Mike scrutinised the scientist. ‘Who did the live trials on this?’
‘I did.’
‘How many?’
‘Five runs in all. On the last two the propeller was barely a metre above me.’
Stratton looked quizzically at the scientist who was wearing a cocky grin.
Binning picked his coat up from the back of a chair. ‘Why don’t I leave you to look it all over?’ he said. ‘I’ll be outside getting some fresh air if you need me.’ He paused at the door to look back at them. ‘If you don’t feel up to it, I’ll do it.’ Then he went out.
Stratton and Mike looked at each other, both wondering the same thing: was Binning Jervis’s alternative underwater specialist?
‘Couldn’t be,’ Mike said.
Stratton shrugged. ‘Jervis is a civvy as well, remember. That means he thinks like one.’ He went back to the equipment.
‘What do you think?’ Mike asked, holding up the frame and testing its strength.
‘It’s not a great plan,’ Stratton mused. ‘I hope the infil and exfil are tighter.’
‘Does that mean you’ll do it?’
Stratton was well aware of his own natural inability to refuse practically any operation, especially an unusual one. And as always he justified the decision by telling himself that he could pull out if things did not go to plan. But then, he wasn’t very good at doing that either. Other factors came into play in this case, though. The high-intensity work he had been busy with of late had become mundane. It was relatively simple. The weather and terrain of Afghanistan made the tasks challenging and their nature, either hits or observation posts, made them highly dangerous, yet they had become repetitive. The diving task sounded different. And it had something else that Stratton prized: he would be doing it alone. That gave the job a high score as far as he was concerned. If he passed on this he could be back in Afghanistan within the week. ‘We’ll give it a go,’ he said.
‘I’ll let the team know,’ Mike said, heading for the door. ‘The detailed briefing will be in about an hour. You’ll have to be on the road by midday.’
Stratton nodded, despite a distant concern tugging at him.
‘You’re a total tart, aren’t you? You can never say no,’ Mike said as he went out.
Stratton picked up the recorder’s operating instructions and began to read them.
2
The operative walked along an empty beach in near-darkness, his breath misting with each exhalation. White and gold lights from distant boats and a far-off shoreline glinted on the water. A light wind toyed with the harsh hinterland grass, the sound it made giving way to the lapping waves and the noise of his boots crunching the sand beneath, breaking the grains bonded by frozen moisture.
Stratton pulled up the collar of his jacket against the biting cold. The temperature must have been in the double minus digits now that the sun had dropped out of sight. He kept away from the water’s edge, walking close to the scrubland to reduce his silhouette.
The end of the northern mole that formed one side of the entrance to Sevastopol harbour lay less than a mile up ahead. The harbour’s illuminations had been quite visible when Stratton started out, in particular the bright red intermittent beacon at the far end of the northern mole and the green one on the tip of the southern one. A gentle bend in the coastline had put them out of sight for the moment. He did not expect to see either one again until he was in the water.
He checked the glowing face of the small GPS in his hand. The directional arrow had been pointing directly ahead when he’d first stepped onto the beach after leaving the rental car outside a quiet bar. Over the last dozen or so metres it had begun to turn towards the dense vegetation.
When the arrow pointed at a right angle to the shore Stratton stopped and took a moment to look around. He could not see another living soul. The sounds of the wind and the surf seemed to grow louder.
He sat down at the edge of the sand and looked out over the water, as if taking in the stark scenery. The bell of a distant buoy clanged somewhere across the black, shimmering water. Stratton felt conscious of the possibility that someone was watching him. Whoever it was would not be obvious. But he had reason to feel confident that he was not being monitored - not by the Russians, at least. Someone had followed him from the airport that afternoon to the small villa where he was staying. When he went out an hour or so later he identified his watcher, an old man who looked like a schoolteacher. The tail appeared to be quite good, not looking at Stratton even once. The watcher worked for MI6 and was not so much keeping tabs on the operative as looking for others who might be. Stratton had been warned to expect a friendly shadow. If the man had followed him along the beach there was no sign.
Stratton leaned back and eased himself into the scrub. He was most vulnerable now. He couldn’t play the tourist card if security forces interrupted him. Once he’d made contact with the equipment he would be screwed if they found him. Stratton didn’t hesitate.
Once he was completely hidden he turned onto his front and crawled through the tall grass. A check of the GPS indicated a waypoint five metres away. Stratton slithered into a tiny clearing and towards a patch of freshly disturbed earth. He dug at it with his hands. It did not take long to reveal a black canvas bag similar to the one Binning had brought to the SBS HQ.
Stratton unbuckled the straps and unzipped the bag. Clouds shielded most of the starlight but he could identify the familiar contents by touch: a dry diving bag, a complete set of diving accessories, a Lar 5 bubble-less rebreather primed and ready for use, lightweight body armour, a bolt gun and the now familiar frame and harness system. He took two final items from the bag: the electronic recorder inside its protective plastic casing and a P11 underwater pistol in a plastic holster. The sole weapon he had been permitted fired just as well on land. With only six rounds and no reload, its main advantage other than being able to fire underwater was a good one: because it had no moving parts and fired the slender tungsten darts electronically it was a truly silent weapon.
Stratton checked his watch. He had ample time to get ready. He took off his boots and coat and rolled out the rubber diving bag, a one-piece outfit with a long waterproof zip that ran across the back from elbow to elbow. He eased his feet all the way inside to the thin rubber booties on the ends of the leggings and pushed his hands through the wrist seals. The roomy bag could accommodate his clothes, including a thick woolly fleece to protect him against the cold temperature of the water. Before pulling his head through the neck seal that had been dutifully powdered by whoever had packed the equipment bag, he tucked his boots into the diving bag, placing one either side of his thighs, and wrapped his coat around his abdomen.
After ensuring that the zipper across his back was pulled firmly home he began ferrying the equipment out of the scrub. Whoever had packed the kit had had the good sense to include a nylon belt with numerous lines attached to it in order to tie the various pieces of equipment to his body.
Stratton secured each item to its line before sitting down to slide on the fins. He pulled on the body-armour waistcoat, buckled it tight, slipped the breathing apparatus over his head and fastened the sides. He felt like a tortoise. He strapped the bulky P11 pistol to his thigh and, after attaching the strap of the face mask to the back of his neoprene hood, he pulled on a thick pair of gloves.
He was good to go.
Getting to his feet, he picked up the frame, bolt gun and recorder and walked backwards into the water. He did not pause and waded into the gentle waves. As the water reached his waist he dropped onto his back and finned away from the shoreline, the equipment dangling beneath him on the lines. The icy water took the weight of the bulk. It seeped into the neoprene hood and gloves but his body heat soon warmed it. The water tasted salty, with a hint of fuel.
A hundred metres from the shore, invisible to all except the most sophisticatedly equipped, Stratton turned to head parallel with the beach. He finned at a pace that he could sustain for hours, looking up at the clouds. A star or two was visible through the occasional gaps.
It took half an hour to come level with the beginning of the mole. The slight current had worked against him. With the drag effect of the load, had he finned with less vigour he might have simply maintained his position. He still had plenty of time. The
Inessa
was not expected to leave her jetty for another hour or so and he would receive a warning when she did.
He studied the top of the brightly lit concrete mole as he finned along. It appeared to be deserted. A vessel went past a few hundred metres out to sea. It reached the main channel between the moles and went into the harbour. There appeared to be a steady stream of traffic moving in both directions between the ends of the two structures, with a good half-mile between each vessel. Stratton altered direction and gradually closed on the base of the northern breakwater.
The lights on top of it shone right into his face as he approached the massive concrete mouldings. He moved into the shadows of the parapet that ran around the top some thirty feet above him and manoeuvred himself inside a niche that had been formed by the breakers. Stratton carefully secured the equipment and settled in the lapping water.
He felt uncomfortably warm but he knew from experience that within minutes of sitting still the cold would start to penetrate his dry-suit and clothing.
Every now and then a heftier wave from a passing vessel threw him about despite having taken several minutes to cover the distance from the ship. Unlike the
Inessa
, none of the ships would risk coming too near either mole. The green light on the southern one flashed in the darkness.
The vast harbour hardly looked its size from where Stratton was. Most of Sevastopol’s street and building lights along the waterline were obscured. It was impossible to see the narrowing channel that led into the harbour proper without climbing to the top of the mole. He settled in to play the oh-so-familiar waiting game.
If the
Inessa
did not depart that night, Stratton would have to be back at the villa before first light and then return to the cache the following evening to repeat the whole process. This could go on until the Russian vessel did eventually leave. He wasn’t looking forward to that option at all. The longer he remained on the ground the greater the risk of exposure and of being detected. The task didn’t concern him as much as the time he would have to spend in the villa during the day and especially his need to sleep for part of it. That alone could arouse suspicion.
Voices drifted down to his ears and he shrank deeper into the cranny. They could only be coming from the top of the mole. Men’s voices, at least two, speaking in Russian. The sound was clear, as though the men were leaning over the parapet.
Stratton felt a sudden vibration by his right ear. The signal originated from a small receiver tucked into a pocket on the side of his hood. It was a GSM and GPS Sim-card device that could be activated from a cellular phone. There were three distinct vibration patterns: one to order him to abort completely, another to abort for that night only and the third to indicate that the
Inessa
was departing. He received the third signal, sent by an observer stationed where they could see the vessel or at least the finger of water that it would need to pass along to reach the main channel and the harbour mouth. Stratton had somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes to get into position.
His adrenalin level rose and he eased his head from cover to look above. He could see two figures partially silhouetted against the night sky. The men moved along the wall and Stratton quickly turned on the gas bottle at the front of the diving apparatus. He pulled on the face mask, put the mouthpiece between his teeth, opened the flow valves and took several deep breaths before exhaling the gas through his nose to clear the device of excessive nitrogen. He craned his neck to look up again, the action made more difficult by the breathing apparatus. The men appeared to have gone further round the mole and out of sight. Gathering his equipment and looking and feeling like some kind of aquatic gypsy, Stratton moved away from the breakers and slipped below the surface.
Every step of the operation except the next one had been somehow quantifiable. It all depended on a handful of bolts remaining in their holes in a slab of rock. Deep down Stratton hated relying on single physical bits of apparatus - the rings that secured a man under his parachute, for instance, or the karabiner and line that kept him from falling to his death when he was climbing. It was a visceral complaint. Stratton could control the inner conflicts. They did not alter his reliance on such devices. But the concerns remained, components of his fear that were probably essential to his success.
Visibility was reasonable, at least ten metres, better than average in his experience. The rubber suit grew tighter as he finned, gripping his arms and legs as the air inside compressed. He looked at the needle of a luminous compass attached to his wrist.
The concrete mouldings gave way to huge boulders. Stratton followed them until they abruptly ended and a flat shale seabed stretched into the gloom. He had swum too far. The
Inessa
would pass closer to the mole, above the boulders. He turned back to look for a place to set himself up.
He inspected the boulders as he moved over them. They all looked like granite. The only obsidian ones, as far as he could tell, were some smaller rocks between the larger gaps. He had taken Binning’s advice and studied the differences between the two rock formations. Confident at the time, he was less so now that he was on task and in darkness.
Stratton found what appeared to be a choice location: a broad, almost flat boulder, although it lay at a slight tilt. It was not big enough to accommodate the entire frame but another, slightly smaller boulder beside it looked ideal to take the overlap. A check of his wristwatch showed he had around eight minutes before the earliest moment the
Inessa
could arrive, if the calculations were correct and the GSM signal had arrived as soon as it had been sent. The bolting and harnessing of the frame could be completed in a couple of minutes or so, according to Binning’s trial-timing average. Stratton could not afford to waste a second. He quickly undid the straps and locked the frame’s joints into position.