‘God knows! But if he lays the Moray mines outside Polyarny, and several Soviet submarines make a run for the open sea at the same time, he could take out four of them before they realize what’s happening. Four nuclear reactors exploding underwater, pollution over a wide area, and at least four hundred dead! Not a happy scenario!’
‘And all because his wife fooled around with some Russian? It’s madness,’ Sir Nigel exclaimed.
‘A Russian who hasn’t been caught,’ the PM repeated.
‘Perhaps he’ll contact Mrs Hitchens again,’ the Foreign Secretary mused, half to himself.
His thoughts were moving in a direction quite different from those of his leader. She’d dismissed his idea of warning the Russians, but it could be the only way to avoid catastrophe. It would have to be done with enormous care, and clearly without the knowledge of ‘the boss’.
‘If the worst does happen, Nigel, what’s Savkin going to do about it?’ the PM asked. ‘He’ll hardly declare war, surely?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sir Nigel warned. ‘He’s making a lot of noise about “NATO aggression”, much more than is justified. Got to ask ourselves why. Also this business of a ship-load of MiGs heading for Cuba; that has to have been done for a purpose. If Savkin’s intention was simply to supply an ally with new planes, he’d have flown them to Cuba in transporter planes. No fuss that way.
‘But to put them on the deck of a cargo ship and to sail it slap through the middle of the US fleet — I ask you! He wanted them to be seen! He wanted the Yanks to go screaming around in their helicopters and plastering pictures of his MiGs all over their television news bulletins. They’re so bloody predictable, the Americans; they did exactly what he wanted! One more example of Western aggression to show to his own citizens on TV.’
‘Yes, but come to the point, Nigel. What’s Savkin up to?’
‘Ah, now that’s more difficult to say. The one thing we do know is that he’s in big trouble with his economy. He’s facing an unprecedented wave of strikes and civil unrest. He may be looking for a distraction, and banking on America, and us, supplying it. It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it could be the only one he’s got up his sleeve.’
The PM frowned with irritation; she’d foreseen her Foreign Secretary’s conclusion, before he’d finished speaking.
‘But I return to my point; he’ll hardly declare war, will he?’ she insisted.
‘And I repeat my point; I simply don’t know. The danger is he’ll back himself into a corner; if he whips up enough anti-western feeling at home, and our Commander Hitchens then blows up some of his submarines, he may have no option but to declare war.’
The Prime Minister stared at him aghast. Then she turned to the Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet.
‘Commander Hitchens must be stopped, Admiral. At any price!’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Guard! Salute!’
The naval infantryman pinned his fingers to his forehead as the Zil limousine rolled to a halt outside the operations centre, its pristine black paint spattered with mud.
The Senior Lieutenant in charge of the guard opened the car door and saluted too, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
The Vice-Admiral ignored the young officer and strode briskly up the steps to the heavy, blast-proof, iron doors, eager to be out of the arctic wind. He heard the electromagnetic bolts click back, and the door swung open.
He entered the command centre of the Red Banner Northern Fleet. Built into a rocky hillside overlooking the town, the bunker was deep enough under the granite to withstand the megatons of nuclear destruction which the Americans had earmarked for it.
‘Did you get a good catch at the weekend, Comrade Admiral?’ fawned the Captain 2nd Rank staff officer. ‘Some fine salmon for your dinner, perhaps?’
‘No such luck,’ Astashenkov growled, remembering the alibi for his weekend in Moscow. ‘Nothing you could even feed to a cat! I shan’t fish again until the spring.’
‘The days are getting shorter.’
‘I hate winter. It’s at this time of year I wish I was commanding an Eskadra in the Mediterranean.’
Their footsteps echoed in the bare concrete tunnel. Ahead was the inner door, beyond which the air was filtered and recycled to exclude nuclear fallout or poison gas.
As they approached, there came again the click of opening bolts and the door swung towards them, driven by hydraulic rams powerful enough to push back rubble if the tunnel collapsed as the result of a direct hit.
Beyond lay another corridor lined with offices; then a corner, and the door to the operations room. The Captain 2nd Rank tapped his personal security code into a keypad, then opened the door for the Admiral to enter.
Two dozen uniformed men and women saluted. Astashenkov acknowledged them with a nod. He strode to the podium in the centre of the room. Admiral Belikov’s staff officer hovered in wait.
‘Good day, Comrade Vice-Admiral,’ the young man bowed. ‘The Commander-in-Chief is detained. An important telephone call from Admiral Grekov. He can’t attend this briefing. He asks that you report to him in his office afterwards.’
Astashenkov nodded curtly, disguising his unease. Belikov talking on the phone to the Admiral of the Fleet? It must be urgent. Normally Grekov preferred to write.
Had they got wind of his meeting with Savkin?
He sat at the small desk. Another nod. The briefing could begin.
The wall was covered with a map of the northern hemisphere, the Pole at its centre. The Captain Lieutenant briefing officer was young, blond and enthusiastic. Astashenkov remembered himself being like that many years ago.
‘This was the situation at 06.00 today,’ the youth began, using a torch to project an arrow onto the map. ‘Podvodnaya Lodka Atomnaya Raketnaya Ballisticheskaya. We have eight PLARBs on patrol.’
These were nuclear-powered, ballistic-missile boats, their rockets targeted on the major cities in the United States. The newer ones were Taifun class, at twenty-five thousand tons the biggest submarines ever built. Each boat carried twenty missiles with a range of four thousand eight hundred miles, seven warheads per missile. Each boat could destroy one hundred and forty American towns or military bases.
This was the main reason for the Northern Fleet’s existence; to keep operational forty submarines, carrying six hundred missiles with two thousand warheads.
So, eight were at sea. Not bad, Feliks thought, considering the maintenance they needed and the amount of shore leave for the crew.
‘Four in the Barents Sea, four under the Arctic ice.’
The torch pointed to eight rings on the map. No precise positions, just the areas where the boats would patrol slowly, waiting for the orders they hoped would never come.
‘Podvodnaya Lodka Atomnaya,’ the briefing officer went on. PLAs were the nuclear-powered attack boats. ‘Fifteen operational.’
Out of fifty? Not so good, thought Feliks.
‘Three are in the Mediterranean, and two are currently returning from there. One is to the west of Scotland gathering intelligence on the British Navy, and one returning. Two more are on long-distance Atlantic patrol off the United States coast, and two transitting home. One of those is shadowing the US aircraft carrier Eisenhower. That leaves four on the barrier between North Cape and Greenland.’
‘Four PLAs to try to stop the NATO SSNs from tracking our missile boats? It’s not enough!’ exploded Astashenkov in exasperation.