SKELETON GOLD: Dark Tide (James Pace Book 4)

by Andy Lucas

  ‘We need to get back to the ship,’ Pace decided, hurrying down to the ground floor with Hammond, in the familiar, red-carpeted elevator this time. They quickly filled Baker in on the developments and, within moments, all three of them were sitting in the back of the frigate’s Lynx helicopter, beating a rapid path back to the ship.

  The doctor needed at least thirty minutes to prepare Deborah for movement, and the pilot assured Pace that he would be back to pick her up in time.

  The flight was less than ten minutes but it gave Pace the space he needed to try and make sense of all the various events that seemed to have been coming, thick and fast, for weeks. Just as the wheels were touching down on the helipad, at the stern of the frigate, he suddenly had an epiphany.

  ‘Damn it,’ he cried out, gripping Hammond roughly on the arm. ‘We have to stop that plane.’

  ‘Why? Josephine isn’t on it.’

  ‘No, but Scorpion is.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Baker suggested. ‘We’ll radio the Namibian authorities from here. They’ll track it and it can be impounded as soon as it lands, wherever that is. Even if it crosses national borders, you know our reach is wide. Whoever’s on that flying boat will not escape justice.’

  ‘You don’t get it. That will be too late. We need to stop it now or thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people are going to die.’

  Not understanding but seeing the fire of certainty in Pace’s eyes, Baker and Hammond both followed him out of the cabin at a fast trot, ducking their heads against the downdraft from the rotors. No sooner had they stepped inside the nearest door than the helicopter powered off the deck again, heading back to collect Deborah and the other wounded soldiers.

  It only took a minute to get up to the bridge, where Pace ordered the captain to dismiss all his staff but remain present himself. He did not have time to make it a request. The captain was not used to being ordered around but he was a good judge of character and recognised the gravity of the situation immediately. Within thirty seconds the bridge was empty of the watch staff, leaving the four of them alone.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the captain asked. ‘Is my ship in danger?’

  Pace shook his head and requested that Doyle McEntire was patched through to a nearby screen. The video link was pumped through the Corporation’s encrypted system and, in a moment, the concerned face of Doyle McEntire filled the small console screen. He was sat in his office, on his computer.

  ‘What’s happening,’ McEntire asked? ‘I need an update. Baker?’ Baker shook his head, nodding towards Pace. ‘James?’

  ‘It’s simple,’ Pace said. ‘That plane is carrying Scorpion. We need to shoot it down.’

  Hammond stared, amazed. ‘What? That’s crazy, James. The agent is in sealed vials. It can’t hurt anyone in that state. We’ll just grab it when the plane lands.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Baker. ‘I also know that you’re not one for panicked action, James. What’s on your mind?’ he asked calmly. ‘What do you know that we don’t?’

  ‘Fiona was telling the truth. The agent isn’t in vials any more, it’s already been used. She said that ARC is planning to run pipelines and solar farms to the heart of Africa. Why? To create a central hub. From there they can supply water and power to every African country using subsidiary pipelines. ARC will become one of the most powerful companies on the planet if it succeeds.

  ‘That is sound business idea,’ cut in McEntire. ‘What does this have to do with the vials?’

  ‘We know they experimented on a couple of trial areas, using the agent recovered first from the body of Paul Pringle and secondly, I assume the larger outbreak was conjured up using samples from their Uruguayan find.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ agreed Hammond.

  ‘But there were several vials in the Antarctic base, so we have to assume that they found the same amount in Uruguay, which means they probably didn’t use it all up on that last field test. Don’t forget, Josephine Roche has planned this for a long time; to set herself up as the Queen of Africa, if you will. Scorpion was the gift she needed. I’m not sure how she even knew about it but that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I can help with that,’ explained McEntire. ‘Sarah and Charlene found some letters that make interesting reading. The girls are here, with me, James. They’re just getting some hot food from the kitchen. Sarah is desperate to talk to you.’

  Pace beamed, despite himself. He had hardly dared to believe that he would see Sarah’s face again, let alone hold her tight. Forcing down the sense of euphoria that threatened to overwhelm him, just at the mention of her name, he dragged his focus back to the problem at hand.

  ‘Later,’ he nodded. ‘Josephine Roche is out of the picture for the moment, probably hidden away in an exclusive clinic recovering from transplant surgery.’ McEntire raised an eyebrow on the screen. ‘That can come later as well. Now,’ he continued hurriedly, ‘the only reason for using Scorpion on the wildlife, and sparse human settlements, is to clear the land. Make it uninhabitable and therefore cheaply available.’

  ‘If you think of the Ebola scare, that’s true,’ said Baker. ‘People deserted the infected areas in droves. They just wanted to run away.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pace. ‘All ARC needs to do is make the land worthless and they can buy it up to build their network. I’ve got a good idea of the geography of this continent and the likely route would have to go through Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and end up in South Sudan, which is where a central hub would be best placed. The route would need to be the most direct one, which passes through vast areas of protected game reserve, in all those countries. There are also some sizeable towns in the way, let alone all the smaller settlements along the river. These will all have to be cleared for ARC’s plan to work.’

  ‘So every key site would be struck by an unexpected outbreak of a deadly new strain of bubonic plague?’ ventured Baker. ‘People would die quickly and those that could flee would do so. The animals would die, so tourism would naturally shift away to other parts of the affected countries. In short, total human and economic collapse.’

  ‘Then in steps the wonderful ARC, offering to help fight the outbreak and then reuse the worthless land for a fantastic, humanitarian project to bring power and clean water to the people of Africa.’

  ‘ARC creates the problem and then fixes it. Great for business and Josephine’s world standing.’ Hammond groaned. ‘She’ll probably end up being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.’

  ‘I still do not see how any of this leads to us knocking a civilian aeroplane out of the sky, killing whoever is on board?’ queried the ship’s captain.

  ‘But you have the capability to do it?’ commented Pace.

  ‘Of course. This ship carries a range of modern weaponry. The old Seawolf anti-aircraft missiles were stripped out on our last refit and we were lucky enough to be a test platform for the new CAMMS missiles that will be standard on all the new Type 26 frigates. It has a longer range but the flying boat is already beyond it. But we have also been refitted with non-nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. They have ARS, which is basically their own targeting radar onboard. They can be programmed on to a target and fired. They find their own way then.’

  Pace was well aware of the capabilities of the Tomahawk. Accurate, autonomous and packing a heavy warhead. They had a range of over one thousand miles and could reach speeds of over five hundred miles an hour, as he recalled. They would need to use a Tomahawk.

  ‘I have seen one of those flying boats before,’ Pace explained. ‘When I was on an exchange week with the Russian air force, long before the recent cooling of relations between our countries. It was based at the airfield I stayed at, where it was used as a specialised emergency vehicle.’

  Hammond could only think of one use for the plane in that context. ‘A water bomber?’ Pace nodded.

  ‘They use them to fight fires. They’re jet powered so they have a long range and they can scoop water from lakes and the sea to refill. A really good
platform, I must admit. But that’s the problem. I don’t think ARC purchased one just so it could land easily off the Antarctic ice shelf. They needed it for something more important.’

  ‘To water bomb fires?’ asked the captain, confused.

  ‘No. To flea bomb.’

  While this was completely lost of the captain, it cleared the fog in the minds of the McEntire audience.

  ‘Captain,’ asked McEntire sternly. ‘How long do we have to fire on that plane before it moves beyond the range of your weapons? Theoretically,’ he added.

  ‘We would have to use a cruise missile, so there’s plenty of time, not that I will use a missile to fire inside a sovereign nation to shoot down a civilian aircraft. We’re not at war, Mr McEntire,’ he snapped, growing weary of these people.

  ‘Is the seaplane at cruising altitude, and speed?’ Pace asked him. ‘It’s been airborne for a while now. I assume it’s sitting up at thirty thousand feet, maybe a bit higher.’

  The captain scanned another console and shook his head. ‘No. It’s right down at two thousand feet,’ he remarked, genuinely surprised. ‘It’s flying at barely two hundred knots. That’s very slow for a jet plane.’

  ‘And its track? I am guessing that it is coming more on to an easterly course, am I right?’ The captain nodded. ‘It will then skirt the southern border of Zambia, passing south of Lusaka where it will turn northeast towards the border with Tanzania.’ Not pausing, Pace rammed his point home. ‘From there, it will stay heading north until it passes into Kenya before finally veering northeast again to bring it across the border inside South Sudan.’

  ‘She’s really doing it?’ muttered Hammond. ‘Right now?’

  ‘That’s my guess. Fiona knew she was in trouble when their cruiser was destroyed. She probably gave the order to launch the operation herself. Josephine may not even know that the plan has been moved up yet. My bet is that the flying boat is carrying full tanks of infected fleas that will be dropped, in bursts, at low altitude across the length of the extermination corridor ARC needs.’

  ‘This is madness,’ interjected the captain. ‘I have better things to do than listen to this nonsense. Bombing people with fleas? How ridiculous.’

  ‘The Japanese did it in 1942. Check your history,’ said Hammond calmly, without elaborating further.

  On the screen, Doyle McEntire’s face hardened. He had already keyed a number into his own encrypted satellite phone and could be seen speaking into it urgently for a few seconds. Hanging up, he spoke firmly. ‘Captain, I appreciate your scepticism but I believe you have a call coming in from the Admiralty.

  Mirroring his words, a blinking red light on the bridge scrambler telephone flashed at him. It was the line that linked him directly to his naval superiors.

  Frowning, he picked up the phone from its cradle and listened for a few seconds before hanging up. His face had suddenly drained of colour and he looked bemused. ‘It seems that I am to operate under your express command until otherwise instructed by Admiral Grant. I have been authorised to use any of the ship’s arsenal that you require.’

  Pace hated to see anyone stripped of their authority in public but they had no time to play games and it clearly showed the sheer power of the McEntire Corporation.

  ‘Doyle,’ Pace said. ‘You wouldn’t have made that call if you did not think I was on to something. That plane has to be stopped before it’s too late. It may have already started spreading the fleas. We haven’t found it yet but I’ll bet my life that somewhere in the basement of one of those buildings we just stormed, there’ll be a flea breeding and storage area. That’s where we will also find the vials we’re looking for, empty.’

  ‘You are making a lot of sense now,’ McEntire nodded.

  ‘The plane is equipped to deliver a payload of fleas. It would be just like releasing a liquid. They would have to fly low and slow to make sure there was a concentrated enough coverage,’ said Pace earnestly. ‘Too high and the fleas would spread everywhere. Few would survive a long fall to the ground and ARC would not get the corridor effect it needs.’

  Doyle McEntire had been faced with many similar decisions over the years. This one, in a way, was easier to make. He wasn’t issuing orders to kill people purely to protect Britain. This time thousands of innocent lives were at stake.

  ‘Captain. I want that aeroplane neutralised.’

  A navy man through and through, orders from above had to be obeyed and the captain nodded as he summoned his weapon’s officer back to the bridge. He gave the order as if he backed the idea himself, showing no sign of his own misgivings to the surprised junior officer.

  ‘Target is acquired and locked in to the missile’s independent ARH. It is now Fox Three,’ came the statement a few second later. They had already been tracking the flying boat so there was no doubt about which signal to target. ‘Missile is available at your command, sir.’

  ‘Fox Three, affirmative. Fire the missile,’ ordered the captain. Fox Three was the NATO code for an autonomous missile going live.

  Outside, there was a brilliant flash of orange and yellow flame as a Tomahawk cruise missile lifted angrily from its vertical launch system, fitted amidships. Taking to the warm night sky, trailing flames and roaring its defiance at gravity, it headed towards the Namibian coast.

  Accelerating to maximum speed within seconds, activating its internal targeting radar system, the time to target would not be more than eight minutes. With a four hundred and fifty kilogram warhead of high explosives poised at its tip, it was the perfect weapon for the job.

  Committed now, all eyes turned to the targeting screen in front of the weapon’s officer. Minutes ticked by as they watched the two separate dots draw closer together as the missile’s superior speed ate up the miles easily.

  Pace was sure this was their only option, as were the rest of the McEntire team. The captain averted his eyes from the screen, feeling sick to his stomach and utterly helpless.

  In a macabre way, it was like watching an old video game, or a sixties James Bond movie. The dot representing the missile, complete with tiny code call sign, came up on the ARC aircraft, finally merging with it. There was a moment where both dots blinked brightly and then the screen darkened; empty.

  Two thousand feet above the desert scrub, the Russian-built water bomber exploded with a tremendous thump that rolled out across the darkness, frightening any creature within a five mile radius. The flash of light resembled a firework exploding, as the missile’s warhead detonated and its destructive power was enhanced by the immediate explosion of the additional fuel that the plane had been loaded with.

  In the water tanks, billions of carefully cultivated Scorpion fleas evaporated barely three seconds before the first tank was due to be released into the air. Their lethal power was gone forever, along with the flight crew. All that remained of the plane were clouds of tiny, burning fragments, falling softly towards the ground.

  Soon, the tranquillity of the African night returned and the world moved on without having to fight the planned plague.

  For now.

  34

  Two weeks had passed since the assault on the ARC facility and James Pace was enjoying a delicious cup of coffee, sat across the desk from Doyle McEntire in a replay of the first moment he ever learned about Paul Pringle.

  The Namibian government had been very pleased to announce the surprise donation of the desalination facility by ARC, to the people of Namibia, alongside its solar farm. Somehow they managed to keep a lid on the two outbreaks of plague and, almost with a whimper, the danger passed.

  Despite the best efforts of McEntire’s covert network, Josephine Roche had vanished, along with a German surgeon who had been working for her. The ARC public relations machine shifted into overdrive, claiming she was ill and recuperating at a private location. In the meantime, one of the directors would run the business. ARC was delighted to give its gift to the Namibian people, claimed the company, as it worked hard to better the lives of ordinary
Africans, and African businesses.

  The business at Scott Base was covered up well. The surviving scientists were threatened with all manner of sanctions if they ever spoke about it, from both the British and New Zealand governments. Poor old Dr Hansol was quietly slipped through a hole cut in the ice shelf, with the official line being that he had wandered off and been lost in a terrible blizzard. He was joined in his watery grave by all the dead ARC mercenaries and murdered scientists.

  McEntire science teams were hard at work in both old military bases; the Namibian one uncovered by ARC and the Antarctic one. There were no obviously legitimate grounds for moving against ARC’s site in Uruguay, so that had to remain off-limits, at least for the time being.

  The K-19 had given up two tons of gold before being left to the sharks once more. The gold was a welcome addition to the country’s coffers in times of austerity, although the shadowy figures who gave Doyle McEntire his orders were disappointed that no gold had been found in Antarctica, as four tons would have been even better.

  The McEntire Corporation was very experienced at secretly cleaning up the sites of its actions. Exactly as it had with Race Amazon, plausible reasons were found for everything and threats were employed where necessary. All the Scott Base scientists also received a few million pounds worth of hush money, which none of them refused.

  Pace looked great and had a healthy tan everywhere except his face. The frost burns had been treated but he had been forced to keep his face lathered with sunblock and wear a floppy hat most of the time, on his recent holiday.

  The first thing that Sarah had done, after flinging herself into his arms at the private airfield when their Falcon jet landed, was to drag him away for a night of unbridled passion in his airship home. Flights were then booked to the Caymans and they had left the following afternoon. Ten days of utter relaxation had followed, with far too much wine and beer. Pace struggled to relax, even suffering from nightmares on the first couple of nights but, by the fifth day, his mind and body relaxed and they had spent a wonderful time together, just swimming, eating and horse riding.