37 Hours

Chapter Three

Falling out of a plane at night, above a raging sea, lived up to its reputation. Sergei had said the chute would open after ten seconds, long enough to get below the wake from the propellers but not drift too far from the drop zone. But Nadia couldn’t count. She was too busy trying to catch her breath as the wind tore at her mouth.

Goggles protected her eyes, though she could barely see anything as she plummeted through gun-metal-grey clouds. She bit down on an urge to scream, panic rising from her heart up into her throat. Freefalling. It was so damned dark. The sea was racing towards her, but all she saw below was blackness. A cloudy night, no stars, no moon. Must have been eight seconds by now. Nine. Ten. She braced herself for the chute opening.

Nothing.

Where was Sergei? He’d been right beside her on the plane. He was heavier. He’d be below her, wouldn’t he? Or did everyone fall at the same rate? She couldn’t remember. He could be above her if his chute had opened. She looked up. Nothing, just the wind howling in her ears through her neoprene dive hood. How high had they been? How long before she’d hit the water?

At this speed her harness with its air tank would snap her back in two on impact. She had no emergency cord to operate the chute. He’d said it wouldn’t fail. The chute would open. Fifteen seconds now, for sure. Another five and she’d be splattered on the wave-tops. Sergei, where the fuck…

He slammed into her from behind, then spun her around as effortlessly as if they were trapeze artists in that sweet spot where gravity blinks. But they were plunging at terminal velocity, close to two hundred kilometres an hour. His face loomed close, but he was looking down at her chest. He hit her. No, he thumped the buckle to release the failed chute. She slipped away from him. Shit! She lunged for one of his shoulder straps, grabbed it, tugged herself towards him, flailing in the wind like a rag doll. They twisted in mid-air, no longer falling feet first. He looped an arm around her, pulled her close to him, yanked something, and then Nadia realised how the end of a bullwhip felt when it was cracked.

It winded her, but Sergei’s arm pressed her against him, locking them together. Her left hand clung to his harness strap; the other gripped the back of his tank. Finally he looked at her. And smiled. He fucking smiled. Cool bastard. He mouthed something. Then something else. Two. One. She took an urgent breath.

The surface of the sea whacked into her, pounded her feet, ripped off her goggles. The rushing wind was replaced by the soft, numbing sounds of the undersea that she’d loved since her first dive in the Volga at the age of eight. But it was cold, bloody cold. She fumbled for the regulator pinned to her chest, exhaled once to flush out the water, then breathed in. Air – the only thing that really mattered underwater.

Eyes still closed, she fished inside her jacket pocket for her dive mask, donned it, tilted her head back and breathed out through her nose to clear the mask of seawater, equalising pressure in her nose and ears at the same time. She opened her eyes and blinked hard to rinse out the stinging salt water. Sergei was attaching his fins, a torch in his hand.

She unfastened the fins strapped tight around her calves, slipped them on, then found her own halogen lamp. At least the seawater inside her wetsuit had warmed a little from her body heat. Sergei shone a cone of light down into the gloom. He put his hand in the beam and gave her the OK signal. She did the same, careful not to shine it anywhere near his face and render him temporarily night-blind. His smile had gone.

To business.

She checked her depth on the dive computer attached to her left wrist. Fifteen metres. The swell from the roiling waves above swayed her gently, rocking her. But she knew they must be off-course due to the late opening of her chute. The drop had been carefully calculated – vertical height, wind strength and direction, sea state – and now they might be up to half a mile in the wrong place. Sergei showed his hand in the light, fingers spread open, palm down. Stay. Of course. The others had sleds. Let them come to us.

But waiting meant thinking. About Sergei? No, don’t go there. Jake? Ditto. The job. Fanatical-but-smart killers below. Probably executed the crew already. The question that had dogged her in the Scillies came back to her. Was she ready to kill?

She’d killed for the first time there. Drowned a man – a lot harder than pulling a trigger. She’d done it to save Jake and the others, though it had been too late to save Ben. And she’d shot another. No hesitation that time, because the bastard had just killed a bunch of innocents and had raped her years earlier. But there was no one down below she cared for or hated. Yet it came down to this. There was a line. Before the Scillies she’d been on one side of it. Now she was on the other. Her father’s side.

So, yes, she could kill.

A dull buzzing interrupted her thoughts. Sergei was staring behind her. She finned to spin around and saw a light, then two. The sleds, two divers apiece, one on top, one hanging at the side. They didn’t slow down. A sled approached, and she finned to get a head start, and then grabbed the sled’s rail as it passed. Sergei was on the sled in front. He glanced back once to check she was aboard, then both sleds accelerated to make up for lost time. They stayed at fifteen metres for a good ten minutes, then she felt the pressure on her ears increase, and cleared them – they were descending.

They hit thirty-five metres and levelled off. Still she saw nothing, but the sleds both slowed, and then she saw why. The forward light picked up the huge black tail fin of the Borei Class nuclear sub, like the fin of a shark, which happened to be the nickname for this class of sub. Sergei’s sled circled behind, his forward beam illuminating the massive propeller. She tried to gauge how long each blade was. Maybe three metres.

Sergei took point again, and fired a flare that fizzed forward like a lazy yellow firework. The sub was one hundred and seventy metres long, only slightly shorter than its predecessor, the Typhoon. But seeing it, positioned at one end while the flare swept forward over its dark beauty, was something else. The flare continued its arc over the conning tower, all the way to the prow, her destination. The light faded and plunged them back into darkness save for the sled’s lights. But the after-image was etched onto her retinas. Russian subs didn’t really go in for names, they were usually referred to as Projects and given a number, but Sergei had told her this one was the Yuri Gagarin. He’d have been proud.

Yet shark was the right label, too. Subs like the Yuri were the ultimate predator, patrolling the oceans, undetectable yet carrying Armageddon on their backs, a dozen missiles, any one of which could obliterate a major city, incinerating hundreds of thousands of people in a heartbeat. They had to stop its warheads falling into the wrong hands.

They picked up speed, the sleds’ beams angled downwards, two ellipses of light tracing the narrow walkway on the foredeck. Both sleds slowed as they reached the missile hatches, a dozen lined up in neat pairs. One was open.

Sergei descended from the sled to the deck, and peered inside with his torch. Nadia wanted to take a look, but the sled driver’s hand clasped around hers, welding it to the sled’s rail. Sergei could clearly see something, but she had no way of knowing what. He rejoined his sled, and both sleds surged forward. She glanced down as she passed the open tube, but could see nothing there, not even the telltale white and red cone of the missile itself. She felt a shiver. It looked as if at least one warhead was already missing.

They arrived at the conning tower, its antennae bending in the current, a sturdy metal ladder running down the outside. She wondered how Sergei and the other two were going to board the sub through the conning tower. They tethered their sled to the tower, and as her sled continued its journey, she glanced back, watching Sergei and the others setting up some equipment. She realised two things. The first was that they could easily be killed as soon as they entered the sub. The second was that she didn’t want that to happen, not to Sergei at any rate. She turned her gaze forwards.

The foredeck began to narrow in the beam of light, until it reached the sleek prow of one of Russia’s finest. As they drifted down to the torpedo hatches, she realised she couldn’t see the sea floor. Which didn’t make sense. The sled driver evidently had the same concern. He circled the sled while the second diver fired up a flare, then let it drop. It fell for a full minute before it was lost in the depths. Shit.

The driver gunned the motor and they levelled off on the starboard side with nothing beneath them but a yawning abyss. He fired a flare horizontally, along the sub’s hull, and she watched, unbelieving. Nearly half the sub was hanging over an underwater cliff.

Had Sergei known? Clearly his men hadn’t. The driver prodded the sled’s keypad, presumably sending a message to Sergei, then did an about-turn back to the torpedo tubes. She checked her dive computer. Forty-two metres. Her head felt a little groggy due to the inevitable narcosis, as if she’d downed two vodkas. The adrenaline would more than compensate. But as she stared at the enormous sub right in front of her, she wondered what it would take to tip it into the abyss.

The other two divers had backpacks like hers, but with larger twin tanks, as they would remain outside in the water. She checked the sled. Her spare tank, for the return journey, was fixed to its underside. Now the operation became tricky.

The driver keyed a command into the sled’s control pad, dismounted, and left it hovering in one spot, despite the constant slow current. She was impressed – she hadn’t known such underwater navtech existed. He then unhooked some gear, finned to the sealed torpedo tube, lit an underwater burner, and began burning through the tube’s bow cap. The blue flame was shrouded by a torrent of expanding bubbles heading for the surface. The other diver fixed a small camera and head torch to Nadia’s head. Then he hooked a lanyard around her neck, attached to the thin breathing cylinder that should keep her alive long enough to get to the other end of the tube.

Something nagged her brain about the plan. Something was wrong. But the trouble with narcosis was that it made it hard to think. One of the golden rules of diving – plan the dive, and dive the plan – was there for exactly that purpose, to stop you changing your mind at depth, when you were no longer thinking clearly. While she was diving on air, because she’d be going inside the torpedo tube on her small canister of air, the other two would be on a Nitrox mixture in order to stay outside longer. So, they should be thinking clearly, no narcosis at this depth. They didn’t seem bothered. Maybe it was just her. Still it nagged, like an unscratchable itch inside her skull.

The driver was halfway through cutting the bow cap off. The other diver fixed the modified Glock to her inner left arm. Once she’d defeated the interlock, she’d open the inner door. Water would flush her into the torpedo room, surprising anyone there. She’d have about two seconds to spot anyone, draw her weapon, and shoot them.

The sled driver was almost through. The bow cap was heavy. It would fall into the abyss. She gazed down while the other diver began unfastening the stab jacket straps holding her air tank on. She’d have to switch to the small cylinder any second. Dammit! What was it? What was she missing? She was positive they were about to make a fatal mistake.

She mentally went through the steps again: cut off the bow cap; lay it on the seabed floor, because it’s heavy. Prepare Nadia. She goes in. Pick up the plate again, then, using the sled for buoyancy, reseal the cap in position like a plug, so the torpedo room doesn’t flood when she opens the inner hatch… But the conditions had changed. She stared downwards. There was no sea floor. And half the sub was hanging over a cliff. It wouldn’t take much to tip the sub over…

She looked up.

The burner switched off. With his gloves, the driver began to tug at the bow plate. She kicked hard with her fins towards the sled driver, pushing away from the other diver, the regulator slipping from her mouth, leaving her tank and harness in his hands, her eyes fixed on the bow plate. He was about to let it go, let it drop to the floor. But there was no floor, just the abyss. She angled herself down and kicked hard, and caught it just as it fell from his hands, its edges still hot from the burner, cooling quickly due to the water.

It dragged her down headfirst. She was out of her harness, which meant she had no buoyancy. She was sinking fast, but dared not let it go. And she couldn’t breathe. The flimsy regulator from the small cylinder was out of reach, and if she let go of the cap with even one hand, it would slide from her grip.

The sled’s engine whined, and she hoped to God they were chasing her. She could see her dive computer. Fifty metres. Fifty-two. Fifty-four. A hand grabbed her ankle, hauling her back upwards. Fifty-six. Her lungs screamed at her to breathe. He shoved a regulator – not hers, his spare – into her mouth, and pulled her upright. But the sled got free of him, the engine still revving. It careened sideways, then slalomed into the depths, taking her return tank with it. Screwed didn’t cover it. She and the diver stared awhile, watching the sled vanish into the chasm.

When they arrived back at the torpedo tube, she half expected the lead diver to shoot her with his spear gun, or at least give her the hardest glare he could muster. Instead, he pointed to his temple with a finger and drew a circle. Technically it meant he had narcosis – but he couldn’t have, he was on Nitrox – so it meant instead that he’d not realised the mistake he’d been about to make. The other diver who’d rescued her must have figured it out as well, because if they let the torpedo room flood when she entered, it could have sent the sub over the ledge.

She held the steel bow cap to her chest with one arm, and pointed at herself, then the opening, then the cap, then the blowtorch. The driver nodded, for the first time a hint of respect in his eyes. She would have to enter, and he would seal her in. If she failed… No point going there. He took the cap from her, and she turned to face the other diver. She took several deep breaths while he switched on her head torch. She let his spare regulator fall from her mouth, and brought up the small breathing tube from her cylinder, took a short breath to check it was working, then finned to the opening.

Her torch lit up the mirror-shiny passage all the way to the inner hatch eight metres away. She put her arms in front and kicked to manoeuvre her head, then her torso, then her thighs, then her feet and fins inside. One of the divers unbuckled her fins. Of course, they’d just get in the way, especially if – when – she got the inner hatch open. She began crawling through the tube, having to hunch her shoulders to fit, the way Sergei had rounded them back at the airport. She moved forward, taking fast baby steps, with the occasional lurch. A bubbling sound began behind her, followed by clanks and flashes of blue lightning flickering down the steel tube. They were sealing her in. She’d taken four breaths so far.

Six left.

She reached the end, rewarded herself with a fifth breath, and prayed they’d selected the correct tube. It had been a carefully guarded secret, a ‘back door’ in case a submarine was ever hijacked or disabled and the normal points of entry were unusable. The missile bays couldn’t be used as the missiles were in place, but torpedo tubes had to be loaded. This one had a special device inside, just near the inner hatch. The operation had only been tested in training, until four years ago when a Russian sub had almost been lost in a fjord in Norway. Three Special Services divers entered the same way. Must have been pretty slim. Probably women like her.

She reached the inner door and prised open a square flap. The bubbling behind her ceased. They probably hadn’t sealed it completely, just enough to keep it in place – suction and outside pressure would do the rest. There were two buttons: one red, one green. She took another breath, and pressed the green one firmly with her index finger. Nothing. Wait – let it work. Pressing it again might cancel the first press.

She heard a rattling noise, like a chain rolling over steel cogs. She waited some more. Another breath, number seven. Nothing. A popping sound. And another. A creaking noise from the other side. She pushed with all her might against the inner hatch, grinding the neoprene on her knee pads and boots against the tube’s slippery floor to gain traction. No way. Eighth breath. A big one. Don’t panic. Think. Sergei had said push the green one. Not the red. He’d not said what the red one did. She could hear clanks on the other side of the hatch, but it wouldn’t open. Then she understood why.

Someone was on the other side, holding it shut.

The shock of realisation forced her to take another breath. Nine. There was a thick glass eyehole, but it was covered on the other side. She wondered if her Glock could shoot through it. She didn’t even know if it could fire underwater, only that it was meant to work once she was on the other side. Her two dive buddies could see her predicament via the camera. She heard banging behind her, then the fizzing of the blowtorch. Nice thought, but she’d never make it out in time. She squirmed to retrieve the Glock, then stuck the end of the muzzle against the eyehole. Closing her eyes in case it blew up in her face, she squeezed the trigger.

A muffled click.

She should have had one more breath. But when she tried, she was sucking on empty. Story of her life. Sergei had been right with his little extra-time trick, when he’d stopped her breathing earlier, because she didn’t panic. Instead, she stared at the red button. No more options. It might blow up in her face, might try and fire her from the tube for all she knew. But there was no going back.

Her father came into her mind. Maybe she’d get to see him, finally, more than ten years after his death.

She pressed the red button.

Chapter Four

Nadia gained some idea of how a bullet felt. She was glad she’d closed her eyes and put her hands over her head immediately after pressing the button. The small explosion blew off the inner hatch, shattered her dive mask, and squirted her into the compact room full of unforgiving metal pipes and valves.

Miraculously she didn’t gouge herself on anything. But she was deaf – temporarily, she hoped – a loud ringing in her ears like a perpetual cymbal. She touched her finger to one ear to see if there was blood, but there was only water. She touched her face: grazed, nothing serious. Water trickled in from the tube, but not much. The sub was stable. Her left ear popped, and she could hear again, though the ringing continued.

The guy who’d been jamming the hatch closed was in bad shape. She sloshed towards him through ankle-deep seawater, the Glock in her right hand. He was armed, but his right elbow was mangled, his gun hanging from broken fingers, and his jaw was badly lopsided. The hatch must have hit him in the face.

‘How many men?’ she asked.

He gurgled something. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and then he tried to move, grimaced, and stayed put. She took a look. He was impaled on a length of shiny copper tubing that had transected his spine midway up his back. Soon to be dead. Beyond him, piled in a corner, were three dead sailors. A Borei sub had a full complement of a hundred and seven men, but this had been a skeleton crew according to Sergei. Twenty men, making a test run.

‘Pizda!’ he snarled, referring to the uniquely female part of her anatomy.

‘You’ve not got long,’ she replied. His pain must have been off the scale.

He told her to go and do something with herself.

She shrugged. ‘Have it your way.’ Nothing she could do anyway except speed him on his way. She figured he and whatever he believed in needed some alone time. She paused a moment, wondering what she would say to her maker when the time came, then decided she’d just give Him the silent treatment until He explained Himself.

The workstation was thankfully waterproof, a light transparent gel casing over everything including each key on the keypad. She inserted the USB key. A message in Russian came up, asking for a password. Sergei had said nothing about a password. Not the kind of thing he would have forgotten. So, the terrorists had inserted one of their own. She wondered why. She moved back to the man bleeding out.

‘Password?’

He spat blood on the floor.

Sergei and the others didn’t have unlimited time; at forty metres they were going to go through their nitrox pretty quickly. They could abort their mission, but Sergei didn’t seem the type. He’d go in anyway, and be killed as he did so.

Not going to happen.

Back in Kadinsky’s camp, she’d been trained in torture techniques. Not just the theory. She’d not slept for days afterwards, and swore she’d never do it for real.

Yet here she was.

But this scenario was tricky. The man was dying. He had little to lose. Which meant she’d have to inflict extreme pain, as well as psychological terror. And she’d have to give him the Promise. She wasn’t sure she could do it. An image of Danton – sick torturer that he’d been, back in the Scillies – arose in her mind, taunting her, calling her a pussy, telling her she could never do what was required, never be what was required.

She visualised Moscow, Katya in Gorky Park with a hundred other people, kids playing, taunting the geese on the lake, people laughing, a father holding his son up to the sky, then a blinding flash, and half a million people reduced to ash in the first seconds of the explosion.

No.

She steeled herself. ‘Last chance,’ she said, for which she received a string of stuttered expletives.

She took out her stubby knife, and thrust it into his left shoulder, severing the tendons that controlled his arm. He half-grunted, half-cried out through gritted teeth, gave her his remaining repertoire of swear words, then began combinations. She took off his belt and strapped it around his forehead, securing him so he couldn’t move a millimetre.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, his breath thready, his voice less sure.

She didn’t answer. The divers outside, and Sergei no doubt, would be watching via the camera. She retrieved the knife, stole a breath, then made an incision in the middle of his forehead, and dragged the knife sideways, both hands on the hilt so as to exert constant pressure. She felt sick as the blood oozed out, but she continued. She needed the password. Now.

So many nerves in the face. He held out for five seconds then began shouting, another five struggling, another five kicking. She continued. His shouts turned to screams.

She paused.

‘Password,’ she said, keeping her voice level.

Tears flowed down his bloody cheeks. Her guts churned, but she gave him a cold, hard stare. Then raised the knife again.

‘Vengeance!’ he half-screamed, half-shouted.

She went over to the terminal, entered the word. The computer came to life, and she downloaded the contents of the USB key. The computer screen began to flash streams of incoherent data, half-formed disjointed images, then it blanked. The lighting in the room flickered, then went out, replaced by red emergency lights.