As they stepped out of the car a uniformed officer strode up to meet them. His aloof bearing, together with the thin red stripe nestled between the officer’s stripes on his epaulette, marked him out as a member of the Naval Infantry or a staff officer, but his bearing and behaviour suggested he was from the feared Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU. He announced that he was there to see to their needs, Holloway immediately recognised he would be watching their every move.
Led on board by this escort, the advance party stepped on to the rusting deck on which they were going to install their rescue system. While the ship’s master was talking to Captain Holloway, Nuttall and Cave began plotting where they were going to install the gear. They would need clean deck space to weld down their control container, the deployment crane and the winch for the spool of umbilical cable, and there had to be a clear exit to swing Scorpio over the side. The master nodded, gesturing for them to
Led on board by this escort, the advance party stepped on to the rusting deck on which they were going to install their rescue system. While the ship’s master was talking to Captain Holloway, Nuttall and Cave began plotting where they were going to install the gear. They would need clean deck space to weld down their control container, the deployment crane and the winch for the spool of umbilical cable, and there had to be a clear exit to swing Scorpio over the side. The master nodded, gesturing for them to look around and pick their spot. A welder would be despatched to help them immediately.
‘We’re also going to need a three-phase power feed, between 380 and 480 volts. And what’s your hertz? A screen from the positioning system would be nice too,’ Nuttall said.
The master frowned as he listened to Holloway’s translation. ‘There’s no Dynamic Positioning on the vessel,’ came the reply through Holloway. ‘He says it’s thirty-five years old.’
Nuttall caught his breath. How were they going to pull this off if they couldn’t hold position over the site? But he didn’t object. There was more than one way to skin a cat. Besides, there was nothing he could do right now – he had to work with what he’d been given. He and Cave began walking the deck to work out where their equipment should be sited. In the end there was only one place it could go: slap in the middle of the ship. But even then there wasn’t a big enough gap for the crane to be installed and still leave room to swing Scorpio overboard. Workshops had been installed around the perimeter of the whole ship. The best solution would be to put the crane on top of one of them. They started to investigate.
‘Jesus,’ said Cave. ‘Look at this.’ He was kneeling on top of the workshop they’d identified as the only place to site the deployment crane. It wasn’t ideal, since the crane would have to be at full stretch to reach over the side, but it was all they had. But Cave was holding up a large flake of rust, poking at more loose fragments that lay beneath. The whole roof was peeling away. It didn’t look as if it was going to be able to take anything like the loads they were about to exert on it, and there was no way for them to check. Every other vessel they’d used on exercise had been taken through rigorous strength testing. Now, just when the stakes were at their highest, they were going to have to weld their crane on to not much more than rust.
Saturday, 6 August
SS + 51 h 40 mins
At 20.10 there was a roar from the darkening skies above the Elizovo airfield. The noise grew and grew until suddenly the enormous belly of the US Air Force’s C5 dropped out of the low cloud. Its drooping wings were reaching towards the ground, which it touched down only seconds later. The aircraft didn’t appear to be slowing down at all, its inertia carrying it further and further down the runway until it had all but disappeared. Riches was about to arrange a lift over to them when someone noticed it had begun taxiing back towards the UK team. At last, some good news, he thought. They were going to direct the C5 to park nearby, allowing easy coordination. But the huge American plane rumbled past, crossing the taxiway on which the C17 stood and on, eventually disappearing behind some trees and bushes. They were not allowed to stop until they’d got in front of the airport’s commercial terminal buildings, two miles away.
Riches turned to the Russian escorts and asked them to take him over there in one of their vehicles. He was anxious to go and see them immediately to present his case to their senior officer, to try to persuade him to loan their K-loader when it arrived. Commander Kent Van Horn, the Commanding Officer of the US Navy Deep Submergence Unit, should be on board. The two men knew each other from the recent NATO exercise in the Mediterranean, so there was a chance he’d listen. But the Russians just shook their heads.
‘Niet.’
Until the C5 had cleared customs, there would be absolutely no contact with the American crews, Riches was told. Worse still, there was some talk that he would not be allowed to see them at all. He tried everything. He talked calmly to the guards, reasoning that this delay could be costing the lives of their countrymen. He demanded to see superior officers. He tried veiled threats of future repercussions.
Every time the same reply came back: ‘Just wait.’
Commander Kent Van Horn sprang to his feet as soon as the C5 stopped, and was waiting by the hatch when the crewmen broke the seals and swung it open. He was poised to leap out into the waiting fleet of transport vehicles that would rush his men down to the port and on to the vessel to which they’d been assigned. But his square jaw fell open when he saw what awaited him on the tarmac. There was not a vehicle in sight. Instead, walking up to the unfolding aircraft’s steps was a scrappy group of around eight people, some in uniform, some not. And rather than looking glad to see them, the expressions of the military men were sour as he made his way down the stairs and across Russian soil to meet them.
Van Horn must have appeared as the archetypal American to the Russian welcoming party – 6 foot 3 inches tall, broad, with a prize-fighter’s jaw and gleaming white teeth. He was still in his trainers from the flight, and shook hands with the man who appeared to be the senior Russian officer. He was greeted by a few gruff-sounding words in Russian, accompanied by gestures towards the aircraft. At his side, an attractive girl in her twenties in civilian dress translated into thickly accented English.
‘You need to get back on the plane,’ she said.
Van Horn protested, but was told that until the correct checks had been made, no one on the plane was allowed to get off the aircraft. Realising there was nothing he could do but cooperate, he walked back up the stairs and into the C5, followed by a handful of the Russians.
‘We need to see your passports,’ the translator said, following another burst of harsh-sounding language from the Russian officer when they’d got back inside. Van Horn was incredulous. This was the last thing he had expected.
‘Not everyone has them,’ he replied. ‘We have military IDs instead.’
The Russian accepted this, and one by one the American crew filed past to present their IDs. With each of the 36 men on board, the Russian compared the photo with the face, then wrote down the name on a clipboard. Van Horn was itching with impatience – the whole procedure struck him as a monumental waste of time, given the situation. They’d flown direct from the US across the entire Pacific, refuelling the aircraft twice mid-air in order to shave off every possible minute, and now this.