But this wasn’t a normal plasma cutter. Bolton had substantially modified the design. While most plasma cutters could cut through six inches of solid steel, Bolton’s new design allowed him to cut through almost eighteen inches of solid steel.
The plasma reached over 25,000 degrees centigrade, so he’d mounted the tool on a fiberglass shaft. The shaft resembled a shortened version of a medieval knight’s lance, so Bolton had named his tool the ‘plasma lance’.
Smiling, he triggered the lance, hearing the unmistakable – hissssssss – as electricity and gas reacted to form plasma.
He pressed the brightly glowing lance tip against the solid metal door.
The ship’s engine room was as well-protected as the bridge, but the solid steel door put up little resistance. Bolton cut a large oval shape through the door with a single looping motion of the lance.
That felt good, he thought. This is true power.
He powered down the lance and kicked the metal door. The large oval section of door crashed down into the engine room.
‘You,’ he pointed. ‘Go through and unlock the door from the other side.’
The man approached the door reluctantly.
The lance had heated the metal around the hole bright red. Molten metal dripped slowly down the door.
‘Hurry,’ prompted Bolton.
The man sidestepped carefully through the hole, avoiding the red hot metal on all sides.
Bolton threw an asbestos-lined glove through the hole. ‘Wear this or your skin will melt.’
Clunk.
The door unlocked and swung open.
‘Fuck,’ yelled the man inside. He threw the glove down. ‘It burned me. The glove didn’t work!’
Bolton picked up his glove. ‘Really? Then do it again without the glove.’
The man shook his head and backed away.
Bolton smirked and looked around.
The engine room was cavernous. The ship’s parallel series of engines were running at full power. The noise, smell and heat from the engines reminded Bolton of the earliest days of his apprenticeship. He’d seen hundreds of engine rooms since then. He’d destroyed dozens.
But never one as large as this, or on such short notice.
He crossed to the outer bulkhead and thumped the wall. Beyond waited the ocean.
Endless water, all waiting patiently.
‘Hurry up,’ he ordered. ‘Exactly as I described.’
The trolleys of explosives rolled in behind him. His men raced to assemble the explosives into the correct patterns.
On the last trolley rested a laptop computer. Bolton opened the laptop and checked his calculations again.
The detonation would start here. His second team was laying more explosives through the ship below the water line, but none were as important as these. The explosives in this room would blast through all three layers of the hull. His men were assembling the modular bricks of C4 in large cross-shapes. Bolton knew this pattern worked best for cutting the largest holes in ships. Each blast would tear a huge cross-shape through the hull, weakening the largest possible area. With the hull weakened, water pressure would make the holes even larger.
But that wasn’t Bolton’s only trick.
The laptop computers allowed Bolton to better harness the explosives’ destructive force. The laptops would detonate the explosives at precisely the same time. The machines were synchronized down to the millisecond.
Timing was critical.
Having the explosives detonate with atomic clock accuracy would focus the energy outward, effectively doubling or tripling the force against the hull. In the confined engine room, the blast would be devastating.
Christov wanted the ship to appear to have suffered a catastrophic explosion in the engine room.
He also wanted the ship to sink rapidly.
Bolton agreed.
A vessel like the First Lady of the Sea deserved a clean death. She shouldn’t be left wallowing for hours, or allowed to flip over with her ass in the air. She should descend with the grace of a submarine, as though she was built to dive underwater.
Her new home would be deep.
Very, very deep.
Coleman hadn’t been wounded.
The bullets that had filled the elevator had found flesh, but not his flesh.
They had hit Neve.
It was Neve’s blood splattered up against the rear elevator wall. Blood pooled under her chair.
‘They shot me,’ she cried. ‘I can feel it. I can feel the pain in my legs!’
‘Put pressure on the wounds,’ said Coleman. ‘I’ve got a med kit.’
The elevator doors opened.
Coleman was stunned for a moment.
They were in the heart of the most incredible casino Coleman had ever seen. Even empty of people, the place seemed alive. The entire casino looked maritime-inspired, with treasure hunting themed slot machines and roulette tables shaped like crows’ nests.
A shimmering blue sign read:
Welcome to Arcadia
The place seemed to go on and on.
Coleman pushed Neve around a roulette table and up behind a group of fake palm trees.
He studied the pattern of cameras on the ceiling.
Bryant should be able to see us here.
Kneeling before Neve, he gently lifted her hands from her wounds.
She was shot in both legs. One bullet had torn a channel along her right thigh. Another bullet had passed clean through her calf muscle.
‘I’ve been shot twice,’ cried Neve. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been shot!’
Coleman rapidly unpacked his field medical kit. ‘No arteries were hit. I’m going to glue shut the holes in your calf to stop the bleeding. That won’t work with your thigh. I’ll use clotting agent and a pressure bandage.’
Coleman spread clotting agent on both wounds. ‘Can you feel this?’
‘It feels like I’ve been burnt.’
After gluing shut the holes in Neve’s calf, Coleman tore open sterile bandages. Neve shuffled forward so Coleman could bandage her thigh.
‘All right. You’re done until we can find a doctor.’
‘Thank you,’ she said as Coleman tied off the second bandage. ‘Now how do we get back to the hospital?’
‘Justin’s not in the hospital.’
‘How do you know?’ demanded Neve. ‘How do you know where he is? Your radio isn’t even working.’
‘Myers and Craigson had orders. The moment they heard gunfire they would have snatched Justin up. They are taking him somewhere safe right now. He’s probably the safest of all of us.’
‘You can’t know that,’ Neve implored. ‘I’m his mother. His mother! I can’t just hope they got away. I can’t just hope that he’s safe. I have to make sure he’s safe. You don’t know what it’s like when your child is in danger. You have to fix it!’
Coleman pulled out his photo of David.
He handed it to Neve.
‘That’s my son, David. He’s still a few years younger than Justin.’
As Neve studied the photo, Coleman thought of the progress he and Vanessa had made in the last twelve months. After very nearly losing David, all their disagreements had felt petty and insignificant. They weren’t compatible as husband and wife, but they had become very compatible as parents. They accepted each other and made David’s well-being the keystone of their relationship.
Coleman pointed to David’s photo. ‘I almost lost him once. But I didn’t because he was being protected by Marines. I can promise you that Myers and Craigson will lay down their lives before they let anything happen to Justin. You chose those two Marines, remember?’
Neve nodded and handed Coleman back the photo.
‘Thank you for getting me out of there.’
Coleman nodded.
‘What about Erin?’ Neve asked. ‘Did she make it out?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Coleman. ‘She was right beside me. I yelled at her to follow me, then I grabbed
you. When I looked back, she was gone.’
‘I think she got away,’ said Neve. ‘She knows this place better than anyone. They might all be together.’
Coleman nodded, but didn’t mention that the attackers had surprised them from two different directions. If Erin escaped the pathology lab, she could easily have run into the second group of hostile gunmen.
And there could be even more, Coleman thought.
It didn’t take a genius to realize their failing communication system was linked to the attack. That meant the ship’s bridge had also been compromised.
Bryant was on the bridge. If they have taken the bridge, then they have access to the cameras Bryant was using to help us.
Everything suddenly made sense. That’s how they found us in the hospital. That’s why they were shooting through the walls. They knew exactly where we were.
Coleman noticed Neve had a wad of medical files wedged down the side of her chair.
‘What are they?’ he asked.
‘The patients’ personal medical details.’
Neve pulled the files out. Something fell and hit Coleman’s boot.
‘Myers brought this in,’ Coleman remembered, picking up the plastic bag with the photo ID. ‘This might belong to the woman the ship rescued.’
Neve opened the bag and stared at the card.
‘What is it?’ asked Coleman.
‘I know this woman. I’ve met her at conferences. This is Elizabeth Green. She studied virology, like me, but she’s also a marine biologist.’
Neve slowly lowered the ID to her knee. ‘I think I know what’s happening on this ship.’
‘Then tell me,’ prompted Coleman. ‘Quickly.’
‘Elizabeth Green had a huge research grant,’ explained Neve. ‘She had a team. Her job was to collect specimens of marine life from endangered reefs all over the world to identify new compounds. New medical compounds. She was looking for ways to cure diseases using the drugs that marine animals naturally manufacture. She was worried that as species went extinct, we might be losing the cures to important diseases.’
‘How did she end up here?’ asked Coleman.
Neve rubbed her thumb over the plastic ID. ‘Her research stalled about three years ago. She didn’t find any promising compounds on the reefs. She lost her funding. It sounded like her entire project was going to collapse.’
‘But it didn’t,’ prompted Coleman.
‘No.’ Neve shook her head. ‘She was approached by a company. They offered her a job. They wanted to pay her to complete her own research. They even wanted her to expand her project to search in different ecosystems. She began looking for new medical compounds in animals that live around deep sea thermal vents.’
‘Deep sea thermal vents?’ Coleman asked. ‘Really?’
Neve looked down at her legs. ‘She did it. She found a way to reverse permanent nerve damage. This must be the most significant medical breakthrough since...well, I can’t even imagine.’
‘Who was the company?’ asked Coleman. ‘Who paid for all this research? Who owns it?’
‘Well, a pharmaceutical company,’ replied Neve, as though the answer was obvious. ‘They were spending hundreds of millions on developing new drugs. If Elizabeth found something groundbreaking, which she obviously did, they were in a position to make billions of dollars profit.’
‘What was the company’s name?’ asked Coleman.
‘Pharmafirst,’ said Neve. ‘They took Elizabeth offshore to their private research station. It was near the thermal vents she needed to study.’
‘Then she ends up here,’ said Coleman. ‘And within twenty-four hours the ship is overtaken by a private security team.’
‘Private security?’ asked Neve. ‘How do you know?’
‘Their uniforms and weapons,’ said Coleman. ‘Their level of training. They’re not military. They must be Pharmafirst. They arrived quickly, so those thermal vents can’t be very far away.’
‘You mean the man who shot me worked for Pharmafirst?’
‘Who else could it be?’ replied Coleman. ‘Who else invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Elizabeth Green?’
‘But Elizabeth is dead. Why would they still need her?’
‘Perhaps they’re not looking for her,’ reasoned Coleman. ‘Maybe they’re looking for something she brought with her. Maybe something she sacrificed her life for.’
Neve began to crumple up the plastic bag.
Coleman stopped her.
‘What’s that in the corner of the bag?’
Neve plucked out a small object. ‘It’s a phone memory chip.’
‘Do you have a phone?’
Neve reached around and found her phone.
‘It fits,’ she said, pushing the chip into her phone. ‘It’s opening. There’s only one file.’
‘Can you show me?’
Neve touched the screen. Her phone began playing a video recording.
‘That’s her,’ said Neve. ‘That’s Elizabeth!’
‘It’s a video message,’ realized Coleman.
The young woman began filming herself. Her face filled most of the screen. Yellow plastic filled the background. She was in the life raft. Her image swayed. She rubbed her face and then said into the camera:
‘This is Dr. Elizabeth Green. It’s been (she checked her watch) about fourteen hours since I escaped the labs. I’m going to wait another six hours before I set off the emergency beacon. I won’t be alive when you find this message (she held up a small vial with a blue liquid inside). This is the biotoxin we use to destroy the infected chimpanzees in the lab. It’s a painless death. I don’t want to die, but I can’t be alive when I’m found. I’m infected with the drug like everyone else at Pharmafirst. My life isn’t important any more. This is what is important.’
She held up a silver tube with digital numbers on it.
‘Everything you need to know about my research is on this drive. Christov is not going to use our miracle drug to heal people. He won’t give me enough time to isolate the violent side effects from molecule M-47. He’s going to sell it as a weapon. He’s turning a truly miraculous drug into a weapon and that’s not something I can be a part of. The side effects I’ve seen….’
She shook her head, as though the memories left her speechless. Her face had gone pale. Her voice sounded shakier.
‘Please tell my family that I love them.’
The message ended.
Neve turned off her phone.
‘Her plan didn’t work,’ said Coleman.
‘What do you mean? We have her message now. We have confirmation that Pharmafirst is behind all this.’
Coleman shook his head. ‘That wasn’t her plan. She planned to be dead when her life raft was picked up. If she was dead, she couldn’t spread the infection. Whatever she used to kill herself with didn’t work in time. Or maybe her miracle drug prevented it from working. Either way, she was still alive when they found her. She carried the infection right onto the ship.’
Christov was furious.
Furious at himself.
He should have accepted Bolton’s help to kill the Marines, but he thought the element of surprise was enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. His men were pursuing the scattered Marines, but all he’d caught was one skinny boy.
Christov cable-tied the boy’s hands together, yanking the cables tight.
The boy hissed.
He might be useful, thought Christov. If only to lure the Marines out so I can kill them.
Christov grabbed the boy’s hair and dragged him over to his men. ‘If he tries to run, burn him.’
Christov knew the boy wouldn’t run. He was terrified of the flamethrowers.
Everyone was scared of fire. Even the infected.
Christov strode into the main pathology lab.
Blood had splattered everywhere. Over the benches. Up the walls. Across the ceiling.
All this blood. We must have wounded somebody, Christov thought.
&nb
sp; Then he saw the blood samples.
The benches had been covered with blood samples. When his men opened fire, they’d hit the samples, sending the blood everywhere.
Not a single blood pattern was consistent with a bullet wound.
In fact, it was Christov’s team who were down two men.
Christov examined the projectile that had electrocuted one of his best security officers.
This is an electro-dart from the XREP-26. They’re firing non-lethal ammunition. They don’t even have real weapons. No wonder they’re running.
Christov had his men searching the surveillance monitors right now. They should find where the Marines were hiding any second.
‘We’ve got them,’ came the voice over Christov’s radio. ‘They’ve split into three groups.’
‘Where’s the woman in the wheelchair?’ asked Christov.
‘She’s been wounded. She’s with a Marine. They’re in the casino.’
‘I’m on my way,’ said Christov.
Right after he dealt with Elizabeth Green. He entered the room with the life raft and lifted his flame-pistol. The weapon’s pilot flame was already hissing.
Burn you bitch.
He pulled the trigger and totally engulfed Elizabeth’s body in flames. She and everything around her instantly ignited. Christov watched until the heat became too much.
He waved forward his men.
‘Burn this place,’ he yelled. ‘Burn the equipment. Burn the samples. Burn everything!’
His team triggered their flamethrowers in unison. Their heavier flamethrowers were far more powerful than Christov’s. Huge spouts of fire leaped out and devoured the lab as though the weapons were opening a gateway to hell.
‘Keep going!’ Christov yelled.
His men swept the powerful jets of flame around the lab, leaving burning ruins in their wake. The flames filled every crack. They found every nook and cranny. There was nowhere to hide from fire. Christov watched until every surface in the entire pathology lab was ablaze.
‘Get back!’ he yelled.
He nodded in satisfaction.
Nothing remained in the lab that could be linked back to Pharmafirst. Now they just needed to finish the job.
HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) Page 19
