Matthew Dunn - Sentinel

The Russian submarine captain ran through the woods, searching for signs of anyone who might kill him. It was night, and the forest was dense. Sleet struck his face. His body trembled with cold and fear.

Reaching a tiny area of open ground, he stopped, crouched, and listened. The sea was only a few hundred yards away, and he could hear the sounds of waves crashing over shingle. Turning slowly, he braced himself, half expecting to see men with flashlights, guns, and dogs rushing toward him.

He stayed like this for two minutes before glancing in the direction of his car. It was hidden from view, parked in the trees off the nearest road. It would take him one minute to get back to the vehicle and another twenty minutes to reach his submarine base. He was allowed off the base for only one hour. Time was running out.

Walking quickly, he moved out of the clearing and into more forest. He counted each step, stopped when he had gone eighty paces, changed direction, and walked a further fifty steps. The tree was before him. It looked like those around it-tall, thin, no foliage, and slightly bent from easterly winds-but he knew it was the right tree. He’d been here seven times before and despised the location because on each visit he’d always wondered if it was the place where he’d be trapped and killed.

He unwrapped a thin, waterproof poncho, draped it over his head and body, withdrew a small flashlight and penknife, and knelt at the base of the tree. The ground beneath him was sodden with an icy slush, and his pants quickly became saturated. After lifting the poncho’s edge and positioning it against the tree, he switched on the flashlight and moved its beam over the trunk. He quickly found what he was looking for: a small circle with two horizontal lines within it carved into the bark. Around it were seven older carvings that had since been defaced. Flicking open the knife, he carefully cut a third horizontal line into the circle.

He bent down and let the poncho fall away from the tree so that it was completely covering his body and acting as a makeshift tent. Sleet banged against it. After putting the end of the light into his mouth, he used the knife and his other hand to dig in the ground directly beneath the symbol. Pain shot through his fingers as they removed cold, wet soil, but he kept digging, constantly aware that he had to do what was necessary as quickly as he could.

The knife struck something hard a few inches beneath the ground’s surface. He tapped the blade against the thing to confirm that he’d not simply struck a root, but the object was clearly metallic. Discarding the knife, he eased both hands into the hole, wincing as more pain moved into his arms, and gripped tight when he felt the small box. After he pulled it out, he placed it next to his knife. Then he momentarily put his hands into his armpits to try to get them warm before shining the light directly on the container.

Brushing soil off its surface, he saw that it was the same gunmetal box he’d always used. But he had to be careful in case it was booby-trapped. He lifted it off the ground and thought that it felt the right weight, though he knew that told him nothing. Only a tiny piece of primed C4 would be needed to rip off his face. Grabbing the knife, he placed the tip under the container’s latch, paused for a moment, and flicked it open. The rain drummed harder against his poncho.

He stared at the box for a while, his heart racing, sweat running down his back even though he was colder than he’d ever been in his life. Placing one hand on the base and the other on the lid, he began pulling it open. When he felt the hidden rubber seals resist, he closed his eyes and pulled harder until it was ajar. He opened his eyes. The only thing inside was a metal cigar tube. Lifting it carefully, he unscrewed the tube’s cap, peered into the tube, and felt relief. Inside were a stubby pencil and a rolled sheet of plain paper. He flattened the paper and began to read.

The relief vanished.

His hand shook as he brought the pencil close to the paper.

The codes raced through his mind. He identified the numerical equivalent of each letter, added that to another set of memorized numbers that corresponded to the letters in order to determine the cipher text letters, and then began writing.

It took him six minutes to write the first sentence. He hated communicating this way but knew that the code was almost unbreakable unless the key code was discovered or he was tortured to reveal its detail. Communicating with anything more sophisticated was far too risky. All electronic communications signals into, out of, and near to the base were monitored. Sending an encrypted burst transmission from close to the base could easily pinpoint him as a spy.

He was about to begin the second sentence, but then he stopped, his hand hovering over the paper. A noise, distant but loud enough to be heard over the dreadful weather, was coming from the direction of the road. Then it grew louder. He thought it might be a car. Then he knew it was a truck. Only the military drove vehicles like that around here.

His hand unconsciously became a clenched fist. Tonight he was due to telephone his daughter to congratulate her on her promotion within Russian military intelligence. She would be pleased with his call because she respected her father’s opinion and deeply admired his lifelong career of service to Russia. But he knew that if she could see him now she would be deeply ashamed of him.

The truck slowed. He wondered if the patrol had spotted his car and was worried about its owner or whether it had come here looking for a traitor. He tried to think clearly and wished the sleet and rain would stop.

An idea came to him: if his car had been spotted, he would confront the soldiers and tell them that he’d hit a deer and followed it into the woods, a likely enough occurrence on these forested roads. They’d probably even volunteer to help him kill the injured beast so that they could take it back to the base.

The truck braked; its engine idled.

The captain looked at the cipher. He had to write the next sentence, but time was short.

A door slammed. Then another.

He had no time.

He made a decision and muttered in Russian, “It’s all I can give you.”

Ramming the paper and pencil back into the cigar tube, he put it back into the box and buried the container in the same spot. Wind buffeted his poncho, the rain forcing it onto his face. He had to move, but he hesitated for a moment. Shivering, he silently recited the message he had just written.

“He has betrayed us and wants to go to war.”

Will Cochrane stood alone on the deck of the rusty merchant cargo ship. It was night, and the boat rocked with the swell of the sea as a snowy wind blasted his face, but the MI6 officer ignored the vessel’s movement and freezing weather. All that mattered to him was his destination. The desolate Russian coastline drew closer. He was being taken to a place where he knew he could die.

His objective was to get to shore, infiltrate the remote Rybachiy submarine base, and locate the captain. The Russian submariner, an MI6 agent code-named Svelte, had sent an encrypted message of such importance that it had been passed to the top secret joint MI6-CIA Spartan Section. It was clear that the message was incomplete, and a decision had been made to deploy the section’s senior field operative to find out who had betrayed the West and wanted war.

The big officer brushed snow off his cropped dark hair, checked that his Heckler amp; Koch USP Compact Tactical pistol was secure in his jacket, and waited. He’d been on similar missions in the past during his nine years in MI6 and during the preceding five years as a French Foreign Legion Groupement des Commandos Parachutistes special forces soldier. But the thirty-five-year-old knew this was going to be particularly tough-even for a man who carried the code name Spartan, a title given to only the most effective and deadliest Western intelligence officer.