Shaw slipped off the “safe” of the Luger and then they waited.
A little later they heard the MVD car speeding up in the distance, its siren blaring, a high whine in the night air. Then it reached the top of the gradient and they heard the rushing sound and the flying grit as it came down.
Shaw reached out a hand. “Hold tight, Triska. Any minute now. Leave it all to me.”
Blinding headlights swung round the bend, travelling fast. Travelling too fast. The MVD hadn’t a chance. Shaw heard the screech of tyres as the brakes were rammed on but it was far too late to save them. The vehicle tore into Godov’s car at very nearly full speed, ploughed through it, reared up with its smashed bonnet in the air and all its windows shattered, and then plunged over on its side. The bonnet appeared to have been driven right back into the bodywork and as the first flicker of flame licked up Shaw caught the gruesome sight of a staring face protruding through the jags of the windscreen, its tongue lolling out and blood spurting from the severed arteries of the neck. By some miracle one of the men inside was alive, apparently even unhurt. An arm came through a side window, then a uniformed body. The man, dazed, clambered out on to the track, a revolver in his hand.
Shaw was out from cover now intending to make the man talk and tell him what the score was back in Moltsk; but the policeman had seen him and had brought up his gun. There was a stab of flame, a bullet whistled harmlessly by, and then Shaw had emptied the slide of the Luger into him.
The man fell back against the car as the flames roared up and enveloped both vehicles in the sheeted flame of a funeral pyre.
The road thenceforward deteriorated into a mere cart-track and Shaw realized that they couldn’t have driven much farther in the car anyhow. They stumbled on by torchlight, making the best speed they could with Carew carried between them. They saw no one. no sign of life whatever in this rocky, harsh land. Godov’s car had taken them well north before they had abandoned it, but even so they had walked for nearly two hours before they saw the lights ahead, a glimmer from scattered dwellings at the foot of what seemed to be the sheer rock sides of a fiord.
“It must be a village… just what we wanted!” Shaw was grinning with relief. “Right on the shore, too. Come on, Triska. We’ve just got to get to the fleet before those bastards get to us.”
They pressed on faster, with fresh life now that they had the last lap in sight. Carew was in a bad way now; before they had left the car Triska had put makeshift bandages on his wounds and done everything possible for him, but the man was clearly very sick and Shaw felt that he wouldn’t get through the night, could never hope to survive the trip to sea in a small boat; though if they could keep him alive until they boarded one of the ships, then the naval doctors might, he supposed, be able to save him.
They flitted like shadows in the moonlight between the few dwellings that formed the village. It was nothing more than a cluster of little huts fringing the shores of the fiord, one of many craggy inlets on that rough, inhospitable coast, and there was no sign of life out of doors.
As they went down to a shelving beach Triska pointed ahead. “There — there are some boats.”
“So I see. Come on. We’ll have to take the first likely looking one.”
They crept on, coming now right down to the water’s edge. Several fishing-boats of varying sizes were riding at anchor or secured to small mooring-buoys out in the fiord, which was being whipped up into wavelets by the wind coming in from the sea. None of the boats carried any lights and they all appeared as deserted as the village behind. The nearest one, which was some twenty yards from the shore, was a biggish open boat with a single mast and an engine.
Shaw pointed it out to Triska and said, “She’ll have to do.
I’ll take Carew out first. You stay here. All right?” He added, “Cover me with your gun if you have to.”
“All right, Peter.”
Shaw waded out through shallow water with Carew, his breath leaving him momentarily as the icy water soaked into his legs. Putting the scientist carefully onto the bottom-boards of the boat, he turned away and went back for Triska. Taking the girl and the bundle of blankets in his arms, he carried her out and lifted her into the stern-sheets. He said, “I’ll have to leave you to steer once we’re out of the fiord. Meanwhile you just sit there — and get those blankets round you. I’ll unshackle from the buoy.” He waded to the bows and quickly cast off one end of the buoy-rope and pulled it, hand over hand, through the ring of the buoy, then chucked the end back inboard. Then he went aft to Triska.
“I’m going to push her out as far as I can,” he said. “I’ll get wet to my neck, but there isn’t a hope of remaining dry anyway, once we put our noses out there.” He gestured towards the sea. “That way we shan’t make any noise, and if anyone does happen to wake up and look out of his window, we’ll be moving so slowly they won’t realize we’re going out. Now — shove the tiller over to starboard — no, the other way — that’s it!” He added encouragingly, “You’ll soon get the hang of it.”
He put his weight behind the boat’s counter and shoved.
Quietly, slowly the boat eased to sea, scarcely seeming to disturb the chop of a sea already getting rougher as the wind increased in gusts outside. It was going to be a foul trip, Shaw knew; he was frozen through already — but he would warm up soon when he started hoisting the sail — he wouldn’t risk the noise of the engine yet — and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him now.
When the water was up to his chest he heaved himself over the gunwale, bringing in a slop of water with him as the boat heeled to his weight. He rooted about in the bottom until he found a tatty sail; he began sorting out the tangle of canvas and rigging and after a time he was lucky enough to find a canvas dodger evidently cut to fit across the fore end of the boat. He said, This’ll help to keep Carew dry. I’ll give you a hand — we’ll make him comfortable up this end and then I’ll rig the dodger.”
Within five minutes this was done and he had the sail hoisted as well. He felt the boat heel over and take a grip on the water as the wind filled out the canvas. Then he moved aft to take over the tiller for the remainder of the trip out of the fiord. Tacking into the wind, they moved out, travelling faster now, dipping into short, breaking seas. Half an hour later they had passed a headland to the north and were clear of the fiord, sailing on a nor’-nor’-westerly course to intercept the British fleet.
As they left the lee of the rocky fiord the full force of a freshening wind hit them and the boat lay well over. Rising and falling to the lift and scent of the seas they flew onward, with the icy spray flying in their faces, Triska’s clothing already nearly as soaked as Shaw’s and heavy with the bitter seas.
Twenty-two
“God damn and blast!” Latymer raised his fists in the air helplessly and added, for the tenth time since he had arrived with the Chief of the Naval Staff in the Admiralty’s Operations Room, “I wish to heaven the PM would get cracking, Sir John. There may not be much time left now.”
“I know that, Latymer.” The First Sea Lord’s voice was quiet; he was apparently untroubled — until one looked into his eyes. “We can’t hurry them, though. Two speeds… dead slow and stop — they must take their time.” He put a hand on Latymer’s shoulder. “Remember that in spite of Shaw’s signals we still don’t know just what the threat is. The Cabinet’s still hoping for more news from Shaw.”
“God knows how they expect to get it, with the Embassy off the air!” Latymer snapped. “I’ve told ’em myself, we’ve got enough to go on already! The PM ought to order the Vulcans into the air and have ’em standing by with their Skybolt missiles to blast that tower off the face of the earth — before it’s too late!”