"Right."
"Explain them to me."
Now the arrow dabbed at each of the lights as Clark talked.
"These positions haven't been updated for three hours — we have another hour before the satellite comes over the horizon and we can pick up transmission of the current picture. This is the carrier Kiev, the pride of the fleet. She's changed course three times, the last one took her from here to here —" Southwards. "She was heading west. These two are “Kashin”-class destroyers, they left Pechenga yesterday. These three are ELINT vessels, probably spy-ships rigged as trawlers, but they're not with fishing fleets — they" ve change course, here to here — " Southwards and eastwards. "This, according to some very bad satellite photography yesterday is a rescue ship, the Karpaty. She left Murmansk a couple of days ago. Why she's in the area, I wouldn't know. It may not even be her, could be another ELINT vessel, but a big one. And there are the submarines — " The arrow dabbed now at spot after spot of light. "Hunter-killers, every one."
"Thank you, Captain Clark." Aubrey turned to Pyott and the commodore, who had now joined them. Behind them, the junior officers formed a knot of silent supporters. "Is it because I am a mere layman that these Soviet naval dispositions frighten me, make me leap to one conclusion, and only one?" He paused, but there was no murmur of reply. He continued: "Gentlemen, it would seem obvious to me that the Soviets have at least surmised that Proteus is in the area and making for Tanafjord. This activity is not directed towards the rescue of the crippled submarine. What is intended I do not propose to guess. If anything happens to Proteus, I am now required to accept responsibility. If I can prevent it, nothing untoward will happen. Clark, come with me. We apparently require the cooperation of the Chief of Air staff. Commodore, a secure line, if you please."
"Thank God for sanity," Clark whispered. Aubrey turned on him.
"Ethan, it may already be too late. It is simply a matter of deciding tenses, from what you have shown me. Proteus is walking into — has walked into — a trap. Pray that the present tense still applies!"
A bright yellow TR7. It was an easy car in which to be tailed, and the two men in the Ford Granada had stuck to him from Edgbaston through the centre of Birmingham — even in the afternoon traffic — and out on to the M6 motorway. Standing in the doorway of the café near the college, the Melody Maker tucked under his arm, one hand disguising the burping indigestion that the sausage and chips had given him, he had seen the car parked across the street from his own. It had U-turned and followed him. He had never lost sight of it in his mirror, and they had never lost sight of him.
Thus he passed his turn-off eight miles further back towards Birmingham, and now the signs indicated the next service area. He signalled, and pulled off the M6, up the slope into the car park. He got out of the car without glancing at the Granada sliding into an empty place twenty yards from him, and went into the foyer of the building. He slipped into the toilet, walked the length of it, and exited through the second door, leading out again to the car park from the side of the building. He approached the corner slowly, peering round it. One of the two men was standing by the Granada, the other was nowhere to be seen. Presumably, he had followed Hyde into the service station.
Hyde waited impatiently. If the second man didn't move almost at once, he would have to go back into the toilet and attempt to shake them later. And now impatience was a nagging toothache. The man by the Granada was smoking, and picking at his teeth with the hand that held the cigarette. Come on, come on —
The man patted his stomach, which was ample, resting over the lip of his waistband. He hesitated, then he drifted towards the shop at the front of the building, moving with angering slowness out of Hyde's line of vision.
Hyde began running then. He reached the TR7, jerked open the door, and slid into the low seat. He had left the keys in the ignition. He started the engine, and squealed in reverse out of his parking space, swinging the car towards the car-park's exit. In the wing mirror, for a moment, the running figure of the fatter man, then the other emerging from the building behind him, yelling. Then he was down the slope and into the entry lane. He pulled out in front of a heavy lorry, and stamped on the accelerator. The next exit from the M6 was two miles away. He would lose them there, then double back to his intended destination. The speedometer registered ninety. He was still breathing hard, but he was grinning.
Hyde turned the TR7 into the most convenient car-park for Hall 5 of the National Exhibition Centre. The fountain in the middle of the artificial lake in front of the huge hotel complex looked cold and stiff, like dead, blowing grass. It had taken him almost an hour to backtrack the twelve miles or so to the NEC site. He had not been followed through the suburbs of Coventry, back towards the airport. They might — just might — have assumed that he was heading east, towards the M1.
Streamers bearing slogans. A queue had formed already, sleeping bags were in evidence, denim like a uniform or prison garb, combat jackets blazoned with insignia, out-of-style long hair worn by many. The audience, or part of it at least, for Heat of the Day's concert at the NEC, kick-off at eight o" clock. It was now almost five. Edwin Shirley's trucks were already unloading the sound and light equipment. Policemen.
Hyde showed his CID warrant card, and was allowed through the cordon. He immediately picked out Fat Mary, one of the formerly much-publicised road crew. Many of the faces seemed half-familiar from television documentaries when Heat of the Day were on their pinnacle. They had come back like lost disciples.
"Excuse me —"
"Piss off," the fat girl replied.
"Police, darling." He tiredly waved the warrant card.
"Nobody's carrying."
"I'm not interested. Are the band here?"
"Two hours yet. Want some autographs?" She watched two of the road crew carrying a huge mirror, and bellowed, "For Christ's sake, haven't you got all the mirrors up yet?"
"No autographs. Tell me — is Tricia Quin with them?"
A flicker, like a wasp sting, at the corner of her mouth, then the sullen look returned. "Who?"
"Tricia Quin. She was with you on the Europe tour two years ago. Her brother knew Jon."
"Oh, yes. I remember. No, haven't seen her. It's not all the same as before, you know."
"I don't suppose it is. She's not with them, then?" The fat girl shook her head. Her pendulous breasts distorted the claim on her T-shirt that she had attended the University of California. "Perhaps I'll stick around. Collect a few autographs."
"Or a few smokers."
"Who knows, Fat Mary." The girl seemed pleased at the use of her name, the recollection of a former, half-celebrity status. "Keep it in your pocket, not in your mouth. See you." The girl scowled after him.
Tricia Quin, unless he was mistaken — no, he wasn't — was with the band. Two hours seemed an intolerable length of time.
The one-time code message was lengthy, and even the computer's rendering of it into plain seemed to occupy far more time than was usually the case. Even so, when the KGB Resident Petrunin possessed the plain-language text, irritation immediately replaced impatience. He felt hampered by his instructions from Moscow Centre at the same time that he wished, fervently, to comply with those orders.
He left the code room in the embassy basement and took the lift to his office. At any cost — immediately. The girl. It was almost demeaning that an unavoidable test of competence and loyalty should have as its object an immature girl unable to cope with growing up. And it was infuriating that superior officers as eminent as the Deputy Chairman responsible for the KGB's 2nd Chief Directorate should indulge in some vulgar, glory-seeking race against the Red Banner Northern Fleet to see who could first acquire "Leopard" for the Soviet Union. All those old men belonged to the same class, the same era. Dolohov appears confident the submarine is sailing into his trap. You have little time. The girl, the girl —