captain of HMS Proteus, was suddenly aware, on entering the cramped computer room aft of the main control room and its almost cathedral-like spaciousness, of the claustrophobia that most people imagined was the inevitable lot of the submariner. He did not experience it, merely understood what it must be like for people who never inhabited submarines; or who had served in them forty years before. The computer room was more cramped than ever, since at least half of its available space was now taken up by the 'Leopard' equipment.

'Don,' he said, nodding. His senior electronic counter-measures officer, Lt.-Commander Hayter, had been nominated as trials officer for 'Leopard' because of his existing special navigation and electronic warfare qualifications. Lt.-Commander Hayter's comprehension of the equipment had relieved Lloyd from all but superficial knowledge of the effects and benefits of' Leopard'. Hayter was seated in front of a computer screen, watching the pinpricks of light that emerged from its bland grey surface blankness, then slowly faded. As Lloyd watched, one pinprick brightened while two others were fading. They formed a vague triangle on the screen. Then one was gone while another emerged, glowing brighter. To the left of the screen was another, an acoustical holograph screen which displayed the buoys seemingly in three dimensions, giving them an identity, a shape. Neither Lloyd nor Hayter regarded the holograph display. There was something more obsessive about the silent, brief lights.

'Sir,' Hayter acknowledged. 'Welcome to the broom cupboard.'

'They had submarines smaller than this room in the last war,' Lloyd observed dismissively. He glanced from the screen to the holograph display, then at the accompanying print-out.

'Weird,' Hayter said, as if to himself. 'Really weird.'

'What?'

'This feeling I have that we don't exist. Not for any practical purpose, that is. Sonar buoys, temperature transducers, hydrophones —' He pointed at the holograph as the shape of a sonar buoy formed in light. 'Mile after mile of them, but we just don't exist as far as they're concerned. Like limbo. Yet I ought to feel excited, sailing east.' He turned to Lloyd, grinning. 'Oughtn't I, skipper?'

'Something's missing from your diet, obviously.'

'Much activity?'

'Very little.'

'You sound puzzled?'

'Maybe. No, not really. I suppose they're relying on this stuff—' He indicated the two screens. They must be relying on “Chessboard”. One or two surface vessels, a few submarines. Something moving well to the north, one of their “Echo-II” missile boats off to take up station on the eastern seaboard of the States, no doubt. It wouldn't be much interested in us, even if it could spot us. Apart from those few items, nothing in the shop today.'

'I can't say I'm sorry.'

'You're not running down your pride and joy, are you?'

Lloyd nodded in the direction of the main cabinet of the 'Leopard' equipment.

'No. But utter reliance on an incredibly complicated system of matching sonar signals, and emission dampers and the like — it's not the same as having a big stick in your hands or a suit of armour on, is it? “Chessboard” is the most advanced, extensive and thorough submarine detection system ever laid down. We both know that. Like tip- toeing through a minefield, or burgling the Chubb factory —' He smiled. 'And here we are, same old faces and same old submarine, but now we're invisible. Mm, I think I feel excited, after all.'

'How much of it have we mapped — just a guess? I won't hold you to it.'

'My computers don't make rough guesses — just mistakes.' Hayter typed on the computer keyboard below the screen. He waited for a few seconds before a message appeared, superimposed on the pin-pricks of light, making them more ghostly and unreal than before. 'See. Twelve days and a few hours more.'

That means this sonar carpet must extend at least a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles out into the Barents Sea.' Lloyd's tone was one of surprise, even though he had half-expected 'Chessboard' to be as impressive as he had now learned.

'It could be bigger. There's an assumed twelve to fourteen per cent error built-in at the moment. That'll get less the more we chart.' Hayter turned to Lloyd again. 'I'm willing to bet that there's a similar sonar-buoy carpet being laid to stretch south and west from Novaya Zemlya. The Russians, I think, are going to close the Barents completely as far as we're concerned.'

Lloyd rubbed his chin, 'Could be. Not our worry, old son. Even if we end up doing trips round the Isle of Wight because there's nowhere else we can go. Okay, twelve days it is. Don't let the men find out, will you?'

The intercom crackled above Lloyd's head.

'Captain to control room, please.' It was the voice of his first-lieutenant. Calm and urgent. Lloyd recognised the puzzled imperative in the guarded tone.

'So you think,' he said, 'that if ever “Leopard” conked out or was developed by the other side, we'd see the end of NATO's submarine strike power?'

'I wouldn't be at all surprised,' Hayter replied without looking at him, and not entirely without seriousness.

'Captain to control room.'

Lloyd shook his head at Hayter's back, and left the computer room, passing through the open watertight door into the control room of the Proteus. He straightened, stretching the unaccustomed stoop from his shoulders. Artificial light was almost his natural visual medium. The control room — his control room — was light, almost airy after the cupboard-under-the-stairs in which Hayter spent much of his time.

Lloyd's first-lieutenant, Lt.-Commander John Thurston, was standing near the main bank of communications monitors, leaning over one of the operators, a headphone pressed to one ear. He looked up with something akin to relief when he saw Lloyd at his side.