‘Don’t worry about my man Lazy Dane none,’ Chino said. ‘He’s just been living in that suit a little too long. It’s cooked his head.’
‘My righteousness aside, how good’s this intel?’
‘Swift, silent, deadly, ese. Forward observation a speciality,’ Chino said proudly.
‘Yes, well I understood what some of that meant.’
‘The intel’s solid, captain,’ Major Winterman assured him.
‘When?’
‘Zero five hundred eastern standard,’ Winterman told him. It was the same time that Cell had ordered him to fire on Yonkers. He had four hours to get back to the Robin Hood and prepare.
‘It’s been a long time since a British ship has fired on an American city,’ Harper said.
‘1814. The War of Neutrality,’ Major Winterman supplied.
‘It’s alright man, we’re on your side this time,’ Chino told him.
Captain Harper was sure that the battered Bulldog light transport vehicle was older than Private Fry and maybe Corporal Fenn as well. With a four-wheel drive and Lazy Dane, who could apparently see in the dark, at the wheel they made much better, if more frightening, time back.
The only thing that the large armoured warrior had said on the return drive was to ask if they could “see them all”. It had both the marines searching the surrounding area with their weapons at the ready until they had realised that Lazy Dane was seeing things they weren’t. None of them had any idea what the strange figure had meant and not even Fry had wanted to enquire further.
The coxswain had moved into good cover and didn’t come out until he was sure that it was the Captain and the two marines returning. The boat pilot was nervous of the massive armoured warrior but said nothing.
Harper typed the co-ordinates that he had memorized into the GPS device as they made their way across the black waters of the East River. There was just the slightest glow on the eastern horizon now. Fry was manning the MMG again. Fenn was looking all around, her SCAR at the ready. Dane was sat in the centre of the boat, his legs crossed.
Harper looked up. There was a ripping noise. His brain registered lights coming towards him. Something hit him hard. He was in the water. Panic. He could see the water churning close to him, darts of phosphorescent light shooting through it. Someone grabbed him and dragged him to the surface. He gasped air into grateful lungs. There was more of the ripping noise. The boat was gone. It had ceased to exist, along with Private Fry, Corporal Fenn and the coxswain, who Harper was pretty sure had been called Harman. The water was churning again as tracers hit it from the Phalanx 20mm rotary cannon.
He could see the muzzle flash. It looked like a constant flickering illuminating the darkness. The muzzle flash was refracting strangely with the Robin Hood’s cloak, distorting it. The ship had moved. Not far, just enough to have had them heading towards the wrong place.
‘Hold your breath, man,’ Dane was next to him in the water. The armoured soldier must have knocked him out of the boat. ‘I’m going to have to drag you.’
Harper had enough time to take a mouthful of air before he was pulled under the cold, cold water. He mastered the panic of submersion, the helplessness as he was dragged along at a surprising speed. Then panic again as he realised that Lazy Dane was swimming towards the Robin Hood, not towards the riverbank. Then panic as his chest started to hurt and he desperately needed to breathe. Can the suit breathe under water? his frightened mind thought. He was sure that Dane was going to forget about his dependency on oxygen.
‘Breathe, hyperventilate, saturate your system with oxygen and then a final deep breath,’ Dane told him. It took a moment for Harper to understand that he was on the surface again and interpret Dane’s instructions. Then they were under again.
Hyperventilating shouldn’t be a problem was the most lucid thought he managed, but even that was tinged with more than a hint of hysteria.
He had no idea how long it took. It seemed like he was underwater for an age, the cold trying to rob his precious breath, and that he was only on the surface for moments. Everything was black under the water except the occasional flickering light above them. Harper’s fatigued and frightened mind finally managed to work out that the light was the Phalanx firing again.
Somehow they were under the Robin Hood. He was at the surface. Gasping air into lungs that didn’t feel like they were inflating properly. His heart felt funny in his chest. There were ratings in the boat bay. Harper knew their names but couldn’t bring them to mind. They were armed. They were shouting something at him and pointing weapons. Harper was struggling to work out what was going on. One of them had a red beam of light coming out of his chest area. The red beam went away and two red holes appeared in the rating’s chest and he tumbled into the water. The other rating was turning, raising his weapon, and pointing it at Harper.
At your captain! an outraged and barely rational part of Harper thought. The top of the rating’s head came off and he fell into the water as well.
Harper turned and saw Dane, still in the water, the big automatic in his hand, a suppressor attached to its barrel.
He’s killing my men, Harper thought. Dane seemed to surge out of the water and grab hold of the ladder leading up to the raised boat bay. There was flickering light from the boat bay and Harper could see bullet impacts against the hull of his ship. The armour that Dane was wearing changed somehow. It started to look more like overlapping plates. The armour was lit up with sparks as multiple impacts knocked Dane around, but he continued climbing the ladder. The hatch to the boat bay was closing.
You can’t assault the ship on your own, Harper thought, there’s Royal Marines on board!
Dane, still taking fire, leapt off the ladder and grabbed the edge of the boat bay hatch as it was sliding shut and pulled himself up. The hatch closed.
Harper realised that he was shaking badly and still struggling to keep his breath. He knew that he needed to get out of the water or he was going to die. He struck out towards the ladder below the boat bay hatch. It was only then he realised just how strong a current there was in the East River. Harper had always prided himself on keeping in good shape. He had never felt his age so singularly as he did during that long, long swim.
His hand grabbed the lowest rung of the ladder. He found that he did not have the strength to pull himself out of the water.
Is that it? he demanded of himself, you get this far and you quit? He remembered the pathetic mess he’d been in the wake of the London Emergency. The excuses and lies he’d told Rachel. Is that who you are again? Are you just going to lapse into self-pity and letting people down again?
It took everything he had to pull himself out of the water. Then again as he pulled himself up to the next rung. Then again, but it was getting easier. The hatch above him started to open. The shadow of a figure stood in the warm light of the boat bay. Harper just kept climbing.
‘I’ve got you, Captain,’ Dane said and all but picked Harper up and deposited him on the floor of the boat bay. Harper saw more dead sailors, at least six more, men and women. He scrambled backwards across the floor, away from the armoured figure. Harper frantically tried to drag something out of the pocket of his sodden coat. Eventually he managed to free the wet Browning Hi-Power automatic pistol and, shaking like a leaf, he pointed it a confused Dane.
‘Stop killing my men, you bastard!’ he screamed.