"Falling to the deck, I suppose," Ardenyev replied, "overcome by the lack of oxygen. I came aboard when your signals from inside stopped — you tapped out one word, HELP, before that happened. You don't remember?"
Lloyd shook his head. "No, I don't. Oxygen starvation plays tricks with memory, obviously."
Ardenyev sighed with pleasure. "I see we understand each other. Captain."
"What happens now?"
"From the damage report, there will be some repairs, to your buoyancy and to your hydroplanes. Then you will be towed back to Pechenga, our nearest naval base, for sufficient repairs to allow you to return to Faslane under your own power." He spread his hands innocently in front of him. "It is the least we can do, apart from the sincerest diplomatic apologies, of course. It will take little more than a day or two before you are on your way home." He beamed.
"If your mission is so humanitarian, why is your petty-officer carrying a Kalashnikov with the safety-catch in the “Off” position?" Thurston remarked sourly.
"Security." Ardenyev sighed again. He was tiring of the charade. It was not important. Everyone knew the truth. "Now, I will have to contact the rescue ship Karpaty and arrange for divers and equipment to be sent down to us."
"I'm sure you're reasonably familiar with our communications?" Lloyd remarked with forced lightness, as if his situation had come home to him in a more bitter, starker way.
"Thank you, yes." Ardenyev's hand released the butt of the Makarov pistol thrust into the belt of his immersion suit. He tousled his hair in an attempt to retain the mocking, false lightness of his conversation with the British officers. He wanted to clamber back into the fiction of a terrible accident, a life-saving boarding-party, apologetic repairs in Pachenga, as into a child's tree-house. But he could not. Whipping steel cables, boiling flame from a crashed helicopter, accompanied him vividly to the communications console.
As if admitting that the fiction could not be sustained, he drew the Makarov and motioned the three British officers to the far side of the control room before he seated himself in front of the console.
"These pictures were taken forty minutes after the previous set," Aubrey remarked. "You are telling me, Captain Clark —" the excessive politeness seemed designed to stave off any admission of disaster — "that since no divers have resurfaced, they must be on board Proteus"?
"Right."
"Why?"
"They couldn't stay down more than ten minutes at that depth. Then they'd come back up slowly, but by now they'd be back on board the launch. Sure, the launch has returned to take station on the port beam of Karpaty —" Here Clark nodded in Copeland's direction — "but as far as I can make out, they're loading heavy cutting gear from the rescue ship. And these men on deck. More divers. In full rig, not scuba gear. They're going down. Therefore, you can bet Ardenyev's men are on board."
"But why and how would Lloyd have allowed him on board?" Aubrey asked in exasperation. He was baffled and plagued by the murky high-resolution and light-intensified photographs transmitted from the Nimrod. Clark seemed to be reading tea leaves. The whole matter seemed like a fairy tale.
"He wouldn't need to —"
"The escape hatches," Copeland blurted out. "After Phaeton went down a couple of years ago, all the hatches had to open two-way. They'd know that, dammit!"
"Exactly," Clark said drily. "Ardenyev would have let himself in."
"Eastoe reports a change in position of Proteus."
"Lloyd trying to get rid of his guests," Clark commented acidly. "Someone's in there, you can bet on it."
"Then none of our messages got through?" Aubrey asked forlornly. “Leopard” will not have been destroyed."
"I'm afraid not."
"Clark — what will they do now, for heaven's sake?" Aubrey's eye rested on Giles Pyott's expressionless face with a glance of pure malevolence. Pyott's implacability refuted the accusation of the gaze. Clark cleared his throat, breaking the tension between the soldier and the intelligence agent. Aubrey shrugged.
"Raise her — depending on the damage, or simply take what they want down there. The situation's complicated by the fact that “Leopard” isn't operational at present. I guess they'll raise her and tow her into port."
"What?" Pyott asked in disbelief. "That would be piracy. The international repercussions would be — enormous."
"You'd declare war?" Clark asked ironically.
"Don't be stupid."
"Then the shit hitting the fan will have been worth it. What will you do? All of you. You won't go to war, we won't go to war on your behalf, you won't tell anyone because it's all too embarrassing — so nothing will happen. “Leopard” will belong to both sides or to none. That'll be the only outcome."
"What can we do, Clark?" Aubrey demanded with the impatient emphasis of a frustrated child on a wet day. He was almost shaking with rage and frustration.
"You" ve been outboxed, Mr. Aubrey."
"Don't be so damned American," Pyott drawled. "So insufferably smug and patronising."
"Sorry, Colonel Pyott," Clark apologised. He could not mask his grin completely, even though he sensed the gravity of the situation as completely as anyone else in the room beneath the Admiralty. It was so — so caricatured, this panic in the dovecote. The new shiny toy was missing. There was an absence of concern for the crew of the Proteus that Clark resented on their behalf, even in Aubrey. He also felt, and admitted, a sneaking admiration for the man he felt must have masterminded the boarding of the submarine, Valery Ardenyev. He could remember the man's face and build now, and he could entirely believe in the Russian's ability to successfully surprise and overcome a crew of over one hundred.
Everything depended upon the degree to which Proteus was damaged. The nearest NATO units were twenty hours" sailing from the present position of the submarine, except for certain small Norwegian units which the government in Oslo would not deploy in the Barents Sea. They could watch, by radar, sonar and aircraft, but they could not intervene. If it took more than twenty hours to raise and tow the Proteus, then the full five acts of the disaster might not be performed. Unless Ardenyev and his men simply unplugged "Leopard" and took it away with them. Clark was inclined to doubt this. The Russians would preserve, at some effort, the bland, apologetic face they had begun to present via the Soviet Ambassador in London.
"Can we rescue it — them?" Aubrey asked. "Can we get out of the elephant trap that has been dug for us?" he insisted, worrying at the insuperable problem as at a bone. There had to be some hope within the situation, surely?
"Rescue?" Copeland blurted in disbelief.
"I can't see how," Clark said more carefully as Aubrey glared at the young Royal Navy officer. The map-board loomed over them all, all its lights gleaming and unmoving, except for the plotted course of the Nimrod on-station as it was updated every few minutes. A fly buzzing above the scene, a carrion bird over a kill.
"I don't see why they need to raise the sub," Pyott said. They're interested in only one thing, surely?"
"Ardenyev's done maybe a half-dozen of these rescues on Russian boats in his career. Board and raise operations. He's an expert at it. They needed him to get on board, sure — but they maybe want his expertise at raising boats, too."
"I must talk to “C” at once," Aubrey remarked. "Our talking is pointless at the moment. We must establish what the Soviet authorities intend."
Clark shrugged, unoffended that Aubrey doubted his prognosis. His respect for Aubrey had seemed to waver during the past twenty-four hours, like a light revealed and obscured by the movement of clouds. Yet the American, despite the clarity of his own mind, realised he still expected a solution to occur to Aubrey; even a successful solution.