The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14)

by Andy McDermott

  The anchor dropped, heavy-duty chain snaking after it. It plunged towards the water – and smashed down on the tug’s bow.

  The foredeck caved in. The boat’s stern flipped out of the water, exposing its whirling propellers, then it rolled back into the froth. The crew were catapulted from the open cabin door into the harbour.

  ‘I got it, I got it!’ Nina cried. ‘We’re clear – go!’

  Dimakos could only stare in astonishment, while Snowcock asked, ‘Got what?’

  ‘The tugboat! I dropped an anchor on it!’ It was now the captain’s turn for stunned disbelief. ‘Don’t worry, the crew are okay.’

  ‘I think, Captain,’ said the Emir before Snowcock could explode at her disregard for maritime safety, ‘we should take this opportunity to leave harbour. At the greatest possible speed.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Snowcock replied, regaining his composure. ‘Mr Moretti, take the helm.’ Another man took his place as he went to the pulpit. ‘Hard aport, bring us to the harbour mouth.’ He snapped out more commands to his crew as the great ship began to turn. The deck shook again as the crushed tugboat struck the bow. ‘Throw life vests down to the men in the water – and raise the damn anchor!’

  The Atlantia turned towards the gap in the breakwaters. Nina came back into the bridge, watching as the docks slid past to starboard. The liner might be huge, but its three azipods made it surprisingly manoeuvrable – and with the speed limiter overridden, it would reach the harbour exit in just a few minutes. They still had to catch the Pacifia, but at least nothing could stop them—

  The thought was premature. Dhajan’s naval base came into view across the bay – and charging across the waters from it was a corvette. The small warship was only a fraction of the Atlantia’s size, but it was still packed with firepower.

  One of the weapons was turning towards them.

  ‘They’re gonna shoot!’ she cried. ‘Get back from the windows – everybody down!’

  Snowcock saw it too. He turned and ran from the pulpit, grabbing the Emir and pulling him behind the consoles. The rest of the crew followed suit—

  A barrage of 27 mm Gatling gun shells hosed across the liner’s forward superstructure. Explosive projectiles ripped into the bridge with a deafening cacophony of shattering glass and tearing metal.

  Nina hunched beneath a console and covered her ears as debris showered around her. The gun was so much lower than the bridge that its shots mostly struck the ceiling, but some were hitting the level below and ripping up through the floor. She felt the deck judder with increasing ferocity as cannon rounds punched through it, getting closer and closer—

  The onslaught ceased.

  She peered out fearfully. ‘Is anyone hurt?’ she called, ears ringing.

  ‘I am all right,’ said the Emir from beneath another console nearer the bridge’s rear. Then, in alarm: ‘Captain! You’re hit!’

  Snowcock grunted as he rose, revealing a slash of red across his thigh. ‘I’m okay, I can stand.’ He looked anxiously for the rest of the crew. Some had shrapnel injuries, but there had been just enough warning for everyone to get clear of the room’s now-devastated front. ‘Evacuate the wounded before they start shooting again,’ he ordered as he limped forward, squinting into the wind blowing through the shattered windows. ‘The main pilot station’s been destroyed. Moretti and Calvos, with me into the starboard wing bridge. We’ve got to get the ship back under control.’

  The corvette was still closing. ‘Why’ve they stopped firing?’ Nina wondered aloud.

  In the next moment, she saw why. They were preparing a more devastating attack. The turret housing the ship’s main gun was turning, bringing its cannon to bear.

  ‘Get out!’ she screamed, hauling Snowcock with her towards the starboard wing bridge. ‘Everyone get out! They’re going to blow up the bridge!’

  Most of the crew raced for the exit at the rear, two men bodily lifting the Emir as others carried their wounded colleagues. Another man helped Nina with the captain as they barged through the door and clattered down the steps into the wing bridge. The room had taken no damage from the Gatling gun, its fire concentrated on the ship’s centreline.

  Nina looked back at the corvette. The main gun tilted upwards – then stopped.

  She dived against the bulkhead beside the stairs, dragging Snowcock and the other man with her and pressing her hands to her ears—

  A chilling moment, as if time had frozen – then the windows above her blew out as a 76 mm shell exploded in the main bridge.

  Even shielded from the blast, it still felt as if a giant had kicked her in the back, sending her skidding over the floor. The two men were booted across it with her, the younger officer striking his head against the console’s base.

  Nina shook off pulverised glass and looked up. If the first attack had left her ears ringing, they now felt as if her head had been inside a bell when someone struck it with a steel sledgehammer. Snowcock crouched to check on his companion, but she knew there was a more urgent issue. ‘That ship’s gonna blow us out of the water – you’ve got to stop it!’

  ‘How?’ said Snowcock. ‘They have weapons, we don’t!’

  ‘You’ve got one – the Atlantia itself! It must weigh a thousand times more than that thing. You could roll right over it and not even feel a bump!’

  ‘I can’t—’

  They both flinched as a second cannon round blasted the port wing bridge into flaming scrap metal. ‘Yeah, you can,’ she insisted.

  ‘I can,’ the captain agreed.

  Nina helped him stand and take the duplicate controls. He turned the azipods to direct the liner – straight at the corvette.

  Full power. The distance between the two ships shrank rapidly, their closing speed well over fifty knots and increasing as the Atlantia accelerated. The gun traversed, sweeping from one side of the cruise liner to the other, but now it couldn’t elevate quickly enough to track the remaining wing bridge as the towering vessel rushed towards it.

  It fired again. Nina’s heart froze—

  Then restarted as the shell screamed past beneath her, arcing harmlessly out to sea.

  ‘Brace for impact!’ shouted Snowcock as the other ship’s captain ordered a frantic evasive turn away from the juggernaut—

  The collision was glancing, the Atlantia’s prow clipping the corvette’s stern – but with a quarter of a million tonnes behind it, the liner carved straight through the far lighter warship’s hull, ripping away a chunk of its aft section and one of its two propellers. The Dhajani ship reeled as water rushed into the engine room. Sirens and alarms wailed as the crippled vessel’s captain immediately realised his command was doomed and ordered an evacuation.

  Snowcock was already altering course, bringing his own ship back towards the harbour entrance. ‘Look after Calvos,’ he ordered. Nina crouched to help the fallen officer. The cut on his head was quite deep, blood running down his face, but he was still breathing.

  ‘Nina!’

  She looked up as she heard her husband’s voice from the remains of the main bridge. ‘Eddie! I’m down here!’

  He ran to her. ‘Christ, I thought you’d been blown up!’

  ‘So did I, for a moment – it was way too close a call. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, nothing too fatal.’ He saw the blood on Snowcock’s leg. ‘What about you, Captain?’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ the white-haired man replied. ‘Get Mr Calvos somewhere safe.’ He nodded towards the injured man. ‘Is the Emir all right?’

  ‘He’s okay – well, as okay as someone who got shot in the chest can be.’ With Nina’s assistance, Eddie lifted the younger officer and started up the steps.

  She looked back at Snowcock. ‘As soon as we’re in open water, get up to full speed and head north. We’ve got to catch the Pacifia.’

  ‘Aye aye, Captain,’ he replied, more than a little sarcastically.

  The couple brought the officer out of the wrecked bridge and through the lobb
y to a muster station, where the rest of the bridge crew had gathered. ‘Got a man with a head wound here!’ Eddie announced.

  Blankets had been laid out as makeshift beds. ‘Are you all right?’ asked the Emir as they put the officer down. ‘And where is Captain Snowcock?’

  ‘Driving the ship,’ Eddie told him. ‘We’ll live. As long as we stop the spearhead from blowing up, that is.’

  ‘What if we are too late?’

  ‘Even if there’s no way to stop the explosion, we’ve still got to try,’ Nina insisted. ‘We have to catch up.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Eddie. ‘They’re not going to stop so we can hop aboard.’

  ‘Then,’ she said with grim determination, ‘we make them stop.’

  44

  Nina looked out from the wing bridge, wind from the broken side windows ruffling her hair. With no passengers, a skeleton crew and a minimal fuel load, the Atlantia was powering through the waves even faster than during the Emir’s demonstration on her first visit. Somewhere ahead was the Pacifia, but mist obscured her view of the horizon.

  There was no way to locate the huge liner by other means, either. The tower crane that had smashed into the Atlantia’s upper deck had demolished the ship’s main radar. Making matters worse, the swathe of destruction had also taken out most of its radio antennae, as well as the satellite links for the internet and cellular phones. All long-range communications were down; the more limited ship-to-shore radio was still working, but reception was overpowered by a repeating message from Dhajan announcing alternately in Arabic and English that the country was in a state of emergency and to await further information.

  Eddie tried the radio again, then put the handset down in frustration. ‘How long before we get out of jamming range?’

  ‘Marine radios use VHF,’ Lobato observed, ‘which is generally range-limited by line of sight. In theory, once we pass over the horizon from Dhajan, we will regain use of the transmission frequencies. Unfortunately—’

  ‘How did I know there’d be an unfortunately?’

  ‘—the Atlantia is a very tall ship, so we will have to travel a greater distance to clear the jamming. We will probably be approaching Bahrain before we are able to transmit a message without interference.’

  ‘We should keep trying, though,’ insisted Nina. ‘We might get lucky and reach someone in Qatar who can pass on our message to the US Navy.’

  The Emir was resting in a chair. ‘We might,’ he echoed morosely, ‘but that depends upon the message being relayed quickly and accurately. And there are many people in Qatar, and beyond, who would be happy to see the American naval base blown up. You are our allies, but that does not mean you are popular.’

  ‘It won’t just be the navy base, though,’ she pointed out. ‘They’ll be hit by the tidal wave themselves not long after.’

  ‘If some random person radioed you and said there’s a super-nuke sailing past on a cruise ship, would you believe ’em?’ asked Eddie.

  Nina saw his point, but before she could reply, Snowcock spoke. ‘Your Majesty, I really think we should slow down.’ He indicated a screen. ‘We’re holding at forty-four knots, but the drive systems weren’t designed to run this fast for this long. The engines are starting to overheat. If there’s a fire on the battery deck—’

  ‘Yeah, we know what’ll happen, Scotty,’ she cut in. ‘But we don’t have a choice. If we don’t catch the Pacifia—’

  ‘I’m aware of the danger, Dr Wilde,’ Snowcock said irritably.

  ‘We have to keep going,’ said the Emir. ‘How long before we catch up?’

  ‘Assuming the Pacifia holds a normal cruising speed, I’d say it’ll be . . . about an hour and fifty minutes. We should see it long before then, as soon as that mist clears.’

  ‘If the spearhead’s entered its final stage, we might not have much longer than that,’ said Nina. She regarded the screen. Some of the bars showing the engines’ status had indeed moved upwards, going beyond a green line marking normal operating temperatures into a yellow zone. As she watched, one rose in height by another pixel, creeping ever closer to an ominous red line.

  She looked back at the shrouded horizon. They would enter the mist in minutes, but there was no telling how long they would take to clear it. All she could do now was wait . . . and hope they had enough time to make a difference.

  Alula paced impatiently across the Pacifia’s bridge. Her gaze kept returning to the display showing the liner’s estimated time of arrival at its final destination. Bahrain was now less than two hours away, half the hundred-mile voyage completed, but the spearhead’s state had not changed. If she ordered the liner to slow still further, the American navy might take an unwelcome interest . . .

  ‘Your Majesty,’ said al-Asim urgently. ‘Something has happened. I can feel it.’ He indicated the spearhead’s case.

  Alula cautiously touched the lid and felt a surge of excitement. The box was trembling. She opened it.

  The spearhead was still aglow, but the light had changed. More vivid shades of blue and purple and even red were spreading through the pure white, which itself was visibly brighter. ‘It’s starting,’ she said. ‘Wilde was right – it’s reached the final stage.’

  ‘Which means . . . nothing can stop it.’

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Are you having second thoughts, Hashim?’

  ‘Of course not, Your Majesty. But knowing there’s now no turning back is . . . a great responsibility.’

  ‘A responsibility I’m willing to take for the sake of my country,’ Alula said firmly. She closed the lid. ‘Our enemies must be destroyed, inside Dhajan and out. That time has come – and so has mine!’

  ‘The fog’s clearing,’ said Snowcock.

  The Atlantia had been ploughing through the bank of mist for over an hour, the horizon in all directions blanked out by a featureless grey. Now, though, the dividing line between sea and sky began to fade in. ‘Any sign of the Pacifia?’ asked Nina.

  ‘Not yet, but once we get full visibility, we should be close enough to see it.’

  Eddie took a pair of powerful binoculars from a clip and scanned the gulf. ‘There’s something, but . . . no, it’s the wrong colour, it’s black. Must be an oil tanker. I can see land, though.’

  Snowcock glanced at a chart laid out on the console; with the radar and GPS down, he had to navigate the old-fashioned way. ‘The southern tip of Bahrain should be to the north-west.’

  ‘Yeah, that must be it,’ Eddie replied. He slowly panned the binoculars eastwards from the thin line of sandy terrain. ‘Got her!’

  Nina looked. In the far distance was a pale rectangle – a megaliner seen from directly astern, rising over the horizon like a monolith. ‘How far away?’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Snowcock. Eddie gave him the binoculars. ‘From this height, the horizon’s about fifteen miles away. I can see the stern deck, so they can’t be more than a mile beyond that.’

  The Emir stood, Rakin and a crewman helping him. ‘How long will it take us to catch up?’

  ‘We’re closer to her than I expected, so she must only be making twenty knots, or less,’ said the captain. ‘We have at least a twenty-four knot advantage, so . . . about thirty-five minutes.’

  Nina examined the chart. Their current position was between Bahrain proper and its smaller territory of the Hawar Islands just off the Qatari coast to the south-east; the American naval base was in a large bay at Bahrain’s northern end. She checked the map’s scale, estimating the distance to Alula’s target as around thirty-five miles. ‘We’ll only be about five miles from the harbour when we reach the Pacifia,’ she said in dismay. ‘That’s cutting it way too fine.’

  ‘And we still have to get the spearhead clear,’ said Eddie. He took back the binoculars. ‘Christ, I can actually see people on the decks. They don’t have a clue what’s going on—’ A thought struck him. ‘Shit, if we can see them, they can see us!’

  ‘Damn it, they can,’ Nina said. ‘Alu
la’ll know we’re coming!’

  Captain Ingels put down a telephone handset and turned to Alula. ‘Your Majesty? I’ve just been informed of something . . . odd.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded.

  ‘I will show you.’ He spoke to an officer, who tapped at a keyboard, then gestured towards the video wall at the bridge’s rear. ‘There.’

  She drew in a sharp, angry breath as a view directly astern filled all the screens. A towering shape was clearing the mist smearing the horizon. ‘The Atlantia!’

  ‘What’s it doing here?’ said al-Asim, surprised.

  ‘Following us,’ Alula snarled. ‘It’s Fadil! And Wilde and Chase must be with him.’

  ‘Why would they be there?’

  ‘Because nobody else would be insane enough to steal a cruise liner!’ She faced Ingels. ‘Bring us to full speed. We can’t let them catch us.’

  The captain regarded her in confusion. ‘Your Majesty?’

  ‘Are you deaf? Full speed! Now!’

  Ingels’ lips tightened in anger, but he maintained a level voice. ‘Increase to twenty-five knots,’ he ordered the helm officer.

  ‘No, faster!’ Alula snapped.

  ‘That – that is as fast as she can go, Your Majesty.’

  ‘No, it isn’t! The Atlantia reached almost forty knots.’

  ‘You would have to override the speed limiter to do that—’

  ‘Then override it!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Out of my way, you idiot!’ she shouted, storming past him. Al-Asim shoved him aside for good measure before joining her. The rest of his men took up menacing positions nearby, daring the bridge crew to challenge them.

  The helm officer hurriedly gave up his seat for Alula, who brought up the passcode entry screen and typed in the code her brother had used aboard the other liner: 032015—

  The screen flashed red, a warning message telling her it had been rejected.

  ‘What?’ She tapped it in again, more carefully, but with the same result. ‘Why isn’t it working? It should— Oh, that bastard.’