They passed a guard post and the duty man hurried back into his hut to telephone ahead that the Deputy Commander was on the prowl.
To Feliks’ right lay the sea, grey and choppy in the chill breeze that felt as if it came from the North Pole. The low hills on the far bank of the fjord five kilometres distant were discernible just as an outline in the mist.
Some of the finest warships in the Soviet fleet lined the piers. The twelve-thousand-ton cruiser Slava took up almost the whole length of No.3 jetty, some of her long-range missile tubes hoisted ashore for maintenance. Beyond her, at anchor in the bay, Feliks could see the distinctive outline of the aircraft-carrier Minsk.
He instructed the driver to stop the car, and wound down the window. The temperature felt below freezing, but he sniffed the air, savouring the odours of oil fumes and rotting fish. It was a smell of which he would never tire.
He was proud of his Navy, which had been expanded and modernized dramatically in the past decade. Yet he prayed it would never have to fight a war. He looked again at the Minsk. She carried a dozen vertical take-off jet fighters and a similar number of helicopters, but had none of the striking power of the Americans. The first of his own Navy’s big carriers was still on sea trials and there’d be no more built.
Another pier, and a pair of Sovremenny class destroyers. They were due to sail any day now, to join the carrier Kiev and the cruiser Kirov maintaining the defensive barrier north of North Cape. Their departure depended on crew training; three-quarters of the men on board were conscripts. Autumn was the time for a new intake, and all the problems of moulding reluctant, ignorant young men into sailors.
His own submarine service was the worst affected. Greater skills were needed for the complex technology. With a rapid turnover of crews, harbour-time was high; most submarines in the fleet would spend all but a few weeks of the year alongside the jetty.
Feliks envied the professional, volunteer navies of other countries.
‘Let’s move on, Comrade,’ he called to his driver.
They drove along the waterfront road that linked the heads of the piers. There were no submarines in harbour that morning; in fact, there were seldom any at Severomorsk, the main submarine bases being further north around Polyarny, at the mouth of the Kol’skiy Zaliv.
Looking out to the main navigation channel, he watched a fish-factory ship heading south for Murmansk, low in the water with the weight of its catch from around the shores of the British Isles.
Murmansk was an ugly sprawl of a city, whose population had grown to nearly four hundred thousand on the back of the Atlantic fishing fleet based there. The Gulf Stream kept the fjord to Murmansk open all year round with winter temperatures ten degrees higher than other Arctic zones on the same latitude.
To Feliks, however, the whole area was grim. He hated the bare rocks of the coastal zone, and pitied the puny shrubs and birch trees that struggled to survive inland. He longed for the gardened splendour of Leningrad.
The car turned left, past the storage sheds and maintenance workshops essential for keeping the complicated and costly warships operational. Men on bicycles weaved their way through dockyard clutter, as a night-shift finished and the day workers began.
Feliks decided against an unannounced visit to a ship. He’d bitterly resented such treatment from his own superiors when he’d been a submarine commander.
‘Take me to the headquarters building,’ he grunted. He’d put in an hour or so with the paperwork that threatened to take over his desk, before attending the morning command briefing.
Andrew Tinker searched the corridor of the Fleet headquarters for the office of the Fleet Psychiatrist. Finding the door, he tapped on it but there was no answer.
It was locked. He checked his watch — just past eight.
Behind him in the corridor he heard the click of high heels.
‘Excessive punctuality’s a sign of anxiety,’ chided a confident female voice.
Andrew turned to see a short, red-haired WRN commander approaching.
‘Tell that to those who trained me,’ he countered.
She took his outstretched hand and held it loosely.
‘It’s a lost cause with me, I’m afraid,’ she smiled.
Commander Felicity Rush was maturely attractive, but she looked weary.
‘The thing is, I’m terrible at getting up in the mornings. Never normally see anyone before ten if I can help it. But when an Admiral orders.…’
She unlocked the door and led him in. Andrew was expecting it to be more like a consulting room than just another office.
‘You are Commander Tinker?’
‘Indeed I am.’
She placed her briefcase on the desk but left it unopened.
‘Pull up a seat. There’s nothing very comfortable, I’m afraid. I don’t rate an armchair.’
Andrew dragged a typist’s swivel seat over to the desk and sat down.
‘Now, I’ve no idea what this is about,’ she began, pulling a notepad from a drawer, ‘except that it must be exceptionally urgent. Admiral Bourlet knows perfectly well how badly I function at this hour.’
Andrew raised an eyebrow at what he thought was innuendo, but there was no hint of embarrassment on her face.
‘Are you the one with the problem?’ she pressed, her eyes softening with professional sympathy.
‘What? No, thank God! Not me. It’s a friend of mine. He also drives a submarine, but the poor sod’s just had a bust-up with his wife. We’re worried he may have had some sort of breakdown.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. He’s not responding to signals from headquarters and is now somewhere under the North Atlantic heading for the Arctic Circle at a rate of knots.’
For a moment her face didn’t move. Then she frowned.
‘Would you mind saying that again?’
Andrew began to explain. The Admiral had told him to tell her only what was necessary for her to form a medical opinion.
‘This is utterly confidential. I can’t give you all the details, but the blunt facts are these; the CO in question discovered his wife had been regularly unfaithful while he was away. That was bad enough, but then he found out one of her lovers was a Soviet agent.’
‘Wow!’
‘And it’s beginning to look as if he’s decided to get his own back on the Russians, using the weapons on his submarine.’
‘Crikey!’
His words had shaken her out of her morning stupor.
‘But that’s appalling! Surely he’ll be stopped by his crew.’
‘Yes, but only if the other officers can see something’s wrong and do something about it. That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping you can give us some idea of how he’ll be behaving down there.’
‘I see.’ She looked flustered. She’d never met a situation like this before. ‘You’d better start again. Tell me what you know, from the beginning.’
As she listened, she took a note from time to time, usually just a single word to jog her memory.
‘It’s difficult without knowing the man himself. What you’ve described is a tragically common state of affairs. Infidelity is part of the human condition, and when the offended partner finds out about it, the effects can be devastating. It can tip someone over the edge into doing something wild, but that’s usually a spur-of-the-moment thing. If I understand you correctly, you suspect that this man has planned some quite elaborate revenge. That implies a certain rationality — an irrational rationality, if you follow me.’