Power Play (3 page)

The train was late from Belomorsk, and the weather was terrible. When Nikolai finally entered the downstairs bar at the hotel, at almost eight thirty, having run four blocks and a thousand yards through the snow from the Petrozavodsk train station, he was mightily relieved to see Rani still waiting patiently on the far side of the room, his back to the wall.

They went through their deliberate routines, taking care to show no sign of recognition of one another. A half hour later they were back in apartment number 506, where a traditional Karelian meat casserole with potatoes and cheese was awaiting them. Whoever had prepared it was long gone.

Rani scooped the meal onto a couple of plates and zapped them both in the microwave. There was some Russian bread in the warming oven and chilled vodka in the refrigerator. As Russian dinners go, it was pretty good, especially for Nikolai, who’d had nothing all day. Rani had never grown accustomed to the tough meat in what he called “this gastronomic wasteland” and thought constantly of his favorite Tel Aviv steak house on Allenby Street and the fabulous fresh fruits grown in Israel’s northern farmlands, especially the pale, sweet peaches of Hebron.

But right now he had bigger matters on his mind. “Okay, Nikki, what’s new?” he asked.

“Plenty,” replied the Russian officer. “The navy is planning a hit on the USA. I’m not sure of the exact target, because they have not yet tested the missile. I found out it has a range of twenty-five hundred kilometers, and
they expect it to be perfected within a few months. They called the missile men in from North Korea and Iran because right now they’re having problems with the navigation systems.”

“God knows why they want advice from the Koreans,” said Rani. “The last four long-range rockets they tested ended up on the beach about a mile and a half from where they were fired. If these ex-Soviets think they can hit any target in the USA without being identified, they’re even more stupid than we think they are. The US nuclear defensive shield is light-years ahead of them.”

“There’s more. The missile scientists from North Korea and Iran have arrived, and they’re staying right here in Russia. A new laboratory has been set up somewhere, and so far as I can tell they’re working on a new, slimmed-down rocket with a nuclear warhead and a guidance system that makes it almost impossible to track. It’s land based, by the way.”

“Any idea where they plan to launch from?” said Rani. “If it’s land based, it’s got a hell of a way to go from anywhere in Russia.”

“How about a launch from Canada or Central America?”

“Well, Canada’s out of the question. But I guess there might be some banana republic willing to turn its back on a local rocket launch in return for a few pesos. It’s very interesting, Nikki, but right now it’s pretty vague . . . a phantom strike on the USA, launch site unknown, target unknown, with a missile not yet invented.”

“I know that’s what it sounds like, Rani. But I have spent half my life in the Russian Navy—and I know there’s something big happening, and it’s gathering steam. The sheer volume of communiqués would surprise you. I picked up that word
monastyr
again, three times. It could be anywhere, but the foreign scientists are already in it, wherever the hell it is.”

“Nikki, I’m not denigrating your information in any way. In fact, I believe there’s something highly unusual going on. But I hope you agree with me . . . I can’t blow the whistle yet, or even alert anyone. We have nothing nailed down, and the key characters are apparently hiding behind the altar. But I’m confident you’ll get some clarity in the near future.”

“It’s there, and I will most certainly find it,” replied the Russian officer. “These poor, misguided politicians will be the death of my country. If they launch a strike on the United States, it could be the funeral for all our economic ambitions. That Uncle Sam. He does not forgive. He’ll hit back.”

“The Japanese made that mistake at Pearl Harbor,” replied Rani. “But right now all we can do is watch and wait. If you’ve nothing else, I’ll take the midnight train back to Moscow. You’d better leave in the morning.”

“And my money?”

“Wired into the account in Geneva today, direct from the National Bank in Tel Aviv. One hundred thousand US dollars.”

Lieutenant Commander Nikolai Chirkov smiled. “A small price to save the world,” he said quietly.

 

Captain Gordon MacLeash glanced again at the speedometer of the twenty-five-hundred-ton fishing trawler
Misty,
currently shouldering her way out of a big sea east of the Hebridean islands. The hard nor’wester was right on his bow, and he should have been slowing, but the boat was going five knots quicker than the rev counter told him.

The red-bearded Captain Gordon was baffled. The twelve-cylinder 300-hp Caterpillar diesel engine was set to make eight knots through these choppy waters where the Minch Channel batters its way into the North Atlantic, the Isle of Lewis to port, Sutherland to starboard.

“What the hell’s the matter with this damn thing?” he muttered, mindful that his trawl net was full of several tons of fish that the crew was about to haul inboard. This should have slowed him down even more. But right now
Misty
had developed a mind of her own. The speedometer read eleven knots and climbing.

Gordon MacLeash throttled back, and nothing happened. The big, blue trawler, with about a thousand prime codfish in the huge net deep beneath the surface, was making almost twelve knots through the water, straight into a headwind.

“ROY!”
he yelled, summoning his first mate to the bridge.
“AND BRING CHARLIE!”

The two Scottish fishermen came charging into the wheelhouse, alarmed by the anxiety in the skipper’s voice
.
Charlie McLeod, a descendant of five generations of fishermen from the Isle of Skye, did not need his boss to tell him the problem; he looked at the revs and could sense the high speed, none of which made sense.

He cut the engine instantly. Still the boat drove forward.

“
The hell with the fish—I’m talking life and death here!”

Even as Gordon MacLeash spoke, every one of the six-man crew of the
Misty
felt the almost-unknown sensation of the stern hauling downward, only slightly, a matter of inches, but very definitely.

“I CAN’T FIND THE AX!”
shouted Roy.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, I used it in the engine room. I must have left it there.”
Charlie McLeod raced for the companionway and practically jumped down the nine steps. He was back with the big woodsman’s blade in moments. And he swung with all of his force at the rigid tautness of the trawl net’s warps. It cut, but not deep enough. The massively strong cable held, and Charlie swung again.

Once more it held, and now the boat was plainly stern down, the angry sea breaking over the aft deck in the dark and windblown night. Charlie stood up to his knees in green water, and again he swung, but the boat lurched downward and he missed altogether, embedding the ax deep in the gunwale. It hit with such force the stern light went out.

Misty
lurched again, and her bow rose up. The aft deck was under water. A terrible force was dragging her forward and down, stern first, into seventy-five fathoms of ocean. Roy Morrison, in desperation, grabbed a
spanner to unhook the bolts that secured the warps to the boat. Charlie swung his final killer blow, which cut the line.

The net broke free and released the pressure. But it was too late. Too late to launch the small lifeboat, too late to inflate the safety dinghy, too late to live. The waves were crashing over the stern; Charlie McLeod was swept overboard. The water reached the wheelhouse and cascaded in through the open door. The entire engine room was underwater.

In a violent sea, the trawler
Misty
went down fast, heavily waterlogged, stern first, position 58.40N 06.25W, thirty miles northeast of the very tip of the Hebridean islands, the Butt of Lewis.

Not one of the six-man crew had time to jump clear of the boat.
Misty
took them all with her, brave Scottish fishermen, plying that most dangerous of trades in these most dangerous of waters. Captain MacLeash and his crew would not be the last to be lost in this turbulent ocean wilderness. But the vanishing
Misty
made the front pages of every newspaper in Great Britain, because at first there was hope. The men were vastly experienced, and there were no bodies.

Air-sea rescue teams were out searching by midday, when it was plainly obvious that
Misty
was indeed missing. But these northern waters were freezing, and survival was impossible. All day long the rescue helicopters clattered back and forth across the ocean. Other fishing boats arrived in the area to help. Trawlers from Spain and Iceland came steaming to the rescue, but, by nightfall, there had been not one sign of life. Not even a half-sunk lifeboat.

At 1900 the coast guard called it off. The six men, all residents of the little fishing port of Kinlochbervie, were declared “lost at sea, for reasons unknown.” And finally, after a twelve-hour wait, huddled on the dockside of the fishing harbor, the families of the fishermen returned home.

This was the worst fishing-boat crisis in Kinlochbervie for more than a half century. All of
Misty
’s crew members were well known in the village. Roy Morrison was the coach of the town’s excellent soccer team, Charlie McLeod played the organ at the local church, and Gordon MacLeash, only thirty-four, was a member of the Parish Council. The three younger men were all bred and born in the picturesque seaport where their parents still lived. Fergus Anderson, eighteen, was a son of the local garage owner.

By midnight, the dockside area was busy again, as reporters, television crews, and photographers virtually besieged the village. Mostly the
heartbroken families refused to say anything, but the distraught parents of young Anderson handed out photographs of their lost son. Mrs. Annie MacLeash was in shock, and the Morrisons were staying with relatives.

It was not just local publications that turned up. In addition to the regulars from the
Inverness Courier,
the
Ullapool News,
and the
West Highland Free Press,
the big London publications had staff arriving in droves, news reporters, feature writers, and star cameramen trying to re-create the sadness of the fishing port for their readers in the faraway southern metropolis.

Front pages were held, television news bulletins rearranged, stories and pictures e-mailed, clichés collected, and purple prose transmitted:

This was a story that had what’s known in the trade as “legs.” It could run for several days, while first the basic family heartbreak was recounted, then the sadness of the entire village for its terrible loss, and then the funeral services conducted in steady winter rain—
Even the skies wept for the lost sons of Kinlochbervie.

Then the “deep” moral issues, praising the men who go down to the sea in ships—“
Oh
,
hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in peril on the sea
. ” sea in ships—
“Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in peril on the sea.”
And the massive “debt of gratitude” the nation owes such men, every time we enjoy a plate of fish and chips.

Finally, the media arrived en masse at the inquest, grilling the coast guard, interrogating the Kinlochbervie harbormaster, quoting the Royal Navy and other local fishermen, and recording the total bewilderment. The newsmen were waiting for someone to come up with something inflammatory.
For someone to release a clue that might answer the “Why, Oh, Why?” headlines, which had now been running for the better part of three days.

The clue finally arrived at around lunchtime on Wednesday, March 29, when Stornoway’s coast guard chief, Donald Macrae, mentioned to the
London Daily Mail
the possibility of a Royal Navy submarine catching the trawl net and dragging the
Misty
to her grave.

“It’s happened before, laddie,” he told the young journalist. “And it will probably happen again, although modern sonar makes it fairly unlikely. Unless the submarine is going at one hell of a lick, couple of hundred feet below the surface, and rams right into the cod net. Chances of that must be hundreds to one.”

“Don’t the fishing fleets request Royal Navy clearance before they start dragging in these waters?” he asked.

“Certainly,” said the coast guard chief. “And Gordon MacLeash did so. It was the first thing we checked. He was told the Royal Navy had no submarines in the area last week. And so far as I know, there are no other nations would dream of exercising in those British waters. The Minch is greatly respected . . . ”

“What the hell’s the Minch?” asked the reporter.

“Christ, laddie, have you no geography or navigation knowledge? The Minch is the famous stretch of water separating the Hebridean isles from the Scottish mainland. It’s very deep, almost forty miles across in places. It has rugged headlands on both sides, and the navy considers it the best submarine training water in Europe.”