Blade's mission was to land on the mainland of Nordsbergen and pick up certain key files that had to go out by a covert route. He was not told exactly what the files were, but there were enough clues in the briefing material so he could make a good guess.

The files were probably a complete list of Nordsbergen citizens who would be willing to assist Imperial intelligence operations against the Red Flames, even after the country was occupied. That meant a complete list of the bravest and toughest people in Nordsbergen, and the most valuable to Englor. It was obvious why it had to go out by a covert route. There couldn't be even the slightest risk of its falling into Red Flame hands. That would sign the death warrant of everyone on the list, crippling Imperial intelligence operations in Nordsbergen for years. It would also destroy much of the confidence anyone in Nordsbergen might still have in the Empire's wisdom, judgment, and reliability.

Blade was not sure that committing such critical data to paper had been a wise move. He kept his opinions on that to himself. He also kept to himself his opinion that the Special Operations Division was mounting a fairly elaborate operation to take one man into hostile territory and take one file out. However, he knew all too well that even the most professional of intelligence chiefs occasionally overreacted, or had to obey superiors who did.

Once Blade was fully briefed, a helicopter flew him to Whitby. From there a fast motor launch took him and his gear ten miles out to sea, to a rendezvous with an Imperial atomic submarine.

The trip aboard the submarine across the five hundred miles of the Nord Sea took two days. That was probably a leisurely cruise for this submarine. It closely resembled Home Dimension nuclear submarines that could travel three times as fast without strain.

Blade studied the submarine as thoroughly as time and the need to avoid arousing suspicion permitted. She was small-two thousand tons or so, with no more than fifty officers and men in the crew. Blade saw nothing that it would have surprised him to find aboard a submarine of the Royal Navy in Home Dimension. If any technological breakthroughs had filtered down to the Imperial Navy of Englor, they were lurking in places where Blade could not see or recognize them.

Blade spent most of his time studying his maps, photographs, and equipment, or resting to keep up his strength. When he did go into action, he knew he would have to allow for at least forty-eight hours with no sleep and probably with little rest of any kind.

While Blade slept on the second night, the submarine rounded the southern end of Tagarsson Island and entered the channel that lay between the island and the mainland of Nordsbergen. Shortly before midnight her navigator's reckoning indicated they'd arrived at the correct position. The engines were cut back to dead slow, and the submarine settled quietly down on the bottom of the channel, so gently that Blade didn't even wake up. He slept until the petty officer in charge of his equipment shook him by the shoulder.

«Time, sir.»

Blade sat up, bowing his head to keep from cracking it on the pipes above the bunk. He swung his legs out of the bunk and stood up, instantly awake. He could feel the familiar sensations of mind, and body coming to full alertness for action. It felt as good as ever.

«Very good,» said Blade. «What's the weather like up top?»

«Report is clear, ceiling and visibility unlimited, wind south-southwest at ten to twelve, light chop.» The petty officer went out, closing the door behind him as Blade turned to the hanging locker on the bulkhead and began pulling out what he called his «working clothes.»

Around Blade the blueness of the chill water was turning to green. He slowed his rise and exhaled more vigorously than before. Coming up from two hundred feet down had to be done slowly and carefully. Otherwise he'd reach the surface with his lungs ruptured, to bob away on the current as a slowly stiffening corpse.

He watched the luminous dial of his wristwatch until he saw that three minutes had elapsed. Then he began kicking slowly and steadily with his finned feet. The green around him grew lighter and still lighter. At last his head broke water.

He looked across the three miles of water toward the shore, getting his bearings. To his right rose Hugar Point, a headland rising sheer nearly two hundred feet from the sea. To his left a range of heavily wooded hills marched away into the blue distance, dark green against the sky. In the middle of the shadows they cast across the water, Blade could make out a strip of whitish sand and the whiter curl of foam as little waves rolled up on it. That beach was his goal. Blade raised his other hand and took a precise bearing with the compass strapped to that wrist. He carefully looked over water, land, and sky with equal thoroughness, looking for any sign of human activity.

He didn't expect to find any. He was nearly twenty miles from the nearest Nordsbergen town, a fishing community of no more than a thousand people. There were a few farms and logging camps nestled among those hills, but none of their people would be paying much attention to the sea or what might rise out of it.

The Russlanders had no bases at all within a hundred miles. Even their nearest anchorage was forty miles away. Their air patrols passed over this area from time to time, but on a schedule that was predictable to within half an hour.

That was typical of the Russlanders. They were very thorough and conscientious in executing previously laid plans. They were also rather unimaginative in drawing up those plans, and slow to adapt to any situation not covered by the plans. This was a set of military vices very familiar to Richard Blade, and one he knew very well how to exploit.

Blade examined the little world that he could make out from mid-channel until he was quite sure no one was watching. Then he ducked down below the surface again.

The little electric torpedo was floating a few yards away, stabilized just below the surface by its buoyancy tanks. He gently pulled on the trailing line until he could reach out and grip the torpedo itself.

It was five feet long and eighteen inches in diameter, a fiberglass cylinder with controls forward and a rudder and propeller aft. It could carry Blade through the water at six knots for about ten hours. After that, if he needed to travel farther across the sea, he would have to inflate the life raft that was strapped to the torpedo.

Blade lay along the back of the torpedo, shoving his feet into the stirrups on either side of the rudder. One gloved hand moved to the controls. The propeller whispered into life and the torpedo began to glide forward through the green water.

Blade angled down until he was running thirty feet deep. He opened the throttle and felt the buffeting of the water increase against his arms and legs. He was aware of the chill of the water around him but not bothered by it. His dark green wet suit was as efficient an insulating garment as he'd ever worn, and his greased hands and feet felt no more than a faint nibbling from the cold.

He kept the torpedo on course at full speed for twenty minutes. The channel ran deep, with water a hundred feet deep only fifty yards from his beach. He hoped there would be a level place for him to park the torpedo that was also deep enough to make it invisible from the air.

When he'd counted off twenty-three minutes he slowed to half speed and began looking ahead and down, watching for the bottom to rise out of the dimness to meet him. At twenty-six minutes he saw it take shape, gray under the blue green around him. At twenty-eight minutes he cut the throttle completely. A moment later the torpedo settled onto firm sand forty feet down. Blade made sure that it was safely in place, then swam up to the surface.