‘Rakin has a gun,’ Junayd reminded him. ‘He could give covering fire.’
‘Not against six guys. We need to find another way over.’
‘We’ve got to help Mr Rignall!’ said one of the crewmen, pulling an injured comrade clear of the edge.
‘We can do both,’ Nina said. ‘We go down, find Rignall, and then jump across.’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Dimakos.
‘If we don’t get on that ship, everyone on it will die – and maybe millions more!’
Eddie risked another look at the Pacifia, ducking back as more shots clanged off the ship’s side below him. Alula’s men were now congregated on the upper deck, waiting for them; any attempt to cross the gantry would be suicide.
He retreated to check on his companions. The injured officer had a walkie-talkie, as did one of the crewmen. The Yorkshireman took the officer’s radio, then addressed the Atlantia’s personnel. ‘Do what you can for them. We’ll go down and find Rignall. Anyone who still wants to come with us, we’re going across.’
One of the officers and two crewmen volunteered, the others staying to tend to the injured. Dimakos used the remaining radio to call for help as Eddie led the way back through the gate. ‘He landed three decks below us, a couple of cabins back,’ he said. ‘Anyone got a key?’
‘I have,’ said one of the crewmen.
‘Good.’ He hurried to a flight of steps nearby, his companions right behind. ‘Snowcock, are you there?’ he said into the walkie-talkie as they descended.
‘Yes,’ the captain replied. ‘Are you on the Pacifia?’
‘No, we got shot at. Some of your people are wounded. They’re getting help, but we need you to help us as well. We can’t get across from the top deck, so we’re going to jump over from one of the balconies below.’
‘You’ll never make it! It’s too far.’
‘I know, which is why you need to get closer.’
‘It’s too dangerous! If I get any nearer, the suction effect will pull the two ships together.’
‘Yeah, it sucks, deal with it,’ Eddie snapped as he reached Deck 17. A narrow corridor was lined with cabins. ‘Okay,’ he said, heading aft, ‘he must be in one of these.’
The crewman with the key opened the first door and entered. ‘He’s not here.’
‘Try the next one.’ Another door was opened. This time, it was immediately clear that they had found Rignall’s landing site; one of the glass balcony doors was smashed, a stiff wind blowing through it. ‘In here!’
The Australian was sprawled over the wrecked furniture. Both his legs were broken, one bent sickeningly below the knee. More blood had pooled around his head. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ gasped the officer.
Eddie checked the room number. ‘There’s a badly wounded man in Cabin 17326,’ he radioed. ‘If there’s a medic aboard, get them here now!’ Rignall was still alive, a small bubble of blood swelling and shrinking in one nostril. ‘Get a blanket and cover him,’ the Yorkshireman ordered. ‘Back into the other room – we’re going across.’
The crew attended to their shipmate, the boarding party now down to himself, Nina, Junayd and Rakin. They returned to the first cabin, Eddie leading them to the balcony.
‘Can we make it?’ Nina asked.
‘Nope.’ The two liners were about twenty-five feet apart – too far to jump. He lifted the radio. ‘Captain, you’ve got to get closer!’
On the wing bridge, Snowcock heard the message and grimaced. There was less than ten feet between the windows to his right and the Pacifia’s side. ‘I’ll come in as near as I can,’ he replied. ‘You just be ready to jump across.’
He delicately adjusted the thruster controls, reducing the Atlantia’s speed to match its sister’s and bringing it closer as carefully as he could.
Alula felt relief and satisfaction when the boarding attempt was repelled, but the other liner was still dangerously close – and now it was slowing, matching speeds. Her enemies were up to something . . .
She realised what as the gap between the two huge vessels started to shrink. Her men were guarding the upper deck, but there were literally hundreds of balconies below from which people could jump from one ship to the other. No way to cover them all.
She was about to shout an order for Ingels to turn away, but a more aggressive idea came at the sight of a silhouetted figure in the other ship’s surviving wing bridge. Don’t defend: attack!
‘Captain!’ she yelled. ‘Turn to port – crash into them!’
The Dane went white. ‘What? But Your Majesty, we have almost ten thousand passengers aboard!’
Al-Asim marched towards the captain, raising his gun. The rest of the bridge crew shrank back. ‘Turn the ship. Or you die.’
Ingels stared at the weapon, then, dry-mouthed, ushered the officer manning the helm station aside. ‘I – I will do it,’ he said. ‘I can’t ask anyone else.’
‘I do not care who does it,’ Alula told him. ‘Only that it is done. Now!’
Ingels took fearful hold of the azipod controls and turned them, hard.
Snowcock watched the white wall of metal to starboard inch nearer – then suddenly it lunged at him.
He was thrown to the floor as the wing bridge pounded into the Pacifia’s side, windows shattering. The floor crumpled like a concertina, folding around him.
Eddie was about to climb on to the railing to make the jump – when the daylight from above was abruptly blotted out as the Pacifia rolled towards him like a falling skyscraper. ‘Shit!’ he yelled, throwing himself backwards. ‘Down, get down!’
Nina and the others dived into the cabin—
The windows exploded as the two liners slammed into each other.
46
Alula clung to a railing, barely staying upright as the Pacifia lurched as if struck by an earthquake. The bridge crew were flung across the deck or slammed against consoles.
The chaos in the rest of the liner was far worse. The corridors were packed with holidaymakers fleeing the collision; hundreds were hurt as they were thrown against walls or sent tumbling down stairs.
But the armed men on the top deck suffered the most severe whiplash as the huge ship reeled beneath them. One broke a leg against the unyielding steel support of a sunshade canopy – and another was catapulted over the atrium railing, falling with a scream into a swimming pool twelve decks below. The others were barely better off, ending up bruised and dazed amongst a sea of broken glass.
Alarms screeched throughout the Atlantia. Snowcock dragged himself back to the console. He had survived only by chance, the mangled wing bridge jammed into the spacious balcony of one of the Pacifia’s larger cabins. A few feet higher or lower, and his eyrie would have been crushed like a beer can.
But he still wasn’t safe. The display told him the collision had inflicted major damage upon his ship, fire suppression systems activating in several sections – including the battery banks.
His worst fear had come true. One battery fire could be contained, but with several along the ship’s length and not enough crew to deal with them, the chances of a chain reaction became terrifyingly high. If the batteries went up, the rest of the Atlantia – including its fuel of liquefied natural gas – would rapidly follow.
He had to sound the evacuation order, but he also needed to give his visitors one last chance to carry out their mission. He recovered the radio. ‘Chase! I can’t hold her! You’ve got to get across, now!’
Nina heard the captain’s voice squawk from the walkie-talkie. ‘Eddie!’ she cried. The view from the balcony was now almost a mirror image, one of the Pacifia’s cabins just a few feet beyond it.
‘I heard, I heard,’ her husband replied groggily. He went back to the balcony, clutching the railing as the deck shook. A sonorous moan of straining metal echoed through the ship, glass hailing from both vessels. They were entangled, protruding sections mashed together, but they would not hold for long.
Nina joined him. ‘Shit,’ she gasped. The gap betw
een the two ships was about six feet, but the Atlantia was rising and falling in the swell. The slightest misjudgement would send her plummeting to her death in the colliding wakes below.
‘We can do it.’ He climbed on to the railing, holding position until the Atlantia rose higher . . . then leapt across.
He cleared the other railing by mere inches, hitting the wooden deck with a bang. ‘I’m okay!’ he shouted to Nina. ‘You can do it!’
She clambered up. Rakin moved to support her from behind, but it was what lay ahead – or rather below – that worried her. The remains of lifeboats from both ships clattered between the hulls as debris fell past them into the churning water.
She readied herself . . . and leapt—
A new alarm shrilled in the battered wing bridge. Snowcock looked at the monitor, and saw every readout turn red. The fires were spreading, the overheated drive systems shutting down. He activated the PA system. ‘Abandon ship!’ he cried. ‘This is the captain – abandon ship! Everyone get to the port-side lifeboats—’
Explosive cracks and screams shook the ship as the Atlantia ripped away from its sister. Snowcock knew the end had come for his vessel. He ran up the steps and dived through the doorway as the embedded wing bridge was torn away from the superstructure like a rotten tooth, tumbling down the Atlantia’s side to smash into the sea far below.
Nina had just jumped when the liner veered apart from the other ship. The balcony rolled away from her—
The archaeologist desperately threw out her arms. She hit the railing – at chest height.
Pain cracked across her ribs. Overcome, winded, she fell—
Eddie grabbed her wrist.
‘I’ve got you,’ he gasped, straining to lift her – only to freeze as he looked back at the Atlantia. ‘No, don’t!’
Too late. Rakin had hurled himself across the gap, both hands outstretched to catch the top railing – but the two ships were still separating. His fingers brushed a lower rail, slipped off . . . then his arc continued inexorably downwards.
The Dhajani hit a balcony two floors below with a crack of breaking bone. He screamed, someone sheltering inside the cabin crying out in fright. Junayd looked on in helpless horror as the gap between the twin liners widened.
Eddie couldn’t spare the injured man a moment’s thought. All he could do was cling to Nina as the Pacifia reeled back over, his wife swinging beneath him like a bell’s clapper – though the flat thud as she hit the ship’s side was anything but musical. He braced himself, waiting for the liner to right itself, then hauled her upwards. ‘Grab the railing!’
Her free hand clamped around it. He strained to lift her higher. She found a foothold and pushed, all but falling on to the balcony beside her husband.
‘Oh Jesus!’ she wheezed, clutching her bruised chest. ‘I thought I was going to fall!’
‘Rakin did,’ he said. ‘He landed lower down. Just hope someone can help him, ’cause we don’t have time.’
‘You’re right,’ she reluctantly agreed. ‘We’ve got to find the spearhead and get it off the ship.’
‘Yeah. So where is it?’ They looked at each other, neither having an answer. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’
‘It’ll either be with Alula,’ Nina reasoned, ‘or she’ll have put it somewhere nobody can interfere with it. So on the bridge, or . . . the vault!’ she exclaimed. ‘The only people who can open it are the senior officers, and they’re probably all being held at gunpoint.’
‘So how do we open it?’ Eddie asked.
She smiled. ‘The Emir gave me his code, remember? Come on!’ Adrenalin partially overpowering the pain across her chest, she hurried out, the Yorkshireman following.
Alula watched the Atlantia drop behind as her own ship powered onwards. Smoke billowed from the other liner’s lower decks, and with the port wing bridge torn off, the vessel was now crippled.
The threat to her plan was not over, though. She had seen tiny figures leap across the gap as the two ships pulled apart; at least three people had made it over, and even at a distance she was certain one of them was Nina Wilde. She unconsciously rubbed her nose at the thought of the American, the only person ever to lay a hand on her in anger, and the resulting spike of pain stoked her own anger still further.
She returned to the bridge. ‘Wilde and some others got aboard,’ she told al-Asim. ‘Send the men after them.’
‘It’s a big ship,’ he reminded her. ‘How will they know where to look?’
Alula nodded towards the video wall. ‘Use the cameras,’ she ordered the bridge crew. ‘Find them!’
Alarms echoed throughout the Atlantia as the enormous vessel lost speed. With no passengers aboard, the crew could bypass normal procedures and instead run straight for the port-side lifeboat deck.
Snowcock was determined to be the last man off. Three boats were already being lowered, another waiting for the last evacuees. ‘Come on, hurry!’ he yelled as a crewman led Junayd to the last lifeboat. ‘Where are Dr Wilde and the others?’
‘They made it to the other ship,’ Junayd told him. ‘Is the Emir safe?’
‘He’s in the lifeboat.’ Snowcock stood back to let them board.
A dull thump echoed through the hull. ‘That was a battery explosion!’ warned Lobato. ‘We have to go before a chain reaction starts.’
The captain hurried to the control panel. ‘Everyone hold on!’
He activated the winch. The lifeboat juddered, then began to lower from its davits. Snowcock moved to jump through its hatch—
Another explosion – nearer, and more violent. The captain staggered, one foot slipping over the edge.
He fell—
One flailing hand caught the bottom of the hatch. He hung for a moment, before losing his grip – only for the crewman to grab him. Others inside scrambled to drag the dangling man into the descending craft.
‘Captain!’ the Emir cried. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Snowcock gasped. He thanked his crew as he stood and closed the hatch. ‘I’m very sorry about your ship, though,’ he told Fadil apologetically. ‘As maiden voyages go, it’s up there with the Titanic . . .’
‘There they are, there!’ snapped Alula, pointing at a screen. The Pacifia’s corridors were crowded with panicking passengers, but she had just seen two unpleasantly familiar faces pushing against the flow. ‘Where is that, and where are they going?’
An officer checked a computer screen. ‘Deck 10, section Port D. They’re heading aft.’
‘So they’re going back through the ship,’ said al-Asim, watching as the couple reached a stairwell and descended, ‘and down. What are they doing?’
‘They’re going to the vault,’ Alula realised in alarm. ‘Send the men after them!’
Al-Asim made a rapid radio call to his team. ‘But the vault’s closed. They can’t reach the spearhead, can they?’
‘They shouldn’t have escaped from the solar plant, they shouldn’t have reached the Atlantia, and they shouldn’t have got aboard this ship,’ she said angrily. ‘Don’t underestimate them – just kill them!’
Nina and Eddie reached Deck 5. Even this deep in the liner, panicked passengers were running in all directions. After the collision with the Atlantia, thousands of people had fled the port side, only to find nowhere to go. With the Pacifia running at full speed, it was impossible to lower the lifeboats without risking numerous deaths.
Eddie took the lead, one arm raised to fend off anyone charging blindly into him. ‘Stay behind me!’ he told Nina as he shoved away a jabbering Russian in a tracksuit. ‘Which way?’
Apart from differences in decor, the Pacifia’s interior was identical to its sister’s. ‘Down here, then left,’ she said, following him.
They rounded a corner, coming to a set of double doors. ‘This it?’
‘Yeah.’ They were locked, but there was a dark glass panel beside them. She raised her hand, and it lit up. ‘Okay, let’s see if the code works . . .’
She brought up the keypad, then tapped in the Emir’s secret access key. Green, and the lock clicked. ‘That’s a good start.’
‘Let’s hope Alula didn’t stick a padlock on the vault door, or we’re fucked,’ Eddie said as they ran inside. The softly lit treasures of the Picasso exhibit greeted them, but neither could spare the cases a glance as they hurried to the vault entrance.
Nina quickly entered the code a second time. The door unlocked. They went through to find themselves in a small antechamber. Stairs led down to the vault’s gleaming steel door. There was another access panel at the top of the flight. Unlike the one outside, this was not blank, instead displaying a message in multiple languages: Security Systems Active.
Eddie looked suspiciously down the stairs. He could see numerous cameras and sensors, faint red lines of laser light visible in the air. ‘You think the code’ll work on this?’
‘Let’s see. Y’know, I’m never going to buy one of Gideon’s cars if they’ve all got back doors like this . . .’
To their relief, the code was again accepted – and a low rumble of powerful motors reached them. ‘It’s opening!’ said Eddie as the huge door started to move. They waited . . . and waited. ‘Reeeeally slowly.’
‘It’s a big-ass door,’ Nina noted.
He glanced back into the gallery. ‘I don’t like this. Opening the vault’s probably tripped a warning on the bridge, and with all these cameras, it’s not like they can’t see us – shit, they might have seen us already!’
‘You think they’re on the way?’
‘You wait here. I’ll watch the door.’ He started back across the exhibition hall, looking for anything he could use as an improvised weapon—
A shout from outside as someone was barged aside. Eddie’s eyes snapped back to the entrance to see a black-clad man rush through it, whipping up his Glock.
The Yorkshireman dived behind a display cabinet as the automatic blazed, fire scything across the room after him. The toughened glass crazed with the first few impacts, then shattered as more rounds struck it, fragments showering over Picasso’s bronze Death’s Head.
An alarm shrilled – and all the cabinets suddenly began to drop into the floor.
The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14) Page 49