37 Hours

by J. F. Kirwan

  Jones kept up, which was a relief. He’d told her before the dive that he was an avid walker, in the twelve-to-fifteen-mile range. The four military divers probably wanted to go faster, but Greaves was being cautious, and they couldn’t afford to arrive early anyway. Even though Salamander hadn’t originally guarded this access route, it didn’t mean he hadn’t prepared some nasty surprises up-channel. At least they had spear guns. Even Jones.

  What she saw, on infrared, was surreal. As if they were inside a white cylinder where a ghoulish dark green river flowed gently and relentlessly against them. In the river were small, lighter green asteroids that she’d given up trying to avoid, as it slowed her down, wasted energy, and was ultimately futile. A lime-coloured watery veil, like a miniature aurora borealis, occasionally wafted her way, sometimes missing her, other times washing over her head.

  She prayed the full-face-mask seal would remain intact. Puking inside it would be a deal-breaker, so she focused on whatever might be around the corner, and read her intel every minute, even if the little green-grey dashboard displayed on the lower left of her mask didn’t change much. The two figures she focused on were distance-to-target, now only a few hundred metres, and evacuation progress from the primary blast radius, which was still only thirty-eight per cent.

  She studied the rest of her display. Oxygen recycling was working fine. At this ‘depth’, or rather water pressure; she had another ninety minutes if she needed it. Which either way, she wouldn’t, as there was just over an hour left to zero time. She wondered if Salamander had any penultimate surprise at the T-minus-sixty-minutes waypoint, to keep the panic upstairs topped up.

  Another ten minutes and they should be there. They’d sent an underwater scout drone ahead of them. It had found the warhead, and had then stopped transmitting. Not good. The warhead seemed to be located at a junction, which meant it would be tricky – Salamander or more divers could be waiting for them, hiding down another tunnel.

  There was also a warhead-sniffer readout on her dashboard, flat for the first hour, but in the past five minutes a few bars had started to grow, like a mobile phone trying to find a signal. The nuke was there. A small part of her had wondered if the warhead had ever made it this far. But the bars were getting taller, and had turned bright green, like the shit outside, meaning it was definitely a high-grade plutonium signature. She imagined a massive smoking crater where Central London used to be. A radioactive wasteland for years to come.

  Sixty minutes. Maybe Salamander had his hands full… A message appeared from Jake. She presumed Greaves could see it, too. An explosion in Manchester, where most of the G20 elite had been taken. The Chinese and Russian prime ministers, amongst other delegates, presumed dead. Payback time. Salamander was prepared to let most people evacuate. But not those who’d betrayed him and his wife so many years ago. Lorne had paid the price for Britain’s role, and now China and Russia had been called to account.

  But the real question was how security had been breached. The second mole in MI6. For the first time, it occurred to Nadia that Lorne’s death might not have been simply revenge. Killing her altered the balance of power in MI6. It not only led to a field promotion for Jake, but others, too. Jake should be looking at who had gained higher security access from Lorne’s death. Nadia wanted to tell him, but had no way of replying to Jake, nor did Greaves. They were too far underground; she could receive, but not send messages. And Jake and others were fighting on two fronts – the warhead threat, and the truck-sized hole in their security systems that had just led to the deaths of several G20 heads of state.

  She got another message.

  Ten more metres.

  Jake and others were digging through the rubble left by Salamander, trying to reach the tunnel from the surface. She’d heard muffled explosions twenty minutes earlier, and more recently heavy-duty drilling and hammering. Can’t have been easy. Salamander had probably left other booby traps or men in their pathway. Besides, getting through ten metres of rubble could easily take an hour. She, Greaves and Jones would arrive first.

  Something caught her attention. An asteroid was heading towards her face, about two metres ahead, when it stopped, rotated, then began travelling again, as if it had snagged on something… She stopped finning, and put her arm out to prevent Jones overtaking her. Greaves and two others were ahead. She activated the local intercom as quickly as she could by touching a button on her face mask, but it was too late.

  A tripwire.

  She grabbed the spear gun strapped to her calf just as it happened. The underwater detonation assaulted her on three fronts. First it was blinding, on account of the infrared amplifying the white light a hundredfold. Second, the bass, drum-like noise was transmitted instantly with no dampening, as if it was inside her skull. Third, it was physical, a giant hammer that pounded the front of her body all at the same moment, winding her. Her fingers tingled, and with a sinking feeling she realised she’d dropped the spear gun. Drifting back with the flow, she touched a control on her face mask and normal vision was restored. But her comms no longer worked. Never mind. All divers were trained on hand signals. As long as it didn’t get too complicated.

  She tried to see beyond the white and green blotches skating over her retinas, pulled out her torch, and switched it on. Greaves was stunned but, like her, recovering. The guy next to him, not so. His mask was shattered and blood was streaming from where his face had been pulped. He must have looked up as he tripped the wire, and taken the brunt of the blast. Behind her, two divers were helping Jones, who was thrashing wildly. One of them switched Jones’s infrared off. That calmed him a little. But as she looked forward again, two sets of halogen lights were streaking straight towards them. Two underwater sleds – like armoured toboggans – were going to mow them down.

  She knew the propellers must be making a terrific noise, but her ears were ringing so loudly… At least her eardrums hadn’t burst. She guessed what was coming next. The two sleds separated, the front one heading for Greaves, the rear one for her. Diving low, she watched as Greaves manoeuvred behind the dead diver, just in time, as two spears zipped into the corpse. The second sled dived down, and at first Nadia thought this was it, as there was nowhere to hide in a metal tube, but at the last second the sled angled upwards and fired twin spears over her head.

  Jones.

  All she could see were the brilliant ice-white halogen lights until the sled passed her, and then she saw the two divers: one driving, the other one hanging on at the back. She drew her knife and kicked upwards, blade outstretched, and caught the shin of the trailing diver. The knife didn’t penetrate bone, but she managed to grab his ankle with her other hand and hold tight. The sled yanked her forward, and she had just enough time to see the diver she’d struck turn around, some kind of underwater pistol in his hand.

  She had to act, and she did the one thing the Chef had taught her years ago, that she’d secretly vowed never to do. She needed to incapacitate the diver immediately, take him out of the game. As he levelled the pistol she ducked down beneath his legs, still holding onto his ankle, kicked as hard as she could, and swung her knife upwards, straight into his groin, and twisted hard. His body buckled, and he slid from the sled. Nadia fell with him, because she needed something from the soon-to-be-dead diver. His pistol. She took it from his unresisting fingers, knowing he was in excruciating pain, bleeding out. If she’d have known how many shots the pistol had, she might have put him out of his misery.

  The second sled torpedoed past her, only one diver aboard. There was no time to study the weapon. She simply raised her arm and fired at the driver’s head. A hail of needles flashed forward and caught the side of his face. At first she thought they hadn’t worked, but the sled veered to the left, hit the side of the tunnel. It skated around it until it was upside down, passed the first sled, which had stopped where Jones was, and disappeared into the darkness with its paralysed driver.

  Greaves swam up to her, a pistol like her
s in his hand. Presumably he’d borrowed his in a similar fashion. They swam towards the idling sled and the scuffle of divers, but by the time they arrived it was over. One of theirs had two spears and a dozen tiny needles protruding from his chest, an empty spear gun in his hand. He was in front of Jones. Must have sacrificed himself. The enemy driver floated listlessly, a knife buried in his neck. The only other military diver breathing retrieved his knife.

  Nadia checked her pistol. No more poisoned needles. A single-shot weapon. She dropped it and swam towards Jones, and moved so close that their face masks touched. She mouthed Okay, but his eyes were darting here and there, and she could feel him shaking. She gripped his shoulders hard, and then lightly banged her face mask against his. That got his attention. He stared at her. She mouthed Okay again. He nodded. She squeezed him again, shook her head.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them. Okay.

  Greaves tapped her shoulder, and pointed a flat palm back towards where they’d been a few minutes ago. She gave him the OK signal, then pointed to the pistol and to the spear gun still strapped to Greaves’s calf. He understood. He retrieved his spear gun and handed her the pistol. The other military diver brought the sled about. Greaves held on to the left side, spear gun ready, while Nadia and Jones held on to the right. The driver hugged the right side of the tunnel, protecting Jones as much as possible. They zoomed over the diver Nadia had stabbed, who was curled in a ball inside a reddish cloud. Not dead yet, but in no shape to give them trouble. He drifted downstream beneath them.

  Now they had an advantage. If anyone was waiting for them, all they would see was the sled’s headlamps, so she and the others should have the element of surprise. Unless… She pulled herself forwards, pointed to the headlamp, then drew her finger across her neck. Greaves understood, as did the driver, who slowed the sled and flicked a switch. The main light went dark, leaving two smaller ones running, barely illuminating the way ahead. Greaves touched his face mask and Nadia and the others did the same, switching back to infrared.

  Sure enough, there were two more of Salamander’s divers with a third sled, its lights off. Salamander’s men lowered their pistols, presuming their colleagues’ ambush had been successful. Given that the captured sled’s beams had only just been switched off, Nadia knew it would take Salamander’s men a few seconds for their eyesight to readjust. Seconds they weren’t given, because both Greaves and the other diver raised their spear guns, took aim, and didn’t miss.

  The sled slowed as they approached an intersection. There was a blue glow up ahead. The underwater tunnel widened, revealing a large railroad-type chassis and caterpillar tread, with some kind of motor and engine. On top was a large conical device, its pointy end painted in stark white and red squares, and on its main body were wires and metal boxes and small flashing lights. She and Greaves hovered over it, and they read the timer: 38:04:11, counting down. They turned to Jones, who stared beyond them to his area of expertise. He put his palms together in front of him, then drew them apart. Nadia and Greaves got it. They moved out of his way.

  She scanned the area for Salamander’s men. Or simply Salamander. For sure he was there somewhere. Greaves did the same. Neither of them bothered Jones. He knew his job. He either disarmed it or it was game over. For everyone. Including Salamander. For an instant she considered that maybe that was some kind of lose-win, because the world needed to be rid of Salamander. But no, even though London had been evacuating for hours, the detonation would still claim hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. And the ones directly above, including Jake, wouldn’t even have time to blink. Impossible to tell how close Jake was, with intermittent clunks and thuds.

  After what seemed like eternity, she glanced behind at the timer: thirteen minutes. When she turned back, she noticed something. The absence of something. The other military diver, whose name she didn’t know. Where was he? She nudged Greaves, then pointed her left hand and drew a wide arc with it. His body tensed as he got it. He also searched, focusing on where they’d last seen him, at the corner of the intersection. Greaves turned to her, held up a vertical palm facing her. Stay. Nadia shook her head vigorously, and pointed back to Jones. Greaves again looked forward to the corner, and again held up his palm.

  Nadia didn’t believe this was happening. Greaves finned away from her. She instinctively moved backwards, a little closer to Jones. Greaves reached the corner. He must have been using his infrared, because he didn’t shine his torch down that section. He turned to her, gave her the OK signal, and disappeared around the bend.

  No, this is not fucking okay!

  She waited, trying to calculate how much time had passed, because she didn’t want to turn around and take her eyes off the area in front of them. Dammit, why hadn’t she checked the timer on her computer, synced it with the warhead? She heard the fear in her breathing, the shallow, ragged breaths. This was all part of the Salamander show. Instil fear. Fear stopped you thinking clearly. So, come on, think!

  She tried to figure it out. The other diver was tough and sharp, yet he’d disappeared without a sound. He hadn’t seen Salamander coming. Exactly as Cheng Yi had said, two years ago – you won’t see him coming. How was that possible? Either Salamander had been hidden, or… Or what? She recalled something her father had said: the best way to hide was in plain sight. Right in front of her it wasn’t completely dark, bright enough to see anyone coming. Around the corner was different. No light at all. But they had infrared. Greaves and the other one, they could see even in pitch black.

  But that wasn’t completely true. She recalled another of her father’s pet aphorisms: assumptions create blind spots. Greaves and the other diver could see anything warmer than its surroundings. If it wasn’t warm, like body heat, it might not be picked up, and they wouldn’t see it. What if Salamander had some kind of suit that cancelled out his body heat?

  Greaves wouldn’t see him until it was too late. The last thing she was going to do was to desert Jones to save Greaves. It had been Greaves’s choice. The wrong one. But maybe she could make it right. She rummaged in her stab jacket pocket until she found what she was looking for. A small underwater flare gun, a single shot that could be launched from the surface into the sky to summon help. She pointed it at the intersection, aimed high, and fired.

  The flare ignited in her hand in a cloud of fizzing orange-white bubbles, and then sped away like a lazy torpedo, not intended to work underwater, but doing its best. It streaked forward, bounced on the floor, and landed at the intersection. Just far enough. Ghoulish shadows flickered on the smooth walls. Come on Greaves! See him. She hoped Greaves wasn’t already dead. Salamander would have had to hide the body of the other diver, move it out of the way, unless he was hiding behind it. Maybe Greaves still had time on his side.

  And she needed to know the time, how much time was left. Or did she? No. For all she knew, Salamander had some small camera and would wait for her to turn around, then shoot her. Forget the time. Nothing you can do about it. But Greaves should have returned by now. The flare was a summons for help. He wouldn’t ignore it. Which meant he was already dead. The flare sputtered, and went out.

  She was on her own.

  Small flurries of water movement behind her told her Jones was still working. Still saving them all. And she made a vow. She was going to save him. Too many had already died on her watch. And then he passed her something, placing it in her hand, before returning to his work. His spear gun.

  She liked this guy.

  There was a noise, a dull rumbling, then a crack. Always difficult to locate sound underwater, but she reckoned it was from above. And then the unmistakable sound of a drill, rocks splintering and cracking apart. She dared to hope. Jake. Or someone he’d sent. Trying to chop through the final metres of rubble that Salamander had left in his wake. Jake was digging down to find her, Jones, and the warhead. She relished this sliver of hope, but didn’t dare relax. A trail of silt began coiling down from the ceiling. Whoever it
was, they were coming. Which meant Salamander had to act now.

  She stared hard at the far end of the cavern, into the near-darkness, trying to see something that wasn’t there. Except… She took a sharp intake of breath. Something was there. She looked away from it, then back to it, trying to see if her peripheral vision could make more sense of it. All it told her was that it was moving forward, towards her. A shape, a shadow. She didn’t hesitate. She raised Jones’s spear gun and fired. Where had the spear gone? Her instincts screamed at her to back away, or to dart back down the tunnel, but she didn’t. She had to give Jones every last second.

  As it drew closer, the falling silt framed the form. Human. A very large human. Like a bear. Three metres away. She lifted the pistol and fired, the tiny needles whipping forward. She pulled out her knife and her torch. Salamander’s stealth suit – because she couldn’t think of it any other way – scattered the light, making it hard to focus on him, but she did make out his head, in some kind of helmet, like an astronaut’s, but all black. A crack from above, and light broke through, and she glimpsed those dark, deep-socketed eyes behind the visor. An arm lifted towards her, a pistol, full of deadly poisonous needles. But he didn’t fire. He had one shot, and he needed to shoot Jones, not her.

  The drilling intensified, a plume of silt forming behind Salamander. His head tilted to one side, and then he evidently decided that it would be easiest to kill her first with the pistol, and then kill Jones with his bare hands, because she saw his arm firm, and she knew he was about to pull the trigger. Protect Jones. She stayed exactly where she was, and waited for the kill-shot.

  But she heard a swish, and Salamander’s arm was knocked sideways as it fired. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of Greaves, kneeling, wounded, something sticking from his ribs. He’d fired a spear at Salamander’s pistol arm, probably because he could see it framed by the silt. The pistol had fired, but the needles had missed her. Or had they? She felt a burning on her neck, just below the full-face-mask seal, as if she’d been stung by a wasp.