by Dayle, Harry
Outside the noise became louder as orders were shouted back and forth. A chair made a scratching sound as its legs scraped across the floor. She saw it being flung towards the grille as it was used as a crude hammer, trying to dislodge the screwed-down vent. The banging reverberated through the pipe, nearly shattering her eardrums. She screamed, kicked, pushed, and yelped. The tube seemed to close in on her, gripping her, squeezing the air from her lungs.
The chair struck again, the noise even louder. The right side of the grille fell away, unseen by Lucya in the blackness of her panic attack. A wild pack of hands snatched at the vent cover, pulling and twisting it until it came free. The pack turned to the opening and tried to force its way in, but the hands became tangled in one another, impeding their own access.
More shouting as the leader brought order to the chaos. The pack retreated, and a single hand replaced it. It ventured inside the tunnel, patting the sides, groping in the dark, blind. It found her wrist, latched on, and yanked hard. Had the nerves in her arms not given up long ago, the pain would probably have been too much to bear. As it was, she was already in another place. Her mind had retreated, escaping the physical realm for the safety of its own inner space. Lucya was vaguely aware of her body being dragged forwards, but the awareness was external to her, as if she was imagining it happening to someone else.
When her arms were free of the grille, the rest of the pack returned, clamping around any exposed part and pulling. The joint effort achieved the near impossible: first her head, and then her shoulders were somehow squeezed through the narrow opening.
• • •
Jake was transfixed. He knew he should be running, should be getting as far from the impending explosion as possible, but he stood glued to the spot.
The torpedo moved at incredible speed. As it got closer, he realised it was much faster than any dolphin he had ever seen. Faster than any jet ski or speedboat or indeed any powered vessel he’d seen too. Fast, and silent.
It reached the raft.
There was a microsecond between the torpedo disappearing out of view under the slowly deflating rubber, and anything happening. It was enough time for Jake’s brain to offer up a worrying scenario: what if it doesn’t blow up? What if it blasts right through the thick material of the life raft and keeps on going? Does it have to impact on a hard hull to detonate? As he reached the conclusion that it didn’t really matter either way, the torpedo exploded.
If the view from the bridge of the first torpedo blowing up had been spectacular, the view from the Lance of the second device going off was downright terrifying. For one thing, the noise was deafening. The wave of sound knocked him back on his feet, and when it bounced off the high side of the cruise ship, the second wave hit him almost as hard.
The column of water seemed to shoot even higher into the sky, though Jake understood at once that this was just an effect of his being so much lower. Unlike the first explosion though, this column was blown towards the Lance. The first drops of water splashed down on his nose, then more hit him in the face with considerably more force, spurring him into action at last. Turning away from the spectacle, he began to run towards the stern. It was far too late. A curtain of icy water hit the Lance full on, slamming into Jake’s back and sending him sprawling across the deck. The tidal wave caused by the underwater eruption reached the ship moments later, sending her riding high into the air, and dowsing Jake for a second time in the falling spire of seawater.
The Lance rolled over the crest of the wave and came crashing down the other side. Pitched at such a steep angle, Jake couldn’t prevent himself from rolling down the deck towards the bow and the handrail. The ocean was below him, threatening to swallow him up. He thrust out a hand and grabbed onto the foot of the harpoon launcher. The deck seemed to fall away from him, and he was briefly suspended in the air. Then as the vessel reached the very bottom of the wall, the floor came up once more to meet him, knocking the air from his lungs as they collided.
She rolled some more, but the worst had passed. The tower of water thrown into the air by the torpedo was now no more than a cloud, evaporating as it retreated behind them.
Jake coughed noisily, spluttering as water he didn’t even know he had swallowed ejected itself from his lungs. He hauled himself onto his hands and knees, wheezing and gasping. Through the handrail in front of him he saw a plume of smoke wind its way lazily into the sky.
The raft was gone. Beyond where it had been, a new movement. Another form stirring beneath the waves. Bigger than the torpedo, and slower too.
Jake pushed himself up onto his knees, shuffled forwards until he could grab the rail, and tugged, getting to his feet.
The ocean swelled, water pushing upwards, not into a column this time, just a bulge; a giant bubble which finally burst to reveal an array of antennae. The water appeared to turn black, it became shallow, and then fell away as first the fin, then the belly of the great beast forced its way through and out into the open.
Jake stared at it. He’d seen this sight once before, in the icy waters of Longyearbyen. But this was different. This wasn’t the familiar form of the Royal Navy’s finest nuclear submarine. This menacing monster wasn’t home to his friends and colleagues. This was not the Ambush, but something quite different. Angular, grey, bizarre, like a deformed whale.
Jake stood, panting, and stared at the enemy submarine. “Mission accomplished,” he muttered to himself. “Ambush…wherever you are: have at ’em!”
• • •
She lay on the floor, a shivering wreck. Behind her, she was vaguely aware of someone clanging around in the ventilation pipe, no doubt checking to see if anyone else was trying to intrude into their stronghold.
The sound of Erica’s voice pulled her some way to her senses.
“Lucya! Are you alright?”
The girl was silenced with a brutal slap to the face. Lucya felt an immediate and powerful surge of rage. She tried to hit out, to do something — anything — to draw attention away from the child, but her arms dangled uselessly by her side.
Her eyes were adjusting to the brightness of the room, so intense after being entombed in the tube. A figure stood over her.
The leader.
“Up,” he snarled.
“I can’t.”
“Up!”
“I can’t move.”
He shouted at his men. One came to his aid, pulling Lucya up into a kneeling position.
From her new perspective, and with her eyes getting used to the light, she could more fully take in her surroundings. The virus had progressed faster than she had thought. Of the seventeen men in the room, eleven were on the floor, their legs apparently paralysed. She looked up at the leader. His face was covered in red sores, and clumps of his hair had fallen out. She could even see a drip of blood running from his ear. He didn’t know it, but he had little time left.
“What plan?” he grunted at her.
“I don’t understand.”
“You plan what? You come here, you poison us?”
“No! I came to observe, that’s all. You’re very sick. You need to see the doctor.”
“No doctor.”
The man checking the ventilation shaft hobbled over to the leader. His legs may not have been entirely paralysed, but he was having great trouble walking. He handed something to his superior and muttered into his ear.
The leader held up the item, pushing it under Lucya’s nose. “No poison? This, poison!”
She squinted at the empty plastic vial.
“If that’s poison,” she said, “how am I supposed to have poisoned you? Look at it, it’s tiny!”
“You put in air!”
“Well then I’d be infected too, wouldn’t I? And I’m not.”
From outside came the unmistakable sound of an explosion. The children shrieked and covered their ears. The leader’s head spun around and he barked commands at his men. The two who were able to walk checked the door, peering out of the window and reportin
g back.
“Sounds like your submarine just blew up the Lance. What are you going to do now?”
“No. Submarine not destroy Lance.”
“Perhaps they were aiming for us? In which case, we’ll all be dead soon.”
“No. Submarine not sink cruise ship. Not before—” He stopped dead, as if realising he was giving away too much information. Instead, he walked towards the door. One of the others took his place, standing guard over Lucya.
The leader addressed the window in the door. “Your time up. Lance, now, or we kill.”
She couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but she didn’t need to. She knew what the answer would be. More time. They would always ask for more time, while they waited for the virus to finish them off.
“You send girl with poison, you no find Lance. Now, we kill.”
He turned and spoke in his own language. Lucya heard a scuffle behind her, then a cry of protest.
Erica.
The girl was dragged, kicking and scratching, and was dropped right next to her. Lucya wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but a guard was behind her now, holding her hands tightly behind her back. All she could do was look into her adopted daughter’s eyes and speak. “It’s okay, Erica. It’s okay, my darling. We’re getting out of here. Trust me, alright? Be a brave girl and trust me.”
“I trust you,” Erica said brightly, defiantly. “You came to help me. I know you’ll save us, Lucya.”
“Enough!”
The leader was back. He stood over them, his back to the door so the guards outside couldn’t see what he was doing. He held the gun, but he didn’t point it at them. Not yet. Instead, he looked at it, turning it in his hand, studying it. Then he handed it to one of his colleagues. “Too noisy,” he said calmly, before muttering something to the man by his side in their own tongue. The man nodded, and turned away from his leader so as to face the door. Lucya watched as he held the weapon aloft, pointing it at the small window. His position and proximity to the doorway meant that whatever the leader did next would be blocked from the view of those outside. The security men and women wouldn’t risk entering as long as the pistol was pointed at them, and neither would they have any reason to do so. As long as they were looking at the wrong end of the gun, it meant it wasn’t being pointed at any children. This didn’t give Lucya any hope, and her worst fears were confirmed when the leader walked to the front of the room, bent over with difficulty, and picked up what looked to be a steel pole. As he brought it back, Lucya realised it was a table leg. She could see more of them by the wall. The men had ripped them from a desk in order to provide themselves with additional crude arms.
The Korean held the pole in one hand, running his eyes up and down it. He slapped the palm of his free hand with it. It sounded heavy. Dangerous. He turned his attention back to Lucya and Erica, side by side, on their knees.
“Who first?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he lifted the metal leg to shoulder height and swung it backwards, ready to strike a fatal blow.
Thirty-Two
DAN MITCHELL COULD honestly say he had never seen so much bodily fluid and blood in his life. Neither had he heard so much screaming. Impressive as his wife’s lung capacity and vocal cords were, Dan hardly noticed. He was too busy shifting from top to bottom, alternately reassuring her to her face that yes, she was doing very well, that no she wasn’t splitting in two, that yes she could keep going, and that no he wasn’t going to let the baby fall on its head. He also reminded her to breathe, to push with the contractions, and to relax in the ever briefer pauses between them.
He had half hoped that the noise would bring neighbours to see what the fuss was about, and that he could send them off in search of anyone from medical, but the folks on deck ten were either uninterested, or preferred not to interfere. Whatever the reason, nobody came knocking.
When the baby eventually crowned, he felt quite lightheaded. Repeating to Vicky that she should breathe, he realised the advice applied equally to himself.
“I can see the head!” His excited words were drowned out by Vicky’s moaning, and went entirely unheard. “Take a deep breath, and push with the next contraction.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” she bellowed.
The contraction came immediately, and with an almighty effort, the baby’s right shoulder was delivered, then the left. Dan held the tiny, delicate head in his large hand. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the child’s neck. He said nothing about it to Vicky, just kept muttering encouraging words whilst slipping a finger between cord and neck.
With one final push, the baby was born, slipping into Dan’s hands.
“You’ve done it! The baby’s out!” The words stuck in his throat as his emotions choked him.
“Why isn’t it crying?” Vicky was panting, exhausted.
Dan lay the child on the towels with which he had covered the floor. It was a delicate shade of blue, and made no noise. It didn’t seem to be breathing. His mind raced through everything he knew about childbirth. It wasn’t much, but he’d been to the classes, he’d been vaguely aware of the documentaries on television that Vicky had insisted in recording and watching back at mealtimes, and he seemed to remember having read something a long time ago.
“Dan? Why isn’t the baby crying?” She leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, face paler than he’d ever seen it.
Something clicked. He checked the nose and mouth were clear. Then with one finger, he gently tickled the infant’s left foot, then the right.
The tiny thing coughed, then wailed. Incredibly, it made even more noise than Vicky had managed.
The relief was immense, and Dan noticed that he, too, had started breathing again. He looked up at his wife, and found she was blurred. Everything was blurred.
“Let me see,” she said quietly.
“Of course.” He wiped away the tears with the back of his hand, wrapped the baby in a thick towel, and lifted it gently into her arms.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well what?”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Oh! I didn’t even notice!”
“You big idiot.”
He hugged her, not caring about the blood on his hands.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” Dan pulled a couple of the towels over Vicky.
The door opened and a man hobbled in, leaning on a walking stick. “Hello, I am Doctor Lister. I heard you were looking for someone from medical? Oh, my. It would seem I am rather late.”
Through the open door, they heard the sound of an explosion in the distance.
• • •
Daniel joined Jake at the bow of the Lance.
“You, sir, are a bloody genius if I may say so.”
Jake shook his head. “Not yet. If the Ambush doesn’t target that sub and put it out of action before she dives again, then we’re no better off. They won’t fall for the same trick twice.”
“Even so, Jake, using the raft? Very clever. I would never have thought of that. Lucky those guys targeted it and not the Ambush.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Jake said, grinning. “That radio made sure the Ambush knew what was going on. At least, I hope they understood my message. Where are the others? Are they okay?”
“It was a bit of a ride back there. That wave knocked poor Bodil out of her chair, but she’s alright. The boys are taking her back inside.”
They both stared at the enemy submarine. It was turning, no longer facing where the raft had been.
“Why aren’t they diving?” Daniel scratched his head. “They must know they’re a sitting duck. Surely the Ambush will have picked up the sound of them coming out of the water.”
“That was the plan. Even if they hadn’t surfaced, the torpedo launch must have shown up on the passive sonar. And yet, they’re not diving. Which means…”
“They don’t think they’re in danger.”
“Right. Which means…”
“They think they really did just sink the Ambush?”
Jake turned white as the implication dawned on him.
“Hang on.” Daniel was catching up. “If they think the Ambush is gone, that makes the Arcadia a target!”
“With no protection, they think they’re free to fire on her. Shit! Come on Ambush, where are you? Oh! The radio!” He reached into his pocket, but the radio had gone, knocked out when he was thrown to the deck. “It’s gone! Where’s the third one?”
Daniel stared at him.
“The third radio, Daniel? Where is it? If I broadcast another message, they’ll understand the Ambush is still out there!”
“The others have got it,” he said. He turned and started to run to the back of the ship.
Jake spun back round and looked out to sea. The strange angular stealthy submarine had completed her manoeuvre. She was facing directly towards the cruiser. “Come on…” he whispered. “Where are you guys?” He scanned the horizon, hoping to see the familiar black tower of the navy’s pride and joy, but the surface of the sea remained stubbornly unbroken.
He heard footsteps behind him. Daniel was back. “Here!” Arm outstretched, he held the radio in front of him. “It’s tuned in, go!”
Jake grabbed the device, checked the channel, and held it to his mouth. He looked out to sea again, and opened his mouth to speak.
“Too late,” he said quietly. “It’s too late.”
The two men stared at the hostile submarine. With barely a sound, something long and slender had shot out of the front.
Jake’s mouth fell open. He watched in disbelief as, just below the surface of the water, the torpedo sped towards the Spirit of Arcadia.
Thirty-Three
JAKE STARED AT the torpedo, his brain denying the image his eyes were relaying. The implication was just too huge. The submarine, off to his left, was diving again. To his right, blissfully unaware of the fate it was about to meet, was the Spirit of Arcadia. His workplace. His home. His family. His world. Speeding between the two, the weapon that would bring about its demise.
