"I agree we're not as efficient as the KGB," Hyde said evenly. "But he wasn't in any real danger." Immediately, he was sorry he had uttered the words. The girl's features were rich in contempt, and he had no business defending the DS. Quin had been right, in a way. The KGB might have lifted him, any time. "Sorry," he added. "No doubt he was right. Sloppy buggers, some of them." Her face relaxed. "But he's safe now?" Her eyes narrowed, and he added: "Do you want coffee?" She shook her head.
"You?"
"No." He hesitated, then said, "Look, you have to trust me. No, I don't mean because you realise I'm trying to save you and your old man from the baddies — you have to believe I can do it. I'm not tooling around Britain waiting for you to make up your mind."
She thought for a moment, then said, "You'll have to turn off the motorway at the exit for Kendal." She watched his face, and he suppressed any sign of satisfaction.
It was the importance of it, he decided. That explained her almost fanatical care for her father. She was the key, even to herself. Importantly useful for the first time in her parents" lives. Crucial to her father's safety. She clung to her role as much as she clung to her father. "Ready? Let's go, then."
The man near the telephone booth in the car park watched them approach the yellow TR7, get in, and drive off down the slip-road to the M6. There was just time for the brief telephone call to Petrunin before they set off in pursuit. Once clear of Manchester and on to the motorway, Hyde had not driven at more than sixty or sixty-five. If he kept to that speed, there would be enough time to catch him before the next exit. He dialled the number, then pressed the coin into the box. Petrunin's voice sounded hollow and distant.
"I may have some trouble getting away. A slight delay. Keep me informed."
"Trouble?"
"No. I must, however, be careful leaving Manchester. I am known by sight. Don't lose them."
The man left the booth, and ran across the car park to the hired Rover and its two occupants. They were less than a minute behind the yellow TR7.
Lloyd was still angry. The effort to keep his appearance calm, to portray acquiescence to the inevitable, seemed only to make the hidden anger grow, like a damped fire. His father, encouraging the first fire of the autumn by holding the opened copy of The Times across the fireplace in the morning room. He smiled inwardly, and the memory calmed him. His stomach and chest felt less tight and hot. It was worse, of course, when the Russian was there — even when Thurston with his impotent raging and coarse vocabulary was in the same room.
There was nothing he could do. With his crew confined to their quarters and one guard on the bulkhead door, and his officers similarly confined to the wardroom, three men had held them captive until a relief, augmented guard had arrived from the rescue ship and the damage repair team with their heavy equipment had begun their work on the stern of the Proteus. Ardenyev forced one to admire him, and that rankled like a raging, worsening toothache. The effort of three weary, strained men to drag unconscious bodies through the submarine to monitor the essential, life-supporting systems, to inspect "Leopard", and only then to call for help, surprised him. Enraged him afresh, also.
There was a knock at his cabin door. Presumably the guard.
"Yes?"
Ardenyev was looking tired, yet there was some artificial brightness about his eyes. He was obviously keeping going on stimulants. Lloyd tried to adopt a lofty expression, feeling himself at a disadvantage just because he was lying on his bunk. Yet he could not get up without some admission of subordination. He remained where he lay, hands clasped round his head, eyes on the ceiling.
"Ah, Captain. I am about to make an inspection of repairs. I am informed that they are proceeding satisfactorily."
"Very well, Captain Ardenyev. So kind of you to inform me."
"Yes, that is irony. I detect it," Ardenyev replied pleasantly. "I learned much of my English in America, as a student. Their use of irony is much broader, of course, than the English — I beg your pardon, the British."
"You cocky bastard. What the hell are you doing with my ship?"
"Repairing her, Captain." Ardenyev seemed disappointed that Lloyd had descended to mere insult. "I am sorry for much of what has happened. I am also sorry that you killed three members of my team. I think that your score is higher than mine at the moment, don't you?"
Lloyd was about to reply angrily, and then he simply shrugged. "Yes. You haven't —?"
"One body, yes. The youngest man. But that is usually the way, is it not? The others? No doubt they will be awarded posthumous medals. If I deliver your submarine to Pechenga."
"What happened to the fraternal greetings bullshit?"
"For public consumption, Captain. That is what our ambassador will be telling your foreign secretary, over and over again. I'm sorry, but your inconvenience will be shortlived and as comfortable as possible. My interest in the affair ends when we dock. Now, if you will excuse me — "
Lloyd returned his gaze to the ceiling, and Ardenyev went out, closing the door behind him. The guard outside Lloyd's door was stony-faced, and his Kalashnikov was held across his chest, stubby metal butt resting lightly against one hip. Ardenyev nodded to him, and passed into the control room, His own team should have been there, he reminded himself, then wished to quash the reminder immediately. The pills, damned pills, juicing up the emotions, making pain easy and evident and tears prick while they kept you awake —
They would have a steering crew brought down from the rescue ship once the repairs were complete. Under his command, they would raise the submarine in preparation for towing to Pechenga. Teplov looked up from monitoring the life-support systems, and merely nodded to him. Vanilov was slumped in a chair, his head on his arms next to a passive sonar screen. Teplov was evidently letting him rest.
Ardenyev went out of the control room and into the tunnel which passed through the reactor housing to the aft section of the Proteus. He ignored the windows into the reactor chamber, and passed into the manoeuvring room above the huge diesel generators. Empty. Then the turbine room, similarly empty. The silence of the submarine was evident in the huge aft section, despite the banging and scraping, setting his teeth on edge, that thrummed in the hull; the noises of the repairs under way. Empty, silent, to the imagination beginning to smell musty with disuse. He passed through the bulkhead door into the room housing the electric motors, where the aft escape hatch was located. His replenished tanks waited for him on the floor by the ladder up to the hatch.
He checked the air supply, then strapped the tanks on to his back. He adjusted his facemask, and fitted the mouthpiece. He breathed rapidly, re-checking the air supply. Then he climbed the ladder and opened the hatch. He closed it behind him, and turned the sea-cock to flood the chamber. Water rushed down the walls, covering his feet in a moment, mounting to his ankles and knees swiftly.
When the chamber was flooded and the pressure equalised with the depth and weight of water outside, he reached up and turned the wheel of the outside hatch. He pushed it open, and kicked upwards, drifting out into the sudden blind darkness of the sea, his eyes drawn by pinpricks of white light and the flashes of blue light at the stern of the submarine. He turned, swimming down the grey back of the submarine where streaks of turning, swirling small fish glided and winked in the passing light of his lamp. Slowly, he made out the tiny figures working on the damaged stern, outlined and silhouetted by the flare of their cutting and welding gear and by the arc lamps clamped to the hull.