Firefox

He broke the seal on the malt whisky, and poured the pale gold liquid into four tumblers in generous measures. Then, deferentially, he handed the drinks round on a small silver tray, brought from his own flat, in readiness.

Aubrey raised his glass, smiled benignly, and said: 'Gentlemen — to the Firefox… and, of course, to Gant.'

'Gant — and the Firefox,' the four men chanted in a rough unison. Aubrey watched, with mild distaste, as Buckholz threw his drink into the back of his throat, swallowed the precious liquid in one. Really, he thought the man has absolutely no taste — none at all.

As he sipped at his own drink, it seemed more than ever merely a matter of time. He glanced at the telephone. In a few minutes, no more, it would be time to order the car to transport them to RAF Scampton — if Gant were not to arrive before themselves, which would not do at all.

He smiled at the thought.

* * *

Peck was standing in front of Gant and Seerbacker, looming over them both. Sweat rimed the fur of his hood in crystals of ice, and ice stood out stiffly on his moustache. His face was pale, drained by effort.

'Well?' Seerbacker said, his hand still on the sail-ladder of the Pequod.

'It's done, sir,' Peck said. Then he looked at Gant, and his voice hardened. 'We've cleared your damn runway, Mr. Gant!'

'Peck!' Seerbacker warned.

For a moment, Gant thought the huge Chief Engineer was intending to strike him, and he flinched physically. Then he said: 'I'm sorry, Peck.'

Peck seemed nonplussed by his reply. He scrutinised Gant's face, as if suspecting some trick, nodded as he appeared satisfied, and then seemed to feel that some explanation was required of him. He said: 'Sorry — Major…' Gant's eyes opened in surprise. It was the first time anyone had used his old rank. Peck meant it as a mark of respect. 'We — it's just the feeling, sir. Working out there on that damn pressure-ridge, the men and me — well, we just kept thinking how we could have been getting out of this place, instead of breaking our backs.' The big man's voice tailed off, and he looked steadily down at his feet.

Gant said: 'It's O.K., Peck — and thanks. Now, tell me where we are, what stage have you reached.'

Peck became business-like, immediately formal. 'We've got a thirty-feet gap hacked out of the ridge. Now we run the hoses from the turbine on a direct-feed — we need a lot of pipe, Major — it'll take time.'

Gant nodded.

'Get to it, Peck — the sooner you've done, the sooner you can get going. When you've finished smoothing down the surface of the floe — and make it as smooth as possible, 'cos I don't want to hit a bump at a hundred-and-fifty knots — I want you to spray steam on the ice, down the length of the runway, starting as near the northern edge of the floe as you can, running down to the Firefox — if you have the time.'

Peck looked puzzled. 'Why, Major?'

'Clear the surface snow, Peck — that's what it'll do. I don't need to be held back by the surface-resistance…'

'Get to it, Peck,' Seerbacker said. 'I've just got to check on the decoy procedure, and then I'm coming to take a look at your night-school efforts!'

Peck grinned, nodded, and moved away down the length of the Pequod, forward to the hatch above the turbines, where two members of the engineering crew were feeding down great serpent-loops of hose into the belly of the submarine.

'You want to see "Harmless"?' Seerbacker said. 'Come take a look.'

'Harmless' was hurried, crude, and brilliant, Gant was forced to admit. The feverish activity of those members of the sub's crew not working on the pressure-ridge at first seemed to obey no overall strategy, tend towards no definable object. Then he realised what was happening.

The submarine was being transformed into the headquarters of an Arctic weather-station. Over the transmitter in his pocket, Seerbacker snapped out orders that the torpedo-tubes and forward crew-quarters were to be flushed out with sea water, the evidence of the paraffin to be removed. This would be followed by faked evidence of hull damage to explain the presence of residual water in both compartments. On the ice, a hut had been assembled from its components, and crude wooden furniture carried inside. Maps and charts covered the newly erected walls, Gant saw as he peered through one of the windows. Impressive lists of figure-filled notepads and sheets attached to clipboards. Two masts had been erected, one twenty feet high, the other reaching to thirty feet. The taller of the pair was a radio mast, while an anemometer revolved on the top of the other one, and below this a vane swung, indicating direction of the measured wind.

A white chest, a Stephenson Screen, containing thermometers and hygrometers, stood beneath the smaller mast, and the disguising of the floe as a weather-station was completed by holes drilled into the ice, in some cases through to the sea beneath, into which thermometers had been lowered.

As Gant watched Peck and his men unroll the lengths of hose, slip the sections together, he saw a bright orange weather-balloon float up into the sky. Still clinging to the surface of the floe were shredding, rolling embers of mist, but above it, the cloud base began at thirteen thousand feet. A second balloon hovered a hundred feet above the Pequod, attached by a nylon line. The balloons would explain the earlier release of a signal balloon when he landed.

It took a little more than fifteen minutes to transform the surface of the floe into the appearance of a U.S. weather-station studying the movements and characteristics of a large ice-floe in its southward path to immolation. The fact that the Pequod was operating in the northern Barents Sea, rather than east of Greenland, was the only weakness as far as Gant could see.

As Seerbacker said, as he joined Gant near the bridge-ladder of the submarine: 'They can't prove a thing, Gant — as long as you're long gone from here before that Russian boat climbs all over us!'

Gant glanced reflectively down at the ice, and then said: 'What about the exhaust — they'll be keeping infra-red watch on this floe. They must have tumbled something?'

'Hell, Gant — I don't give a cuss for your heat-trail. Just get that bird out of here, and leave me to do the worrying, will you?'

Gant smiled at the mock ferocity of Seerbacker's answer. The man was frightened, knew he was treading a fine edge of ground steel. He nodded. 'Sure. I'll get out of here, just as soon as I can.'

'Good.' Seerbacker plucked the radio-transmitter from the pocket of his parka, pressed it to his cheek, and flicked the switch. 'This is the Captain — you there, Fleischer?'

'Sir.' From the radio, Fleischer's voice had a quality of unreality, one that impressed upon Gant the whole situation — the tiny floe, the bitter wastes of the Barents Sea, the approach of the Russian hunter-killer submarine.

'What's the news on our friend?'

There was a pause, then the Exec, said: 'We're getting a computer-prediction now, sir. Subject to a seven-per-cent error in the sonar-contact… '

'Yeah. Tell me the bad news.'

'The ETA for the sub is seventeen minutes.'

'Jesus!'

'Course and speed appear to be exactly the same, sir. She's coming straight for us.'

Seerbacker wore a strained look on his face for a moment, then he grinned at Gant. 'You hear that?' Gant nodded. 'O.K. Fleischer — I'm leaving this set on receive from now on — I want you to call it to me every minute, understand?'