by Rob Jones
Any thoughts she had of leaving the team seemed almost ridiculous. No matter how tired of this she got, it was her fate now, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Her thoughts were interrupted rudely by the sound of a loud horn and a grotesque string of abuse flowing from the mouth of Scarlet Sloane. Startled, she looked up from her daydream to see the former SAS woman giving a mouthful of loud abuse to a cab driver who was dangerously tailgating her. “Why don’t you get off my arse?”
“Said the bishop to the rugby team,” said Ryan, giggling at his own joke.
“Urghh,” Lea said.
“Will you please just stop that?” said Scarlet.
“Sorry.”
Scarlet slowed now as she pulled up into the marina area and cursed as she brought the vehicle to a stop and slammed the automatic transmission into park. With the former SAS woman at the wheel the journey through Rabat had been more hair-raising than strictly necessary and they were all very grateful to arrive and get ready to sail out to sea. Eden had spoken with the Moroccan Government who had agreed to the use of a French-built VCSM coastguard vessel, and as they approached the docks they all sensed the spectre of Atlantis rising on the horizon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The VCSM inshore patrol vessel was one of just two operated by the Royal Moroccan Navy, and was used primarily for ocean surveillance off the country’s coast. It wasn't usually armed but a light machine gun had been installed on the boat’s foredeck for the purposes of the mission.
Now, they were cutting though the North Atlantic Ocean at twenty-five knots and following the course heading to the Dacia Seamount that Khatibi had worked out. Looking at the map he was sending them to precisely the middle of nowhere, but they had no other play and decided to take the chance.
Lea’s thoughts were largely restricted to how incredibly long it took to get anywhere by sea, accustomed as she was to flying around from country to country on board extremely fast private jets. The VCSM wasn’t exactly sluggish compared to many sea-going vessels, but it still felt like they were crawling along at a snail’s pace as the ship ploughed through the choppy ocean yard by yard.
Standing at the bow she had resisted Hawke’s pathetic attempt to recreate the Titanic scene with Jack and Rose, and turned to watch him as he made his way back inside the ship. Looking down the starboard side of the deck, she saw Reaper speaking in French with some of the crew. They were sharing tobacco and laughing crudely at a joke that thanks to the Frenchman’s hand gestures she had not the slightest inclination ever to know.
Down the portside, Maria and Lexi were leaning on the rails either side of a very green Ryan Bale, trying to comfort him as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the heaving North Atlantic. She smiled when she saw it and recalled the time they had taken the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead and the exact same thing had happened. That was a long time ago, and now he had Maria Kurikova to take care of him.
Like Hawke, Lea had hoped the Moroccans might have been able to provide more of a force to help them, but she knew she should be grateful enough for the ship. There was no other way to get out to the Dacia Seamount and then dive down to the ocean floor, and the officials in Rabat could easily have denied them the vessel.
None of this was new and the ECHO team were more than used to making do with depleted forces and whatever equipment they could lay their hands on. While they usually left Elysium with all the kit they needed things moved so fast that most times they had to improvise and this was one yet another of those times, what with Wolff’s weapons long since lost in Serbia and Morocco.
She wandered back to the bridge and joined Hawke. He was speaking quietly with Jack Camacho and Scarlet while Captain Bekri and his first officer were studying a nautical chart of the area. For now at least, it was a scene of organized calm, but she knew how fast scenes like this fell apart. She sighed. Silvio Mendoza and Aurora Soto were dead – their mangled bodies stretched out on a mortuary slab in Munich – but somewhere out here in all this nothingness was that bastard Dirk Kruger and his hired gorilla Dragan Korać.
Not to mention Luk and Kamchatka.
“Coffee?” Hawke said.
She shook her head. “I can barely stand up in this bloody boat, never mind drink a sodding coffee.”
Hawke smiled and nodded. “It can take some practice, I admit.”
“So how we doing?” she asked, keen to get back to dry land as soon as possible.
“We’re getting there,” Bekri said with a broad smile. “Although I have to tell you I’ve sailed these waters many times before and I can guarantee you there’s nothing at the Dacia Seamount except saltwater and seasickness.”
“But we’re diving there, don’t forget,” Reaper said.
Bekri gave a sceptical nod of his head and raised his palms in the air. “That’s why we’ll do the sonar scanning of the ocean floor. If there really is something out there then we’ll find it – I promise.”
“Let’s hope so,” Hawke said with more confidence. “We’re not the only ones searching for it and let’s face it – Atlantis is a pretty big prize… not to mention the other half of the ten million bucks for getting the idol back from Kruger.”
“As long as your coordinates are right then we have as a good a chance as anyone,” Bekri said with a warm smile.
“The coordinates are right,” Hawke said, glancing out the rain-lashed porthole at Ryan Bale as he was dry-heaving over the rail with Maria’s hand on his back. “Ryan hasn’t let us down yet.”
The hours went by, tedious and frustrating. Being a former Marine Commando and SBS operative, Hawke had spent more than his fair share on board boats and submarines, but since joining ECHO he had moved around the world much faster thanks to Sir Richard Eden’s fleet of Gulfstreams. Going back to life on the ocean wave might have been relaxing as a pastime but it just felt like a hindrance when he was in pursuit of Dirk Kruger. From the look on her face, it seemed Lea felt the same way.
She sighed. “I can’t believe how long this is taking.”
“That’s sea travel,” Hawke said. “The fastest corvettes in the world struggle to go faster than sixty knots, besides, Kruger’s on a ship as well, so he’s not going any faster than us. He just had a bit of head start, that’s all.”
“Must you see the silver lining in every cloud, Joe Hawke?”
“Sorry – is it annoying?”
“A little.”
“When life gives you lemons…”
“Yeah, yeah – make lemonade, I know.”
“I was going to say throw them back and get some apples.”
She laughed. “All right, you and your damned optimism win again.”
“All I’m saying is look for the advantage to every situation.”
“In every disaster, there is opportunity,” Lexi said. She walked over to them in the cabin and leaned against the wall. “Old Chinese proverb.”
“So what’s the opportunity for us being stuck out here for so long?”
“Simple,” Hawke said. “We have longer to plan our attack.”
“You always have an answer…”
“Plus, we have other things we could do to pass the time.” He moved to her and put his arms around her waist.
“Oh God,” Lexi said, and walked back outside the boat.
Lea smiled. “I like where this is going.”
Another long hour passed until then they reached their destination – two hundred and thirty miles off the coast of southern Morocco – and then Bekri began a systematic sonar survey of the ocean floor, following Khatibi’s coordinates precisely. For a long time, it was just two men speaking in Arabic as the sea slowly grew less peaceful with the gathering storm.
“There’s nothing here!” Bekri said. “Just as I told you.”
“But the coordinates must be right!” Lea said. “They have to be.”
“They are right,” Ryan said. “I’ve just been a total idiot.”
“Hallelujah!” Scarle
t said.
“So why can’t we see anything?” Lea asked.
“Plate tectonics,” Ryan said. “The Mid-Atlantic ridge moves at around two and half centimetres a year and the coordinates are derived from the constellations!”
“But the entrance is hundreds of metres out of place,” Lea said.
“Which means it sank to the ocean floor a very long time ago indeed,” Hawke said, nodding with satisfaction at yet more proof of their theories.
They moved the ship in line with Ryan’s theory and a few moments later things changed fast.
“My God…” Bekri said. “This can’t be real. There must be a problem with the survey instruments.”
Hawke took a step forward and frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“This part of the seabed here,” Bekri said, pointing at the screen. “It’s registering as less than seventy feet deep in some places.”
“So what’s the problem?” Maria said.
“The ocean floor has been mapped here many times and the Dacia Seamount is at least two hundred feet below the surface of the sea according to all previous oceanographic surveys.”
“So what’s going on then?” Scarlet said.
“There are three options,” Hawke said. “First, the Dacia Seamount has got a hundred and thirty feet higher since the last survey, second, there has been some kind of cover-up concerning the true depth of this part of the ocean floor, or third, the instruments are wrong.”
Bekri shook his head vehemently. “They’re not wrong. They’re properly calibrated – I checked them before we left, before we started and I’m doing it a third time now.”
“And something tells me the Dacia Seamount hasn’t grown by a hundred feet since the last survey,” Lea said.
“Which leaves the Nixon Option,” said Ryan.
“We can’t get caught up in who’s covering this up, or why,” Hawke said. “That’s strategic stuff for later. Right now the mission is to locate Atlantis, and I think this means we’re getting closer.”
“There!” Khatibi said. “Those look like concentric circles.”
“It can’t be,” Ryan said, peering into the screen at the survey information. “My God – you’re right! There is no way they are natural formations.”
“So what are they then?” Hawke asked.
Ryan and Khatibi shrugged simultaneously. “Could be anything,” Ryan said. “The remnants of some kind of temple or public space… anything. And this here looks like a wall – and is that some stairs?”
“So this means we found Atlantis?” Lea said, looking at the others. They all heard the excitement in her voice.
“I guess we made it,” Scarlet said, turning to hug Camacho. She looked up into his eyes.
“I guess we did,” he said.
Without saying another word, Scarlet laced her arms around Camacho’s waist and kissed him hard on the mouth. The American didn’t resist, but moved his hands up to the small of her back and squeezed.
“Oh God,” Ryan said, and lowered his voice to an Attenborough whisper. “And here we see the female Mantis as she cannibalizes her mate…”
Without breaking from the kiss, Scarlet reached out and slapped the back of Ryan’s head.
“I can’t believe we discovered Atlantis!” Maria said.
“And about time too,” said Lexi, and the two women high-fived each other.
Khatibi tutted and shook his head. “It’s far too soon to tell. We must launch an exploration of the ocean floor. That is the only way we can be sure.”
Hawke sighed. “We don’t need a full sub at this depth, just regular wetsuits and then dive down.”
“We have some scooters,” Bekri said.
Hawke faced him. “Scooters?”
Bekri nodded. “Yes – underwater scooters. They are used for scientific purposes along the coast. They go a little over three miles per hour so will be much faster than diving.”
“It’s not just Dirk Kruger who has all the luck,” Hawke said. “How many have you got?”
“Three.”
“Fine, I only want two or three of us going down at first anyway. We can’t be sure what we’re going to find down there and if there are any booby-traps we don’t want the whole team getting wiped out. I’ll take Lea and Ryan, unless you’re desperate to go, Cairo?”
“Me?” Scarlet shrugged her shoulders. “Absolutely no fucks given over here, darling. If I’d wanted to piss about underwater I’d have joined you and the other girls with the white polo-necks back at SBS HQ.”
“That’s good then.”
“Very good,” Ryan said. “Much better if just the three of us get wiped out.”
“Exactly,” Hawke said, getting the sarcasm but not taking the bait. “We need to make sure we keep a good force on deck for when our friends show up. We know they have the coordinates and they left before us so they must be around here somewhere.”
“Too late,” Reaper said, lowering his binoculars. “Kruger’s already here – looks like an old tuna boat but fishermen don’t usually walk around the deck with submachine guns… and it looks like Kruger’s already dived – no sign of any minisub.”
Hawke looked through the binoculars and immediately saw what he was talking about. Somewhere approaching the horizon around three miles away was a stationary tuna boat. “He must have deployed a drift anchor,” Hawke said. “Or that thing would be all over the place in this weather.”
“How deep is it here again? Lexi asked.
Bekri answered. “According to the radar, the ocean floor beneath that tuna boat is around five hundred meters down.”
“Anchor chains are that long?” Lexi looked amazed.
Hawke suppressed a laugh and hid his smile. “No they’re not. A drift anchor doesn’t attach the ship to the seabed with a chain like a regular anchor. It’s designed to stabilize boats in rough weather like this by creating a lot of drag. It works a bit like a brake and slows the boat down.”
“Are you sure you’re not making that up?” Lexi asked with a sideways glance.
“Absolutely positive,” he said.
“Sounds plausible,” she said.
“I don’t suppose we have any APS rifles on board?” Hawke asked.
Bekri shook his head. “What are they?”
“They’re Russian rifles designed for underwater penetration.”
Ryan raised his head. “Did someone say something about Scarlet in a bath with a Russian sailor?”
“Drop dead, boy.”
Ryan laughed. “Is it true you think about sex every five seconds?”
“Yes,” she replied coolly. “But never with you.”
A howl of laughter went up and Lea high-fived Scarlet.
“We should have left you in that Serbian fort,” Ryan said grumpily.
“All right,” Hawke said, suddenly all business. “This is serious. Kruger’s here and now his crew know we’re here, so we need to get on. They will have radioed down to Kruger and alerted him of our position.”
“Then to the Batscooters!” Ryan said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hawke peered over the edge of the VCSM and stared down into the dark gray sea as it heaved up and down in the building storm. SBS frogman training was the most extensive in the world and even though it had been a while, a raging, black ocean didn’t unnerve him in the least.
“If you think you’re going down there without me you can forget it, boyo.”
He turned to see Lea standing by his side. She had wandered down from the bridge and was zipping up a heavy duty waterproof jacket.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.
The ship rose with a violent swell and tipped several degrees to port as a new wave of rain lashed over the deck. They grabbed on to the rail and waited for the vessel to stabilize for a few seconds before making their way back inside.
Hawke, Lea and Ryan put on foamed neoprene wetsuits and prepared to make the journey to Atlantis. The bubbles in the neoprene helped its
wearer float but at lower depths the increased pressure squashed them, allowing a neutral buoyancy for underwater swimming. Hawke didn’t know what to expect down there, but he didn’t want to waste time coming all the way back up to the surface for wetsuits, weapons or explosives if he didn’t have to.
“What if we have to go deeper?” Ryan asked as he zipped up his suit.
“The scooters are only designed for the depth we’re going to, and you’re designed that way too,” Hawke replied. “So unless you want collapsed lungs, nitrogen narcosis and to be suffocated while simultaneously getting crushed to death, then no, I wouldn’t recommend going any deeper, however…”
“There’s just no way a sentence like you just said can end in the word however,” Lea said.
“However,” he repeated slower, “if we find an actual complex down there – a citadel, or whatever – we can always come back up and use the minisub to investigate further.”
“Christ almighty,” Lea said, shaking her head as she watched Ryan complete the task of putting on the suit. “You had to ask, didn’t you?”
“There’s no such thing as a stupid question,” Ryan said. “Only stupid…”
“Wankers,” Lea replied instantly. “I know, yeah – thanks, Ry.”
Once in their wetsuits the crew lowered the scooters into the water off the back of the ship and the three ECHO members climbed aboard.
“So what do we do now?” Ryan asked.
“Pretty much the same as any expedition to an underwater site,” Hawke said. “We dive down, check it out, and then come back again.”
They sank beneath the violent waves and seconds later the calmness under the storm-lashed surface fell upon them.
“What’s it like down there?” Scarlet asked over the comms. “Has Ryan’s personality reached crush depth yet?”
“What does that even mean?” Ryan asked. “It makes no sense.”
“Much like you, boy.”
“It’s just fine, Cairo,” Hawke replied over the comms. “We’re passing twenty feet.”
Hawke checked the depth gauge as he steered his scooter toward Khatibi’s coordinates. “You still have us on radar?” he muttered.
