The Slipstream Queen was holding a position about forty miles south-east of Vaca Key, close to the centre of the Straits’ shipping lane. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to be – they had already twice been obliged to make way for passing oil tankers – but it marked the optimum position for picking up the signal from the tracking device.
On the map Cafell had drawn two lines connecting the position of the Tiburón Blanco with the two ends of the Florida keys archipelago. Assuming the submarine was headed straight for US territory its course had to lie inside the relevant segment. Cafell had then drawn a third line dissecting the segment, and found the point on that line which was thirty miles distant – the range of the tracking signal – from its outer edges. And just to be on the safe side he had moved the point forward a couple of miles.
And here they were, with at least another half an hour to wait, staring out across the shining sea.
‘It doesn’t get any better,’ Marker murmured. The emotional knots of earlier that evening had untied themselves, or perhaps been untied by his guardian angel the sea. He felt the tingling sense of anticipation which had always accompanied action, be it a training exercise in Poole harbour, an anti-smuggling operation in the Hsi Chiang estuary or a terrorist alert on a North Sea oil rig.
The minutes ticked slowly by. All thirty of them, and then another ten, and another ten.
‘Fuck,’ Marker growled, turning away from the screen to stare at the ocean, as if willing the waters to yield up the missing submarine.
‘Yes,’ Cafell hissed happily beside him.
A faint signal was palpitating on the edge of the circular screen. Both men watched as it slowly took on substance, and worked its way millimetre by millimetre towards them.
‘It’s coming straight at us,’ Marker said.
‘Not quite,’ Cafell cautioned.
Another ten minutes and it became apparent that if the submarine held to its present course – and there seemed no earthly reason why it should have plotted itself anything other than a straight line – it would pass about a mile or so to their west. ‘If it’s headed for the mainland I’d put my money on Channel Five,’ Cafell said. ‘It’s between Fiesta and Craig Keys,’ he added, pointing them out on the map. ‘The water’s just about deep enough for them.’
‘How about getting there first?’ Marker suggested. ‘The longer we can keep ahead of them, the less distance we’ll fall behind when we have to transfer to the Vickers.’
‘OK, but what if they’re heading for one of the Keys . . .’
‘They aren’t. There’s too many people around, too many potential witnesses. They’re heading for the Everglades. You could lose an army in there.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Cafell agreed.
‘We can always turn back,’ Marker added.
‘Sold.’ Cafell engaged the cabin cruiser’s engine and turned towards the north, matching its pace to the signal on the screen from the submarine behind them. ‘It’s doing nearly twenty knots,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘That’s what the sneaky beaky said,’ Marker muttered, using the Marine slang for Intelligence.
‘Some boat,’ Cafell said admiringly. ‘It would make a lovely Christmas present for the boss.’
An hour passed by, the dark line of the Keys slowly emerging on the north-western horizon. They were back inside American territorial waters now, and someone was obviously watching, because a call came through on the emergency radio band demanding that they identify themselves and their destination. The former was easy enough, but they didn’t know the latter, and given their current course they could hardly claim to be heading home to Key Vaca. After a quick glance at the map Cafell plumped for Naples on Florida’s Gulf coast as the destination likely to cover the most eventualities.
‘We could have asked them to talk to our friends in Key West,’ Marker said, after they had been given a clean bill of health, ‘but I didn’t fancy having to spend most of the night explaining ourselves in triplicate.’
‘Dead right,’ said Cafell.
The bridge across Channel Five was now visible through the nightscope, but to the naked eye it was still buried in the dark background. Occasionally a vehicle’s headlights would swoop up the long arc of the invisible causeway and down again, like twin planets in flight across the sky.
Another boat was passing under the bridge in their direction, and ten minutes later, as it passed fifty yards or so off their starboard bow, the voice of a silhouetted female could be heard shouting, ‘We need another man.’ Whether this was because they were numerically one short, or because they were not happy with the one they had, was not explained.
Cafell slowed the Slipstream Queen and concentrated on keeping to the deep-water channel under the bridge. Once they were through into the deeper waters of the bay he idled the engines and brought the boat to a drifting halt.
‘She’s still coming,’ Marker said, his eyes on the screen. He looked at his watch. ‘About forty-five minutes behind us.’
They settled down to wait, hoping that the Coast Guard was not observing the interruption with a suspicious mind. The palpitating dot on the screen inched slowly across the circular screen as the time passed.
‘They’re close to the bridge,’ Cafell calculated. ‘Now we’ll see which way they’re headed. My guess is that they’ll hardly change course at all.’
As the next fifteen minutes went by it became apparent that he was right. They got the boat underway again and set off in pursuit, only slowing to match the submarine’s pace when Cafell reckoned they were five minutes behind her. Traversing the bay took about an hour, and it was almost four o’clock when the leading boat approached the twelve-mile territorial limit off Cape Sable. Not much more than ninety minutes of darkness remained.
The submarine changed course slightly, moving in on a diagonal heading towards the coast.
Cafell studied the map. ‘It has to be here,’ he said, holding it in front of Marker and jabbing it with his finger. ‘Lostman’s River. It’s the only channel into the Everglades which is deep enough.’
‘Let’s close the gap,’ Marker suggested. Staring straight ahead at the dark line of the distant coast, he caught sight of something moving out of the corner of his eye. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to make out what it was. ‘Oh shit,’ he muttered.
The Coast Guard cutter was on an interception course, and at maximum speed if the noise of the 210-foot vessel’s engines was any guide. Its powerful searchlight was already on, waiting to bathe them in its glare.
The thought of attempting to outrun the pursuit flashed through Marker’s mind, but was swiftly dismissed. For one thing he wasn’t sure they could, and for another he knew the cutter carried both a radar-guided three-inch cannon on its foredeck and a fast helicopter on the helipad amidships.
‘Heave to,’ he told Cafell.
The cutter drew up alongside them, some twenty yards away, and the searchlight was turned full on the two SBS men. Another light picked out the submersible in the water behind them. A megaphone-amplified voice asked them to state their business in United States territorial waters. Shadows dancing on the cutter’s deck looked suspiciously like a boarding party preparing itself.
‘If they come across turn off the tracker,’ Marker told Cafell quietly. Then he cupped his hand and shouted across the gap: ‘We are British naval officers engaged in a police action against British citizens. We have clearance from the US Navy and US Coast Guard to operate in your waters. You should have the name of this boat on file. Our password is Key Limey.’
There was a pause, presumably for the Coast Guard officer to swallow his disbelief. ‘Please stay in view,’ he ordered them, with a hint of courtesy in his tone. ‘We’ll run a check.’
The two men waited in the searchlight’s glare, conscious of the eyes watching them from the cutter’s deck, not to mention the fingers that would be sweating on triggers. Five minutes passed, and then ten, without the officer reap
pearing.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Cafell asked. ‘We’re going to lose the signal.’
‘Someone in Key West can’t believe their ears,’ Marker guessed. ‘They’ve probably decided to wake up Baskin or Jiménez for confirmation. Either that or they’re wondering why we haven’t shared any new discoveries with them.’
Another five minutes passed, and Marker was wondering whether throwing a tantrum would be counter-productive, when the searchlight abruptly went out. ‘You’re free to go,’ the voice boomed through the megaphone. ‘Sorry for the hold-up.’
Marker acknowledged the message with a wave, and tried to rub the light out of his eyes. ‘Go,’ he told Cafell.
The Slipstream Queen surged forward. Looking back, Marker watched the cutter beginning a long turn towards the south. At least it hadn’t been given orders to follow them.
‘We’ve lost the fucking signal,’ Cafell said.
‘Not for long. You said there was only one channel, right? Get in there.’
‘And what if I’m wrong?’
‘Then we’ll have to turn the whole fucking Everglades upside down until we find them.’
The cabin cruiser headed north as fast as its engines and the towed submarine would allow. They were still about twenty-five miles from the mouth of Lostman’s River when the signal reappeared, faintly at first but more strongly all the time. Marker took the wheel as Cafell transposed the dot’s position from the screen to the map. ‘They’re about five miles up the river,’ he said eventually. ‘And they seem to have speeded up,’ he added. ‘The deep-water channel looks a bastard to navigate. I reckon they’re running on the surface.’
‘Why not?’ Marker asked. ‘It’s still dark and there’s no one in there to see them.’
‘It won’t be dark for long,’ Cafell said, looking first at his watch and then at the eastern sky. Was that the first hint of light above the dark coastline or was he just imagining it?
He turned back to the tracking screen, and for the next half hour the dot’s position hardly moved, reflecting the fact that they were travelling in roughly the same direction at roughly the same speed. When it did eventually move, it was to perform a slow U-turn. The distance between the two craft was shrinking. ‘They’ve stopped,’ said Cafell.
‘Where?’ Marker asked from the wheel.
Cafell took the map across. ‘Somewhere on the northern shore of this lake,’ he said, pointing it out. ‘The closer we get, the better the fix we’ll get. It’s called Hell’s Lake, by the way.’
‘That figures,’ Marker murmured. They were now approaching the mouth of the river, and the sky above the mangrove-covered banks was definitely lightening. As the land grew closer they could hear the swelling racket of the dawn chorus.
‘How far up-river can we get?’ Marker asked.
Cafell studied the charts again, and then the mangroves off the starboard bow. ‘The water doesn’t look low,’ he said. ‘So all the way, if we’re careful.’
‘I wouldn’t like to sink our benefactor’s boat,’ Marker said.
‘I wouldn’t like to be in it when you do,’ Cafell said, pointing a finger towards the nearer of the two banks. In the dawn twilight a long, dark shape was moving slowly across a flat stretch of grey mud beneath the overhanging trees. ‘Are they crocodiles or alligators around here?’ he asked.
‘Both,’ Marker replied, slapping at a mosquito on his neck.
They headed up the river, keeping to the deep-water channel, which mostly followed a line slightly closer to the southern bank than the northern. The river itself rapidly narrowed over the first couple of miles, and then its width stabilized at around a quarter of a mile. On both banks the mangroves looked and felt like walls: dense, impenetrable, almost uniform in height. And nothing rose up behind these walls, no taller trees, no hills, no signs of human occupancy. There was only one escape from this river, and that was the river itself.
There was no longer anything to be gained by speed – the submarine had reached its destination, the darkness was almost gone – but there was a lot that could be lost in waters as treacherous as these. Marker took it slowly according to the chart, with Cafell lending the use of his eyes from the bow in difficult-looking stretches.
Several miles went by, and the mosquitoes grew ever more annoying, but then the river began to widen once more, and the attacks abated. ‘We’re about two miles from Hell’s Lake,’ Cafell announced. ‘And about half a mile short of what looks like a decent anchorage.’
‘How far from there to the sub?’
‘About four miles.’
‘Sounds good.’
The sun had cleared the wall of mangrove now, and the river had widened to the extent of constituting a small lake. In the lee of a headland on the northern shore they found both Cafell’s suggested anchorage and their second crocodile. The reptile ignored them at first, lying resolutely still on its patch of mud, but then it slowly started raising its upper jaw, as if it was miming Tower Bridge.
‘They have no strength when it comes to opening their jaws,’ Marker said conversationally, as they manoeuvred the submarine around to the side of the cabin cruiser. ‘All the power is in the slamming shut.’
‘So this one’s just getting prepared.’
‘I think it’s ready,’ Marker said. The crocodile’s jaws were now at right angles to each other.
The two men concentrated on loading what was needed into the battery-operated Vickers, and then clambered one by one down through the hatch and on to the wooden floor of the submarine’s belly. Despite the wide windows the interior felt decidedly cramped.
As Marker checked the dials and gauges on the pilot’s console Cafell clanged shut the hatch and screwed the locking wheel tight. ‘Ready to go,’ he said.
Marker switched on the engines, which began to vibrate with an almost melodious hum. He then started the two propellers turning, the starboard slightly slower than the port, as he wanted to move off in a slight turn to starboard. The Vickers edged its way out towards deeper water.
The two men had decided that, for the first half of this short voyage, the risks involved in pranging some uncharted underwater obstruction greatly outweighed the risk that they might be spotted on the surface by unfriendly eyes.
The gamble paid off – only the eyes of several great white herons followed their progress eastward. A hundred yards short of Hell’s Lake Marker brought the craft to a stop, and Cafell took a final reading on the exact location of Arcilla’s submarine. ‘There,’ he said, pointing out the spot on the map. ‘And here,’ he added, pointing out another not too far away, ‘looks like a good place to resurface.’
Marker nodded, and reached forward to open the vents. As the water swished into the tanks the submarine sank into the river, three feet, six feet. . . Marker closed the vents and turned on the outside lights. The craft was suspended between the river’s bed and surface, with only a few feet to spare in either direction. He started the propellers again, and the Vickers moved forward into the slightly deeper waters of the lake.
The water was not particularly clear, but there was little doubt they would be visible from the air. The thought suddenly struck Marker that a helicopter might have been waiting for the sub, might even now be taking off and wheeling out across the lake . . .
No, he told himself. It would be heading east towards Miami or north towards Tampa.
‘How are . . . ?’ he started to say, when a dark shape exploded into view through the submarine’s front windows, and just as quickly disappeared from view. The second approach, though, was slower. It was a dolphin, no, two dolphins, and they seemed to want to play.
For the next fifteen minutes, as Marker steered the Vickers across the wide lake, the two creatures kept them company, entertaining each other and the SBS men with an underwater display which included everything from looping the loop around their craft to close-up smiles in the observation windows. It was distracting, potentially dangerous, and downright wonderf
ul. When the dolphins, apparently bored by their new friend’s rigidity, finally took off for pastures new, the two men felt a rare sense of loss. Both knew that they had seen something few other humans would ever see: one intelligent species trying to play with another.
Cafell, meanwhile, was responsible for navigating them safely to their destination, and at times his powers of concentration were severely tested. But he stuck with it, not least because he knew that their surfacing in the wrong place might well prove fatal. There was no knowing what weaponry the enemy might have on hand, and there wouldn’t be much chance of escaping in the submarine once their presence was discovered. Not in water this shallow, anyway.
Finally they neared the appointed spot. The bottom of the lake had been slowly rising for some time, which fitted in with Cafell’s calculations. ‘Another fifty yards,’ he told Marker. ‘But slow.’
They had moved forward around twenty yards when the slope of the lake bottom suddenly steepened. ‘Here,’ Cafell said.
Marker switched off the propellers, turned off the lights and stopped the engine. ‘Here’s hoping,’ he said, and started emptying the tanks. The Vickers rose in the water, rocking gently from side to side. A dark and ragged line of vegetation swam into focus through the ruffled water, and then they were on the surface, and looking quickly round to see where they were.
Cafell’s navigation had been spot on. The submarine was sitting in a small cove, surrounded on three sides by a wall of mangroves. Only the open lake was visible through the entrance to the cove. ‘They’re around that headland,’ said Cafell. ‘Probably only about three hundred yards as the crow flies.’
Marker did a quick calculation in his head. ‘I shouldn’t be more than an hour,’ he told Cafell.
‘Should I wait here or take her back down? If I take her down the noise of the engine might carry,’ Cafell said.
‘I guess you’d better just keep her where she is,’ Marker replied. Having pulled the hood of the black wetsuit over his head he was now applying camouflage cream to his face. Next he double-checked that the camera was in the waterproof pouch at his belt, the silenced Browning High Power in the waterproof holster. He took one look at the Heckler & Koch MP5SD, which was still wrapped in its reinforced cling film, and decided that in this instance mobility was more important than fire-power.
Marine C SBS Page 17