37 Hours

‘Forty-two metres.’

A deep dive after two years in solitary. But she would manage. ‘Your divers better be good,’ she said.

He didn’t answer, and besides, she already guessed they’d be the best.

Chapter Two (#udf8a0755-e809-586a-bcc2-80cc42d1292a)

As it turned out, Sergei was going to be one of the divers. Unorthodox by any military standards, let alone Russian ones, but she sensed this man was a maverick. He must have delivered good results in the past, or else his wings would have been clipped by now.

The inside of the old Antonov AN140 military transport plane was noisy, uncomfortable and cold. The loud thrum of the twin propellers muffled all communication. At least she’d been given a parka coat and a warm Ushanka fur hat with earmuffs. The bench was hard, the hull khaki-painted metal covered with elastic webbing. It meant there was always something to grab on to.

The diving equipment lying on the heavily scuffed aluminium deck was well used but also well maintained. She inspected it, shouting one or two questions above the din at Sergei when she wasn’t absolutely sure about something.

Four other divers sat in the aircraft hold, wetsuits under their coats, neoprene dive hoods up. None of them spoke. No jokes, no banter, no engagement with her. They each carried a blue and grey plastic assault rifle, which she presumed would work when wet, though not necessarily in water. That was what their spear guns were for. There were two motorised sleds, the same size as motorbikes. When Sergei left the compartment for a while, she moved towards one of the sled control consoles, to see how it worked.

‘Don’t touch!’ one of the divers barked.

‘Show me the controls, just in case.’

Another diver – she reckoned the leader after Sergei – spoke to her slowly. He had a voice that had seen a million cigarettes, and clearly didn’t appreciate her presence on the mission.

‘There is no “in case”. We will get you to the submarine, get your skinny ass inside the tube. Hope you like tight holes as much as we do.’ No smile.

‘I’m Plan B, aren’t I? You had someone else in mind. One of your own.’

‘You are Plan F,’ he said, no longer looking at her.

Nothing she said would make any difference. Only how she acted underwater. She continued examining the assembled equipment. Along with what looked like welding equipment, there was something else on the floor: a gold-coloured cylinder a foot long and four inches thick. It looked heavy. She had no idea what it was, and decided not to waste her breath asking.

Last, she checked her dive gear. A single, thin tank strapped to a harness that also had pockets she could inflate to keep her buoyancy neutral no matter the depth. A skinny stab jacket. She’d never seen one so pared-down. She looked around for a diver’s weight belt – the other half of buoyancy control – but there wasn’t one, and she noticed the other divers weren’t wearing them either. If she got separated from the sled, that would make a controlled ascent difficult. No, make that impossible. Perhaps that was the point. Asking these men about it would only make her standing with them worse.

Sergei reappeared and signalled her to follow him. They walked towards the plane’s fore-section, a small chamber just before the cockpit, where Bransk, Katya, the colonel and the brown-haired lieutenant all leant on a white table. Once Sergei and Nadia entered, it was pretty snug. At least it was quieter, and the seats were cushioned. Sergei unfolded a map and pointed to a location ten miles offshore, marked with a red cross.

‘I don’t see an airport,’ Nadia said.

‘Are you afraid of heights?’

Crap! They were going to para-dive into the sea. That’s why all the equipment was so streamlined. She shook her head, as much in disbelief as in resignation.

He placed another smaller piece of paper on top, a line drawing of the sub shown from three different angles. He pointed again. He had long, agile fingers. They moved fluidly like a pianist’s. Nadia had a thing about hands. Partly why she’d let him hold her mouth closed earlier. She refocused on what he was showing her.

‘We’ll cut off the bow cap of torpedo tube number three, here. It’s already flooded because they went to high alert when the sub was taken.’

Katya spoke in a pissed-off voice. ‘Which was how, exactly?’

Sergei ignored the question. ‘You will remove your tank and make your way through the tube. There will be a line around your waist. If you get stuck, you give three hard pulls, and we drag you out.’

And how would she give three hard pulls in such a confined space? Her hands would be forward. She doubted she’d be able to reach back once inside the tube. Trapped like a worm. Added to that, they would seal her in to prevent flooding the torpedo room when she breached the inner hatch.

‘You’ll have lights on your mask, and a camera. We can see what you see, but we can’t talk to you.’ He held up a thin canister with a mouthpiece attached. ‘This will give you ten good breaths at that depth. No more.’

Sergei outlined the complete plan. She would secure the torpedo room. There was a computer workstation there. She had to insert a USB key into it. A cyber-virus. It would wreak havoc with the sub’s systems – lighting, aircon, engines. Most importantly, the weapons launch and guidance software would be erased. It would be the distraction Sergei needed; otherwise he’d be killed as soon as he tried to enter the sub.

Once she uploaded the virus, Sergei and two others would enter via the conning tower, though he didn’t explain how. Sergei had an identical black USB key – the antivirus. He went over the plan a second time. Both times he was vague about what would happen to the terrorists. But something had been bugging Nadia since the outset.

‘Why me?’ she asked.

He pointed at the torpedo tube at the front of the sub.

Her size. Although a man could get into the tube, and even be launched by it, only someone very small could move around and manipulate controls inside, and lift their head to see what they were doing – hence the elaborate measurement foreplay earlier. But still… ‘Not enough of a reason,’ she said, because for Russian military, it wasn’t.

Sergei nodded to the colonel, whose name she still didn’t know, and likely never would.

‘Three additional reasons,’ he said. His voice was higher-pitched than Sergei’s, but sharp, used to command, the type of guy who knew the rules backwards and could dice you with them if you didn’t do as ordered. ‘First, you are all Black Ops. We cannot risk this leaking out. Imagine the headlines. Any one of you leaks anything, we’ll bury you for ever. And if you are captured or killed, we will disavow you.’

It figured. Best of both worlds.

But he had a point. Nadia imagined the headlines: Terrorists seize nuclear sub, a dozen warheads at their disposal. The political wound would cut deep, even if resolved overnight. Putin would lose face. Heads like this particular colonel’s would roll.

‘Second, your performance in the Rose affair had already come to our notice. You are resourceful, not afraid to kill, not afraid to sacrifice.’

So, her antics back in the Scillies were now a matter of record. She’d like to see those files.

‘The third reason…is your father.’

Her heart skipped a beat. ‘What?’

The young colonel cast her a searching look. ‘He was Spetsnaz, but he also wrote pamphlets under a pseudonym. The Black Cossack. He wrote a manifesto on why the Crimea should remain Ukrainian, not Russian. He foresaw the future. His writing is still quoted today, but now with his real name: Lakshev. Your name. So if you are captured…’

She stared at him. Though he’d tried to suppress it, when he’d used the male form of the family name, the acid in his tone had come through loud and clear. Had he known her father? Unlikely – too young.

The colonel gave her a searching look. ‘You didn’t know?’ he said.

She shook her head. Her father had never mentioned it. They’d lived in Uspekh, not that far from Ukraine geographically. She remembered he used to write, but he’d kept it all in a locked drawer. My secret diary, he’d once told her. And after his death, her mother had burned it all. So, if they really were Ukrainian freedom fighters – or even Ukrainian Secret Service – maybe her name would cut some ice. But it seemed like a long shot. It was her turn to search the colonel’s face. There was something else, something he wasn’t telling her. But clearly he’d finished.

Of course there was the real reason. She was expendable. Just released from a secret prison. No one would mourn her except Katya. But she had no intention of dying on her first day of freedom. She sat up, gripped the edges of the sub layout schematic and spoke to Sergei.

‘I’m going to go through the plan again. You will correct me on the tiniest detail I get wrong.’

He nodded, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. Her eyes hovered for a moment on those coarse seafarer’s lips, then she cleared her throat, and began.

***

The toilet was cramped even for her. But outside there were too many people. Too much contact after solitary. She’d wanted to see Katya, then try to find Jake, either to make love with him, or to slap him really hard, probably both; she hadn’t decided the order yet.

It was three days before her birthday. She studied her reflection in the mirror, the short dark hair, her grey eyes. Not much to work with. Prison had changed her. The softness Jake had known was gone. Maybe she’d lost her looks, or whatever Jake had found interesting in her. He might not want to see her. Two years. Two fucking years. He’d have found someone else. One of his exes – Lorne or Elise – might have reclaimed him. A hundred other girls.

It’s not fair, Katya had said earlier on the plane. Damned right. But they were Russian. History had stripped the belief in fairness from the gene pool a long time ago. What had her father said a thousand times? Make the choice right. Especially when you don’t have one.