He stowed the two packs in the chamber, deflating the second one, securing them to the ladder in the wall. If someone used the hatch, they would be found. He, however, dared not be seen carrying them inside the submarine. His watch showed twelve-fifty. He switched out the lamp, and stowed it with the packs. He would be back within an hour. They should be safe.
Cautiously, he turned the wheel of the lower hatch, then lifted it a couple of inches. He peered into the room housing the electric motors. It appeared empty. He pulled back the hatch and stepped on to the ladder — imagining for a moment Ardenyev or someone like him making his entry in the same manner — closing the hatch behind him and locking it.
He looked around the engine room, rubbing his hands tiredly through his short hair, untidying his appearance. He looked at his hands. They possessed that wrinkled, white, underwater deadness. He thrust them into his pockets as he stared down at the main turbine shaft running across the length of the room. There appeared to be little or no sign of damage. Proteus was almost ready to go. She could be taken out of Pechenga and into the Barents Sea on her turbines, even on the electric motors whose bulk surrounded him now. If "Leopard" worked —
He cautiously opened the bulkhead door into the turbine room. Empty. The submarine was silent around him, huge, cathedral-like, unmanned. Clark presumed the ratings were being kept in their accommodation under guard, and the officers in the wardroom. Lloyd would be in the control room, more likely in his cabin, also guarded. He looked down at his creased overalls. A uniform would have been an impossible disguise to have transported in one of the packs. A pity.
He entered the manoeuvring room, aft of the nuclear reactor. For a moment he thought it, too, was empty. Then a figure appeared from behind one section of the computer housing. He was short, almost bald, and dressed in a white laboratory coat. He carried a clipboard, and when he saw Clark, adjusted his glasses and studied him.
"What do you want?"
"Who are you?" Clark replied in Russian. There was an instant, well-learned wariness behind the thick spectacles. Clark continued, "What are you doing here?"
The man was already proffering the clipboard, but then resisted the craven instinct. He did not recognise Clark, and would, presumably, have known which ones to be wary of. Clark appeared officer-like, perhaps, but he did not suggest KGB. He lacked swagger, the birth-right.
"Who are you?" the man in the white coat insisted.
Clark reached into his breast pocket. Aubrey had insisted, pressing it upon him like a talisman. A red ID card. Clark tried to remove it insolently, and waved it briefly at the other man.
"Okay?" he said. "Or do you want my birth certificate as well?" He laughed as coarsely as he could. "Don't say you don't think I have one."
"I wasn't going to — " the man said. Clark took the clipboard. He understood enough to realise that the technician was from a naval laboratory or testing centre. He riffled the sheets of graph paper. He was checking to make certain that none of the machinery in the manoeuvring room was essential to, or part of, "Leopard". Perhaps — Clark suppressed a grin here — he was even trying to locate the back-up system. He handed the clipboard back to the technician.
"I don't understand all that bullshit, Comrade Doctor," he said in a belligerently unintelligent voice. The technician succeeded in quashing the sneer that tried to appear on his face. "See you."
Clark, hands in pockets, tried a swaggering, lazy, confident slouch out of the manoeuvring room into the tunnel through the reactor. Pausing only for a moment to register that the reactor had not been shut down, he opened the door into the control room. As he had expected, it was not empty. There was no sign of Lloyd or any of the British officers, but white-coated men and a handful of armed guards had occupied the control room, like terrorists in a foreign embassy. Undoubtedly, every piece of machinery and equipment was being tested and examined during the hours when the crew were confined to their quarters. Proteus would be a known, familiar thing by the time they had finished. A dog-eared book, a faded woman lacking all mystery. They would possess every secret, half-secret and secure piece of design, knowledge and equipment she had to yield. The computers would be drained, the sonars analysed, the inertial navigation system studied, the communications systems and codes learned by rote.
Clark did not believe that Aubrey had envisaged how much and how valuable would be the information gained from the temporary imprisonment of the Proteus. However, Aubrey was right to believe that "Leopard" was the cherry on the cake. This was the present, "Leopard" was the future. He slouched his way across the control room. No one paid him more attention then to look up, and glance down once more. He had acquired the swagger. Exaggerate it, Aubrey had said, fingering the red ID card. However ridiculous and opera buffo, you think it is, it will work. You are an immortal. And then Aubrey had smiled, cat-like and with venom. The red ID card claimed he was a KGB officer.
Clark stepped out of the control room into the corridor. There was a single guard opposite a door, no more than a few yards from him. The guard turned to him. Clark waved the red ID and the guard relaxed at once. He was a young, conscripted marine.
"I want a word with our gallant British captain," Clark drawled. "See we're not disturbed, okay?" The marine nodded. He had probably never met a KGB man of any rank in his life. He had an entire and trusting awe of the red card. Aubrey had been right. Clark opened the door without knocking, and closed it behind him.
Lloyd had been reading, and had dropped off to sleep with the light above his bunk left on. He awoke, startled, fuzzy-eyed.
"Who are you —?" The book resting on his chest slipped to the floor as he stood up. Clark bolted the door, then leaned against it. "Who are you?" Lloyd repeated, more irate than disturbed.
"The Seventh Cavalry," Clark said softly, then put his finger to his lips.
"What? You're an American —" Lloyd studied Clark, his manner, features and dress. His face went from shock to hope to suspicion. "What is this?" he asked with surprising bitterness. To Clark, the man looked tired, dull, captive.
"No trick." Clark sat on the end of Lloyd's bunk. The captain of the Proteus hunched away from him. Clark said, in a louder voice and in very accented English, "Just a few simple question about your sailing orders." Lloyd looked as if Clark had proved something to his satisfaction. "I'm here — " Clark grinned, despite himself, — "to repair “Leopard” and help you get out of here."
Lloyd appeared dumbfounded. "Rubbish —" he began.
"No kidding. Look, I can spend hours trying to convince you who I am. How about one simple thing, to prove my credentials?" He paused, but Lloyd remained blank-faced. "Your daughter has a pet tortoiseshell cat called Penelope and a white rabbit called Dylan."
Lloyd's mouth dropped open, then he smiled and tears prompted by relief and remembered domesticity welled in his eyes. He took Clark's hand. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Ethan Clark, Navy Intelligence."
"Assigned to “Chessboard Counter”?"
"Right."
"We didn't meet."
"I don't think it matters — uh?"
"No. How the devil can you repair “Leopard”? Alone? In these surroundings?"