Target 5, page 7
Sam Grayson, brilliant navigator, marine biologist, and a first-rate marksman, came from Minneapolis. Before going with Beaumont and Langer on the epic Spitsbergen crossing he worked for the U S Geological Survey and the Lament Geological Observatory of Columbia University. An old Arctic hand, he assured his wife before each trip, 'Maybe this will be my last crack at the ice - could be I'm getting sick of it . . .' That was until the next trip came up.
"The dogs just came in,' he informed Beaumont two hours after calling Thule.
'Horst had better check them right away ..."
Beaumont swung round as the third member of the team, Horst Langer, came into the tiny room Grayson was using as his headquarters. 'The dogs are here - and what's that sinister bit of paper you're waving about?'
'An urgent signal just came through from Dawes - we're to stand by ready for instant departure.'
Because it was unprecedented the depression caught all the met experts off balance, the vast filling depression gathering over northern Greenland in late February 1972. This was the depression which affected the whole of north America and western Europe later in the year, which turned summer into something like winter, which sent icebergs further south than they had ever reached before, which invaded transatlantic shipping lanes and caused great liners to change course. And this was the depression which brought the fog.
The Soviet met people on Novaya Zemlya didn't see it coining. The U S weather plane which flies daily across the roof of the world from Mildenhall in East Anglia to Alaska missed it. The U S Weather Bureau failed to foresee it. But as Beaumont prowled restlessly round the ice-cold hangar at Curtis Field a great bank of fog, half a mile high, many miles wide, a bank of freezing black fog appeared north of Target-5 and began to drift steadily south.
Sunday, 20 February
You can only die once, but sometimes it seems you are dying a hundred times over.
For Peter Gorov the flight from Tallinn to Leningrad was a nightmare. No one would give him a reason for his recall, no one would tell him who he was going to see in Leningrad, but he was treated like royalty when he disembarked from the Girolog at one in the morning.
A black Zil limousine with chains on the wheels took him through a snowstorm to the airport. When he went aboard the waiting plane the two pilots shook hands with him. He was invited to travel in the control cabin and was given a seat behind the co-pilot. The nightmare started from the moment the plane moved off down the runway.
It almost crashed as it was taking off- they were heading direct for the airport control tower, still on the ground, when the co-pilot shouted, 'You'll never make it!' He threw up a hand as though to ward off the collision when metal struck steel, then the pilot lifted the machine and it cleared the tower by feet, so it seemed to the petrified Gorov.
But this was only the beginning. As the plane gained altitude and turned east away from the ice-laden Baltic, a fierce, long-drawn argument broke out between the two pilots, each accusing the other. 'You fool, Serge, there was not enough power ...'
'Idiot! There was too much power! Would you sooner take over yourself?'
The argument raged on, the technical terms beyond Gorov. The plane suddenly side-slipped, started to drop at an alarming rate. With an oath the pilot regained control, then continued arguing at the top of his voice. Gorov watched from behind fearfully: it seemed they were more intent on their quarrel than on flying the plane. His fear was intensified when the machine climbed abruptly, heading up at an acute angle. Pressed back against his seat, Gorov was terrified. It was his first experience of flying. Halfway to Leningrad they began drinking.
The quarrel subsided suddenly and the pilots made it up with each other with a bottle of vodka. But their consideration for their honoured guest stopped short of offering him a drink; instead they emptied the bottle themselves. Gorov watched with growing horror as the effect of the vodka made itself felt in their flying performance. The machine was thrown all over the sky as they fell like a lift into air pockets, then shot upwards at an almost vertical angle. 'The met report was terrible,' Serge explained in .a slurred voice. 'If you hadn't been so important we wouldn't have flown.'
'Important to who?' asked the bewildered seaman.
'Maybe the First Secretary. How the hell would I know?'
Twice Gorov had to move swiftly to the small, cramped toilet where he was violently ill, but when he returned to his seat after the second visit his head was clearer for a few minutes. He calculated roughly that wherever they were taking him to in Leningrad he would arrive about three in the morning. It would then be eleven in the evening at North Pole 17, which was four hours behind Leningrad time. He was sure now that they had found out about the American, that they were going to question him. He had to hold out until after midnight, North Pole 17 time, which was four in the morning in Leningrad. He would have to hold out for over an hour.
As they came in to land at Leningrad his stomach muscles felt tighter than the strap which Serge ordered him to fasten. They were gliding down through the snow when the first motor cut out. Seconds later the second engine failed. Could they land on only two engines? Gorov had no idea. The pilot spoke to airport control with a note of hysteria. 'Emergency situation, emergency situation ...'
Gorov closed his eyes, felt his head starting to spin, opened them and saw the glare of the landing lights coming up. The plane wobbled badly. The co-pilot cursed, waved the empty vodka bottle at Serge. 'You're coming in too fast .. . you're going to kill us...' Gorov sat in his seat bathed in sweat, unable to take his eyes off the incoming lights which tilted as the plane wobbled. His clothes were soaked but his mouth was parched, his throat constricted. They were drunk, both of them, the criminals. He was going to burn to death, horribly.
At the last moment the two dead motors burst into action, the wheels bumped the runway, the machine cruised between the lights, made a perfect landing. The pilots waited until Gorov had disembarked without speaking to them, then Serge burst into laughter as he waved the empty bottle. 'I don't like mineral water - next time ask them to put the real stuff in it . . .'
Gorov would never know it, but he had been flown to Leningrad by the two most experienced pilots in the Baltic Command. They were probably the only men who could have handled the plane in such an appalling manner and survived. It was Papanin himself who had phoned the airport controller at Tallinn and given him the instructions. 'I want you to play a little game with your passenger - scare the guts out of him. When he lands he must be a jelly.'
The man in the chair was sweating and the spotlight shining on his face reflected off the sweat globules. Fear - and the green-tiled stove - were responsible. Papanin sat behind his desk in the gloom. The other men were shadows behind the chair, unnerving presences Peter Gorov couldn't see. One of them coughed - to remind Gorov he was there. The watch on Gorov's left wrist registered 3.20 am.
Papanin, who was completely on the wrong track, who still believed he was close to identifying the money courier financing the Jewish underground - whereas Michael Gorov had never had the slightest connection with that shadowy organization - had exactly forty minutes left to break Gorov. In forty minutes it would be 4 am in Leningrad and only midnight at North Pole 17. In forty minutes Michael Gorov would have disappeared on to the polar pack.
'We'll go over it again,5 Papanin said. 'Just to make sure I've got it right. Start with when you went into the park.'
Go over it again ... Gorov's head was reeling. He had been driven from the airport in a battered old Volga. Kramer had made him travel without his coat and with the windows open, so during the drive Gorov had become steadily frozen. It was a detail which Papanin had planned: sudden violent changes of temperature reduce a man's resistance. He had visualized the overheated control cabin in the plane, had frozen Gorov during the journey from the airport, now he was roasting him again. Gorov's stomach was empty, his nerves shattered, and he could hardly think straight as Papanin repeated, 'Go over it again.'
Gorov had lost count of how many times he had explained it. He tried to repeat it as a catechism as the heat of the stove burned his back. 'I went into the park . . .'
'Why?'
'I was on my way to the docks.'
'So you went straight along the Nevsky Prospekt - it's the direct route.'
'I went along the Nevsky Prospekt.. .' The voice was a monotone, like a child repeating its rote.
'You didn't - you went into the park. Why?'
They came to the part where the pedestrian had tripped on the ice, and Papanin went on asking the same questions he had asked ever since Gorov had come in. 'We want to know his name,' the Siberian repeated. 'That's what it's all about. We want to know his name.'
'I don't know the American's name ...'
Gorov stopped speaking. He knew instantly that he had made a fatal blunder. Papanin let him sweat it out for a minute. They hadn't said anything to Gorov about Winthrop being American, and Winthrop had worn clothes which made him look like a Russian. And Winthrop hadn't spoken to the seaman: Gorov had stated this time and again. 'Take him downstairs,' Papanin said, and then waited until he was alone with Kramer. 'Find out what he knows - quickly.'
Because their suspect was a seaman, and because a seaman's nightmare is drowning, they used the water treatment.
In the basement cellar - which was as Gold as Papanin's room had been torrid - they strapped Gorov to an adjustable couch and blindfolded him. He was stretched prone on his back, strapped by his neck and his wrists and his legs to the couch. Somewhere out of sight water slopped in a container. 'What message did the American pass you?' Kramer asked.
'No message ...'
One man gripped Gorov's jaw, another man thrust a huge rubber funnel into Gorov's mouth, the third man started pouring water down the funnel. The choking sensation began immediately, the drowning sensation came later. On a stool beside his patient, a doctor sat with a stethoscope pressed against Gorov's naked chest.
For Gorov, flat on his back, blindfolded and unable to move, the world was water - water flooding into his mouth, water pouring down his throat, water surging into his lungs.
Desperately he tried to lift his arms, his chest, to hold his breath, and then he was spluttering, choking, retching painfully, and his whole body seemed to swell up, to be on the point of bursting. His eyes bulged, his neck muscles tautened, collapsed. He tried to scream and the scream was strangled and he knew he was dying, drowning. They kept on pouring in water until the doctor looked quickly at Kramer. The Bait nodded. A foot pedal under the couch was pressed and hands lifted the rear of the couch swiftly, elevating Gorov to a sitting position. The seaman choked, spewed, gasped for air. Then he lolled, head down, panting irregularly. Kramer pulled up the blindfold, lifted Gorov's head under the chin.
'What message did the American pass to you?' Blurred eyes stared back at Kramer, eyes full of hate. He tried to speak twice, looked down at his left wrist, and twice only a hoarse crackle emerged, a hardly human sound. They had taken away his wristwatch. For Gorov this was the worst ordeal: now he had no idea of the time, nothing to tell him how long he must hold out. The third time he managed to get the words out, glaring at Kramer. 'No message . ..' Eyes full of hate, the Bait noted, so resistance was high. It would take half an hour, he estimated, maybe less. When the hate vanished, was replaced by agony, they would be getting somewhere. He nodded and they renewed the treatment. Gorov guessed that a good twenty minutes had gone. In fact, it was less than five minutes since they had brought him to the cellar.
The Locomotive moved into action, driving people as though he had only got up an hour ago - whereas in fact he had been twenty-two hours without sleep. It was not the information which Kramer burst into his room with which generated this explosive activity, and once again he deflated the fat Bait.
'Michael Gorov is defecting to the Americans . . .'
'It took you two hours, Kramer.' Papanin looked at the clock on the wall which registered 5.30 am. 'That deputy mate is a courageous man - and you're too late with your news - this signal has just come in from North Pole 17.' He handed the signal form to the Bait who was already sweating from the temperature change as he read it. Michael Gorov left North Pole 17 with dog team midnight. Security man Marov found dead on the ice. Search parties have been sent out. Please advise. Minsky.
It took Papanin less than a minute to scribble a reply in his own hand which Petrov rushed to the signals room. Send all available helicopters further west than Gorov can have gone. Then sweep back towards North Pole if. Report immediately any signs of American activity near Target-5. Papanin.
He ordered Kramer to contact Murmansk, to check that the Bison bomber was ready for instant departure, to confirm with Leningrad airport that a plane was standing by, to signal trawler fleet k49 and the Revolution, requesting information on any American activity in the area, to signal the helicopter carrier Gorki asking for an immediate check on the present position of the American icebreaker Elroy.
He phoned General Boris Syrtov, chief of Special Security in Moscow, not caring whether he dragged him from his bed at 5.30 am, but Syrtov had been on the verge of calling the Siberian and the conversation opened with a battle.
'Papanin!' Syrtov's tone was sharp. 'Murmansk tells me you have ordered an Arctic alert. It isn't true, of course?'
'It is true, General ...'
'Without my authority?'
'It was a precaution .. .'
'Brezhnev has heard about it -I have to go to the Kremlin at once.'
'Good...'
'What did you say?' Syrtov roared.
'The precaution was justified,' Papanin snapped. He fired his big gun. 'Michael Gorov has fled across the ice ... He's taking more than his brains to the Americans. I've just found out he spent two hours inside the security room while I was away in Moscow - I think he photographed the Catherine charts. He's taking them a blueprint of our entire underwater system.'
Syrtov's anger collapsed, was replaced by chronic anxiety. He asked what resources Papanin needed - and the answer staggered him.
'Personal control of the carrier Gorki, trawler fleet k49, and the research ship Revolution . ..'
'You know that's unprecedented.'
'It's an unprecedented situation. The First Secretary can sanction it - which is why I'm glad you're going to see him.'
'I'll come back to you,' Syrtov said tersely. 'Meantime continue your preparations.'
'I've made them - including ordering an alert nine hours ago without your authority, which has gained us nine hours of invaluable time ...' Papanin heard the click of the receiver at the Moscow end with satisfaction. He looked up as Kramer came in, eager for news. 'Pack your hot-water bottle, Kramer - we'll be in the Arctic within twenty-four hours.'
At precisely one o'clock on Sunday morning in Washington Lemuel Dawes switched on the light over the camp bed he had set up in his office and checked the time. As usual, his internal alarm clock had woken him punctually. And he had a headache, which was hardly surprising - the heat, the lack of air and the tropical plants banked up against two walls were building an atmosphere which could only be described as nauseous. Ten minutes later Adams knocked on his door and came in.
'No news from Helsinki,' he said grimly. 'But the plane might have been delayed - he may still get through.'
'So we wait?'
'We wait...'
'Which could be a mistake.' Dawes scratched at his rumpled hair. 'But we can't do a damned thing about it. Gorov could be on the ice already, we could fly a plane into Target-5 now, but I daren't do it - if Gorov hasn't left yet any sign of unusual activity at Target-5 could alert the Russians.'
So while Beaumont was climbing the walls at distant Curtis Field at the edge of the Greenland icecap, while Dawes waited for a signal from a man who had died forty hours earlier, Col Papanin's far-reaching preparations were gaining momentum and looked like winning him the game before it had even started.
Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, walked briskly into Col Papanin's office at noon on Sunday accompanied by General Boris Syrtov.
As always, when he removed his fur coat Brezhnev was smartly dressed in a dark business suit, his thick hair was neatly brushed, and in Detroit he could easily have been taken for a Ford executive. No one helped him to disrobe; the First Secretary intensely disliked fuss. And as always he came straight to the point.
'Papanin, you have control of six vessels of the trawler fleet, the helicopter carrier Gorki and the research ship Revolution. None of these will make it look like a military operation - they are civilian vessels, so to speak. You see the point?'
