Release day for The Prague Papers

Today is the launch day of The Prague Papers, the first in the Tana Standish series.

Amazon UK - here

 

Amazon COM - here

It’s 1975 and Czechoslovakia’s people are still kicking against the Soviet invasion. Tana Standish, a British psychic spy, is called in to repair the underground network. But there’s a traitor at work. 

And there’s an establishment in Kazakhstan, where Yakunin, one of their gifted psychics, has detected her presence in Czechoslovakia. As he gets to know her, his loyalties become strained: does he hunt her or save her?

When Tana’s captured in a secret Soviet complex, London sends in Keith Tyson in a desperate attempt to get her out - or to silence her - before she breaks under interrogation.

Here are some reviews:

This is an exciting and well-constructed espionage thriller. I do not usually like this genre (I prefer horror stories) but I thought that this was an intelligent and nicely-paced story. Morton pays great attention to detail and he has created a memorable heroine with Tana Standish - a tough, efficient super-spy with psychic powers who makes James Bond and Harry Palmer look like Austin Powers…

The unusual twist is that as well as being lethal in armed and unarmed combat, Tana also possesses a psychic sixth-sense and telepathic abilities which certainly come in handy at times as the action moves towards a thrilling climax. There is plenty of (literally) thought-provoking material thrown in along the way making this an extremely entertaining read. Even if you do not normally like spy thrillers, this is well worth checking out.

–  Jeremy W Newbould, (Top 500 reviewer, Amazon)

Welcome back to the Cold War. For those of you who remember with affection those atmospheric spy stories set in Eastern Europe, men and women with unpronounceable names, then this will surely be a welcome return for you all. Snatches of John le Carré, Len Deighton and Adam Hall are in effect sewn into the secret weave that runs like a latent thread through the pages of Nik Morton's spy adventure set in Eastern Europe.

Morton’s heroine, Tana is made of stern stuff and possesses a savant like ability to move out of her consciousness and into an ethereal plane. Here she fights against the chilling torture methods used by her tormentor, Kasayiev to probe her mind and get her to break under his perverted methods.

Because Tana has learned of the top secret subterranean Sumava complex, British Intelligence have to get Tana out and save her from certain death. In a race against time, Morton puts together a fast moving narrative as Keith Tyson battles to save his colleague, Tana.
  – Michael Parker, author of The Boy from Berlin

This book reminded me of Le Carré - carefully crafted and supremely well researched. As well as creating memorable characters (Tana Standish will stay with me for a long time), Nik Morton captures the essence of Prague and the Czech soul, educates us into the world of Eastern Bloc politics, and tells an intricate tale of espionage. As if this weren’t enough, he explores the fields of psychics and telepathy, adding intriguing depth to his story.

Far more than a ‘spy thriller’, this book will astound both lovers of that genre and those looking for a truly satisfying read.
  – Maureen Moss, editor and travel writer

Reading this excellent novel is a bit like an extreme sport. The pages fly by at a pace, hindered only slightly by the mental anguish of dealing with some unpronounceable Czech and Soviet names. But that was certainly not enough to prevent me becoming engrossed in this relentless flow of exciting action and carefully researched information which lasts right up to the climactic denouement—in itself, both satisfying and rewarding—because Nik Morton’s writing is very smooth and totally believable. All-in-all, this book gave me that feeling of “being there myself”, rubbing shoulders with his characters, and for quite a while after finishing it, I found myself thinking about them and all they had been through.

– William Daysh, author of Over by Christmas

In his fast-paced novel he surpasses Ian Fleming and paints a vivid picture of the dangerous life of the attractive psychic spy Tana Standish.

– Joy Lennick, author of Hurricane Halsey 

Interestingly, Morton sells it as a true story passed to him by an agent and published as fiction, a literary ploy often used by master thriller writer Jack Higgins. Let’s just say that it works better than Higgins.

– Danny Collins, author of The Bloodiest Battles

As a book reviewer, I’ve been weaned on highly trained agents with all kinds of fancy offensive gear at their fingertips; masters of such disciplines as kung fu and jiu-jitsu, constantly hopped in and out of bed. Nik Morton goes one better with his mind-blowing characters. Through the medium of his super spy, Tana Standish – an Amazon of Polish/English extraction – he adds more than a touch of paprika to the machinations of the cloak and dagger world and weaves a really cleverly contrived plot – explosive from start to finish. Get this – Tana is not just a superwoman but a psychic too. Yet confusing the issue, the opposition are also training psychic agents, one of whom is able to influence Tana’s movements yet appears to be sympatico… (plot revelations omitted)… This tale is a lively, well written espionage adventure with plenty of twists.

– Malcolm Smith, The New Coastal Press

[The above are a sample of reviews of the book previously published as The Prague Manuscript, which is OUT OF PRINT].

Saturday Story - 'A Gigantic Leap' - 1 of 2

As we get pictures from the Rosetta mission, relaying details of the remarkable landing of its probe Philae on comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, I thought it might be appropriate to feature this previously published sci-fi story.  Full details on the historic Rosetta mission can be gleaned from here 

 

Soyuz - Wikipedia commons

 

A GIGANTIC LEAP

 

Nik Morton

 

 

I remember the date well - June 30, 1971 – as that was when my world changed forever. 

            A little less than a month earlier, I, Kolya Volkov, had been one of the proudest children in the Soviet Union.  Anxious but proud. My father, Vladislav Volkov, was a cosmonaut.  Now, it is hard to comprehend the primitive nature of our nation’s space-craft in those days.  As my father joked once over dinner, ‘we went into space by the seat of our pants!’  He was a charming handsome man with gentle features, small eyes and dark hair.

            An indescribable mixture of emotions ran through me when my mother and I learned that the designated crew for Soyuz 11 had to step down as one of them had suspected tuberculosis.  My father, with Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev, were the stand-by crew.  Four days before the launch, they took over the mission.

            He was confident and never doubted his ability as the flight engineer. After all, this wasn’t his first journey into space as he’d been there before in Soyuz 7. 

            The preceding mission, in Soyuz 10, had been a failure as they had been unable to dock with Salyut 1, the world’s first space station.  Now that honour rested with Soyuz 11 and my father. 

            My mother and I were transfixed as we watched from the secure buildings of Baikonur Cosmodrome.  She nervously twisted her lace-bordered cotton handkerchief with one hand, a habit I had observed more than once. She had a box of these handkerchiefs and I recalled her saying in exasperation, ‘My grandmother gave them to me. She laughed at what she called our silly village superstitions.  Remember, Kolya, you never give handkerchiefs or knifes as a gift.’ 

            There were other odd things she inculcated into me, such as never celebrating a birthday early – as if you would; and never show your newborn baby to a stranger until it’s forty days old. (I abided by that with my little baby Nessa, foolish man that I am.)

            My mother gripped my arm tightly with her free hand as the blast off turned our vision red and yellow.  I felt my insides surging with joy and immense pride as the spectacular flame rose into the sky on that day on June 6.  D-Day, they call it in the West. Was that for ‘Doom’, ‘Destiny’ or something else?  I’m sure I knew but now I forget.

            The day following the launch, Soyuz 11 successfully docked with Salyut 1. How the cheers exploded around the mission planning centre.  I know now that you must grasp those moments of body-thrumming pleasure because they are rare. The effusive joy was short-lived as bad news came into the centre and within seconds everyone’s face looked downcast.

            Clambering inside the space station, the crew had encountered a smoke-filled atmosphere.  They reported that the air was clogged with the raw metallic stench of burnt electrics.  Undaunted and using oxygen cylinders while they worked, the crew replaced part of the ventilation system and then patiently waited in Soyuz 11 until the air had cleared.  Even then, I remember thinking that they were every bit as resourceful as the Apollo 13 crew a year earlier.

            Once back inside the space station, my father and his comrades occupied their time with minor experiments. They also tested the exercise treadmill, but desisted after a couple of attempts as its use seemed to seriously destabilise the station itself.

            The highlight for my mother and me - and the other families - was that we were able to speak to and view the crew through a television link.  The picture was poor and the sound scratchy at times, but we didn’t know any better. It was wonderful to us at the time. So much to say, yet I was tongue-tied when it was my turn to talk to my father.  I remember blushing and saying something inane.  I promised to keep up with my studies.

            On the eleventh day a fire broke out in the space station but quick action brought it under control. After that scare, groups of mission planners seemed to be constantly huddled together. Sometimes I think my mother had a sixth sense or was at least prescient. There were strange stories she would tell me of her childhood village in Byelorussia. Somehow, she snatched whispers out of the ether and she said that the controllers were actually considering the abandonment of Salyut 1. 

            Naturally, being a child, I didn’t appreciate that such a decision would have been a serious setback to our space conquest. And it would have been a terrible embarrassment. I think we have inherited the concept of ‘face’ from the East.  We Russians don’t like to be seen to fail or lose. To counter this, the crew argued that it was safe enough for them to stay and they did, establishing a space endurance record of twenty-two days, which wasn’t bettered until the Americans’ Skylab 2 mission two years later.

            After a normal re-entry, Soyuz 11 landed at Karaganda in Kazakhstan on June 30. We families watched from an accompanying coach.  With its enormous parachute trailing in the dust, the capsule looked like a bathyscaphe or some contraption out of Jules Verne. What kind of pummelling did my father and the crew get when it hit terra firma?  I was brimful with admiration for him and his brave comrades.

            All smiles, the recovery team rushed over from their support vehicle and moved their mobile ladders to the side of the globe-shaped module. Two of them clambered up the ladders and opened the capsule with practised ease; it was obvious that they’d done this many times before.  Small, vital cogs in our mighty machine. 

            Then the speaker system in our coach suddenly went into overload and just as abruptly stopped, to be replaced by silence. Ominous silence. The looks on the faces of the recovery team told us that something was amiss.

            Wiping her eyes with that old lace handkerchief, my mother whimpered, ‘Oh, Kolya, they’re pulling them out.’  I could have been mistaken but I thought I saw her fleetingly cross herself. I never again saw her make such a pious and dubious expression until she was on her death-bed.

            The recovery crew handled the cosmonauts like shop dummies, hauling them onto the hard unforgiving ground. Medics rushed forward and one man knelt over my father, performing resuscitation, alternately pumping his chest and then breathing into his airway.  My heart pounding, I stared, not aware that I was breathing.  My mother’s hand almost crushed mine as it flexed repeatedly. After about fifteen minutes, the team stopped and slumped back, exhausted.

            Later, back at the base, my mother and I were allowed to see him.  His face was still drawn in the horrible rictus of asphyxiation.  Mother leaned over and kissed his forehead and tenderly held her handkerchief over my father’s lips and intoned some ancient words from the Steppes; probably some superstitious ritual.  I dutifully kissed his cheek and was surprised how cold he felt.  I was twelve.

            The rest is a hazy slide-show of memories. The state funeral. Thousands of people lining the streets. An American astronaut was one of the pall-bearers, but I forget his name. 

            My father and his fellow crewmen were buried in Red Square’s Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

            Over the years, I tried to visit this tomb at least once a year. But life got in the way.  Now, I have a busy international career as a microbiologist.

            So, to my eternal mortification, five years passed before my most recent visit.  I was taken aback by the state of the marble blocks.  They were stained brown, as if with rust, and lichen grew in the small cracks, radiating outwards.  I wasn’t too surprised; much had fallen into disrepair since the USSR collapsed.  But I felt shame, too.  I spent an hour or so finding a shop where I could buy bleach and rubber gloves. It was the least I could do for my father’s memory, I thought, as I dabbed bleach on the cloth and rubbed at the lichen. 

            It had no effect.  I knew that there were plenty of fake products on the market. Was this yet another one?  I fished in my pocket and pulled out a red paper serviette – as a young man I’d made a habit of pocketing my serviette when leaving a restaurant.  Waste not, want not, my mother taught me. An insubstantial handkerchief compared to my mother’s lace ones.  I dabbed the serviette and the colour drained from the tissue.  The bleach worked, then.  But it didn’t have any effect on the growth that discoloured my father’s tomb.

            An armed sentry marched over to me and asked politely, ‘What are you doing, comrade?’

            I smiled. ‘Not a lot,’ I answered truthfully enough. ‘This is my father’s tomb and I was trying to clean it. But with little success.’

            The soldier saluted me. ‘An honour to meet you, comrade.’ He eyed the three names on the tomb. Which one is your father?’

            I told him, gesturing with the bottle of bleach.  ‘Do you know how long it’s been like that?’

            He shouldered his weapon. ‘I was here on sentry duty last week and I can assure you the marble was as new then.’  His face showed concern. Maybe he was worried he would get the blame. ‘Comrade, let me contact City Maintenance for you.’

            ‘No,’ I said, astonished at my response.  ‘I’m sure they have enough to do these days.’  With the new freedoms came the freedom to drop litter and spread graffiti. It was easy to understand that many old Muscovites pined after the old days.  ‘But thank you for your concern.’

            The soldier saluted and marched off. 

            By then it was getting late so I walked back to my apartment.  Twenty years ago it had been shared with two other families. Even the family of a dead hero of the Soviet had to suffer privations for the cause.  Now, though, I had recovered it for myself and my daughter Nessa.  She was twenty-two and helped me with my work. My wife ran off with a ballet dancer when Nessa was eight.

            Sometimes I think Nessa is psychic.  She opened the door as I stopped to insert my key.  ‘You look troubled, father,’ she observed as I entered.  She closed the door and bolted it.

            No matter how much I tried, I saw my wife in Nessa’s high cheekbones and bright grey eyes.  She had the poise of her grandmother and the strange characteristic of occasionally rubbing her lower lip with the end of her thumb, just like my father.

            I shrugged off my jacket and loosened my tie and sank into a leather armchair.  ‘No, just perplexed a little, that is all.’ 

            Our apartment was snug and homely. Most of the furniture had belonged to my parents.  Dark wood. Creased and worn leather. Threadbare rugs.  It still smelled of them, too. Warm and welcoming; the people who shared with us long ago left no impression. Although I owned an apartment in London and another in New York, only this place was home. 

            Nessa was psychic: she placed a tumbler of vodka and ice in my hand and I sipped it gratefully. ‘Thank you, dear.’

            On the mantel-shelf resided a sealed clear square plastic container.  Inside it was my mother’s lace handkerchief. She’d never used it again after touching my father’s lips with it.  A piece of band-aid was stuck on the top and in her spidery handwriting was the faded date of his death.  The container was flanked on either side by photographs of my parents.   My father still looked a handsome thirty-six-year-old in his uniform and medals; my mother’s picture was more recent and the years had not been kind towards the end, draining the colour from her hair and face.

            I explained to Nessa about the state of my father’s tomb.

            ‘Is the fungi just isolated to his tomb?’

            I shook my head. ‘No, it radiates from all three of them.’  I pictured the Necropolis again. Black marble, austere stonework, but no evidence that any other tomb was in such a poor state.  ‘None of the others seem affected.’

            ‘Yet,’ she said, prophetically.

            The sky was grey and downcast, reflecting my mood, as I returned to the Necropolis the next day, this time with Nessa. The fungal outgrowth from the three tombs was worse. 

            ‘I don’t like this.’ Nessa shuddered.

            I’d looked after her long enough to trust her body’s reactions to places and people; if she shuddered, then there was a good reason for it. Kneeling down, I took out from my jacket pocket my pen-knife and scraped a sample of the growth into a paper tissue since I was out of serviettes.

            ‘Let’s get away,’ Nessa urged, tugging my arm. 

            At first I thought she was being melodramatic. But I trusted her feelings.

            ‘We need to talk to Federov,’ she said decisively. ‘He’s the expert on fungi.’

*

Anton Federov was an old student friend and we’d kept in touch over the years. Now he was a perplexed mycologist.  He squinted at the sample under his microscope and then straightened, a hand going to his back.  ‘None of us are getting any younger,’ he smiled, withdrawing his spectacles. ‘How old do you think this stuff is?’

            ‘Stuff?’ I said.  ‘You’re not usually so imprecise.’

            He shook his head and scratched his unruly greying hair. ‘It isn’t any kind of plant life I’ve come across, Kolya.’ 

            ‘As for its age,’ I added, ‘judging by the growth rate, I’d estimate it only started being visible about a week ago.’ I didn’t register the significance of the date then. ‘The sentry tends to confirm that, too.’

            Federov gestured at the microscope. ‘A week... It’s like bacteria, reproducing at a phenomenal rate. Cells splitting every few seconds. This isn’t my field, Kolya. You need to show these slides to a bacteriologist – Tomich will be intrigued, I imagine.’

            ‘But why is it only to be found at the tomb of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts?’

            Federov pulled a face.   ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say the craft brought the spores from space...’

            ‘But there were quarantine regulations,’ I said.  ‘I remember waiting ten days to see my father after he came down in Soyuz 7.’ 

            ‘Really, that’s an arbitrary duration. Different viruses have different incubation periods. Exposure risks vary. As for something from space – nobody actually knows...’

            I glanced with concern at Federov and Nessa. ‘Could we have been so unprepared?’

            ‘Our so-called experts thought that no pathogens could live in the vacuum of space or survive the heat of re-entry. If you believe the Americans, they thought differently and were ultra careful.’

            ‘The Americans – I’ve worked with them, Anton – they go over the top. Always have. You know that.’

            Federov chuckled. ‘But rumours get out, don’t they? Their Operation Wildfire in Nevada was a failure, by all accounts.’

            ‘That was fiction.’  I caught The Andromeda Strain film on a hotel television once, years after its release date of 1971.  Life’s full of coincidences that mean nothing except to the conspiracy theorists.

            ‘Fact dressed up as fiction, I heard.’  Even in our new so-called free society, we’re not immune from the rumour-mongers. Some of them are quite plausible, too. That’s what comes of having a secretive society – the truth is as hidden as the falsehoods. Next, they’ll be telling us the Pope’s assassination attempt was engineered by a secret psychic group in Kazakhstan.  Just because the demented fool was hearing voices in his head. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies prove that – nineteen theories at the last count. America kids itself that it’s the land of the free. A great many of the people with power and knowledge may be free, but the majority are not.  They are not free to know; that privilege is denied them. I’ve been there, seen it at work.

To be concluded tomorrow…

Previously published in Midnight Street, 2009.

Copyright Nik Morton, 2014

 

Author’s dedication and declaration

‘A Gigantic Leap’ is dedicated to those brave souls who gave their lives in the tragic accident of June 30, 1971. The story is a work of fiction and, while it hinges on a real event, all the characters depicted are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to any person, living or dead.

November release - The Prague Papers

Due out in November from Crooked Cat Publishing, the first psychic spy Tana Standish thriller, set in the Cold War, which Mr Putin seems intend on bringing back...

Czechoslovakia, 1975. Tana is a spy - and she’s psychic. Orphaned in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War, she was adopted by a British naval officer and his wife. Now she works for the British Secret Intelligence Service. Czechoslovakia’s people are still kicking against the Soviet invasion. Tana was called in to restore morale and repair the underground network. But there’s a traitor at work.

And she learns about a secret Soviet complex, concealed in a colliery in the Sumava Mountains. Unknown to her there’s a top secret psychic establishment in Kazakhstan, where Yakunin, one of their gifted psychics, has detected her presence in Czechoslovakia. As he gets to know her, his loyalties are strained.

With her old flame Laco, Tana infiltrates the Sumava complex. When she’s captured, a desperate mission is mounted to either get her out or to silence her - before she breaks under interrogation.

 

 

Saturday story - 'Hoverjack'

This was my first published story, written under the penname Platen Syder, which appeared in Parade on February 6, 1971. I was very pleased with the illustration that accompanied it, too. Naturally, in hindsight I would tighten up certain bits. Still, its 2,000 words possess a fast pace and reflect the Cold War period.
 

Hover-Jack

 

 

 

Keith Segal boarded the hovercraft at 8.15pm sharp. There were only six other passengers: the last trip to the Isle of Wight. As he edged up the aisle, his gun-harness felt tight across his broad shoulders.

Then he spotted his quarry. The little fat man sitting near the rear emergency exit window. Avery.

The hatch lowered. The revs mounted. Amidst the banshee wail of the props, the cushion lifted them and swung the craft round onto water.

As the first waves were buffeted by the air-cushion, Segal rose, withdrawing his automatic. Ignoring the gasps of dismay from his fellow-passengers, he pressed the gun to the pilot’s temple. “Out to sea – between those two Palmerston forts!”

In the rear-view mirror he espied Avery raise his fist to smash out the emergency window.

Pivoting round, Segal fired. The shot puffed deep into Avery’s seat. Cold-bloodedly eyeing him, Segal yelled above the din. “The next one’ll hit, Avery!”

By now the coastguard up ahead would be alerted. He glimpsed their wave-crests nearing. An MTB with them.

“Radio the coastguard!” he ordered the pilot. “Tell them it’s a hijack and these passengers are hostages. Any sign of pursuit and they die…”

Tremulously, the pilot obeyed. Cackling back, the radio acknowledged their message. Segal watched as the boats veered off, heading back inland. Being ex-Navy himself, he knew the Senior Service better than that. They’d now be a little orange blip on the radar screens.

Fifteen minutes later they sidled up to a dirty old tanker commandeered for this operation only, its fuel pipes dangling. Two swarthy sailors speedily refuelled the hovercraft.

As they headed out into the Channel, a slightly built passenger dived at Segal. Viciously chopping the bridge of the balding man’s hooked nose, he saw that two others had also found courage. He was thankful the narrow aisle prevented them both attacking at once. He ducked a ham-fisted blow and elbowed the stocky attacker’s stomach, following up with a knee to his groin.

He didn’t want to shoot if he could help it – the Bossman wouldn’t approve. As the first assailant slumped to the deck, the second, shorter one kicked out. The suede shoe winded him. Ruthlessly he clamped onto the short man’s leg and jerked it high up, unbalancing him.

In control now, he turned to notice the pilot serving the craft inland. The coastguard and MTB were visible ahead on the hazy horizon. They were following all right.

 
Clubbing the pilot’s chin with his automatic, he urged a course-correction. Then, steadying himself against an upright, Segal surveyed the passengers. Avery hadn’t moved – resigned to his fate, probably.
 
The meeting place had better be near, he thought, as I’m not likely to hold this lot at bay for long, unless I start shooting.
 
Heavy thunderclouds hovered, darkening the dusk. In the greyness he discerned a hulk rising. The submarine! Seconds later, the phosphorous wake – a gemini motoring across. The hovercraft. The hovercraft spluttered to a halt. The fuel had just lasted.
 
Warily studying the others, Segal pushed Avery up outside and down into the bobbing gemini. In a way, Segal felt sorry for Avery. He’d lost his wife in a confrontation with the Special Branch eight years ago. For three years they’d kept the grave under surveillance, but he never showed, so they gave it up as a bad job.
 
But Segal didn’t – and it paid off. He soon learned that Avery had moved his Southern Spynet to the Isle of Wight. And wisely, Segal kept the knowledge to himself.
 
Now, Avery’s reports were suspect; he was due for recall. The Kremlin reckoned his work was below acceptable efficiency. So they asked Segal – their Northern operator – to bring Avery out as they guessed he wouldn’t leave of his own accord.
 
As they approached the black fin, he wondered what they would do to Avery. Thank God they don’t know I’m doubling for MI6, he thought.
 
Avery’s enforced return would at least help him to dispel any doubts the Kremlin may have had about his loyalty to the cause.
 
The metal surface of the submarine’s casing clanged hollowly underfoot as they boarded. A pattern of barnacles twinkled wetly in the moonlight. The skipper called down to his two ratings dressed in black. They used English – unnecessarily for his sake – he observed, since he could speak fluent Russian.
 
Hastily, they were urged through a door in the front of the fin. Segal followed Avery into the dark confines of its skeletal framework. From above, an officer clambered down through the network of steel girders.
 
The short rotund Russian shook his hand heartily. Grinning a broad, golden-toothed  smile. “Welcome aboard my vessel, Mr Segal. I am Captain Karistavok.”
 
“Thanks, Captain, nice to be here.” He looked pointedly at Avery flanked by the Executive Officer and a rating. Both held machine carbines. “He’s in safe hands I see.”

Karistavok arched a picaresque eyebrow. He said, “Yes. But now we are about to dive, Mr Segal. Shall we go below?”

 
“I’d appreciate it. Wouldn’t like to get caught up top as she goes under,” he joked.
 
“Ah, yes, your sense of humour, no?”
 
Suddenly he heard the tannoy bawl: “Dive the submarine!” And, alarmingly, he was pushed in the dark, down into the black gap. His feet touched nothing the first six feet, then bruisingly hit into a metal ladder in the dark.

He felt the wind-blast hammering at his face. With the hatch open the turret was like a wind-tunnel. Grabbing hold, he cast a quick glance down at the red lights under him as a rubber-soled boot almost landed on his windswept head.
 
“Get down, man. Do y ou want yhoiur MTB to discover us?”
 
Obediently, Segal lowered himself, hand over hand, down the control tower. Again his hands slipped on the greasy rungs. The raucous wind forced him back, pummelling him. Slitting his eyes against the gale, he heard the hatch echo shut.
 
Above him, the Executive Officer cried, “One clip secured, two clip secured, three clip…” The dive-klaxon ground out its harsh music.
 
Clumsily, Segal landed at the foot of the ladder, in the centre of the control room. On either side of him rose the shafts of two periscopes, the for’ard one with a smaller snout, used for attack.
 
He heard the high-pressure air being released from the tanks as they sank under the waves. Now he whiffed the clinging odour of diesel oil and grease.
 
Instinctively, he surveyed his surroundings. Behind the attack ‘scope sat their Coxswain, gently raising and lowering the steering lever. Above him he saw the course indicator.
 
They were sinuating between 120 and 160 degrees – a wide zigzag. The magnetic compass showed them heading SSE. The telegraph dials read Full Ahead, both in Russian.
 
As the others joined him, he realised he was glad to see them. Somehow he believed the ratings already down here – especially those two bearded fellows on the hydroplanes – were hostile towards  him.
 
“I think you deserve a rest, Mr Segal,” suggested Karistavok.
 
He nodded wearily. “Yes, I am rather tired now. Thanks for taking Avery off my hands, anyway. I imagine you’ll be landing him off Algiers?”
 
“Perhaps…” Karistavok replied evasively.
 
The steward showed him to a spare bunk up for’ard in the fore-ends. “We don’t bother to undress,” he was told. All of the eight fold-up bunks ranged along the bulkheads. Alongside his own bunk two huge gunmetal-blue torpedoes were stacked on top of each other, resembling two young whales mating.
 
For the length and breadth of the boat’s bulkheads and deck-heads, bare wire circuits snaked and coursed, valve wheels protruded; dizzying, claustrophobic.

Fully clothed, Segal dozed fitfully for about three hours. An incessant p-e-e-e-nnng invaded his subconscious. He surmised they were being searched for on active sonar.

 
Eventually, unable even to doze, he rose cautiously from his bunk. Silently he passed tightly packed, musty smelling messes on the port side, and stowage lockers on the starboard. In the twilight of red-lighting, he likened the messes to a squashed London tube train.

Eyes unaccustomed to the red light, he accidentally kneed the pantry hatch-door, bruising himself from a row of extinguisher-refills let into the door-rack. A wheel-spanner clattered to the metal deck. Groping and finding it, he replaced it on the door’s ledge.

Karistavok was pacing the control room, hands clasped behind him. Avery lounged near the underwater telephone, unsupervised. “I don’t–” Karistavok began when he noticed Segal. “Hallo, Mr Segal! Sleep well?”

           
“Reasonably, Captain.”
 
Reaching for the microphone that hung above him, Karistavok said, “Excuse me – duty, you know…” He flicked the handset’s switch. “XO to control room, please.”

Studying the actin plot, Segal estimated they were well into the Bay of Biscay. A shadow crossed over the plot. He looked up.

Illuminated in the ruddy glow, he saw Avery flanked by Karistavok and his XO. The XO raised his machine carbine.

So they did know! All that about Avery was a ruse!

“I was bait, Segal,” Avery murmured, grinning.

They wanted him, not Avery.

Levelling his carbine on Segal, the XO twisted his moist lips, sneered, “Your gun – throw it over – slowly…”

He did as he was told, watching them through narrowed eyes. As the gun clanged on the deck, he edged backwards, into the gangway, near the pantry’s hatch.

 
Oblivious to what was happening, a young radio operator stepped from the state board. Unhesitatingly, Segal pushed him into the XO. The gun clattered to the deck, loosening a spurt of lead. Sparks splattered the ultra-violet gloom. The after-hydroplanes operator screamed, his thigh reddening.
 
Segal slammed the hatch door shut, shot the clips. The wheel-spanner fell again, but this time he kept it.
 
At that instant the steward emerged from the senior ratings’ mess. “Hey!” Without compunction, Segal rammed the sharp spanner in the steward’s ashen face. As the blood poured he dashed through the corridor leading for’ard. It was narrow and cramped. His shoulders buffeted against wheels, dials, pipes and cupboards.
 
A crew-cut mechanic wearing overalls moved out from his mess, barred Segal’s path. Without slowing, Segal thrust his knee into the Russian’s stomach and sprawled over as the man fell backwards. Landing catlike on all fours, Segal saw a red padlocked box labelled in Russian: Sten guns.
 
Loaded, he hoped, bashing his steel heel down on the lock. As the wood splintered open, he heard the others emerging from the pantry hatch. Wrenching the sten from its bracket, he trained it and fired. The nearest was a matter of five yards off; he jack-knifed head over heels with lead puncturing his chest.
 
Suddenly the noise was ear-shattering. Bullets ricocheted off pipes and metal boxes, severed cables and holed ducts. Water and high-pressure air gushed everywhere.
 
Taking advantage of the confusion, Segal backed through the hatchway leading into the fore-ends. As he slammed the hatch shut and wrenched the pins down, clamped tight, he turned to face three seamen rising sleepy-eyed from their bunks.
 
At that instant the tannoy addressed him: “You can’t escape, Segal…”
 
The three sailors must have realised what was happening. They rose and hit the deck and advanced on him. He had no choice. The sten barked its staccato message and they received the jerk from life to death. A few bullets rebounded and he felt a burning sensation in his left arm.
 
But his naval training had been thorough. He knew only too well Karistavok would seal off the fore-ends and increase the pressure, blacking him out within seconds. He had to work fast!
 
“Give yourself up, Segal, you can’t escape. You have one minute!”
 
Eyeing the depth-gauge nearby, he realised they were already down to four hundred feet: Karistavok was right.
 
Spotting the fore-ends fuel-dip to the right of the torpedo-stowage compartment, he used up the remainder of his ammunition blasting off the lock and unscrewed the short chain of the dip itself.
 
Fully aware of the precious seconds ticking by, he withdrew his false pen filled with high-explosive – standard equipment which he’d often shunned – and gently lowered it into the dip’s half-inch hole.

Then the pressure mounted in the compartment. He could feel his head reeling, everything going black…

 

***

“A Soviet submarine with fifty-eight men on board mysteriously exploded and sank in the Bay of Biscay during naval manoeuvres yesterday” – Reuter.

Copyright Nik Morton, 2014