“Of course,” Hart said evenly.
“Did he get away, he and Gelda?”
“I can’t say, Shaw.” Hart gnawed at his bottom lip. “Personally I’d think it doubtful, but at any rate he clearly hasn’t talked. You’d better pray he doesn’t — and so had the rest of us! You’re in the clear for now, but the Russians aren’t fools. You mustn’t bank on them following your false leads for long.”
Shaw said, “I’ll be watching out — don’t worry! Now — what about the actual job, Hart? Have you anything new to offer, any leads at all?”
“As a matter of fact — yes, I have.” Hart paused, lowering his voice instinctively even in this room. “Some news came through only this morning… certain of Russia’s top nuclear men have left Moscow again after being sent for, urgently and at short notice, to take part in high-level talks in the Kremlin.”
Shaw felt his mouth go dry. “Any idea what about?” he asked.
“None. Officially we don’t even know there were talks. There’s been a heavy security screen around the whole thing, a heavier screen than anything I’ve come up against since I’ve been in Moscow. Nevertheless we have reason to believe it wasn’t the official Russian leadership that was involved, but the other people.”
“The extremists?”
“Yes,” Hart said briefly, lighting a cigarette. “That’s right.”
“Have you heard much about that business — the proposed coup d’état?”
“Not much. I believe they’re working up to a take-over all right, and it could come any day now, but no one knows a damn thing for certain.” He blew a trail of smoke, flicked his cigarette nervily towards an ashtray. “As a matter of fact, Shaw, if it hadn’t been for Rudintsev, we would never have suspected anything — but since we heard about that, certain other past events have dropped into their slots, d’you see—”
“What about the people, the ordinary people, here in Moscow?”
Hart shrugged. “It’s all quiet on the Moscow front. Perhaps too much so. At any rate, no one suspects anything at all so far as we know. Well now — those talks I mentioned. The nuclear men concerned have not returned to their normal appointments, but are believed to have turned up, the whole bunch of them, in the naval port of Moltsk.”
“Moltsk?” Shaw frowned. “That’s funny… by the way, where is Moltsk?”
Hart gave a brief grin. He said, “I can’t say I’m surprised you don’t know the place, but I’m going to suggest you get there as fast as you can. It’s in the Kola Peninsula—”
“Murmansk way?”
“No, it’s on the Barents Sea certainly, but nowhere near as far north as Murmansk.”
Shaw said reflectively, “The Barents Sea… That’s where there’s been a lot of nuclear test explosions lately, isn’t it. D’you think that’s what these physicists are concerned with?”
“Not in a direct sense, no.” Hart frowned. “To my mind this doesn’t quite fit — but there’s something else, something that I feel is rather more significant when you start to think about it, and it’s this: Our ships — the goodwill squadron, you know — they’re not going to Leningrad after all. They’re going to Moltsk — by special request of the Russian Defence Ministry.”
“I know,” Shaw said in a puzzled voice. “I heard that direct from my chief — the changed plans, I mean. I didn’t know who was responsible for it.”
“Did it surprise you?” Hart looked at him intently, his facial muscles twitching. “It did me, I confess.”
“Well,” Shaw said slowly, “I’m surprised at any alteration of plans at this stage. They’ll be due very soon, won’t they?”
“They’re due to go alongside the outer mole in Moltsk at 2 p.m. on the 24th.”
“Uh-huh… I don’t quite see the connexion between this and your nuclear chaps, all the same.”
“There’s no direct connexion, so far as I can see, but I think the whole thing’s very odd. You see, I’m sure the physicists haven’t gone to Moltsk in connexion with the test-firings, and if I’m right on that, it means there’s something else to take them there, take them direct to Moltsk. Something brand new. Now, it occurs to me that the fleet’s visit there instead of Leningrad could be a further blind — d’you follow?”
Shaw nodded. “Could be… but go on.”
“Well now, if it’s a blind, then it could also be a lead in a kind of inside-out sense. I mean — let’s assume for the moment that this threat is centred on Moltsk, or at any rate on the Barents Sea area in general. Now, to divert a British squadron there could be an excellent way of in effect distracting attention away from the area, from whatever is going on behind the scenes — a simple precaution taken just in case there should be a leak in the meantime. D’you agree with that?”
Shaw said, “It makes sense, certainly. No one would imagine there could be anything hush-hush going on just around there, not with British naval units being, in theory at any rate, able to report back on what they saw…” He hesitated, then asked, “Can you tell me anything about Moltsk itself?”
“Oh well… let’s see.” Hart screwed up his eyes. “It’s a typical naval port. Nothing much in it really except for the dockyard. Pretty grim, I’d say, from its geographical location — I’ve never been there myself, by the way. Damned cold, though being clear of the White Sea it doesn’t freeze up at all — the port’s open even in winter, and at this time of the year you might even say the sea’s swimmable-in, if you’re a Spartan. There’s pack-ice in the far north of the Barents Sea, of course, later on in the year, but that doesn’t touch Moltsk. It’s by no means an important place, even to the Navy, except for the fact that they’ve been drilling for oil in the sea-bed somewhere around that way. Been at it for years, building various constructions off shore.”
“Successfully — or not?”
“Very much not.” Hart laughed cynically. “Don’t know why they waste their time.”
“Do Russians ever waste their time?”
Hart lifted an eyebrow. “Do I take it you think there may be a connexion?”
“I don’t know yet.” Shaw pulled thoughtfully at his chin. He’d had Moltsk on his mind ever since getting that message from Latymer and now he was beginning to feel something crystallizing, though he couldn’t possibly have said what it was… just a hunch coming to the surface and that was all. Hunches couldn’t always be neglected, though. A good hunch could sometimes be worth months of patient, painstaking investigation which so often proved merely misleading and frustrating — and, this time, speed was everything, was absolutely vital; already the days were passing rather too rapidly for Shaw. He said, “I’ve an idea you’re dead right, Hart. Moltsk could certainly be worth a visit.”
“I’m sure it would be.” Hart leaned forward anxiously. “I know I could be looking at this the wrong way — it could be a kind of double-bluff and all the time Leningrad’s the right place, but I don’t think so somehow. It would be much harder to keep anything dark in a place like Leningrad. I might also add that I don’t think you’ll get very far in Moscow anyway, not unless you can find out exactly who the extremists in the Kremlin are and then get to work on them, but—”
“But that’d take a damn sight too long! I’ve got to go straight for the best possible bet now, and I agree that the juxtaposition of those nuclear experts and our fleet looks like being just that. I’ll give Moltsk a looking over, anyway. What’s the best way of getting there — train, plane, road?”
Hart said, “Train undoubtedly. Faster and safer — too many checks on the roads, and there’s no plane for Arkhangelsk, which is the nearest airfield for Moltsk, for some days.”