The Zhukov Briefing

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Four of them arrived in Bodo that afternoon with light hand luggage. They’d travelled in different aircraft from Heathrow: Nunn and Sandstrom by way of Oslo, Boland and Julie via Bergen. At no stage in the journey had they recognized each other. From Bodo airport they’d made their way separately to the rendezvous, a café round the corner from Olufsen’s offices. There they’d joined forces before going into the travel agency. Nunn spoke to the girl at the counter. ‘You speak English?’

She smiled. ‘In this job, yes, of course.’ Her manner suggested it was a silly question.

Nunn realized it was. ‘We’re from England,’ he said, waving a hand in the direction of his companions. ‘I believe Mr Olufsen is expecting us.’

‘Oh, yes. You’ve come for the yacht?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Wait, please.’ She went through a door to the back office. A moment later she re-appeared with a man with a weatherbeaten face and large questioning eyes. ‘This is Mr Olufsen,’ she said.

Nunn introduced himself, then the others. It was a convincing performance.

Olufsen bowed in a stiff, rather old-fashioned way. ‘I am glad to meet you. Come please into my office.’ He held open the door, they went in, he closed it behind them. ‘There’s not much room,’ he said. ‘This is only a small business.’

Nunn and Julie took the visitors’ chairs. Boland and Sandstrom sat on the edge of the desk.

Nunn winked. ‘Got a good boat for us?’

Olufsen showed no sign of having seen the wink. It annoyed him. His training didn’t permit that sort of thing. ‘A forty-foot ketch. Kestrel. In excellent condition. Sixty h.p. diesel. She makes ten knots without sail.’ The English, the trace of Scandinavian accent, the sometimes unusual word order, was not the English they’d heard at the briefing in the Surrey farmhouse.

‘Charts, fuel, food?’ said Nunn, now slightly humbled. ‘You know our plans. We want to sail round and about the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, starting in the north and working south with the prevailing wind.’

‘Yes. The message from Cook’s made that clear. You will find your needs in the boat.’ He looked out of the window towards the distant harbour. ‘Including food for three days. After that you have to visit shops.’

The girl said, ‘Good. That’s my department.’

‘If you will sign these documents, Mr Nunn — charter and insurance contracts — we can go to the harbour, I know you do not wish to delay.’

‘Yes,’ said Nunn. ‘We mustn’t waste precious time. It was difficult enough to find two weeks in which we could all get away together.’

Down in the yacht, basin they had a good look over Kestrel, checked her sailing gear, started and stopped the engine, tested the VHF radio, the radio direction finder, Seascan radar, and the echo sounder. When they’d asked the innumerable and inevitable questions involved in taking over a strange boat, they followed Olufsen down the companion-way to the small saloon. ‘We can talk freely here,’ he said. ‘Any problems?’

‘The inflatable skimmers and outboards?’

‘In their packs in the stern cabin with the skin-diving equipment. There are also two inflatable life rafts. In the orange packs with double white stripes.’ There was no foreign accent now and the word order was normal.

‘Good,’ said Stephen Nunn. ‘The fuel for the outboards? In the engine-room? Red tank on the port side?’

Olufsen raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes. Where I showed you.’

‘The charts?’ said Nunn.

‘Under the table.’ Olufsen pointed to the drawers under the small table in the navigator’s space at the after end of the saloon. ‘Depending on tides and currents you should make Kolhamn within fifteen to twenty hours. You’ll find the courses laid off on chart 2312. That’s for the passage after you reach the Lofoten Wall. From Lille Molla up through Raft Sund to Hadsel Fjord. Then through Sortland Sund and Gavl Fjord to a position off the Anda Light. From there it’s only seventeen miles to Vrakoy.’

‘Pity so much of it’s in the dark.’

‘Yes. The most interesting part. The scenery is superb. Particularly the passage through the Raft Sund.’

Stephen Nunn found the chart. He laid it on the small table. ‘How’s the navigation? Difficult?’

‘You’ll have to watch the currents. They can be fierce. Read up the sailing directions before you get there. They’re in the rack above the chart-table. There are lighthouses and light beacons all the way. You can’t go wrong really, especially with radar. That Seascan has a range of sixteen miles. What there is in the way of wind at the moment is north-west. You’ll be using the engine most of the time.’

‘What’s her endurance at ten knots?’

‘About seventy-two hours. She has large fuel tanks. Chose her for that. Among other things.’ Olufsen looked at his watch. His large eyes searched the faces round the table. ‘Any more questions?’

There were none so they went up on deck. The sun had set, twilight was deepening.

Nunn said, ‘When do we see you next?’

‘In Kolhamn tomorrow. I fly over in the morning. To get news for my papers, you know. I may be there a few days.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Nunn, and then wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t, he knew, behaving like a professional.

They shook hands with Olufsen before he went up the brow to the quay.

‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘And good hunting.’

Bill Boyd, the competent but irascible lieutenant-commander who presided over the destinies of Bluewhale, saw the radio supervisor making for him with a signal clipboard. ‘What’s it now, Blades? More buggering about?’

Blades handed over the signal. ‘From C-in-C Fleet, sir,’ he said, and grinned. The captain, he knew, was feeling pretty brittle about signals from MOD. At 1400 the day before they’d received one diverting Bluewhale, outward bound on an Arctic surveillance patrol, to a position north of the Shetlands to rendezvous with the assault ship Belligerent for an ASW exercise. This hadn’t pleased Bill Boyd in any way. The Arctic patrol meant Bluewhale would be on her own and he liked being on his own. What was more she’d been bound for the Barents Sea and waters off the Murman coast where units of the USSR’s Northern Fleet would be carrying out late autumn exercises. Bluewhale had orders to monitor these, which was something Boyd enjoyed doing. The Russians didn’t like NATO submarines monitoring them and had ways of making things difficult, which was a challenge and really rather fun. It was a more attractive proposition than stooging round the Shetlands on an ASW exercise under Belligerent’s orders.

Bill Boyd frowned as he read Belligerent’s signal. My Whirlwind has picked up two survivors from yacht sunk approximately twenty miles north of you. Helicopter’s fuel remaining precludes making Lerwick or returning Belligerent with additional load. Stop. Surface now repeat now and stand by to receive survivors from Whirlwind.

He handed the clipboard back to the radio supervisor. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘You’d think we’re a flipping hospital ship.’ He took the broadcast mike from its rack and pressed the speak-button. ‘This is the captain speaking. We’ve just received a signal from Belligerent ordering us to receive two yacht survivors from her Whirlwind. They, he, she or it, will probably require medical attention.’ He replaced the mike and turned to the officer-of-the watch. ‘Pipe hands to diving stations. I’m going to surface.’

Soon after Bluewhale surfaced the Whirlwind was sighted coming in on her port quarter. The sound of the engine rose as the helicopter grew larger until, nose down, it took station abreast of the casing abaft the fin. Three seamen and a petty officer wearing lifejackets stood by to receive the transferees. The noise of the engine was deafening and beneath the helicopter the down draught from its rotors created a circle of shimmering sea. The petty officer signalled ‘come in’, the Whirlwind crabbed in sideways and hovered over the casing. A line was dropped and a figure wearing an orange lifejacket was winched down and grabbed by the men on the casing. The procedure was repeated and another figure winched down. The survivors were helped along the casing and in through the door in the fin.

The helicopter swung away bound for Belligerent some eighty miles to the east. A signal was made to the assault ship reporting completion of the transfer, whereafter Boyd gave the order to dive. Blades was busy again with an incoming signal from Belligerent: Well done Bluewhale. Proceed with dispatch to rendezvous with Aries in position Lat 67°30’N Long 8.30E. You will receive instructions for transfer of your survivors in due course.

‘That’s bloody helpful, isn’t it?’ said Boyd to his first lieutenant. ‘Who are these characters, Number One?’

‘Frank Brough and George Hamsov, sir. Lecturers from London University.’

‘What sort of shape are they in?’

‘Wet and cold. Suffering a bit from shock. But the LMA says fit otherwise. We’re fixing them up with dry clothing and a hot drink.’

‘Where are you putting them?’

‘In the senior ratings’ mess, sir.’

‘Good. What’s their story?’

‘There were three of them in the yacht. One chap was lost when she capsized in a squall. The Whirlwind picked up the inflatable dinghy on radar while exercising a square search. Sheer chance.’

‘Have you got details of this? Names, addresses, name of yacht, port of registration, etcetera. We’ll have to let MOD know.’

‘Not yet, sir. I thought you’d like to see them first.’

Nobody in Bluewhale knew — nor anyone in Belligerent, save her captain — that Brough and Hamsov had not met with a yachting accident. It was only when he interviewed the survivors in the privacy of his cabin that Bill Boyd learnt the truth: that Brough and his companion had been flown from Lerwick in the Shetlands by a Special Branch helicopter which had dropped a self-inflating life-raft into the sea before winching them down into it. There they had observed conscientiously the instructions to make themselves wet, tired and dishevelled in the half-hour of waiting for rescue by the Whirlwind. Sea seasickness had helped. It was the captain of Belligerent who’d ordered the square search ‘for exercise’ in the area where he knew the life-raft to be. He knew, too, that its occupants were members of the Special Branch.

At about the time the Whirlwind was lifting the two survivors from the North Sea another helicopter landed on Belligerent’s flight deck with three scientists and their equipment. These men, it was understood in Belligerent’s wardroom, had been flown to the Shetlands that morning from the undersea warfare research establishment in Portland. The buzz on the messdecks was that they were to test ASW equipment with Bluewhale and Aries in an exercise due to begin in a day or two. The equipment evidently had a high security classification for it was locked in a storeroom with an armed sentry outside. The scientists, three rather ordinary-looking men, took their meals in the captain’s quarters and were incommunicado as far as the rest of the ship’s company were concerned.

By late afternoon accommodation for visitors in Kolhamn had become something of a problem. The fishing village bustled with new arrivals: Press, TV reporters, and cameramen, a whole gaggle of media representatives jostling with each other for beds, meals and the hire of boats. The hospits could not help them with accommodation. It was full. Krasnov and Gerasov had moved into one of the doublerooms the night before. On the second day two United States ornithologists had flown in from Bodo in the Wideroes inter-island flight. They had taken the remaining doubleroom which had been booked for them by telephone by the Ornithological Society of America, New York. A press and tourist agent from Bodo, a man well known to the manageress of the hospits, had arrived in the same flight as the ornithologists. He had taken the remaining single room. Inga Bodde, the telephone operator, had booked it for him the night before.

The media men had resolved their accommodation problems in various ways: some were making do with rented rorbu — fishermen’s cabins not used at that time of year — others, more fortunate, had made arrangements for bed and breakfast with local householders.

They then joined in the frenetic hunt for information but soon found that to get anywhere near the stranded submarine was impossible. The Royal Norwegian Navy had reinforced its minesweeping patrol with a Storm class gunboat, and the cordon of soldiers precluded any approach to the cliffs above Knausnes — even for those not daunted by climbing the mountain in mist and rain. The Norwegian Air Force was operating fighter patrols over the island and its territorial waters, these having been declared prohibited air space. All aircraft wishing to land on Vrakoy had now to obtain preflight clearance from Royal Norwegian Air Force H.Q. in Bodo. This in effect ruled out just about anything other than Norwegian military aircraft and normal commercial flights operated by Wideroe’s.

The weather was deteriorating. The Zhukov shook and trembled as the seas struck her, notwithstanding the partial breakwater of the Dragetennene. So mentally did Milovych. ‘What’s your opinion, comrade Feodor?’ he asked. Dark bags had formed below the small eyes. Milovych was a tired man.

The salvage expert fingered the plans on the desk in Yenev’s cabin. ‘I don’t yet know enough about the damage to form one. But it’s obviously serious. A difficult salvage task. Worse than your message suggested.’

Milovych stared at Yenev. ‘It would have been better perhaps not to have stranded her.’

Feodor regarded him thoughtfully. ‘I believe the decision had your approval, comrade Commissar.’ He turned to Yenev. ‘Your divers report a good deal of damage forward where the explosion occurred, but they don’t find much evidence of other external damage. We know it’s there of course The flooding tells us. But we haven’t the facilities for a thorough check.’

‘We need the salvage vessels for that,’ said Milovych.

‘Of course,’ Feodor disliked the obvious. ‘They’ll be here in the morning.’

‘I don’t like the look of the weather. The glass is still falling,’ Yenev looked at him gloomily. ‘Wind and sea rising.’

Feodor said, ‘These October gales usually blow themselves out in forty-eight hours.’

‘It’s a long time,’ said Yenev.

‘The weather’s too much for the skimmer,’ said Milovych. ‘All right once round Fyrbergnes, in the lee of the island. But from the lighthouse to those rocks… phew!’ He shook his head. ‘We should hire a local fishing vessel.’

‘Yes,’ said Yenev, who’d proposed this the day before only to have Milovych turn it down. ‘And man it with our own sailors. I’m not having foreigners alongside again. No knowing who they are or what they’re after.’

Feodor said, ‘I agree. It won’t be as fast as the skimmer, but it’ll operate in all weathers. Commissar Milovych will no doubt make the necessary arrangements when he visits Kolhamn this afternoon. Once the Nepas arrive we can use one of their motorboats.’

Milovych smiled uneasily. He didn’t relish travelling in the skimmer in bad weather. ‘Wouldn’t you like to go into Kolhamn this afternoon, comrade Feodor? See what salvage facilities they have.’

‘None that could help us. I checked that before I left. You know the Ordforer. I suggest you go.’

‘You’ll be able to get Krasnov’s latest report,’ suggested Yenev hopefully.

That gave Milovych an idea. ‘What about you, comrade Yenev?’ His small eyes brightened. ‘Isn’t it time you met the Ordforer?’

‘Dealing with the authorities ashore is a political task,’ said Yenev. ‘I don’t leave my ship while she is aground.’

‘I see.’ Milovych stood up. ‘Once again the task of extricating us from this…’ He hesitated. ‘… this difficulty falls on me. I shall go now.’

‘Take enough men to man the fishing boat. Say three. One of them a diesel mechanic.’ Yenev yawned. He too was a tired man. ‘Leave the skimmer in Kolhamn until the weather improves.’

Milovych didn’t like the edge of authority in the captain’s voice. He stared back to show his disapproval. When he’d gone Feodor looked at Yenev thoughtfully. ‘A difficult man?’

‘Not one I like,’ said the captain.

The Ordforer was co-operative and after some minor delays Milovych got the fishing boat; a sturdy craft, flush decked, high bowed, a comfortable wheelhouse and sound diesel engine. The Russian crew took it over and the skimmer was secured alongside in Kolhamn. Having seen to this, Milovych went for a walk to the fish racks accompanied by Krasnov and Gerasov. It was cold and uncharitable, rising wind moaned through the saplings of the racks, rain fell steadily and the Russians’ oilskins gleamed wetly.

‘What news?’ Milovych wiped the water from his face with the side of his hand.

‘A number of Western media people have arrived. Press. TV, cameramen. But they’re not getting results. They can’t get near the Zhukov.’

‘Don’t call her that,’ said the commissar testily. ‘You are never to refer to her by name.’

Krasnov accepted the rebuke in silence, the forward and upward thrust of his chin the only sign of the irritation he felt.

‘Have they spoken to you?’ Milovych gave him a sharp look.

‘They’ve tried. We say nothing.’

‘Good. Anything else?’

‘A Norwegian press and tourist agent from Bodo — Olufsen by name — has taken a room in the hospits. He seems well-known in the village.’

‘Anyone else of interest there?’

‘Two Americans. Ornithologists from New York. Booked in by their society. They have the room adjoining ours.’

Milovych looked alarmed and the high pitch of his voice became almost a squeak. ‘Watch them. What do ornithologists come here for at this time? I’ll send Uskhan in later today. He’ll fix a surveillance mike in your room. Gerasov, you speak English, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Commissar. I took it at university. I’ll listen of course, but I think they’re genuine.’

‘You have no means of knowing,’ said Milovych. ‘Treat everyone as suspect. That way you avoid mistakes. And remember — never discuss the ship in your room or near other people. Never.’

Krasnov nodded. ‘It has been on the Norwegian news broadcasts that our tugs and salvage vessels are on the way from Polyarno. They call our ship “the Soviet Navy’s ballistic missile submarine 731. A first generation nuclear vessel, believed to be used now for training purposes”.’

‘I know.’ Milovych smiled smugly. ‘We heard it.’

‘Where are they now, Jim?’ The speaker was lying full length on the floor beside the wall, almost under the bed he’d just pulled clear.

The man at the window said, ‘Walking along the quay by the fish sheds.’

‘All three?’

‘Yeah. Milovych, Krasnov and the young guy. What’s his name?’

‘Gerasov.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘Up-dating each other on news, I guess.’

‘They’re welcome to it. It’s heavy rain, Jim.’

‘We should have brought a directional mike.’

‘They’re too far for that.’

‘Think so, Ed?’

‘I know. I’ll put the needle through at floor level.’

‘Got the thickness of the wall?’

‘Sure. Turn up the volume on the radio.’

The man at the window turned it up.

The man on the floor chose the spot, triggered the drill and the thin bit ate into the wood. When the bit-check reached the wall he stopped with the bit just short of breaking the wall on the far side. He withdrew the drill, inserted the needle aerial, pushed it home and fitted the wooden plug into the wainscoting. When he’d rubbed it over with shoe polish he cleaned up the wood dust and moved the bed back against the wall. ‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘We can take out the plug, clip on the leads anytime. Listen or tape.’

The man at the window said, ‘A characteristic of Laillard’s Tern is its disinclination to breed in any spring which precedes a severe winter. This has given rise to much speculation and the belief that…’

‘For Christ’s sake, Jim. Must we have that?’

The two Nepa class submarine rescue and salvage ships with two naval salvage tugs arrived off Knausnes at half-past ten that night. During an exchange of lamp signals with the Zhukov it was decided that, in view of the weather, they should round Fyrbergnes and anchor in Uklarvik Bay to await daylight.

This they did and were anchored in the lee of the mountain shortly after midnight.

An hour later a ketch rounded Kolnoy Beacon and with some difficulty made her way down the Kolfjord under sail. The north-westerly wind gusted and eddied unpredictably from the slopes of the mountain and sail had to be shortened. In the early hours of the morning the ketch anchored off Kolhamn to the east of the slipway where the water shoaled. The anchor light was hoisted and an attempt made to communicate with the harbour by voice-radio and lamp. There was no response. Kolhamn seemed asleep.

‘They’ll register our arrival in the morning,’ said Stephen Nunn. ‘Let’s get our heads down while we can.’

‘Marvellous,’ said the girl. ‘I’ve had it.’

‘We’d better set anchor watch,’ said Nunn. ‘I’ll take the first two hours.’

‘I’ll relieve you after that,’ said Sandstrom.

Boland came up the companionway from the saloon. ‘Have to work on that injection unit at first light,’ he said.

‘You have to mislay a component,’ said Nunn. ‘A critical one.’

‘No problem. Normal routine for me.’

‘Remember where you hide it, mate. We can’t afford to break down for real.’

‘Trust me.’ Boland’s normally dead-pan, slightly oriental face broke into a grease-streaked grin.

Nunn looked round at the rest of the crew. ‘Remember the breakdown story. The engine packed up a few miles northwest of the Anda Light. After that we made a long haul to the westward before running in for the Kolfjord. That’s why we took such a long time.’