Grekov hesitated. Should he tell Savkin the KGB had bungled the operation to get hold of one? He decided not.
‘If he lays the mines close to our submarine bases, it’d be suicide for any of our boats to leave harbour. We need time, Comrade. Just a few days, to find the Trafalgar, and neutralize the threat.’
‘Has it occurred to you the British might be bluffing? That, far from disobeying orders, the submarine could be the spearhead for a NATO attack on our Northern Fleet? Under the guise of their manoeuvres?’
‘We considered that, of course. It did seem possible; their naval strategy is very threatening. But all the intelligence information we have suggests the British are themselves close to panic. They’re desperate to get their submarine back under control, but at the same time don’t want their allies to know anything’s wrong. The British claim to have the best trained, best disciplined Navy in the world. It could be damaging to their reputation.
‘Also, our radar satellites show the NATO warships are no longer moving towards the Barents. They’re manoeuvring off the coast of Norway, as in previous years. Perhaps our protests have had some effect.’
Savkin would have felt triumphant at the West backing down, if these had been normal times, but Grekov’s words were like a body-punch. A diminishing threat from the West meant the crumbling of his last hope of using fear to bring the unruly Soviet people back to heel.
His last hope but one. There was still the submarine.
Savkin swung his chair round to face the window. The sky was a watery blue. He could see the top of the Spassky Tower on the Kremlin wall, crowned with its big red star.
‘I want reports as soon as the submarine is traced,’ he said, just loud enough for Grekov to hear. ‘Whatever happens, keep me up to date. We may be on the brink of war.’
‘It won’t come to that, I can assure you, Comrade President.’
‘No? We’ll see. Thank you, Admiral.’
Grekov levered himself from his chair and saluted curtly, and left without another word.
Savkin sat almost motionless for a full two minutes. Then he pulled a diary from his jacket pocket, and opened it at a page of telephone numbers. A capital ‘A’ had been written beside one number. ‘A’ for Astashenkov, Vice-Admiral Feliks, Deputy Commander of the Northern Fleet at Severomorsk.
Looking at the number struck terror into his heart. Savkin was no natural gambler. Now he faced the most perilous decision of his entire life. If he chose to play the one card he had left, the odds on him winning or losing were impossible to calculate.
He faced two choices; he could yield his power to the forces of conservatism and accept that it was impossible to reform the monolith of the Soviet economy; or he could provoke a naval war in the North Atlantic, in the desperate hope that it would sober the Soviet workers into knuckling down to further hardship and belt-tightening.
The problem was how to provoke a conflict large enough to have the desired effect, but small enough to be contained without the risk of escalation.
The burden of making such a choice seemed to crush him. Alone, he found it impossible to decide, yet was it fair to entrust it to anyone else?
He picked up the telephone. His secretary answered.
‘Would you call Foreign Minister Kalinin, and ask him to come to see me immediately?’
It was half an hour before Vasily Kalinin arrived from the Foreign Ministry, annoyed at having had to postpone a meeting with a delegation from Poland.
‘Vasily!’
Savkin grasped his friend by the shoulders.
‘The most powerful man in the Soviet Union is also the most lonely at times, my friend. It’s an old saying, but truer than ever at this moment. I’m glad you’re here.’
‘They told me it was most urgent.’
‘And so it is; so it is.’
They sat in a pair of high-backed, brocaded armchairs beside the window that overlooked the Kremlin courtyard.
‘The Americans are holding back their fleet. Grekov says they won’t come anywhere near our Kola bases.’
‘Ah! That’s unfortunate. President McGuire is showing more maturity than we expected. The way he reacted to the Rostov affair has made it a dead issue in the American media. The “crisis” we’d anticipated hasn’t materialized. I’m sorry.’
Kalinin had been joint architect of their plan.
‘And at the Politburo meeting on Friday? I’ll lose? The reformists will give up the struggle?’
‘It’s possible. I can’t say.’
Kalinin was lying to his friend. He knew it was already decided.
‘There are many who admire what the KGB has done in the Baltic,’ he explained. ‘They feel the old firm hand of authority at the centre is the only way to control our country. What the KGB has done to bring the dissidents into line, Gosplan must again do for the economy. That’s what they think.’
‘And you, Vasily? What do you think now?’
‘Me? I’m with you, carrying high the banner of change and reform first lifted aloft by Mikhail Gorbachev.’
At the flowery words, Savkin looked hard into Kalinin’s eyes. There was cynicism there and, he suspected, a hint of pity.
‘But, Nikolai, my eyesight is good enough to see that the tide changed long ago, and we are going to be cut off.’
The President sensed he was about to be abandoned. There was a weariness in Kalinin’s tone he’d not heard before.
‘Don’t give up just yet. There is one high rock that could save us from the tide. One you’ve not yet seen.’
Savkin’s voice had sunk close to a whisper.
‘Oh? Be sure it’s not a mirage.’
‘This came from Admiral Grekov. He’s not a man to imagine things.’
‘So, tell me about your rock.’
‘A British submarine is approaching our Kola naval bases, intent on attacking us. The commanding officer has taken leave of his senses and is defying orders. The British are unable to control him.’
Kalinin’s eyebrows arched.
‘If this is a joke, it’s a feeble one, Nikolai.’
‘Grekov doesn’t tell jokes.’
Kalinin whistled softly.
‘Wheew! Then I’m beginning to see what you mean. And Grekov? What’s he doing about it?’
‘Nothing! Wants to wait to see what happens. But he’s wrong. We must be ready to confront it.’
‘That could be dangerous. Very dangerous.’
‘Yes, but history shows it’s a risk that can be justified. Remember 1982? Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s regime was deeply unpopular. Heading for defeat. Then the British had their Falklands war. A small, limited war. Afterwards Mrs Thatcher and her reformist policies were transformed.’
Kalinin’s eyes appeared to grow ever wider.
‘You want a war? With the British? That would be most reckless.’
Savkin felt disappointment. He’d expected a more positive reaction.
‘But the British would be shown to have started it. Think of the impact on our people. They’d rally behind us, as we justifiably fight off the aggressor and give him a bloody nose!’
‘Possibly.’
‘What’s the alternative? To let our country turn its back on the chance to compete with the capitalists on equal terms? To lock our people away for another twenty years until someone else has the courage to look for change?’
Savkin paced back and forth, waving his fist to emphasize his point. Kalinin watched coolly. He admired his leader’s devotion to the cause of reform, but recognized that whatever Savkin decided, it would be out of desperation, and that made him apprehensive.
‘You may be right, Nikolai. It may be the answer. But openly to seek a war is not a gamble I’d have the courage to take. If the British commander is crazy enough to attack us, then we have every right to respond. But I suspect you have a different plan in mind – some way of provoking a fight. If that’s the case, then it’s better you don’t tell me about it. I’d have to advise you again
st it.’
Savkin’s pacing had brought him to the window.
So, he was on his own. He would have to take the decision alone, after all. He’d known it would be so. Supporting him in such a gamble was too much to ask of any friend, however close.
‘Then I must ask one last favour of you, Vasily,’ Savkin ventured, spinning round.
‘Yes?’
‘To forget that this conversation ever took place.’
* * *
Severomorsk 1000 hrs.
Inside the command bunker of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, Vice-Admiral Feliks Astashenkov listened to the briefing officer with close attention.
The lights were dimmed in the cavernous room, and a fine beam from the pointer in the briefer’s hand highlighted the areas on the wall map where the search for the Truculent was being conducted.
From longitude 32 degrees, in a line north of the Soviet border with Norway, the anti-submarine surface force stretched its tentacles westwards. The carriers Moskva and Kiev were operating their helicopters round the clock, the Captain-Lieutenant told him, dunking sonar transducers into the sea.
Feliks doubted it was truly like that; few of the pilots were qualified for night flying from a deck.
Several possible contacts had been made, over a wide area, the briefer said. Feliks doubted that, too. Whales probably.
The British Nimrod aircraft were already operating east of the Kiev/Moskva group, almost due north of the Kol’skiy Zaliv. That’s where the Truculent would be now. Almost at the sanctuary gates of the Northern Fleet.
If they’d known her intentions earlier, Astashenkov would have ordered four submarines to sea immediately. He’d have given them each a sector in which to wait, drifting in total silence, listening intently for the faint, narrow-band sounds that could give away the approach of the British submarine.
But now it was too late for that; he agreed with Grekov and Belikov that it would be foolhardy to send out submarines, now that mines could already have been laid outside their harbours. Aircraft would do the job almost as well.
On the wall map, blue boxes in an arc north of the mouth of the Kol’skiy Zaliv showed where the IL-38 patrol aircraft had sown a dense sonobuoy barrier. Truculent would have to pass through soon, unless she had already done so.
Inside the barrier the sea was further divided into sectors, each constantly searched by a rotation of helicopters, dipping their sonar transducers into the water.
So far there’d been dozens of possible sightings, but nothing that could be called a target.
Astashenkov was glad he was not Hitchens. The British submarine was entering waters of which it had limited experience, waters the Soviet Navy knew in intimate detail.
Soviet survey ships had charted every square metre of the sea-bed outside their harbours to find the best place to lay their own hydrophone intruder alarms. They kept their charts updated so the minehunters could tell when anything new appeared on the bottom.
If they’d not been warned a submarine was heading their way, Truculent would have a ninety per cent chance of getting in and out undetected. But with Soviet anti-submarine forces on full alert, Astashenkov rated the British boat’s chances as less than even.
‘Comrade Vice-Admiral?’
It was his acting secretary, a Captain 3rd Rank.
‘There is an urgent telephone call for you. In your private office.’
His tone made it quite clear the call was from someone who should not be kept waiting.
‘From Moscow. On the encrypto-phone. They won’t identify the caller, but I think it’s the Kremlin,’ the secretary explained in a whisper, and then left Astashenkov on his own.
The phone had an electronic security device. Feliks inserted a magnetic card which controlled access. The calls were scrambled and de-scrambled at each end of the line which linked Severomorsk with Moscow. Both the Stavka (the Supreme Military Headquarters) and the Kremlin were linked to the system.
‘Feliks?’
The voice was as clear as if in the next room.
‘This is the President, Nikolai Savkin.’
‘Good Morning, Comrade President.’
Feliks felt an uncomfortable dryness in his throat.
‘I’m calling with reference to our conversation last week, Feliks.’
‘Yes. I assumed that was it.’
‘I warned you then that I might need to ask a service of you. If the future of perestroika was at stake.’
‘You did, Comrade President.’
‘I’m afraid that moment has come, Feliks. I’m sorry. I’m placing the future of the Soviet Union in your hands.’
* * *
Helsinki 1034 hrs.
The TU-134 jet, unmarked except for the Soviet red star on its tail, taxied to a halt. Immigration and customs officers boarded the aircraft to complete the brief formalities.
Within minutes an ambulance drew up beside it. The steps were pulled aside and an hydraulic platform positioned in their place. Two men in blue hospital overalls wheeled a stretcher out through the narrow aircraft doorway and opened umbrellas to shelter it from the driving rain.
Once on the ground, the stretcher was lifted from its trolley and eased into the ambulance. One of the Russian nurses accompanied it, the other stepped into an embassy limousine which had pulled up behind, joining two men in suits who’d also come off the plane.
Sedately, the small convoy drove from the airport, escorted by two Finnish police motorcyclists.
Inside the ambulance, the KGB nurse felt the pulse of the ashen-faced, withered, old man in his custody.
Still with us, just, he thought to himself.
Lieutenant Commander Alex Hitchens DSO (posthumous) Royal Navy, drifted in and out of consciousness. He had no idea where he was being taken. All he knew was that he had left the clinic in Leningrad which had been his home for the past few months, and that the pain in his chest was getting worse.
For the last four months people had been kind to him, and he was grateful. Grateful to have been taken away from the bleak and bitter prison camp on the Kola. Grateful to be given food that wasn’t just broth and bread. Grateful to be allowed medicines that relieved the pain.
In his lucid moments he knew he was soon going to die. The last thirty years had been a living death, and he had often longed for the end.
But then they’d told him about Philip. Now he was desperate to live just a little longer.
‘Is my son here?’ he whispered in shaky Russian. He’d never perfected the language.
‘Try not to talk. It’ll tire you,’ the nurse answered, not understanding what the old man had said.
Clouded eyes stared wildly from wrinkled hollows. His erratic memory suddenly recalled the photographs of Philip and his grandson they’d shown him in Leningrad.
At the time, in his confusion, he’d thought he was looking at a thirty-year-old picture of himself with his own son. Once he had been a tall fair-haired good-looking man like that; and the boy, Simon, was the spitting image of Philip when he’d last seen him.
His eyelids closed again as the memory slipped away.
The ambulance turned off the main road and up a cobbled hill to the clinic. The tyres on the stones set up a drumming inside the vehicle.
Alex Hitchens turned his head fretfully. The drumming of the wheels was like the throbbing of the diesels in the submarine. The noise triggered memories, ones that had dogged him since 1962.
He’d been broken on the wheel of those memories, time and time again, broken by the guilt of knowing all the men on board had died because of him. He no longer remembered their faces or names. Time had been kind to him in that respect.
He’d gone ashore with one other man, a Royal Marine. They’d been captured together. The marine had been trained to resist interrogation, but Alex hadn’t. He was only there because the second SBS man was ill. He remembered the marine – a short, stocky, silent figure, reduced to a bloodied corpse by the torture, preferring to die rath
er than talk.
Alex had not been so brave; the beatings had been relentless, the pain unbearable. He’d been terrified of death.
He’d confessed to spying; then, as they began to break his fingers, he’d told them the time and place for the offshore rendezvous with Tenby.
Later, they’d stood him on the cliff-top to listen to the explosions of the torpedoes and depth charges as they blew his submarine to pieces.
The resonant detonations had sounded like the slamming of the gates of hell. He’d imagined he could hear the screams of dying men borne on the wind. The noise haunted his sleep to this day.
The ambulance stopped. The rear doors opened, and different faces appeared – new men to carry out the stretcher.
‘Where am I?’
His voice was barely audible. The KGB nurse heard it, but not the words.
‘It’ll be all right. Don’t worry. You’re safe.’
His enfeebled eyes saw a blur of lights and faces about him. A hand gripped his wrist for the pulse. Suddenly there were urgent words in a language he didn’t understand. They began to hurry, along the corridor, into a small room. A nurse unbuttoned his pyjama shirt and placed suckers on his bony chest. Another rolled up his sleeve. He felt a pain as they tourniqueted his arm, raising his vein for the needle.
‘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.
* * *
HMS Truculent 0600 hrs GMT.
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.
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