I leapt into the abyss.
Chapter Sixty
One of the maps I’d studied at Faslane had been a copy of an old MoD chart that showed the site of the experiments close to where Camp Vollum now stood. Crucially, someone had scrawled on the map by the cliffs, ‘Disposal Site’.
A yellowed file in the briefing pack marked Secret in big red letters had told me why.
Gruinard Island: 1942. Soon after the covert tests have finished, a fisherman catches a rotting sheep in his nets. No big deal, maybe a foolish solitary sheep strayed too close to the cliffs and fell into the sea. Back over the side it goes, and he thinks nothing of it until that evening, when he sits down for a pint in his local and overhears a conversation between a local farmer and the parson. Earlier that day the parson had come across a couple of dead sheep while walking near the graveyard at Gruinard Bay, and wondered if the farmer ought to check his walls and gates. The farmer says he hasn’t lost any sheep. The fisherman turns in his chair, places his pint on the table, chipping in with his own tale of the floater. The mystery passes the time in the pub, but isn’t worth losing sleep over.
Until a couple of days later, when another sheep washes ashore. Locals watch with mounting concern as every day, more dead sheep appear on the beaches.
Concern reaches a crescendo a week later, when sheep on the mainland start dying with symptoms consistent with anthrax poisoning. The vet confirms it, and rumours abound.
But strangely, no rumours about Gruinard Island.
That’s thanks to an English teacher up on a well-timed bird-spotting holiday. Apparently, a couple of weeks earlier, whilst searching out a purple sandpiper, he’d seen a Greek freighter in the channel, and through his binoculars he’d watched them throwing dead sheep overboard. He didn’t think anything of it at the time but given recent events it’s clear the dastardly Greeks had sailed all the way to this remote corner of the North Atlantic to dispose of their anthrax-ridden stock, avoiding fines and costly disposal fees.
That’s what the English teacher had said anyway, and he was a smart fella; knowledgeable about such things.
The Greeks were never caught, of course. And afterwards no one could remember the name of that bird-watching Englishman, who’d weirdly turned up at the right time in all the local pubs, churning out his tale whenever and wherever there was gossip of dead sheep.
I couldn’t remember his name either, but it’d been written in the dossier I’d read. He’d worked for the same shadowy disinformation and censorship department as the ‘government representatives’ who’d turned up a few weeks later to compensate the unfortunate farmers. The dead sheep eventually stopped, the rumours died off, everyone forgot.
This wasn’t useless knowledge; the reason this flashed through my mind was that marking on the dog-eared map. Disposal Site. The dead sheep from the island’s anthrax tests had been dumped in the sea at the base of the cliffs, with explosives set in the rocks above. They’d calculated that the landslide would bury the carcasses, but the water had been too deep, the shelf too steeply sloped. The sheep had been blown clear out to sea, hence washing up on the beaches.
I figured if it was deep enough for the sheep, it was deep enough for me.
Chapter Sixty-one
I hit hard, feet first, and it felt like kicking concrete, my head snapping violently up as the gas mask almost wrenched my face off. The pain was short-lived as the shock of the freezing water stole my breath and all senses. I sank deep into the churning water, my ankles unbroken; it’d been deep enough.
Just like those sheep forty years before, the underwater current immediately tugged me away from the base of the cliffs. My suit was heavy, turning me over, dragging me deeper. I tore at the straps of the mask, somehow succeeding in freeing myself. Saltwater burned my eyes. The current pulled harder and, blind in the oily black, I couldn’t tell which way was up. Panic swelled through me; I needed air. I struck out, pulling as hard as I could. Each stroke sapped precious energy, threatening to keep me prisoner down there.
Just as I thought I was going to breathe a lungful of seawater, my head broke the surface. I sucked at the salty sky, savouring the freezing air in my throat. My body was rigid, pain everywhere. I held on to it, pushed it down, forced my mind silent. Probed my senses. They checked in one after another with damage reports. My ears were ringing, my head was on fire yet numb at the same time, like receiving a football to the face in a winter’s PE lesson, multiplied by a hundred. I tested my limbs, flexing the joints, they just about responded. Blood, hot in the water, trickled across my face. It was pouring from my nose down the back of my throat, earthy, metallic. But I was alive.
Not for long. My chest constricted, the cold shutting down the muscles, preventing me from filling my lungs. It was the first time I’d tasted fresh air in two days and I longed for more, but before I could take another breath I was dragged back under. The suit had filled with water, all the way up to the neck. I reached again for the surface, broke through, took a breath, started to sink again. Each time I stopped moving I was sucked straight back down, churning, smashed by currents and waves. My energy was almost expended, muscles seized. I’d already been swept further out. I’d traded the instant death of a bullet for a slower death, dragged out to sea to drown.
A flash on the cliffs above reminded me there was still a chance of that instant death. Above the waves I heard a crack and a bullet sput into the water nearby. Whoever it was, they could obviously still see me through the rolling fog banks – no doubt helped by the bright plastic suit flapping around.
Dragged under again, I pulled the tape from my gloves as I sank deeper. A hand was free, and then I was clawing at my chest, ripping the suit. I slid out of the sleeve then struck out again. This time when I surfaced, the cliffs were twice as far away. I ducked under to pull off the boots, taking the shredded suit to the bottom of the bay.
I was free, and the comparative liberty of jeans and jumper was as good as wearing trunks. That didn’t make it much easier; the cliffs had been swallowed by the fog, I was being pulled out further still. I tried to swim in the direction I thought was the island, but the current was too strong. Another gunshot flashed in the murk, dimmer now. They were taking pot shots, they couldn’t see me, I was out of range.
I tried to face the direction of the flashes, treading water, pushing my head above the swell, still struggling to breathe in the frozen emptiness. The forecast from the ship had been right; the storm had well and truly departed, leaving fat, rolling seas. As each wave pushed me up I could see only black ocean in every direction. Above, the sky was only slightly lighter and just as blank. Hemmed in on all sides by an utterly featureless wall of fog.
I had to get back to the island. I swam as hard as I could but my limbs didn’t respond, freezing up, I was pulled deeper into the void, turned round on the waves, disoriented.
Free of the cumbersome suit, I wasn’t worried about drowning, not immediately. The currents were strong; my worry now was being swept away. Hypothermia was a very real threat, slowing my actions, shutting down my mind, seizing my muscles solid. I had to get back to land fast, I’d only be bobbing here half an hour before my body gave out and I slipped beneath the waves, emerging again when expanding gases inflated my rotting corpse.
Assuming the currents were stable I could expect to be deposited back on the mainland sometime tomorrow, just like those rotting sheep. I fought harder, breaking the frigid water’s grip on my body, striking out in the direction I thought I’d come from, but it was impossible. The wall was impenetrable, no way of knowing which direction I was facing any more, everywhere waves writhing into black. I struggled onward anyway, positive action preferable to acceptance of fate.
A thought struck me. The currents pulling those sheep.
It made sense that Demeter had been shot up on the cliffs and thrown into the sea, but his corpse hadn’t made it to the mainland, instead becoming entangled in the seawater pipe off the beach. A short story by Poe had always stuck with
me, ‘A Descent into the Maelström’. Spoilers, but it’s about a guy who escapes certain death in an enormous whirlpool, surviving only by climbing out of his boat and simply ‘letting go’. He’s lighter floating on his own; the current takes him away from his heavier boat, which is destroyed in the whirlpool. By disregarding his survival instincts and instead letting himself go with the current, the guy survives. Well, Demeter certainly hadn’t been swimming. Could I trust the same currents to take me to where I needed to be? I’d no energy left, so no choice. I lay on my back, shivering, hands already seizing up, trusting my fate to Poseidon.
Chapter Sixty-two
The fog was noticeably lighter in one direction, charcoal grey now rather than coal black. The sun was finally on the rise.
I drifted for long minutes, hands and feet frozen now. No way to measure whether I was being dragged further out or staying where I was. In the distance, a couple of gulls cried, the only sounds of life I’d heard here. To hear them properly, to be outside without the cumbersome gas mask, was bliss – even if I was adrift without hope of rescue. Shivering was painful, the cold chewing down to bone marrow, but at least I knew it was keeping me alive. I told myself over and over: the pain is good. It’s when you stop shivering, stop feeling pain, that you should really worry.
The gulls circled closer, laughing, taunting me. I did my best to concentrate on other, warmer things. Childhood holidays. I closed my eyes, kidding myself the gulls were circling the cliff railway in Lynmouth, diving at the brightly painted fishing boats, Justin throwing a toy plane to me as the lighthouse glowed all the shades of autumn in the setting sun.
The gulls got bored of tormenting me, drifting into the distance, taking the memory with them, leaving me alone again in the freezing black. They left behind another sound, something slapping the surface of the water. I craned my neck but couldn’t see anything. The sound was constant, getting closer. I pushed my legs under the surface, feeling the current’s pull again, and paddled my freezing body towards the noise. A shape drifted in the fog, impossible to discern colour or outline in the pre-dawn, but it was neither sea nor sky and that was good enough for me. Thank you, Poe, the current had pulled me in the same direction as Demeter’s bloated corpse, right into the raft.
I was almost carried past it, but at the last minute grabbed for the big barrels. My fingers reacted slowly, numbed with cold, slipping and missing. I panicked, scrabbled, tearing my nails against the plastic, was dragged onward, out to sea to die. I kicked harder and curled a finger through a loop of the strong nylon rope that held the barrels together. The current swung me round, bouncing me against the raft. I didn’t feel my finger bend, but heard the snap of bone above the waves. I reached round, grabbing the rope with my other hand, catching my breath. Thank God it was my left hand and not my trigger finger.
The relative happiness in this realisation was short-lived as a wave slammed me against the raft and something below the surface tore my T-shirt, a piece of wood or wire or something sticking out of the contraption, burning its way down my ribs, impaling me, brief agony then nothing. I pulled myself away, felt heat seeping from my left side as I dragged myself round the corner of the raft. I could just about see the beach now but I was spent, clinging to the raft, steadying my breathing, trying to focus. I wasn’t shivering any more, couldn’t feel anything, the cold, the pain.
I wanted to climb up on top of the raft and lie there until the sun rose, but aside from being exposed to the wind, speeding along my hypothermia, I had to get back to the base.
I could just about see my watch, it wasn’t even half seven. I’d only been in the sea a few minutes; it had felt like an hour.
It’d been just before seven when I’d got the power back on; that didn’t leave long until the match ignited, and the vial of anthrax went up in flames. The murderer wouldn’t allow that – and I had to be there to catch them.
Ever since I’d decided the anthrax vial was the motive, I’d wondered how they intended to profit from it. The problem was the vial itself. When we were taken back to the mainland we’d be isolated. Stripped, scrubbed, handed fresh clothes. Nothing at all could be taken off the island by us, not even a sock, it’d all be quarantined, checked thoroughly, then disposed of or – if valued – decontaminated separately. Even resorting to drug mule methods wouldn’t work; apart from the fact that you’d have to be mental to conceal a test tube of anthrax up your arse, or swallow a condom full of it, the medicals we were looking forward too would be very thorough. Post-decontamination, the island would be swept by another team, private-sector contractors who would scrub away any trace of our presence. To summarise, we’d be checked, our clothing and possessions would be checked, and the island would be checked, anything left behind destroyed. Presumably there was profit involved, there always is, so how was the killer going to get the sample off the island to collect their fee?
I’d found the answer under the floor of the radio room; the vial shoved up under the pipes by Gambetta’s killer. Dash had provided the last clue when he’d told me the base would be transported in its entirety on an American container ship bound for the Antarctic. It’d be cleaned and refitted en route. During that time someone on the crew would quietly remove the vial, as well as the other evidence. The fact that the base and ship were American wasn’t necessarily suggestive; the contractors on the crew could be affiliated with any nefarious government or group.
If the killer were allowed to evacuate, there would be nothing to tie them to the crimes. Sure, I could have simply removed the vial – they wouldn’t have got paid, there’d be no winners – but four bodies in a morgue and my numerous creditors would consider that a poor ending.
If I didn’t get back in time, what then? The fire would start, the killer would retrieve their precious vial. In the rush of the emergency evac they’d hide it somewhere else in the base, somewhere I’d have no hope of finding it but, most of all, hiding themselves from me for good. The fact I knew where it was right now meant I was, despite being stuck in the sea, still one step ahead; finding the vial during the search for Demeter had given me an opportunity I needed to capitalise on, because with my bloated corpse floating around the Atlantic there’d be no one to stop them.
Chapter Sixty-three
It had taken me a while to drag myself to the cove. I’d worked my way around the raft to the thick pipe that led in to shore, then hooked an arm across it, just like Demeter’s corpse. Earlier I’d seen the steel cable holding the sections of pipe together, connecting them to the raft where the great gulps of brine were vacuumed up, sucked through the pump to be spat out across the island. I’d curled my aching fingers around the cable and hauled myself in, pushed along by the waves one minute, hauled backwards the next.
My hands were torn and bleeding by the time I’d reached the pebbles, broken finger swelling and useless, but I’d made it, panting and sweating despite the cold. Hot blood still spilled down onto my jeans, every movement pulling at the new wound down my ribs. I allowed myself a minute to recover with my hands on my knees. Truth was, I wanted to collapse to the ground, but I’d just traded the danger of the sea for the danger of infection so remained on my feet.
The sky was mouldy now, sea still black, the land beginning to take on some colour as night finally surrendered. I stumbled up the track, climbed the steps to Camp Vollum, punched in the code for the door, staggered inside.
My torn and bloody clothes went straight in the bin, and I allowed myself a few minutes under the hot shower, swilling blood from various wounds. I was on a tightrope; the need for haste balanced by the acute desire to not contract an anthrax infection. Time was ticking away, every second here another notch on that timer plug, but what if I got back there with time to spare and anthrax burning through my veins? Would it have been worth it? Yes, I reminded myself, it would be if I stopped that sample of anthrax from getting out and managed to avenge Ingrid in the process. I picked up the pace, using a sponge to dab at my wounds with undiluted b
leach, thankful no one was around to hear my agony.
When I’d finished, I inspected myself in the mirror. Up top wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, a few scrapes and grazes, some itching burns, bleach on raw dermis. There were a couple of nasty golf balls growing on the back of my head, an evil bruise forming across my jaw where the gas mask had almost yanked my head off slamming into the sea, but all in all it was better than the alternative – my head was still attached, at least.
My body was another matter, tendrils of blood still ran down my legs. I was sliced right down my ribs, thin skin darkened and contracted like elongated lips, exposing pale flesh and even yellow fat beneath, definitely a case for a shitload of stitches. Even for a clean cut I was surprised it wasn’t bleeding more, guessed mild hypothermia had dialled back my circulation. I gritted my teeth and rubbed bleach into it, stuck a few strips of gaffer tape down and wrapped some round my torso to hold it together, start it knitting, at least until the ship could patch me up.
I almost bit clean through a rolled-up magazine as I levered my broken finger against the wall to straighten it, wrapping tape around a few times, splinting it to the finger next to it. The room dimmed, bile rose in my throat, blood rushed like static in my ears. I gripped the edge of the sink as my legs lost their rigidity, held on until the nausea subsided. Waiting for my heart to slow, satisfied with the makeshift first aid, and that I wasn’t going to pass out, I made my way deeper into the base.
It seemed wrong to step over Ingrid’s corpse, I was glad I’d covered her with a coat earlier. On that visit I’d seen a pile of discarded clothes in the common room. A quick rummage later and I was wearing a baggy pair of cargo trousers and a Pacific Tech University sweater, which could have been Dash’s but the size made it more likely Hurley’s. No shoes, and my boots were at the bottom of the bay, so I threw some socks on and taped a couple of T-shirts over my feet. I grabbed someone’s shemagh, the type of military scarf you’d see on Brit forces or reporters in the Middle East, and left the room.
Anthrax Island Page 23