by Dayle, Harry
“They’re…they’re gone. The prisoners are gone.”
Max sat upright, slowly. He liberated his finger and wiped it on his trouser leg. “What do you mean, gone? Explain yourself!”
“The door…opened. When the power went. They got out.”
Max was on his feet, bellowing at the radio. “Why didn’t you stop them? No, never mind that. Where the fuck are they now?”
“I…I don’t know. I was knocked out. I don’t know where they went.”
Max swore repeatedly. He punched in a new code then spoke loudly and clearly into the radio. “All units, be on the lookout for escaped prisoners. Seventeen men, probably Korean, wearing military uniforms. They could be anywhere on the ship. Do not approach them, they’re dangerous. Call in immediately. Confirm you have received and understood this message.” He proceeded to call a rota of his entire team, addressing each name in turn and waiting for the officer to report back. All did, except one.
“Garet? Report! Where are you, damn it?” Max stared at his radio, as if Grace would feel his eyes on her and come out of hiding. But the little speaker remained resolutely silent.
• • •
Lucya felt the strength leave her body. It was as if someone had opened a valve and let her very essence flow out. Her legs went numb and weak, and she fought to remain standing. Her lungs emptied. She forgot to breathe in, making her head spin even more.
The scene before her was almost impossible to comprehend. She had already been grappling with the fact that someone, somewhere, had apparently fired a torpedo at them. And now…now someone was holding a gun to her adopted daughter’s neck.
It was Erica who brought Lucya back to her senses. She flinched. Whimpered. A tiny sound, barely audible through the door. Lucya snapped out of her stupor. As she breathed again, her eyes opened wide. Rage flooded in, filling the vacuum created by the shock. Instinct drove her, and she flew at the door, hammering and kicking it with all her strength, a wild beast desperate to save her child. With every blow, she screamed. Her thick dark hair flew about her scarlet face.
The door resisted.
Another movement brought her ferocious attack on the barricaded entrance to an abrupt halt. The uniformed man with the gun pressed into Erica’s neck was shaking his head slowly. When he saw that he had her attention, he pushed the barrel harder into the girl’s tender flesh, making her cry out in pain. Lucya wanted to fly at the door again, but a sharper shake of the soldier’s head made it clear that the consequences would not be good. It took all of her self-control to prevent herself from moving.
“Let her go!”
They were the first coherent words she had spoken since the lights had come on.
The man shook his head again.
“You understand me. Let her go, and I’ll let you live.”
The man’s lips turned up in the slightest hint of a smile. His head turned twice more.
“What is it you want? You want something, right?” Lucya fought to control her breathing, and her temper. She focussed on Erica. She had to stay calm, for her sake. “Tell me!” She took another deep breath, then repeated, less aggressively, “Tell me.”
The man spoke. Just one word. His accent was strong, but Lucya understood at once.
“Captain.”
• • •
Entering cabin 845 wearing a paper mask, Jake was reminded of the terrible virus that had claimed the lives of many on the ship, and had almost taken his own. It had started right there, in that very cabin. The room had subsequently become the centre of operations for the medical team as they fought the malady, their own rooms quickly having been overwhelmed. Now 845 had been pressed into service once more, filled with the twelve remaining members of the Lance’s crew.
The room was the same, but some of the nurses were new to Jake. The Arcadia’s original complement had been victims of the virus. Grau Lister, ship’s doctor, was in attendance, but he was so weakened by the effects of the virus that he was there purely in an advisory role. The new nurses had been drafted in during the outbreak, and had stayed on since, but Jake hadn’t met all of them yet. Carrie had looked after him and Lucya during their recovery, and now she was attending to Captain Coote in the original medical suite.
An enthusiastic young nurse called Kevin welcomed Jake, and directed him to the captain of the Lance.
“He’s very weak,” Kevin explained. “You won’t be able to talk to him for long. The drip is to get fluids into him. They were all badly dehydrated. They’re also on tranquillisers for the pain.”
“Will they be okay? In the long run?”
“Oh yes, I’m sure they will. None of them have any life-threatening injuries. Doctor Vardy is running blood tests, just to be sure, hence these.” He pointed a finger at his own face mask. “We should have the results back soon.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Doctor Vardy is looking after our helmsman. He may be some time.”
Kevin nodded. They arrived at a bed at the far end of the room. Jake recognised the man lying in it. He had been the weakest of those to come out of the Lance. It was the man who had thanked them. “This is Captain Ove Kolstad,” Kevin said. “Ove, this is Captain Jake Noah. He would like to talk with you. Do you think that would be alright?”
The gaunt man gave the slightest of nods.
“Okay. Keep it brief please, captains. I’ll be over there if you need me.”
Kevin got out of the way, giving the two men some privacy.
“Hello, Ove.” Jake spoke softly. He found a chair and pulled it up to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling? Are they looking after you well?”
He nodded. “Wife,” he croaked. “Have you…seen my…wife?” The words were barely a whisper. Each one had to fight its way out, battling against exhaustion and the effects of the drugs.
“I haven’t spoken with any of the others. There hasn’t been time,” Jake said. “But I’m sure she’s being well looked after. Ove, I need to talk about what happened to you. About how you ended up prisoner on your own ship. I wanted to give you more time, but time is now against us.”
“Explosion?”
Jake nodded. “Yes. Someone attacked us. Or our escort submarine. Do you know who that might be? You’re the only other survivors we’ve seen since the asteroid. We’re at a loss to understand what’s going on.”
“Submarine.” The word was spoken with more conviction.
“Yes, we have a submarine escort. From the Royal Navy. It’s a long story.”
Ove shook his head. As he did so, he winced. “No. Submarine… Attacked by…submarine.”
“You were attacked by a submarine?” Jake sat up straighter in his chair.
“Yes! Koreans. Came from nowhere. Boarded us.” He was speaking more clearly; the words came more easily now. “Had guns. Put crew…below.”
“Where was this? How did you survive the asteroid?”
“North Pole. Expedition. Asteroid went high…into sky.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, we were there too. That’s how we survived. We can’t have been far apart. We searched for radio signals, but never saw or heard you.”
The bedridden captain shook his head again, screwing up his eyes. “Radios gone. Radar gone. No communication.”
“I understand.”
“Returned to Longyearbyen. Never made it. Submarine found us. Attacked.” Ove stopped, and drew several short, sharp breaths as he recalled the events. “Killed some of…my crew. Decapitated. Thrown into sea.” A tear formed in the corner of his left eye. “My friend…Karl…tried escape. Took raft. Maybe he still…out there?”
Jake closed his eyes and thought of the rafts they had recovered. The headless man they had found in the fishing net. He knew nobody who had left the Lance could have survived.
“Maybe.”
“Koreans…force me to sail…Faslane.”
Jake’s eyes widened. “The military base? We were there! We went to Longyearbyen too. How did we miss you?”
; “No… Never got to Longyearbyen. Forced to Faslane instead. Submarine followed. Koreans use us…try to make base open for us.”
Jake processed the information, nodding to himself. “They used you as bait. With the submarine hidden, they hoped Faslane would open up to the Lance. But there’s nobody there. We went inside. They were all… There’s nobody there. Ove, we found a raft in the loch, at Faslane. There was a body. Was it…was it one of your crew? Another escapee?”
“No. Not escaped. Base not open. Koreans sent landing party…some of their men, one of mine. All killed but one. Koreans think it was survivor who killed others, but not true… It was ash. Poisonous. They cut off head of survivor. Put him in raft as warning.”
“Traitor scum,” Jake whispered under his breath. “They killed one of their own as a warning to others.”
Ove nodded. “After, they put me below. Keep my wife…as prisoner, above. She help them…navigate.”
“Your wife is a navigator?”
He nodded again.
Jake felt his stomach knot, and experienced a rush of empathy for the captain. “Do you know what they want, these North Koreans? At Faslane? With you? With us?”
“With us…a way in…to the base. With you? No.” Ove coughed, and winced with pain again.
Jake wanted to ask more questions, but Kevin was back again. “That’s enough for now, Captain Noah. Ove needs rest. Maybe you can come back later?”
Jake nodded. “Thank you for your time, Ove.” He stood, and looked around at the other surviving members of the Lance’s crew. Most were sleeping, or were too drugged to be able to offer any more information. He left the suite, his head filled with questions.
He was barely out of the door when he spotted a woman in a security uniform running towards him. She was red faced and out of breath. “Captain, there you are!”
“What’s the matter?” He felt a nervous rush when he saw the look on the officer’s face.
“You need to come downstairs,” she said, panting. “You have to come to the classroom. Right now.”
Twenty-Three
THE NARROW CORRIDOR that led to the conference suite had never been so packed. As Jake approached the barricaded classroom, he passed almost the entire security team. They were keeping the whole area sealed off, not letting anyone in or out. Those nearest the classroom were armed. They had taken up strategic positions, their weapons trained on the innocuous doorway.
“Jake!” Lucya flung her arms around him. Her puffy eyes looked into his. They didn’t need words; each knew how the other must be feeling. In the short time they had been caring for Erica, she had truly become like family to them.
Someone cleared their throat, and Jake turned to see Max. “What are they demanding, Max? What is it they want?”
“For now, they want to speak to you. Miss Levin called me and I’ve tried negotiating the release of some of the children while my officer was looking for you, but they refuse to speak to anyone but the captain.”
Jake let go of Lucya, drew himself up to his full height, and took a deep breath. He walked to the bland door and stared through the window.
Erica was still in the arms of the same man, the gun still at her neck. She appeared remarkably calm. That was more than could be said for the other children. Rounded up on the floor like sheep, surrounded by the other men, they were whimpering and sobbing.
“I’m Captain Jake Noah. Identify yourself please.” He spoke loudly and clearly, but did not shout.
The man on the other side of the door sneered. “You young. You not captain!”
Jake turned slightly to his side, showing the epaulettes on his shoulders. “I have been the captain for almost two months, since Captain Ibsen and Staff Captain Hollen were both killed following the asteroid. I don’t know any way I can prove that to you, so you’re either going to have to believe me, or we’re all going to stand around here for a very long time.” He kept his voice steady, but inside, beneath the thin veneer of control and confidence, he was ready to crumble into a million pieces. His eyes never left the man who appeared to be in charge. As long as he didn’t look at the children, he could just about hold it together.
The Korean man didn’t speak for a minute. A minute that felt like an hour. From the corner of his eye, Jake could see Max getting twitchy. He, too, was armed. Jake was as worried that his head of security would leap into some misguided heroic action as he was worried about the men on the wrong side of the door.
Finally, the Korean made up his mind. “I speak you. We want ship. Lance.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded slowly. He could see Max nodding too, encouraging him. “If you come out and leave the children there, then yes, of course, you can go back onto the Lance. We only wanted to help the crew, the prisoners—”
“No. The children come.”
Silence.
Nobody dared breathe. Nobody dared move.
“Why…” He couldn’t keep his voice from shaking now. “Why do you want the children? I can’t let you take our children.”
“We take children to Lance. We go. When safe, release children, in raft. Children are security. You try kill me? You try anything? We kill children. Okay?”
Jake swallowed hard. “I understand you need assurances. Of course you do. I have another idea. You leave the children here and you take me with you instead. When you have the Lance a safe distance away, you let me go. How does that sound?”
Max was shaking his head rapidly. Lucya was making a strange whining noise behind him.
“No, Captain. No deal. Children come. No choice. We go to Lance, or we kill. One at a time.” He pulled Erica up towards him until she was standing on tiptoes. Her eyes glinted in the light, filled with water. The gun pressed hard into her neck, making her cough and choke.
“Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt anyone. I’ll get you to your ship, but I need some time—”
“We go now!”
“No! That’s not possible. The Lance has gone. There was a torpedo, the explosion. You heard it too. She broke free. We have to get her back, but the torpedo damaged our propeller as well. We have to use a life raft to get someone to the Lance, to bring her back here. You understand? You can have the Lance, but we have to get her back first.”
The man looked unsure of himself, and for the first time since Jake’s arrival on the scene, he tore his eyes away from the door and looked at his men. They snapped a few words back and forth. Jake didn’t understand what they said, but he could imagine. They suspected he was lying, playing them for time. On the other hand, they had felt the explosion. It was what had let them escape. His story was plausible. He didn’t dare look away. To do so would be to betray his own lack of confidence.
The leader looked back at last. “One hour, Captain. In one hour, we go to Lance, or we kill child.”
• • •
At first Lucya refused to leave the classroom. She insisted on watching Erica to make sure that her captors remained true to their word and did not harm her. But Jake persuaded her to join himself and Max in a nearby evacuated classroom to discuss strategy.
Before the door was even closed, Max was making his view clear. “We’ve got an hour.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-seven minutes. That’s enough time to set up an ambush. We use my men, and some of the submariners who escorted the captives off the Lance are still aboard. They didn’t get back onto the sub before the torpedo. They can help too; they’re armed.”
Lucya shook her head as if trying to shake off a fly. “What? Ambush? What are you talking about?”
“Simple. We tell them we’re escorting them to the Lance, we lead them through a carefully chosen route and then…boom! Kill the fuckers. Silo them into a suitable location. A narrow passage with only one way in and out. We’ll be waiting for them. Then, we execute them.”
“Are you completely insane?” Lucya stood and leaned over the table. “I mean, have you totally lost your mind?
Max looked taken aback. He turned to Jake, choosing to
ignore the chief radio officer’s protestations.
“Of course, we’ll have to accept the possibility of civilian casualties, but the risk is far less than letting them take the children onto the Lance. Let’s face it, if that happens we’ll never see them again. At best, we’ll find them floating headless in a life raft.”
Lucya swore. Jake held up a hand. “No. We’re not ambushing them. Casualties are not acceptable. At the first sign of trouble, they’ll harm the kids. I’m not losing a single child. I’m not losing anyone. There has to be another way.”
Max threw his hands in the air. “They hold all the cards here, Jake. We’re not in a position to negotiate. You got a better suggestion? Let’s hear it!”
“I don’t have a better suggestion. We are not risking the lives of those kids though. They’ve already killed Liz Linders. I don’t doubt they’ll carry out their threat if they think we’re trying anything.”
Max let out a long sigh. “Okay, what about this? We hide a small security team on board the Lance. We let the Koreans on, with the kids, then when the kids are safe, the team takes out the bad guys and brings back the boat and the sprogs. That safe enough for you?”
“No! No, Max, it’s not. Do you not think they’ll be expecting a move like that? Those children are in danger until the bad guys are sure they’ve got away.”
“Right. And then, once they are sure, you think they’ll go to the trouble of sending them back? Come off it. They’ll be fish food. Even you must see that.”
Lucya stepped away from the table and began pacing the room. Jake buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t see a way out.
Max wasn’t giving up. “Alright. How about we cut the power and storm the classroom?”
Jake lifted his head. “Really? You’re really suggesting that? You don’t think the first thing he’ll do is kill Erica? Then start firing indiscriminately?”
“Listen, Jake. The sooner you accept that one way or another some of those kids are going to die, the sooner we can get ready with a plan. Face facts: we can’t save them all. We just can’t. I know you have a soft spot for the girl now she lives in your cabin. If you want her safe, the best bet is an ambush in the corridor.”