J.F. Kirwan - 37 Hours

The halogen beam of the remaining sled, some thirty metres to port with Viktor and the other diver aboard, allowed Nadia to survey the scene. The sub was already at a thirty-degree angle. The propeller was at full thrust, its blades a ghostly blur. The only thing slowing the sub down was the friction of the sub’s hull against the bedrock of the ledge. But in a matter of seconds the sub would tip over and become one gigantic torpedo. She knew what she had to do. Get off the sub and swim towards the sled. But she had no fins, and the wake of the sub and its propeller would suck her in and shred her.

Where the hell was Sergei?

The halogen light focused on her. The sub began to tilt further. Her guts tightened as she looked down. The conning tower was located far forward on a Borei sub. She was already over the abyss.

Forty-five degrees .

Sergei’s head appeared. Then his shoulders. COME ON! One hand. He heaved himself up. He was carrying something. The sub began levering itself over the ledge. Tipping point. The halogen lights from the sled grew brighter, but the sled didn’t dare get too close.

Fifty degrees .

Sergei was out, carrying some piece of equipment the size of a briefcase. He reached for her hand. She grabbed it, and glanced backwards into the yawning abyss behind. The safety of the ledge was just within their reach but the sub was gathering speed. Now or never. She yanked Sergei to the left, and they kicked hard off the hull of the sub. She fell, while the massive black body of the sub, now at seventy degrees, thundered past, splintering rocks on its way, the grinding noise deafening.

She hit shaking ground, the jagged lip of rock separating her from the chasm, and she feared the entire ledge would give way. Her hands tried to dig into the rock for support, but her legs dangled over the edge in empty water, currents whipping over her body. At last the sub, almost vertical, powered past, the prop blades lost in a fury of dark foam. Instead of sucking her down, now the thrust of the propeller pushed her upwards, and she wasted no time in clawing herself fully onto the ledge.

Sergei was beside her. But whatever he’d tried to salvage – the case, she realised – was gone. She guessed he’d had to let it go or else follow his sub to the bottom. The halogen light grew brighter. But she lay there, as did Sergei, counting, waiting. A muffled boom rose from the abyss, but nothing else. No blinding flash. No detonation. The warheads hadn’t been armed. She dared to breathe again, whereupon her air became stingy. She sucked in a deep breath and held it.

The two divers on the sled were the ones she’d descended with. One of them held out a regulator for her. She had to take off her full-face mask in order to use it, so would be pretty much blind on her way back to the surface, but it was the only way. She caught a glimpse of Sergei, about to do the same. He caught her eye, initially sad, and then he smiled. He fucking smiled. She ripped off her mask and clamped her mouth over the regulator, and took several greedy breaths, then gave them the OK signal, and clambered aboard the sled as it began the slow climb to the surface.

God, she needed some new swear words.

Chapter Five

Nadia nursed a mug of coffee, inhaled the bittersweet aroma, and let the steam float over her nose, eyes and forehead. The ascent had been short, but they’d had to wait on the surface for half an hour before the helicopter plucked them from the roiling sea. They’d travelled to Murmansk airport, flying low over the Arctic’s northernmost city, where she glimpsed the Lenin , the famous nuclear-powered icebreaker, once the pride of the atomflot but now a naval museum. Then a quick transfer to the same aircraft in which they’d arrived. Now she was on her way back to Moscow. She shivered under the thin blanket wrapped around her.

Viktor, the driver of her sled, now Sergei’s number two on this mission, got up from where he sat opposite her, and draped his blanket around her shoulders.

‘Stay warm, little tovarich ,’ he said.

The Russian word for comrade was only ever used with irony these days, but she took it in a good way. The other diver, who had not yet spoken, nodded to her.

‘Next time we need to get inside a really tight hole, we call you,’ he said, and then the two men burst out laughing. It was infectious, but was cut off when light from the corridor flooded into the room, and Sergei stood there, silhouetted. Her gaze lingered.

‘Come,’ he said.

She took her mug with her, and handed the blanket back to Viktor. ‘ Spasiba ,’ she said, and followed Sergei to the luxury cabin.

The same four people were there – the colonel, his aide, Katya and Bransk – but the mood was sombre. Sergei summarised what they knew.

‘A single warhead was taken. They knew exactly what they were doing, and we have no idea where they are, and whether it was armed or not.’

‘Is there any way to disarm it?’ Katya asked.

‘Yes,’ answered the colonel. ‘With the codes in the briefcase our brave captain accidentally dropped in a kilometre of water.’

Nadia had to admit, they’d come so close, and then lost their one quick way of disarming the warhead. She could understand the colonel’s frustration – and there would be hell to pay when they got back. The way the colonel was baiting Sergei would be nothing compared to what would happen back in Moscow.

Sergei’s face tightened as he glared at the colonel. ‘Easy for you to say, sat in a nice warm room while we were fighting for our lives.’

‘Frankly it would look better in my report if you hadn’t let go. Or if you’d left it in the damned submarine, then at least we might have a chance of salvaging it!’

Nadia watched the muscles on Sergei’s forearms go rock hard. She sought to defuse the situation. ‘Surely they can’t be the only codes?’

Sergei brooded for a moment then nodded. ‘There are backup codes in a vault in the Kremlin. I know which warhead was taken, so if we find it – and that’s a big ‘if’ – we can make it safe.’

‘And next time,’ the colonel said, leaning forward, planting his forefinger firmly on the tabletop, ‘I will have the case.’ He leaned back, and waved a hand dismissively. ‘Our forces are sweeping the area. There’s a chance we’ll catch them with it, whoever they are.’

Sergei stared hard at him. ‘Probably it was airlifted away long before we surfaced. It could be anywhere by now, flying low.’

The colonel shook his head dismissively, and held up a palm. ‘No. They would have landed somewhere close. We have roadblocks creating a cordon for a five-hundred-mile radius on land.’

The emerald eyes of the colonel’s aide met with Nadia’s as if to say, here we go again. Posturing and denial. They had lost a nuke. A head would have to roll. The problem was that there was a chance of Nadia and Katya somehow being dragged down with whoever was going to take the rap.

‘The tattoos,’ Nadia said, suddenly remembering.

‘What?’ the colonel replied, not hiding his irritation.

‘At least two of them – the terrorists, or whatever they were – had a tattoo like a lizard.’

Sergei stared at her, while the colonel threw up his hands.

‘Why is she here?’ he said.

‘The client for the Rose,’ she began, then paused. ‘How good are your files on what happened on the Chinese cargo ship?’

The colonel looked flustered, his cheeks reddening slightly. This was his territory, but he clearly had no idea what she was talking about. Sergei watched her, the hint of a smile there, as usual. Was he born that way? Wouldn’t surprise her.

‘Cheng Yi’s last words,’ she said, then closed her eyes to recall them exactly as he had spoken them. ‘He is blind, but can see. Water and air are the same to him. He will find you in the darkness. You will not hear him when he comes for you.’