Under Fire: (A Dan Taylor thriller) (24 page)

Dan knocked and entered the room.

The Vice-Admiral stopped speaking as Dan appeared, his arms crossed in defiance, his face red.

David stood up. ‘Dan, glad you could join us,’ he said.

Dan shook hands with him. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

David gestured to the other people in the room. The Secretary of State for Defence’s representative sat at the head of a beech oval conference table, while the Vice-Admiral remained pacing by the coffee machine, evidently trying to maintain his cool.

‘In case the rescue mission fails, we were discussing a back-up plan,’ explained David. He put his hands in the air. ‘Unfortunately, it would seem we have no back-up.’ He sat down in a chair facing the Vice-Admiral.

Dan walked round the table and glanced out the window at the river traffic, then turned to face the room. ‘What’s the problem?’

The Vice-Admiral sighed. ‘Two destroyers are escorting the Q-Max tanker, which left Ras Laffan the morning of the attack, through the Atlantic as a precaution – they’ll follow it up to the point it docks in the UK. The rest of the fleet are currently in the middle of a major exercise with the French and Americans in the South Atlantic,’ he said. ‘Unknown to the British public, our remaining assets, namely an Astute class submarine and two frigates are unavailable for defending the country at this time. ’

‘Wow,’ said Dan. ‘That’s bad timing.’

‘Heads will roll,’ growled the Vice-Admiral.

‘Where exactly are the two frigates and the submarine?’ asked Dan.

‘The submarine is having a refit which is running four weeks late, one frigate is off the coast of Somalia on a reconnaissance mission, and I can’t tell you where the other frigate is, because that’d open another can of worms.’

Dan turned and looked out the window, letting the voices wash over him. He shivered, the cold from the bulletproof glass casting a chill which wasn’t improved by the room’s poor heating system. He watched a tourist boat battle a headwind and an incoming tide up the muddy waters of the River Thames, its passengers braving the elements to take photographs of the Tower of London on the opposite bank. His gaze shifted and a smile began to play across his lips as he watched a traffic helicopter hovering above the busy cityscape.

He turned to face the others, his heart racing as he fought to keep his voice calm. ‘Gentlemen, I think I’ve found the solution to our water-based problem,’ he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and grinning.

***

RAF Northolt, North London

Dan stuffed his hands into his pockets, ducked his chin into his scarf and stamped his feet as he stood outside a weather-beaten aircraft hangar. He swayed slightly as a particularly harsh thrust of wind whipped around the airfield and blew sleet in through the hangar door. He wiped his face, stepped back into the shelter of the enormous structure and turned to the man next to him.

‘How much longer?’

They’ll be here soon – just had to take a diversion around the M25 to miss a snow squall.’ The man turned his back to Dan and strode over to a table onto which a hot water urn, tea and coffee had been set out. ‘Help yourself,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘They’ll want a hot drink when they get here. Might as well make use of the civilian supplies.’

Dan sighed, held his impatience in check and helped himself to black coffee. ‘What do you mean, civilian supplies?’ he asked.

‘Northolt allows civilians to land here occasionally,’ explained the mechanic. ‘Just not when there’s something special going on,’ he added with a wink. ‘And that includes any VIPs.’

As Dan raised his steaming mug of coffee to his lips, his ears picked up the faint sound of rotors slicing through the freezing air. He followed the other man to the hangar door and began searching the low grey cloud cover for the approaching aircraft.

The sound grew closer, and Dan’s eyes scanned the horizon, waiting for the helicopter to appear. When it did, it took him by surprise, the grey hulk of a machine dropping out of the sky less than five hundred metres in front of him.

The fuselage was covered in cameras and sensors, its nose a bulbous mound of radar equipment. The helicopter banked elegantly in the air, lowered slowly to the ground and bobbed once on its wheels.

As the rotor blades slowed to a standstill, Dan peered through the downpour as the doors opened. Two aircrew dressed in identical dark green overalls climbed down to the tarmac and ran through the sleet towards the hangar.

The pilot reached the structure first and held out a hand to Dan. ‘Scott Carlisle,’ he said, then turned as his partner joined them, shaking water from his hair. ‘And this is my observer, Rob Hamilton.’

Dan shook hands with both men and pointed towards the hot water urn. ‘Better get yourself one of those before the caretaker drinks it all.’

Carlisle grinned and walked over to the table. ‘So, what’s the story?’ he asked as he mashed a tea bag in a mug of hot water. ‘I hear you have a submarine problem?’

‘Just a bit,’ said Dan. ‘Come through to the office and I’ll explain.’

He led the two men through to a small room which had been created by boarding up one corner of the hangar. A window looked out onto the hangar space while old flying club notices peeled off a corkboard nailed to one wall. A table and four chairs were set out in the middle of the room and an electric heater on its maximum heat setting battled the cold breeze wafting into the room from the main hangar.

Dan shut the door and immediately the room temperature increased by a couple of degrees. He sat down and motioned to the helicopter crew to join him. Once they’d settled, he pulled out a map of the north Kent coastline and spread it over the table.

‘The situation’s a little more tricky than just dealing with a submarine,’ he began, ‘which is why the Vice-Admiral thought it best if I spoke with you directly to see what you suggest. We’ve reason to believe the gas facility at the Isle of Grain on the north Kent coast is under threat. You’ll have seen the incident in Qatar on the news last week.’

Both crewmen nodded.

‘From the evidence currently available, it looks like a two-pronged attack. First, an LNG tanker was hit and sunk by something originating from the water – we’re presuming a torpedo – which caused it to capsize while taking on gas from the facility. Secondly, when the engineers attempted to stop the flow of gas to the tanker, they discovered their computer systems had been hacked into and were unable to run their usual emergency procedures. It was only because of a recently installed programme that they were able to block the hacker from the system at the last minute and in time to prevent a major catastrophe.’

Dan took a sip of coffee before continuing. ‘The original idea was to launch an attack on the submarine, but when we located its sonar signature, we found it’s using other ships in the English Channel to hide behind. In the meantime, we’ve got a Q-Max tanker on its way to Grain to offload LNG. The tanker’s about to enter the English Channel from the Atlantic, and given the number of vessels using that piece of shipping real estate, the Navy can’t exactly send a couple of destroyers or frigates to destroy the submarine – we can’t risk alerting the crew or their bosses to the fact we know what they’re planning.’

‘So what do you propose to do?’ asked Carlisle, frowning.

Dan leaned forward and pointed at the map. ‘Wait until they come round the Kent coastline and enter the Thames Estuary before attacking them to clear the way for the tanker,’ he said. ‘At which point, the Vice-Admiral suggested you’d probably be able to help.’

The pilot scratched his chin then glanced at Hamilton. ‘We could certainly destroy them by using something like a Sting Ray torpedo, but it’s still high risk,’ he said.

‘How do they work?’ asked Dan. ‘Don’t you run the risk of hitting another ship instead?’

Hamilton shook his head. ‘We’ll programme our onboard weapons system with the particular submarine signature. Once we launch the torpedo, it’ll locate, identify and hunt the submarine using the parameters we’ve set.’

‘So it won’t destroy another ship by accident?’

‘No – if it misses the target for some reason, for instance if the submarine deploys a decoy, the torpedo will drift then recalibrate. Then it’ll start a new hunt and destroy sequence. It’ll keep doing that until the target’s destroyed or we call off the hunt.’

‘There’s one other problem to consider,’ said Dan.

Carlisle looked up from the map. ‘What?’

‘Richard Montgomery.’

‘Ah,’ said the pilot, ‘
that
old bastard.’

***

The
SS Richard Montgomery
was a Liberty-type ship built in the United States during the Second World War in 1943. In August 1944, the ship left her homeland with a cargo of munitions destined for the United Kingdom and France to help replace munitions lost in the Atlantic convoys.

While waiting for her escort to France in the Thames Estuary on 20 August 1944 off the shoreline of Sheerness, strong winds blew the ship into shallow water. Despite attempts by her crew to save her, she became grounded.

After all the crew were evacuated, a salvage operation was mounted to save the munitions needed for the war effort. After five days, with only half the explosive ordnance retrieved from the stricken ship, the vessel broke in two and sank beneath the waves, taking the remainder of her cargo with her to a watery grave.

Dan closed the report. ‘It’s still there – the masts stick out of the sea and can be seen from shore. There’s a twenty-four hour armed patrol guarding it, but they’re not going to be much use against a submarine torpedo attack.’

‘How much explosives are still on board?’ asked Hamilton.

‘Anything between fifteen hundred and three thousand tons,’ said Dan. ‘As you’ll appreciate, the Admiralty is a little cagey about telling us exactly how much, but if that wreck moves, or is hit by another vessel, the destruction to the surrounding area would be catastrophic.’

‘What sort of explosives?’ asked Carlisle.

Dan glanced down the report. ‘TNT and cluster bombs, according to this,’ he said. ‘I spoke with the Ministry of Defence earlier this morning who confirmed the charges and detonators had been stored separately, but there’re some analysts in our team concerned about the stability of the explosives – if the sea water’s got to it, it won’t take much to set it off. If we use a torpedo to destroy the submarine anywhere near this thing, the vibrations could very well start a chain reaction.’

‘What’s the scenario if she does blow?’

‘We got hold of some projections which suggest tsunamis along the coasts of Kent and Essex, as well as along the Thames towards London,’ said Dan. ‘The shockwaves alone would cause millions of pounds worth of damage, not to mention the complete annihilation of every living being within a fifteen mile radius.’

The pilot quietly whistled through his teeth and drew a black ‘x’ on the map to show the
Montgomery
’s position. ‘And it’s only a few miles from the Isle of Grain gas facility,’ he said, tracing along the coastline with his finger, ‘and the oil refineries along that stretch of land.’

Dan nodded, his face grim. ‘What we have to decide is
where
we’re going to attack the submarine,’ he said. ‘Too soon, and we alert their masters we’re onto them.’ He paused. ‘And if we’re too late, we’ll be responsible for one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history.’

The armed security guard stood to one side as Dan entered the room.

David stood at the far end of the room shaking hands with Grant Swift. Both men turned to face Dan as the door closed behind him.

‘Glad you could join us,’ said David, who gestured to a set of armchairs arranged around a low coffee table next to floor-to-ceiling windows designed to take in the view of the river below. A laptop sat open on the table, the screen displaying a series of codes, numbers and programming script. ‘Grant was just getting me up to speed on exactly what this programme of his is capable of – and how it might help us.’

Dan shook hands with Grant as he sat down. ‘How are you holding up?’

 ‘I’ve had better weeks,’ the engineer commented as he eased himself into a chair. ‘I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when I eventually get home.’

David walked round the armchairs and stood at the windows, letting his gaze wander over the cityscape. ‘Hopefully we won’t have to keep you from your family much longer,’ he said and turned to face both men. ‘Not if this works.’

‘What have you got in mind?’ asked Dan, leaning forward to the table in front of him and filling glasses with water from the jug provided.

David glanced at Grant. ‘This is your speciality, so I’ll let you explain,’ he said, and began to pace the room while he listened.

Grant leaned forward and rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘What you’ve got to understand is that I can’t just write the code and then upload it onto the system,’ he began. ‘It just doesn’t work like that. I’ve got to look at the existing SCADA – essentially what this whole controls system does. It runs the processing plant. Opens valves, records gas levels, that sort of thing.’

Dan nodded and gestured for the engineer to continue.

‘What my software does is enable an authorised user to switch off the gas flow, then hunt down and destroy a hacker’s access into the system. To do that, I’ve got to analyse the existing SCADA system and write the code within those parameters, otherwise the engineer operating this would have to re-learn the entire system, not just the application of the commands we need to control the system under stress.’

Dan frowned, leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘How long will that take?’

Grant ran his hand over his hair and scratched his neck. ‘The codes I wrote for Ras Laffan took three weeks,’ he said. ‘We’d only just got to the testing phase at Grain – it’s still a raw system.’

Dan looked past the engineer and glanced at David, who was shaking his head.

Dan lowered his gaze to the display on the laptop screen. ‘If we provided some people to help you, how fast would you be able to do it?’

The engineer sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked first at Dan, then over his shoulder at David. ‘If I had a team of six engineers – and I mean on top of their game, senior controls engineers, then maybe –
maybe
– we can pull this together overnight,’ he said. ‘But it’s going to be close. They’ll get tired, make mistakes. I’ll have to check everything they do, run a simulation before we even think about uploading this onto the Isle of Grain system.’ He leaned forward in his chair and reached out to exit the programme and close the laptop. ‘And they’ll all have to sign confidentiality agreements to protect my intellectual property.’

‘Working in secrecy won’t be an issue,’ said David. ‘The CISP has some great guys working in the City at the moment on cyber security issues so they’ll be up to speed on what we’re trying to do. The Qataris sent their own programming expert to assist with the investigation as well – Antonia Almasi – so she’ll be able to help as well.’

Grant nodded. ‘Good, good – then we should get started straight away.’

***

‘Okay,’ said Grant, pinching the bridge of his nose and blinking. ‘That’s as much as we can do here.’ He began handing out data sticks to each of the engineers. ‘Back up your work to these and give them back to me. I’ll go to the gas plant now and begin to pull everything together,’ he said as he walked round the room.

The engineers began to stand and stretch, leaving the room, passing Grant on the way and handing back the data sticks. Grant glanced up, and seeing Antonia still at her laptop, called to her.

‘Come on, Antonia – what’s taking you so long?’ he teased.

She looked up and grinned. ‘Back off – I’ve done twice as much work as this lot,’ she said as she closed the laptop and stood up.

The last of the engineers laughed as they left the room.

Grant smiled and held his hand out for Antonia’s data stick as she approached him. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘Is this really going to work?’ she asked.

The software engineer sighed. ‘Look – I
think
it will. The system at Ras Laffan worked well, and that had only been used in a supervised test environment before having to be used against a real attack – and a very coordinated one at that. I’ve spent the last two hours running simulations on a copy of the facility’s system and we stand a good chance – I just can’t say for certain until we’re there and under attack.’

Antonia nodded and handed him the stick before slinging her laptop bag over her arm. ‘I’ll see you at Grain,’ she called over her shoulder as she left the room.