The terrain-mapper began to reveal the contours of the slope ahead. He switched to submersible mode and jetted beyond the ancient coastal plain over a plateau the size of a racetrack, a wide opening in its centre. He remembered the water conduit in the volcano and guessed this was the second stage in the system, a huge rock-cut reservoir that served as a dispersal point for aqueducts fanning down into the industrial and domestic quarters of the city.
He continued in a southerly direction up the slope. According to the sketch map he had fed into the computer he should now be approaching the upper reaches of the processional way. Seconds later the terrain-mapper provided vindication, the 3-D display showing the stepped face of the eastern pyramid. Just beyond it the irregular outline of the volcano was beginning to materialize, and in between was a telltale cylindrical shape that blocked the gap between the pyramid and the jagged rock face.
Out of the eerie gloom a mass of twisted metal came into view. The ADSA seemed insignificant beside the submarine’s immense bulk; the hull casing towered higher than a four-storey building and extended the length of a football pitch. Cautiously he made his way over the sheared-off propeller, thankful that the electric motor in the ADSA was barely audible and the water jets produced minimal turbulence. He deactivated the floodlights and dimmed the LCD displays.
As he passed over the rear escape hatch behind the reactor chamber, he thought briefly of Captain Antonov and his crew, their irradiated corpses another addition to the harvest of death reaped by this grim sea. He tried to dispel the gruesome image as he approached the soaring form of the conning tower. In the gloom beyond he could just make out the halo from a searchlight array above the starboard foredeck. The lights were mounted on a submersible that had settled like a predatory insect on the DSRV where it was docked to the submarine’s forward escape hatch. Aslan’s men had gained access to the Kazbek by docking to the DSRV’s rear hatch, using a single-lock mating ring.
Jack set the ADSA down gingerly on the anechoic coating of the submarine. He pushed his hands into the manipulator arms and extended them outwards until he could see the joints at the elbows and wrists. The metal was yellow and pitted from the hydrogen sulphide but the sealings had held. He flexed both arms inwards until they touched the outer of the two metal boxes he had strapped to the front of the suit above the battery pack. He used the three metal digits at the end of each arm to prise open the box and extract the contents. He then cut the binding with the pincer and unravelled a mesh of Ping-Pong sized balls, all joined together by a web of fine filaments.
Normally the mines were divided into strands and deployed as a floating umbrella over an archaeological site. Each of the two hundred charges was primed to explode on contact and was potentially lethal to a diver. Kept together they formed a single high-explosive charge, enough to put a submersible out of action permanently.
After activating the detonator he withdrew his hands and grasped the control stick, using the buoyancy trigger to rise cautiously off the submarine. Although he was beyond the main arc of illumination, he was wary of being spotted and flew in a wide sweep off the port side of Kazbek and back again dead astern of the enemy submersible. He closed in behind the metre-wide drum that protected the submersible’s propeller, putting the buoyancy system on automatic to ensure he would remain neutral while his hands were off the controls. He feathered the stern thruster until he was as far forward as he could go and then quickly reinserted his hands in the manipulator arms.
Just as he was about to secure the mines under the shaft with a carabiner, he was thrown back from the propeller housing. He began to spiral like an astronaut out of control, the orb of light from the submersible receding alarmingly as he struggled to right himself using the lateral thrusters. After finally coming to a halt he looked back and saw the turbulence coming from the propeller shaft. He had already felt uneasy that the submersible’s floodlights were on, an unnecessary drain of battery reserves, and now he saw a radio buoy being winched inside.
He gunned the stern thrusters and jetted back towards Kazbek’s conning tower. The bubble mines were precariously balanced where he had left them on the submersible’s propeller housing. If they slipped off, his enterprise was doomed. He would need to blow the charge as soon as he was behind Kazbek’s fin and out of range of the explosive shock wave.
He reached into his chest pocket to ready the remote detonator, a small unit almost identical in appearance to a hand-held radio. He had preset the downlink to channel 8.
Jack allowed himself a quick glance to starboard as he approached Kazbek’s upper casing. To his dismay the submersible had decoupled and was now less than ten metres away, its cylindrical form rising towards him like a predatory shark. Through the viewport a face stared directly at him, its expression showing shocked surprise and fury.
Jack had to think fast. He could never hope to outrun the submersible. He was closely familiar with the type, a derivative of the British LR5 rescue sub with hydraulic thrusters tiltable through 180 degrees that gave it the agility of a helicopter. It was too close to risk detonating the charges, not only because of the danger to himself but also because the shock wave might damage Kazbek’s emergency life support system and destabilize the warheads. His only chance was to stand and fight, to lure the submersible into a duel that would seem suicidally one-sided. His gamble rested on the dead weight of the submersible. With a full passenger complement it would be sluggish, and each lunge would require a wide turning circle which might take it beyond the danger zone.
Like some space-age matador, Jack landed upright on the casing of Kazbek and turned to face his assailant. He barely had time to flex his legs before the submersible was on him, its pontoons missing him by a hair’s breadth as it sped over the hull. He prepared for another onslaught with his arms outstretched, a toreador taunting a bull. He saw the submersible vent its ballast tanks and slow down as it climbed the cliff face and pivoted round for another dive. It swooped down with terrifying velocity, the floodlights blinding him as he fell facedown on the casing. As it rocketed overhead, the ferment rolled him onto his back and the dangling end of the bubble mines swept perilously close. There was no way the mesh could survive another roller-coaster ride without slipping off or becoming entangled in the propeller, a potentially deadly outcome if it triggered an explosion too close to the submarine.
Jack watched as the submersible hurtled off to a new starting point, its diminishing form framed against the vast southern face of the pyramid. This time Jack remained prostrate on the casing as he estimated the distance. Twenty metres. Twenty-five metres. Thirty metres. It was now or never. Just as the submersible began to turn he pressed channel 8.
There was a searing flash followed by a succession of jolts that pummelled his body like sonic booms. The explosion had torn off the submersible’s rudders and left the wreckage spiralling crazily towards the seabed. The shock wave would have killed the occupants instantly.
CHAPTER 28
Life support systems functional? Over.”
Jack was using the manipulator arm to tap his question through the submarine’s casing at the point where the rock-cut stairway disappeared under it. Despite the dampening effects of the anechoic coating, his first taps had provoked an immediate and gratifying response. In a few sentences of Morse code he learned from Andy and Ben that Katya’s threat to destroy the submarine had held their assailants at bay. They had backed off in an uneasy truce while the two IMU men stood their ground in alternate watches at the top of the weapons loading chute.