The medical problems were worsening, too. More babies were being born dependent on the heroin that had hooked their mothers, and the stringent tests being imposed on the profession meant hundreds of doctors had been sacked for incompetence. Good for the nation’s health in the long run no doubt, but it created a shortage of doctors for the time being.
She’d have to make the best of her career; if she could find no love in her life, it would be all she had left.
The music for the opening of the evening news bulletin Vremya blared tinnily from the television. The sound was a relief to her. Feliks had said he would leave after the news, to catch the late flight back to Murmansk. She was going to drive him to the airport.
Feliks’ eyes had been fixed on the screen for what felt like hours, but his mind had been focused elsewhere, on the real reason for his coming to Moscow that weekend, his meeting with the General Secretary. The more he thought back on it, the more his disquiet grew.
He’d made a promise to Nikolai Savkin, a promise to help him, yet without any clear idea what it would involve. He understood Savkin’s need for a foreign distraction to cool down the internal debate over perestroika, but what was his own role to be? The General Secretary had simply told him that sometime in the coming weeks he would call him, make a request for some special service, something undefined but which would be essential to the survival of the reform programme.
Feliks was afraid. He had to admit it to himself. He’d made an open-ended commitment. If things went wrong and Savkin went down like his predecessor had, then he, Feliks Astashenkov, would go down with him.
He glanced guiltily at Tatiana. He’d revealed nothing to her of his talk with Savkin, and because it had occupied his thoughts completely that weekend, he’d talked to her hardly at all. The fire of their affair had gone out anyway. It would soon be over; they’d say goodbye — he’d pretend it was au revoir but they’d both know it was adieu.
Suddenly he sat forward, startled. The television was reporting a speech made by Nikolai Savkin at a collective farm that afternoon. The video showed the General Secretary gesticulating angrily. Intercut with his words were the same photographs that had earlier been presented to the State Department in Washington, the Rostov being buzzed by American helicopters. The pictures showed the ship’s crew ducking in terror before the American war machines. Library footage rolled, of US aircraft carriers catapulting bomb-laden fighter planes into the sky.
It was a disgraceful example of old-fashioned American imperialism and aggression, Savkin declaimed, which did not bode well for US — Soviet relations. It was a clear sign of the hostility intended by the NATO Exercise Ocean Guardian which had just begun — the largest and most provocative NATO exercise ever conducted right on the edge of Soviet waters.
Feliks was gripped by a sensation close to terror. It was beginning to dawn on him how far Savkin was preparing to go.
Andrew Tinker studied his watch with growing anxiety. It was already five in the afternoon. The helicopter should have found HMS Truculent an hour ago.
Strapped firmly into the canvas seat in the back of the Sea King, Andrew felt his legs going numb. The hard aluminium seat frame pressed against the underside of his thighs, stopping his circulation. Every few minutes he would shift his position, but what he needed was to get out of that infernal machine. They’d been airborne for one-and-a-half hours.
‘Perhaps the rendezvous co-ordinates got scrambled in the signal from CINCFLEET,’ he suggested, pressing the headset microphone against his lips.
‘We’re in the right place, I can assure you,’ came back the tart voice in his earphones.
‘Navaids are working perfectly. So’s the VHF and UHF. If he’d surfaced anywhere within fifty miles of us he’d have heard us calling.’
They’d taken off from Stornoway in the Western Isles half an hour before the rendezvous. Despite the gale blowing and the turbulent seas, it should have been a smooth, routine manœuvre. Boat and aircraft would link by radio minutes before the deadline, and as soon as the submarine surfaced, down would go the winch-wire with Andrew on the end, to come up again a few minutes later with Philip.
But there’d been no sign, no hint that HMS Truculent intended to keep her appointment.
What did it mean? An accident? Highly improbable. A misunderstanding? Almost impossible — Philip had acknowledged the signal. Keeping out of the way to dodge a Russian submarine? None had been reported in the area.
Suddenly, Sara’s words came back to him. Philip hates the Russians — he’ll have his revenge.
A nightmare was beginning to unfold.
‘Have you talked to Stornoway again?’ Andrew demanded, his anxiety growing.
‘Two minutes ago. They’ve told FOSM. Northwood says there’s been nothing from the boat. We’ve got fifteen minutes’ fuel before we have to head for land.’
Andrew hated helicopters; the noise, the vibration, the smell of hydraulic fluid all gave him a feeling of claustrophobia he’d never experienced in a submarine. The Sea King they were using was an anti-submarine version, almost filled by tactical control panels, and a heavy, black winch for dunking sonar into the sea.
Clad in a dayglo red ‘once-only’ immersion suit, he was squeezed into a folding seat between the winch and the fuselage. Rubber seals gripped tightly round his wrists and his neck; the watertight suit would save his life if they ended up in the sea.
Andrew pressed the ‘transmit’ switch on his headset cable.
‘Let’s call it a day. He’s not going to turn up,’ he called above the gearbox whine.
‘Bit worrying, isn’t it? Will they start a search?’ the pilot responded.
‘Shouldn’t think so. Submariners change their plans all the time. He’ll turn up.’
He was trying to sound reassuring, without success.
What the hell would they do now?
‘Back to Stornoway?’
‘Yep. Feet dry as fast as you can make it.’
He needed to get Admiral Bourlet on the line, fast.
The invisible five-thousand-ton bulk of HMS Truculent was some two hundred miles northeast of the helicopter’s position, her captain the only man on board who knew they’d missed a rendezvous.
For most of the past twelve hours Philip had stood in the control room, hovering nervously between the tactical’ displays and the chart table. He was desperate to get his boat into the deep waters of the Norwegian Basin, where a submarine could disappear with ease to run fast and free.
But their progress north had been halted by their need to cross the SOSUS barrier undetected. The chain of hydrophones stretching along underwater ridges from Greenland to the Shetlands would be sure to mark their passing unless they resorted to deception.
SOSUS was linked to a processing centre in South Wales, and the data could be presented within minutes as hard intelligence information at headquarters in Norfolk, USA and Northwood, UK.
Philip guessed the hounds would be rapidly unleashed once his masters knew he was out of their control. The Faroes-Shetland gap would be the obvious place they’d start looking for him; he didn’t want to give them a head-start by revealing his position.