The Zhukov Briefing

CHAPTER SEVEN

At eight-thirty in the morning the telephone rang in the back office of an insurance, travel and press agency in Lonsdahl Street, Bodo. Gunnar Olufsen, head of the small business which bore his name, answered it. The staff of two girls did not arrive until nine o’clock.

‘Gunnar Olufsen here.’

‘Hullo, Gunnar.’

Olufsen’s leathery face relaxed. He pulled up the chair and leant forward. ‘Hullo, Inga.’ Breaking into English he added, ‘How’s the body?’ Her name was Inga Bodde. It was an old joke.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But missing you.’

‘Not my fault.’ He spoke in Norwegian again.

‘Listen, Gunnar. Here’s an important press item.’

‘Good.’ He grabbed a ballpoint. ‘Go ahead.’

‘A Soviet submarine ran aground off Knausnes about midnight. It’s still there. In a cove on the rockshelf.’

He whistled. ‘Any more?’

‘Some Russian officers from the submarine came into Kolhamn early this morning. In a skimmer. They went to the house of Hjalmar Nordsen.’

‘Anything happened since?’

‘Yes. Two messages by teleprinter. A coded one from the Russians to the Soviet Embassy in Oslo.’

‘The other?’

‘From Nordsen. He has reported the happening to the Fylkesman in Bodo.’

Good, thought Olufsen. That’ll mean delay. So much for red tape. The report would have to go to Norway’s Northern Command Headquarters in Bodo. But the Ordforer of a small island like Vrakoy had to submit his reports to his county authorities. They would pass it to the military. ‘Anything else, Inga?’

‘One of our fishing boats saw it heading for the rocks. Very slowly. Our skipper tried to warn them. They told him to keep away. Said they knew what they were doing.’

‘Glad I’m not the Russian captain. Any idea what class of submarine?’

‘No. It was a dark night and it had no lights. They say it was very big.’

‘Good girl. This is a marvellous news item. I’ll get it off right away. How’s your father?’

‘Not so good.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Are you really, Gunnar?’

‘That’s unkind, Inga.’

‘Well. You know the way things are.’

Gunnar Olufsen’s seamed face set hard. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Only too well.’

‘Cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.’

He laughed without humour. ‘Anyway, thanks for the story. More news of it will be welcome.’

‘Okay, Gunnar, I’ll do my best. Look after yourself.’

‘You too. Maybe I’ll be coming over soon.’

‘That’ll be great. Time you did.’

‘Bye now.’

‘Bye, Gunnar.’

For a moment he sat thinking about Inga Bodde. As Vrakoy’s only telephone and teleprinter operator she was for him an invaluable source of information. Vrakoy, the most westerly of the islands off the Norwegian coast, had a considerable fishing fleet. The men who manned it often brought news of naval units, both Soviet and NATO, operating in the Norwegian and Barents Seas. To Gunnar Olufsen, professional gatherer of information and accredited stringer for news agencies in Oslo and London, this was important. Inga didn’t expect payment. They were in love. It was a long-standing affair. Too long, he decided, as he thought of her. He’d lost his wife many years earlier in a car accident. There were no children. He was forty-five, Inga ten years younger. Devoted to an invalid widowed father who would not leave Vrakoy, she’d not married. Marriage to Gunnar Olufsen was only practical if he moved to Vrakoy but that was not on. He had often explained to Inga that he had no intention of becoming a fisherman, the only occupation open to him on the island, while there was much to do in Bodo.

One hundred and fifteen miles south of Vrakoy, this port was a thriving trade, traffic and tourist centre. With its busy harbour at the mouth of Saltenfjord, the Nordland railway terminal and large airport, it lay on the west coast between Narvik in the north and Trondheim in the south. It happened also to be the military headquarters of Norway’s Northern Command.

Shrugging away his thoughts, Olufsen wrote a brief account of Inga Bodde’s news and punched it on to teleprinter tapes. When it was ready he fed the tape for the London agency into the teleprinter. That for the Oslo agency he delayed for an hour.

In a sleazy upstairs office in a newsagency tucked away in Essex Street off the Strand, a girl read the message from Bodo as the flicking keys of the teleprinter typed it. When they stopped she tore the sheet against the cutter bar and took it to the long-haired young man with dark glasses who sat at the desk behind her.

‘From Bodo,’ she said. ‘It’s got a YY.’

The young man read the message as he bit into a hot-dog. The time of dispatch concluded with the letter Y. He took another mouthful and reread the message.

‘Better get on with it, hadn’t you?’ she said.

He pushed back the chair and stood up. ‘Okay, love.’

‘It’s immediate for them, isn’t it?’

They’re going to get it immediate, aren’t they?’

He went through the back door to a small sound-proofed room, unlocked the door, turned on the light, shut and locked the door, picked up the telephone handset, set the scrambler and dialled a number.

A girl answered. ‘You are?’

He swallowed the last of the hot-dog. ‘Frank-seven two-zed-four-seven.’

‘Go ahead, Frank.’

‘Plain language Y teleprint from Gunnar Olufsen, Bodo.’

He read the message slowly, careful not to slur the words, knowing it was being tape-recorded at her end. He did this very efficiently.

‘That’s all,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Frank,’ she said.

She sounds okay, he thought. Wonder if she’s a dish? He reset the scrambler, hung up the handset, turned off the light, shut the door, locked it and went back into the office. He stopped behind the girl, put the teleprinter message in his pocket, slipped his hands over her shoulders and felt her breasts. ‘Know why you’ve got two?’

She shook him away. ‘Take your filthy hands off me, you sex maniac.’

‘Okay. No need to get your knickers in a twist. You know you like it.’

‘I do,’ she agreed. ‘That’s the trouble.’

‘No trouble, love.’ He kissed the back of her neck. ‘Now shake it up and get on with your work.’

‘You’re a bastard,’ she said.

In an office in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall Commodore Oliver Rathouse, a small man with a pucklike face and peppery manners, looked at the lieutenant-commander who’d just come in. ‘What is it, Briggs?’

‘Message from Bodo, sir. From Daffodil.’

‘What’s he been up to?’

‘Rather interesting, sir.’

The commodore took the message. When he’d finished reading he said, ‘It’s not only interesting, Briggs. It’s extremely important.’ He picked up one of several phones and dialled an internal MOD number. It was quickly answered. ‘Lewis here.’

‘Hullo, Freddie. Ratters here.’

‘Hullo, Ratters. What’s the trouble? One of your lot sinking?’

‘Not this time. There’s a big Soviet submarine aground on the rocks off Knausnes on Vrakoy. That’s the most westerly of the Vesteralen Islands.’

‘Yes. I know. Our geography’s rather good. We fly over the maps.’

‘She went on about midnight last night. Probably a ballistic missile job. Listen. She might be the Zhukov.’

‘Christ. How bloody marvellous.’

‘Would be if she were. Remember Clematis reported her sailing from Leningrad on October first. Bound for Polyarnyo.’

‘Yes, I do. I’ll get on to 120 Squadron at Kinloss right away. We’ll push a Nimrod up there. Should have photos within a few hours.’

‘Splendid. Watch out for Norwegian air-space, mate. They’re sensitive.’

‘Not to worry. We have good friends there.’

‘By the way, NATO is not in on this. Not yet, anyway. We’ll keep it that way for the moment.’

‘Okay. I’m with you.’

‘Many thanks, old boy.’ He put down the phone. ‘Get me that BMS/USSR file, Briggs. I’d like another look at the Clematis report.’

His short title in Whitehall was VCNS — Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff. He was a dark lithe man with a strong face that fitted the title.

‘I see they were taken within minutes of 1100 this morning,’ he said, examining a set of aerial photographs. High altitude shots, some oblique, others vertical. The commodore (Intelligence) slid sections cut from the large photos into a stereoscope. ‘Look at them now, sir. The photo enlargement of these cut-outs is a factor of six. The stereoscope enlarges them again by a factor of ten. So you’re looking at the thing enlarged sixty times.’

The VCNS put his eyes to the stereoscope. What had been a minute object, no more than a tiny scratch close to a line of rocks, became a submarine, its whole length visible but for the submerged bows. The details of its hull could be seen quite clearly.

‘Taken at high water.’ said the commodore. ‘There was a good deal of cloud. The Nimrod had problems.’

‘So you think it’s the Zhukov, Rathouse?’

‘Pretty certain, sir. One — it’s a class we’ve never seen before. Two — the hull configuration resembles closely reports we’ve had on the Delta Twos. Three — there’s only one at sea, the prototype. That’s the Zhukov. Four — we know from the Clematis report that she sailed from Leningrad on the first of October, bound for Polyarnyo to join a BMS Squadron. Today is the sixth. So the time and place of her grounding are consistent with those movements.’

‘Sounds pretty conclusive. Now. What are these unusual features?’

‘Well sir,’ the commodore (Intelligence) seemed uncertain where to start. ‘Well our boffins have looked these over and found certain things.’ He leant over the admiral’s shoulder. ‘Those parallel lineal shadows along the after-casing for example,’ he indicated them with a pencil, ‘… are fairings over the missile tubes. There wouldn’t be shadows unless they stood well proud of the casing. That suggests a longer missile than the Sawflys used in the Y class.’

‘That means…?’

‘Greater range for a start. It may also mean MARV warheads.’

The admiral looked up. ‘Independently manoeuvrable and targeted re-entry vehicles? They do think up the most awful names, don’t they?’

He put his eyes once more to the stereoscope. ‘What else?’ The commodore considered the question. ‘We’ve accepted that the Soviet Navy is moving ahead of the US Navy in ballistic missile range. If they take the lead in introducing MARV warheads into submarine missilry, well…’

‘I know,’ the admiral waved a deprecatory hand. ‘I’ve done the course, too. “It will constitute a serious threat to the West.” Anything else in these?’

The commodore’s pencil moved again. ‘Yes. The conning-tower or fin is further forward than in the Y class, and it has this semi-circular extension on its after side. Rather like half a pressure hull. Must be all of thirty feet and about half the height of the fin. Too large for a radome.’

‘Any idea what it’s for?’

‘It’s possible to hazard all sorts of guesses but we’ve no real idea. Clematis reported that the Delta Twos had this extension, but he hasn’t been able to discover its purpose. The security rating is exceptionally high.’

The admiral nodded. ‘I’m not surprised. Anything else?’

‘Yes. Those semi-circular blisters right aft. They extend over the last fifteen metres of the submarine’s length. Terminate either side of the tail stabilizer fin and rudder. Our boffins have worked at it but can’t come up with anything helpful. It’s not particularly good hydrodynamics, they say, so must have a pretty important function.’

‘The baffled boffins,’ said the admiral thoughtfully. ‘Good title for a book. And now, Mr Commodore Intelligence… what’s your proposal?’ The VCNS and the commodore were old shipmates.

The small man frowned, pulled at his chin and contemplated the Mall beyond the admiral’s left shoulder.

‘Point one, sir.’ He threw in the occasional ‘sir’ for good measure. ‘Information about the new Delta Two is vital to the West if the balance of maritime nuclear capability is not to be upset.’

The admiral looked at him with renewed interest. ‘Go on, Rathouse,’ he said. ‘This is splendid stuff. Worthy of the senior war course.’

The commodore said, ‘Sorry. But it’s important to see this thing in perspective.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said the admiral. ‘Whose perspective often provides the problem.’

‘Point two.’ The commodore was unabashed. ‘I think we should keep this off NATO’s plate. At this stage at any rate.’

‘Why?’ VCNS’s voice, eyes and chin combined in a single challenge.

‘NATO is in a state of disarray. For various reasons. The Middle East affair. Tricky Dick’s alert to US armed forces round the world. His incredible failure to consult with NATO before embarking on that face-to-face with the USSR. Then there’s trauma between the major NATO powers and the US about oil. You know. Chauvinistic pursuit of short-term aims vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli war because of dependence on Arab oil.’ He paused to see what effect all this was having on the Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff.

‘Go on,’ said the VCNS. ‘You fascinate me.’

‘I feel — we feel,’ amended the commodore thinking of his staff, ‘that if we take this to NATO the US, as leading nuclear power in the West, is going to demand a major say in any intelligence operation.’

‘Leading is an understatement, Rathouse. Of course they will. So would we in their situation.’

‘I agree, but we’re not happy about it. Washington may forgo exploitation of the opportunity rather than risk damaging the détente with Moscow. And, frankly, I don’t think they’re capable of the subtlety, the low profile, this demands.’

‘Come, come, Rathouse.’ The admiral made a clicking noise. ‘That’s a chauvinistic statement if ever there was one. Anyway, what about the Norwegians? The submarine is aground on their territory. They’re highly sensitive about territorial rights. For my money they’ve already decided they’ll handle this themselves. They’ll tell NATO to lay off.’

The commodore said, ‘I agree they’ll not want NATO to butt in. But in my view the Norwegians won’t do any intelligence gathering. What they will do is give the Russians every assistance in getting the Zhukov off. Her presence is highly embarrassing. Norway is most anxious to preserve good relations with the USSR. Certainly they’re in no mood to take risks.’

The VCNS tried again to balance a paper knife on the paperweight. ‘I think I go along with that.’

‘We know Roald Lund, Norway’s director of service intelligence,’ continued the commodore. ‘Freddie Lewis is a close friend. Both airmen. They’ve done staff courses and NATO war courses together. So we know him well. How he thinks. How he works. He regards NATO Northern Command as a leaky intelligence sieve. The US have a CIA unit there. Civilians. Ostensibly for security purposes only. But,’ the commodore spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders, ‘you know how these things work, particularly as the US have no service intelligence units in that set-up.’

The admiral looked relieved. He’d succeeded in getting the paper knife to balance. ‘What is your proposal, Rathouse?’

The commodore looked the VCNS squarely in the face. This was the crunch. ‘I believe we must exploit the opportunity to the full. Do it on our own as a purely British venture.’

‘Have you thought of the implications?’

‘Yes, sir. What I — we — have in mind won’t put Norwegian interests at risk although her territory is involved.’

‘Our interests?’

‘It won’t be known at any stage that it is a British operation. If anything its stamp will be Chinese.’

‘China in Norway.’ The VCNS raised a critical eyebrow. ‘Little far fetched isn’t it?’

‘Not when you hear the details, sir.’ The commodore’s smile was indulgent. ‘What we want is a private venture with service support in the background. Very much in the background. And it’s no more than an intelligence gathering operation. We’ve done some rough outline planning. Not much.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Only two hours since we got Daffodil’s message. And we can’t really get down to the nitty gritty until our people are on Vrakoy. It’ll be a case of looking for leads and following them.’

‘Sounds rather cloak-and-dagger,’ said the VCNS doubtfully. ‘Tell me more.’

The commodore did and, half an hour later when he stood up to go, the VCNS said, ‘Well, Rathouse, I’ll have to discuss this with the First Sea Lord once you’ve cleared it in principle with ICC and Maltby.’ ICC was the intelligence co-ordinating committee in Whitehall. Maltby of the Cabinet Office was its éminence grise. ‘But remember,’ the VCNS wagged an admonitory finger. ‘If I do put it to One-SL it will be on the strict understanding that it is no more than an intelligence gathering operation. To be carried out in such a way that neither the Norwegian nor British Governments can possibly be involved. In other words, if you get the go-ahead you’re on your own. Your party will be without official support or recognition and if things go wrong we shall not hesitate to repudiate them, and — ’ his grey eyes narrowed into a cold stare, ‘we’ll sack you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ The commodore seemed happy. ‘You won’t forget about HM ships in the area? And the bodies we’ll need?’

‘No. I’ll have a word with C-in-C Fleet, Northwood, and the Naval Secretary. By the way have you thought up a code name for this?’

‘We have. Daisy Chain.’

‘Operation Daisy Chain. I rather like that,’ said the VCNS. ‘Very Enid Blyton.’

‘Glad you like it, sir.’

The admiral looked at the commodore speculatively. ‘I suppose I needn’t tell you that this will have to be done at the double. The Zhukov news is out now. The Soviet Navy will be rushing to help their comrades on the rocks. I imagine high altitude air space over Vrakoy will soon look like Piccadilly Circus. You know — the Russians, US, French, British, NATO, the lot. All busy clicking their little shutters. Not to mention some shady characters on the ground — no offence to your lot, Rathouse — casting for a scent.’

The commodore nodded. ‘Yes, sir. We do realize that speed is the essence of the operation.’