Under Fire: (A Dan Taylor thriller) (25 page)

Dan stood on the cliff top next to the gas facility, his arms hugging his chest, a woollen cap pulled down low over his ears. He squinted through the sleet at the churning grey sea, the waves whipped into a frenzy by the winter storm.

Feeling a nudge to his side he looked down and took the binoculars from Mitch.

‘Thanks.’

Sweeping the waters on the horizon, hopeful for any trace which might give away the submarine’s position, he saw nothing, then glanced up at the storm clouds and frowned.

‘Do you think they’ll be able to fly in this?’ asked Mitch.

‘Hope so.’

‘What if they can’t?’

Dan turned and glared at Mitch, who held up his hands.

‘Sorry. Just thinking out loud.’

‘Don’t.’ Dan handed back the binoculars, pulled his hat lower over his ears and scowled.

Mitch looked at his watch. ‘How did they come up with the attack time?’

Dan sniffed, resisting the urge to wipe his nose on his sleeve. ‘Something to do with a lull in shipping movements in the Channel,’ he said. ‘Apparently there’s a half hour window late afternoon where there’s very little commercial traffic. The ferries will either be on their final approach into Folkestone or Dover or the continent. It’s human nature that most passengers will be looking at the coastline they’re approaching, rather than back out to sea.’

‘You had to have heard that from the Vice-Admiral,’ grinned Mitch.

Dan’s mouth twitched. ‘Maybe.’ He turned to Mitch. ‘In any event, it’s late in the afternoon, rather than evening and,’ he said, glaring out to sea, ‘snowing. It’s going to be relatively hard for anyone to see the actual moment of impact.’

‘Subtle,’ nodded Mitch.

‘Not for the men in the submarine,’ said Dan, ‘but given the lives they’ve already taken, and their plans, it’s very hard to have any sympathy for them.’

He broke off as his mobile phone began to ring and answered it. ‘Taylor.’

‘They took off from Northolt two minutes ago,’ said the Vice-Admiral, his voice whipped away by the wind.

Dan turned to shelter the call from the storm and put his hand over his other ear. ‘Can they see it?’

‘Loud and clear,’ replied the Vice-Admiral. ‘It’s travelling very slowly to try and disguise its signal but it just crossed behind the bow wave of the Calais to Dover ferry.’

‘Jesus,’ said Dan. ‘That was close.’

‘Good tactics,’ admitted the Vice-Admiral. ‘Proves your theory about them coming up the Suez by tagging onto other ships to hide their approach.’

Dan smiled. ‘Lucky guess.’

The Vice-Admiral snorted, and then there was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Right. I’ve got to go. If you want to watch, now’s the time to get yourselves in position.’

Dan hung up the phone, glanced at his watch and turned to Mitch. ‘It’s on.’

Mitch nodded and turned back to face the sea, the binoculars to his eyes. ‘This should be interesting. How do you propose we find out what’s happening?’

Dan grinned as a throaty roar emanated from further along the pockmarked track behind them, the sound growing closer.

‘With this,’ he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

Headlights flashed at the end of the road as the ground beneath their feet began to tremble.

Mitch lowered the binoculars as he looked over Dan’s shoulder, a look of shock across his face.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Dan stepped off the narrow road and onto the slush-covered verge as a sleek black articulated truck slid gracefully to a halt next to them, its air brakes hissing, its wheels and paintwork spattered with mud and snow.

Mitch craned his neck and looked up the length of the cab. ‘Tinted windows, huh?’

Dan smiled. ‘Philippa organised it.’

‘She thinks of everything, that girl.’

‘She does indeed,’ said Dan and stepped back as the engine idled then died, and the driver’s door swung open.

David clambered down the stainless steel steps, turned to them, grinned and slammed the door shut behind him.

‘I have to admit, sometimes I love my work,’ he said.

‘The helicopter’s left Northolt,’ said Dan. ‘Can we watch the attack?’

David nodded. ‘The technicians are streaming it live now – come on,’ he said as he turned and began to walk towards the rear of the vehicle.

‘Where exactly are we going to watch this?’ asked Mitch, frowning as he followed the other men.

David stopped halfway along the length of the vehicle’s trailer and looked up at a door in the side.

‘Here,’ he said as he reached up and knocked.

The door opened outwards and Philippa smiled down at them. ‘Stand back,’ she said, and unfolded a steel staircase.

‘Come on in,’ said David, swinging himself up and into the trailer. ‘Welcome to our new office and the future of network-centric warfare.’

Mitch stood at the bottom of the steps and looked sideways at Dan. ‘I suppose he wasn’t technically lying to the Prime Minister when he told him he’d move his office away from the city then?’

Dan grinned. ‘I guess not.’

***

As Dan clambered into the enormous trailer, his eyes gradually adjusted to the dark surroundings.

Along the length of the trailer, technicians worked at computers, their faces illuminated by their screens, colours flickering across their skin as the displays changed.

The back of the trailer housed a small kitchenette and toilet cubicle, with abandoned chairs stacked up against the wall of the trailer out of the way.

At the front of the trailer, nearest the tractor, a floor-to-ceiling screen provided snapshots of satellite imagery and real-time camera feeds from the Lynx helicopter as it powered through the icy airwaves over the north Kent coastline.

Dan looked over at David in amazement. ‘You’ve been busy.’

‘Sir, the helicopter crew report they’re two minutes out from their attack position,’ called out a technician.

David turned to him. ‘Bring up the missile tracking software on the screen.’ He turned to Dan and Mitch. ‘Get yourselves down the far end and take a seat so you’re out of the way of this lot.’

As Dan settled into a chair, he glanced up at Philippa who had passed a file to Mitch and was now standing over him, her eyes glued to the displays above him while she chewed on a fingernail.

‘It’ll be fine, Pip – they’ve done it before,’ he murmured.

She glanced down at him and nodded. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘What did you give to Mitch?’

‘The last of the financial reports we managed to track back to Hassan. The analysts have found evidence of a transaction which might explain where the submarine’s weapons came from.’

She looked over her shoulder as David approached and handed out headphones.

‘You can listen to our exchanges with the helicopter,’ he explained. ‘You’ll also hear the Admiral at the London end. He has the final say on whether or not the helicopter engages the submarine.’

Dan slipped the headphones over his head, wiggled them to get the cans over his ears and turned up the volume control on the attached wire, Carlisle’s voice cutting through the mild static.

‘Thirty seconds,’ he called.

‘Copy that,’ replied the Admiral, his gruff voice clipped and strained.

Dan glanced across at David, who was staring intently at the screen. ‘How close do they have to get?’ he asked.

‘Normally they could get quite close before deploying the missile,’ he said, ‘but these cliffs provide limited cover – it’s so flat along some parts of this coastline.’ David checked his watch. ‘They’re aiming to fly along to Folkestone so they can use the cliffs to provide some cover from the public before firing the missile – they’ll hide behind that natural ridgeline until the weapon’s released, then sweep north-west to drop a probe into the sea so we get some ears under the water. Once that’s set up it’ll enable them to programme the torpedo. They’ll try to give us an aerial view of the attack as well as an infrared reading.’

Dan nodded and turned back to the screen, crossed his arms in front of him and willed his heartbeat to slow. The pilot’s voice cut across his thoughts.

‘Confirm we’re in position, Admiral. Awaiting your command.’

Dan stared at the screen and held his breath.

***

Ivanov held his glass of Kazakh vodka aloft and looked at the four men gathered around.

‘This is for our families. For our country’s future,’ he said. ‘Our sacrifice means economic surety through Hassan’s gas venture into Western Europe.’

‘Densawlığıñız üşin!’ replied the men, tipping the alcohol-laden clear liquid down their throats.

Ivanov swallowed his drink and turned to Ilya. ‘It is time, my friend. Let’s do this.’

Ilya nodded then turned to the controls, his face pale, his hands shaking.

‘Relax,’ said Ivanov. ‘It will be a quick, honourable death.’

The younger man swallowed. ‘Yes captain,’ he said, and powered the submarine forward.

Ivan turned at a sudden cry from the sonar specialist. ‘What is it, Alexei?’

‘I’ve got a signal – I think it’s a sonar probe.’

Ivanov gripped the back of the seat, his knuckles white. ‘What’s the probe’s position?’

‘Three miles off our starboard side,’ said Alexei.

‘And it just appeared?’

The weapons expert nodded. ‘One minute I had a blank screen – next minute all the alarms went off.’

‘And you’re sure there are no enemy ships in the area?’

Alexei gestured at the radar array. ‘It’s clear, look.’

Ivanov frowned. ‘What’s our speed?’

‘Twelve knots so we can hide beside the ferry.’

‘Okay. Full speed to twenty knots, and take this bearing.’

Alexei adjusted the controls, the submarine’s engines vibrating through the sudden acceleration.

‘Gently, Ilya. We don’t want this thing to fall apart now.’

Ivanov felt the sub swing right through its axis, gradually losing contact with the ferry which had sheltered them for the past forty minutes.

‘Has it locked onto us?’

‘Negative.’

‘Okay. Keep at this speed. Have the decoys ready to go. Let’s see if we can put some distance behind us.’

‘Deploy torpedo.’

The Admiral’s voice resonated around the walls of the trailer as all the technicians inched their faces closer to their screens, monitoring the helicopter’s progress against the encroaching submarine.

‘Copy that.’

Hamilton’s voice sounded flat, unemotional over the airwaves. Dan found it hard to reconcile with the jovial, upbeat man he’d met the previous day. The man’s detachment under pressure was chilling, his focus solely on the enemy craft beneath the waves.

‘Releasing torp in three… two… one… weapon away.’

The dim interior of the trailer fell silent as the group watched in awe, a camera fixed to the helicopter’s fuselage catching the flash of the missile as it released, a small plume of smoke echoing against the lens in its wake.

‘Where’s the probe?’ asked Dan, his eyes searching the live camera feed.

David nodded. ‘There.’

A second cloud of smoke momentarily obliterated one of the camera lenses.

Philippa leaned forward and tapped her finger on a second display. ‘Watch here – you see where the missile’s entered the water?’

Dan nodded.

‘The second object is the probe. We should be picking up its signal…
now
.’

The familiar
ping
of a sonar beacon echoed through the temporary ops room.

‘Beacon in place, Admiral,’ Carlisle confirmed. ‘Missile is tracking. Awaiting your command to arm and destroy target.’

‘Copy that,’ said the Admiral.

Dan jumped at a shout from the back of the trailer.

‘Sir – the submarine’s broken away from the vessel it was shadowing,’ said a technician.

‘Where are they?’ growled David.

‘They’ve swung north sir – accelerated to twenty knots.’

‘They’ve broken cover,’ said Dan. ‘They know we’re onto them.’

‘Er… guys… I think we’ve got a problem,’ Mitch interrupted.

The team turned to where Mitch was sitting, sheets of documents in one hand and his mobile phone in the other. He glanced up at them, held up one of the copy wire transfers and waved it.

 ‘There’s something not right here. If Hassan stole a decommissioned submarine, it didn’t have any weapons on board. So he had to get those from another source.’

‘That’s the money which was moved from the bank account you’re holding there,’ Philippa said, pointing at the paper in Mitch’s hand.

‘I know,’ said Mitch. ‘But I was just talking to one of the finance specialists. He reckons the price of torpedoes on the black market has gone up over the past two years. And this,’ he said, waving the paper, ‘isn’t enough.’

Dan frowned. ‘So you’re saying Hassan has another account somewhere and we haven’t found it?’

Mitch grinned. ‘No. What I’m saying is, Hassan hasn’t got any more torpedoes in that submarine.’

Dan slouched back into his chair and frowned.

‘Think about it,’ persisted Mitch. ‘The reports from the engineer at Ras Laffan stated he saw the LNG ship hit twice. That’s supported by the film the Sheik received on his mobile phone. Then they hit the cruise ship. Again, the captain of that reported two strikes before the ship sank. Four torpedoes in total.’

‘And we’ve been on their case since, so they wouldn’t have had time to reload,’ said Dan.

Mitch took a long pull from his soft drink, set it on the table and belched. ‘What if,’ he said, putting down the wire transfer, ‘they were never going to reload?’

Dan sat forward on his chair. ‘Then they’d have to either hide the submarine, or,’ he said, glancing up at Mitch as it dawned on him, ‘it’s a suicide mission.’

‘They’re not going to fire a torpedo at the munitions ship, are they?’ said Mitch. ‘They’re going to use the submarine as a battering ram.’

‘Holy shit.’

David glanced at the red flashing dot on the map displayed on the wall, then touched his radio microphone. ‘Admiral – they’re heading straight for the
Richard Montgomery
. Estimated time to impact…’ He glanced over his shoulder at the technician, who held up his hand. ‘Five minutes. We need to arm that missile
now
!’

The Admiral hesitated. ‘How close is the submarine to the ferry?’

David glanced at the technician, who shook his head.

‘Not clear yet.’

‘We can’t destroy the submarine so close to a civilian ship,’ said the Admiral.

‘How long do we have to wait?’ David demanded.

‘Another nautical mile and we’ll be fine,’ said the technician.

Dan grabbed David’s arm. ‘We can’t wait that long. Philippa – contact the ferry operator. Have them tell the captain of that ship to turn away from the area and gain as much distance as he can between his location and the submarine. Buy us some time.’

He glanced at David. ‘We can’t let the submarine get any closer to that wreck!’

Dan glanced up at the screen and searched until he found the live feed from the camera positioned in a clear pod on top of the helicopter’s rotor blade mounting.

The helicopter was hugging the coastline, keeping low on the horizon. Grey and white waves churned below the aircraft, blurred through the night vision lens, droplets of sleet and snow coursing over the surface of the pod as the machine swept through the air, following its target.

‘Come on!’ he urged.

‘Decoy deployed.’ The pilot’s monotone voice dissolved in Dan’s headphones.

He glanced at David, then up at the electronic feed from the underwater probe. As he watched, the submarine’s decoy flashed on the screen, and the missile gave chase.

‘Haul that thing back!’ barked the Admiral.

‘Copy that.’

A split second later, the torpedo slowed, executed a lazy arc, and began hunting the submarine once more.

Dan looked up at the nautical charts. ‘We’re running out of time!’ he hissed.

‘One more time,’ said the Admiral.

‘We have their signature,’ confirmed the pilot.

‘The ferry captain’s altered course!’ called Philippa. ‘He should be out of range in thirty seconds.’

‘Hopefully the passengers will just think it’s a rough swell,’ murmured Dan.

David raised his eyebrow and turned away.

The pilot’s voice carried across the ops room. ‘Missile re-armed.’

At his words, the beacon on the electronic display swerved left, surged forward and began tracking towards the submarine’s heat signature.

As the team watched, the vessel began to slowly swerve in the water.

‘They’re out of decoys,’ said Mitch. ‘This is it.’

Dan held his breath as the submarine turned a slow arc in the depths.

‘They’re changing course away from the wreck,’ called a technician. ‘Looks like they’re trying to increase their speed.’

Dan looked at David. ‘Will they outrun it?’

The other man shook his head. ‘Not a chance in hell.’

***

Alexei glanced over his shoulder at the submarine captain, his eyes wide.

‘They’ve armed it!’

Ivanov remained stoic, holding onto the side of the vessel to steady himself as Ilya began to turn the submarine left and right, desperately trying to outrun the torpedo heading its way.

‘Full power, Alexei – if they’re going to take us out, we have to try to destroy the gas facility at the same time.’

He turned to the fourth man, older than the rest, who had emerged from the engine rooms. ‘Will she hold?’

The man shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s going to matter, Dmitri,’ he said, and pointed over the captain’s shoulder to the screen in front of Alexei. ‘Look.’

Ivanov turned, his eyes widening as the missile quickly bridged the gap between the probe and his vessel.

‘How far away from the munitions ship are we, Alexei?’

‘Four miles.’

Ivanov punched the metal wall next to him.
So close!

As the alarms began to increase throughout the vessel, he took one last look around the controls room at his men, fear in their eyes as the realisation struck they were about to die, and their mission had failed.

‘Brace for impact,’ he said hoarsely, and closed his eyes.