Sea Leopard

'Okay. Where's the Proteus?'

'Here are the submarine pens. This one, as far as I can make out. Gossip, as you will imagine, has been rife.' He tapped at one of the numbered pens. There were two dozen of them and Proteus was supposedly in the fifth one, measuring from the eastern end of the pens. 'Many of them are empty, of course.'

'Where will you be?' Clark asked.

'Ah — here,' Pasvik replied, 'you see, in a direct line. It is, or was, a favourite picnic spot in summer.' He sighed.

Clark looked at his watch. 'Nine-forty. Time to get going?'

'Yes.'

'Will you be stopped on the road?'

'Yes, but it's not likely I will be searched. Not going in the direction of the fishing harbour. Anyone who knows me will assume I am making a pick-up of some smuggled goods from a freighter. On the way back, they may be more nosey. So I will have some of the old favourites — stockings, perfume, chocolate, cigarettes, even sex books from Sweden — in the back of the van. I make a habit of free gifts, once in a while. You are ready?'

Clark found Pasvik studying him. The raisin eyes were deep in their folds, but bright with assessment and observation. Eventually, Pasvik nodded and stood up. 'You will make it,' he announced, 'of that I am reasonably sure.'

Thanks.'

Clark took off the dressing-gown and laid it on Pasvik's narrow, uncomfortable-looking bed. Then he donned the immersion suit again, heaving it up and around his body, finally pulling on the headcap.

'Another brandy?'

'No thanks.'

As they went down the bare wooden stairs to the storeroom and the small, noisome yard where Pasvik had parked his van, the grocer said, 'So, Mr Aubrey is not very far away at this moment, up in the sky, mm?'

'He is. At least, he ought to be. I'll signal him before I take to the water.'

'I can do that.'

'Better me than you.' In the darkness, Clark patted the side of his head, then the tiny throat-mike beneath his chin. 'This stuff has got to work. I don't want to find out it doesn't after I get aboard the Proteus.'

Pasvik unbolted the door and they went out into a wind that skulked and whipped around the yard. Clark looked up at the sky. A few light grey clouds, huge patches of stars. The clouds seemed hardly to be moving. Almost a full moon, which he regretted. However, the improvement in the weather would mean a less choppy surface in the harbour, and he might need to conserve the air in Pasvik's tanks. Pasvik, he noticed as the man crossed to the van and opened the rear doors, moved with a leg-swinging shuffle.

Presumably the limp explained why he no longer carried out immersion-suited surveillance of the harbour.

Clark climbed into the rear of the van, and the doors slammed shut on him. He squatted in a tight, low crouch behind stacked wooden crates, near the partition separating the rear of the van from the driver. He watched as Pasvik clambered into the driving seat, slammed his door, and then turned to him.

'Okay?'

'Okay.'

Pasvik started the engine, and ground the car into gear. A moment later, they were turning out of the narrow lane behind the row of shops into a poorly lit street on which a few cars and one or two lorries were the only traffic. Clark felt tension jump like sickness into his throat, and he swallowed hard. He squeezed his arms around his knees, which were drawn up under his chin. His two packs — right hand good, left hand bad — were near his feet. Without conscious thought, he reached out and unsealed one of the packs. He reached into one of the small side pockets and withdrew a polythene-wrapped package, undid the elastic bands, and removed the gun. A small, light.22 Heckler & Koch pistol with a ten-round magazine, effective stopping range less than thirty metres. He unzipped the neck of his immersion suit and placed the re-wrapped pistol inside. If he ever needed the gun, he was close to being finished.

The grocery van trailed a tarpaulin-shrouded lorry along the northbound road, through a dingy, industrialised suburb of Pechenga. Pasvik seemed to have no desire for conversation. Perhaps, Clark admitted, he thought talk would make his passenger more edgy. Pechenga was little more than a ghost town after dark. There were few pedestrians, fewer vehicles. The town seemed subdued, even oppressed, by the security that surrounded the naval installation. The place had a wartime look, a besieged, blacked-out, curfewed feeling and appearance which depressed and yet aggravated his awareness.

There was a haze of light to be seen over the low factory roofs from the naval base, a glow like that from the border lights as he had seen them from the Harrier. Then he felt the van slowing. The brake lights of the lorry in front of them were bright red. There was a squeal of air brakes.

'A checkpoint — outside the civilian harbour. Get down,' Pasvik instructed him. 'Cover yourself with the tarpaulin.'

White light haloed the bulk of the lorry. Clark could hear voices, and the noise of heavy military boots, though he could see no one. He slid into a prone position, and tugged the tarpaulin over him, which smelt of cabbage and meal. Once underneath, he unzipped the neck of his immersion suit once more, though he was able consciously to prevent himself from unwrapping the gun. Nevertheless, through the polythene his finger half-curled around the trigger. His thumb rested against the safety catch. He could not prevent finger and thumb taking what seemed a necessary hold upon the pistol.

A voice, very close. Clark's Russian was good, but he reacted more to the interrogative tone. A guard leaning his head into the driver's window. Pasvik's voice seemed jocular, confiding in reply.

'Hello, Pasvik. Out and about again?'

Pasvik smiled, showing his dentures, opening his hands on the wheel in a shrugging gesture.

'You know how business is, Grigory.'

'Keep your voice down, Pasvik — the officer'll hear you.'

'Then you'll be in trouble, eh, my friend?'

'You want me to search your van, have everything out on the road, now and on the way back — eh, Pasvik?'

'Don't be irritable, my friend.'

'Look, I' ve told you — I'm not your friend. Just keep your voice down.'

'You want to see my papers?'

'Yes — quick, here's my officer. Bastard.' Grigory uttered the last word almost under his breath.

'What's going on here?' the officer enquired above the noise of the lorry moving off and pulling into the docks. Beyond his short dapper figure Pasvik could see the outlines of cranes, the silhouettes of cargo and fishing vessels. 'Are this man's papers in order?'

'Yes, sir.'

The officer took them from Grigory, perused them in a showy, self-satisfied, cursory manner, then handed them back. He turned on his heel and strutted away. Grigory pulled a scowling face behind his back, then thrust the papers back at Pasvik. He bent near to the window again.

'I want some more,' he whispered.

'More what?'

'Those books.'

'You sell them off again, eh, Grigory?'

'No!' Grigory's face changed colour.

'I'll see what I can do. Stop me on the way back, get in the back of the van then. I'll leave some for you, under the tarpaulin. Okay?'

'Okay. I'm off duty at midnight, though.'

'I'll be back before then.'

Grigory stepped back, and waved Pasvik on. The red and white pole between the two guard huts swung up, and Pasvik drove the van into the civilian harbour. In his mirror, Pasvik could see the officer speaking to Grigory. The posture of his body and the bend of his head indicated a reprimand rather than an enquiry as to Pasvik's business.