Round the corner, down the stairs, I held on to the handrail again as we rocked violently over to starboard. As the ship righted itself there was a shudder and then the juddering clatter of an engine starting back up. The diesel settled back into a rhythm, vibrating throughout the stairwell, a feeling I realised I’d grown accustomed to.
I reached the foot of the stairs, Miller was holding the door to the engine room open, back to me, shouting at Vincent, who was kneeling by the starboard engine surrounded by parts. Vincent shouted back at Miller, then jumped to his feet as he saw me.
‘What’s happening?’ I shouted above the racket.
Miller turned. ‘He’s just started up engine number one, we’re under way again now,’ he pressed the intercom on the wall to speak to Poubelle on the bridge. ‘Port engine is back online, keep the power down for a while.’
The radio crackled and fizzed, there was no response. Miller slammed his hand against the intercom.
‘Why did he stop the engines?’ I shouted.
He pointed over at engine one. ‘Timing issue, nothing major, Vincent took her offline a short while ago to check it over.’
‘Isn’t that bad news? Katanga told me we have to keep moving to stay head into the waves.’
‘No problem. We’ve been running on just the starboard engine for half an hour,’ Miller said.
‘Until it started overheating,’ Vincent shouted. He climbed the ladder and wiped his hands down his overalls. ‘I think I caught it, we’ll see.’
‘Any ideas?’ asked Miller.
He shook his head. ‘She’s been running hot for a while but the temperature shot up suddenly, hopefully the gaskets haven’t gone.’
‘It’s the thermostat,’ I said.
Vincent sneered. ‘It could be a hundred things but yes, I’ll check the thermostat.’ He muttered in French, questioning how long I’d been an engineer.
I turned to Miller. ‘Remember when we were leaving port? Seb said the starboard engine was taking a while to come up to temperature.’
‘Yeah, but that means it was running cold.’
Vincent caught on and jumped back down into the engine bay, already grabbing a wrench.
I turned to Miller. ‘If the thermostat was stuck halfway it’d let too much coolant through and warm up slowly. Then when it was hot, it wouldn’t open fully to let enough coolant through and it’d start to overheat. Pushing it hard when you took the other engine down was the final straw.’
Miller nodded and leaned over the railings to shout at Vincent. ‘How long to fix it?’
He shrugged. ‘If it is the thermostat, then half an hour? I need to drain the system and refill but shouldn’t be a big problem.’
Miller pressed the intercom again. ‘Poubelle, keep the revs down for now, until we’ve got engine two back up.’
Static burst from the speaker, the lights flickered.
‘Damn electrics!’ shouted Miller, opening the door to leave. ‘Quicker to walk! Vincent, I want to know the instant you know what’s up.’
‘Guys!’ a shout echoed down the stairwell from above. ‘Anyone?’
It was Fields, I’d presumed he’d been in his cabin with Katanga throughout but evidently not. I pushed past Miller and ran upstairs, could hear him thudding behind me. At the top the red lamps flickered and went out but the afternoon light was enough to navigate the gloomy passageway. The door to the radio room was open, I could hear voices inside.
Nic was sat on the floor, one hand to his head. Fields knelt beside him and pressed a cloth against his head. He took it away to look, it came away red.
‘What happened?’
‘I found him unconscious,’ said Fields.
Nic pointed at the radio. ‘Someone hit me from behind.’
‘How bad is it?’ I asked, stooping to grab his arm.
‘It’s fine,’ said Nic, pushing me away and grabbing the desk to stand.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Miller, arriving in the doorway.
‘Someone’s been talking to the boat again,’ I said. I looked at Fields. ‘Where were you? How did you find him?’
He pointed at the door. ‘I was in the saloon rustling up some scran, only came out to go to the head. Saw him on the floor. Whoever it was must have split way before I came along, cos I didn’t see or hear anything.’
Miller pushed me out of the way and grabbed Nic’s head, pulling it down so he could get a look. ‘Get Doc to glue that, it’s nasty.’ He turned to look at us. ‘It’s Seb, isn’t it? He’s running around the ship.’
I nodded, didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t possibly tell him it wasn’t, but it did confirm that someone else on the ship still wanted to slow us down.
‘Where are we now?’
‘About fifty miles off the Pointe Saint-Mathieu.’ He looked at my blank face and added, ‘Brittany. Ya know, the bit of France that sticks out?’
‘All right, piss off. So how long to go?’
‘If this weather holds, maybe seven hours, but that’s if we get that second engine working.’
‘And what if the weather improves, can we speed up?’
He laughed. ‘Look outside, we’re in the North Atlantic. This is as good as it gets this time of year.’
‘So we’re looking at hitting Poole sometime after midnight?’
He shook his head. ‘If Vincent gets that second engine going we’ll make up some time, should get in long before that.’
I looked out of the window at the endless rolling grey, then back at the radio someone on this ship was using to communicate with our pursuers. ‘We’re not going to make it in time.’
‘Bingo.’
‘When will they overtake?’
‘It’s not an exact science, Tyler. A few hours.’
Fields looked worried.
‘Nic, I’ll send Doc in. Keep on the radio, see if you can pick anything up.’
He nodded, turned his chair to face the door, and sat down. He put the headphones on, wincing as they rubbed his head.
‘I hope you made all your phone calls,’ said Miller to Fields, ‘because you might not be talking to anyone for a while.’
‘The satphone’s back in my cabin.’ He looked at me. ‘Can we call in reinforcements? Gotta be close enough for some air support or…’
‘We’re on our own,’ I said.
‘But the dead guy,’ said Miller, ‘they still want him, right?’
I gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t think the Brits are gonna care about us any more.’
‘But they don’t know he’s dead.’
‘Look, it doesn’t make a difference: there’s no cavalry. It’s just the nine of us on board, and I don’t think we can count on Seb’s help.’
‘Eight of us against how many of them?’ asked Fields.
Chapter Forty-two
Château des Aigles
Two days ago
The rope creaked. It was tied off to the sofa leg, holding a carabiner. The carabiner was clipped into one of our climbing descenders, which in turn had its teeth locked on to a second rope stretching up over a beam in the double-height lounge, and back down. Hanging from it by his feet was Ringo, still unconscious.
I stood in kitchen doorway listening to the creaking rope. The lights were off, the house was in darkness but the snow had stopped, the clouds had rolled on, and the Moon had put in an appearance. It shone through the small window in the front door and the patio doors along from it, the balustrade outside casting stripes across the wooden floorboards.
Through the windows I could see the neighbouring chalet’s lights blazing in the upstairs rooms, though its curtains were drawn. At the opposite side of the room, the enormous sliding doors looked out over the rear decking and lights flickering in the valley below. I picked up my mug of tea and carried it into the lounge.
Bob had woken up while the kettle was boiling and started to scream the place down. I’d shut him up with a combination of my fist and another dose of thiopental and ketamine
. This meant Ringo would be waking up soon.
I sat on the sofa, careful to stay out of the moonlight, and took a sip of tea, looking back over my shoulder at the village below. I put the mug down and picked up my smartphone. A quick glance at the fitness tracker app told me Bob’s heartbeat was stable, blood pressure low. He was safely tied up, still swaddled in his ski gear, tucked away in the boot of my Audi in the garage under the house.
Ringo groaned, I looked up. He was staring at me, in the silver moonlight his face was dark from hanging upside down for over an hour. The blood flowing up had helped turn the bruises across his face from his broken nose into black patches like a highwayman.
I took another mouthful of tea.
‘Tyler,’ he said thickly through his bent nose. ‘It’s not what…’
I held up a hand for him to shut up, bending to put my mug on the floor. ‘You figured you’d make more on your own, that it?’
He shook his head, reaching upwards, nails scrabbling at the rope tight around his ankles. ‘Where is he?’
‘Waiting in the car.’ I stood, stretched, and looked out the front patio doors again, up the mountain. The chalet across the road was the only light. ‘What were you going to do, ransom him back to his own people? Tell him you’d freed him, collect a fee?’
He stopped scrabbling and dropped back, exhausted. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never done it.’
I smiled and nodded. ‘Opportunism. Capitalism even, you’re right. You double-crossed me, but that’s the business we’re in. Shooting at me? That’s taking it a bit far.’ I opened the patio doors at the front just a crack, snow blew in off the balcony, melting as soon as it hit the warm floor.
‘It was a warning shot, to buy time!’
I pointed to the gash on my cheek.
‘What do you want? Take my share.’ He focused a little too long on my shaking hand, I turned away. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he continued. ‘Cut me loose. You’re the only one, take him in alone, you’ll get all of it.’
I slammed my hand on the window, the glass shook. ‘I’m the only one left because you killed her!’
‘The cyclops? I warned her!’
‘Her name was Katrin,’ I shouted, fists tight. I breathed in, held it, sat back on the sofa. I relaxed my hands and stared into his swollen eyes. ‘Say it.’
‘I don’t care what her name was, she was a fucking criminal, good riddance.’
‘Say her name.’
‘Look, it was an accident, I didn’t want to do it. What time is it?’
‘Put your arms down.’
‘Katrin, you happy?’
‘Put your arms above your head, like you’re diving.’
He frowned and did what I asked. I reached down and squeezed the descender, the rope hissed through the cam, he dropped like a stone, bouncing off the wooden floorboards with a sickening thump. There was a moment of silence before an anguished cry, like an animal. I pulled the rope, hoisting him up. Blood ran from his nose again, black in the moonlight, up into his screwed-up eyes.
He steadied his breathing and looked at me through tears and blood. ‘You could have killed me.’
‘You killed Katrin in cold blood.’
‘Don’t tell me you care…’ He saw the look on my face. ‘I’m sorry, I swear, I told her to get out of the car, she pulled a gun…’
I felt a tear just nudge the corner of my eye. ‘It’s not what I wanna talk about.’
‘What, then?’ He reached up and tried to pull at the ropes but he’d no strength left. He dropped, chest heaving. ‘What time is it?’ he asked again, more urgently this time.
‘You know what happens if you’re left upside down?’
‘We need to get out!’
‘There was a caver a few years back, fell and got trapped upside down. Twenty-eight hours before he died. Your body isn’t designed for it you see, your heavy organs fall onto your lungs. Over time you’ll suffocate. It’s nasty.’
‘Come on, Tyler!’
‘That’s if the blood pooling in your head doesn’t cause a haemorrhage or stroke. Or maybe the increased pressure on your heart will make it give out.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Answers.’ I picked up my mug and stood. ‘Didn’t David Blaine do sixty hours? But he’s in better shape than you. With those injuries, and your system full of ket, you shouldn’t be hanging like that.’ I took a mouthful of tea.
‘So what, you’re just gonna bounce me off the floor all night?’
I shook my head. ‘As cathartic as that might be I realised I don’t need to. Why do you keep saying we need to leave?’
He stared, chest heaving as he tried to fill his lungs. He was starting to panic, his hands worked at the rope with renewed enthusiasm, but it wouldn’t help.
‘You told them about this safehouse, didn’t you? Get those Nazis to take me out, tie up your loose ends for you. Out of the way so you’re in the clear.’
He dropped back down, swinging around the hallway. ‘Just business, Tyler.’
‘Do you know the kind of people you chose to do business with? They’re animals, they can’t be reasoned with.’
His eyes were darting between me and the big window behind me.
‘Well, you can give it a go when they get here.’
His eyes went wide. ‘We need to get out.’
‘You read the intel, you know what they’re like. Did you know the French got to someone inside their organisation last year? Turned them. Unfortunately they found out. It was the big guy that did it, Branko – the one we call Bono. Sadistic bastard, took his dick off with a belt sander and left him outside a Starbucks. It took him a while to die. Must have been painful.’
I could see Ringo was worried. He knew the sort of people these were – they were not to be fucked with.
‘You know, Branko got stopped for speeding once, in Germany. The copper was dumped outside a police station three days later. They’d used the sander on him, too. Something about him not being proud enough of his white skin. He lived for a week without a face.’
‘I’ve told you everything you wanted to know.’
‘I’ve not asked my question yet.’
‘Ask it!’
‘I was going to do this the easy way, on the ship. But you fucked that right up, didn’t you? So now we do it the hard way.’
‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘I should clarify, I mean hard for you. Not me. You wonder why you were picked for this job?’
‘Because I could ski.’
‘That’s what I told you. It’s not the real reason, though.’
‘I’d never met any of you before this job!’ he hissed. ‘We don’t even know each other’s names.’
‘Let me take you back, just over a decade. To Zurmat.’
‘What’s in Zurmat?’
‘District in eastern Afghanistan, not too far from the Pakistani border.’
‘Yeah, I know it, we’ve all worked in Afghanistan.’
‘You worked for Cresswell at the time?’
‘You know I did.’
‘There was another team operating in the area.’
‘Every man and his dog was within a fifty-mile radius.’
‘Their vehicle was taken out by an IED on a route they were specifically told to take. Word is the IED was planted by a rival team. A team working for Cresswell.’
Ringo had somehow managed to blanch despite hanging upside down.
‘A few weeks ago I finally managed to catch a break. I was in Scotland. Fella called Mason, a spook, he gave me the name of the person responsible for that bomb.’ I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and held it out. ‘It’s your name, David.’
Chapter Forty-three
Tiburon
They were all worried about Seb stalking the ship, picking people off; I knew better but couldn’t explain as we split into three groups. I left Fields on guard in the radio room, with Nic scanning every frequency while Doc bandaged
his head. Katanga and Poubelle stood guard in the engine room while Vincent laboured with the coolant system on the starboard engine.
Miller and I held the bridge, him at the wheel while I pored over his charts and land maps, my HK pistol never far from my hand.
‘How far are we from Cornwall?’ I asked.
He turned to look over his shoulder. ‘Couple hours or so?’
‘Let’s run there instead.’
‘Could still be a close thing.’
‘A close thing’s better than a sure thing.’
He checked the autopilot and eyed the waves, then left the wheel to stand looking over my shoulder. ‘We’d need wicked deep water.’ He flicked over the charts. ‘Falmouth?’
‘Deepest port in Europe but crawling with coastguard. Besides, it’s a decent-sized town, lots of police.’
‘Well that’s the problem, ain’t it? Anywhere big enough for us is gonna be a sizeable port, sizeable ports tend to have cops.’
I traced the rocky coastline and beaches of south-west Cornwall. ‘The other problem is I need a quick exit once we hit land, and Cornwall’s all country lanes. Won’t last too long if we come in hot and get bottled up behind a tractor.’
‘Wait a minute – you’re expecting me to put you off in the car? That’s a serious operation, I mean waiting for a berth then getting the car unloaded – you’re talking hours. Better we sit offshore, you take a dinghy in.’
I looked up, giving him a face that invited no arguments. ‘We’re taking the car.’
‘Docking and unloading the car means coastguard, customs and cops, man. Probably a search.’ He shrugged. ‘Your choice.’
‘We need to find a way.’
He glanced at the waves again, satisfied nothing too ugly was incoming, then sighed and looked back down at the charts. ‘You want my opinion?’
‘Go on.’
‘We need an estuary. We’re coming in at high tide. We time it right, with the wind behind us and Lady Luck on our shoulder, I might be able to land you somewhere further inland.’ He leaned in close to the map. ‘A sheltered tidal river would mean no waves to contend with, I might be able to put your car down. Might.’
‘I like it.’
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