Shadow Hunter (10 page)

And now? This weekend was the last they would see of each other. Both knew it but neither had said it. Feliks had tried to pretend nothing had changed, but his words had been hollow.

Tatiana turned away again to stare through the big square of glass. She had her work; a paediatrician would always be needed. But working in the Soviet health service had become no easier, despite the lipservice paid to reforms. Reductions in spending on military programmes had still not found their way through to the civil sector. Hospitals and clinics were still chronically short of drugs, dressings and equipment.

The medical problems were worsening, too. More babies were being born dependent on the heroin that had hooked their mothers, and the stringent tests being imposed on the profession meant hundreds of doctors had been sacked for incompetence. Good for the nation's health in the long run no doubt, but it created a shortage of doctors for the time being.

She'd have to make the best of her career; if she could find no love in her life, it would be all she had left.

The music for the opening of the evening news bulletin
Vremya
blared tinnily from the television. The sound was a relief to her. Feliks had said he would leave after the news, to catch the late flight back to Murmansk. She was going to drive him to the airport.

Feliks' eyes had been fixed on the screen for what felt like hours, but his mind had been focused elsewhere, on the real reason for his coming to Moscow that weekend, his meeting with the General Secretary. The more he thought back on it, the more his disquiet grew.

He'd made a promise to Nikolai Savkin, a promise to
help him, yet without any clear idea what it would involve. He understood Savkin's need for a foreign distraction to cool down the internal debate over
perestroika
, but what was his own role to be? The General Secretary had simply told him that sometime in the coming weeks he would call him, make a request for some special service, something undefined but which would be essential to the survival of the reform programme.

Feliks was afraid. He had to admit it to himself. He'd made an open-ended commitment. If things went wrong and Savkin went down like his predecessor had, then he, Feliks Astashenkov, would go down with him.

He glanced guiltily at Tatiana. He'd revealed nothing to her of his talk with Savkin, and because it had occupied his thoughts completely that weekend, he'd talked to her hardly at all. The fire of their affair had gone out anyway. It would soon be over; they'd say goodbye – he'd pretend it was
au revoir
but they'd both know it was
adieu
.

Suddenly he sat forward, startled. The television was reporting a speech made by Nikolai Savkin at a collective farm that afternoon. The video showed the General Secretary gesticulating angrily. Intercut with his words were the same photographs that had earlier been presented to the State Department in Washington, the
Rostov
being buzzed by American helicopters. The pictures showed the ship's crew ducking in terror before the American war machines. Library footage rolled, of US aircraft carriers catapulting bomb-laden fighter planes into the sky.

It was a disgraceful example of old-fashioned American imperialism and aggression, Savkin declaimed, which did not bode well for US–Soviet relations. It was a clear sign of the hostility intended by the NATO Exercise Ocean Guardian which had just begun – the largest and most provocative NATO exercise ever conducted right on the edge of Soviet waters.

Feliks was gripped by a sensation close to terror. It was beginning to dawn on him how far Savkin was preparing to go.

* * *

Andrew Tinker studied his watch with growing anxiety. It was already five in the afternoon. The helicopter should have found
HMS Truculent
an hour ago.

Strapped firmly into the canvas seat in the back of the Sea King, Andrew felt his legs going numb. The hard aluminium seat frame pressed against the underside of his thighs, stopping his circulation. Every few minutes he would shift his position, but what he needed was to get out of that infernal machine. They'd been airborne for one-and-a-half hours.

‘Perhaps the rendezvous co-ordinates got scrambled in the signal from CINCFLEET,' he suggested, pressing the headset microphone against his lips.

‘We're in the right place, I can assure you,' came back the tart voice in his earphones.

‘Navaids are working perfectly. So's the VHF and UHF. If he'd surfaced anywhere within fifty miles of us he'd have heard us calling.'

They'd taken off from Stornoway in the Western Isles half an hour before the rendezvous. Despite the gale blowing and the turbulent seas, it should have been a smooth, routine manœuvre. Boat and aircraft would link by radio minutes before the deadline, and as soon as the submarine surfaced, down would go the winch-wire with Andrew on the end, to come up again a few minutes later with Philip.

But there'd been no sign, no hint that
HMS Truculent
intended to keep her appointment.

What did it mean? An accident? Highly improbable. A misunderstanding? Almost impossible – Philip had acknowledged the signal. Keeping out of the way to dodge a Russian submarine? None had been reported in the area.

Suddenly, Sara's words came back to him.
Philip hates the Russians – he'll have his revenge
.

A nightmare was beginning to unfold.

‘Have you talked to Stornoway again?' Andrew demanded, his anxiety growing.

‘Two minutes ago. They've told FOSM. Northwood
says there's been nothing from the boat. We've got fifteen minutes' fuel before we have to head for land.'

Andrew hated helicopters; the noise, the vibration, the smell of hydraulic fluid all gave him a feeling of claustrophobia he'd never experienced in a submarine. The Sea King they were using was an anti-submarine version, almost filled by tactical control panels, and a heavy, black winch for dunking sonar into the sea.

Clad in a dayglo red ‘once-only' immersion suit, he was squeezed into a folding seat between the winch and the fuselage. Rubber seals gripped tightly round his wrists and his neck; the watertight suit would save his life if they ended up in the sea.

Andrew pressed the ‘transmit' switch on his headset cable.

‘Let's call it a day. He's not going to turn up,' he called above the gearbox whine.

‘Bit worrying, isn't it? Will they start a search?' the pilot responded.

‘Shouldn't think so. Submariners change their plans all the time. He'll turn up.'

He was trying to sound reassuring, without success.

What the hell would they do now?

‘Back to Stornoway?'

‘Yep. Feet dry as fast as you can make it.'

He needed to get Admiral Bourlet on the line, fast.

* * *

The invisible five-thousand-ton bulk of
HMS Truculent
was some two hundred miles northeast of the helicopter's position, her captain the only man on board who knew they'd missed a rendezvous.

For most of the past twelve hours Philip had stood in the control room, hovering nervously between the tactical' displays and the chart table. He was desperate to get his boat into the deep waters of the Norwegian Basin, where a submarine could disappear with ease to run fast and free.

But their progress north had been halted by their need to cross the SOSUS barrier undetected. The chain of
hydrophones stretching along underwater ridges from Greenland to the Shetlands would be sure to mark their passing unless they resorted to deception.

SOSUS was linked to a processing centre in South Wales, and the data could be presented within minutes as hard intelligence information at headquarters in Norfolk, USA and Northwood, UK.

Philip guessed the hounds would be rapidly unleashed once his masters knew he was out of their control. The Faroes-Shetland gap would be the obvious place they'd start looking for him; he didn't want to give them a head-start by revealing his position.

His first thought had been to hide amongst the noises generated by the aircraft-carrier
Illustrious
and her frigate escorts, but they were too far ahead, and would already have crossed the SOSUS barrier before
Truculent
could catch up.

So he'd decided to hug the continental shelf and pray for a merchantman to happen past. Throughout Saturday night they'd lurked, listening, west of the Orkneys. Philip had slept fitfully, leaving orders for the watch to wake him the moment a suitable decoy appeared.

Sunday morning came and went, with Philip finding it increasingly difficult to contain his fear of entrapment. He'd been on the point of making a run for it through the gap; to hell with the risk of being detected. If he was fast enough, he might slip away into the Norwegian Deep before the surface ships and the Nimrods could be marshalled onto his trail.

Then soon after lunch had come the breakthrough he was waiting for. A Russian fish-factory ship was heading back to Murmansk from the Scottish coast, laden with sprats and mackerel. The heavy thump of its diesel engine and the uneven beat of its imperfectly-milled propeller provided the screen of noise he needed.

To compound the deception, Philip ordered the trailing of a noise generator, a slim canister towed astern which transmitted a broad band of underwater noise, to swamp the discrete frequencies from the submarine which could identify it to the SOSUS system as a
Trafalgar
Class boat.

Philip crossed the control room to the chart table.

‘How're we doing?'

Nick Cavendish was ready; the captain had asked him the same question every thirty minutes since lunch.

‘'Bout twenty miles northeast of SOSUS. Still at twelve knots, with the Soviet fisherman two miles to starboard.'

‘Where's the
Victor
?'

‘Last reported about one hundred miles north, but that was yesterday, sir. We're short of fresh intelligence.'

‘Okay. Let's dump the noise generator, and head due north. Get down into the deep water and do some listening.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘Stretch our legs a bit. Once you're sure we're out of everyone's way, we'll stick a mast up and pick up an int. broadcast.'

‘I'd like that, sir.'

Ahead lay the vast, empty waters of the Norwegian Basin, 3600 metres deep in places. Deep down,
Truculent
's towed sonar array came into its own. If the Soviet
Victor
was anywhere within a hundred miles they'd have a good chance of finding her.

Cavendish gave the orders for the new course and depth. He set their speed at fifteen knots, fast enough until he had a better idea what other submarines might be sharing the waters with them.

He stepped into the sound room to look over the shoulders of the sonar ratings as they checked their waterfall displays. In the deep sound channel into which they'd descended they heard no trace of other submarines, just the squeaks and groans of countless krill. The
Victor
must have moved on.

Back in the control room he decided it was safe to put some distance behind them.

‘Make revolutions for thirty knots!' he ordered. ‘Maintain depth two-hundred-and-fifty metres.'

Their own sonar would be deaf at that speed, but he'd risk it for half an hour. He clicked the intercom to report the change of speed to the captain.

‘Very good. Carry on,' Hitchens approved.

*

Thirty minutes later Cavendish ordered a return to fifteen knots. They were now over forty miles from the SOSUS barrier.

In the sound room the ratings scanned 360 degrees around the boat. Still no trace of man-made noise in the ocean depths.

The time was shortly before 1800 hrs. He'd checked with the wireless room; at 1814 there was a satellite transmission scheduled. Any submarine listening could take in the latest intelligence and news reports in a thirty-second burst of compressed data, together with signals directed at individual boats.

‘Captain, sir! Officer-of-the-Watch,' Cavendish called into the intercom.

‘Captain
!
'

‘No contacts in the deep channel, sir. Propose to come up to sixty metres, and clear the surface picture. If nothing's around, I'd like, with your permission, sir, to return to periscope depth, raise a mast and take in the broadcast scheduled for 1814, sir.'

In the pause that followed, Cavendish imagined Hitchens studying his watch.

‘Sounds good. I'm coming to the control room, but carry on
.'

Cavendish swung round to the blue-shirted planesman.

‘Bring her up to sixty metres, Jones.'

The rating pulled back on his control stick, keeping a careful eye on the angle-of-ascent gauge.

They came up fast and levelled out at a depth where they could hear the sounds of surface ships, hidden from them before by the temperature gradients which separate surface sounds from those of the deep.

Somewhere up here was the
Illustrious
task force, but Cavendish calculated the ships should be well north of
Truculent,
closer to Iceland, preparing to sweep the seas for submarines ahead of the
USS Eisenhower
battle group.

‘Control room! Sound Room,'
the loudspeaker crackled by Cavendish's ear.

‘Go. Control Room.'

‘No contacts on sonar, sir. Surface clear.'

Cavendish smiled with relief. Philip Hitchens joined him at the bandstand, behind the planesman.

‘Did you hear that, sir?'

‘Yes, I did.'

He looked at his watch. 1805.

‘You can proceed to periscope depth. I'm going to the wireless room.'

Hitchens moved awkwardly across the control room, as if conscious the men were watching him. How many of them knew about the controls he'd imposed on the communications procedures?

He'd told sub-lieutenant Smallbone the previous evening that all future communications would be for his eyes only.