CHAPER XI
An abrupt change in the disposition of the super-cat made itself obvious through both sound and feeling. It began as a vibration which built rapidly and was soon joined by a gathering rumble.
“We’re coming in between the water jets,” said Richard. His voice was only just audible.
As was Merrideth’s “Ready, Bruce. Stand to, the rest.”
As the automatic hatch opened downwards, a battering of wind was added to the rumble and the thunder. Richard did not see the first two men go through the hatch, but then the man immediately in front of him, the solid Op, moved forward and swung upwards, hefting the large communications set with him through the hatch. Richard was about to follow but an anonymous hand restrained him. He looked up and saw a mountainous wall of ship’s hull, reaching up and up until the afterdeck rail seemed to scrape the sky. Down this whipped two thread-thin abseiling ropes and a third, more substantial, arrangement attached to a light but strong-looking net. Into this went the communications equipment and the net went up the cliff. Beside it, hand over hand, feet running up the sheer white surface, went Op. The kit in front of him was already being heaved up onto the deck and stacked ready. Op disappeared onto New England’s deck and the restraining hand on Richard’s arm lifted, followed almost immediately by a double tap on his shoulder. He moved forward and two sets of arms reached down from the hatch towards him. He reached up and they took him, swinging him aloft.
There was surprisingly little wind out here. Hero was being sucked forwards by the vacuum behind the accelerating New England, an effect intensified by the twin arcs of water falling terrifyingly close on either hand. Richard crouched there, next to go, as kit was piled into the cargo net. A hand tapped his shoulder and gestured. He nodded once, and stepped in.
At once the net was in motion, swinging up off Hero’s deck. Richard stood erect, holding on to the groaning ropes. The tension his weight put on the long line made its weave tighter, swinging him in lazy circles. One moment he was looking straight into the square throat of the jet exhausts, his face and chest filled with the stench of jet fuel and ozone, the next he was side on to the black and white bars of the massive lateral grille. Then he faced Hero’s clearview, perfectly level with it. He waved, and thought he saw a glimmer of answering movement. This contact with a level of humanity he felt he knew and understood, even if illusory and perhaps even imaginary, seemed to lift a great weight from his shoulders.
Next, the relentless spinning of his rapid rise swung Richard into a grandstand view over the outer water jet away across the glittering emerald of the Western Approaches as he came up onto the upper gallery of jets. And just as he did so, the air between himself and the breathtaking view was torn into a writhing, heat-distorted wall. Then the edge of the deck hit his shoulder and he flipped over onto the strange white composite deck of New England.
“They’ve started the jets!” he yelled at the top of his voice as he fought free of the clinging net. A tall, square form hopped aboard behind him and was suddenly there, crouching over him, helping him free of the net. “They’ve started the jets,” he yelled again into the familiar face. Mac nodded once, his lips moving and his eyes distant, obviously in direct contact with Merrideth and the team in Hero’s hold via the headphone of his personal radio.
As soon as his feet were free, Richard moved inboard to where the rear hatch stood open. Keeping himself carefully under control, he moved as swiftly as the increasing headwind would allow over to the square throat of the open hatchway. But here he stopped in surprise. He had expected to find the hold full of close-packed cargo. Instead, in the full glare of the ship’s lighting, two abseil ropes hung down into an empty area. This had not been in the briefing.
Swiftly he crossed back to the crouching Mac who saw him coming and gestured him down with an easy motion which seemed to hold approval for what he was doing. Beside the big Scottish sergeant two of the others were working feverishly, bringing up the next load of kit. The communications case stood ready but there was no sign of Op. He was probably with the forward team in the hold — taking out the closed circuit camera, if they had any sense. With the lights on, they were clearly at risk of discovery before they even settled in.
Down the outside of the rapidly rising cargo net the two abseil ropes were trembling with tension as the next pair came up, their black-booted heels lent wings by the gathering roar of the first jets coming to power in preparation for the firing of the second pair. Richard helped unload the kit from the cargo net and carry it over to the hatchway. Here he met Op, pulling himself up over the lip of the hatch. “Scaley?” His lips moved, but such was the roar, only Richard’s lip-reading skills told him what he said. He turned, to find Mac at his shoulder with the big communications case. Op tied the handle of the case to the end of his abseil line and lowered it towards the pair of figures waiting below.
Richard used his nautical expertise to secure box after box. He sent them down, controlling what went in what order and at what speed, pleasantly surprised that his signs and signals were understood and obeyed by these fiercely intelligent men. If push came to shove Richard reckoned he could get down the abseils, with help and a team at the bottom, so he took over as effective lading officer and kept the kit coming under Mac’s approving direction until it all seemed to be down.
By this time the third of the four pairs of jets was firing. Hero had to pull away. Richard looked around the deck, mentally counting up the crouching black figures. Were they all up? The battering of the headwind was making it hard to stand now. Anyone still at the far end of the abseils would find themselves with the deck beneath their feet falling away and the jets above and beside them beginning to fire up. Richard allowed the wind to take him aft so that he could see why the others were lingering. As he came to Mac’s side, he realised with a sickening lurch that someone was in fact in that predicament. Hero was falling back into invisibility beyond the bright arches of the water jets. The abseils were up but the cargo net was still down and a black form was tangled within it. As Richard watched, the black bulk of the figure seemed to leap and jump as the net jerked. The men on the deck appeared to be divided between those who were pulling the line in and those determined to shake the black figure free.
“Get him up!” screamed someone. It came to Richard as the merest whisper.
“He’s tangled!”
“Pull him up!”
The rope jerked as a more concerted attempt was made to raise the last man aboard. The figure had just come level with the bottom of the upper range of jets when the last pair fired. The black figure was jerked out into the haze of blue flame. The black covering whirled away like molten tar. The abseil rope stretched and ignited along its angled length but it maintained its grip on the figure for an instant longer as the black parcel disintegrated under that terrible blast.
Red flame leaped up the length of the rope to the hands of the men holding it but such was the awesome terror of the sight that for an instant they seemed not to notice. Then Merrideth’s voice cut through the moment and they let it go, crushing the flames on their thin black gloves under their armpits.
“You only die twice,” said one of them, and a fluke of the wind brought the words to Richard’s ears.
Beside him Mac said, “Full Viking funeral. Doc would have loved that.”
With all jets firing, New England was settling down to full speed now and the wind across her decks was pushing up steadily through severe storm force to hurricane as the final group ran across to the hatch. Richard jumped into the kit net as though it was a child’s swing and dropped over the edge safe in the hands of Mac and another man on deck. The others went down almost as fast as he did. He landed half sitting, half standing, looking upwards, anchoring the rope as Mac himself, last in, slid down. Then the hatch swung closed and cut their ropes.
In the relative silence that followed, it seemed possible to hear the whisper of the braided nylon as the ropes fell through the still air to p
ile like sleepy pythons at their feet. Oddly, it was not until the lengths of line were completely at their ease that the sound of the massive steel door clanging shut reached them.
The noise re-galvanised the teams. Suddenly everything was concerted, decisive, practised bustle. The communications case was open. “Not much of a signal from outside, boss,” said Op, his soft voice surprisingly loud.
“Yes,” said Merrideth. “We’re cut off until we secure the ship’s control areas. Our 349s should be fine within the hull, though. And all the intelligence we need is available aboard if we use our equipment right, and our native guide here. And the guns will still work. So kit up and spread out while we’ve still got the light. Op, while the comms are out I want you to establish the 349s. You’re zero. And keep an eye on the captain here until we’re secure. Mac, you and me buddy-buddy. Let’s explore.”
Five minutes later, Richard was alone with the radio operator. On his big communications case sat a much smaller personal radio. Each of the others had them in shoulder holsters with single earphones and throat microphones. Op attached a lead from the set to the speakers in the comms set and suddenly Richard could hear the other ten, working as five two-man teams as they explored the canyons between the massive cargo pallets and sought out doors into the command, accommodation and engineering areas or traps and hatches down into the lower hold where the terrorists’ mysterious cargo lay.
Piled beside Richard and Op was all the kit. Richard opened one of the medical boxes and looked through it, checking its contents. In the background the wind thundered across the upper works as New England came up to full speed. The whine of the jets settled to a dismissible background pitch which was only occasionally intrusive. He thought about what he might need in the foreseeable future. A place to eat, sleep and, more immediately, relieve his bladder, crossed his mind. He opened another box. At least he could see what he was doing down here, with all the lights on. He wondered briefly why they were on, and how long they would stay on.
“Where’s a torch?” he asked Op.
“That’s made me a packet,” said the big radio operator cheerfully. “Had a tenner on with each one of Bruce’s team that your first question wouldn’t be “Where’s the crapper?” Silly bastards were so confident they gave me odds. Eighty quid. Thanks very much, Captain.”
He pushed a button and said ““Where’s a torch?” Bruce, you sorry little shit. Pass it on to the brick. Twenty quid each.” He turned to Richard. “You’ve got a Maglite and a Betalite in the doc’s vest pocket there. Captain.”
“Good,” said Richard rummaging, faintly exasperated that he had climbed into Doc’s blacks without checking his pockets or combat webbing. He probably had everything he needed in here.
“And in case you’re wondering,” Op went on, “we do have a crapper.” He pointed to a large roll of plastic bags. “And you piss in that.” He indicated a five-gallon plastic jerry can marked with a bright yellow R “Every day we’ll put in a handful of water purification tablets to keep down the smell. Got any of this?” He fished a battered roll of Andrex from his bergen.
Richard numbly shook his head.
“’S all right. I can let you have some of mine. Ten pence a sheet. Take this one on account…”
*
“They’re coming back in, Captain,” said Op. “Better get the slash jars and the latrines to hand. You were the first but you won’t be the last. And you’d better get ready to go out yourself. It’ll follow standard pattern. Reports. Assessment. Tactics briefing. Kerfuddle — or as near as we can get to it with no heat allowed. Then they’ll need you out in the contact area.”
They all just suddenly appeared. Richard had thought the place was well-lit. All the big overhead fluorescent lights were on and they illuminated the three-dimensional jigsaw of the huge containers apparently perfectly, but between the containers lay narrow, pitch-black canyons of space and out of one of these the Jellicoe Boys poured silently, like a moving extension of the black shadows. They had all pulled their black watch caps down into balaclavas and only the whites of their eyes broke the solid black of their clothing.
They put down their weapons, a bewildering selection of them, and crouched beside Richard and Op. Then they began to pull their balaclavas off, and recognisable features joined half-familiar physiques until Richard was clear as to who was surrounding him. The scrawny but bellicose Bruce and his team were on his right. The cheerfully enormous Tom and his team were on his left.
“Five minutes,” said Merrideth. “Then reports. Bruce, your brick’s first stag. Mac and I will do assessment, then we’ll call briefing and really put the captain to work. Bruce, you’ll set traps on the way in for O Group. I don’t want to give the players an inch. We’ll either have a brick out or traps out until we go in. Captain Mariner, I’ll want you on the ground as soon as possible now that we’ve given the place a security sweep. Everyone got that?”
They all nodded.
“Right,” said Merrideth.
And on his word, as though the terse monosyllable had been a secret command, the lights went out.
Into the darkness boomed a great voice over the tannoy. “We know you’re in there! Come out at once with your hands up or you die!”
CHAPTER XII
“Hands up or you’re dead,” said the strange woman in army uniform three full days before Richard and the Jellicoe Boys came aboard. Slowly, Harry Newbold obeyed, fighting to believe that the apparition before her was real. Could that square, skeletal thing really be a gun? Surely such a clichéd order came from nightmares, not reality. But Stubbs at the wheel and O’Reilley in the radio room were raising their arms obediently, so she did the same.
As she did so, her gaze automatically slid towards her computers. She had to send out an alert. Could she trigger a remote-control beacon somehow? The tension on the bridge was emanating as much from their captor as from herself, Stubbs and O’Reilley. Now was the moment to try something, before the woman with the gun felt confident she was in charge of the situation. But then again, perhaps not. The tension was such that even the suspicion that something was being tried was likely to get someone shot.
Another figure entered suddenly, with Bob Stark at his side. There was no doubting the gender of this tall, powerful figure, and when the black balaclava came off, a square face with grey stubble on chin and skull was revealed. The shape of the face was strange, however. On the left side, between the grey crown and the grey chin, the bone had collapsed inwards, as though the man’s head had been crushed in a vice. Scar tissue, also disturbingly grey, spread from temple to jaw line, from nostril to earlobe.
“Bridge secure, Captain Dall,” said the woman at the door.
“I see that, Pitman. The whole ship’s secure. We want the communications closed, though. That means you, Sparks. Everything off. Move it!” The grey face swung round towards Harry. “The computers go down too. All of them. Now!”
Harry found she was having difficulty breathing but she fought to obey, unnerved by the sight of this man and terrified by his harsh tone and chilling eyes.
Dall’s action in removing his balaclava had been as calculated as Pitman’s had been thoughtless, for he was used to making use of his facial disfigurement. It showed that he had been at the sharp end. It showed that he meant business. It was, simply, frightening. He swept a glance round the bridge, took in the layout and the stunned faces of the watch officer, the radio officer and the frightened computer girl. He saw in them only confusion, compliance and fear. Even so he pushed the barrel of his AK74 into Bob Stark’s ribs.
“Please do what these people tell you,” said Bob, fighting to keep his voice controlled and relaxed, even though his mind was a whirl of sickening speculation. “They have complete control of the ship and if you try to resist they may kill you. Do what they tell you. That is a direct order.”
Dall used his weapon to push Bob back across the bridge again. At the doorway he paused, but then he left Pitman where she was
and swept on.
Harry grimly worked on her computers, closing them down as the scarred man had ordered. As she worked she thought she could feel Pitman’s gaze like fingers on her.
She was right. Pitman was watching her closely; she was the only one with enough presence of mind to be doing something and Pitman was weighing her up as a potential threat.
O’Reilley sat by his communications equipment, his hands idle and his shoulders slumped. Stubbs stared sightlessly out through the clearview at the blazing wreck of the yacht as she settled beneath the ocean, glittering weirdly through the luminescent surface, still burning like the reflection of a falling star as she sank into the dark. The fog began to swirl in over her, then it crept up across New England’s white foredeck and began to rub its faintly luminous flank across the clearview. Soon it was as difficult to see a course ahead as it was to see a course of action.
The tannoy sounded. “Hear this.” It was the voice of Dall, distorted by the system but still familiar. “Ship’s personnel report to the dining area. My personnel oversee movement then report back to post. Move now!”
Harry was still struggling to close down her systems in such a way that she could get back into them quickly and easily when opportunity arose. “You!” spat the woman by the door. “Hurry!” Stubbs shuffled past the stocky, gold-haired figure. O’Reilley reluctantly emerged from the radio room. Harry saw them move in reflection. Her breath drew in between thin, pale lips. Her fingers danced. Her shoulders prickled. She did not know it but her cheeks were flushed and the pupils of her steady eyes were dilated.
Angela Van Der Piet crossed angrily to the computers. Her left hand took Harry’s slim shoulder and swung. The seat came round swiftly on its swivel and the women’s knees clashed together. Pitman found herself confronted by that vivid face, all tousled hair, pink cheeks and pupils wide enough to drown in.
Hell Gate (Richard Mariner Series Book 9) Page 12