Sea Leopard

by Craig Thomas

  He flattened himself on the hull, bunching the nylon line beneath his body, feeling his whole frame quivering. Another malarial attack. He could not stop himself shaking.

  "Progress report," he heard in his earpiece. The port guard was in sight again, meandering down the pen towards him. Then the starboard guard came into sight, chewing and cocking his head into the tinny noises of the transistor radio at his ear. "Progress report", Aubrey requested again in his ear, this time with more asperity. Clark wanted to howl into his throat mike for the crazy old man to shut up.

  The guard passed beneath him on the port side, then the starboard guard was level with him again. The radio made tinny, scratchy noises. A Western pop station, beamed in from Norway or Sweden.

  "Lend us your fucking radio," the port guard called across to his companion in a not unamiable manner. "Bored stiff."

  "I'm not," his companion replied, facing him. "You bloody Ukrainians are all the same — scroungers."

  "Clark — progress report." Shut up, shut up —

  "Fuck off." Clark craned his neck. The port guard, the taller of the two with the cropped haircut and the stooping shoulders, had unslung his rifle, and was pointing it at the man on the starboard side. "Hand over your radio, or I'll fire," he demanded.

  The man on the starboard side laughed. He wore spectacles and a thin, weak moustache and looked no more than fifteen. He, too, unslung his rifle, and pointed it across the water with one hand, the other still pressing the radio to his ear. "Bang, bang," he said, hooting with laughter when he had done so.

  "Piss off."

  "Progress report, Clark. Clark?" Shut up, shut up —

  Clark knew what would happen next, and knew it would be audible. Sharp, painful bleeps of sound, like morse dashes, to attract his attention, then a continuous tone like that of a telephone that has been disconnected because the subscriber has moved. Both guards looked up. Clark squeezed himself flatter against the top of the hull, praying for the curvature to be sufficient, to hide him like high ground or a horizon.

  "What's that?"

  "Dunno. Fucking radio. Our lot trying to jam it." The starboard guard laughed again, a thin high cackle as if his voice had not yet broken.

  "Race you to the other end, you skinny, underfed Ukrainian!"

  "What about—?"

  "Ready, set — go!"

  The noise of their boots echoed off the concrete walls and roof of the pep. The tone stopped, and then began again in his head. Clark whispered intently into his throat-mike.

  "For Chrissake, get off my back, Aubrey!" He went on quivering, his body seeming to jump with the detonations of their footsteps bouncing off the roof, until Aubrey replied.

  "Clark — what is wrong?"

  "I'm lying on the fucking hull, man, with two goons training for the Olympics right below me. I can't talk to you!"

  A few seconds later — he could hear a thin, breathless cheer from the far end of the pen as the taller guard won the race — Aubrey replied stiffly and formally, "Very well. Report as soon as you can."

  "Okay, okay."

  "And again?" the shorter guard called angrily.

  "You're on. Ten roubles on this one?"

  Twenty, you Ukrainian bullshitter!"

  "Ready, set — go! Hey, you jumped the gun, you cheating sod!"

  Then the bootsteps rained down from the roof again as they charged towards the seaward end of the pen. Clark lay icily still now, his tension expended with his anger, his sense of time oblivious to anything but the slow passage of seconds on the watch-face he held in front of his eyes.

  The starboard guard won, by virtue of a flying start, and crowed and pranced. His companion, now his deadly rival, challenged him to a return. They regained their breath, watched each other like combatants for a fortune in prize money, crouched into sprinting starts, and then began running on the call of the taller man. Clark got to his knees. Their row would bring someone, soon. He scuttled along the hull, careless of the noise he made, fixed the pad, and lowered himself feverishly down the nylon rope, checked the undamaged sensor, climbed the rope again, imagined the ragged breathing of the two runners, waited until he could hear them arguing with out-of-breath shouts, and swung down the port side of the hull. He was elated by the clownish behaviour and the stupidity of the two young guards; almost reckless with confidence. Undamaged. He climbed the line again.

  They were still arguing, their voices coming from the far end of the pen. He could dimly discern them, shadows in shadow. He moved back along the hull, lowered himself on the port side again — the two men had moved slightly to starboard of the bow of the submarine — and checked another sensor. The titanium blister was dented, but undisturbed. Then the starboard side, his luck beginning to extend beyond the point at which it was simply acceptable and becoming instead a source of anxiety, where he checked two more sensors. He was almost level with rudder fin again, almost finished —

  Another voice, a snarling petty-officer voice, and silence from the two guards. Berating, angry, loud. Their parentage was stripped from them, then their maturity, then their manhood. Layers of the onion, until they would be left with nothing but total humiliation and punishment duties. They would be replaced, the new guards would be fearfully alert, punctilious in their patrols. The crushing reprimand went on and on.

  Clark lowered himself down the port side of the hull again. The plates were scarred, as if the metal had been lashed with a giant whip. He knew what he would find. A weal like a furrow lay along one hull plate, and whatever had caused it had crushed the wafer-thin titanium in upon the sensor beneath it. He reached into his belt, moving with feverish haste now as the michman's voice rose again, perhaps towards a peroration. He drew a smaller, stubbier screwdriver and jabbed it into the slot on the locking ring and heaved. It moved, and then turned. He lifted it clear and snapped it into a hook on his belt. As he prised out the transducer he could see the damage clearly. Shattered fragments fell from the transducer and rattled and slid down the hull to the water.

  Bare wires. The sheathing was cut through, and half the wiring was severed. Dangling from the end was an ABS multipin plug. Half of it. Half a smashed multi-pin plug. He registered it with helpless fury. Silence. The michman had finished. Christ—

  A door slammed, and then there was silence again, a heavy, ringing silence. He was alone in the pen for perhaps a few minutes at most. Perspiration drenched him. He wiped the back of one hand over his face.

  "I got problems," he announced. "Stern sensor fourteen— one of the sonar signal nullifiers. The wiring behind the transducer's a hell of a mess."

  He continued to lever at the wiring with the screwdriver while he waited for Quin to reply.

  "What extent is the damage?"

  The rest of the transducer slid away with a noise like the claws of a crab on metal. Then it plopped into the water. Clark hefted his lamp and shone it into the hole.

  "Bad. Most of the wiring has been sheared; but there's worse. The connector's smashed."

  "Can you check beyond the breaks?"

  "Maybe."

  "Can you see the socket and the box?"

  "Yes."

  Clark peered into the hole. He tidied the sheared and twisted wiring to one side and looked again. The wires reached the fibre optics converter box on the underside of the outer hull.

  "Remove it complete," Quin instructed. "Fit a new one. And Clark—"

  "Yes?"

  There is a second plug, for the fibre optics. A bayonet fitting. Be careful. The first has forty pins, and it fits only one way."

  "Right."

  Clark looked at his watch. One minute since the door had slammed. He reached in, pressing his cheek against the hull, feeling the activity within the submarine as a slight vibration. His fingers flexed in the narrow space, snagged and cut on the exposed, shorn wires, and then his fingertips had hold of the upper section of the box. He pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled again, surprise on his face. The converter box would not
budge.

  "It's jammed," he said. "Jammed."

  The door slammed. Marching boots, double time, the voice of the michman savagely drilling the two replacement guards. Clark clung to the nylon line and the converter box and prayed for the fifty-fifty chance to work in his favour.

  The boots clattered down the starboard side of the Proteus. He had a moment or two yet —

  "Have you got it? Can you see what's wrong?" Quin was frightened.

  Clark heaved at it, curling his fingers round the edge of the converter box. Nothing moved. One finger touched the clip — clips, strap, he'd forgotten the clips and the strap securing the box — he flipped open the catch with his thumb, felt it loosen, and then gripped the box again. He gritted his teeth and strained. His arm shot out of the hole and he wriggled on the nylon line, holding on to the dangling wires and the box as the velocity with which he had jerked them free threatened to make him drop them. The michman's voice snapped out orders to the new guards. In a moment, they would appear on the port side —

  He ripped open one of the two thick packs and drew out a replacement converter box already wired to the transducer. He fed the complete unit into the hole as carefully as he could. He pushed it forward. Then he let go of the rope, dangling by its tight, cutting hold on his armpits, and shone his lamp. The michman had stopped shouting. He was watching the two guards" doubling on the spot. Push — no, slight adjustment — push, get it into the clips — push home, feel for the strap ends, yes — hook them over, clamp the catch. He fitted the fibre optics plug, then fastened the transducer into place, and fitted the locking ring to holding it. The michman had ordered them to stop doubling.

  Clark's arms felt lifeless and weak. He heaved at the nylon line, but his body hardly moved. His feet scrabbled on the smooth hull. The michman ordered the second new guard to follow him. It was like a yelled order to Clark. He clambered back up the line. Fifty feet to the hatch. Seconds only.

  He ran. He heaved open the hatch, not caring any longer whether or not he had been seen, and tumbled into darkness, the hatch thudding softly shut on its rubber seals behind him. He lay breathless and aching and uncaring in the safe, warm darkness of the escape chamber, every part of his body exhausted.

  * * *

  "Well done, Quin," Aubrey offered, and watched the slow bloom of self-satisfaction on the man's face. He was difficult to like, but Aubrey had ceased to despise him. Quin was back in the land of the living, as it were. Flattery, cajolement, even threat had all played a part in his rehabilitation. Finally, however, Aubrey had seen the danger to his invention, his project, overcome and prompt Quin. The man would not surrender "Leopard" without some effort on his part.

  Thank you," Quin returned. Then his face darkened, and he shook his head. "It's almost impossible," he added. "I don't know whether Clark has the necessary concentration to keep this up —"

  "I understand the strain he must be under," Aubrey said, "but there's no other way."

  "I'm — I'm sorry — stupid behaviour earlier — apologies —" Each word seemed wrenched from Quin, under duress. Aubrey respected the effort it was costing the cold, egotistical man to offer an explanation of himself.

  "Quite all right."

  "It's just that, well, now I don't want them to get their hands on it, you see —"

  "Quite."

  "It is the only thing of importance to me, you see." He looked down at his hands. "Shouldn't say that, but I'm afraid it's true." He looked up again, his eyes fierce. "Damn them, they mustn't have it!"

  "Mr Aubrey?" There was something trying to force itself like a broken bone through Eastoe's frosty reserve.

  "Yes, Squadron Leader?"

  "We have some blips on the radar. Four of them."

  "Yes?"

  "Coming up rapidly from one of the airfields on the Kola Peninsula. Not missiles, the trace is wrong for that. Four aircraft."

  "I see. Range?"

  "Not more than thirty miles. They'll be with us in three minutes or even less."

  "With us? I don't understand."

  "They" ve already crossed into Norwegian airspace, Mr Aubrey. They didn't even hesitate."

  Chapter Thirteen: CONCEALMENT

  They were MiG-23s, code-named Flogger-B, single-seat, all-weather interceptors. Four of them. Even Aubrey could recognise them, in a moment of silhouette that removed him more than forty years to basic aircraft recognition tests at the beginning of the war. A vivid streak of lightning to the north, and the brassy light illuminating the night sky, outlined the nearest of the MiGs. Slim, grey, red-starred on its flank. One wing-tip rose as the aircraft banked slightly, and Aubrey could see the air-to-air missiles beneath the swing wing in its swept-back position.

  Immediately, Eastoe was talking to him. "Mr Aubrey, they're MiG-23s, interceptors. The flight leader demands to know our mission and the reason for our invasion of sensitive airspace."

  "What is their intention, would you say?" Quin was staring out of the window of the Nimrod, watching the slim, shark-like silhouette that had begun to shadow them.

  "Shoo us away."

  "What course of action do you —?"

  "Just a minute, Mr Aubrey. I" ve got the Norwegian flight leader calling me. Do you want to listen into this?"

  "I don't think so," Aubrey replied wearily. "I am sure I already know what he wishes to say."

  "Very well."

  The headset went dead, and Aubrey removed it. It clamped his temples and ears, and seemed to cramp and confine thought. He did not like wearing it. Quin did not seem disappointed at Aubrey's decision.

  There was another flash of lightning, streaking like bright rain down a window towards the sea. The blare of unreal light revealed the closest of the Northrop F-5s turning to port, away from the Nimrod. Their Norwegian fighter escort had been recalled to Kirkenes. Norway's unwritten agreement, as a member of NATO, with the Soviet Union was that no military exercises or provocative military manoeuvres were undertaken within a hundred miles of the Soviet border. Evidently, the Russians had registered a protest, and their protest had been accepted.

  Aubrey replaced his headset. "Has our Norwegian escort gone?"

  "Yes, Mr Aubrey. We're on our own."

  "Very well. Our signals cannot be intercepted, nor their origin traced so far as Clark is concerned?"

  "No. Mr Aubrey, how long do we need to hang around?"

  "For some hours yet."

  "Very well." Eastoe sounded grim, but determined. "We'll do what we can. I'll try not to get shepherded out of range."

  "If you would."

  Aubrey stared at the console on the table between himself and Quin. The hull sensors had been inspected and repaired, yet the achievement of that task had been the completion of the easy and least dangerous element. Clark now had to inspect and, if necessary, repair the back-up system of "Leopard". Aubrey suddenly felt alone, and incompetent.

  Eastoe spoke again in his ear. "They're demanding we leave the area. They'll see us off the property."

  "You are on our eastbound leg at the moment?"

  "Yes. But that won't fool them. They'll have been watching us on radar for a long time. They know we're flying a box pattern."

  "But, for the moment, we're secure?"

  "Yes —"

  The window seemed filled with the belly of the MiG-23. The sight was gone in a moment, and might have begun to seem illusory, except that the nose of the Nimrod tilted violently as Eastoe put the aircraft into a dive.

  "Shit — " the co-pilot's voice cried in Aubrey's ear. The Nimrod levelled, and steadied.

  "They're not in the mood to waste time," Eastoe commented. "You saw that?"

  Aubrey remembered the underbelly, almost white like that of a great hunting fish, and even the red-painted missiles beneath the wing.

  "Yes," he said. "What happened?" He ignored Quin's worried face, the man was frightened but there was a determination in him now, replacing the former cunning that had sought only escape.

  "One
of them buzzed us — and, I mean buzzed. Crazy bastard!"

  Aubrey paused for a moment. The aircraft is in your hands, Squadron Leader. All I ask is that we never pass out of range of Clark's transceiver. The rest is up to you."

  "'thank you, Mr Aubrey."

  The MiG — perhaps the one that had buzzed them — was back on their port wing, slightly above and behind. Shadowing them. It was, Aubrey considered, as unpredictable as a wild creature.

  * * *

  Tricia staggered under Hyde's weight, slipped, and fell against the long, high bank. Her breath roared in her ears, but she could feel it in her chest — ragged, loud, heaving. Hyde, unconscious, rolled away from her, slid until he lay at her feet looking sightlessly up at her and was still. Tricia was simply and utterly relieved that she was no longer bearing his weight against one side and across the back of her neck where she had placed his arm. She loathed and hated Hyde at that moment, and even feared him; as if he might wake and attack her himself. She blamed him totally, for every fragment and element of her predicament.

  Her body was bathed in perspiration, and her limbs were shaking with weakness. Hyde continued groaning, like a murmured protest at his pain.

  "Oh — shut up," she whispered fiercely. "Shut up." The repetition was bitten off, as if she admitted he was not to blame.

  She had helped Hyde, often supporting his unconscious weight when he slipped once more from pain into stillness, as they moved north, then west. There had been no effective pursuit. The helicopter had lost sight of them after she had half-dragged, half-shouldered him away from the rise where he had first passed out, into a small copse of trees. A tiny dell, where the dead ferns were long and curving, like the roofs of native huts, had concealed them. Terrified, she had heard legs brushing through heather and ferns, voices near and more distant, the crackle of R/Ts. She had kept her hand over Hyde's mouth, in case he babbled in delirium.

  The wound had been ugly, and she knew nothing of medicine or nursing. It had bled a great deal. It seemed that the bullet had not lodged in Hyde's shoulder or chest because there was a small hole near his shoulder blade and a larger hole near his collar-bone. She had seen sufficient television wounds to assume that the bullet had passed straight through. Her knowledge of anatomy was sketchy, and she watched anxiously for blood to appear around his lips. When it did not, she assumed the lungs were undamaged. She did not know what other bones, muscles or organs might reside in the area of the wound. She bound the wound with a torn length of Hyde's own shirt.