Apex (Ben Bracken 2)

by Robert Parker

  I fall. It feels like forever. Then the water rushes up to me, the might of the sea’s blue increasingly vivid the closer I get, and I am smashed to what feels like pieces by a strangely invigorating but altogether brutal collision.

  4

  It feels like I have been flattened by a Mack truck. My legs ache, having taken the force of the impact, the wind forced out of my body like toothpaste squeezed instantly from a tube.

  I try to stay low, try to let the oxygen in my lungs from forcing me back to the surface, and for a moment, I flail pathetically ten feet under. It’s a real ordeal staying low like this, and I seem to make no inroads into maintaining a healthy submersion. Why?

  My pack. It’s waterproof, keeping the water out, but also keeping the air in, like a flotation device. I almost feel betrayed by it, considering the lengths I went to to get it back. But this could prove very useful. Silver linings and all that.

  I slip it from my shoulders, and grip it between my knees. I slightly undo one of the clasps, and release the folded seal just a touch at the corner of the bag’s opening to let little bubbles of air surge out. I place my mouth over the hole and take a breath.

  I try to feel how much air would be left in there, by squeezing the bag and trying to crudely measure resistance. Enough for another gulp I think, and now the added bonus is that it has much more flotation stability. Man, how I could have used this earlier.

  I rebond the seal, and clip it back up again, holding it to my chest. I have no scuba mask anymore, which seems like a huge oversight now. But if that angry little Napoleon up there had seen my Hello Kitty scuba mask, he might have given me more scrutiny from the start.

  No time to dwell. What’s done is done. This is a survival situation. I must make no mistake of that. I can see, but not clearly, and the the sub-surface world is getting darker by the second. I start kicking, using the bag for balance. The kicking smarts the legs like crazy, but I simply ignore it. If it ain’t broke, no need to fret about fixing it.

  I will try to make it one hundred meters, before I go to the surface. That’s my plan. That might take an olympian effort, but I certainly want to give it my best. A hundred meters in faltering light conditions is a good number to aim for, and should give me enough breathing space.

  I paddle east, along the coast, back inland, keeping the rocks yards to my right. I decide to occupy my mind, and commit to the task without focussing on it. You always sustain endurance that way. Don’t think. Simply do.

  My mind drifts to the mystery item in my shorts pocket. That was not the kind of cargo I was expecting. It is tiny! What on earth that small could command so much attention, could carry so much weight?

  The ruby. It must be the ruby. Perhaps it is extremely valuable. Perhaps it belongs to someone who will do anything to get it back. This all seems quite extreme though, ditching a plane in the sea to get your hands on a bit of jewelry. It sounds too far fetched. But, then again, all of this does. I repeat my makeshift breathing process, and glance around, taking stock of my environment, refueling.

  It seems nobody followed me off the precipice. Probably didn’t fancy pitching themselves off a cliff in the name of somebody’s lost trinket. Again, it all seems a bit extreme. And a little bit fanciful that this is even happening at all. But I’m on this ride now. My ticket has been checked and punched. No getting off now, Ben.

  I’ve always had a knack for getting finding myself in the most ludicrous and dangerous of situations, as if the planets not just align, but actively seek me out. ‘What are we doing today Saturn? Oh, I don’t know, Jupiter, where’s Ben Bracken? He’s always good for a laugh...’

  The sea is thankfully calm. This could have been a disaster otherwise - not that it has been that much of a success story in the first place. But, as I check above and behind me, I did arrive here with an objective. Get to the crash site, retrieve the item before any interested parties, then get out with the cargo. I’m well on my way to that.

  It’s at that moment of ridiculous navel gazing, that I hear the familiar rumble of the inflatable rib and its monstrous engine. They are looking for me. Still. I’ve got to hand it to either the bald guy or his commander, most likely the latter - there’s a persistence here. They don’t know where I am but they are damn well trying to remedy that. Just as I would, if the roles were reversed.

  Getting out of the sea seems a good idea now, but they’ll be expecting that. I can’t really see anything down here anymore, and before long it will be pitch black out there, at which point the danger factor of the situation takes a huge leap forward and my own chances of survival take a plunge back.

  I think of food. I’m not hungry now, but I will be. I need to make sure I have provisions to avoid civilization for a little while. The entire area will be crawling with people to avoid, if the last minutes have been anything to go by. There’ll be the equivalent of all points bulletins out on me all over the place.

  At least there will be up there in Mortehoe. They will assume that, piss-wet through and frozen down to my bone marrow which, by God, I will be, I will mosey on into town and try to get a warmer, some food and a way out.

  This is survival. No doubt about it. And for the time being I am on my own until things calm down. Am I still enjoying it? I’m not sure anymore. As the temperature of the sea drops palpably a couple of degrees with the setting sun and the cool dusk air, I wouldn’t mind being, well, anywhere but here. I hyper-urinate, while I float there, relieving myself and letting my warm urine heat my body. It’s an inbuilt heat source, and would be stupid to ignore.

  The rumble is approaching. I can’t tell if it is heading straight at me, but it will certainly run close by. Last thing I need now is to get hit by the propellor, and be another useless head floating in the ocean like that poor woman’s earlier. I can’t see well enough to get a proper fix on the vessel, so I sink a little to be safe. It won’t last. If the divers aren’t on the boat already, they will be soon. I’ve never engaged anyone underwater before, and I don’t think this will be the place to try. I’ve never fancied the ungainly slow-motion of it all, but then again, I’m only really going off old James Bond movies with that one. I haven’t a clue, but if it were to happen here, now, on this occasion, the other fellow is much more likely to have an air tank on him than me. How’s that for an upper hand...

  I keep swimming. Kicking, low and hard, and, after a final few strokes, head inland. The rumble thunders past, and I am left with a sudden quiet. One inch at a time, I breach the surface. I am up against harsher rocks with no possible means of getting out, but the sea surrounding me is empty. It feels so much darker since my last sojourn up here. I need to get out, now, or I might never. I can’t hear anybody, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. What I can hear, is a grunting. Like a couple of Rottweilers are sitting over to my right, but with vocal chords a couple of octaves lower than usual. I’m not prone to flights of fantasy, nor hysteria, but some would find that low, twilight-masked, ownerless growling more than a little unnerving.

  It can only be more seals. But if there are pups nearby, as suggested by the growling, then that will most likely not work out too great for me. I hear it again, but this time with a scrape and a wet slap. That rubbery creature is on land. Or at least something like it. I swim towards towards the sound.

  I fought dogs once. In a pub, no less. And it was as awful as it sounds. It was midday in a quiet East London boozer, and I’d gone to take on a slippery criminal mastermind whose overall... attitude to life had irked me. This was before my time in prison, before my physical honing and my mental sharpening. I was very stupid, and took matters into my own hands. I was bitter - far too bitter. I had no fixed purpose, just a glimmer of something I wanted to achieve. But bravado and inexperience dragged me into a situation that nearly did for me.

  It changed me. It forced me to. I learned so much. I was outwitted, to the full. He cornered me, pitted me against three of his attack dogs, on the spit and sawdust floor of his pub, t
he central cover for his operations. I survived, having performed horrors on those poor dogs. They wanted my throat, and luckily I could see it through. The bastard, Terry ‘The Turn-Up’ Masters, didn’t like it one bit. He blew out my knee with an old rifle, then pitted me in a one-armed knife fight with his son, who he was also more than a little pissed off with. Honor crops up in the strangest places, even among society’s more detrital elements. The fight itself took place on an abandoned barge, rusting quietly on the Thames, and it ended messily for Masters’ son. I didn’t mean it to. But it did. He was having his own case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ syndrome, but that was simply the life he had been borne into. When I turned to Masters he was gone, and police flooded the room. He framed me, getting rid of both his problems in one go. I was sent down. It was the biggest lesson I ever learned.

  It has come to my attention that my left foot is really hurting now, that nick before really coming back to bite hard. The fact I’ve noticed it, given the sharpness of my focus on the task at hand, means it is becoming a hindrance. It will need addressing.

  There. Five yards ahead, in the dark. A chunk of rock jutting from the sea, with two levels. And on it, lying with a sense of animal entitlement, sit four seals. They all look at me, their elegant necks bent in my direction, their black eyes glinting back whatever measly light is left. I see no pups, but I don’t want to aggravate them. At the back left of the lower level is an empty space, tight to the ledge to the upper level, upon which sits seal number five, scrutinizing gaze and all.

  I’ve travelled. A lot. I undertook my training abroad in the idea of being the best I could possibly be, and despite all the different disciplines I have studied and perfected, I really am unsure of what to do here. Nothing really has prepared me for this. I was training for combat, counter-measures and tactics, and at no point did it come to my attention that I might need to strategize an approach to a coven of seals.

  If I saw someone approaching in the darkness, what would I want? I’d want quiet reasoning and explanation. I certainly wouldn’t want screaming and hostility. So that’s what I’ll try.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ I say, in a confident low even tone, completely belying that I feel like a total dick. ‘I wondered whether I could come up and join you for a moment. It’s a very nice home you have here.’

  Five pairs of onyx pupils look back at me, but take no move forward.

  ‘I’m going to go a moment, and I’ll be right back. I’ll assume, considering that you haven’t bitten my face off yet, that that will be OK.’

  I drop beneath the surface, and leave them to it for a moment. It’s ridiculous that this has even worked at all to the extent that it has. But once, a long time ago, when I was still on Her Majesty’s dime, I was traveling some of the remote southern tributaries of the Amazon. I wanted to test myself, and test myself I did. Every westerner I had ever seen or heard of navigating that area of the world had always been accompanied by a local guide that could keep their nose clean for them. I didn’t want that. I couldn’t work out what I was going to learn if someone was going to hold my hand. I’m a man that believes in learn by doing, not doing by proxy. So I rented a small boat with a tiny Evinrude motor, and set out on my own. I got myself in trouble in some corners, but experienced near-magical welcomes and kindnesses by using that exact same tactic I just used with the seals above. If there isn’t the bridge of language between two cultures, not behaving like you want to plunder, rape and kill everyone there goes a long way to set the tone. That and a smile laced with gratitude.

  I have a crazy notion that, if I can get cover and warmth, that rock might be the perfect place to see the night through. They will comb this place piece by piece, leaving no corner un-examined... But they will never in a million years think I am among the seals. It would almost be as stupid an idea as the one that saw me talking to them. As I sink to the bottom, it becomes very apparent I can see nothing. I shut my eyes again. I don’t need them at all, so I won’t risk aggravating them with excessive exposure to salt water. I invert my body and head down head first, arms outstretched.

  My fingers touch seaweed, and that is all I need to make a good stab at food and cover. I grab as many fronds as I can between my fingers, and pull as hard as I can. I don’t need a lot, but a decent amount would go a long way. This species of seaweed is long, and ten or twelve decent strips is what I am aiming for.

  I collect my crop, while listening. It is still quiet, but I know it won’t be long before divers and boats are coursing through the vicinity - not to mention, surely, the traditional emergency response parties. Police, ambulance, and fire service. Whether they are in on what is really going on here is anybody’s guess at this point, so I don’t want to take any chances.

  I head for the surface once more, the long weed strands trailing behind me in the murk like a serpentine tail of vegetation. I break the surface once again, and check that the coast is clear, literally. It is.

  ‘I’m back, guys,’ I say, turning to my company for the night - but they barely react. They literally couldn’t care less. Result. But suddenly the farthest seal on the far right begins to light up almost from within, its wet skin suddenly detailed, visible and glistening. The seal turns its head to the cliffs, and I follow its gaze. A high-powered torch is beaming down from the cliffs above. As soon as I have even recognized what it is, the shaft of light has moved abruptly to the next seal, then the next. It starts to swing again, its arc way too close for comfort, and I throw myself back beneath the surface, just as the light hits.

  A couple of feet below the bridge between air and sea, I watch the torch beam blaze an eerily beautiful trail across the exact spot I had just been. It moves with speed, and from here, could be the searching beam of a small UFO, scanning for something or someone to pick up.

  It’s a risk being here. It is probably a stupid idea, to try to sleep out the night on this chunk of rock with these bloody seals. But what choice do I have? This side of the peninsula is composed of high, jagged rock facing north, with no possible means of getting out. Factor in the dark, and it’s not just impossible, but very deadly. And I can’t afford to perish. I need to get this cargo into safe hands, and I need to stay alive long enough to do that.

  They will be searching the entire area. The whole blast of land that is Morte Point will be upturned and emptied out for inspection. They know just like me that being in the sea at night, as under-equipped as I am, is akin to a death sentence. Their attention and investigations to the sea will be cursory, and if they do really think I am in here, they will most likely consider that they can just wait until morning to go looking for a dead body, as opposed to mounting a full pitch black sea search.

  It really is a fucking stupid idea, this. But what are the alternatives?

  I feel a plan brewing. The geography and architecture of both my predicament and a method to soothe it. Safely noting that the torch beam is well out of sight now, I kick powerfully to the surface - again noting that pain in my left foot. I feel a huge roll of blank paper being unrolled on a table in my skull, and various versions of myself turn to look at me, while handing me a thick black marker. Over there is the part of me that is concerned with hunger management, right next to a version that is concerned exclusively with warmth and shelter. And over there tapping his watch with a set grimace, is the part of my conscious that demands measures of safety, made more prescient thanks to this foot injury.

  At the surface again, I check for the presence of anybody that could see me, and heave the crop of seaweed up onto the outcrop. It lands with a feathery splat, which alerts my new seal friends.

  ‘It’s alright, it’s just me again,’ I say in that same even tone. They lose interest as quickly as that, and lie back to a resting state without fuss or protest. Or at least, I think that’s what has happened. I can’t really see. It is pitch black now, just a touch of a southerly moon partially obscured by the cliffs I only recently plunged from.

  I pull myself up onto the ro
ck, and launch into a flurry of activity. If anyone takes a glance over at these rocks again, I don’t want them to get any sight of me. I need a quick turnaround here.

  First, I drag my pack over to the empty corner of the shelf, then do the same with the seaweed. I smack the seaweed on the rocks to blast away the excess moisture, like beating the dirt off a rug.

  I sit snug up to the rocks, resting my right shoulder on the side of rocky wall to the higher shelf, and pull my pack between my legs.

  Everything is there, just as I left it. I make a quick inventory. The chocolate and Lucozade from the Holiday Shop. My smartphone, wallet, and ID documents. A roll of sandwich bags. Some spiced turkey jerky. My Macbook Pro in its durable rubber case. The chargers for my electricals. All the clothes I own, which amount to my multipurpose trail trainers, another pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts. A black micro-fleece, an old red shirt (which is as formal as I get) and some underwear. Some cursory toiletries. A travel towel. A set of lighters. My Wenger Ranger multipurpose army knife. Duct tape. And my light rain coat. Everything a growing boy/vigilante with a penchant for traveling light might need.