Sea Leopard

possibly misleading friend at the Soviet embassy.'

Hyde nodded. 'Today's pick-up day. He's not likely to stay away after yesterday, whether he's straight or crooked.'

'I suppose we might have to consider him planted, or at least re-turned?' Aubrey mused.

The abortion was a long time ago. Perhaps he's back in favour with his bosses,' Hyde suggested.

'Ask him. Then find the girl. Simply that. What about her college, for instance?'

'CID talked to some of her friends last night. Nothing.'

'You will go back over the ground. And you will be careful, Patrick, if you are going to begin crossing the path of the gentlemen who were in Sutton Coldfield yesterday. You'd better draw a gun.' He waited for Hyde's reaction. The Australian nodded after a lengthy pause. 'Good. Don't draw attention to yourself. If your theory is correct, then they might soon begin following you as their best lead to Miss Quin.'

'Anything else?'

Aubrey shook his head. 'Not for the moment.' Then he added, “This girl — ' He tapped a file near his right hand. 'Unreliable. Unconventional. Is that your impression?'

'Her Mum loves her. If she isn't just a nut-case, then she might be more difficult to find.'

'I think we'd better find her, don't you? She's in danger, whether Quin is in the country or not. They want her, apparently.'

'How much time is there?'

'I don't know. We have “Leopard”. It can be manufactured in large numbers, eventually, without Quin. From that point of view, there is a great deal of time. But we are no longer alone. The girl's time, at least, would seem to be running out.'

'I'll get on with it, then,' Hyde said, getting up. The leather of the chair squeaked as his frame released it. 'Pardon,' he said with a grin. 'You can talk about me when I'm gone. I'll let you know this afternoon what Comrade Vassiliev has to say.' He smiled, and left the room.

Aubrey's returned smile vanished as soon as the door closed behind Hyde.

'What do you think, Peter?' he asked.

Shelley rounded Aubrey's desk to face him. Aubrey indicated the Chesterfield, and Shelley sat down, hitching his trousers to preserve their creases as he crossed his long legs. Shelley lit a cigarette, which Aubrey watched with a dry, eager concentration. He had obeyed his physician for more than a year in the matter of smoking. The occasion when the service lift at his flat had not been working for a week, and he had had to walk up three flights of stairs every evening — shortness of breath, body's fragility indicated to him like a sound blow on his shoulder. No more cigarettes, not even the occasional cigar.

'I'm afraid Patrick's right, however irritating that may be.' Shelley smiled.

'We have been misled — and principally by his source of information at the Soviet embassy.'

'Agreed, sir. But we all accepted Vassiliev after Hyde cleared up the matter of the abortion and the girl in the case was paid off. Vassiliev had walked into our honey-trap, we let Hyde go with him as chief contact. If Vassiliev is forged, then he's an expert job. Of course, he may just have been trying to please Hyde. The swagman's not often fooled. That's why he's so angry now. I can't say that I blame him.'

Shelley exhaled, and Aubrey ostentatiously wafted the smoke away from himself by waving his hand. Shelley appeared not to notice the inconvenience to his superior.

'This incident in Sutton wasn't an elaborate charade, for our benefit?'

'I doubt that, sir.'

'So do I. The problem is, this “Leopard” business is so damned important. It really is one of those pieces of military technology the Russians haven't even begun to develop. Or so they tell me at MoD and Plessey. It would put us perhaps years ahead in the anti-submarine warfare game. I really would like to believe that they haven't got Quin. It just seems too good to be true.'

'Agreed. But there is such a thing as not looking a gift horse, et cetera, sir —'

'Perhaps. Another thing that worries me — what price the safety of Comrade Vassiliev? If he fed us duff gen at their orders, then they know Hyde will be coming back now with more questions.' Aubrey shook his head. 'I don't like that idea.'

'Bruce the Lifeguard can take care of himself.'

'I hope so. Peter, get some Branch people to check around Bracknell again — the avenues we haven't explored or didn't give much credence to. Holiday rentings, cottages, that syndrome. People usually run for the hills not the city if they want to hide. I don't know why that should be.'

'Very well, sir.'

'And this file —' He tapped Tricia Quin's folder. 'Get all the material out of it for Hyde. A list of people and leads. I have the distinct feeling that very little time is available to us, don't you?' Aubrey looked up at Shelley as the young man got to his feet.

'No comment, sir.'

* * *

'Well?' Lloyd, slumped in his chair, seemed to embrace the small, neat captain's cabin of the Proteus as he opened his hands for an answer. Then, as if drawn by some new and sudden gravity, his hands rested on the chart on his desk. Thurston had brought the chart with him from the control room. He and Carr, the navigator, had marked the course of the Proteus as far as Tanafjord. Thurston sat opposite Lloyd, Carr standing stockily and red-haired behind the first-lieutenant, Hayter leaning against the closed door of the cabin. The air conditioning hummed like a sustained note of expectancy. 'Well, John? You two? Any comment?'

Thurston cleared his throat, and in the sidelong movements of his eyes Lloyd saw that these three senior officers had conferred. They were some kind of delegation.

'No,' Thurston said at last, 'not now we know its position.'

'Why not?' Lloyd looked up. 'You two are in on this, I presume?'

Carr said, abruptly, 'It makes the whole thing messy, sir. I can't understand what MoD thinks it's playing at, ordering us to the mouth of Tanafjord. It smells, sir.'

'It does, sir,' Hayter confirmed. 'A “Delta”-class sub in a fjord. Why? What good can it do there? It could loose any missile it wanted to from its berth in Murmansk as well as from that fjord. Why was it there in the first place? Shallow water, no sea room. Sir, we both know it's a very unlikely beginning to the next war.' Hayter smiled, ingratiating his nerves with his captain.

Lloyd rubbed his face, drawing his features into a rubber mask, then releasing the flesh. It assumed a kind of challenged look. Thurston observed Lloyd's expression with a mild dismay.

'You're suggesting we disobey a highest priority instruction from the Admiralty?'

'No. Let's request confirmation. We could do that —'

'We could.' Lloyd looked down at the chart again. 'How many hours' sailing, rigged for silent running, taking all precautions?'

'A little over thirty-seven,' Carr replied. Hayter looked at him in reproach, as if he had changed allegiance or betrayed a secret. 'But I think we should request confirmation, skipper.'

'Thirty-seven.' Lloyd tapped the chart with his forefinger. 'Our course alteration is minimal for the first six hours or more. We're to continue our work on “Chessboard”. For six hours, at least, nothing's changed.' He smiled. 'In that time, we'll send one signal to MoD, asking for confirmation, and for a fuller definition of our mission status. Does that satisfy you trio of doubting Thomases?'

'I still don't like it,' Thurston volunteered.

'You were as excited as hell when we picked up the signal from our Russian friend, John. What's changed?'

'I used to like watching boxing — it never tempted me to take it up as a hobby.'

'Don, I want a full tape test and computer check run on “Leopard” as soon as we alter course.'

'You'll get it.'

'Are we still getting signals from the Russian boat?'

Thurston nodded. 'Sandy's been monitoring them since we got a reply from MoD.'

Carr said, 'She's broadcasting in clear now. Being careful, of course. But the power's down on the transmission. I think they're using a low-power emergency backup set, and they're altering the frequency with