by Tom West
Kate deactivated the laser and returned it to the pouch in her suit. Lou slipped through the hole and into the wreck, Kate came through immediately behind him.
That was when they saw the first body, a man crumpled against the wall close to the base of the periscope a few feet away. The light from the PAT splashed into the small room. They could see the flesh of the man’s hands and the back of his neck had started to decay before the temperature had dropped enough to halt the process. There were crystals of ice over his uniform and in his hair. Kate crouched down and turned the body over. The face was smashed in, pink and red around bloated white flesh.
‘I think he died when the sub struck the sea floor,’ she said. And flicked on her comms to JV3. ‘We’re aboard. There’s a body in the conning tower chamber. Young guy, partially decayed as predicted. We’re proceeding on to the control room.’
‘Acknowledged.’
‘How’s the hull integrity, Commander? I hope I wasn’t too rough with the laser.’
There was a momentary silence, then Lamb’s voice came down the line. ‘Only slight perturbations by the look of things.’ They heard her at the control panel. ‘I think it was a good choice of location as an entry point.’
Lou found a sealed circular door in the floor and pulled it upwards to reveal a connecting tunnel about six feet long with a ladder bolted to the wall. He led the way, lowering himself into the control room below the conning tower. Reaching the metal floor, he stood aside as Kate came down.
It was completely black. Lou flicked on his helmet light and activated two powerful torches built into each sleeve of his thermal suit. Between them the lights threw out over two hundred watts. Kate did the same. The control room was the largest open space on the vessel, a rectangle about twenty-five feet by fifteen. Every surface was covered with dials, pipes, openings into voids, leather patches, levers and pressed-steel compartments. They noticed a patina of dust over every surface. Some of the metal components were tarnished by the toxic atmosphere in the sub. The ceiling, lined with white and grey pipes, stretched away just a few inches above Lou’s head.
There were four dead men in the room. Close to a secondary periscope and a small panel dotted with levers and dials the captain, Vince Jacobs, sat crumpled, his face eaten away by bacteria. Next to him, the co-pilot’s seat was empty. Two bodies lay on the floor between the control stations. It was clear how the men had died, each had a ragged hole where a part of their skull had been. Two pistols lay close by. The fourth body was slumped on the threshold of a narrow passage that led aft to the crew’s quarters.
Lou glanced at Kate – she seemed to be transfixed by the horrifying sight.
‘You OK?’
She nodded slowly and snapped back to the moment, steely professionalism taking over. ‘Yes. So . . . where do we start looking?’
‘I guess we should try to find Grenyov.’
The body across the doorway was that of a young sailor. They lowered him back to the metal and stepped into the crew quarters.
Lou was first into the room, the powerful light beams from his suit slicing the black. It was a long, narrow compartment with rows of bunks either side of a gangway. They could see most of the bunks were occupied, frozen humps under brown ice-sprinkled blankets. They walked slowly along the gap between the racks of the dead, checking each corpse.
At the third upper cot on the right, Lou stopped, peered closer at a face turned towards the narrow aisle. The beam from his helmet illuminated the face. It looked waxy, a mask. The stubble on the man’s chin was white and glistened with ice crystals. His dark eyes were open, his mouth contorted into a grimace. Skin, grey as a seal’s, was stretched taut over the bones of his face.
‘Grenyov,’ Lou said.
54
London. 9.15 a.m.
Chief Inspector Derek Warminster was seated in the police car with DS Paul Carrington at the wheel. From there they both had a clear view of the SWAT operation without having to don bulletproof vests and helmets. They could see the black painted door of Glena Buckingham’s London home, a three-storey white mansion in The Boltons, Kensington. The door was about to be stoved in by the team of four officers charging towards it brandishing a battering ram.
Ten seconds later they were inside. Two of the men charged across the black-and-white tiled hall floor and into a collection of generously proportioned high-ceilinged rooms to each side, sweeping their MP5s before them. As they did this the other two took the stairs to the next floor. Every few seconds one of the officers would shout ‘clear’ through his radio, and then move on.
Four minutes twenty-two seconds later, they had checked every square inch of the building and the static-laced voice of Team Leader Zero Four One came over the radio of the squad car in which Warminster and Carrington sat.
‘Building clear, sir,’ the team leader said. ‘No one home.’
Warminster cursed and flicked a glance at Carrington. The radio crackled again with a new voice. It was DS Dave Martin.
‘Sir. Leaving Eurenergy HQ. The building is clean. Neither Glena Buckingham nor Hans Secker are here. We have taken seventeen individuals into custody for questioning.’
‘Fuck!’ Warminster exclaimed and brought a bunched fist down on the plastic dashboard.
55
Flotta, Orkney Islands. 9.15 a.m.
Glena Buckingham and Hans Secker stood at the centre of the horseshoe of consoles in the main control hub of Eurenergy’s Flotta base off Orkney, precisely where they had been five days earlier.
On the giant screen dominating the centre of the room, Buckingham, Secker, Chief of Operations Dr Cecil Freeman and his staff could all see the sleek grey profile of the Eurenergy stealth ship Orlando. The vessel was stationary twenty nautical miles north-west of the Gladstone, anchored off the coast of Norway. Those gathered in the main control hub were able to see Orlando through a live uplink via the satellite network that had been online now for a week. The projection onto the screen was crystal clear.
‘Gladstone has remained in position for over two hours, now,’ Buckingham said quietly to Secker. ‘They must be directly over the location of the American submarine. Toit was true to his word, his information accurate after all.’
‘Toit has been briefed?’
Secker nodded.
‘We’ve managed to key into Gladstone’s comms and can eavesdrop on their bridge, ma’am,’ Dr Freeman said. He nodded to an operative on his right and a voice from the ship spilled from the speaker in the Main Control Hub on Flotta.
‘JV3? Come in, Commander Lamb, come in.’ It was Jerry Derham’s voice.
‘This is JV3, over. We have reached the Phoenix site and are preparing to dock.’
They’ve sent one of the JVs down,’ Buckingham said gleefully. ‘That’s a good . . .’
She did not finish the sentence. Blood drained from her face and she could not move her eyes from the screen. Several seconds passed before she could bring herself to speak. ‘What in the name of fuck is that?’
55
North Sea. 9.15 a.m.
A few feet to Derham’s right, a radar tech jerked upright in his chair and leaned towards the two officers. ‘Unidentified vessel,’ he announced. ‘Position nine hundred yards NNW, approaching fast.’
‘Why wasn’t it picked up earlier?’ Windsor snapped. ‘It’s almost on top of us.’
He had barely finished his sentence when the water beyond Gladstone’s bow began to churn. No more than a quarter of a mile away a grey shape appeared in the foam. It expanded with frightening speed, thrusting upwards, water streaming over its sides. The conning tower bore the symbol of a red star inside a red bar. Below this was written: 09–111.
One of the crewmen tapped at a keyboard. ‘Sir . . . Shang class sub, People’s Republic of China. NATO database designation: Alpha564/D.’
A voice broke through the bridge comms. ‘HMS Gladstone, stand down, prepare to be boarded.’ The English was only faintly accented.
�
�Put a call through to Ark Royal,’ Windsor said. He lifted binoculars to take a closer look at the sub.
‘Long-range comms down, sir.’
‘Oh, excellent!’
The bridge speakers burst into life again, and the voice repeated the message: ‘HMS Gladstone, stand down, prepare to be boarded.’
‘Prep forward gun.’
‘Prepped, sir.’
‘Fire across her bow.’
A roar filled the bridge as the Mark 42 5"/54 calibre deck gun fired. The shell whistled over the water, fifty yards off the bow of the Chinese sub, coming down in the sea a mile beyond the vessel.
‘HMS Gladstone, stand down, prepare to be boarded.’
Derham leaned in towards the comms operator. ‘Warn JV3,’ he said.
Windsor was preparing to send a reply to the persistent commander of the Chinese sub when a buzzer sounded on the No.2 radar monitor to his right. The operator stiffened.
‘What is it?’
‘Ark Royal, sir. Heading this way . . . fast.’
56
MI6 HQ, London. 9.17 a.m.
Prime Minister Nigel Townscliff’s face looked huge on the screen. He was rather an ugly man; and as Sir Donald Ashmore, Deputy Chief of the SIS, considered his leader’s visage, for a second he wondered how the PM’s face had not hindered his electoral success.
‘This has to stop, right now,’ Townscliff was saying, his gravelly baritone spilling too loudly from the speaker under the flat screen.
Ashmore’s assistant, Seth Wilberforce, was seated next to him. Wilberforce flicked a glance at his boss as Ashmore started to reply.
‘I understand your alarm, sir.’
There was a buzzing sound and the image on the screen split into three. Two new faces appeared. Ashmore recognized them immediately: Air Vice Marshal Pip Johnson and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Kenneth Frobisher.
‘Sorry, Prime Minister,’ Johnson said, ‘. . . technical hiccups.’
The PM looked disgruntled. ‘What’s the latest, Frobisher?’
The admiral, a cadaverously thin man who all on the call knew had recently fought and apparently beaten prostate cancer, cleared his throat. ‘Ark Royal has halted twelve miles west of the Chinese . . . visitor, sir.’
‘And standing down.’
‘On red alert, sir, but holding. The Chinese have gone quiet.’
‘Sir,’ said Ashmore, ‘I assume you have been briefed on the importance of this operation?’
‘A retrieval of some documents that have been under the North Sea for . . . what?’ Townscliff consulted a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of him. ‘Sixty-odd years . . . is that right?’
‘Sir, they are not just any old documents.’
Townscliff raised a hand and looked down. ‘American scientific papers. From Russia . . . I’m confused.’
Ashmore took a deep breath.
‘May I, sir?’ Seth Wilberforce intervened.
Ashmore waved a hand indicating that the younger man should speak.
‘Prime Minister, these papers – and the source document they refer to – were originally intended for Albert Einstein in 1937. The original document was part of something he was developing with the US Navy. It never reached him. It was stolen by the crew of a German U-boat and taken to Germany. After the war it fell into the hands of the Soviets. In 1954, a defector, a scientist called Dimitri Grenyov, who worked on and developed the ideas in the document, was bringing it and his work to the West when the sub he was travelling in, the American submarine USS Phoenix, was sunk . . . by the Royal Navy.’
For a moment, the prime minister seemed lost for words.
‘What possible relevance does this have today?’ the air vice marshal asked.
‘As I understand it, the technology at the heart of the research is still extremely important,’ Ashmore explained.
‘As you understand it?’ Townscliff said.
‘I’m not a scientist, sir, but we have a team of experts who have been investigating this matter. The CIA are involved and we have been working closely with them.’
‘I see,’ Townscliff said. He brought a hand to his chin. ‘Perhaps it is the Americans’ problem then.’
‘It is a joint matter, sir,’ Wilberforce interjected. ‘We sank Phoenix in Norwegian waters in 1954. It was a joint British–American Intelligence operation that got Grenyov out of Moscow and MI6 has been involved in tracing the location of Phoenix.’
Townscliff had his hand up again. ‘Gentlemen, this sounds like the plot to a 1960s B movie. No other way to describe it.’
Wilberforce went to speak, but the PM cut across him. ‘Ark Royal must not take any pre-emptive action. You understand?’
Ashmore said nothing. Frobisher and Johnson nodded.
‘Understood,’ Frobisher said crisply.
‘I want to be kept informed of everything as it happens; every detail, nothing is too small. This is delicate, very delicate. Could open up a whole bloody can of worms. The last thing we all need is a major international incident. I’ll have to talk to the White House . . . and the Norwegians. Christ!’
‘Sir?’ It was Seth Wilberforce.
The prime minister settled his gaze on Ashmore’s assistant.
‘Perhaps we haven’t made it clear just how important the document could be.’
‘You don’t need to, young man,’ Townscliff replied. ‘The all-important word in that sentence was “could”.’
57
North Sea. 9.17 a.m.
Kate looked down at Grenyov’s frozen body. ‘He died from hypothermia. His flesh is well preserved, and that expression – I’ve seen it before in old photographs from Scott’s expedition.’ Her voice was shaky.
‘You sure you’re OK, Kate?’ Lou asked.
She nodded and swallowed hard. ‘Yes . . . let’s just get on with it.’
They searched the bunk for the attaché case, but there was no sign of it.
‘Give me a hand,’ Lou said, bracing himself by standing on the lower bunk and pushing back on the top bed across the passage a few feet away. Kate reached round and gripped the dead man’s shoulders. Between them they lowered the corpse to the floor. He was as stiff as a plank.
It was awkward manoeuvring in the narrow space, but they managed to remove the Russian scientist’s clothes, his thick overcoat, threadbare suit, shoes. They opened up the pockets that had frozen shut, the fabric laced with ice. Finding nothing, Lou removed a knife from the belt of his suit and ripped open the lining of the overcoat. Again nothing.
Lou handed the coat across Grenyov’s body to Kate. She tossed it into the space behind her. Lou was just getting up when they felt the first explosion and the sub juddered. He stumbled forward, went to grab one of the struts supporting an upper bunk, missed it and crashed onto the body lying on the floor.
‘Mayday, Mayday.’ The sound spilled from their comms, the voice of Commander Ester Lamb. ‘Lou, Kate . . . Mayday, Mayday. Please respond.’
‘JV3? Come in, Commander,’ Kate responded.
‘We have a situation on the surface. A Chinese sub has shown up.’
‘Fuck!’ Lou exclaimed.
‘Suggest you abort the mission and get back immediately, over.’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Not yet. We haven’t been able to locate the document.’
‘We have a second problem,’ Lamb said. ‘Hull stability . . . Levels are falling.’
‘How bad?’
‘Some parts of the sub are reaching dangerous levels. According to my scans, Phoenix has shifted almost five feet inside the rock formation it is caught in. There’s a real risk of her breaking free. If that happens . . .’
‘Yeah, we get it,’ Lou responded. ‘How long have we got?’
‘It’s impossible to—’
‘Ball park?’
There was a brief silence down the line. The two scientists could hear Lamb’s breath coming fast and loud through the receiver. ‘Five, maybe ten minutes.’
‘OK. Th
e living and operations sections are so small and interconnected, we can get outta here in sixty seconds if we have to. We’ve got to find the document, or it’s all been a waste of time.’
‘Yes but—’
‘Sorry, Commander.’ Lou clicked off the comms.
‘We’ll have to go through the corpses one by one,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll take these three pairs of bunks, you take those.’ She pointed across the gap. ‘If we have no luck, we’ll move on to the next set, agreed?’
Lou didn’t answer, just started on the nearest bed.
It was a difficult and extremely unpleasant task. The first two bodies Lou tried were particularly awkward to search, the men had wrapped their arms about themselves in a futile attempt to stave off the freezing cold. Pulling an arm back, Lou heard the fragile bones snap. Feeling a sudden rush of nausea, he was forced to blank his senses as he shifted from bunk to bunk, from corpse to corpse until he had finished his three sets.
‘Anything, Kate?’ He turned to see her straighten up from her last body and shake her head. She looked very pale through her visor.
It was the same story for the next set of six, and the six after that.
Kate paused for breath, leaning back on the enamelled steel frame of the end bunk. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
Lou searched through the last body on his side, pulling off the blanket tucked under the corpse, stripping away the coat, two sweaters, a shirt and a thermal vest. He felt around the flesh, rigid against the gloves of his suit. Finally, he checked the sides of the bunk and under the pillow, running his fingers along an alcove in the wall adjacent to the bed. There he found a Bible and a photograph of a dark-haired woman in a flowery dress clutching two small children to her legs.
‘Nothing,’ Lou sighed.
A tremor passed through the crew quarters. Kate grasped a steel strut to steady herself as the sub shook from bow to stern. A loud grinding sound stuttered through Phoenix, rumbling around like a thunderclap in their headsets. She lost her grip, stumbled and started to fall back against the nearest bunk. Lou managed to grab her arm. She spun round, slipped and they both crumpled to the metal floor.
