‘Phil?’ he called softly.
His mind spun like a catherine wheel, faster and faster.
His child, his boy. The men he’d betrayed; the men who’d died because of him. Did Philip know what he’d done? Did they all know of his shame? How could he face them if they did?
The Finnish nurse taped the intravenous needle in place and connected the sedative drip. She looked up at the old man’s face and noticed a tear roll down one cheek.
Poor old bugger, she thought to herself. Shouldn’t have been moved in his condition. Why had they brought him? Nobody would say. All very odd.
Philip Hitchens was summoned immediately the bow sonar on HMS Truculent detected the Victor III.
He’d not been able to sleep anyway. In the red-light glow of his cabin, panic had engulfed him in successive waves. This was the day when everything would be decided, one way or the other.
He cut their speed to three knots. The plot on the Action Information Console showed the Soviet hunter/killer crossing their path about five miles in front of them, heading south.
The towed array was picking up the heavy sounds of large surface ships belonging to the Soviet anti-submarine task force strung out along the unmarked western perimeter of the Barents Sea, well to their north. Intelligence reports had listed the Moskva and the Kiev as being in the task force, but identification was impossible; the sounds were being distorted by reflections from the uneven sea-bed.
This was the moment Philip had been dreading, the moment when the hunters began closing in from all sides.
They weren’t going to find him, however; no one was going to stop him doing what he had to do.
Hatred for the Russians, and anger at the misery they’d inflicted on his family, surged inside him, but he suppressed it, forcing himself to concentrate on the immediate threat; the Victor might hear them if they got much closer.
Philip ordered a turn to port, taking them northeast, and increased their speed to ten knots. It would give them sea-room.
Thirty minutes later their Paris sonar-intercept sonar detected distant ‘pings’ from transducers dipped by helicopters from the Russian carriers. Too far away to be any threat. Yet.
The Victor was well south by now, so they headed southeast again, back on course for the Kola Inlet.
At 0700 Sebastian Cordell took over the watch from Nick Cavendish, who looked relieved to be escaping the control room.
‘Bugger’s jumpier than ever this morning,’ he confided.
Cordell glanced uncomfortably at Hitchens, who hovered by the AIO console, checking the display and the speed and depth gauges.
‘Morning, TAS. Nick filled you in?’
The voice was strained, artificially brisk.
‘Yes, sir. I’m just going to check on the sound room, with your permission, sir.’
‘Yes, please.’
Sebastian scuttled forward, glad to be away from Hitchens.
‘Morning, Chief. What’s the equipment state?’
‘Hundred per cent, sir. So far as I know,’ CPO Hicks reported. ‘I’ve just come on watch, sir.’
‘How many contacts have we got?’
‘About a dozen, sir. Most of ’em merchantmen. Three Sovfleet warships to the north, between fifty and a hundred miles. We lost the Victor on the LOFAR, but picked up a transient from the south about ten minutes ago. Could have been the Victor’s rudder moving. She was due to turn about then; have to, or she’d ground on the coast.’
‘Well done. So she’s probably coming back our way again?’
‘If she does, she’ll be nose-on this time. More difficult to hear.’
‘Okay, Hicks. Anything else close to us I should know about?’
‘Couple of freighters within twenty miles, sir. One’s heading west so we won’t be tracking him much longer. The other’s ahead of us. Big single diesel. One shaft. Four blades.’
Hicks pointed to the green waterfall display, and a ribbed smudge on the left of the screen.
‘Fundamental frequency 4.7 Hz. Shaft revs 282 per minute. Could be one of their big supply ships heading back into Murmansk. Might find some useful broadband noise close up.’
‘Mmmm. You’re working well this morning, Hicks. How much of this is on the AIO?’
‘Thirty mile radius, sir.’
Back from the sound room, Sebastian was studying the screens of the Action Information Organization. The senior rating aligned the display with the compass points to superimpose chart data on it.
‘Depth’s two-seventy metres here, sir. We’re at two hundred. Oceanographics give an initial detection range of four miles, sir.’
Automatic analysis of the water conditions around them predicted the maximum distance at which they could be detected by the most sensitive sonar known. The nearest contact was well beyond that range, but Sebastian wasn’t happy.
‘Aircraft. That’s what we’ve got to worry about.’
Hitchens was standing in the bandstand, watching him.
‘I’m worried about the Bears and Mays, sir. This close to their coastline, the sky could be full of them.’
‘What d’you suggest we do about it?’
Cordell was thrown. Hitchens sounded unsure, humble even.
‘Well, sir, some sharp manoeuvring. Sprint and drift. To throw them off, just in case they’ve got a line on us.’
‘Yes. Carry on. You have the ship. Call me if there are any new contacts.’
With that he stepped from the bandstand and abruptly left the control room.
Surprised to find himself so suddenly in charge, Sebastian hurriedly checked the chart and the AIO again.
‘Steer zero-four-five. Revolutions for eighteen knots!’
The ratings at the engineering panel repeated the order back to him. He was going to put more distance between Truculent and the invisible Victor that could now be heading directly for them.
Just for a few minutes, then he’d alter course again. And again. Weaving and circling in a pattern so random no airborne tacnav would be able to follow him. He hoped.
Philip hurried to the officers’ heads. His bowels were rumbling volcanically.
After relieving himself he returned to his cabin for the shave he’d not had time for earlier. His hands shook uncontrollably, and he nicked his neck with the razor.
He knew he should eat; there was a long day ahead. But the thought of food made him retch. He’d forgo breakfast. Drink some tea. That might help.
His brain felt paralysed by the conflict of his thoughts.
Revenge was the passion that had taken control of him again. To get back at the bastard Russians for seducing his wife, for murdering his father, and for forcing him to betray his country for a lie.
But was he right to believe his father dead? The KGB’s efforts to prove him alive, had they really been a trick? After all he’d believed them at first, totally. The evidence — the letters, the photograph — had convinced him. Then he’d discovered how they’d used Sara and her knowledge of his vulnerability, his obsession with the fate of his father. An obsession powerful enough to blind him to reality.
Every piece of their evidence could have been fabricated. But he couldn’t be certain.
What if his father really was in Helsinki waiting for him? If Philip set the Moray mines in the Kola Inlet, as he intended, several hundred Russians might die, but so would his father.