by Dayle, Harry
Lucya took a step towards Max and raised her hand. With a swift swipe she slapped his face, hard.
He raised his hand to his cheek and rubbed. “Touched a nerve?”
“Erica is like our daughter. She doesn’t just live in our cabin. And Jake is right. None of those children can be hurt in any way.”
“So give me some alternatives. We’re wasting time here. In another” — he flicked his wrist again — “fifty-five minutes, he’s going to start killing kids.”
“You’re the security man, you come up with some ideas!”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” He slapped the table with the palm of his hand.
“Realistic ideas.” Lucya spun round and began pacing again, staring at the floor.
“This may all be moot anyway,” Max said, leaning back in his chair. “Someone tried to torpedo us. Any idea’s on that, Captain? Aren’t we sitting here waiting to die anyway?”
“Actually, I’m not sure we are. That was the North Koreans too. Apparently they have a submarine. If they believe their colleagues are on the Arcadia, I’m guessing we’re safe.”
“Really? You don’t think we could be caught up in some kind of civil war? Perhaps the guys in the classroom are the real target.”
“They haven’t fired another torpedo. They’ve had time to do so.”
“Maybe they don’t want to give away their position while the Ambush is out there. If they try and take us out, the Royal Navy could sink them. So perhaps they’re taking care of our friends in blue before they take care of us.”
“Maybe you’re right, Max.” Jake was shouting now, exasperated. “Maybe we’re all going to die. Maybe the sub will get us. Maybe we should all just crack open the last few bottles of champagne, get completely shit-faced and celebrate the end of days. Or, here’s another idea: maybe we try and save our children, then work out a way we can help the Ambush and save everyone else. Do you think we could do that, Max? Do you think we could try and survive? Like we’ve survived up until now?”
“Captain Noah, I didn’t think you had it in you. I must admit, I’m almost impressed. What do you propose?”
Lucya piped up from the back of the room, where she had just stopped pacing. “We need Vardy. Where’s Vardy?”
“He’s still with McNair. Why?”
“Because I think I have an idea.”
Twenty-Four
SURGEON LIEUTENANT RUSSELL Vardy found himself in demand. He had McNair laid out in the medical suite and was preparing to reset a broken bone, when the telephone rang and Jake asked him to come down to deck two. Naturally he had refused, at first. When the reasons for his presence being required were made clear, he immediately handed his patient over to Carrie, who assured him she was capable of looking after the injured helmsman.
It wasn’t just Lucya who wanted Vardy’s assistance. Jake was also keen to quiz the navy man on just what was likely to be happening with the Ambush since she had disappeared. His questions had to wait though; the situation in the classroom was far more urgent.
“Lucya, I’m so sorry,” Vardy announced as he entered the room, slightly out of breath. “I’m not sure what you think I can do though. Surely this is a situation for security?” He nodded towards Max.
“Thank you!” The security chief raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Someone talking sense at last. Let’s get in there and save the kids.”
Lucya ignored him. “If we do anything they don’t like, the children are at risk. If we try and enter the room, Erica will die. If we try and take them out on the way to the Lance, Erica will die. If we try and ambush them on board the Lance, Erica will die. And if we let them onto the ship and leave them to sail away as they are asking, Erica will probably die.”
“Then it sounds like the choice comes down to which strategy involves the smallest loss of human life,” Vardy said. He looked her right in the eye as he spoke. “In battle, sacrifice is a necessary tool.”
“Hallelujah!”
“Shut up, Max,” Lucya snapped. “This isn’t a battle. And sacrifice is not acceptable. I think there might be another way. A way we can disable the Koreans without harming the children.” Everyone looked at her expectantly. “The virus,” she said, looking around at the three men.
“The virus?” Vardy said at last. “I’m sorry, I don’t really… I don’t follow.”
“The virus! The one that nearly killed us all? Oh come on. It’s obvious! The children were immune to the virus. If we infect the men holding them, they’ll be paralysed and might die, and the children they’re holding hostage won’t be affected at all. At the very least the men will be incapacitated. We send in Max’s guys to take control, and the kids will be saved.”
Max groaned. Jake’s shoulders slumped.
Vardy shook his head, but spoke kindly. “Even if we could somehow release the virus into that room without contaminating any other part of the ship, it would take at least twenty-four hours before those men became paralysed. When Jake called, he said we had less than an hour.”
“Forty-eight minutes,” Max said, looking at his watch.
“I’m sorry, Lucya, really I am, but your plan just isn’t workable.”
“Surgeon Lieutenant.” Lucya wore her sternest expression. “Are you trying to tell me that since you, Janice, Mandy and the others cured everyone, you haven’t been working on that virus?”
“I’m sorry?” Vardy looked taken aback.
“‘Once a bio-warfare engineer, always a bio-warfare engineer.’ That’s what you said to me one evening, when we shared a couple of glasses of vodka from my personal stash. Or have you forgotten that?”
Vardy turned a little pink. “Well, I might have said something like that. I don’t see the relevance though.”
“That’s exactly what you said. It stuck in my mind. You talked at length that night about just how fascinating the virus was; about how it was almost unheard of to discover a new strain like that; of how in your time at Faslane you worked tirelessly to create exactly that sort of thing. Don’t shake your head at me, Vardy. I remember the conversation well. It scared the shit out of me. It was obvious that you intended to keep working on the thing. To test it, develop it, and learn from it. Are you seriously going to try and tell me you haven’t touched it since?”
“Is this true, Russell?” Jake asked without looking up from the table.
Vardy sat down, ran his fingers through his hair, and fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. “I might have, you know, tinkered about a bit. I mean, it’s true what you said. A new strain of virus like that is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of discovery. Sure, we saw new bacteria and new variants of viruses all the time, but something like that, with such destructive power, something that used the body’s own defences to become stronger? That’s the sort of thing Nobel prizes are made of.”
“If they handed out Nobel prizes for doing evil shit,” Max grunted.
“Yes, well, you know what I mean.” Vardy was getting into the flow. He put his hands on the table and looked around at the others. “You can’t blame me if I chose to spend some of my free time trying to understand such a discovery, can you? Obviously I took all the necessary precautions. Nobody has ever been in any danger. This is important work. If we encounter another strain, or something else like it, we should be prepared, don’t you think?”
“Tell me then, virus-man,” Lucya said coldly. “In all your experimenting, have you come up with a way to make the virus act more quickly?”
Vardy closed his eyes.
“Forty-seven minutes,” Max said quietly.
“Okay!” Vardy kept his eyes shut. “I may have looked into ways of accelerating its destructive effects. Purely as a scientific exercise, you understand. It’s always possible we may encounter another variant. It’s as well to be prepared.”
“And did you succeed? Did you make a faster-acting virus?” Jake asked, his voice shaking slightly.
“Well, sort of. Kind of. I think so.”
; All eyes were on him, all asking the same question.
“Okay, yes. It’s fast acting, but it’s also highly unstable. The first samples I created had a tendency to act so quickly as to self-destruct. But this is the beauty of this kind of research!” Vardy was becoming animated, gesticulating as he spoke. “You try going down one avenue and it leads you somewhere quite unexpected. Quite, quite unexpected. It’s early days, but I think I’ve been able to use that capability for auto-destruction to make a kind of antidote.”
“Great!” Lucya exclaimed. “So let’s get some of your mega-virus in there and paralyse the bastards!”
“Hold your horses. First, I’d need to defrost a sample of the modified virus. There are two in a secure freezer in the medical suite. It has to be done carefully; it can’t just be bunged in the microwave like a frozen pizza. Then it would have to be introduced into that classroom, and only that classroom, without — obviously — the occupants noticing. And even then, it might not cause enough paralysis within forty-seven minutes to be of any use.”
“How long?” Jake asked.
“I’d want it there for an hour to be sure. But that’s even assuming you could get it in there.”
“You let us worry about that, Russell. This is the best chance we have of getting every one of those kids out alive. Do it. Get your virus ready the quickest way you can. Sit on it, use a hairdryer, shove it down your pants for all I care, but get it warmed up and ready to go. Lucya, find Martin and work out a way of getting the virus into the room undetected. There has to be a pipe or a vent or something that goes through there. He knows this ship better than anyone. He’ll know a way.”
“Wait,” Vardy said. “That’s not the only problem.”
“Okay. Enlighten me.”
“If this works, and that’s a big if, the children will be carrying the modified virus. Anyone who goes in there, guns blazing, to get them out, will risk becoming infected. At least until the kids are no longer contagious.”
“How long do they remain contagious?”
“With the new strain? No idea. We’d have to quarantine them in a sterile and airtight room. But that’s not all.”
Jake rolled his head back. “What else?”
“The virus acts so quickly we won’t be able to get rid of it using the method we used before. The immunosuppresives that saved us will slow it down — maybe — but they won’t stop it. The Koreans will all die. Anyone who goes in there to get the kids out and contracts the virus will also die.”
Max stood and stretched. “You said you had an antidote? So my guys go in wearing gas masks. And while they do that, you can be preparing this room to quarantine them. It can’t be that hard. If they show signs, give them the antidote. The Koreans can die for all I care.”
“And therein lies the problem,” Vardy said. “The gas masks are all on the Ambush. And so is the antidote. I had to store it there as there was no more room in the secure freezer in the medical suite. Until the submarine comes back, your plan is a mass suicide mission.”
Jake got to his feet. He looked at Lucya. “Go. Find Martin.” He turned to Max. “Keep this area secured. Can you spare a couple of men?”
Max nodded. “I suppose. Why?”
Jake ignored him, looking instead at Vardy. “Get your virus ready. Take two of Max’s men with you and brief them on exactly what they must do to prepare this room for the children.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “And you?”
“I’m going to buy us some more time with the bad guys, and then I’m going to find HMS Ambush.”
• • •
While the others went to work on their rescue plan, Max Mooting returned to the classroom, where most of his team were keeping the area secure. “Have any of you lot seen Grace Garet?” His voice boomed through the corridor. He looked from one face to the next, but was met with blank expressions and shaking heads.
“Haven’t seen her at all today,” one man said.
“Me either,” Bembridge added, looking bashful.
Max groaned. He had a bad feeling about Grace. “Okay. Has anyone seen the gun she signed out this morning, before her shift started?”
More blank stares.
“None of you? Jesus. Why don’t we just start handing out weapons to everyone. It’s not like we’re short. Oh, wait, yes we are. A handful of anti-pirate weapons and a few guns donated by the Ambush. Bembridge has kindly given one to the Koreans, and now Garet’s gone missing with another one.”
A stocky security man nearer the classroom called him over. “Erm, there’s something else you need to know, Mr Mooting.”
“Yes?”
“It’s Zhang, sir.”
“What about him? You locked him up, right? With the others? Before coming down here?”
“No, sir. He’s gone missing.”
Max said nothing, didn’t take his eyes off his officer, waiting for an explanation.
“It was when the explosion happened. Made a hell of a noise, caused panic in the Farm Plaza. People running in all directions. I tried to grab onto Zhang, but he ran. I lost him in the crowd.”
“Jesus. Are you lot completely incompetent? How any of you ever got jobs in the real world I’ll never understand. Why didn’t you bring this to my attention earlier?”
“I tried to, sir. But with the Koreans and everything, there hasn’t been a chance.”
Max looked at his watch again. “Right. Get your useless butt upstairs to medical and find Doctor Vardy. He’ll tell you what you’re to do next. Take Evans with you. Everyone who’s supposed to be on restaurant duty can bugger off too. Those Koreans aren’t going anywhere. You four, stay there. Keep that door covered. The rest of you, duty as normal.”
“What about Zhang, sir?”
“What about him? He can’t go far, can he? It’s not like he’s going to skip the country. He’ll turn up, probably when he’s hungry.”
The officer nodded.
“Go on, get out of my sight. Imbecile.”
• • •
The negotiations did not start well. Jake made his case to the expressionless leader of the Korean sailors. The Lance, he said, was drifting away from them. They were trying to recover it, but with only inflatable life rafts at their disposal, the task was proving tougher than they had imagined.
“Your problem not my problem,” the man said, his voice muffled by the door. He was now sitting on a table. Erica had been allowed to rejoin the other children on the floor. One of the men surrounding them had taken the gun, and kept it levelled at the youngsters. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the slightest provocation would lead to bloodshed.
“Well, it kind of is your problem,” Jake said. He felt the hairs on his neck stand on end and his ears burn as he pushed the hostage taker. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he was betting the Korean understood that if he acted rashly, if he harmed a child, he would feel the full force of the armed security team. “You need the ship, and we’re doing all we can to get it to you, but it’s taking longer than you are allowing us.”
“Forty-one minutes. Then, child dead.”
“No, you’re not listening to me. It isn’t physically possible to get the Lance back that quickly. It’s not our fault someone torpedoed us. I suspect you might know who did that, no?” The Korean gave nothing away. “Look, if you kill a child, or hurt anyone else in that room, it’s over for you, you understand? These men here? They’re itching for an excuse to come in there and finish you off. You have one gun. You can shoot one person at a time. Think about the odds. You won’t survive. Give me more time, and I promise you we will get the Lance back.”
“No need raft. This is ship. Sail!”
“If only we could. That torpedo? Ripped our propeller to shreds. If we try and move we’ll just go round in circles. My engineers could try and fix it, but they’re busy trying to get the Lance back.”
The man hesitated. He exchanged more words with the others. As the clipped conversation flipped
back and forth, the children looked more and more terrified.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Show me Lance. Prove words.”
“You want me to prove we’re trying to get the Lance back?”
He nodded.
“Okay. Leave it with me. I’ll prove it to you.”
“Thirty-nine minutes.”
Twenty-Five
IN A STORE room off the main engine room, Lucya and Martin leaned over a table covered in huge printed diagrams. Written in large letters in the corner of each page were the words” Technical Schematic - Not To Scale.
They wore ear-defenders to protect against the noise of the gigantic diesel electric generator that churned away nearby, creating enough power to keep the whole of the Spirit of Arcadia operational. When they spoke, it was by shouting at each other.
“Jake said you knew every inch of this ship,” Lucya cried, her mouth inches from Martin’s covered ear.
“I know it a damn sight better than he ever will. I can’t be expected to remember the location of every single service hatch and cleaning access point though. Not on something this size.”
His finger traced backwards and forwards across a complex-looking drawing. Lucya had trouble making out the ship underneath all of the labels and technical explanations.
“Isn’t there a version of this on a computer somewhere?”
“Probably,” he shouted. “I prefer paper. Here! This is the vent for conference rooms two and three. There’s no way to isolate it. You’ll have to make sure there’s nobody in room three. Got that?”
She nodded. “Keep three clear. Got it.” Lucya looked at the part of the page Martin was studying. A thin red line indicated the path of the ventilation pipe. He traced it backwards.
“No…no…this is no good.”
“What’s up?”
“This pipe, it comes straight from the main air-conditioning plant. There are no service hatches. The only openings are in the conference rooms themselves.”
