Infestation

by William Meikle

  Mac had voiced what Banks hadn’t wanted to look at too closely, but he was right in his assessment. The chopper wouldn’t risk it in this weather.

  We’re on our own until this storm blows itself out or the boat sinks. Either way, it’s up to us to survive it.

  Svetlanova had got the wound cleaned as much as she could and quickly finished bandaging up Mac’s wrist with clean dressings. She lifted his chin to look in his eyes and in the process exposed his neck to view. Banks saw it but said nothing and turned away so Mac couldn’t see his gaze; the big veins stood out proud, pulsing, not red but green.

  He said a silent prayer to the weather gods.

  Give us a break here. Mac needs help and I can’t watch another man go like Nolan.

  Mac looked up at him.

  “Want a smoke, Cap? For auld time’s sake?”

  Banks laughed bitterly.

  “Aye, that’s all we need, another addict on the squad. You have one for me. I’ll stick with the whisky and have two with you back in the mess when we get home.”

  Mac didn’t reply.

  He knows a lie when he hears one.

  Mac and Svetlanova smoked in silence for a time and McCally returned not long after Mac finished his cigarette. The door opened, letting in a wash of sleet and a howl of wind, then he stepped in and shut it behind him quickly.

  “How’s it going?” Banks asked as McCally shook off icy sleet from his jacket and legs.

  “The clamps are undone and two of the four cables holding the rig,” he said. He had more ice at chin and nose, his eyebrows looked frozen to his forehead, and he was soaked through. He looked about as miserable as anyone Banks had ever seen.

  And now it’s my turn.

  “Get out of the jacket at least,” he said as he made for the door. “Wear Mac’s the next time out. It’ll help.”

  He saw the look on McCally’s face; it wouldn’t be helping much.

  He pulled his jacket as tight around him as he could manage, pulled his hood around his face until he only had a small viewing area ahead of him, left his weapon on the floor at Mac’s side, and headed out into the storm.

  *

  Wind and sleet hit him face on almost immediately. He turned sideward into it, got his bearings on where the drilling rig would be some ten yards to his right and, bent almost double, headed toward it.

  After two steps that felt like twenty, fighting the gale for every inch, he saw the blue flare of the cutting torch and was able to follow the light to where he found Hynd, hunched over one of the drilling rig cables.

  “Last one, Cap,” Hynd shouted, his voice almost completely lost in the wind. The cable parted and, not bothering to switch the torch off, Hynd and Banks dragged the iron frame and the cylinders across the deck towards the first of the anchor chains.

  The weight and heft of the frame was enough to give them some stability but as soon as they got to the first anchor cable, the wind threatened to tug them, tools, canisters and men, off to one side and it was a constant fight against it. They used the canisters themselves as a makeshift windbreak, with Banks keeping them upright with his back against the frame while Hynd worked. He turned the flame yellow and started the long process of warming the anchor chain enough so it might be able to be cut. The wind lashed at them, sleet hammered against their hoods and backs and legs and Hynd struggled to keep the flame on the same piece of chain for more than a few seconds at a time.

  This is going to take a while. And it’s a while we don’t have.

  Banks checked the gauges; they’d used up almost half of their oxygen already and still had the bulk of the cutting to do.

  - 16 -

  Svetlanova listened while Mac talked and McCally tried to get some warmth into his hands and feet. They all smoked Mac’s cigarettes and the Glaswegian was getting maudlin.

  “I want you to go and say goodbye to my auld maw, McCally. She likes you. Hell, she likes you more than she likes me I think. But she’s my maw and she should ken I was thinking of her, at the end.”

  “The end? Don’t talk pish, man,” McCally replied. “You can tell her yourself when we get back.”

  Mac lowered his hood and showed McCally his neck.

  “You all didn’t think I’d noticed, did you. But I can feel it, like ice in my veins. It’s fucking freezing. It’s creeping up towards my ear now. When it gets to my brain, I’m guessing that’s it for me.”

  McCally tried for a laugh.

  “Away and shite, man,” he said. “You’ve managed without any brains for fucking years, you’ll survive a while longer yet.”

  He never got a reply, for the door slammed open and Hynd came back in. He looked even colder and wetter than McCally had earlier, something Svetlanova wouldn’t have thought possible.

  “We’re on the first anchor chain, the one on the starboard side. You’re up, McCally,” he said through lips that almost looked frozen.

  “Do you want my jacket?” Mac said and started to take is parka off, only to reveal a smear of green inside the sleeve, which was damp all the way up to the elbow.

  “You’re okay, big man,” McCally said. “I’ll pass this time. Maybe next go-round, eh?”

  McCally left and Hynd closed the door behind him then staggered, almost fell. Svetlanova didn’t stop to think. She unzipped the man’s jacket, shucked it off him to the floor, and grabbed him into a full embrace, one in which Hynd was wracked with shaking shivers. She didn’t let go until the shaking stopped.

  Mac laughed from where he sat on the floor.

  “Hell, if I knew it was that simple, I’d have stepped outside and get cold and wet myself.”

  Hynd extricated himself from Svetlanova’s embrace and acknowledged her with little more than a nod before crouching to Mac’s side.

  “You got a fag, Mac? I’m gasping.”

  “You gave up five years ago.”

  “I figured now’s as good a time as any to fall off the wagon. I won’t tell my missus if you don’t.”

  Mac lit cigarettes for all three of them.

  “How’s it going outside, Sarge?”

  Hynd took a deep drag of his smoke before replying; hardly any came back out. If Svetlanova had tried it, she knew she’d be coughing for a week.

  “We’ve got the drilling rig uncoupled but we’re still sitting in the same place, tight up against it. The buggering anchor chains are a bastard to cut through. We’re about halfway through the first of the two.”

  Svetlanova spoke first.

  “The drilling rig is free standing in this storm? I thought for sure it would blow over if the cables were removed.”

  “Aye, we did too, lass,” Hynd replied, taking another prodigious draw of smoke into his lungs. “But it’s still there.”

  “Do we have enough juice to get the job done?” Mac asked.

  Hynd didn’t reply at first, then spoke softly.

  “Maybe aye, maybe no,” he said. “It’ll be close.”

  Mac laughed.

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky and go first.”

  His bandages were soaked green again but he refused to let Svetlanova clean the wound this time.

  “I heard you afore, lass, when you were talking to the cap. You shouldn’t be touching the green shite. Leave it be. Most of it is inside me anyway, so leave it there where it is.” He looked up at Hynd. “Just do me a favor, Sarge? Put me down before it gets too bad? I don’t want to see myself melting into a wee puddle of green puke and pish. Promise me?”

  Hynd took Mac’s good hand.

  “I’ll see you right, lad. Don’t worry about it. But hang on as long as you can. I think the wind’s dropped a wee bit and the sleet has slackened. We might be out of this weather in time for the chopper to get to us yet. Just don’t give up on me.”

  They gripped hands tightly and both had tears in their eyes when Hynd stood.

  “It’s bloody freezing out there,” he said. “And here you are in here, sitting on your arse, smoking fags and getting attende
d to by a beautiful Russian spy. You lucky bastard.”

  “I am not a spy,” Svetlanova said, then realized she was being made fun of.

  “Let a dying man have one last wish,” Mac said. “I always wanted to be James Bond.”

  “You don’t have the tadger for it, man,” Hynd said. “I’ve seen you in the showers.”

  “Hey, it’s bloody cold. If you had any tackle in your trousers, you’d have noticed.”

  Svetlanova was still laughing when the door slammed open again and Banks returned.

  “One chain down, one to go,” he said as he came in and Hynd, barely warmed since his last stint, went back out into the storm.

  - 17 -

  When the Russian woman unzipped his parka, pulled it off, and hugged him hard, Banks didn’t know whether to reciprocate or push her away.

  “It’s okay, Cap,” Mac said from his seated position. “She’s like that with all the lads. Except for me. She only likes me for my fags. How are we doing out there?”

  “Touch and go,” Banks replied. He was starting to get feeling back in his fingers now, a burning sensation like they were being run over a flame. He still had the flare of the cutter behind his eyelids when he closed the door, as if he’d looked too long at the sun, and a pounding headache made all his speech sound as if it came booming down a long dark tunnel. “We got through the first anchor chair and let it drop a few minutes ago. Did bugger all for our position though; the second chain is the one holding us tight in place. We’ve made a start on it but I doubt we’ve got enough juice left in the cylinders to finish the job. It’s touch and go.”

  “Aye? Well, it’s all chocolates and roses in here, as you can see. The sarge says the wind’s dying down?”

  “Aye, there’s that at least. And the sleet’s nearly stopped. Hold on, Mac. The chopper will be here before you know it.”

  “So everybody keeps telling me,” Mac replied.

  The Glaswegian didn’t look well. The green veins pulsed strongly at his neck, his bandaged wrist had soaked through and dripped green goop on the deck and his face was gray, ashen, with a cold sweat pouring from his brow. But he still managed a smile when he looked up to Banks and Svetlanova.

  “You can let go of him now, lass. He’s a married man and his missus gets jealous quick.”

  Banks disengaged himself from the woman and checked his watch.

  “Keep an eye on the corridor, Mac,” he said. “I need to check in one last time.”

  Mac reached for his weapon and couldn’t quite control it, until Svetlanova bent and made sure he had the rifle gripped, one-handed, pointing down the corridor. She crouched beside the seated man and lifted Nolan’s weapon, sighting it on the same spot.

  “Any time you’re ready, Cap,” she said in a perfect imitation of Mac’s accent.

  “We’ll make a Scotswoman out of ye yet, lass,” Mac said. “Would you like to meet ma auld maw? She’d love you.”

  Banks got the phone out of its pocket on the second try; his hands were still numb and tingling and his fingers felt too much like cold sausages but finally he got the number coded in and heard the ringing at the other end.

  As he answered, he saw the Russian woman stiffen and caught a movement in the shadows along the corridor, something low, scuttling, headed their way.

  “Check in,” he said.

  The voice surprised him at the other end by changing protocol.

  “Check in. There will be a short delay in pick up due to adverse weather conditions in your area. Keep the package ready.”

  The line went dead, but he’d been on the call long enough to get the attention of one of the beasts. It came along the corridor fast, almost as wide as the distance the walls were apart, scampering and scratching, like a flattened barrel on legs.

  Banks bent to reach his own weapon but his hands were still too numb and he fumbled, almost dropped the rifle. The beast kept coming but he needn’t have worried. As if synchronized, Svetlanova and Mac fired simultaneously, three rounds each, tight into the thing’s face. It dropped, flat on the floor now, some five yards from them and lay still.

  “Give the lass a job, Cap,” Mac said. “She’s a natural.”

  *

  “The chopper’s definitely incoming,” Banks said once his ears stopped ringing. “It all depends on when this bloody wind dies down.”

  “Should we get the sarge and McCally to stop cutting?”

  “No. I still want away a bit from the rig in case any more of those big buggers come up.”

  “And how about the ones down in the cargo bay?”

  “I’m wondering about that myself,” Banks replied. “After we get on the chopper, we can get them to call in a strike. We could call it now but then we’d be fucked if the weather didn’t improve.”

  “I’m fucked anyway, either way,” Mac said and lit another cigarette for himself and Svetlanova. He went to hand hers over, then took it back and showed her the filter; it was tinged green where it had been at his lips.

  “I ken you were looking forward to it but it looks like a last kiss is out of the question, lass,” he said.

  *

  Banks went back out into the storm twice more; the second time he was with McCally when the oxy cylinder finally spluttered and gave up the ghost. They were only two-thirds of the way through the second anchor chain.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Fuck it. We’ve done all we can,” he shouted to McCally. “It’s the chopper or nothing now.”

  They went back inside to join the others. The sleet had stopped completely now and the wind had definitely moderated.

  But has it moderated enough?

  Come on, guys. Do us a solid here and get us off this fucking boat.

  - 18 -

  Talking was about all Mac had left to him but he had plenty of it. He’d kept up a series of anecdotes and remembrances the whole time the work was continuing out on the deck.

  “I’m like a fucking librarian, me,” he said, tapping at his forehead with his good hand. “I’ve got all the history of the squad up here. Every scrape we’ve got into and out of, who fucked up, who was a hero, all the times we saved each other or got saved. What’s going to happen to all of that?”

  Svetlanova was only half listening. Her gaze kept returning to the dead isopod in the corridor. As a scientist, she wanted to be studying it, learning its secrets. But as a human being, she wanted it gone, out of sight and out of mind, to a dark place where it could rot forever. She’d missed a question and Mac was looking at her, expecting an answer.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m wondering what happens to me, if we get out of here.”

  “I would nae worry, lass. You’re not our first political prisoner. You’re not even our first Russian. There’ll be some questions in London, then retirement, and a wee pension somewhere in the country, if you want it.”

  She laughed.

  “That’s probably better than I’d get if I went back to Moscow.”

  Mac smiled, then coughed and wiped green-flecked spittle from his lips.

  “I’d invite you to Glasgow for a sightseeing tour,” he said. “But I think I’ll be otherwise engaged, being dead and all.”

  She knew better than to attempt an answer. It was hard enough for him to keep his own fear at bay without dealing with hers too. The smell of rot came off him in waves now, an acrid stench that had to be fought down when it tickled at the back of the throat. Green ran in the big veins at his neck, his eyes were as red as hot coals, and now the veins at his cheeks showed green too.

  If her experience with Nolan earlier was anything to go by, Mac didn’t have long left to him. She didn’t want to watch another die; the memories of the first were going to haunt her for the rest of her life. Two might be too much. When Banks and McCally came back in to report the attempt to remove the anchor had proved unsuccessful, she took the opportunity to step up the stairs and out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette on her own.

  *

 
The storm had abated; the wind still came hard and strong from the north but there was no sleet and the dark clouds were already breaking up overhead, with a hint of blue showing in places the more north she looked toward the horizon. The boat listed slightly to starboard and the drilling rig swayed and creaked alarmingly.

  But we’re still afloat. And I’m not dead.

  She cupped the cigarette in the bowl of her palm against the wind and tried to find a calm spot in the myriad of images and impressions flooding her mind. For the first time in days, she allowed hope to rise in her.

  I might survive this.

  Then she thought of the Glaswegian; a man who had shown her nothing but humor and kindness; a dying man.

  He doesn’t deserve to die alone.

  She flicked the butt of the cigarette into the wind and turned to go back inside. That’s when she heard it, far off and almost lost in the wind but distinctive enough it couldn’t be misidentified, the whop-whop of a helicopter. She turned, trying to locate the source and saw it, a black dot in the west, approaching fast.

  *

  Captain Banks reacted swiftly to her news.

  “Sarge, you bring Mac. Up onto the deck, right now. We want this to go by the numbers.”

  In less than a minute, they were all out on the deck, standing at the prow while the chopper came in from the west. It was obvious the pilot was fighting to maintain a straight line in the wind but the black dot got larger quickly. Svetlanova saw its lights, bright in the gloom under the still lowering clouds.

  She stepped forward and took Banks’ arm.

  “Captain.”

  He turned and must have seen the concern in her face.

  “What is it?”

  She couldn’t quite find the words to describe the fear suddenly leaping in her and opted for the simplest explanation she could muster.