by Ru Pringle
There’s a period of violent turbulence and what feels like drowning. She has no idea whatsoever which way is up, or even if she is underwater.
Then she finds herself sprawled, choking, over something that turns out to be Alastair. He’s face down in the foaming swimming pool of the cockpit, with water raging past on all sides.
Coughing hard enough to make her retch, she hauls his head clear.
Alistair splutters. Takes a great, tearing breath. Water gushes from his lungs. Around them the yacht is bobbing out of the foaming chaos like a cork, waterfalls of sea pouring off the decks.
‘What …?’ he manages, before doing his best to cough his lungs out. There’s another roar, further away this time. Coira sees one of the RIBs borne upwards on the wave of another submarine eruption, flipping over before being dashed into the foam in a confusion of waving bodies, spinning oars and falling weapons.
There’s another deluge, but it’s less bad than the first. Otter’s Pocket surges away from it sideways on another man-made tsunami, spinning to face the wind. The jib flaps and the mainsail bucks from side to side. Looking dazed, Alistair turns the tiller.
As the sails start filling again, a big, anonymous grey warship swings into view around the forestay.
THE SHIP HAS two narrow hulls separated by the black skirts of some kind of surface effect mechanism. It looks like a nuclear strike would only slow it down. Coira wonders how they could both have missed such a monstrosity until it was on top of them. She has absolutely no idea what to do. Going aboard will be the end: the first thing they’re going to do is take hers and Alistair’s identities. Check their biometrics. They’ll doubtless have all the current files on the MI5’s wanted list.
She wonders bleakly if she could swim to the nearest island. Right. The one full of maniacs who just tried to kill us …
And yet … she can’t help noticing that the attitude of the boat they’re sailing towards isn’t exactly friendly. The barrel poking from the pyramidal turret on its forward deck is tracking the yacht. As, she sees, are half a dozen retractable guns bristling below its wedge-shaped bridge. Though relatively small, she suspects a shell from one of these guns would be enough to crack Otter’s Pocket like an egg.
‘You are entering controlled waters,’ booms a voice, loud enough for her to put hands over her gunfire-dulled ears. ‘This is the Royal Navy fast Frigate Wellington. Under state of emergency regulations, United Kingdom territorial waters south of this island, from a latitude of fifty-six-point-four-five degrees north, are restricted. This vessel is authorised to use lethal force to preserve sovereignty of these waters. You will not be warned again.’
Alistair’s already on his feet, waving with his good arm. ‘Hey!’ he bellows. ‘We came from UK territorial waters, you arseholes!’
For a moment he just fumes.
‘Dump the jib and point us into the wind,’ he tells Coira. ‘Furl the jib if you can work it out, and bring the mainsail sheet tight so we stay to windward. Quickly – before these jobsworths get trigger-happy. I’m going to try them on the radio.’
He stomps below decks as she nervously brings the boat about. Above the thrashing sails she hears the hiss of static and snatches of one-sided conversation: ‘Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan … … Private sailing vessel Otter’s Pocket … … Employee of His Majesty’s Government … … Victims of piracy, returning to controlled waters, having just come from south of Oban …’ Operating the furler proves simple. Having centred the mainsail she just hauls on a blue line labelled “furler”, and the jib rolls itself neatly around the forestay. One of the pirate RIBs, she sees, has survived the bombardment. It’s already a shrinking speck against the grey-blue outline of Iona.
Alistair’s voice is cut off by a deafening howl. Coira sticks her head through the hatch to see him hurling the handset away. He pushes past her up the steps, eyes blazing.
‘What’s …?’
‘They’re only jamming the fucking radio.’
Coira thinks she has rarely seen anyone so angry. Alistair stomps about, seething, his injury apparently forgotten.
‘You know what this means, don’t you?’
He jabs his good arm at the ship.
‘It’s triage. Some … government bureaucrat with a tie and a double-barrelled name has drawn some arbitrary line on the map, and decided nothing north of it is worth saving. And now – now they’re leaving it and everyone who lives here to the pirates and murderers and the Nietzsche-quoting end-of-days nutters. In fact …’ she sees his fists clench. ‘Yes – they’ll be hoping that by leaving these waters to mob rule, all the fucking boat people will come up here to the Highlands, where votes are too few to matter – and then their little immigration problem will be solved when the fools who think they can settle here, and the separatists, and … the feral gangs, or whatever, end up either starving or exterminating each other! Like everywhere north of here is some giant fucking human flypaper!’
As well as a boiling cocktail of other things, not least relief that her capture may have been at least postponed, Coira feels a weird sense of guilty satisfaction.
Welcome to my world, sunshine.
CHAPTER 36
______________
Message
THE STATIC CARAVAN isn’t so bad. You’ve been in worse hotels. Amazingly, the toilet even works, now you’ve located the water valve. The bottled gas and most of the fittings have been looted, but you’ve been to a local farm where the farmer’s wife was happy to cook you a meal, for a reasonable price. It was better than what you got in Lochgilphead.
Most useful of the surviving items of furniture is a foam mattress. On a platform of plywood by the caravan’s bay window, it offers views across the deserted road to the Sound of Kerrera, which is all very pleasant. It still smells a tad mouldy, but better after airing for a couple of hours outside in the sun.
It’s an ideal place to wind down, and to think.
You’ve been playing your entire escape from Oban over and over in your head, trying to spot anything you’ve missed. It’s so frustrating, you could weep. You almost had her. She must have been fit because you don’t think you were far behind, yet once she’d run off, you didn’t so much as lay eyes on her. You’ve been wondering if she might have ducked down a side-road and doubled back, or found shelter in someone’s house, but it doesn’t feel likely. This was a woman with trust issues at the best of times, and you’re confident her instinct would have been to get out of town as quickly as possible. Probably back to where her kayak was waiting.
Which, you realise, is the nub of the matter.
Where was her kayak waiting?
Having a better idea now of Oban’s geography, you’re fairly sure she’d have come ashore to the south-west. A few minutes’ walk from the town centre, but hidden from it by a kink in the coast. This would explain the direction she ran, and the singlemindedness with which she did so. You even think you know where. A tiny concrete slipway hidden from the road below a steep bank near a building Google Maps still refers to as Oban Sailing Club.
Then a thought makes you sit up on your mattress.
What if Keir already knew her pursuers would be looking for a kayak?
What if she had found another way to approach the town?
You swipe your ’phone on and summon Google Maps. Unfortunately, your Spex were in the car, which is currently inside a restricted area under inconvenient amounts of rubble, so you have to use the physical screen.
You’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for, so you zoom out until you can see the entire stretch of water between Kerrera and the town of Oban. It’s a curious feeling looking at buildings you know no longer exist.
Then …
There, over on the left of the image. You recognise the pattern of straight lines. No boats are visible in the satellite image, but you know immediately that what you’re looking at is the outline of pontoons.
Oban Marina.
> Yes. Yes, yes – she’d have had plenty of time to think about this on the journey up from Craobh Haven. You curse your stupidity. Of course! In retrospect it’s clear she wouldn’t have kayaked to Oban. She’d have wanted to disguise herself before going anywhere near the place. And she made herself look like a farmer. In Wellington boots and a boiler-suit.
You navigate around the view of Kerrera.
Plenty of farms on the island. In fact, it looks like nothing but.
So, if she put ashore at the marina, what then? It seems unlikely anyone would have left a useful boat just lying around. The only obvious boats you can see on the picture are a handful of yachts south of the barn-like building at the back of the marina. Derelict-looking as well as landlocked.
But what about a dinghy?
It’s not beyond possibility she could have found one, if it was stored somewhere out of sight. Especially if it didn’t have an engine. Could she have rowed? Perhaps there was a dinghy in a shed somewhere?
You like this line of thought. You decide to see where it leads.
So then …?
She rows across the harbour. Not much of a choice. Probably skirts south, though. Trying to keep out of sight of the town. Yes – that would make the yacht club the obvious place to haul out. But after the attack …
What do you do then, Coira Keir?
This is what matters most, and also where it all gets problematic. You know from satellite images the morning after the attack that the entire marina-end of the island was pummelled by both the Navy and Air Force. You watched much of it from the hill – frustratingly just a couple of hundred metres from where you now believe Keir came ashore. She can’t have failed to see what was happening there. So the real question is: if she knew she couldn’t get back to her kayak safely, did she get back in her boat, or flee on foot, south along the shore road?
The road you’ve spent much of the last twenty four hours gazing at.
Could she be around here now?
You feel your hairs rise. You could request a roadblock and a building-to-building sweep. She’d have nowhere to go except overland.
You try the idea on for size. It doesn’t fit.
Go with the water option then. At least for now.
But then what? She’d have been scared, and a rowing boat would surely have been more liability than asset. How fast could she have rowed? Not very, you reckon. You try to visualise what direction the wind had been blowing. As you watched the bombardment, it had been from your left. To flee from Oban in relative safety she’d have had to row south, down the sound between the island and the mainland. Five kilometres, more or less against the wind, before reaching the open sea. She’d have tired quickly. A kayak would have been superior in every way. In fact, she’d probably have been better off walking.
It doesn’t work. In frustration, you run over the scene again in your mind’s eye.
If she was out on the water, why didn’t you see her?
It wasn’t that dark.
Or … maybe you did see her. Maybe it just didn’t register because you were distracted and you didn’t know what to look for.
You go through the mindfulness techniques you’ve often found useful: relaxing your muscles, slowing your breathing, and imagining your mind as an unruffled surface of water. You begin superimposing memories from the evening on to that surface. Coming round the corner west of the town with the army and fleeing civilians behind you. Taking that split-second decision to turn off up the hill. Looking behind you as you climb, out over the sound.
North, there’s a fearsome-looking navy ship sailing full-tilt towards the town. Some kind of munition strike is lighting up the island. You see speedboats coming fast, up the channel between the island and the mainland, towards the harbour. They’re passing a yacht, heading south. A yacht with patterned sails.
You leap to your feet, mouth open.
A yacht?
There was a yacht there – in the channel – and you didn’t even register it until now.
You beat your head against the soggy fibreboard wall a few times. It leaves a dent.
You grab the ’phone. But you’re being hasty, you realise. Everything hasn’t crystallised properly. A yacht – that just happens to be passing? That doesn’t work. This looks pre-arranged in some way.
Could you have spoken to someone in town, Coira Keir? Was it as simple as asking for a lift?
Or was this your route of escape all along?
You dial the number.
‘Unavailable right now,’ you’re told. ‘You’ll need to call back.’
You recognise the voice. Classy Edinburgh accent. Carla, you think her name was. ‘I have time-sensitive intel for my handler’s ears only. This is the number I’m supposed to call. How can I reach her?’
‘Can I take a message?’
For a moment you don’t reply. ‘Are you serious?’
She’s very apologetic. ‘It’s all hitting the fan here. I’m under strict instructions not to disturb her directly.’
‘What about Blakeslee?’
‘I’m very sorry. Same applies. By the way, you shouldn’t need telling not to use names on an unsecured line.’
You curse inwardly.
What is this? Bureaucracy? Is the manhunt being closed down? What the hell is going on?
‘Very well,’ you say, hoping too much of your frustration isn’t seeping through. ‘Pass on the message that if they actually want to stop this suspect of theirs before she escapes, rather than reading about her in another nation’s secure files in a year or two, they need to contact me, urgently. You have my number. Will you do that?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you very much.’
You hang up by throwing your ’phone at the mildew-spotted vinyl floor.
CHAPTER 37
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Secrets
THE SENSE OF DISTRACTION in the Ops Room as Sebastian walks in is almost palpable. Not a lot of people are looking at their monitors. Some of the thinned-out team are flicking plastic wrappers at each other.
Sebastian knows how they’re feeling.
‘Come on,’ he urges, clapping his hands together, as he walks down the stairs. ‘Get with the programme.’ He’s a little dismayed to find that they don’t snap to attention. At best, they slouch to it. He reaches the floor.
‘Developments?’
There’s a lot of exchanging of glances going on, and not a lot of updating.
‘Message for you,’ Carla tells him, apologetically. ‘From you-know-who. It sounded urgent. I texted a transcript for you like you said.’
‘Thank you, Carla. Anything else?’
No response.
‘We must have something?’
‘Chief … We don’t know – we don’t understand – what we’re looking for.’ This from Soo-Ling Campbell. Sebastian stares at her. Looks around. He’s rarely seen such a listless, dejected-looking group of people.
‘Don’t give me that,’ he snaps. ‘We might have lost sight of Keir for now, but our objective hasn’t changed.’
The response is a few dark mutterings.
‘We don’t even know if she’s still alive,’ mutters a very surly-looking Andrew Campbell. Sebastian hardens his face.
‘Well, that’s one of the things we need to confirm.’
‘Um, may I speak freely? Sir?’
This time it’s Ina Tiles. The mousey youngster is proving full of surprises. Sebastian gives her his best forbidding nod. ‘By all means.’
‘This case …’ She looks around, seeking support. ‘This case is a heap of steaming dog-crap. Sir.’ She reddens furiously, her neck seeming to retract into her blouse. ‘Pardon my … Um. There’s either stuff here that we’re not being told or …’ For a moment she runs out of steam, before cocking her head defiantly. ‘Look, I can’t speak for any of the others about the investigative side, but – seriously? Vital evidence going
missing? Houses linked with the case exploding?’ A few of the others are nodding vigorously – Andy Gupta, James Fields and Soo-Ling Campbell. The rest are looking alarmed, or inspecting desk tops or their shoes. Sebastian’s not sure how Tiles ended up as spokesperson for this little mutiny. ‘I’m telling you, I’d sooner believe the prime minister strapped on a suicide vest and blew himself up …’
‘Tiles – that’s enough. See me outside.’
He angrily scans the room.
‘I have to say, people, I do not like what I’m seeing here. I realise it’s been a hard couple of weeks, but that’s no excuse for … whatever this is. In fact –’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Take the rest of the day off. That’s an order. All of you except Gupta, Fields and Campbell.’
He points out the ones he’s selected.
‘No, Andrew, not you, the other one. I want the rest of you out of here, pronto. And make sure you come back with your heads screwed on. I don’t want to see a trace of anyone here until tomorrow lunchtime.
‘The other four: outside. Now.’
He storms from the room with as much righteous wrath as he can muster.
As prearranged, Lorna is waiting.
SEBASTIAN PEERS BACK through the fire-door’s scuffed window. There are a lot of shocked faces in the Ops Room. His four victims are filing up the stairs as though to their executions. The others look relieved, some offering supportive comments. Andrew Campbell is whistling, rolling his eyes and fanning his neck theatrically.
‘How did I do?’
‘Your Oscar’s secure,’ Lorna tells him. The door opens, and the victims file reluctantly through.
‘Follow me.’
He leads them through the maze of white corridors, down a couple of flights of service stairs and along another corridor. The breeze block down here hasn’t even been painted. Glancing back, he can see Lorna lagging behind, checking discreetly for followers.
They come to a windowless door, painted a kind of abscess colour. Sebastian shoulders it aside. Smells of dampness and machinery greet him, along with a whining hum emanating from a blue-painted diesel generator the size of a van. The generator’s meant to be a backup – the building is supposed to run off a mix of solar from the roof and power from the national grid – but whenever he’s been down here the machine has been whirring away.