SKELETON GOLD: Dark Tide (James Pace Book 4)

by Andy Lucas

  Having unsuccessfully scoured the planet for suitable, willing donors, Josephine Roche had finally made the decision that she would have to take what she needed by force, as she was becoming increasingly fond of.

  A good blood match was vital, if the organs were to have the best chance of being accepted by her body without the anti-rejection drugs harming her newly stolen fertility. Then, as if by divine intervention, she had been fortunate enough for a near perfect specimen to walk straight into her facility. And to think, she rued, I nearly beat her to death.

  As a world-respected company, unfortunately for the donor, ARC would then have to dispense with all the evidence. Of course, as part of the oral agreement with Shilan, she had pretended that the donor would be well cared for, even though they were being forced into surgery. If the doctor believed her, or not, she had readily accepted the five hundred thousand US dollars offered to fly down to Namibia and perform the operation.

  Shilan had been on stand-by for over a month while a suitable donor was being sought waiting for the call, and had taken a few days of leave from her consultant’s role at the University Hospital in Berlin when the phone had finally rung. She boarded a private jet and was now prepping a purpose-built, portable operating theatre.

  Josephine was elated, without any of the fear that she might have expected at the thought of actually completing her transformation into a woman. She sat on her sumptuous bed, dressed in a simple operative, white gown, split at the back.

  Deborah Miles had been kept sedated for the past two days, ever since being told of her fate. She had also been readied for the scalpel’s kiss and was being wheeled to the operating table, for final health checks, while Josephine took a few minutes to mentally prepare.

  Going under anaesthetic didn’t bother her, after so many plastic surgeries over the years; she just wanted it to be over. Then Deborah could be taken out and fed to the voracious local sea life while she spent a few days recovering, safe in the knowledge that her trusted assistant, Fiona Chambers, would handle any issues.

  A soft knock at her door was followed by a polite request to enter.

  ‘Come in,’ said Josephine.

  A single guard stepped into the room, pushing a wheelchair before him. ‘Are you ready, Ms Roche? Dr Shilan has prepared the prisoner and she would like you down in theatre.’

  ‘Of course I’m ready. Let’s get on with it.’

  Crossing the room, she settled fluidly into the wheelchair, graciously lifting her feet up so the guard could fold down the foot rests. Once down, with her feet firmly settled on to the metal rests, the guard backed out of the room, being extremely careful not to allow the door to bang against any part of the wheelchair, or his employer.

  As she endured the briefest of rides, on her way to her own vision of perfection, Josephine Roche felt no qualms about the life she was about to take.

  Deborah Miles had been an impertinent, irritating, opinionated waste of space. Now, at least, something good could come from her miserable existence. In fact, in her own twisted logic, she was actually doing the woman a favour.

  ‘Your babies will now be mine,’ she whispered to herself. ‘And what a life we shall have together.’

  12

  Sarah was never going to get anywhere near the Antarctic and she knew it. She also knew that her father would spare no expense in getting his best teams over there to find James and Max. The fact that James, at least, was alive had come as a massive shock.

  Sarah rubbed the bump on her forehead gingerly, feeling the swelling and wincing at the sharp pain from her sudden fall to the floor. She didn’t think she’d been unconscious for very long, perhaps a few seconds, before coming to with her face pressed into the thin carpet on the control room floor.

  Sitting up, her heart fluttered as she tried to absorb news that she had never dared hope for. She had no idea why, or how, James was still alive. Maybe that meant other crew members from the Sea Otter were with him? She was completely in the dark but it didn’t matter.

  Giving herself a few minutes to clear her head, she walked down the roof corridor and climbed down the ladder into the polycarbonate observation tube that ringed the entire habitat. A few moments later, she was in the kitchen, where she brewed herself a large mug of Twinings Assam tea. To counter the shock, she added half a teaspoon of sugar to the delicious, steaming liquid before popping open a nearby cupboard, rummaging through, and coming out with a box of Ibuprofen caplets.

  Her head, though not seriously injured, was beginning to throb painfully and she did not want to risk a simple headache deteriorating into one of her killer migraines, especially as she did not have any of her Naramig tablets with her. Just like Charlene, she suffered terribly with them.

  Being flat on her back for a few days, being subject to a blacked-out room, cold compresses over her eyes and unbelievable, splitting, unrelenting agony, was not something she could afford right now. Despite her sore head, an idea was germinating and she would need her wits about her the next day, that was for sure.

  Taking a small bottle of Volvic mineral water from the large, American-style refrigerator, she unscrewed the safety cap and swallowed her medicine, draining the entire contents of the bottle before returning to the bedroom she and Pace usually shared.

  Closing the curtains, darkening the later afternoon light, she sat on the bed and sipped at her tea. Very used to the nuances of the floating house now, Sarah found its tiny movements very soothing, as the wind tugged at the mooring cables. The airship barely moved at all, perhaps an inch or so in any direction, and it was almost like being rocked to sleep.

  Exhausted, drained but suddenly alive again, Sarah finished her drink and lay back on the bed. Closing her eyes, she worried for a second that the headache might have already gone too far, and that a monstrous, debilitating migraine was lurking just around the corner of her mind, ready to pounce.

  The next thing she knew, the bright sunlight of a gorgeous, sunny day was streaming in through the bedroom window. Charlene, who had just thrown the curtains open to let in the new day, was putting a fresh cup of tea down on the bedside table, trying to be quiet but failing miserably by banging the cup and saucer down a little too quickly, rattling the china together.

  Sarah smiled and sat up, stretching purposefully like a cat.

  ‘Thank you, that smells great.’ Charlene was dressed in one of the summer dresses Sarah had loaned her; a pretty, white lace number that hugged tightly at the bust and hip before flowing delicately to just below the knee with a flared skirt. Simple white buttons ran its entire length, at the front, giving an air of elegant simplicity. Charlene was far shorter than Sarah because when she wore the dress herself, the hem rode daringly above the knee. The cut of the dress completely concealed her tattoos.

  She had not long been out of the shower but her short, red hair was already virtually dry and she smelled of vanilla shower cream.

  ‘Are you okay,’ she said, her voice filled with concern as she spotted a nasty purple bruise on the top of Sarah’s forehead, just a few centimetres below her hairline. ‘What did you do?’

  Sarah touched it with her fingertips and immediately wished she hadn’t. The pain lanced into her head with needle-like heat. ‘It’s nothing,’ she replied. ‘After you left last night, I got a call from Baker. He’s one of my father’s security people.’

  ‘Wasn’t he the man who saved me from those men, at the hotel? I remember his name.’

  ‘Of course, sorry, you’re right. That’s him. My father’s right-hand man when it comes to dealing with the dangerous side of the business.

  ‘He is very,’ Charlene wrestled for the right word, before deciding upon, ‘efficient.’

  ‘James is alive. He managed to send a radio signal from somewhere on the ice shelf.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ squealed Charlene, leaning down and giving her a quick hug. ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘I hope so. Truth is, nobody knows yet. They’re sending teams down there
right now to try and find him and bring him back.’ The light in her eyes was clear to Charlene as she spoke about him. ‘It took the wind out of my sails and I think I fainted, just for a moment. Must have bumped my head when I hit the deck,’ she added, a little embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, you poor baby,’ smiled Charlene. ‘Look, drink your tea and then go and take a shower. I will rustle us up a celebratory breakfast.’

  Then she was gone, leaving Sarah alone with her thoughts. As she sipped the drink, ignoring the drips from the base of the cup where Charlene’s clumsiness had slopped some of the liquid into the saucer, she realised that her headache had passed. Luckily, it had no developed into a migraine, which meant her idea could be put into action.

  Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed in long denim shorts and a plain, black halter-neck top that dropped just below the waist, her own damp hair was clipped up in an untidy pile on the top of her head.

  The amazing smell of sausages, bacon, eggs and toast had dragged her from the bathroom before she could even think of tackling her hair, or make-up.

  They ate breakfast together in the kitchen, on adjacent bar stools that were bolted to the deck, like all the other furniture. Both of them brought a healthy appetite with them and they ended up sharing some of the left-over sausages and making extra toast before they finally decided they’d finished.

  Over a fresh pot of coffee, Sarah eyed Charlene for a moment. The poor girl had already been through a near-death experience at the hands of ARC. Here, with their ex-SAS sentinel on guard, she was perfectly safe, as had been so ruthlessly demonstrated the day before. Was it fair to ask her to put herself in danger again?

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Charlene asked. ‘Your face has gone all serious.’

  Sarah smiled and sat back on her stool, still undecided. ‘I’ve had an idea that may really help us get to the bottom of what is going on with the people who are trying to kill you. I’m going to do it, simple. I just don’t think I can ask you to come along. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘You’re not bloody leaving me here, on my own,’ replied Charlene indignantly. ‘Even with Rambo out there to protect me.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ muttered Sarah. ‘I’d love your company and my plan actually does involve you, so it kind of makes sense.’

  ‘Well then, ‘agreed Charlene, triumphantly. ‘That’s settled. I’m in.’ After a brief pause, she decided she probably ought to have some more information. ‘What exactly am I in?’

  ‘First, I am going to tell you a whole lot more about what’s been going on, both with my company and ARC, who the people we think are trying to murder us. My father would not be pleased to know I’m getting you involved but I think you have a right to know what you’re getting yourself in to. Then, after I tell you, if you’d rather back out and stay here with your own SAS guard,’ she winked, ‘I’ll understand.’

  ‘Never going to happen. Go on, spill it. Tell me everything.’

  Which Sarah did, leaving nothing out. She kept her recital limited strictly to Project Scorpion, as she saw no sense in airing all of the Corporation’s dirty laundry.

  After ten minutes, as her recount drew to a close, she watched as Charlene nodded, ever so slightly to herself. The young face was etched with a mixture of concern and awe. It was also clearly underpinned by a healthy dose of fear, though a smile soon formed on her lips.

  ‘That’s all of it, as far as I know. What happened to the Sea Otter, or why James is stranded out on an ice shelf, I have no clue. Why ARC seems determined to risk being exposed by sending two sets of assassins after you, I don’t know either, sorry.’

  ‘That’s not your fault, Sarah. ARC targeted me because I am Paul Pringle’s great-granddaughter, possibly because I’ve been trying to dig up more information on him recently. Mr Baker saved my life, as did your father. And the guard out there?’ She thumbed over her shoulder in the direction of the window. ‘Well, he saved my life again last night so I owe the McEntire Corporation a great debt.’

  ‘This isn’t about debts, or who owes who. I can’t just sit here, doing nothing. My father will be up to his neck trying to sort this all out, if he’s even still in the country.’ She had the correct suspicion that Doyle McEntire was already on his way to Antarctica, hot on the heels of his assault teams.

  ‘So, what is it about?’

  Sarah told her, Charlene immediately understood and agreed before they both hurriedly went their separate ways to finish getting ready.

  Half an hour later, Charlene jumped off the bottom rung of the tree-ladder, with Sarah following right behind her. They saw no sign of anybody. The woodland, in the morning, was quiet and peaceful. They both knew their guard was watching them, either directly or via electronic means, so they had no fear of being accosted by a third set of killers while they got into Sarah’s car.

  Fifteen minutes later, as they were well on their way to their destination, trailed by an unassuming blue Kia Sportage that had slipped in behind them soon after they’d turned on to the main road.

  Sarah clocked their uninvited guest pretty quickly but said nothing to Charlene, who was smiling out of a wide-open window, allowing the warm breeze to tickle her face while listening to Ed Sheeran on the radio. The car was fitted with several security devices, one of them being a simple alarm toggle secreted beneath the steering wheel.

  Without drawing attention to herself, Sarah slipped one hand off the wheel and pressed the button twice. That was the signal. One press could be accidental but two was a clear message that she was in trouble.

  The car was already fitted with a tracking device, as her father had admitted after the car bomb had gone off at the pub. Even with McEntire himself sitting in his own Falcon jet, zipping across the ocean at forty thousand feet, the Corporation’s security arm moved with breathtaking speed and ruthless purpose.

  By the time that Sarah took the slip road that led to the motorway, the tailing car was gone. She didn’t see what happened to it but a distant explosion and a pillar of grey, oily smoke spiralling upwards in her rear view mirror told her that the problem had been neutralised.

  She deliberately pumped up the volume on the car sound system and distracted Charlene, hoping she would not glance behind them. Together they both sang along to the next song that came on; a catchy pop number by Jessie J. By the time they finished singing, the smoke was far behind them.

  A few miles back, the Kia was a burning, smoking disaster. The two occupants had been tasked with investigating the uncharacteristic silence from their initial operative. After filing a quick report the afternoon before, he had not been heard from again.

  They had only just turned up in the road when they spotted Charlene and Sarah leaving the main gates of the McEntire estate. Ignoring their instructions, they had taken it upon themselves to follow the car, smugly believing that their paymasters would reward them for using their initiative.

  The black Range Rover that slipped on to their own tail had completely blacked-out side windows and a heavily tinted windscreen. Focused on the girls, up ahead, they did not notice it. The McEntire team inside ran a swift computer check and confirmed the Kia was leased to a couple of men who did not seem to exist. The unrestricted computer access afforded to them easily traced the lease payment to a front company, which they then back-tracked to ARC. That was all they needed to know.

  Terminate with extreme prejudice took on a whole new meaning. Traffic was light, so one of the rear passengers slipped on a black balaclava, rolled down the electric window and simply leaned straight out, propping his buttocks on the window sill.

  An SA80 A2 assault rifle, fitted with an underslung grenade launcher (UGL), was quickly passed out to him. He didn’t even pause before sighting the rear of the Kia and firing off a grenade.

  Years of hard-fought experience, earned on the dusty battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the more private wars raging in Pakistan, gave him an uncanny instinct for accuracy.

  The Heckler & Koch
AG-36 high-explosive 40mm grenade smashed through the rear window and exploded as it impacted between the front seats, just behind the handbrake, turning the solid vehicle instantly into an orange blossom of concussive vicious heat and flying metal.

  Unlike the blast of a car bomb, typically planted beneath the car, the grenade tore the body of the car apart without damaging the chassis and wheels, which carried the smoking, burning remnants on for a further hundred metres before the wreck careened off the road and upended in a ditch that separated the road from a field of long-eared, yellow wheat.

  Ignoring the shrieking brakes of passing motorist, slewing their vehicles to a halt, the McEntire team quickly withdrew to one of the safe houses, where they would have to lay low for a few days.

  Sarah and Charlene were now free to continue their journey, heading for the seaside resort of Bournemouth, which still sat a couple of hours to the southwest. An easy drive, traffic permitting.

  13

  How was he still alive? As he rested on the ice, with the ocean slapping the edge of the ice a few feet away, Pace’s heart rate slowly eased and his mind began to process the events of the past few minutes.

  He had been very close to reaching the mouth of the ice-covered inlet when the bayonet gave way. Dragged underwater and bashed around a bit, his survival suit kept out the water while he spluttered back up to the surface, shaking off the numbing cold that threatened to dull his senses.

  Blindly, he had lunged at the ice-crusted wall above the water with the blade of the bayonet and it had miraculously hit at a good angle, driving deeply into the compacted ice, holding. It had taken him a few moments to recover his breath and then he had resumed the tedious, torturous process of pulling himself along the tunnel until, eventually, he made it out.