Sea Leopard

'Pretty sloppy. He's waiting for his relief at eight.'

'Clark, you will abort “Plumber” immediately and proceed to destroy “Leopard”. Do you understand me?'

'Well?' Lloyd asked with a nervous edge to his voice.

'Get as close to him as you can, preferably the side of his head or under the jaw, and squeeze the trigger twice.'

'Clark, you will rescind that instruction to Lloyd —'

'What about “Leopard”?' Lloyd asked.

'I'll give you “Leopard” in working order!' Clark snapped. 'Where is Thurston, where's Hayter?'

The First-Lieutenant's in the cabin next to mine, Hayter's in the wardroom with the others.'

Then —'

'Clark —!'

'Time for Quin to earn his money!' Clark almost shouted, with nerves and relief and the adrenalin that suddenly coursed through his system. 'Help me get this fucking back-up working, Quin!'

'Clark — Clark!'

'Go or no go?' Lloyd asked.

'Go — GO! Kill the bastard!'

'I'll be in touch.'

'Clark — you are insane. You will never get out of Pechenga without “Leopard”. You have not, you cannot repair it. You have just sentenced Commander Lloyd and his crew to imprisonment, possibly even death. You are insane.' The last word was hissed in Clark's ear, serpentine and venomous.

Clark felt a heady, dangerous relief, and a pressing, violent anxiety. 'For Chrissake, Quin — help me get this fucking thing to work! Help me!'

* * *

Aubrey stared at Quin. He could not believe in what Clark had put in motion, could not apprehend the violent and dangerous half-motives that had prompted him. In its final stage, the Proteus business was escaping him again, running on its own headlong flight unhindered by reason or caution or good sense. In a split-second over which he had. had no control, Clark had made the decision not to abort. Now, everyone would face the consequences of that decision.

'Quin? Quin?' he snapped at his companion. The scientist tossed his head as if startled from sleep.

'What?'

'Can you help him?'

Quin shrugged. 'We' ve tried everything we can. There's nothing wrong —'

There must be, dammit!''

'I don't know what it is!' Quin almost wailed.

Aubrey leaned towards him. 'That bloody American has set the seal on this affair, Quin. Lloyd will either kill his guard, or be killed. If the former, then they will kill others, picking up weapons at each death, until they can open the gates and sail Proteus out of Pechenga. Without “Leopard” in an operational condition, they will be a target for every naval unit in the port. I would not wish to assume that the Russians will be prepared to let her sail away scot free! What can you do? Think of something!'

Quin began flipping through the 'Leopard' manual, most of which he had written himself. Aubrey recognised an unseeing, desperate gesture. Quin knew the manual, nothing would come from it. The man's hands were shaking. He had collided with a brute reality. Aubrey shook his head with weariness. Tiredness, the sense of being utterly spent, seemed the only feeling left to him. Clark had reneged on reason, on authority. He could understand how it had happened. The American had simply refused to acknowledge defeat.

He heard Eastoe's voice tinnily in the headphones resting around his neck. He placed the set over his head. The microphone bobbed in front of his mouth.

'Yes, Squadron Leader?' He had not meant his voice to sound so waspish and dismissive.

'Mr Aubrey. We're out of range again. I can try to get back, but I won't be able to hold station for very much longer. I can give you a couple of minutes, perhaps.'

Aubrey wanted to rage at the pilot, but he acknowledged the weariness in the man's voice. The MiGs — there was one on the port wing again, turning silver in the beginning of the day — were making patterned flying impossible. Slowly, inexorably, the Nimrod was being shepherded away from the Soviet border.

'Do what you can, Squadron Leader. We're in your hands.'

'Very well, Mr Aubrey. I'll give you as long as I can.'

The nose of the Nimrod dipped, and then when Eastoe judged he had lost sufficient height, the aircraft banked savagely, rolling away towards the east and the sun. The porthole in the fuselage became a blaze of gold, blinding

Aubrey. He felt as old and thin and stretched as a ghost. Transparent in the sudden light.

'Quin, come on, man — suggest something. We don't have much time.'

Quin groaned aloud, and rubbed his face with his hands, washing off his present circumstances. He looked Wearily at Aubrey, and shook his head.

'There is nothing.'

'There must be. Some faulty system, something you disagreed with Plessey about, something you' ve always suspected or disliked about the system — anything!' Aubrey spread his hands around the communications console, which hissed at him. It was as if he were about to jettison it as useless cargo. A MiG, gold-bright, popped into his view, just off the port wing. Craning his neck, Aubrey could see the grey sea, the misted coast below them. The MiG ducked beneath the Nimrod, and Aubrey saw it bob like a cork into the starboard porthole opposite him. 'Something —please!'

The console crackled. Clark's voice was faint. The coast and sea below moved, and Aubrey could hear the Spey engines more loudly. Eastoe was running for the border with the Soviet Union in a straight, desperate line.

'You must help —'

'For Chrissake, Quin — say something!' Clark bellowed from the receiver.

Quin's face was an agony of doubt.

'Come on, Quin, come on, come on,' Aubrey heard himself repeating.

'I can hear shooting!' Clark yelled. Aubrey knew it was a lie, but a clever one. And perhaps it only described events that had already occurred. Lloyd dead, a guard dead, two guards, three?

'Change-over — automatic change-over,' Quin murmured.

'What's that?' Clark snapped.

The MiG on the starboard wing — two of them now, one above the other, moving on a course to head off the Nimrod. There was a slim shadow taking and changing shape on the port wing. One of the MiGs was above them, appearing almost as if it might be lowering itself on to the wing, to snap it in half. Eastoe dropped the nose of the Nimrod again, dropping towards the sea and the rocky coast that seemed to lurch up to meet them. The port wing and the starboard window were swept clean for a moment. Aubrey felt Eastoe begin to turn the aircraft. He'd given up. They were on their way back, and out of range.

'The automatic change-over from the main system to the back-up. I argued time and again, with the Admiralty. No trust in completely automatic systems. They insisted —'

'Tell him!'

Quin leant towards the console. 'Clark,' he began, 'you must check the automatic change-over on the power supply from the main system to the back-up. Locate the power supply box…'

Aubrey ceased to listen. The Nimrod had completed its turn, through the brief blinding sunlight on the porthole, and was now heading west once more. Eastoe had dropped the aircraft's speed, but it was a matter of mere minutes until they would no longer be able to talk to Clark.

And, in Pechenga, with whatever outcome, the killing had undoubtedly begun.

One of the MiGs bobbed back into view, off the port wing. The Russian interceptor appeared to be flying a little further off, as if its pilot, too, knew that the game was up.

* * *