Chapter Five: CRIPPLE
"Sir, why the hell is the Kiev in the area? There's no major Soviet exercise on, and she couldn't possibly be any help in rescuing those poor dead buggers in the crippled boat — so why do they need an aircraft carrier? What's her game?"
"I don't know, John."
"And the course changes — sir, we remained rigged for silent running for too long. If we'd had the magnetic and acoustic sensors working, and gone to active sonar, we'd have known sooner she was closing on us."
"I know that, John. I know we're the quarry."
"Sir, what in hell are we doing here?"
"Playing MoD's games for them, John. Undergoing our final examination."
"What?"
"I mean it. In this sea trial, the danger's all the better for MoD for being real."
"Bastards. Sir, we're being gathered into a net. The net is in the Tanafjord, and we're being driven towards it."
"Agreed."
"What do they want?"
"I should have thought that was obvious. What they want is called “Leopard”. As to what they'll do, you guess."
"What do we do?"
"ETA Norwegian territorial waters?"
"Two hours plus some minutes."
"Then we'll run for shelter. We might just get away with it, inside Norwegian waters. We'll hide, John. Hide."
"Ethan, has the Nimrod's position been updated?" "She's here, Mr Aubrey, as of five minutes ago." Aubrey stared up at the huge map-board. The cluster of lights glowed with what he could easily imagine was malevolence. A single white light had been introduced to the board to represent the Proteus. Aubrey periodically wished it had not been done. The white dot was in a ring of coloured lights representing the Soviet naval vessels in the immediate area. Far to the south and west of that cluster, a second white light shone like a misplaced or falling star over the fjordal coastline of western Norway, perhaps a hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle.
"Not enough, not far enough," Aubrey murmured. The dot seemed hardly to have moved since the aircraft's previous signal.
"You can't know that, Mr Aubrey."
"Don't offer me morsels of comfort, Ethan!" Aubrey snapped, turning to the American. Heads turned, and then returned to screens and read-outs. Aubrey had subdued the "Chessboard Counter" team by cajolement and command, and by exploiting their sense of failure. The map-board had completed their change in function as it increasingly betrayed Proteus's danger. They were now a rescue team, busy and helpless.
"Sorry."
Pyott and the commodore had sought another place of residence. Vanquished, they had left the field to Aubrey. Rather, he saw them as children running away from the broken window, the smashed greenhouse.
"My apologies. What's the Nimrod's ETA?"
"A little more than an hour to Hammerfest, then maybe another twenty minutes to the Tanafjord."
Aubrey looked at his watch. "Eight-fifteen. Can we do it, Ethan?"
Clark rubbed his chin. To Aubrey, he looked absurdly young, and much too unworried to be a repository of authoritative answers. And he was tall enough to make Aubrey physically uncomfortable.
"Maybe. Then Proteus has to get the hell out."
"Why hasn't Lloyd aborted on his own initiative?"
"Maybe he wants to. Maybe he's running for the coast and keeping his fingers crossed. Who knows?"
"My God, what an impossible situation!" Aubrey's face darkened after the quick rage had passed. He leaned confidentially towards the American. "Ethan, I'm worried about Quin. I haven't heard from Hyde. He was at the NEC in Birmingham, some sort of pop concert. He thought — no, he was certain — the girl was with this group. She knows them, once travelled with them." Aubrey's face was drained of colour and expression now. "It is very hard to contemplate, Ethan, but I feel myself staring at the loss of the Proteus and of the man responsible for the development of “Leopard”. It is not a comfortable prospect."
Clark recognised, and admitted to himself, Aubrey's age. Yet he respected the man's intellect and his expertise. Aubrey might, appallingly, be correct in his diagnosis.
"Maybe," was all he could find to say.
"I think we have to consider the possibility that what is happening up there — " he waved a hand at the top of the map-board — "is deliberate." He paused, but Clark said nothing. "We have no proof that there is a Soviet submarine in distress. It has stopped transmitting, and still no Russian vessel has gone in after it. But a great many Russian ships are concentrating in the area we know contains Proteus. If they find her — and they may be attempting to do just that — then we will have surrendered an almost priceless military advantage to them. If we lose Quin, too, then we will place ourselves in an abject position indeed."
Aubrey tapped at the surface of the commodore's desk, which he had had moved to a position beneath the map-board. As if the gesture was a summons, the telephone rang.
"Shelley, sir."
"Yes, Peter?"
"I" ve just been informed of a routine surveillance report from the DS team at the Russian embassy —"
"Yes, Peter?" Aubrey found it difficult to catch his breath.
"They think Petrunin left the embassy unofficially around five-thirty this evening."
"Where was he going?"
"I" ve checked that, sir. His numberplate was spotted heading north, I'm afraid, on the M1."
"Damn!" Aubrey's lips quivered with anger. "Thank you, Peter. You'd better inform Birmingham Special Branch. Get them over to that concert at the NEC — quickly!"
Aubrey put down the telephone.
"I guess I see what you mean," Clark said slowly. "Without even really noticing, we're down to the wire."
"I think we are. The KGB Resident wouldn't charge off unofficially without good cause or strong suspicion. Hyde couldn't have lost his trail. Damn that girl and her father!" He returned his attention to the map. The dot of the Nimrod was crossing the Arctic Circle. Proteus was surrounded. The Kiev was steaming at full speed to the Tanafjord, and the rescue ship Karpaty was on station. There really was no escaping the conclusion, and little chance of avoiding disaster. Aubrey felt very tired, entirely incompetent. "I think we have already lost, Ethan. This may be the view from the canvas, from the loser's corner."
"I hope to God you're wrong about that."
"I don't think I am."
The interference crackled in front of Ardenyev's voice, masking it and giving it, to Dolohov's ears, a peculiarly unreal quality, as if the man were fading, becoming ethereal. Then Dolohov raised his voice, not to be heard but to remove the strange, uninvited perception; the whisper of failure.