Soil (The Last Flotilla Book 2)

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Soil (The Last Flotilla Book 2) Page 2

by Barnes, Colin F.


  The parallels with her daughter were too obvious and ironic to contemplate. That fact didn’t stop Eva from agonising over the decision, though.

  ‘You’re right, Tom,’ Eva said. ‘But what if we don’t make it back? I promised him we would. It’d break him if something happened.’

  Marcus finished his tea and dropped the metal cup to the table surface with a clatter. ‘You also promised him a future, didn’t you? There ain’t no way I’d agree to come along on this journey if I didn’t think we’d find the base, and the truth.’

  ‘It’s just another form of faith,’ Eva said. She sat back on the small plastic chair and cast her gaze to the rear of the narrow mess. Behind a counter, Karel, the young Russian man who had joined them, was busy preparing food, whistling as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Instead of working on a submarine, he could quite easily have been a grill cook at one of Baltimore’s downtown diners.

  He looked up, caught Eva’s eye, and smiled at her before returning to his duties, chopping vegetables they had brought with them from the flotilla. The whole scene seemed out of place, too calm. They were going to find the truth of how the world had drowned, who was responsible, and why Stanic had murdered the prior crew of the USS Utah. This wasn’t a task that called for calm; it called for focus, determination.

  Eva stood up. The chair scraped against the floor.

  ‘Where you going?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘My bunk.’

  ‘Want some company?’

  ‘No. Besides, you’ve still got maintenance to do. Right, Tom?’

  The captain swallowed the last of his soup and slapped Marcus on the shoulder. ‘She’s right. Better get to it.’

  Marcus glared at Tom, held his gaze, and then, shaking his head, stood up and brushed past Eva, moving out into the central passageway. Eva followed him out of the mess but went the opposite way. She had taken only a few steps when Marcus called out to her.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  Eva spun round. ‘What?’

  He moved closer, reduced his voice to a whisper. ‘Don’t trust him.’

  ‘Who, Tom?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m serious. I don’t think he’s taking us to this so-called secret base to find the truth.’

  Eva frowned, trying to see where his angle was. What would he gain from sowing discord? ‘The thing is, Marcus, I don’t trust you either. But I’ll keep your advice in mind.’

  With that, she turned and headed back to her bunk. She needed to stay rested, focused – she owed Danny that much at least. And she had the support of the rest of the crew: Jim, Duncan, Patrice, Bernita, Karel, Li, Brad, Ahmed, Annette, Tom . . . and Marcus Graves.

  A motley crew if ever there was one, but the truth of what had happened to the world rested on their shoulders, as did the responsibility of finding a new future for the residents of the flotilla.

  No pressure, then: just the survival of the rest of humankind.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Second day at sea. 23:54 p.m.

  Now into day two at sea, Eva sat at the sonar console within the command centre. She was coming to the end of her twelve-hour shift and was only now just beginning to get used to her new surroundings.

  The command centre was located directly beneath the sail of the sub. Around the surprisingly spacious room, a number of screens showed the varied data generated from the large range of systems. The light of the screens added a blue-grey glow to the otherwise dark atmosphere of the room.

  Two of the screens in one corner represented the ‘periscope’ – a digital photonics system showing real-time views. At the moment, all it showed was darkness and the shifting horizon.

  Not that it mattered. Since they had left the flotilla and the Pico de Orizaba behind, they’d seen nothing but sky and water in an endless balance of blues and greys, only now and then punctuated by the rising and setting of the sun. And yet, anyone who came and went from the command centre would look first and last at those screens, hoping that perhaps they would see something – anything.

  They were heading north mostly, making small corrections according to Tom and Duncan’s charting. Occasionally, they would get a GPS signal confirming their heading from a rogue satellite that had, against the odds, survived the solar flares.

  The GPS signal had surprised Eva; it was the first indication that the Earth was changing. Before then, it had been impossible to receive radio signals, apart from Jim’s line-of-sight communications with the scientists on the doomed Excelsior.

  It thrilled her to think that they might soon be able to send and receive radio signals. She often wondered if there were other survivors out there, huddled around mountains or other flotillas. Perhaps she would eventually get a chance to find out.

  Tom sat in front of her at a station with two flat-screen terminals where he and Ahmed oversaw the navigational controls. Although Tom had given the crew traditional titles, such as planesman, chief of watch, etc., the Virginia class of nuclear submarines combined the roles into two stations. It helped, Tom had said, to give each person a title to better organise duties and give everyone a sense of responsibility for their own role.

  It was this kind of planning and forethought that gave Eva confidence in Tom. He hadn’t tried to mould the civilian crew so tightly into exact naval prescriptions. Rather, he had adapted the terminology and protocol to allow everyone to be trained as quickly as possible, given their existing knowledge and understanding.

  ‘How’s the sonar?’ Tom said without looking around, maintaining his view of the screen ahead of him, the blue light tinting his face.

  Eva looked down at her three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sonar station and noted nothing in particular to be concerned with. ‘All good here, Tom,’ she said, looking at the digital clock on Tom’s screen. She had just five or so minutes to go on her shift before Patrice and the second team were due to relieve her.

  The only downside to the way Tom had organised the shift pattern was that Eva rarely got to see Duncan. Since they had got together after the whole Stanic affair, she’d come to realise that there was some barrier between them, some resistance that stopped her from truly opening her heart to him. Maybe it was too soon after losing Mike. Or perhaps in this new world, she was no longer able to feel real love anymore, and Mike was just an anomaly.

  Despite her hesitance to get closer to Duncan, she did yearn for his presence. There was a chance Tom had worked out the shift patterns like this on purpose – a way to keep her and Duncan focused on their duties. Given that women weren’t allowed on submarines in the navy, she suspected Tom’s old indoctrinated notions hadn’t completely died away. Some customs could become so ingrained that they manifested without one’s awareness, which was something Eva had often wondered about herself.

  For example, how much of her police training had leaked into her personality when she was at home with her daughter, before the drowning? Had Emily seen the cold, analytic, suspicious side of Eva, despite how she had tried to hide it in a blanket of warmth and caring?

  She would never know now, of course. She buried the blossoming pain back down inside until she was numb to it again.

  Ahmed sat to Tom’s left, yawning as he manned the steering and diving controls. Because his fellow planesman, Brad, had been struck down by a migraine, Ahmed had pulled a double shift. ‘How are you coping there, Ahmed? Finding the controls okay?’ Eva asked.

  ‘Doing fine, thanks. It’s like driving a car in the dark,’ he said with a toothy grin before yawning once more and returning his attention to his duties.

  Eva smiled, enjoying Ahmed’s upbeat personality. This was only her second shift with him, but she’d come to appreciate his optimism and irreverent sense of humour.

  ‘Everything okay on your end, Tom?’ she said, after having seen nothing to be concerned about on the sonar’s passive sweep.

  ‘All clear as far as I can tell,’ Tom said. ‘The sub’s running optimally, and, surprisingly, Marcus is doing a decent job in the engin
e room.’

  ‘I’m shocked he hasn’t started a mutiny yet,’ Eva replied, adding a smile to combat the awkward tension in her voice. She knew Tom didn’t think Marcus would be disciplined enough, but despite herself, she had vouched for him. And to Marcus’s credit, he had performed remarkably well during the training period.

  ‘He could try,’ Tom said. ‘It’d be the last thing he ever did, though.’

  The coldness in his voice surprised Eva, who just smiled at him when he turned to look at her. It took a few seconds, but Tom eventually returned her smile with one that appeared to be genuine.

  For that split second, Eva saw a new side to Tom that she hadn’t seen before. But when she thought about it, it made sense. He’d been through one mutiny of a kind with Stanic, when the latter was his captain on this very submarine. It was only natural he’d want to guard against anything similar happening here.

  Being so close to people in a tense environment like this would naturally mess up one’s thinking. It had happened to her once before, during a long stakeout with her partner. By the end of a thirty-six-hour observation session, she had accused her partner of being involved with the gang boss they were staking out. The huge drug deal with a Mexican cartel hadn’t gone as expected, and it appeared that someone had tipped him off – someone like her partner, Graham Pascoe. It wasn’t unheard of back then for cops on the force to benefit from sizeable bribes if they just turned a blind eye – or ear – now and then. As much of an asshole as Pascoe was, he wasn’t corrupt, though; she’d been with him on a number of cases where, if he had wanted to, he could have walked away with a ton of cash, but he had always done the right thing. Despite what she knew of him, the long stakeout had messed with her head and made her doubt him.

  Patrice entered the sub’s command centre, dressed in a navy officer’s uniform, his hair slicked back. Eva sighed with relief, not just because it meant she could get something to eat and have a rest, but because now she could have some quiet time to stop the constant analysis and churning in her mind. She knew Tom was all right. He had shown it unequivocally since returning from the Excelsior.

  ‘Bonjour,’ Patrice said, moving stealthily to the sonar station. He stood to Eva’s right and placed his left hand gently against her shoulder. ‘Time for you to get some rest, oui?’

  ‘Thank you, Patrice,’ Eva said, standing up and stretching her arms behind her back. Her spine made a cracking sound. She sighed with satisfaction as free movement returned after so long hunched over the sonar. She turned into the dim hallway after automatically casting a look over at the photonics monitor. She saw nothing but sky and water, as expected.

  ‘I’ll see you guys next time. Happy sailing.’

  The three men bade her goodnight and returned diligently to their duties.

  Eva made her way through the narrow, dark corridor towards the mess to get something to eat. Even with the long, rectangular overhead lights, the narrow space remained almost cave-like in its gloom. Tom had informed her this was so that sailors could sleep. The shiny floor reflected the strip lighting, illuminating the way as she stepped past various doors and metal boxes containing a number of emergency tools and electrical systems.

  Her stomach rumbled at the thought of Li Poh’s fried fish.

  Before she could get there, though, an odd sound stopped her short, catching her attention. She had come to the last pair of berths. To her left came sounds of scraping and thudding. At first she thought it was just her footsteps echoing around the metal surfaces, but when she stood still, held her breath, she knew that someone was within one of the cabins.

  These berths were supposed to be unoccupied.

  Eva moved closer, placing her hand on the cool surface of the door, and realised it was open. She brought her eye to the crack and peered in.

  A beam of a flashlight was flickering around inside. Whoever was in there appeared to be looking for something specific without wanting to turn on the main light and give themselves away. The brief splashes of light outlined the silhouette of a man.

  Her instincts kicked in, despite her tiredness. If this person was up to no good, it could compromise everything they’d worked so hard for. They had to have complete honesty among the crew. If someone was doing something innocent, there was no reason they’d be doing it in the dark.

  Eva balled a fist and stepped inside.

  The man swung his arm in an arc, the flashlight curving just above her head. She stumbled back into the door, slamming it shut. The man was on her, pressing into her chest, trapping her against the now-closed door.

  Eva relaxed her body and let her weight become dead. She slipped down a few inches, enough to move her leg through those of her attacker who had since dropped the flashlight to the floor. She hooked her ankle around the man’s, and pushed herself away from the door with as much explosive movement as she could manage.

  The two of them unbalanced, their bodies pitching back like a pendulum. The man tripped over Eva’s leg and pulled her to the ground as he fell. He hit the floor of the cabin and grunted loudly. Eva landed on top of him, her leg trapped beneath his.

  She reached for the flashlight that lay to her right and brought it up like a club, but when the light spilled across the man’s face, she saw Marcus’s smirk.

  ‘If you wanted to get on top of me, we could have arranged something easier than this,’ he said.

  Eva’s face flushed with anger and embarrassment. She clambered off him. ‘You damned idiot! You disgust me, truly. What the hell are you doing in here anyway?’ Scanning around with the flashlight, she saw that he had pulled away a wall panel above one of the cots. Loose papers lay across the blue cloth mattress.

  Marcus held a finger to his lips and whispered, ‘If you help me up, I’ll tell you – not like I’ve got a choice in the matter now, anyway. Just keep your voice down; we don’t want the whole crew to know what’s going on. At least not yet.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because I’ve found something you really ought to take a look at. It concerns the original crew of the sub.’

  She had to admit, it did pique her interest.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you five minutes to explain.’

  Considering how he had helped her during the investigation on the flotilla, exposing secrets and evidence, she felt she owed him at least the benefit of the doubt. But before she helped him up, she stepped over his body and opened the door to ensure no one else was around.

  The hallway appeared empty to either side, so she closed the door again and helped Marcus to his feet, holding the flashlight as a weapon. He stood a few inches taller than she did, but he always seemed relaxed around her, probably aware that, despite his size advantage, Eva could kick his ass if it came to it.

  She was one of the very few people who had grown to believe Marcus could be useful – to a degree at least – but she still liked the security of having something to club him with if he tried anything too stupid. His ruthlessness could be both a pro and a con.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, rubbing his back and stepping next to the ripped panel. ‘Shine that light over here, would you? I’ll show you what I’ve been doing.’

  Eva angled the light into the gap behind the panel, exposing the metal fabrication of the sub’s infrastructure. Crossbeams running in a circumference around the sub created a small ten-centimetre gap between the outer shell and the wall panel.

  Marcus reached a hand into the gap and pulled out a wad of paper, which he deposited with the others on the cot. Eva stepped forward and shone the light deeper into the gap until Marcus declared that he had got everything.

  ‘So what is it?’ Eva said. ‘And why all the sneaking around?’

  ‘Well, while I was on duty in the engine room,’ he said, ‘I stumbled across an interesting little trail. In one of the storage units down near the engines I found a scrap of paper with a code on it. Pretty simple code, really, but anyway, long story short, it appears tha
t two of the former crew, who ultimately were killed by Stanic—’

  A shadow passed across Marcus’s eyes as he remembered his cousin Shaley, cruelly murdered by Stanic. The emotion didn’t hang around for long; Marcus swallowed his grief and returned to the present time.

  ‘These two men were communicating with each other over a period of two years while on active duty. In one of the other berths, I found this.’ He reached into the pocket of his blue navy-issue pants and pulled out a palm-sized black notebook. He handed it to Eva.

  Flicking through it, she saw pages and pages of coded messages: blocks of seemingly random letters, surrounded by decoding marks, circled letters joined with pencil marks.

  ‘How long have you known about this?’ Eva said.

  ‘I found the notebook a few hours after leaving the flotilla, and I know what you’re gonna say, but I didn’t trust anyone. I wanted to know what it meant first.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ Eva said, surprised at how hurt she felt. Why should she care whether a self-serving man like Marcus would trust her or not?

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said, smiling as he caught the flash of irritation on her face before she made her expression neutral again. ‘I just wanted something to do while I was stuck down there in the engine room all on my own. You wouldn’t believe how long twelve hours can feel when you’re just watching dials with no one to keep you company.’

  ‘Aw, poor Marcus, having to be on his own.’

  He shrugged it off. ‘It suited me, as it happens. So this piece of paper I found had a name on it – a name that I managed to trace to a specific berth using the sub’s previous records. In there, I found the notebook, and from that, I was led here.’

  ‘How did you know how to decode all this?’ she said, looking back at the coded text handwritten in the notebook.

  Marcus fished a piece of paper from the same pocket. ‘This is the key.’

 

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