J.F. Kirwan - 37 Hours

‘This isn’t a game,’ Katya said to Sergei, her voice like acid.

‘On the contrary, it is a very real game, with very high stakes. But I don’t give people a task unless I know they can execute it.’

Ten seconds more. Her fists tightened, she blinked hard.

‘For instance,’ Sergei said, ‘things can go wrong. You may have less time than you need. Or you may have more time than you want.’

Ninety seconds. He didn’t release her.

Her eyes watered. Her hands shot to his wrists, but they were iron, his black eyes on hers, large, searching, but also willing her to continue. Like her father.

‘Let her go!’ Katya shouted.

Nadia’s body trembled. She tried not to squirm or claw at his hands, or even knee him in the balls. But the gnawing feeling in her gut and lungs lashed at her in furious waves.

‘I need to see how people react under pressure, how they face the unexpected.’

Nadia understood. A test. She dropped her hands, stared back at him. Her body continued to tremble. Her vision grew blotchy, and the spasms in her diaphragm decreased. Her ears started to ring. She knew what came next.

Bransk spoke, his voice a distant boom above the ringing. ‘You’ve made your point. So has she.’

Sergei released her. She dropped into a crouch on the floor, gasping, coughing, sucking in air, Katya’s arms around her.

The colonel spoke. ‘We leave now. There’s a transport plane waiting.’

Nadia wiped her mouth. ‘I need a coffee with sugar.’

A silver hip flask appeared next to her, in the same hand that had almost asphyxiated her. She took it. Coffee, sugar, and something else.

Katya shouted at the colonel. ‘And if we refuse?’

The female lieutenant produced a clutch of papers. ‘She is wanted on three counts of crimes against the state. However, if she does this for her country, she is free.’

Nadia got up, addressed the colonel. Now was the time. She didn’t want to be kept by Bransk, or even Katya. She craved independence. ‘I want recompense. Fifty thousand US dollars equivalent – I haven’t been keeping up with the exchange rates.’

‘Done,’ said the colonel.

I should have asked for more .

Sergei gave her a smile. ‘Now, we really do have to go.’

She handed back the hip flask. ‘How deep is the sub?’

‘Forty-two metres.’

A deep dive after two years in solitary. But she would manage. ‘Your divers better be good,’ she said.

He didn’t answer, and besides, she already guessed they’d be the best.

Chapter Two

As it turned out, Sergei was going to be one of the divers. Unorthodox by any military standards, let alone Russian ones, but she sensed this man was a maverick. He must have delivered good results in the past, or else his wings would have been clipped by now.

The inside of the old Antonov AN140 military transport plane was noisy, uncomfortable and cold. The loud thrum of the twin propellers muffled all communication. At least she’d been given a parka coat and a warm Ushanka fur hat with earmuffs. The bench was hard, the hull khaki-painted metal covered with elastic webbing. It meant there was always something to grab on to.

The diving equipment lying on the heavily scuffed aluminium deck was well used but also well maintained. She inspected it, shouting one or two questions above the din at Sergei when she wasn’t absolutely sure about something.

Four other divers sat in the aircraft hold, wetsuits under their coats, neoprene dive hoods up. None of them spoke. No jokes, no banter, no engagement with her. They each carried a blue and grey plastic assault rifle, which she presumed would work when wet, though not necessarily in water. That was what their spear guns were for. There were two motorised sleds, the same size as motorbikes. When Sergei left the compartment for a while, she moved towards one of the sled control consoles, to see how it worked.

‘Don’t touch!’ one of the divers barked.

‘Show me the controls, just in case.’

Another diver – she reckoned the leader after Sergei – spoke to her slowly. He had a voice that had seen a million cigarettes, and clearly didn’t appreciate her presence on the mission.

‘There is no “in case”. We will get you to the submarine, get your skinny ass inside the tube. Hope you like tight holes as much as we do.’ No smile.

‘I’m Plan B, aren’t I? You had someone else in mind. One of your own.’

‘You are Plan F,’ he said, no longer looking at her.

Nothing she said would make any difference. Only how she acted underwater. She continued examining the assembled equipment. Along with what looked like welding equipment, there was something else on the floor: a gold-coloured cylinder a foot long and four inches thick. It looked heavy. She had no idea what it was, and decided not to waste her breath asking.

Last, she checked her dive gear. A single, thin tank strapped to a harness that also had pockets she could inflate to keep her buoyancy neutral no matter the depth. A skinny stab jacket. She’d never seen one so pared-down. She looked around for a diver’s weight belt – the other half of buoyancy control – but there wasn’t one, and she noticed the other divers weren’t wearing them either. If she got separated from the sled, that would make a controlled ascent difficult. No, make that impossible. Perhaps that was the point. Asking these men about it would only make her standing with them worse.

Sergei reappeared and signalled her to follow him. They walked towards the plane’s fore-section, a small chamber just before the cockpit, where Bransk, Katya, the colonel and the brown-haired lieutenant all leant on a white table. Once Sergei and Nadia entered, it was pretty snug. At least it was quieter, and the seats were cushioned. Sergei unfolded a map and pointed to a location ten miles offshore, marked with a red cross.

‘I don’t see an airport,’ Nadia said.

‘Are you afraid of heights?’

Crap! They were going to para-dive into the sea. That’s why all the equipment was so streamlined. She shook her head, as much in disbelief as in resignation.

He placed another smaller piece of paper on top, a line drawing of the sub shown from three different angles. He pointed again. He had long, agile fingers. They moved fluidly like a pianist’s. Nadia had a thing about hands. Partly why she’d let him hold her mouth closed earlier. She refocused on what he was showing her.

‘We’ll cut off the bow cap of torpedo tube number three, here. It’s already flooded because they went to high alert when the sub was taken.’

Katya spoke in a pissed-off voice. ‘Which was how, exactly?’

Sergei ignored the question. ‘You will remove your tank and make your way through the tube. There will be a line around your waist. If you get stuck, you give three hard pulls, and we drag you out.’

And how would she give three hard pulls in such a confined space? Her hands would be forward. She doubted she’d be able to reach back once inside the tube. Trapped like a worm. Added to that, they would seal her in to prevent flooding the torpedo room when she breached the inner hatch.

‘You’ll have lights on your mask, and a camera. We can see what you see, but we can’t talk to you.’ He held up a thin canister with a mouthpiece attached. ‘This will give you ten good breaths at that depth. No more.’

Sergei outlined the complete plan. She would secure the torpedo room. There was a computer workstation there. She had to insert a USB key into it. A cyber-virus. It would wreak havoc with the sub’s systems – lighting, aircon, engines. Most importantly, the weapons launch and guidance software would be erased. It would be the distraction Sergei needed; otherwise he’d be killed as soon as he tried to enter the sub.