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A tall man wrapped in a heavy wool overcoat sat in the row in front. He’d been waiting in the car for them outside the military facility. He had a square, black beard and fierce dark brown eyes topped by bushy eyebrows. On the back of his left hand was a tattoo of a hawk, wings spread wide, as if hovering above prey. He occupied two business class seats: on the second one sat his briefcase.
When they’d passed through customs he’d shown a diplomatic passport, so the briefcase hadn’t been scanned. But when he carried it she noted from the way he leaned slightly that it must be very heavy. He didn’t turn around once during the three-hour flight from Heathrow to Moscow. No doubt he had been the one who had gotten her released, a favour in return for Katya’s sexual attentions, perhaps. Nadia sensed he had plans for her as well. Whatever they were, she didn’t want any part of them.
London’s busiest airport had been a nightmare. Luckily Katya had thought ahead and brought dark sunglasses Nadia could barely see through, and an iPod with serious noise-cancelling headphones, blaring out the latest Russian clubbing anthems. Nadia didn’t crave dancing or nightlife. No excitement, thank you. Just an open field, or mountains. To lie down somewhere – anywhere – and watch the sky. To feel the naked sun, wind and rain on her face.
But she needed to know. ‘What’s his name?’ she asked, nodding forwards.
‘Bransk,’ Katya answered, a sparkle in her eyes.
Nadia hoped her sister hadn’t sacrificed too much. ‘Is he…a good man?’
Katya’s face hardened. ‘Men are what men are.’
Nadia dropped it, and stared out the window during the descent into Moscow, wondering if she and Katya could finally have some normality. But as they passed through the cloud layer, the world below was grey and full of shadows, and Cheng Yi’s last words came back to her, when he had talked of the client.
‘He is blind, but can see. Water and air are the same to him. He will find you in the darkness. You will not hear him when he comes for you.’
She felt a shiver and reached for Katya’s hand. A thought struck her, something she’d not considered until now. That maybe she’d been kept hidden away in solitary for her own protection. Who would have – or even could have – done that? There was only one person.
Jake.
***
They hung around the baggage carousel in Sheremetyevo airport, but their luggage never arrived. An official walked up to Bransk, flashed a badge, and invited them all into an office with mirrored windows, then left them there. A minute later a group of armed military entered, a straight-backed colonel with a peaked military cap, three gold stars and two red bars on the sleeve of his olive green uniform. He was blond-haired with glacier-blue eyes, and had a boyish face, his cheeks soft and slightly flushed. He looked too young to be a colonel. He was flanked by a striking female lieutenant, a green-eyed brunette whose beauty rivalled Katya’s, and three fully armed commandos.
Nadia didn’t wish to be incarcerated again. The idea of launching a chair at the mirrored glass, diving through it and making her escape flickered through her mind. But how far would she get? She moved behind Bransk, then noticed the sixth member of the group: a man in a grey polo-neck sweater, black leather pants and matching full-length leather coat. On one sleeve was a military insignia: three gold stars and two gold bars. Naval captain. He carried a fur Ushanka hat in his hand, goat-black like his hair, a Soviet-style red star on it.
She wasn’t sure, but didn’t think that was regulation. He had an air of casual authority, as if he was the leader of this meeting. He took a measured look at Bransk, an appreciative and lingering glance at Katya, as any man would. Then his eyes locked on to Nadia, and didn’t budge.
‘Mr Bransk,’ said the young-looking colonel. ‘We have a situation.’
‘Just Bransk.’
It was the first time she’d heard Bransk speak. Talk about a tombstone voice. Yet she couldn’t figure him out – businessman with a diplomatic passport, and the military being almost deferential to him. Questions for Katya later.
The colonel nodded towards Nadia. ‘Is she fit for duty?’
‘What kind of duty?’ Bransk answered.
‘Wait just a minute,’ Nadia began.
But the colonel ignored her, addressing Bransk. ‘As I said, we have a situation requiring…specialised work.’
The naval captain walked around Bransk and stood close to Nadia. He looked her up and down, especially her shoulders. Then he spoke, his voice like smooth Scotch, no rocks.
‘I must touch you,’ he said to her, as if they were alone.
She laughed, incredulously. ‘We haven’t even been introduced.’
He smiled, and any indignation she felt at his directness evaporated. She felt Katya’s eyes on her, though Bransk still faced the colonel.
‘Captain Sergei Petrovich Romanov. Submarine Commander, at your service.’ He made a short bow, still not taking his eyes from hers. He pulled out a measuring tape, made a large loop, then passed it over her head to her shoulders. He measured their girth, then frowned. He released the tape.
‘Lift your arms straight up, please.’
He measured her again, then his hands moved to her shoulder blades and rounded her back. Nadia tried to keep her breathing under control. She’d had zero physical contact for two years. Well, not quite. But interrogations didn’t count. He measured her again, then looped the tape around her chest, careful not to touch her breasts.
‘Breathe in fully, please.’
She complied.
‘Now tilt back your head as far as you can.’ He measured an oval space around her, encompassing her chest, her shoulders, and the back of her head. She wondered what exactly he was measuring her for.
He dropped to one knee and measured her hips, then got up and put the measuring tape away. His eyes grew serious. Foreplay over, evidently.
‘Can you hold your breath for ninety seconds?’
She nodded.
‘I have to be sure. Lives will depend on it. Take three deep breaths.’
Bransk turned around.
Everyone stared at her. She did as instructed.
After the third in-breath, Sergei cupped his left hand behind her head, and pressed his right palm over her mouth. His finger and thumb sealed her nose. He glanced at his watch.
Bransk moved closer, made eye contact with her for the first time. Oddly, they were eyes you could trust. And in those eyes she sensed a promise, that he would let no harm come to her. She heard the commandos’ rifles shift in his direction. Nobody in this room was stupid; everyone highly trained. She wouldn’t have even made it to the window.
Sergei spoke, this time to Bransk. ‘Someone has taken command of a submarine. Mine. Ukrainian militia, so they say, though most in the Crimea are pretty happy to be part of the Motherland again. Nevertheless, the sub is in the Barents Sea, north of Murmansk. The sea state is not good, even though it’s technically the height of summer. I need a diver, a very slim one. Somebody who can enter my submarine via a torpedo tube with a 550-millimetre diameter, one which can be opened from the outside.’ He checked his watch.
Katya spoke. ‘You want her to enter without scuba gear? What if the torpedo room is flooded?’
‘It will be.’
Nadia was counting. Thirty seconds. So far, no problem. She thought about the torpedo tube. A smooth steel coffin. She’d fit easily enough. Moving around would be another matter.
‘Blow the sub up,’ Katya said. ‘Or storm it from the main hatch.’
Nadia knew about submarines from her former training with Kadinsky. But Katya? Since when did she know anything about subs? Was Bransk teaching her? In any case, the men standing here now would have already considered both options, and they were probably still on the table as last resorts. Russia rarely met terrorist demands.
Sergei continued. ‘There are twelve nuclear warheads aboard. We need to account for every one of them.’
Forty-five seconds. Her stomach muscles contracted of their own accord. The urge to inhale tugged at her. She swallowed twice, and the urge went away. A trick she’d learned from her father. But it wouldn’t last long.
Sergei continued. ‘These terrorists – they made ridiculous demands – hand back Sebastopol, withdraw from true Ukraine, bla bla bla. But we have reason to believe they – whoever they really are – are there to steal a warhead.’
One minute. Thirty seconds left. His hands were a vice. The gnawing in her lungs resumed. She’d done ninety seconds with her father numerous times, but she was out of practice. It hadn’t seemed relevant in her cell. Katya’s face appeared in front of her, worried.
‘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.
Once she uploaded the virus, Sergei and two others would enter via the conning tower, though he didn’t explain how. Sergei had an identical black USB key – the antivirus. He went over the plan a second time. Both times he was vague about what would happen to the terrorists. But something had been bugging Nadia since the outset.
‘Why me?’ she asked.
He pointed at the torpedo tube at the front of the sub.
Her size. Although a man could get into the tube, and even be launched by it, only someone very small could move around and manipulate controls inside, and lift their head to see what they were doing – hence the elaborate measurement foreplay earlier. But still… ‘Not enough of a reason,’ she said, because for Russian military, it wasn’t.
Sergei nodded to the colonel, whose name she still didn’t know, and likely never would.
‘Three additional reasons,’ he said. His voice was higher-pitched than Sergei’s, but sharp, used to command, the type of guy who knew the rules backwards and could dice you with them if you didn’t do as ordered. ‘First, you are all Black Ops. We cannot risk this leaking out. Imagine the headlines. Any one of you leaks anything, we’ll bury you for ever. And if you are captured or killed, we will disavow you.’
It figured. Best of both worlds.
But he had a point. Nadia imagined the headlines: Terrorists seize nuclear sub, a dozen warheads at their disposal. The political wound would cut deep, even if resolved overnight. Putin would lose face. Heads like this particular colonel’s would roll.
‘Second, your performance in the Rose affair had already come to our notice. You are resourceful, not afraid to kill, not afraid to sacrifice.’
So, her antics back in the Scillies were now a matter of record. She’d like to see those files.
‘The third reason…is your father.’
Her heart skipped a beat. ‘What?’
The young colonel cast her a searching look. ‘He was Spetsnaz, but he also wrote pamphlets under a pseudonym. The Black Cossack. He wrote a manifesto on why the Crimea should remain Ukrainian, not Russian. He foresaw the future. His writing is still quoted today, but now with his real name: Lakshev. Your name. So if you are captured…’
She stared at him. Though he’d tried to suppress it, when he’d used the male form of the family name, the acid in his tone had come through loud and clear. Had he known her father? Unlikely – too young.
The colonel gave her a searching look. ‘You didn’t know?’ he said.
She shook her head. Her father had never mentioned it. They’d lived in Uspekh, not that far from Ukraine geographically. She remembered he used to write, but he’d kept it all in a locked drawer. My secret diary, he’d once told her. And after his death, her mother had burned it all. So, if they really were Ukrainian freedom fighters – or even Ukrainian Secret Service – maybe her name would cut some ice. But it seemed like a long shot. It was her turn to search the colonel’s face. There was something else, something he wasn’t telling her. But clearly he’d finished.
Of course there was the real reason. She was expendable. Just released from a secret prison. No one would mourn her except Katya. But she had no intention of dying on her first day of freedom. She sat up, gripped the edges of the sub layout schematic and spoke to Sergei.
‘I’m going to go through the plan again. You will correct me on the tiniest detail I get wrong.’
He nodded, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. Her eyes hovered for a moment on those coarse seafarer’s lips, then she cleared her throat, and began.
***
The toilet was cramped even for her. But outside there were too many people. Too much contact after solitary. She’d wanted to see Katya, then try to find Jake, either to make love with him, or to slap him really hard, probably both; she hadn’t decided the order yet.
It was three days before her birthday. She studied her reflection in the mirror, the short dark hair, her grey eyes. Not much to work with. Prison had changed her. The softness Jake had known was gone. Maybe she’d lost her looks, or whatever Jake had found interesting in her. He might not want to see her. Two years. Two fucking years. He’d have found someone else. One of his exes – Lorne or Elise – might have reclaimed him. A hundred other girls.
It’s not fair, Katya had said earlier on the plane. Damned right. But they were Russian. History had stripped the belief in fairness from the gene pool a long time ago. What had her father said a thousand times? Make the choice right. Especially when you don’t have one.
She came back out and signalled to Katya that she wanted a private word, which in this case meant shouting to each other in the noisy corridor between the fore-section and the main hold. She told her about Jake, whom Katya had met briefly on the cargo ship that had turned into a bloodbath.
‘I’m so happy you found someone during that awful time.’
‘If I don’t –’
‘You will.’
‘If I don’t… I want you to meet with Jake. He deserves to know…’ To know what? She’d leave it up to Katya, who was better with words.
‘All right, Nad. But you will come back. You’re strong, like Papasha.’ And then Katya clearly realised what she’d just said – because one day their father hadn’t come back.
They went back to the cabin. Sergei got up and knocked on the cockpit door. It opened. He talked to the pilot, and Nadia glimpsed the stormy weather outside, another factor stacking up against them.
Sergei came back in. ‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Suit up.’
She grabbed the thin cylinder of compressed air that might just sustain her long enough to reach the interlocks on the torpedo tube’s inner hatch. She had a feeling someone would be waiting for her on the other side. Armed, naturally.
‘I’ll need a knife,’ she said to Sergei as they entered the bay where the other divers were assembling everything, including voluminous grey parachutes for the sleds. She’d never jumped out of a plane before.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. He handed her a small, short, stubby one, flat-bladed at the top, with a sharpened edge. It looked useful in many ways, except as a serious weapon.
As she strapped it in its sheath to her inner thigh – so it would be out of the way inside the torpedo tube – she recalled Jake’s obsession with diving knives. She wished he was there, but was also glad he wasn’t, as she didn’t need any distractions right now.
Some of the fear dropped out of her, displaced by adrenaline. She imagined Jake watching. He’d laugh, tell her to look on the bright side: she was going to dive a nuclear sub, an opportunity many wreck divers would relish. She smiled, and as she stripped down to her underwear, still thinking of Jake, Sergei’s eyes hooked hers. She swallowed, turned away from him and squeezed into her wetsuit. Evidently she hadn’t lost all her looks. One of the other divers tossed her a thin belt, heavier than it looked, and she fixed it around her waist.
But she remembered what was down beneath the waves. Armed terrorists intent on stealing nuclear weapons. They’d shoot her on sight. The colonel had said she’d been resourceful, ready and able to kill. She hadn’t thought much about it in the past two years, assuming neither the need nor opportunity would arise. But two years in solitary had hardened her. Maybe it would come easier next time.
She sat kitted up, the regulator from the main tank fastened to her chest. She was perched on the front of a movable skid next to Sergei. She’d thought it was noisy before, but now the Arctic wind roared just a few metres away from her, through the open cargo door at the back of the plane. Six hours ago she’d fallen in love with white puffy clouds above London. Now she was going to fling herself into dark storm clouds that would lash her with rain as she freefell.