Just as he was starting to get that sinking feeling again, he saw a familiar figure in Russian uniform at the bottom of the gangplank. The shock of white blond hair was unmistakeable. Gold was leaning forward in his seat. He’d noticed the same man.
‘Would you look at that!’ said Gold. ‘It’s Dmitriy!’
They spilled out of the van and on to the dockside, and Dmitriy Podkapayev came striding over, a big grin on his face, and enveloped both Gold and Riches in bear hugs. Just two months before they’d been with him in the Gulf of Taranto. Russia hadn’t participated in the NATO exercise, but had sent along a handful of observers, and Podkapayev had been one of them. He’d come aboard the UK’s mothership more than once and seemed to have taken a shine to the British way of doing things.
Podkapayev – and his loud, frequent laugh – had been a big presence on the exercise. Having him in Petropavlovsk was a relief for the team as not only would they have an ally but also someone who understood and trusted the way that they worked. Though he spoke no English, it was obvious that he was eager to get things moving as fast as possible. Worry lined his expressive face.
Captain Holloway was waiting at the top of the gangplank to introduce Riches to the Master, who immediately began a welcome speech. The mariner looked as though he was in his mid fifties, with nicotine-stained hands and teeth and wearing a woollen sweater that was unravelling in several places. As the words kept coming, Riches began to try to cut him off, but a look from Holloway stopped him. The Naval Attaché patiently translated the Master’s words, as he described how proud he was that his ship had been selected to assist the British rescue effort.
Dogs were barking, apparently from every part of the ship. The sailors who passed by were all dressed in jeans and black-and-white striped T shirts, their faces unshaven. Riches felt like he’d walked into a rusting, steel-clad gypsy camp. Although the ship was owned by the Russian Federal Navy, the crew were evidently civilians – a similar set-up to the buoy-laying vessels the Royal Navy sometimes contracted to conduct submarine rescue exercises. It turned out that they were devoted to their ship: they’d recently fought and won a battle to save her from the scrapyard. They hadn’t found any more money for upkeep though – KIL-27 looked like she’d had no maintenance during 40 tough years of service.
When the Master finally wound up his speech, Riches thanked him and told him how honoured the team were to be on board and that they were keen to get their gear loaded and secured as soon as possible. The Russian took this as encouragement, and began a tour of the vessel’s essentials. Riches tried to look interested and impressed as they ducked inside the first hatchway and wound their way down a filthy, dimly lit passageway and into the Mess. It was cramped, bare and grimy. If an army marches on its stomach, this one wasn’t going very far, he thought. After looking in on the cabins, they finally began walking aft towards the door that he hoped would get him back out on deck. At the last minute the Master stopped, took his arm and led him back to a scuffed, oil-smeared door just forward of the outer hatchway. With a toothy grin he swung it open.
Riches almost gagged at the aggressive stench of excrement. The room was bare except for a stack of torn pieces of news paper hanging on a string and there was a hole in the deck through which he could make out a ragged circle of sea. The Russians were using the 18th-century version of the ship’s lavatory, and were missing their target regularly. They’d better get this rescue done quickly, he thought.
The crane driver revved his engine to get more power and a black plume of diesel smoke drifted across the floodlights. He swung the arm over to the waiting trucks with impressive speed, and soon the hook was flying down towards Scorpio’s control container. Just before impact there was a loud metallic clunk from the crane’s gearbox, and the hook jarred to a halt.
Steel wires were fixed to the corners of the container and slipped over the hook, and the crane started to lift. Everything was holding. But when the crane’s arm swung back towards the ship it did so at the same high speed. Alarmed, Riches asked Captain Holloway to remind them that the rescue equipment was fragile and had to be treated gently. The answer came back that the operator would do his best to be gentle, but that the crane had only two speeds. Watching its progress, he could now see this was true: uncontrollably fast, or stopped.
The disintegrating infrastructure in Russian ports was notorious. The cranes in the Naval dockyards had all been built in Odessa when the Ukraine was still joined to Russia as part of the Soviet Union. The last maintenance contracts were awarded in 1998, but since then there had been none. As a result, only three of the 14 100-ton cranes operated by the Russian Federation Navy still worked, and of the 63 40-ton cranes, only 17 were operational. In 1999, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, had formally requested new funding, declaring that Naval ships couldn’t offload their weapons for critical inspections because the cranes were a safety hazard. Kuroyedov eventually won a $17m contract for new cranes and essential maintenance but, despite the Deputy Prime Minister saying he would personally supervise the budget, in early 2000 the funds were diverted into building a new submarine instead.
Only months later the Kursk exploded, and investigations revealed that the huge and temperamental Shkval ‘Fat Girl’ torpedo that caused the initial blast had landed hard on the dockside during loading nine days before the accident. The jerky movements of the long-neglected crane had caused the chains and strops that were holding the missile to slip and, in order not to lose it completely, the driver had been forced to get it to the ground, fast.
Two months before that, in June 2000, a crane accident in the Pacific Fleet had caused a missile to release some of its toxic fuel, killing one sailor and injuring another 11. Loading live weapons with decrepit equipment was so dangerous that once shipped on to the submarines that carried them, they were often not offloaded either for maintenance or for exercises. If they had been, the devastating secondary explosion that ripped through the Kursk would not have happened.
Scorpio’s control centre – housed within its converted 20-foot shipping container – was landed safety thanks to a skilful piece of braking by the crane operator just before it hit the deck. Nuttall, his long hair matted on his back from the rain, didn’t look concerned. He said he’d seen plenty of dockyards whose cranes were a bit rough and ready. They were designed for loading and unloading bulk cargoes, he reasoned, but the operators were usually used to their quirks and got pretty good at their job.
Scorpio itself was next. The crane driver had been told several times how fragile the equipment was, so all they could now do was hope. Tense concern reappeared on Gold’s face as his precious machine was jerked off the flatbed truck and swung over the midships section of KIL-27. Scorpio hung there for a second, then the crane driver let the cable spool out. It was hell-raisingly fast, apparently uncontrollable. The driver stopped its fall halfway with a jerk, and allowed Scorpio to settle again before releasing it once more. Twice more the cautious driver stopped it, getting the robot to within a metre or so of the deck before trying one last spool-out. Scorpio crashed to the deck, even bouncing slightly before settling. Nothing fell off, but it was as hard an impact as he’d ever seen it take.
Saturday, 6 August/Sunday, 7 August
SS + 57 h 30 mins