‘Er…, not altogether.’
‘Let me explain. The initial reaction to marital breaks is the obvious one — anger and despair. That can lead to a depression which can become clinical — a sense of helplessness, loss of self-esteem, crying, physical disorders, thoughts of suicide. Now, if that’s what your man is going through, it should be obvious to the other officers on board. He’ll be unusually irritable, off his food, and above all indecisive. What sort of a CO is he, by the way? Easy-going or a stickler for discipline?’
‘Definitely the latter, I would say. Not the most popular of captains. Gets the respect of his crew, but not their affection.’
‘Pity. That’ll make it more difficult for his first lieutenant. If he was a more relaxed type, his irritability would be more obvious. But it’s odd. I’d expect a man like that to stick to the rules, whatever his personal problems. He might even find some comfort in the familiarity of discipline and order. Yet he’s not doing that, you say. He’s scrapped the rule book and taken matters into his own hands. He faces a court-martial for what he’s doing, and if he does something nasty to the Russians, he’s risking his own life and those of his crew and a great deal else besides. That suggests something much more serious than depression. He may be psychotic — unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But again, that should be pretty obvious to his junior officers…’
She was thinking aloud, tapping one end of her ballpoint on the pad, turning it over and tapping it again.
‘Tell me more about him. I don’t have a picture of the man yet. I’d get his file from the registry, but it’s too early in the morning.’
‘He’s a year younger than me, and I’m forty. We trained at Dartmouth together — shared a cabin. He worries; always thought I had the edge on him because I’d spent a year in the big, wide world before joining up, even though I’d only driven a delivery van most of that time.
‘Anyway, he’d come straight from school. A bit unworldly, I suppose; still is. Nervous of women, very few girlfriends before he met Sara. Certainly prefers the company of men, so he should be well suited stuck in a steel tube for months at a time!’
‘Latent homosexual perhaps?’ she asked casually.
‘Oh, no. I don’t think so. We slept in the same room for nearly a year; I just don’t think he’s very interested in sex.’
Commander Felicity Rush knew that no man was uninterested in sex and wrote down the words ‘acute sexual repression’ followed by a question mark.
‘Are his parents still alive?’
‘I seem to remember his father died when Philip was a kid. He was in the Navy, also a submariner. His boat disappeared up north, somewhere. I’m not sure they ever discovered what happened.’
‘How old was Philip when that happened?’
‘Don’t know. Quite young, I think.’
‘That’s very interesting. A tragic loss in childhood can sensitize you; if you face something similar later you can react much more dramatically than normal. What about his mother?’
‘I don’t know anything about her. He never mentioned her. Funny, that. Used to talk of “going home”, but never said who was there.’
‘What about his work? He’s respected as a commanding officer, you said; what’s his attitude towards the Soviets?’
‘Pretty sceptical, like most of us. Thinks they’re a devious bunch of opportunists. Come to think of it, he’s harder than most. Rants and raves in high glee when they get caught out.’
‘So he hates the Russians?’
‘Well, yes. He probably does.’
She arched her eyebrows and sat back, arms folded.
‘All I can say is that you’d better stop him. And soon.’
‘That may not be so easy. But that’s why I want your advice. If we can get close enough to Truculent I’ll try to talk to him — by underwater telephone. But if I say something wrong, I could make things worse.’
‘Whatever you say may be wrong, as far as he’s concerned. Look; if his mental disorder were just the result of a broken marriage, either he’d have had an emotional breakdown, which would be obvious to his crew, or he’d have come to his senses and given up any daft idea of revenge. Since neither of those things has happened, apparently, I can only assume he may have some sort of psychopathic condition, that’s been dormant up to now.’
‘Phil? A psychopath? That’s ridiculous!’
‘A psychopath isn’t just someone going berserk with a meat cleaver,’ she explained. ‘It’s to do with attitudes. I’m sure Philip knows that launching an attack on the Russians is morally wrong, yet if he can’t resist doing it, that’s psychopathic. Such a person would be unaffected by anything you said to him. No. Your best bet is to talk to his first lieutenant. Tell him to relieve his captain of command.’
Andrew let out a deep sigh. The task ahead looked increasingly complicated.
Commander Rush suddenly leaned forward, elbows on the desk, her green eyes earnest.
‘Suppose that doesn’t work. What will you do then?’ she asked.
Andrew looked away. He had always had an irrational fear of psychiatrists, that they could read his thoughts.
‘That’s something I haven’t dared contemplate,’ he lied.
A black Mercedes turned into Horseguards Parade, and stopped at the rear entrance to the Foreign Office. The driver showed a pass to the policeman in the sentry box, who peered into the back of the car, recognized the passenger and waved the vehicle on.
The driver swung the wheel to the right and let the limousine roll easily up to the Ambassadors’ entrance. The Sovier diplomat got out, glancing sideways towards Downing Street, conscious that it was there his message was directed.
A junior official received him on the steps and led him to the Foreign Secretary who had just returned from his monthly breakfast with the Diplomatic Press Corps.
Twenty minutes later the ambassador had delivered his protest about ‘Ocean Guardian’, and was back outside. He paused briefly for a news agency photographer to take his picture. Then the Mercedes sped him back to Kensington Palace Gardens.
The news, that Monday morning, was not good. The Soviet leader could see the abyss opening before him. Strikes were spreading and he was in the throes of reimposing full censorship on the media to prevent the situation snowballing out of control.
‘Perestroika came too late for our people,’ Nikolai Savkin muttered, half to himself, half to Foreign Minister Vasily Kalinin. The General Secretary had summoned Kalinin to his private office deep inside the Kremlin walls.
‘Thirty years too late, maybe. Too many generations have been taught by the Party to believe the State will do everything, and that they, the people, need do nothing.’
‘Such despair is not in your character, Nikolai,’ Kalinin soothed. ‘All is not lost; and don’t allow yourself to think so.’
Savkin laughed self-deprecatingly. He knew he was the wrong man for the job. He silently cursed the Aeroflot mechanic whose carelessness allegedly caused the tragic and untimely death of his predecessor in a plane crash. Personally he’d always suspected the KGB had a hand in it.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had been in a different league from himself. He’d had the personality of a giant; if he were still alive the strikes would be short-lived. He’d have stormed onto the factory floors and argued the toss with the workers. If Savkin tried that tactic himself they’d spit on him.
Then there was the minority problem. Armenians, Latvians, Tartars; all were using the new freedom of expression under glasnost to voice the grievances of forty years. The KGB had played it cleverly; opposed to the new openness, they’d let the regional protests get out of control, so the politicians would be humiliated and have to turn to them to sort out the mess.