Sam took his ticket and slumped in a seat, conscious of other passengers looking at him. No holes in his body. No blood. A miracle. He began to tremble, the shock catching up with him. For two years he’d lived with the threat of a revenge attack by the Voroninskaya. Now it had happened. And why? Because a pretty but malicious woman had caused his picture to be plastered all over the media.
He leaned his head against the window glass. The dark side of his soul had taken over. No room for compassion any more. He needed to hurt Julie. To hurt her badly in whatever way it took. To damage her life, to perch it on the edge of a precipice in the same way she’d done to his.
13
The Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Montenegro Wednesday morning
DEEP BELOW THE surface of the Adriatic Sea, some 200 kilometres east of the Italian coastline, a long black shape sped westwards, unseen, unheard and undeclared. HMS Truculent – 280 feet of two-inch-thick welded steel, filled with men and electronics – was moving towards a spot on the chart where a helicopter would meet them after dark that evening. The submarine’s mission to eavesdrop on the rapidly developing conflict in Kosovo was over and there was a bagful of interception tapes to be offloaded. Inside the nuclear-powered hull, 130 souls had lived in artificial light and scrubbed air for two and a half months. The end was in sight, however. By Friday night they’d be in Crete for some much-needed shore leave with wives and girlfriends, before the long haul back to Britain through the Strait of Gibraltar.
On the uppermost of Truculent’s three decks, just forward of the control room, five blue-shirted sonar specialists listened on padded headphones to the newly detected clatter of a diesel engine a few miles to the north of their course. The sound room was small. If one man moved, others had to bend their backs. A dozen raster screens filled two sides of the space, the herringbone patterns and green smudges on their displays logging every detectable sound in the water around them.
One of the two leading artificers manning the ‘waterfall’ screens for the bow sonar swung round in his seat. ‘One shaft, three blades, chief.’ The youth was little over twenty, his accent from Plymouth, Truculent’s home port.
Behind him on a tall stool his watch leader nodded. ‘Fishing vessel,’ he confirmed, pressing the headset microphone against his lips and clicking the transmit switch. ‘Ops, sonar control.’ He spoke in a high, clear voice.
Beyond a thin bulkhead, in the submarine’s control room, watch officer Lieutenant Harvey Styles heard the intercom call and swung his seat to face the screens of the Submarine Automated Command System known as SMACS.
‘Bearing zero-five-seven, one shaft, three blades, diesel engine audible,’ the sonar controller announced. ‘No evidence of trawl. Suggest small merchant vessel, range outside ten thousand yards.’
‘Thanks, sonar control.’
No threat to them at that range, but one to keep an eye on. Nets were a submariner’s nightmare.
‘Cut it through.’
‘Cut. Track eight-six-seven.’
A small green square appeared on the SMACS VDU, showing the fishing vessel’s position relative to the submarine. A thin line indicated its heading.
‘We have that, sonar. Thanks,’ the SMACS chief acknowledged.
‘If he stays on that course we don’t have a problem, men,’ Styles announced. ‘But if he comes any further south to catch his squid then I can’t promise to stay friends with him.’ They were due at periscope depth in twenty minutes to receive a scheduled radio broadcast.
Harvey Styles was the submarine’s Tactical Systems Officer, a short, broad-shouldered man in a sand-coloured shirt with a fuzz of fair hair and brown eyes. As he crossed to the navigator’s station to check the chart, he spotted the captain emerging from his cabin.
‘We’ve got a fishing vessel at more than ten thousand yards, sir, on green zero-five-seven.’
Commander Talbot nodded and strode over to the command seat.
‘I don’t see any conflict at this stage, sir,’ said Styles, following him.
‘Thanks, TSO.’
Truculent’s captain was a stocky, dark-haired man with a deceptively mild expression, who wore a white, open-necked shirt with his rank insignia on his shoulders. Talbot let his gaze wander round the control room. Millions of pounds of electronics were packed in here, controlled by men whose minds were beginning to cloud with testosterone in anticipation of the upcoming ‘run ashore’. Brains in going-home mode could easily lose concentration. They needed to know he was watching them. He stared hard at the Command System screens, breathing down the necks of the operators. Then he stood up again.
‘You have the submarine, TSO.’
‘I have the submarine, sir.’
Talbot made his way forward past the conning tower access hatch and into the sound room.
‘Let me hear what you’ve got,’ he announced, clamping on a pair of headphones.
The bow sonar operator swung the beams through the three main targets on the screens.
‘The heavy beat is the US carrier the Theodore Roosevelt, sir,’ the sonar controller told him. ‘Ten miles to the south. The louder three-blader’s a small merchant vessel heading for Dubrovnik and the lighter beat’s the fisherman to the north of us.’
HMS Truculent was a ‘special fit’ Trafalgar class submarine, whose primary role was intelligence gathering. She had experimental sonar processors on board as well as a sophisticated signals intercept suite.
Talbot removed the headphones. ‘You all happy bunnies in here?’
CPO Smedley eased round on his stool and slipped his own cans halfway towards the back of his head.
‘Shall be, sir, so long as I trap in Souda at the weekend.’
‘Shouldn’t worry, chief. You usually do.’ Smedley had a reputation for finding women ready to perform for him. ‘The wife’s not coming out, then?’ he needled.
‘Hates flying, sir,’ Smedley answered, poker-faced.
Talbot suppressed a smile. ‘Just watch out for that ouzo,’ he cautioned. No one drank alcohol on board, but they all made up for it on a run ashore.
He left the sound room, stepping into the tiny ‘trials shack’ opposite, where the men from GCHQ did their stuff, huddled over scanners and frequency analysers, picking the interesting bits out of ‘enemy’ radio transmissions. For most of the mission Truculent had loitered at periscope depth a short distance from the Yugoslav coast, with her highly sensitive domed intercept mast poking above the surface. All transmissions picked up that were deemed significant had been taped for shipment to Cheltenham and a more detailed analysis. The last batch was packed up ready for the rendezvous with the helicopter in a few hours’ time.
There were six GCHQ specialists on board, each with a knowledge of Russian and Serbo-Croat. For much of the past two months they’d manned their scanners around the clock, but at this moment just one of them was in the trials shack. Communications Technician Arthur Harris sat on a padded bench with a map spread out on his knees.
‘What’re you up to, Chief Harris?’ Talbot demanded. ‘Your war’s meant to be over.’
‘Planning my next summer holiday, sir,’ the CT answered without a moment’s hesitation. Then he stood up, holding out the sheet of paper. ‘Actually, to be honest, I was hoping for one last bite of the cherry.’ He pointed to an island marked on the map, which was a large-scale sheet of the Adriatic coast. ‘When we come up to periscope depth for the broadcast, sir, we’ll be about fifteen miles south of Lastovo island. There’s a naval base there. Just a small one, but I’d be glad of the chance to listen in.’
‘Don’t want to dick around here for long,’ Talbot warned him. ‘Mustn’t be late for the budgie.’
‘Twenty minutes would be better than nothing, sir.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He turned towards the door, then hesitated. ‘Oh, just a thought. If you happen across any cricket scores when you’re listening in, do pass them on.’ It was an old joke, wearing a little thin at this end of
the tour.
‘Certainly will, sir.’
Talbot stepped back into the control room. They were cruising at fifteen knots at a depth of eighty metres, halfway between the surface and the sea bed. In a few minutes he would slow down and bring the boat shallower, ready for the raising of the periscope and radio mast – and now the intercept mast too.
Arthur Harris folded his map, deciding to fetch a smaller-scale sheet which showed all the known telecommunications sites on the Adriatic islands. He walked briskly through the control room, down the companionway to 2 deck and along the passageway leading forward. As he passed the galley he caught a whiff of pastry baking.
A few paces short of the forward bunk spaces where the junior rates had their berths, an open hatch gave onto a ladder down to the ‘bomb shop’, the weapons compartment that had been the living quarters for himself and the other CTs for the past ten weeks. He swung himself onto the rungs, taking care not to bang his head on the hatch handle, and dropped down to the deck below. Long black Spearfish torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles lay strapped on racks behind the polished brass caps of the launch tubes. Some of the weapons bays were empty, however, fitted instead with bunk pallets. Feet protruded from a couple of them. In the gangway between the weaponry were boxes of spares and recording tapes for the myriad sensors on board. One of them contained the CTs’ maps and manuals. To get at it Harris had to remove two others.
He was of average height with a thick shock of dark hair and a narrow, expressionless face. He was unmarried, though not by choice, but at sea he invented a wife to deter comments from the more homophobic senior rates.
He glanced up. Feet were descending from the deck above. They belonged to a young, dark-haired sailor whose pretty-boy looks prompted regular ribbing from some of the older men. The youth’s name was Griffiths. Not more than eighteen, Harris reckoned.
‘Sorry to disturb you, chief. Got to clean the place.’ Griffiths spoke softly so as not to disturb those sleeping.
‘That’s all right. I’ll be gone in a moment.’
Harris reached the box he was looking for and opened the lid. The orderliness with which he and his team had begun their mission had rather fallen apart. There was even an old paperback in there that he’d finished reading a week ago.
‘What’s the book, chief?’ Griffiths had come up beside him as he made his way to the aft end of the compartment looking for anything on the deck that shouldn’t be there.
‘Clive Cussler. It was okay.’
‘Never get the time, me,’ Griffiths complained. ‘Only reading I do is manuals. I’ve got a promotion exam when I get back to England.’
‘Good luck with it.’
‘Thanks.’
Griffiths moseyed on down to the end of the compartment, then finding nothing amiss made his way back to the torpedo tubes and began rubbing their brass caps with a cloth. Harris remembered hearing that the lad had got some girl pregnant back in Plymouth and was intending to do the decent thing. Married at eighteen. The thought of so much responsibility so young made him shudder.
Suddenly the hull began to tilt. They’d begun the transition to periscope depth. He found the map he’d been looking for and replaced the storage box under the others that had covered it. He had no particular reason for wanting to listen in to the Croatian naval base on Lastovo, but he hated wasting an opportunity when it was there. He squeezed past the boxes, then climbed the ladder back to 2 deck.
In the control room, the TSO crossed to the navigator’s position and nudged his fellow lieutenant aside so he could look at the chart. From beneath the navigation table a dot of light shone, marking their position on the chart as plotted by the Ship’s Inertial Navigation System. The TSO jabbed his finger at it.
‘Plus or minus how much, Vasco?’ The SINS had been drifting of late.
‘A mile at the most. When we stick the mast up we’ll get a GPS correction.’ A mile of error wouldn’t matter in the open sea and the Global Positioning System satellites would quickly locate them to within a few metres of their exact position.
Styles liked to throw his weight around when he was officer of the watch. He knew he’d make a damned good skipper when he’d passed his ‘Perisher’. Fail the stressful commander’s course and he would never serve in a submarine again. Pass and he should have his own boat to drive within five years, so long as the captains he served under didn’t take against him. Flag rank was what he was aiming for. A vice-admiral’s job at least. Maybe even the very top.
He crossed the control room to check data on the small screen next to the Command System panel. A graph recorded changes in salinity and the biological condition of the water around them as they came up from the depths, all of which could affect the way sound waves reached them. A sharp kink in the trace showed they’d passed through a layer that could have blanketed out noise from the surface directly above them.
Commander Talbot had seen it too. Warily, he ordered eighteen metres – periscope depth – and a speed of three knots.
Styles hovered by the search periscope ready to seize its grips when the order came to raise it.
‘New contact, sir!’ An alert from the sound room.
‘Damn!’ Talbot grunted. The submarine was at its most vulnerable just below the surface. ‘Bearing?’
‘Red zero five. One shaft, five blades. Large merch.’
‘Damn! Starboard thirty,’ Talbot ordered. The planesman pulled hard on his wheel.
‘Moving left.’ The sonar chief again. ‘Range five to seven thousand yards.’
‘That’s better,’ Talbot muttered. Far enough for safety and moving away from them. Everyone in the control room relaxed.
‘Three minutes to the broadcast, sir,’ Styles cautioned. If they missed the slot it’d be four hours before they could try again.
The boat began to wallow in the surface swell, the planesman riding his controls to keep her level.
‘Ops, control. No more contacts.’
‘Thanks control. Raise the search periscope.’
The stainless steel shaft hissed up from its well. Harvey Styles pressed his face to the soft rubber of the eyepiece. Water splashed silently against the outer glass of the sight. Overhead the sky was overcast. The slate grey sea heaved and chopped in a stiff breeze which flicked spray from the wave crests. Styles checked the horizon. Satisfied it was clear ahead of them, he swept the sight through a full 360 degrees.
‘No visual contacts, sir.’ He began a second sweep to make sure. ‘I estimate visibility at five thousand yards.’
‘The Radar Warner has low level E and F band,’ another voice shouted. Civilian radars. No threat. ‘Risk of detection nil.’
‘Good.’ Talbot relaxed. ‘Raise the comms mast and the intercept mast. Let’s make the CTs happy.’
Three minutes later the signals officer reported that the satellite broadcast from London had been taken in successfully.
‘Excellent.’ Talbot beamed. Apart from routine operational matters the signal should include the solution to yesterday’s Telegraph crossword. He stepped across to the periscope as Styles relinquished it. ‘Nice sailing weather up there?’
‘Depends on your stomach, sir.’
A few feet from the control room, Arthur Harris and two of his fellow communications technicians hunched over the racks in their shack. Harris’s knowledge of Serbo-Croat was basic, Russian being his main skill. He was due to attend a course in the language when he’d completed his leave at the end of this patrol. His two companions were fluent, however.
This far from land their expectations of intercepts were low. A week ago they’d been close in to the mainland, monitoring tactical chat between Serb units in the Kosovo mountains to the north of them. Harris watched the squiggles on the spectrum analyser, randomly selecting transmissions to dip into. Dull stuff, mostly. Marine band VHF – the ramblings of local boatmen. If the Croatian Navy was active on Lastovo, it was being damned quiet about it. Harris kicked his shoes off. His
feet had been itching of late – some fungal infection between the toes that seemed resistant to athlete’s foot powder.
Suddenly a new spike appeared on the VHF display. He tuned in quickly, activating filters to minimise the background hiss to the voices he was hearing. The transmitter must have been on low power or at the limits of its range.
Then he sat bolt upright, pressing the headphones to his ears, his interest galvanised. What he was listening to wasn’t Serbo-Croat. It was Russian.
Coming from a place where no Russians ought to be.
Vienna
Sam’s flight touched down at Schwechat Airport just after midday. The attack by the shpana from Odessa had left him badly rattled. Stumbling into ambushes seemed to be becoming a habit. Last night after escaping from the mafiya killer, he’d phoned Bennett with a description of his assailant, but they’d both known the chances of his being found were slim.
Sam walked from the arrivals gate past a long line of overpriced boutiques. He was dressed in his light grey suit. A bored official on the EU passport counter waved him through, then while waiting for his bag, he queued at the tourist desk and booked a room in a small pension near the Ringstrasse.
When he’d phoned Hans Kesselring his German intelligence contact yesterday to check on Hoffmann’s whereabouts, he’d asked for an update on the man when he got to Vienna. The response was waiting outside the arrivals door, a copy of Spiegel magazine clutched in his fist.
‘Fischer,’ said the fair-haired German, introducing himself. He was a centimetre taller than Sam and wore a dark blue suit. ‘I am in post at the Embassy here in Vienna.’
‘Packer’ said Sam, happy that the man’s English was okay. His own German had become rusty through lack of use. ‘Good of you to meet me.’
They headed towards the exit and waited until they were in the car heading in to the city before talking again.
‘May I ask why you still have an interest in Herr Hoffmann so long after he retires?’ Fischer asked.
‘History,’ Sam replied. ‘We think he can throw light on something that happened in Britain twenty-seven years ago.’ Sam didn’t feel the need to elaborate further.
The Lucifer Network Page 20
