Flailing her arms, Flinders kicked out in wild gyrations. “Let me go!”
Jaz straightened her back and yanked off her shirt. Coarse black hairs sprouted from her shrunken breasts and climbed up her sternum to her throat.
She reached out and slapped Flinders hard across the cheek. Blood welled up, trickling from her mouth.
“Oh, we’re going to have a good time,” she said.
Flinders screamed.
FORTY-TWO
IN the darkness of the windlass room one of the research scientists bent behind Skarda’s back, trying to spring the handcuffs with a pair of manicure scissors. Over his shoulder another man aimed a solar-powered laser pointer to give him light. Not powered by batteries, it had escaped the effects of the EMP blast.
The sound of footsteps filtered through the door.
“Put it out!” Skarda whispered.
The man doused the beam, plunging them into absolute darkness.
Then the door burst open, revealing Jaz and Flinders. The blonde woman shoved her inside.
Stumbling into the knot of captives, Flinders kept her eyes lowered to the floor, her body rigid, as if her muscles had turned to stone. Bright red blood still trickled from her mouth. Ugly welts discolored the flesh on her face.
Skarda sprang to her side. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t look at him. “No.” The single word came out hard and flat and cold.
He took a closer step toward her, but she recoiled.
“She enjoyed herself,” Jaz said, beaming. The bass notes in her voice seemed to have deepened. “I’d like to keep her around as my pet, but time…you know how it is.”
Inch by inch Flinders lifted her eyes. Their dark blue was glacier-cold. “I’m going to kill you, bitch.”
Throwing her head back, Jaz brayed out a loud laugh. “Sure you are, cutie.”
Flinders’ face colored red. For a long moment she stared at the blonde woman. Then tears welled up in her eyes and she sank to the floor, head down.
Skarda eyed her coldly. “If she doesn’t do it, I will.”
Again Jaz laughed, then stepped back into the passageway, pushing the door closed. When it was half-ajar she stuck her head back into the room. “And now,” she announced, “I’m going to leave you on your own.” With a flourish, she tossed an LED lamp at the nearest scientist. “Just so you can watch each other die.” The thought caused a shudder of pleasure to quiver through her. “When we blow the bottom, the rest of the ship will be flooded, but this room is sealed off, watertight. So when you get down to a certain pressure…whap!” She clapped her hands together. “It’ll be like someone stepping on a pop can!”
Skarda watched her body shake with something like an orgasm. He eyed her coldly. “There’s some kind of bomb on this ship, isn’t there? You’re going to try to melt the ice.”
Jaz smiled. “Ding! Ding! Ding! You win, handsome! You figured it out!”
___
On the forecastle deck, Jaz watched the pivot boom of a manual crane lower a two-by-six-foot, six-inch-thick titanium case into an open cargo hold, while a man in an immersion suit stood braced against a stanchion, videotaping the installation. Down below, she knew, her men were packing the bulkheads of the bow, the rudder room, and the boiler room amidships with M112 block demolition charges. The explosions would cut through the armor plate of the icebreaker’s hull like a knife, separating it, allowing the ship to sink evenly on the bottom.
Inside the hold, men helped to swing the case in place, securing it with lashing rods. Jaz ordered them to open it. Nestled inside were twenty ten-inch-long bars, arranged in patterns of four by five, that looked like they were made of silver-gray shaggy carpet. Even in the darkness they seemed to emit a reddish glow.
The isomer bars.
The videographer bent over the edge of the open hold, aiming his camera.
“Make sure you get the whole thing,” Jaz yelled. “I want them to be able to count the bars.”
When the videographer had finished, she signaled for the case to be closed. The men swung the lid shut and bolted it in place.
Then, with the wind howling around her, she clambered down the ladder to the Zodiac.
___
April stirred.
Dropping to his knees beside her, Skarda called out her name. In the diffused light of the LED he could see the ugly bruise on her jaw where Jaz had struck her. Again he called out.
Her eyes snapped open and consciousness returned with full force.
In rapid sentences, he filled her in.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s get these cuffs off.”
The scientist with the scissors snipped the tape on her legs. Rolling to her knees, she twisted around while he placed the tool in her manacled hands. Then she scuttled backwards until she could press her back against Skarda’s, her fingers searching out the slick metal surface of his cuffs. Using the scissors as a shim, she worked the point into the locking mechanism.
Thirty seconds later he was free. Grabbing the scissors, he freed her hands.
April climbed to her feet, addressing the captives. “When the charges go off, we’ll have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, until the top deck goes under, and after that, we’re done for.” She looked into the crowd of fear-stricken faces. “So we’re going to need a way out of here, fast.” She indicated the bulkhead hatch. “Is there any way to get through this door?”
The petty officer had regained consciouness. Now he struggled to his feet, his face a mass of bruised tissue. He winced. “There’s a latch system to keep these hatches watertight. Once the hatches are dogged, nobody’s getting in…or out.”
“Okay,” she said. “Any ideas?”
Her only answer was the labored rasp of terrified breathing in the darkness.
___
Driven snow stung Jaz’s exposed face as the Zodiac jounced over the black water toward the sub. She turned to look at the dwindling hulk of the Polar Circle’s stern. Then, with a grin, she thumbed down the button on a remote detonator.
A second later three loud whumps echoed over the ice, followed by the grating scream of metal being torn apart. Beneath the hull water spouted up in gouts like depth charge explosions. Already foam was churning as thousands of gallons of salt water flooded the ruptured hull.
The image of the doomed crew flashed into her mind, their mouths torn open in terrified screams, their fists beating uselessly against quarter-inch steel plating as they sunk to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in a metal crypt.
The thought sent a shiver rippling up her spinal column.
___
As the simultaneous explosions ripped through the big ship, the floor of the windlass room seemed to lift up under their feet.
A woman whimpered. A small man rushed at the bulkhead door, tugging frantically on the spokes of the dog wheel.
Useless.
But Flinders got to her feet and said, “I’ve got an idea.”
Skarda turned to her. The scientist holding the LED flashed the light in her direction. Her face was set in rigid planes, her eyes devoid of emotion, but her voice had taken on a more controlled quality, as if she’d found the strength to pull herself together now that Jaz had left.
“What?” Skarda asked her.
Pulling the metal case from her pocket, she opened it, taking out the chunk of orichalcum covered in emerald. She held it out in her palm so that it caught the light.
“What is it?” the scientist asked. He frowned in skepticism, his eyes attracted by the green casing.
“An isomer explosive.”
His eyes shot up and locked with hers.
Racing to her side, April took the hunk of rock and ran to the bulkhead door. “We only need one or two grains, I think.” With the scissors, she scraped off a miniscule amount of the reddish-gray metal, leaving the scissors in place to mark the spot where it fell.
She got up. “Now we need a focused light source. Something like a laser beam.”
“The laser pointer!” Skarda said.
The scientist with the pointer stepped forward, holding the device out. “It’s a hundred milliwatts. Will that be enough?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Is there any way to increase the strength of the beam?”
From below came the sound of metal screeching. The ship lurched.
Staggering, Flinders took off her glasses and handed them over to her. “These are bifocals.”
“It might work,” the female scientist said. “The lens should increase the amplification of the beam.”
April took the glasses. “Okay,” she said. “It’s worth a try. Now everybody get down! Cover your heads and look away from the door. I have no idea what’s going to happen.”
Again the ship groaned with a sound like slabs of steel grating against each other. The roar of water rushed to their ears.
Taking the pointer, April flicked on the beam, then moved across the room and angled it to shine through the lens. Without hesitation she aimed the laser at the scissors, then turned away.
A second later the hatch and the surrounding bulkhead erupted in a brilliant flash of white light, the force of the explosion blowing straight up as the quarter-inch plating vaporized into a mist of burning slag, spraying out into the corridor beyond.
___
Scrambling onto the windswept deck, April raced to the port forecastle rail and looked down at the ice-choked ocean. The Zodiacs and the submarine were gone.
The big ship yawed violently and groaned, listing to starboard.
She spun to face the crowd gathering on deck. “Where are the lifeboats?”
The petty officer spoke up. “We have two free-fall lifeboats, fully enclosed and heated. They’re big enough to fit all of us.”
“Okay,” April said. “get started loading these people.” She turned to her companions. “Flinders, help get the people loaded. Park, come with me. We need to find that bomb!”
They raced across the deck. Under their feet the planking heaved as the hull pitched violently, filling with thousands of gallons of water. The wind had had increased in intensity, bringing with it an almost horizontal rain, interspersed with thick swirls of snow and ice.
In his head, Skarda calculated the time they had left.
Ten minutes at the most.
With the wind howling around them, they ran across the deck, inspecting each hatchway, each hold, stabbing the LED into the snow-shrouded darkness to look for anything that resembled a bomb.
Then Skarda pointed. Up ahead a crane rose up next to an open cargo hold. Beside it lay a coil of cables, one snaking down into the darkness. Running up, he thrust the light into the black hole, seeing the reflected edges of the titanium case resting on the bottom.
“That’s got to be it!”
“I’m going down!” April shouted.
Swinging her legs into the open space, she descended a steel ladder bolted to the bulkhead. From the last rungs she jumped, running for the case.
Skarda saw her turn her face up toward him, a pale oval in the gloom.
“It’s lashed to the floor,” she called up. “The lid is bolted, too!”
“Okay, we’re running out of time! Get out of there!”
Metal groaned and screeched. The steel plating of the interior bulkhead buckled with a tortured shriek, followed a second later by an avalanche of black water surging into the hold with a horrifying sucking sound, swirling around the case in a vortex of foam.
An instant later April had scrambled on top of the case. The ship shuddered, careening violently back and forth. Even though her legs were braced, the motion of the ship was making her stagger. Her boots slithered over the wet surface. A roar came to Skarda’s ears: the surface of the ocean drawing nearer, churning out whirlpools of boiling water as the ship was rapidly sucked under the waves.
Five minutes left, at the most.
He leapt onto the ladder, his boots hammering as he dropped two rungs at a time toward the mass of water below. Pain throbbed in his shoulder where Jaz had struck him. The rungs were wet and slick under his grip.
“No! Park—go back!” April’s urgent yell was faint over the rush of black water.
When Skarda reached the last rungs, he twisted his body, grasping a rung above his head with one hand and reaching out with the other, stretching out his hand to her.
But she was too far away.
“Go back!” she shouted at him.
The ship pitched with a violent lurch. April’s legs shot out from under her and she slid, her fingers scrabbling for a hold on the slick titanium.
Without thought Skarda leapt, arms pinwheeling, landing in a sprawl on top of the case, reaching back and grabbing her parka just as she was about to topple into the swirling sea. With a jerk so hard he thought his muscles were tearing, he hauled her up next to him.
Boots slick and sliding, they managed to get to their feet, the case rocking as if they were caught in a landslide.
April pointed at the ladder. “Think you can make it?”
Another bulkhead groaned, threatening to burst.
“I don’t think so. It’s too far to jump back up!”
“We have no choice!”
The ship was shuddering more convulsively now, seeming to heave up and down on the surface even as its downward momentum dragged it under with inexorable finality. The ocean thundered in their ears.
“Wait until the ship rolls again, then use the momentum to jump!” she yelled.
With a deafening roar, the bulkhead burst open. A cataract of water boiled into the hold, knocking April off her feet. With a quick grab, Skarda snaked his forearm around her shoulder, ramming his hand into her left armpit and hanging on, the tendons of his arms rigid as steel cables.
Panic clawed at him—
But he hung on, grimly fighting to keep them alive.
Then something struck his ribcage—something hard and metallic that bounced off into the churning water. He cut his eyes downward. The end of a steel cable line was slipping over the edge of the case, slithering through the water like a snake!
He raked his eyes up.
Flinders!
She was standing at the edge of the open hold, reeling up the line from the crane.
He lifted his hand, acknowledging her. “Throw it down again!”
Through the thunder of water and boiling mist he saw her wave. Less than a minute later the line snaked back down. This time he was ready. He caught it, hoping she would know to allow enough slack. April grabbed the cable as well and pulled, helping him wrap a length around her waist. Then he pressed his body close behind her, reaching his long arms around her torso and grabbing the line just ahead of where her hands gripped it. Already the metal threads had cut through his gloves, slicing bloody furrows in his palms, but he didn’t care.
On the deck, Flinders scrambled to the crane, leaning on the hoisting wheel with all her weight to turn it. Skarda and April swung into empty space. Under their feet the eddying water was like a monster trying to suck them into its maw. Panic whirled through Skarda’s brain. Now they were swaying, pendulum-like, swinging with the violent yawing of the ship.
Words came to his ears, torn to pieces by the wind: “I can’t do it!”
A flash of despair deluged him as he lifted his eyes, seeing Flinders backing away from the crane in horror. She had reached the limits of her strength.
The ship pitched, sending them crashing toward the walls of the hold. Twisting violently, Skarda wrenched his body around, taking the brutal, bone-crunching blow on his back. Pain screamed through his muscles. They felt like they were being ripped from his skeleton. He cried out as the ship’s motion flung them back into empty space, spinning them around in a dizzying circle.
Maybe three minutes left before they’d be sucked under the frigid waves in a titanic whirlpool.
But then another shape appeared in the twilit gloom of the deck. A man running toward Flinders, his mouth open in a shout.
The petty officer.
Shouldering past her, he hunched over the wheel, yanking it in a violent half-circle. Then another. Cold rain lashed his swollen face.
But the cable began to rise!
Less than thirty seconds later, Skarda’s bloody fingers clawed at the lip of the hold, hauling himself and April up onto the frozen deck.
Emerald Page 24