The Will Of The People (Conspiracy Trilogy Book 1) (38 page)

“
Shkval
-One
through Four armed,” reported Alenikov, eyes darting from one
console to another while watching the technicians operate the
torpedoes’ guide wires. “
Shkval
-One and Two have acquired…
Solution confirmed on the
Minnesota
.”

“Fire tubes five and six!” In the race to destruction
the
Gepard
was
running well ahead of its adversary, with barely time to launch an
attack.

Alenikov immediately depressed two buttons on the fire
control console, and one after the other, the Russian torpedoes
shot out from the
Gepard
, accelerating toward the
USS
Minnesota
.

Two of the American torpedoes were destroyed but the third
continued to close. Karenin seemed to have stopped breathing, his
body semi-rigid from the strain as the pings of the Mark-48’s
active sonar grew ever louder. He glanced at a display to his left,
impatient for the additional
Shkvals
to be loaded.

Alenikov kept up his commentary, “
Shkval
-Three and Four continuing in
search mode; wires cut... Alpha-Three has locked on; twelve seconds
to impact.”

“Launch noisemakers...” Karenin counted slowly to three,
“Maximum down-angle....
now!
” Karenin remained confident,
the combination of high closing speed and the
Gepard’s
sudden dive requiring the
torpedo to make a dramatic momentum change, testing the limits of
the Mark-48’s manoeuvrability.

It proved to be a false hope. A massive explosion ripped
through the
Gepard
’s double hull near to the bow, destroying the external tubes
housing the decoys and rupturing two of the main ballast tanks.
Water at a pressure close to ten atmospheres drove its way into the
torpedo room and crew accommodation, and even though the internal
bulkheads were built to withstand far greater pressures, the hull
breach was enough to accelerate the
Gepard’
s downward flight.

Karenin’s
memory was of a crashing wall of sound, as though the whole frame
of the submarine was about to crush in on him. He was thrown across
the control room, smashing into the planesman’s metal chair.

The Diving
Officer was the first to speak, his voice struggling to be heard
against the squawk of an alarm. “Forward tanks one and two have
been breached; depth now ninety-two metres; nine degrees
bow-down...”

“
All back
two-thirds!
” Karenin ordered, desperation
adding an edge to his voice. “
Blow main
ballast, three through eight!
”

There was the tortured scream of high-pressure air rushing
into the ballast tanks. The numbers on the depth gauge immediately
slowed their downward flight, and with a resentful sigh the
Gepard
started to lift –
stern-first. It was somewhat inelegant but at least they were
heading towards the surface.

“All stop;
cancel blow on tanks five and six.” Karenin’s tone was calmer now,
the initial crisis having been quickly dealt with. “Sonar, report
all contacts; your best guess if you have to.”

Every console flickered with red lights, and guesswork and
instinct would have to supplement what little technology was still
functioning. Karenin needed to understand exactly what dangers were
still out there – only then would he know whether the
Gepard
had any hope of
surviving the next few minutes.

The sonar chief struggled to make sense of the barrage of
noise surrounding the
Gepard
, “Signals distorted, too much
external noise... Possible contact bearing zero-five-zero, moving
away; no close contacts detected.”

Karenin kept his surprise to himself, trying to maintain an
air of confidence. Perhaps the
Gepard
had a chance to make it home
after all, the
Minnesota
unwilling – or perhaps unable – to take full
advantage of their fallibility.

The
Gepard’
s rush to the surface gradually became far more sedate, and
as damage reports began to be relayed to the control room, it
became clear that the submarine did indeed have a guardian-angel.
For the eleven men in the flooded compartments, there was no hope;
however, the
Gepard
was still basically in one piece, and the majority of the
crew had escaped unscathed. The nuclear reactor was behaving
normally and the submarine could still manoeuvre effectively, if
rather more slowly than normal. With the torpedo room flooded and
decoys destroyed, they now had no physical or electronic defence
against torpedoes, nor could they launch the
Gepard’
s cruise missiles; in
addition, their sonar capability had been severely reduced. In
effect, the
Gepard
was a hunter-killer which couldn’t hunt too well and couldn’t
kill anything anyway.

Karenin shrugged off his disappointment; now that the
immediate danger had passed, his thoughts returned to the problem
of the American submarine. With so much external damage, the
Gepard
was probably as
noisy as a love-sick whale and an easy target if the USS
Minnesota
so desired.
Fortunately, the
Gepard
’s own wayward torpedoes would now be out of fuel and so no
longer represented a threat. The surviving sonar systems were still
behaving erratically with a range of spurious and distorted
signals, and there was no knowing how close the
Minnesota
might actually be, or even
if the Russian torpedoes had managed to match their opponent’s
success.

Karenin gave
it another fifteen minutes, then opted to contact Fleet HQ.

His report was received without comment, the details of the
unprovoked attack by the USS
Minnesota
duly confirmed and noted.
The corvette
Boikiy
had already back-tracked to investigate, and Karenin was
ordered to make his best safe speed to the naval base at
Kaliningrad.

A deep breath to hide the frustration, then Karenin keyed the
intercom. Despite his hopes and self-belief, he had failed to prove
the
Gepard’
s true
worth, the disabling of an American destroyer little enough to
compensate for the
Gepard’
s own wounds. Now he would
have to trust that his crew would be able to forgive his mistakes,
as he most certainly could not.

Anderson was
feeling a little ill-used, hustled here and there without
explanation and no clear sense as to what would happen next. That
said, anywhere was probably better than what had awaited them in
Gdansk.

The remainder
of their flight into Kaliningrad had been rather more routine, the
helicopter landing at Russia’s Naval Base some forty minutes after
the excitement of the missile attack. Anderson had immediately been
hustled away, with no chance to speak to Charlotte, two guards
marching him to a sad-looking room to be searched and questioned.
Hours of questions, no force used or threats, just the same
questions over and over again, each answer checked, re-checked and
checked again. The unblinking eye of a camera lens had recorded
every frown and shake of his head, various experts no doubt
scrutinising each frame for evidence of Anderson’s lies and
distortions. He had slowly found himself getting confused, unsure
exactly what he was being asked, seemingly destined to wander
endlessly from one prison cell to another.

His watch had
been confiscated early on, and Anderson guessed it to be late
afternoon when eventually he had been reunited with Charlotte and
Koval. It had then been a military flight to somewhere near Moscow,
the three of them seated well apart, with no chance to talk.
Charlotte had looked more angry than tired, Koval maintaining an
air of studied indifference. Their future still looked very
unclear, Anderson’s concern growing in direct proportion to their
increasing distance from the UK.

The final leg
of their long journey had been by four-car convoy, traveling at
speed through empty darkened streets before finishing in an
underground car park; now there were just three cars, the one with
Koval having diverted elsewhere.

One of their
escorts led the way into the adjacent building, Charlotte hustled
towards a wide flight of stairs. Anderson was taken elsewhere, a
confusing journey along narrow corridors, before he was finally
directed into a small room: bare walls, three chairs and a desk –
all the familiar hallmarks of yet another interview room.

Anderson was
now well-acquainted with the basic routine, readying himself for
the next round of questions while knowing he’d have at least a
half-hour to wait. He doubted he’d be allowed to sleep, but with
nothing to distract him it was always going to be a losing battle.
Even as his head began to droop, the door opened and a uniformed
figure entered to sit down facing Anderson, pen and notepad resting
on the table between them.

“Welcome to Moscow, Mr Anderson; my name is Major Eskov.” The
English was flawless with barely any accent, the man’s tone
friendly and relaxed. “I’ve studied the transcript of your
interview at Kaliningrad and we’ll go through everything in detail
tomorrow; I’m sure you’re looking forward to something to eat and
an uninterrupted sleep. For now, there’s just one aspect that I
would like to clarify.” He paused, as though waiting for Anderson
to respond, even though it was obviously a statement and not a
question. “Please explain once again why you and Charlotte Saunders
were aboard the
Princess
Eloise
.”

“It wasn’t
something we volunteered for.” Anderson was on his guard, knowing
full well how his version of the truth would be received. “Shipping
us off to Poland was a convenient way of stopping us from
publicising what we knew.”

“Why just not
kill you both, rather than sending you on a free cruise to the
Baltic? I appreciate that it diverts suspicion away from this
Erdenheim facility, but it still seems... unlikely?”

“Unlikely or not, that’s what happened.” Anderson realised he
was beginning to sound desperate. “If Martin Rebane had something
else in mind then he didn’t share his plans. As it will say
somewhere in one of your reports, Charlotte and I were locked in a
cabin aboard the
Princess
Eloise
, not free to roam at
will.”

“I appreciate
you weren’t paying passengers, but it doesn’t mean you were
actually prisoners. Some might see your confinement more as a minor
inconvenience, and a sensible way to protect the crew from the
curious gaze of a journalist.”

Anderson
stayed silent, mind numb and unable to think clearly.

“And there’s no other reason for you to travel to Poland – a
story about
August 14
, perhaps?”

“We were
prisoners with a padlock on the door, and I’ve still got the
bruises from McDowell’s fists. No, I wasn’t expecting to get a
story out of it, just a bullet in the head.”

Eskov gave a weak smile, “Charlotte Saunders seems to suggest
you were expecting an exclusive on
August
14
and that’s why you were going to
Poland.”

Anderson held his surprise in check, annoyed with himself for
almost believing Eskov’s manipulation of the facts; it would
doubtless only be the first of many such mind-games. “I was held
prisoner by Rebane and McDowell, and had to give Charlotte a good
reason for my sudden disappearance; the idea of an exclusive was a
convenient excuse. An
excuse
, not reality.”

Eskov changed
tack, “I understand that your computer file on Erdenheim, with its
photographs and notes, was kept updated onto cloud storage?”

Anderson
nodded, “I imagine it’s been deleted, unless you can somehow
restore it.”

“We have that
ability, but there’s no evidence of anything having been deleted.
I’ve read your article on Erdenheim, studied the photographs, and
looked at your notes on Martin Rebane and Patrick McDowell. Surely,
if Rebane was worried about how much you knew, he would have taken
the basic precaution of erasing all such files? From what you say,
Erdenheim has the expertise to hack into your account... Can you
understand my confusion, Mr Anderson?”

Anderson was equally confused and struggling to work out how
he could convince Eskov of his innocence. Guilt by association
would doubtless be assumed even if Anderson’s only perceived fault
was co-operating with
August 14
on some news article.

Eskov
persevered with the questions for another ten minutes, before
finally leaving Anderson alone. Soup and bread arrived soon after,
together with some sort of meat pie, washed down with black tea.
Anderson ate slowly, thinking through Eskov’s words to try and find
some clue as how the Russians really regarded their two guests. He
couldn’t complain as to how he was being treated, but it was
worrying that Charlotte and Anderson were being kept apart, their
own words twisted so as to accuse the other.

Meal duly finished, Anderson was taken by armed guard down to
the basement and shown into a small cell, not that dissimilar to
his room at Erdenheim. His watch lay on the bed, together with his
clothes and other personal items from the
Princess Eloise
, all neatly laid
out.