Friday 22.15 hrs
ABOVE THE MEDITERRANEAN the blue sky of day had turned into the black of night. Deep below the surface, few on board the Soviet submarine Korund were in any frame of mind to notice.
As the boat slipped almost noiselessly through the water at fifteen knots, her crew changed watch. Men weary with fatigue slipped into the warm, fetid bunks just abandoned by the comrades who’d taken over their duties. Sleep would not come easily; their minds were occupied with the dispute which had set one man against another in the past few hours.
For much of her journey westwards the Korund had travelled on the surface, using her diesels for speed. But she was on batteries now, running deep to avoid the attentions of the American Carrier Battle Group.
When night fell, Captain Second Rank Nikolai Bonderenko had brought the Korund’s three thousand tons of black steel to periscope depth. Through the image-intensifier, he’d observed the US Marine Task Force meet with two supply ships and begin the transfer of supplies by helicopter. They must be in a hurry to be cross-decking in the dark, he thought. A mission that couldn’t wait?
Moscow had acknowledged his report and ordered him west with all speed. No details, just a chart position north of the Libyan coast.
Nikolai Bonderenko was Russian, but half his officers and most of his seamen were Ukrainian. National rivalries which strict naval discipline had managed to suppress for decades erupted that evening into the threat of mutiny. Only the personal respect which his crew felt for him kept them obeying his orders.
For the past two hours the boat had been a hive of rumour as to the purpose of their mission. As the watch changed, those who’d come on shift had been drawn in to the debate.
‘The men have no respect for politicians, Comrade Captain!’
The voice belonged to Ivanov, his executive officer, a Captain Third Rank, from the Ukraine. Four of the most senior officers were squeezed into Bonderenko’s cabin.
‘Orders from the General Staff must be obeyed,’ Bonderenko replied stolidly.
‘Russia’s General Staff! Not mine?’
The Ukrainian’s eyes betrayed his unease. The issue was a crucial one, but he considered Bonderenko a friend and didn’t want this conflict with him.
‘The fleet still comes under joint command,’ Bonderenko insisted. ‘Russia and Ukraine.’
‘But it was Moscow the orders came from,’ Ivanov insisted.
Their faces were flushed, only inches apart in the tiny cabin.
The security officer, Captain-Lieutenant Amelin, intervened to try to soothe matters.
‘If I may suggest it, Comrade Captain, we should signal Sevastopol and ask them to reconfirm Moscow’s instructions.’
‘And withdraw from operations until they do,’ insisted Ivanov the Ukrainian.
‘We can’t,’ Bonderenko stated bluntly.
‘We must,’ retorted Ivanov. ‘You haven’t told us everything, Captain. That is your right, of course. But from what I can judge, the orders from Moscow could put us in danger. We’re heading for Libya. So are the Americans, maybe. Are we on opposite sides again? I thought all that was over. So why is this happening?’
Bonderenko knew only too well, but his orders were not to tell his men.
‘The real question is this,’ Ivanov persisted, ‘who is giving the orders in Moscow? The General Staff, you say. But who are these men? Are they democrats? Are they responsible to the politicians? Or are they acting alone? Maybe there’s been another coup, and perhaps this mission is part of their crazy plans.’
The others nodded. Ivanov had voiced the fear they all shared.
‘We are intelligent thinking men, Comrade Captain. We must not allow ourselves to be used for some dark purpose that could throw the world into new conflict.’
They all looked to Bonderenko for his response. It was desperately hot in the tiny cabin. Sweat glistened on their faces. The only illumination came from the red nightlight above their heads.
‘We must continue the mission,’ Bonderenko declared sombrely.
From their sullen response he knew he’d have to tell them why.
‘It’s not to throw the world into conflict; it’s to keep it out of one. Please believe me.’
Their eyes remained doubtful.
‘Look. The fishing boat we sank …’
The officers shifted in their seats. That incident had never been explained to them.
‘Those big canisters our divers went to look for in the hold, and couldn’t find…? They were nuclear weapons.’
Bonderenko had their attention now.
‘Russian nuclear missile warheads, stolen, and now in the hands of the Arabs.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ the Ukrainian whispered. But he knew Bonderenko wouldn’t lie.
‘You must believe it. If you don’t, there’ll be a catastrophe. That fishing boat – they thought it was taking the bombs to attack Israel. That’s why we were ordered to sink it. But the Arabs had tricked us. The bombs were already on another ship.’
‘Those men we killed …’
‘A mistake. Don’t think about it. There may be more to come.’
His officers glanced at each other uneasily. Bonderenko knew he’d won.
‘They still haven’t told me what we’ll have to do. But they’re sending us close to Libya. Maybe that’s where the nuclear warheads are destined.’
He let them think about it for a moment. They all knew how dangerous and unpredictable was the Libyan regime.
‘Those are Russian warheads. It’s not a problem for Ukraine …’ Ivanov muttered defensively.
‘If Libya uses them, who knows what’ll happen? Soon, there might not be a Russia or a Ukraine to argue about,’ Amelin, the security man, added sombrely.
‘So, we all agree, the mission must go on?’ Bonderenko checked.
More glances, then they nodded their assent.
‘But we should ask Moscow for more information,’ Ivanov pressed, ‘in the interests of democracy. We need to be certain their orders are just.’
‘I’ll ask,’ Bonderenko agreed. ‘Now, it’s time for the officers to restore discipline on board. See to it please.’
‘What shall we tell the men?’ Amelin asked.
‘The truth. What you’ve just told us,’ Ivanov declared.
Bonderenko hesitated. It defied all the rules. Classified information never normally went below officer level in their navy. But at such times it was for individual commanders to set the rules.
‘The truth,’ he affirmed. ‘But informally. No broadcast, just word of mouth.’
One by one they squeezed out of the cabin and spread through the boat to reunite the crew.
Nikolai Bonderenko returned to the control room.
There were seven contacts marked on the tactical combat screen.
‘The American carrier’s moving faster, Comrade Captain,’ the lieutenant told him. ‘Bearing two-three-five.’
He pointed to the largest of the noise sources on the screen.
‘Any sign that their task force has detected us?’
‘No, sir. Unless there’s a submarine close by, which we’ve missed. But in these waters detection is difficult. We should be safe.’
The boy was just out of the academy, speaking with the authority of the truly inexperienced. Bonderenko patted his shoulder. He’d been the same at his age.
Time for his rounds. He ducked through the hatchway heading for the bows, passed under the ladder that led up to the fin, then swung himself onto the rungs that would take him to the deck below. Oil on the handrail – someone deserved a tongue lashing for that, but not today.
The smell of garlic and cooking fat wafted from the cramped mess for the glavnyy starshini – the petty officers whom he relied upon to keep his conscript crew in order. They stiffened as he peered through the entrance. He could tell from their eyes that they’d learned the truth about their mission. He grunted and moved on.
In the weapons compartment two crewmen slept on the pallet beds clamped to the torpedo racks. Bonderenko was tall for a submariner and had to duck his head to avoid hydraulic pipes fixed to the roof.
Ahead, he was faced by the tube hatches and the rails for loading the torpedoes into them. To the right was a closed-off armoury separated from the main torpedo stacks by a wire grille, secured with a padlock. Inside were two very special weapons, Type 65 nuclear-tipped torpedoes, designed to destroy American aircraft carriers.
The codes to activate them were in the safes in his own cabin and that of the security officer, Captain Third Rank Amelin.
He looked at the sleeping sailors. What had it done to their bodies to share this space with nuclear warheads? Officially, the weapons were perfectly safe. But no one wore radiation monitors, so how could they know? In Murmansk they joked that you could tell a Russian submariner by the way he glowed in the dark. He shuddered.
The ordinary torpedoes on which his crewmen slept were the teeth of this submarine, the fangs that could tear open the enemy’s flesh. Before long, his gut told him, they would be ordered to use them.
He looked again at the men who’d have to load them into the tubes. They were tired, slack from too long at sea.
Let them lie there for another few hours. Then he’d bully them from their bunks and drill them until their shoulders ached with fatigue.
MV Baalbeck
23.37 hrs
Abdul Habib pretended to sleep. On another bunk in the small cabin, Colonel Ellafi was doing the same.
Nearly time, Habib thought. He couldn’t see his watch without revealing that he was awake. His heart thundered in anticipation.
Suddenly, he heard running feet in the passageway outside. A prayer to Allah that it was his man, not Ellafi’s.
The door burst open. It was Rashid.
‘Habib! Quick!’ he breathed, loud enough for Ellafi to hear as well. ‘Come to the hold. The weapons. Something’s happened. There’s gas …’
Abdul Habib sprang to his feet, thrust his pistol into his belt and propelled himself out of the cabin after Rashid.
Colonel Ellafi sat up, startled. Gas? What was the Lebanese talking about? How could there be gas? He looked at his watch. A quarter to midnight. Two more hours before his men were due to make their move.
Uneasy, he checked his weapon, then pushed into the next cabin to rouse Fahd. Maybe they’d have to act sooner.
Running along the deck to the forward companionway that led to the hold, the two Libyans smelled smoke.
Shouts came from below.
‘Water! Get water,’ they heard Habib splutter.
They started down the ladder. Black fumes billowed along the short passageway to the hold.
Covering his mouth and nose with a shirt-sleeve, and with the pistol gripped firmly in his right hand, Ellafi ducked forward to see what had happened. Inside, the smoke enveloped him.
Suddenly a baulk of timber cracked onto his skull and felled him to the deck. His pistol clattered against the steel and was seized by waiting hands.
Six feet behind him in the passageway Fahd froze, thighs tensed to spring, his Kalashnikov barrel probing for a target he couldn’t see.
‘Colonel?’ he yelled into the choking, black smoke.
Then his jaw racked open in a rictus of agony, a silent scream, as a long steel blade pierced his rectum and ripped into his gut.
The force of the knife thrust toppled him. His assault gun spattered bullets into the void, the shots hammering in the confined space.
Habib’s man Samir stamped on Fahd’s wrist, and the gun fell silent. Then with a pistol, he fired a single merciful shot into the Libyan’s temple.
‘Allahu Akbar!’ he yelled.
‘Allahu Akbar!’ came the answering cry – Habib’s voice, muffled by a gas mask.
There was a hiss of carbon dioxide, extinguishing the flames in the bucket of oil-soaked rags they’d used to create the smoke.
‘Is it Fahd?’ Habib demanded. He had a profound wish for the man who’d defied him on the bridge to be dead.
‘It is,’ Samir confirmed.
‘Bring him into the hold.’
Habib’s other two men, Rashid and Ali, switched on fans in the ventilation shafts. The smoke began to clear.
They heard shouts on deck. The rest of the Libyans had been alerted by the shots.
‘Stay on deck!’ Samir yelled as a foot appeared on the top rung of the ladder. ‘Any further and we’ll kill Colonel Ellafi!’
He fired a single round, aiming to miss. The foot disappeared in an instant.
Habib splashed water on Ellafi’s face to revive him. A gash on the Colonel’s scalp oozed blood.
There was blood, too, on Habib’s sleeve. A ricocheting bullet from Fahd’s Kalashnikov had grazed his arm.
Ellafi coughed as he recovered consciousness. He looked about, dazed and bewildered, then began a futile struggle. His hands and feet were already bound.
‘Fahd!’ he yelled.
Habib pointed to the body, with its dark smear beside the ear.
‘You Lebanese son of a whore!’ Ellafi cursed.
Samir cracked his pistol butt across the Colonel’s mouth, splitting his lip.
Habib raised his hand to stay a second blow.
‘Enough! No one else needs to die!’
He crouched in front of Ellafi and searched his eyes for fear. All he saw was defiance.
‘Traitor to the Arabs!’ Habib hissed. ‘You were going to break the bargain, steal our weapon!’
Ellafi didn’t deny it.
‘You do what I tell you now. Forget the orders of the madmen in Tripoli.’
‘To hell with you!’ Ellafi snarled. ‘Kill me if you wish.’
‘No.’
Habib’s eyes were icy cold.
‘You are going to live, so I can see the fear in your eyes when I give you to Samir …’
Ellafi blinked, as Habib’s henchman crossed over to the prostrate body of Fahd.
Samir’s hand reached down. Something projected from the seat of the dead man’s jeans.
‘Aaaagh!’ Ellafi cried in horror, as the long crimson knife was slowly pulled from Fahd’s intestines.
He turned away and began to retch. Habib grabbed his hair and twisted his head to face him again.
‘You will do what I tell you?’
Ellafi shook uncontrollably.
‘Yes,’ he sobbed.
Habib nodded to Rashid, who seized the Libyan under the armpits and hauled him to his feet.
‘You and me, we go to the bridge,’ Habib told him. ‘Tell your men to stay on deck and throw down their weapons. Shout from the ladder. And convince them! Samir is behind you!’
They cut the ties round Ellafi’s ankles and pushed him towards the ladder. His hands were still bound. As he stepped up the rungs, Samir held him against the metal with a fist to prevent him toppling backwards.
‘Tell them!’ Habib ordered.
The Colonel stood high on the ladder, his head above the deck. He felt the point of Samir’s knife against his thigh.
‘Get on deck!’ All of you,’ Ellafi shouted. ‘That’s an order!’ he screamed as he saw their hesitation.
‘Tell them to get the deck lights on so we can count them,’ Habib barked from below.
‘Lights. Lights on! Hurry, for God’s sake!’
The knife pressure increased.
The working lamps came on. Samir pushed Ellafi onto the deck and into the pool of light cast by the bulb on the forward mast. He wanted the Libyans to see their Colonel’s terror.
Behind them Habib emerged from the hold but remained in the shadows.
‘Put down your weapons and move away. Do as they tell you and no one else need die,’ Ellafi choked.
He saw some of them hesitate. Would they disobey and open fire? Part of him hoped they would, part prayed desperately that they wouldn’t.
There was a clang of metal against metal as one by one they dropped their guns on the deck. Habib counted.
Two were missing.
‘The Russians,’ he hissed at Ellafi. ‘Get them out of their cabin and into the hold.’
The Libyan Colonel began to hyperventilate. The Russian technicians were his last card. On his orders, they’d installed a safety device on the bombs. Codes were needed before the weapons could be fused. He’d kept this to himself, and the Russians’ presence secret, but again Habib had the measure of him.
‘The engineers,’ he ordered wearily. ‘Bring them up here. Mr Habib has a use for them.’