The air was stale with yesterday’s tobacco smoke and the damp odour of condensation and sweat.

  Admiral McKelway leaned on his hands across the one lighted table, his face made older by the grey stubble which showed so clearly in the glare. Several staff officers in various stages of undress were grouped around him, and in a far corner a yeoman was busy preparing coffee.

  Jermain walked up to the table and waited in silence. He was immediately aware of the tension. As if it was pinned inside the steel room as part of the motionless figures around the table.

  McKelway lifted his head and looked at Jermain. ‘Sit down, Commander. Have some coffee.’ His head moved sideways like a gun dog’s as the teleprinter began its insane clatter behind him. An officer ripped away the message and handed it across to his chief.

  Jermain saw the officer glance at the depot ship’s captain and give a quick shake of the head.

  McKelway’s cold eyes flicked away from the paper and back to the chart. In a flat, unemotional tone he said, ‘At oioo this morning an American nuclear submarine failed to make her obligatory signal. I therefore have to assume that she is either in difficulties,’ he paused and his eyes fastened on Jermain’s face, ‘or she has been destroyed!’

  Every man in the room but Jermain was already aware of this information, yet the shock of the admiral’s words seemed no less than if they were being uttered for the first time.

  McKelway continued, ‘The U.S.S. Pyramus should have discharged her radio-buoy at oioo in this position.’ His wizened finger moved along the chart. ‘I know it’s early to jump to conclusions, but we cannot afford to take one single chance.’

  Jermain stared at the chart, only half his mind following McKelway’s dry voice. The Pyramus was overdue on station. Somehow Jermain had known which submarine it would be as soon as McKelway had started to speak.

  He thought of Sarah’s anxious face in the doorway and his own casual words. ‘It’s only the base. You go back to bed.’

  McKelway continued, ‘I have’the lines open with Washington. I have already been in contact with London.’ They were all looking at Jermain. ‘What I have to tell you, Jermain, is something which might surprise you, it may even sicken you.’ He took a cigar out of his pocket and rolled it absently in his fingers. ‘I want you to find that submarine, and I want it found quickly!’

  The yeoman said quietly, ‘Coffee, gentlemen?’

  McKelway lowered himself into a steel chair. ‘Might as well. There’s a lot of work to be done.’ He stared at Jermain. ‘I will give you every piece of information I have available, Commander. I’ll move heaven and earth to help you in any way I can.’ He slammed his fist on the table. ‘The Pyramus is carrying eighteen Polaris missiles! She has to be located!’

  Jermain took a cup and drained the scalding coffee without even tasting it. He peered down at the coloured chart and said, ‘This is the east coast of Korea, sir. What was a Polaris boat sent there for?’

  He waited for the lash of McKelway’s tongue, but instead the admiral replied evenly, ‘That’s right. Ask away.’ He levered himself forward in his chair. It’s been a regular patrol for two years.’ The finger moved slowly up the Korean coastline. ‘Now look at this. The sea is so deep in some parts it falls away to eighteen hundred fathoms. Ideal country for a deep-running nuclear boat.’ The finger moved up and up the coast. ‘If you look closely, Jermain, you’ll see this valley. It’s marked on the chart as the Wantsai Valley, and it runs south east away from the northern end of the Korean mainland. It really is a valley. Some of the surveys have been hazy, but it’s a great natural crevasse in the sea bed, some three hundred miles long and never less than thirty miles wide.’ He sounded tired. ‘It was a natural right from the start. A Polaris submarine was given the Valley as a regular patrol area. Once a Red Alert was given the submarine patrolling the sector could reach her firing position within hours.’ He swept his palm upwards across the land mass. ‘There are three countries within a hundred miles of the firing point! It’s unique. We have North Korea, Russia and China, all comfortably within a small arc of missile range!’

  Jermain controlled his breathing with an effort. The admiral’s words seemed vast in scale, like the scope of the operations he controlled. He stared at the chart and at the admiral’s ‘unique’ situation. How unlike the other coast of Korea, he thought, where Conway’s hopes had died with his wife in the Malange. This other coastline was certainly a temptation for any submarine strategist.

  The operations officer said suddenly, ‘The Pyramus may be damaged in some way.’ He sounded doubtful. ‘In which case there is a certain routine she will have followed. But if she has lost control, then she will have gone straight to the bottom of the Valley. Like the Thresher, she’ll be scattered in minute fragments, beyond reach, beyond hope.’

  McKelway tugged at his collar. ‘Christ, it’s hot in here!’ He looked across at Jermain. ‘If you accept this assignment, Commander, you’ll be on your own the moment you get under way. Secrecy is our only hope.’

  Jermain frowned. ‘Do I have any choice, sir?’

  ‘Your people in London have left the choice to you, Jermain. It will be your final responsibility.’ He leaned back and watched him calmly.

  Jermain said, ‘My choice? Must I decide whether one hundred men are to be left trapped or not?’ He nodded vehemently. ‘Of course I’ll go!’

  McKelway held up his hand. ‘Take it easy, son. There’s more to come, a whole lot more!’

  A phone buzzed and an officer said, ‘Reconnaissance reports a zero, Admiral!’

  McKelway did not even blink. ‘If the Reds get one peep of what we’re doing they’ll be in there pitching, Jermain. The Pyramus is right on their front doorstep, miles beyond any aid which we can give her. If they guessed the Pyramus was crippled and within salvage possibilities they’d go into top gear! Can you imagine what it would mean to the Reds to capture a Polaris boat intact?’ He slammed his palms together, ‘They would have every goddamn secret in the book. Every detail of our target ability and all the computerised data that goes with it. There would be nothing, but nothing, to stop them overtaking our lead in Polaris and nuclear warfare!’

  Jermain ran his fingers through his hair. ‘When would you want me to sail, sir?’

  McKelway glanced at his staff. ‘I shall get the final go ahead from Washington in a few hours. You get your boat ready to leave within ten hours, okay?’ He added slowly, ‘There will be written orders for you by then. Everything legal and tied up!’

  Jermain felt a sudden warmth for the small admiral with the weight of command on his slight shoulders.

  ‘Just one more question, sir?’ Jermain saw the flash of caution in McKelway’s wintry eyes. ‘Why me?’

  McKelway stood up and took his arm. Together they walked out of the operations room and stood on the damp maindeck below the gaunt derricks.

  Then the admiral said quietly, ‘I was saving this for later, Jermain.’ He leaned on the rail and watched an aproned cook walking towards the galley rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘I could tell you it’s because your boat is the latest and best in nuclear submarines. Well, maybe it is at that, but I’ve got a dozen boats with captains who know that area a whole lot better than you do. I could also say it’s because I was impressed by your unorthodox style, by the fact that you work things out for yourself as you feel your way. That’s unusual nowadays.’ He grinned in the grey dawn light. ‘Seriously, I read your last report and I was impressed. You are a good man for this job. I sincerely believe that.’ His tone hardened. ‘But my main reason is this. If the Pyramus is still intact, but cannot be helped or prevented from falling into enemy hands,’ he swung round to face Jermain, ‘she must be destroyed.’ He gripped Jermain’s arms in a tight pincer-hold. ‘I am afraid you will have to destroy her, Commander! I cannot and will not ask my own men to destroy their buddies in cold blood!’

  Jermain felt the sweat running down his face in spite of the chin air. ‘And you think I can, sir?’

  McKelway rested his body on the rail and said bitterly, ‘You don’t know these boys. To you it will be a job. Just a job.’ He looked sideways at Jermain’s set face. ‘It has tobe this way, boy. We must always be ready with a final solution.’

  Jermain straightened his back. ‘I shall return to the Temeraire, sir. There’s a lot to do.’ His voice sounded hollow.

  McKelway said quietly, ‘This is one hell of an assignment, Commander. Both our governments are prepared to accept this final solution, but in the end it comes down to you and me.’ He held out his hand. ‘Then it comes down to you alone.’

  He added, ‘I know the Pyramus’s skipper well. He’s a good boy.’

  Jermain had a sudden glimpse of John Hurtzig bending over his son’s cot and Sarah’s anxious face watching him.

  He replied, ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

  McKelway watched him go, his face lined and sad. ‘I never doubted it, boy,’ he said quietly. ‘Never for a minute!’

  *  *  *

  Jermain pulled the clean shirt over his head and ran a comb carelessly through his hair. In his cabin mirror he could see Wolfe and Ross watching his every movement, their expressions masking their reactions to his words.

  He swung round. ‘You will both understand, of course, that this is all Top Secret. We may still hear that the submarine has been located and all is well. But the Americans are working on the opposite assumption, and so must we.’

  Ross folded his notebook and thrust it into his white overalls. ‘Well, the reactor is running smoothly, sir. I put my staff to work as soon as I got the word.’ He shrugged. ‘I would have argued with you over this, in view of the other troubles we’ve had with the boat, but what can I say now?’ He met Jermain’s eyes steadily. ‘It might be us one day. I’d not like to think that we lack guts when it comes to helping another boat.’

  Wolfe said, ‘The boat is on stand-by, sir. Two men are stil adrift, but I know where they are. The shore patrol is holdin them for starting a brawl last night.’

  Jermain pulled on his jacket and patted his pockets. He had to make sure that everything he needed was on his person. He might be confined to the clothes he stood up in for a very long time. ‘Get them back aboard at once, Number One. I want a full complement.’

  He was surprised that both Wolfe and Ross had taken his news so calmly and without argument. He wondered what their reactions might be when he told them of the admiral’s ‘final solution’. He forced the sickening possibility to the back of his mind. He had to find the Pyramus first.

  A messenger tapped at the door. ‘Pardon, Captain. But there’s a Commander Martingale to see you.’

  A thickset American officer was ushered into the cabin and Jermain said to his own officers, ‘This is the other commanding officer of the Pyramus. He brought her in from the last patrol.’

  The American shook hands, his face grave and lined with worry. He placed a thick folder on Jermain’s desk and stared at it. ‘This is all the intelligence stuff I’ve got, Commander. Aerial photographs from our high-fly reconnaissance boys, recognition and rendezvous procedure and so forth. You’ll be sailing on the same route as we normally take.’ He bit his lip. ‘As Hurtzig took.’

  He added impetuously, ‘I asked the admiral if I could come with you. I’d feel better to know what’s happening.’ He looked way. ‘The old man refused. I guess he has no option.’

  A sharp tremor ran through the deck and Ross said, ‘Testing main propulsion. I’d better get aft and keep an eye on things.’

  Jermain said slowly, ‘Remember, this is secret until we sail. I’ll tell the men myself. But until then it’s a routine patrol.’

  Martingale said, ‘I hear you stayed with Hurtzig’s wife? I had no idea she was your sister.’

  He spoke quietly, but Jermain darted a quick glance at Wolfe’s face as the man’s unexpected words broke the silence like a bomb exploding. He was surprised at the calmness of his own reply. ‘I’ll take you on deck, Commander. There are a few points I’d like to discuss.’

  Wolfe looked at him, his eyes completely steady and composed. ‘I’ll go round the boat and then check with the shore patrol, sir.’

  Jermain nodded and walked through to the passageway. There was not a sign that Wolfe had heard the American’s casual reference to Sarah. Not a blink of an eye.

  They reached the upper deck and stood in the shadow of the depot ship’s side to watch a frigate slipping seawards. Everything was businesslike but unruffled. No inkling of the feverish activity going on in the admiral’s operations room or the flood of signals which might mean life or death to Hurtzig and his men.

  Martingale said flatly, ‘It’s beyond me. The Pyramus is as safe as a house. I can’t think what could have gone wrong.’ He clasped Jermain’s hand. ‘I’ll leave you in peace. But I’ll be thinking of you.’

  Jermain forced a smile. How would Martingale feel if he knew of his orders and the extent they might be carried out? He replied, ‘It’s nice to be of some use again.’

  The American paused on the accommodation ladder and stared down at him. ‘I think I know why McKelway wouldn’t let me go with you. I guess that’s why I wanted to meet you personally.’ He looked along the Temeraire’s black hull towards the rounded bows and the hidden torpedo tubes. ‘It had to happen one day. But that doesn’t make it one bit easier for you.’ He hurried up the ladder as if he no longer trusted himself to speak.

  Oxley walked briskly along the casing and saluted. He was properly dressed and freshly shaved, a different man from the one who had greeted Jermain in the dawn light.

  He said, ‘Signal, sir. Proceed to sea at 1500 in accordance with operational despatch.’ He watched Jermain’s face and added, ‘Anything to add, sir?’

  Jermain looked at his watch. Three hours. Perhaps the Americans were still hoping. He cursed himself for putting the empty faith in his mind.

  ‘The first lieutenant will brief all officers. But once clear of the harbour limits I shall want the boat’s number painted out.’ They both stared up at the big S.191 on the side of the fin. There would be nothing to betray the Temeraire’s identity. She would be like a nameless pirate. An assassin. ‘See to it, will you?’

  Oxley watched Jermain walk towards the fin and waited as Mayo joined him on the casing. Mayo said, ‘What do you make of it, Philip?’

  Oxley shook his head. ‘It’s no bloody half-cock affair this time, Pilot. Did you see the captain’s face?’ He looked towards the lush hillsides. ‘As our allies would say, “this is for real”.’

  Fifteen minutes after receiving the signal Jermain was summoned again to the depot ship where Admiral McKelway was waiting for him. There was little sign of the strain and anxiety he must be feeling and he was dressed in a fresh set of laundered khakis.

  He snapped, ‘I have a car waiting, Jermain. I thought you might like to say your farewells to Hurtzig’s wife?’ He studied him gravely. ‘I’ve already been to see her. I think she deserves that at least.’ He led the way to his big staff car and added, ‘She’ll be going through hell, but she’s a navy wife now, and the wife of a commanding officer. If the worst happens it will fall to her to visit the other families.’ He rapped on the driver’s seat and finished, ‘But I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?’

  They drove in silence, the trees and white buildings flashing past without meaning. The road was rutted but as bone dry as if there had been no rain at all.

  As they stopped outside the bungalow McKelway said briefly, ‘Ten minutes, Commander. I have radio contact with the base. I’ll yell if I hear anything.’

  Jermain stepped into the shaded living room, his body taut and heavy. The two women were standing together by the window watching his face. Sarah said, ‘The admiral came here, David. He told me about John.’

  Jermain replied, ‘I’m sailing almost at once. I just wanted to see you first.’ He could not find the words. ‘You know I’m going to look for the Pyramus?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m glad it’s you, David.’ She walked to the door. ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’ She was trying to smile. ‘Just bring him back to me, David. To us!’ Then she was gone, and the silence moved a step nearer.

  When the staff car sounded its horn Jermain left the house like a man in a daze. Later his mind might be able to sort out the swift minutes, recall each precious word.

  The girl had said, Til take care of her, David,’ Then she had looked up into his face, her eyes steady. ‘But come back safely yourself. I need you, too.’

  McKelway grunted, ‘Let’s get moving.’ He sounded angry. ‘There’s been another development, Jermain I just got it on the radio telephone.’ He glared at the driver’s back. ‘Your top brass are sending a senior officer with you to take overall charge of the operations. I’m sorry, Jermain, I remember what it’s like to have a goddamn admiral breathing down my neck!’

  Jermain asked flatly, ‘Sir John Colquhoun?’

  ‘Exactly. But you don’t seem surprised?’ McKelway leaned back and lighted a cigar. ‘Can you manage him okay?’

  Jermain stared at his own reflection in the dusty window. They were all depending on him. Sarah, Jill and the Pyramus’s crew. Now Sir John Colquhoun was returning to the Temeraire, no doubt at his own insistence. Perhaps it was fitting, Jermain thought bitterly. In a way he was responsible for everything that had happened.

  In a hard voice he replied, ‘I command the Temeraire, sir.’

  The admiral blew out a thin stream of smoke and smiled grimly. ‘I guess that answers a whole heap of questions!’

  Two hours later McKelway stood alone on the depot ship’s bridge and watched the British submarine slip her moorings. Without fuss or undue haste the black whale-shaped hull moved dear and glided towards the wider reaches of the inlet.