Hunter Killer

4 LITTLE BEAR

Like the curtain suddenly going up on a startling and unfamiliar stage-set, the DNI'S words seemed to bring unreality with them. The room itself now looked unreal to me, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. I felt almost clinically detached from the group-the lovely woman, the silver-haired Intelligence chief, the submarine ace, tough and alert as if he had undergone a resurrection rather than an immersion.

I repeated the Vice-President's name for want of anything better to say. Marvin K. Green!'

MKG,' corrected the DNI. Better get used to calling him that. You're to see a good deal of the man shortly.'

I looked at Peace, for it was with MKG that he had worked on the SNAP nuclear motor project.

He's a regular guy, as they say,' he replied.

The DNI's precise voice cut in. ' You and Geoffrey will see him launched safely into space. That is your assignment.'

Mam'zelle Adele spoke for the first time, more to me than to the others. ' I'm part of the assignment, too.'

I banged down my glass.! This sounds like science fiction'

On the contrary,' replied the DNI. There is no fiction. The Prime Minister has guaranteed to the President our full cooperation in launching MKG.'

MKG had emerged as product and leader of the American technocratic society which had grown up round nuclear science and missilery. He had graduated from the famous Naval Research Laboratory and, as the nation's top scientist, had been picked for the Vice-Presidency. As a result, an aura of glamour had developed round this office, which in the past had been regarded as rather a backwater, consonant with America's lead in the space race and MKG'S not inconsiderable part in it. The United States-and the world-had watched the youthful MKG (in his thirties) train as an astronaut and set the seal on his devotion to space exploration by actually making a trial orbit and splash-down. From that moment he was the darling of the nation. In brief, MKG personified the rule of science in the space age.

Peace said, as if following my line of thought, MKG is a Navy man, through and through. He has what the us. Navy calls " in-house capability ". But this isn't a simple orbiting job, like he has done before. It's the big thing. MKG will space-liaise and land on Santa Fe.'

The Americans had christened their principal skyport for Davis and Acton's moon-shot after the great trail of the Old West, which certainly sounded more homey than the official designation: Space Logistics, Maintenance and Rescue

Spacecraft.

Without my asking, Mam'zelle Adele took my glass and poured me a stiff shot from the brandy decanter. Peace also splashed more liquor into his rummer. He was very tense. All the world knew that Peace, a nuclear submarine commander and one of the bright stars of Britain's new Navy, had headed the top-flight SNAP team to the United States. After meeting Peace and the British team, MKG had been sold on the SNAP miniature power plant for missiles, and by virtue of his scientific status, had been designated by the President to head the maze of committees handling atomic energy projects. With MKG'S endorsement of SNAP, it looked as though the world was to benefit from a highly-successful AngloAmerican space project. Then Davis and Acton reached the moon in a Sirius, an Air Force liquid-fuelled rocket. The Americans went crazy over Sirius, despite the fact that it was hinted, although not officially admitted, that its failure to return safely to earth had been due to the erratic behaviour of the capsule's solarpowered batteries. The two astronauts had been unable, because of power failures, to re-enter the earth's atmosphere, and had been burned up with their space-ship. The built-in genius of SNAP, averred MKG and Peace, would prevent any similar recurrence in future.

A bitter controversy had arisen and the British public then became aware of the complicated system of checks and balances which operated in the American atomic programme. They learned that overall control of the atom in the United States was vested in the Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian body of five appointed by the President, but that the budget and legislative side was handled by the Joint Congres43 sional Committee on Atomic Energy, whose eighteen members, divided equally between the Senate and the House, were policy-makers and watchdogs. The Commission also relied '

On the advice of its own body of nuclear experts. This body, despite pressure by MKG and the President-who was known to favour SNAP-threw out the British project.

The British public became aware, at the same time, of a revival of the old rivalries between the American Services. MKG and SNAP stood for the Navy, Sirius for the Air Force. The Air Force rightly pointed to the successful moon landing and countered the Navy's claims by insisting that SNAP had never been tested in space, whereas Sirius had, and, moreover, SNAP was a non-American motor which should give way to American enterprise.

Peace had made himself very unpopular in the United

States because of his outspoken criticism of the dropping of SNAP. His remark that Sirius was no more than a land-based missile of little advanced strategic value had aroused a storm of resentment amongst the American populace, blinded by the success of their two astronauts in reaching the moon first. Peace had returned with the SNAP team to England, licking his wounds, still a target for American criticism.

Now he and the DNI were talking of launching MKG himself into space. I got to my feet and faced Peace. ' Are you really serious about this incredible idea of shanghai-ing America's top scientist in order to launch him into space to prove the value of SNAP?'

We are not shanghai-ing him. MKG wants to go'

I turned to the DNI, but he ignored me and picked up his tiny punch and hammer.

Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

The DNI prised loose a chip of shale. I should have made it clear. This is not a kidnapping job. It is more than that.'

If Geoffrey got the publicity works for his so-called funeral, imagine,' I said, what MKG's launching will be like: a round-by-round, second-by-second commentary by every radio and television station in the world.'

Tap-tap. Tap-tap. The DNI let my words fall dead. Peace stared into his brandy.

I was conscious of Mam'zelle Adele's eyes on me.

Then the DNI looked up and hooked his thumb into the eyesocket of the fossil. He said, MKG goes alone. No publicity. You, John, and Geoffrey, and Mam'zelle Adele apart from a handful of experts-will be the only people present at the launch.'

Sirius's send-off from Cape Kennedy with the two American moon astronauts aboard had been one of the most spectacular shows the world had seen to date. Now the DNI was talking of a secret launch Of the Vice-President with a handful of men and one woman!

You're talking in riddles,' I said shortly.

Peace inclined his head slightly towards the DNI as if he, master-brainwasher that he was, should explain. The measure of rapport between them was plain to see.

You see,' began the DNI, MKG is a Navy man..

I realized-the sea The DNI had moulded the great new Royal Navy with Peace as its star; MKG was the Navygraduated supreme technocrat of the space age. The common bond which held them together was the sea.

Man is the sea,' the pedantic voice said softly. He tapped the fossil skull. This creature was the remote ancestor of Old Fourlegs, the coelacanth fish that science asserted had been extinct in these very waters of Limuria for millions of years. Today the coelacanth still swims among the drowned peaks of Limuria. Man came from the sea. He must find his salvation again-in the sea. The ultimate weapon in his hand must be-from the sea.'

Peace, saw what I was thinking. SNAP was to power the ultimate weapon.'

That is what MKG and his team had been working on,' observed the DNI. The ultimate weapon. It was to be fired from the sea.'

' And,' I said slowly. Congress threw it out.'

There was a rasp in his voice. The Pentagon has a Military Liaison Committee which works with the Atomic Energy Commission. They were all for it. But it was the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, drawn from the Senate and the House, which put paid to it. They, like their experts, were blinded by the moon landing. They hold the purse-strings. It wasn't Congress, but this joint committee which killed it. They threw away the ultimate weapon which MKG and his team had developed in favour of a modified Sirius rocket. SNAP-a small, magnificently ingenious machine, was to have provided the power for the new weapon. The power plant was the one thing in which American genius had not quite succeeded. SNAP, the Briton, was to be married to the American, Little Bear'

Little Bear!'

The DNI smiled thinly. Yes, that's its name-Little Bear. You would have thought the Americans would have learned from their past experience over the nuclear submarine and the Polaris missile, both of which in a previous epoch nearly underwent the same fate as Little Bear. The most underrated and under-publicized breakthrough in the whole history of modern armaments was the Polaris missile. The Americans, for all their publicity-consciousness, did it less than justice. The first crude Polaris, fired from a submarine submerged hundreds of feet down, introduced a completely new concept into war.' The voice became schoolmasterish. Up to then, all war had been a battle of refinements. But Polaris was the untraceable missile fired from an untraceable source, a submerged submarine, a minute pinpoint in the ocean deeps beyond the power of any tracking device to locate! Polaris was crude, but the concept was right.'

Crude!' I exclaimed. Jesus Christ!' I gulped down my brandy.

I don't mean the weapon itself,' went on the DNI. There were fantastic refinements of guidance, pioneer work on solid fuel, blast-off in the confined space of a sub's hull-I mean the principle was crude. Polaris was dependent on extraneous factors: the vulnerability and complexity of the submarine, the human factor of the men in her-no, the concept needed simplifying to be fully effective.'

The Sirius rocket-' I began.

The DNI picked up his punch and tiny hammer and inched it round a sliver of bone.

Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was as inexorable as Chinese watertorture. The DNI became more emphatic. ' Sirius, a liquid-fuelled rocket, put two men on the moon. It is useless for anything else. It has no strategic concept. Tactical, yes. But it is simply an old artillery-piece, super-refined.'

I looked at Peace as the DNI returned to his tapping. Peace said, About two years ago we-that is, the sNaP team-evolved what we considered a first-class miniaturized power plant for missiles. I naturally informed the DNI. I then went to Washington where I met MKG for the first time'

I knew Geoffrey Peace. That would be fertile soil for a friendship.'

He smiled, easing the tension, and Adele flicked a grateful look at me.

When MKG heard about SNAP, he indicated that they themselves were working on an exciting new weapon.'

I, too, met MKG in the United States-a very remarkable man,' said the DNI. At our first meeting I had the temerity to suggest that Polaris-the new Polaris as I conceived it-would rule the world. With me, it was purely an idea, but MKG 46 revealed that he and his team were, in fact, working in a practical way on just such an ultimate weapon. I offered them SNAP. From that 'moment there was no question but that we would go along with them. You know, the President has delegated so much of his authority in all things atomic to MKG-and rightly so-that the say-so is virtually his in the maze of committees clustered round all nuclear projects.'

Except,' Peace put in, in the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy.'

The DNI frowned and went on, MKG'S missile had only a code number, but we three, `MKG, Geoffrey and I, decided to keep the generic name Polaris. So we called the new weapon Little Bear, for Polaris, the Pole Star, is the brightest star of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear constellation.' He smiled with grim satisfaction. Little Bear is all hell.'

I felt the DNI had been carried away. I shrugged. Little Bear is still only a refined Polaris, fired from a nuclear submarine.'

It is not fired from a submarine,' he replied. ' Little Bear is completely self-contained. It is like a big submersible mine

– the missile proper fits inside a casing. It is sunk hundreds of feet beneath the sea and is virtually untraceable, since its radio antenna sticks up only a foot or two. It is fired by ultra long-wave radio from thousands of miles away. Like

Polaris, though, a shot of compressed air lifts it to the surface, after which the solid-fuel motor takes over.'

The ultimate weapon-almost,' I conceded. But it's still not wholly independent.'

Little Bear's inertial guidance system is pre-set on its target,' continued the DNI. Once the missile is down, it cannot be changed until the whole thing is brought to the surface again. It's enough, though-Little Bear is fully independent of gantries, crews, tracker teams and all the complicated paraphernalia of the Sirius moon-rocket. It guides itself like the old Polaris. Little Bear is compact, reliable-a killer in the truest sense.'

The Prime Minister promised full British support for the Little Bear project,' said Peace. You can see what it means to the Navy. It puts us up alongside the Americans.'

Both of you talk as if Little Bear were a fact. I thought you said Little Bear was killed; dead, finished!' I pointed out.

The DNI started his unnerving tapping again. Mam'zelle Adele's long fingers tattooed on Nossi Be's head in sympathy. Hers looked like the long fingers of an artist, or a pianist. Where did she fit into this strange project?

No,' replied the DNI. On paper, Little Bear is finished. But MKG believes, as we do, that Little Bear is the ultimate. weapon which puts the West way out ahead. Officially, Little bear cannot be revived. But MKG, to prove its worth, will rocket to Santa Fe in Little Bear.'

Think,' added Mam'zelle Adele, the Vice-President of the United States.'

The nation's darling,' said Peace.

What about Cape Kennedy… I started to say.. ,

How?' asked the DNI. How could he use the facilities there for a project which has been axed?'

I shook my head.

Peace went on. ' Little Bear was practically complete when the axe fell. It was tested in secret. There are just a few Little Bear prototypes in existence. The one which MKG will use to Santa Fe will be readied by a small team-four or five American experts-under Dr Boz Blair, another genius from the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia, who is coming to Limuria for the launch. From our side, it will be us and Captain Trevor-Davis, the top British missileman who was with Geoffrey in Washington on the SNAP project. Our mission is, simply, to get MKG safely into space. The American experts will come out in a freighter carrying the missile, and MKG in the Navy's latest sub, U.S.N. Willowtrack.' My mind went back to the intruder. With so many people in the know, it is easy to see why the CIA became suspicious.'

The DNI looked uneasy, but retorted, ' No one could undertake a project of this magnitude without outside help. The U.S. Navy's in the know because they appreciate, as we do, the enormous implications of this ultimate of weapons. The

Navy was quite willing, for the sake of a man of MKG's status and prestige, to detach a nuclear sub to bring him to Limuria. The Navy also feels pretty sore about the Sirius rocket you must realize how bitter inter-Service rivalries are in the United States. The Air Force is now completely cock-a-hoop about Sirius and billions are coming its way for future moonshots. The Navy is solid behind MKG.' The Vice-President isn't only a man, he's a vital cog in the American constitutional system,' I objected. I don't see a Vice-President simply chucking everything overboard in order to be shot off secretly into space. Any man who acted so irresponsibly wouldn't be fit to hold the office of VicePresident.'

It was a big decision to take,' replied the DNI thoughtfully, and it could not have been done without the fullunofficial-endorsement of the President. The President, like 48

MKG and ourselves, appreciates the value of Little Bear. America will be supreme in a military sense for at least a decade by virtue of Little Bear. The President is taking a calculated risk. He's deputed Willowtrack with an S special Gold Crew to bring MKG out. Her skipper is Revs Tyler, and you know what that means.

Revs Tyler was the man who rose to fame and earned his nickname by taking a nuclear sub 1,000 feet under the ice of the South Pole to prove to the sceptics that a deep-water channel existed between the two halves of the Antartic continent, cut by a seasonal warm current. Tyler made the run at full speed, dodging ice projections the size of a skyscraper at 40 knots, knowing that one touch would have sent him and his crew to instant death. More revolutions, he demanded throughout this amazing voyage, always more revs.

' Is Revs in on the secret too?' I asked.

Up to a point only,' replied Peace. He and his crew naturally know they have the Vice-President aboard, but they believe he is to conduct firing tests on a new secret missile. After all, there's nothing unusual in that, except that it's so far away from home. Don't forget, either, that MKG'S a trained astronaut.'

There's a sword of Damocles over this whole mission,' said the DNI gravely. It's something you must not lose sight of.'I watched Peace's mouth go taut as the DNI said it and the cruel, ruthless lines assert themselves. Little Bear was not only a personal matter with him; the future of the new Royal Navy depended on it.

Willowtrack has orders to make the voyage submerged,' went on the DNI. But both the President and MKG were adamant that there should be a daily signal from Willow- track to the White House in code.' He smiled slightly. I suggested twilight every evening-as the U-boats used to do, when the light makes it the most difficult time of day to spot a sub on the surface.'

A nuclear sub doesn't have to surface,' I said.

I know, I know,' he replied impatiently. But it is a good time. Willowtrack will simply stick up a radio antenna and signal the White House. In order to preserve maximum security, no other signals or reception will be permitted. And if Revs Tyler's in command, he'll keep to that-he won't even listen to a newscast.'

Peace's face was bleak. I wanted full radio silence.'

The DNI went on: If, for any reason whatever in the intricate complex of the American political system, it is necessary for MKG to return to the United States, the mission will be called off. MKG'S first duty is to the American nation. not to Little Bear, the Royal Navy, or ourselves.' He turner on Peace, his voice very quiet. Do I make myself clear?'

Peace said nothing.

The DNI picked up the hammer and punch.

Tap-tap.

The prim voice was in deadly earnest. Unless I have a categorical undertaking from you, Geoffrey, the Little Bear mission is off-now.'

Peace looked down at his hands, the hands which had sent so many men to their deaths, turned the palms inwards and the knuckles outwards again, a strange, sinister gesture. He nodded. Adele's face was pale. Like me, she realized what it must have cost Peace to put a halter and bridle on a mission so close to his heart.

The DNI went on quickly, trying to obliterate the tension. The original plan called for Geoffrey to go to St Brandon in H.M.S. Devastation, our newest nuclear sub, and rendezvous there with Willowtrack and MKG. The two subs would then go to a remote island called Love-Apple Crossing. Willow-track would receive her onward briefing at St Brandon. Tyler doesn't know where the test-fire is scheduled from. As an additional security measure, we chartered a French freighter called the Semittante, trading to these waters, to carry Little Bear. Boz Blair and the scientists are signed on as ordinary members of Semittantes crew.'

Semittante-that was the name of one of Napoleon's frigates,' Mam'zelle Adele exclaimed.

Peace smiled for the first time. Not this Semittante-just an old battered tramp grown rusty humping guano and coconuts from Limuria to whoever wants them anywhere in the world.'

I said to Peace, ' I wondered why you took Bellatrix past LoveApple Crossing on our way to the Seychelles.'

Mam'zelle Adele smiled her strange smile. Another strange name!'

Love-Apple Crossing is a speck on the map (and most maps of Limuria are old) about 50 miles east of the beautiful twin island of Agalega, which is situated almost exactly halfway between St Brandon and the Seychelles. From Mahe it was. about 400 miles. East again of Love-Apple Crossing is a great collection of shoals and shallow banks, over 10,000 square miles each in extent, where the ancient peaks of Limuria project above the sea.

You say, original plan-what is the new one?' I asked. Peace glanced across at the DNI. The news of the firing of Little Bear has leaked out.'

The DNI added quickly, A partial leak only.'

I looked from one to the other. The CIA man at the coffin?'

It proved what we suspected,' said the DNI, and it doesn't make us any easier in our minds. Somebody in the United

States has been asking what MKG is up to. The President considered that it would be quite safe for him to be missing from the public scene on the grounds that he was carrying out secret work. He's a bachelor, as you know, so we don't have to worry about home security. But how would your mind work, if you were in the CIA or connected with it, or had confided in it, if suddenly both MKG and Peace were missing?'

` Where Peace was, MKG might be,' I replied.

We made no secret about Geoffrey coming to the Seychelles-after all, it's the biggest missile launch site outside the United States. You don't have to be a genius to work out that MKG might be here, too-if you had the right clue to start with. Therefore,' the DNI went on quickly, I-we-had to convince the world that Geoffrey Peace was dead. All suspicions had to be stifled. They had to see him go to his grave. Hence the funeral build-up.'

Remember that stethoscope,' I said. ` The CIA wasn't one hundred per cent convinced. I'm glad I didn't give him time enough to find out you were alive in the coffin, Geoffrey.'

Peace said warmly, We owe you a big debt of gratitude for that, John. I always could count on you in a tough spot.'

It worries me that he went free,' said the DNI. Maybe we should change the plan again

' Not now,' broke in Peace. ' John, we want your navigational skill.'

How?' I asked.

I've said, the original plan was for Willowtrack and Devastation to meet at St Brandon and go together to the firingpoint at Love-Apple Crossing. Actually, it's not the island itself, but a spot at sea near by. Using a nuclear sub's gadgets, you can't go wrong in pinpointing a minute spot like that.

Now we've had to change all that. We feel certain that any unusual movement of subs in these waters is being watched. Love-Apple Crossing is right in the middle of the missile firing-range. Nuclear subs give off electrical emissions. Two and two make – '

Little Bear,' said Mam'zelle Adele. 51

` The plan for the two subs to rendezvous at St Brandon still stands,' said the DNI, taking up Peace's explanation. Willowtrack's daily sunset signal is to and from the White House only. It's at a fixed time and as brief as they can make it, for obvious reasons. But we've decided to change the whole plan from the St Brandon rendezvous onwards.

' You, John, will take Bellatrix to St Brandon. Geoffrey goes to Devastation. Bob Peters, Devastation's Number One, is in the plot, and the officers know no more than that Peace is not dead but involved in some hush-hush British-American experimental missile-firing project. They're all top men, they won't talk. Little Bear is being carried in Semittanth under the guise of a new coconut-oil plant for the islands.'

Mam'zelle Adele smiled. ' The two main exports of Limuria are coconut oil and rugged individualism.'

Semittante is bound for Love-Apple Crossing from New Orleans. She was just too glad to get a load to take her halfway across the world. You'll rendezvous with her there.'

Peace prowled about uneasily. I could see that the incident of the CIA man was eating into him as the DNI elaborated' the launching programme.

' There is an exact firing schedule to be met,' continued the DNI. ' You don't simply point a missile at Sante Fe and blast off. Trajectories, orbits, what have, you-Boz Blair and MKG have them all taped. As far as we are concerned, all we have to know is that Little Bear's instrumentation has been set to coincide with the optimum position of the earth relative to the space station Sante Fe. Tomorrow is February 1st.

On February 16th Sante Fe will be at its best orbital position for Little Bear to rendezvous-space-liaise with it. The missile has a computer-compensated docking device which will guide it in to Sante Fe. Little Bear must be fired at nine o'clock on the morning of February 16th. 0900 hours on February 16th.'

' Local Limuria time?'

' Yes.'

' Eight o'clock is no good, nor is seven. It must be nine,'

Peace put in. Using a radio-firing device, I shall pull the plug on MKG's behalf six hundred feet down in the sea?

' Pull the plug?'

' Fire the bloody thing!' Peace retorted. The tone of his reply betrayed his anxieties. ' The ultimate push of the button is from the surface-a small instrument tuned in to the radio antenna which Little Bear shoots to the surface when she is at the right depth. MKG does the countdown, I send the bird flying.' He suddenly swung round on me. ' 52 all of us-have been taking one big factor for granted: are you in this thing with us?'

I looked round the three faces-Peace, hard, dedicated, ruthless; the DNI with his pedagogic whims overlying the tempered blade beneath ; Mam'zelle Adele-what did I know of her?

Yes,' I replied. Yes, of course. All I need is a good set of navigating instruments.'

The DNI relaxed. I felt Peace had been sure of me all along, despite his question.

I've got the best,' he said. Nothing that gives off a single amp of power. It's all skill-John Garland's skill'

Good. I'll want to check them over.'

Peace went on speaking to the others, his tone warm. All this man needs is the traditional star to steer her by. He-'

I cut short his eulogy. We can't launch a missile without radio guidance.'

The DNI gave a short laugh. You're saying almost exactly what the early American land-based 'missileers said about the first sea-based Polaris. Admiral Red Raborn, the father of Polaris, confounded the critics. He successfully fired Polaris from a moving platform in a liquid, ever-shifting medium because he went back to that primary element at the base of all man's activity-the sea. You'll have lots of technicalities thrown at you in the next few weeks, but SINS is the heart of it all. Tell him, Geoffrey.'

Ships Inertial Navigation System,' he explained. Raborn put his guidance package inside Polaris. It needed no help from outside-radio guidance or the rest of it. We've done the same with Little Bear, a development of the A-4 Polaris now in service with the u.s. fleet. Our Little Bear follows the same pattern. Of course, the SINS system has now become highly sophisticated in Little Bear-the guidance package is a marvel. Boz Blair will talk for days about it. But essentially it is a self-contained missile inside its own casing, a combination of mine and torpedo-tube.'

How big is it?' I asked.

The missile itself is forty feet long, six feet across, and weighs twenty tons,' replied Peace. The casing is another fifteen feet in length. All of it is highly streamlined. The casing is, so to speak, the gun-barrel.'

It seems so involved, and yet so simple. Can a handful of men really get a thing like that to a launch-point at sea?'

It's highly streamlined,' replied the DNI. Has to be. Goes through water, air, space..

It's a piece of cake for Bellatrix to tow it to sea,' Peace replied. You could do it with an outboard motor.'

What about the submersion?'

It's got ballast tanks like a sub to take it down. It is kept at a constant firing angle by two mated gyroscopes. If you want to hear all about accelerometers, earth rate and coriolis computers, automatic precision, fathometers and all the rest of it, Boz Blair will oblige with the greatest pleasure. Our job is to get Little Bear in position to fire when sequencer. starts an hour before blast-off?'

Sequencer, what's that?'

Countdown,' he replied. We've got to have MKG in position one hundred fathoms down before eight o'clock. I suggest we pull rods at dawn and have Little Bear hot to trot by seven-thirty.'

I looked helplessly at Mam'zelle Adele. I'm as foxed as you are,' she said.

Peace smiled. All the terms, like those of the nuclear subs are American-rightly so. After all, they pioneered the damn' things. Translated, we must get the SNAP nuclear reactor operating by dawn so that Little Bear is ready to be launched from seven-thirty onwards. Countdown to begin an hour before blast-off. You don't have to know any of this-Boz

Blair and MKG have the most detailed schedules and technicalities written down-pages and pages of it. There's a firing checklist as long as your arm, too.'

The DNI broke in. The Americans are great on code names. We looked for one. When the Little Bear project was under way originally, it went under the code name Brickbat

Zero One-highest priority, top secret, most urgent, the lot. We've kept that-Brickbat Zero One.'

I turned away from technicalities to something close at hand.

And where does Mam'zelle Adele come into all this?' Code and cipher expert,' said the DNI briefly. My best girl. Break anything wide open'

I thought she was an islander..

I am.' She smiled, making a gesture as if to lay her hand on my arm. Adele Dauguet. My father did hold a jouissance at St Brandon, and it covered Love-Apple Crossing. What'

Sir George didn't say was that there's only one landing-place on Love-Apple Crossing and it's called Vingt-Cinq Coups twenty-five lashes.'

Something cold seemed to come into the conversation as she said it.

Love-Apple Crossing was a solitary confinement cell for the Agalega plantations in the slavery days,' she explained. Vingt-Cinq Coups means exactly what it says-twenty-five lashes. You can still see the remains of the flogging grating there.'

Peace was watching her calculatingly, as he had done at dinner. Both she and the DNI sensed his scrutiny.

The DNI said: Adele was one of my girls in London and when this project first blew up, what more perfect cover than a girl from the islands teaching Creole to an old dodderer of a naval officer in retirement!'

She blushed slightly. 'I don't think that's the way the locals look at it.'

It was necessary,' retorted the DNI crisply. ' A whiff of scandal only gave credence to it.'

So,' I said slowly to the DNI, ' you aren't even retired?'

Officially,' he smiled. But the Prime Minister and I remain in close touch.' He turned to Peace. ' I wonder if we couldn't risk taking Maude along too?'

Another woman!' I burst out. '

Adele gave a low laugh. 'MAUD E-short for Morse

Automatic Decoder!'

Peace grinned too. ' I think Maude can stay at home-her power system might give the game away. From what you say, Adele's quite good enough.'

The DNI was conspiratorial. One of my men smuggled the new u.s. Navy code-book to me. We can read anything the U.S. Navy sends.' Peace whistled. Offence punishable w i t h – '

The DNI nodded. Adele's been swotting up on it. MKG also sent me-this!' He took from his pocket what looked like a magnetic tape casset and switched on the radiogram's tape recorder.

I want you both to memorize this,' he said. It's from the u.s. Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare Library.'

He turned up the volume. The sound came through foggily a jum-jum-jum noise and then a faint squeak. Then the noise blanked out, giving way to a dissipated crackling, like breaking cream crackers by the thousand; then a faint, irregular hammering. Peace's jaw was tense and his head slightly cocked. Jum-jum-jum-squeak. Crackle. Silence.

Then a low droning hum, like a generator.

Sound signature of a nuclear sub-deep,' said Peace with satisfaction. Not in these waters, though.' Jum-jum-jum squeak.

The DNI gestured. Willowtrack's sound.'

Peace whistled softly. This could be worth almost anything-in the wrong hands.'

I asked, What's the rest of it besides the main noise fish?'

The DNI nodded. The crackle is shrimp. This was recorded off Greenland by-well, let us say, by an unauthorized source.'

Jum-jum-jum-squeak.

Peace said, Why don't they fix that circ pump? It's the biggest giveaway..

You wouldn't believe what heartache that little squeak has caused,' replied the DNI. It's a special seal where the drive-shaft enters the pump. Oddly, there's nothing wrong with it. The nearest the backroom boys have got to it is saying that it is caused by some sort of ultra-sonic vibration. Revs Tyler had this seal in Willowtrack unseal itself a thousand feet beneath the South Pole.'

Peace said grimly, Only Revs could have made it after that.' He turned to me. You'll play act about my death still, but you must, of course, tell Mac. After a couple of days, you'll give out that you're taking Bellatrix back to South Africa for sale, in accordance with my will. You'll let it be known that you're going back via Madagascar. TrevorDavis will come aboard at night. Keep him out of sight when you leave port. Steer, a course for a couple of hundred miles as if you really were heading towards Africa. Then double back and make for St Brandon at your best speed. We'll meet you there, MKG and I'

What about Willowtrack?' I began.

She's due at St Brandon after thirty-six days mainly submerged from Connecticut, and if I know Revs, he'll be there to the hour,' Peace replied. He added, No radio, radar or other transmissions from Bellatrix. Better keep even the receiving radio dead until you're out of range of all the tracking equipment of the missile range.'

You've forgotten Mam'zelle Adele,' said the DNI. ' She goes with you, John.'

My heart lifted and she smiled back at me. Suddenly, despite the extraordinary nature of the project, life felt very good. Johannesburg, NACCAM, high-powered sales talk, all seemed a very long way away.

It was the DNI's cold voice which brought back the dangers, the realities 'of the mission. There is a complex meshing together in Brickbat Zero One of imponderables, all sorts of factors which could ruin the project-or cost someone's life,' he said. MKG might even find himself a victim, rather than a conqueror, of space.' The gentleness of his voice made it

– sound more sinister. ' The missilemen always allow an extra safety margin for the imponderables; I have tried to do the same. They also have a name for it.'

' They call it the Jesus factor,' Peace said.