Firefox

everybody, from Andropov down to the most junior radio-operator, understood that the room had polarised around the First Secretary and the O.C. 'Wolfpack'. They were spectators in a power game being played out between the two men. They seemed to the General, tense with anticipation, almost to appreciate the fact that he was at last making his move — his final move.

'In your estimation,' the Soviet leader said softly after a while, his voice seeming to blame Vladimirov for speaking.

Vladimirov nodded. Then he said: 'I–I am sure that I understand now how they intend to refuel the Mig at sea…' He chose the cryptic words with care. He had to play the First Secretary like a recalcitrant, dangerous fish, a shark. Yet he had committed himself. If his assumption proved to be correct, and they still failed, it would be tantamount to professional suicide to have voiced his ideas. The wild idea had grown in him slowly; he had tried to deny it, rid himself of it and the personal perspectives it evoked. Now, however, it possessed him, and he could no longer avoid its communication to the First Secretary. Damnation, he thought, almost grinding his teeth as he envisaged the consequences of his ensuing conflict with the Soviet leader — but it was their last and only chance to prevent the Mig from falling into American hands, delivered by Gant.

His hatred of Gant burnt at the back of his throat like nausea.

'Yes — they have used — are using — a large ice-floe as a runway, and the refuelling vessel is undoubtedly a submarine. That is the sonar-contact that the Riga has made!' In bald, hurried words, the idea seemed ridiculous, unconvincing. Yet, in his mind, he could visualise the scene so clearly! The parka-clothed figures, the fuel-lines, the aircraft sitting on the ice… there were a thousand floes the Americans could have chosen from!

'The aircraft has landed, Vladimirov?'

Vladimirov knew he had lost. The voice, dry and calm, told him he had failed to convince. He looked around him. Faces turned away, stares directed aside, or downwards, not meeting his eyes. Even Kutuzov turned away, the eyes of a spectator at a road accident.

'Yes.' His voice was too high, he knew it. Damn, he could not even control his voice any more! How was it, he wondered, that the man was able to frighten him from the other side of the map-table, on the surface of which the coloured lights scuttled towards the North Cape? They had accepted Aubrey's decoys — Vladimirov knew they were decoys, aircraft and a submarine, bustling to no purpose but to trick them — and the total available Soviet air and sea forces had been ordered to dash for the North Cape. The man in front of him now possessed power that could ruin him, drop him, crush him, imprison him — say that he was mad. And Vladimirov did not want to end up like Grigorenko, in an asylum.

He tried once more.

'The contact is on the flight-path last registered by the Riga and her escorts — just before the trace was lost.'

Then he subsided into silence. He watched, almost like a spectator himself, as the large, square, grey-suited man stared, apparently idly, at the map-table. The Riga and the two escorting submarines were rapidly becoming solitary lights as the scene of Soviet surface and air activity moved further west. Then he looked up into Vladimirov's eyes. The incredulous General saw, from an instant before the eyes became hooded again, naked, stark fear. He could not assimilate the information, until the First Secretary said:

'It would take too long to recall the helicopters, and order them to make a search of the area. Instead, my dear General, because you seem to have this — obsessive concern with ice-floes and tanker-submarines…' He paused and Andropov, seated now next to him, smiled thinly. He supplied the expected reaction, even as his humourless eyes behind the steel-framed spectacles indicated that he understood the motives of the Soviet leader. 'As I said — to give you peace of mind, my dear Vladimirov — we will despatch one of the escorting submarines to investigate this highly dubious sonar-contact that the cruiser claims to have made.' He smiled blandly, recovering from the moment of naked understanding he had seen in the Chairman's eyes.

'But, if it is…' Vladimirov began.

The First Secretary held up his huge hand 'One of the escorts, Vladimirov — how long will it take?'

'Forty minutes, no more.'

'Then — if there is anything to report, if the contact turns out to be interesting — the second Mig-31 will be ordered to return from its rendezvous off the North Cape — at top speed.'

It was over. Vladimirov felt the tension drain away, leaving him physically weak, exhausted. At least it was something. Yet he could not sense a victory. He was unable to do more than continue to despise himself.

Swiftly, as if to hide the feelings that must show on his face, he turned to the encoding-console to issue orders to the captain of the Riga.

* * *

Gant had watched the green sonar-screen and the sweep of its tireless arm until his eyes ached. The endless revolution of the arm, dragging the wash of whiteness behind it that left three crystallised points of light in its wake, unnerved him. After silent, tense minutes in the control room of the Pequod, leaning over the sailor wearing headphones, listening to the amplified pinging of the contact, it became apparent what was occurring. One of the blips on the screen, one of the escort submarines, had detached itself from its westward course, and was moving along the line of a bearing that would bring it homing on the Pequod. The other two blips continued on their westward course.

As yet the blips appeared only on the long-range sonar-screen, the extent of whose survey carried for a thirty-mile radius around the submarine. They were at the top of the screen — and the sonar had been working in a directional sweep, when the three vessels had been picked up. Now, the blip of the escort submarine homing on them was little more than twenty miles away.

After a huge silence filled only with the quick human breathing of the crew and the reiterated pinging of the contact-echo, Seerbacker, at Gant's elbow, said, 'How long before it gets here?'

The operator didn't look up, but said: 'Can't say, sir. You know what this long-range sonar is like — distortion factor of twenty per cent, sometimes. I can't be sure, sir.'

'Hell!'

'How fast can those Russian subs move?' Gant said.

'How the hell do I know?' Seerbacker stormed, turning on him, his long face white with anger, and fear. 'I don't even know what kind of submarine it is, man! Until it transfers from the long-range screen into close-up, we can't get a 3-D image of it from the computer that'll identify it.'

'Contact bearing Red Three-Niner, and closing,' the operator called out, apparently undisturbed by the emotions of Seerbacker snarled in his ear.

'What — will you do?' Gant asked.

Seerbacker looked at him for a moment, and then said:

'I have a sealed packet for you — your route, I guess. That's the first thing. Second, I have to get our disguise out the wardrobe, and dust it off!'

Gant looked at him, puzzled.

'Contact still bearing Red Three-Niner and closing.'

Seerbacker looked at the operator's neck, as if he wished the man dead, or dumb at least, then he said: 'Give me the blower.' Fleischer thrust the microphone into his hand, and pressed the alert button at the side of the transmitter, signalling the crew to prepare for a message from the captain.

Seerbacker nodded, and then said into the microphone: 'Hear this — this is the captain. It's operate 'Harmless' procedure, on the double. We have about thirty minutes, maybe less, I doubt more. Get the lead out of your asses, and move — move as fast as you've ever moved before.'

Having relieved his tension by way of bullying his crew, Seerbacker turned to Gant with a more even countenance. Smiling, he nodded towards the watertight door leading to his cabin, and Gant followed in his wake.

'What is 'Harmless'?' he asked as the footsteps clicked along the companionway.

Seerbacker was silent until he turned into his cabin, Gant still behind him, and had locked the door. Then he went to a wall-safe, cranked the dial, and pulled the small door open. He handed Gant a package inside a cellophane wrapper. Gant nodded, as Seerbacker's two-fingered grip revealed the presence of an acid capsule within the clear plastic, the 'auto-destruct' for the sealed orders.