Manuel came up ten minutes later looking less than happy. And Robin could see why. In spite of his sore ribs he was carrying a case on a shoulder strap that looked pretty big and heavy. ‘Give that to me,’ she ordered abruptly, and he did so without hesitation. Then the pair of them returned to the topmost deck. They stood for a moment at the bottom of the ladder leading up to the damaged communications equipment. ‘The main priority has to be the radio,’ Robin said, putting the heavy shoulder bag down. ‘Sonar, radar and so forth would be important if we were going anywhere. But we aren’t. Next, after the radio, we need the weather predictor back online.’ She looked around. The rain had eased back to a clinging grey mist. Something seemed to flash in the corner of her eye and she wondered whether she should get her sight checked when she got home. But then, in the furthest distance, just audible above the waves, she heard a whisper of thunder. ‘Yes,’ she said decisively. ‘The weather predictor could be very useful indeed.’
‘That’ll all be through the satellite feed,’ said Manuel. ‘It’s what I was holding when I fell. But I’ll go back up and see what I can do.’
He opened the case and started rummaging around in it. Robin watched him for a moment then drifted away, her senses expanding as she began to take stock of the changes in the weather since she’d brought Katapult8’s crew back aboard. Even though the drizzling mist remained disturbingly thick, it was just possible to see a broad black line in the distance, which she assumed was the northern horizon. And even as she established this in her mind, the flickering in the corner of her eye was repeated. She held her breath, counting. Until, once again, that almost subliminal rumbling was repeated, seeming to come from the sky, the sea — everywhere around. And, seemingly born of that disturbing rumble, a wind sprang up. One minute there was a chilly dead calm, the next there was a wind that Liberty might have been able to make Katapult8 run across fast enough to make her sail start singing. Her thoughts were interrupted by the walkie-talkie. ‘How are things going?’ asked the captain.
Robin looked up at the communications mast. Manuel was up there connecting a couple of wires that led back down to his box to something deep inside the golf ball. ‘Hard to say,’ she answered. ‘How are things down there?’
‘The fire’s burned out, as you know. But so are the bearings, the engineer informs me. There was a colossal engine overload when we hit the net. I’ve got a couple of divers kitted up ready to go over and cut us free as the weather seems to have moderated, as you say. Then we’ll take it from there. But even if we can’t move, at least we’ll be able to restore power to the lighting and heating.’
‘Fine. Better hurry with those divers, though. I don’t like the look of things up here. We seem to be fine at the moment but I think our friend Noah is just about to arrive with his ark.’
‘What?’
‘The storm Richard flew through on his way back with Biddy. I think it’s just about to catch up with us.’
‘OK. I’ll tell them to hurry. Out.’
‘Señora?’ called Manuel as Robin broke contact with Toro.
‘Yes?’
‘I have made a connection. Please contact your husband. The portable in the shoulder bag should get the best signal — I have wired it in directly.’
Robin crossed to the foot of the ladder and found that half of the bulk of the shoulder bag was taken up with what looked like a radio-telephone. There was a handset and a touchscreen with a series of icons that adjusted the wavelength, call identification, volume and so forth with a simple tap. Squatting beside it, Robin pulled the handset free and pushed it to her ear, listening to the whisper of the open channel. Then she tapped in the wavelength that Sulu Queen was on and followed it with her call sign. ‘Hello, Sulu Queen, this is Robin Mariner aboard Maxima. Is Captain Mariner available? Hello, Sulu Queen?’
There was a hissing whisper in reply.
‘Hello, Sulu Queen, this is Robin Mariner aboard Maxima,’ she repeated. ‘Is Captain Mariner available? Hello, Sulu Queen?’
Then, as though from the bottom of a very distant tomb, she heard, ‘Hello, Maxima? This is Sulu Queen. You are very faint. No, I am very sorry. Captain Mariner is not aboard. I repeat, not aboard this afternoon …’ There was more, but she couldn’t make it out. Desperately, as though the action would improve the signal, she stood up. Her concentration on what she was hearing was so fierce that she did not at first register what she was seeing.
A sudden gust of wind just managed to part the clouds of grey mist for an instant. Robin found herself looking up a grey hill of water. Wave seemed to be piled upon wave. Long before she registered what was happening, her unconscious was in action, listing things she had seen and experienced that could explain this new phenomenon: what she had seen on the video of the Indian Ocean in 2004 and Japan in 2011. What she had experienced herself on Tiger Island. But this couldn’t be a tsunami, she thought numbly. Her hand fell to her side, still gripping the handset, unaware that the channel to Sulu Queen was still open. ‘Manuel!’ she shouted. ‘Get down here now!’
She felt in her pocket for the walkie-talkie and jammed it, left-handed, to her mouth. ‘Captain Toro! There’s a series of large waves approaching. The biggest rogue waves I’ve ever seen. You’d better tell your men to brace. And pray. There’s nothing else to do.’
As she finished speaking, Manuel stumbled off the bottom rung and staggered to her side. Maxima’s stern swooped down into the trough in front of the first waves. ‘Get down,’ Robin advised, following her own advice at once. ‘Get down and lie flat. This is going to be a rollercoaster ride …’
TWENTY-NINE
With increasing desperation, Miguel-Angel searched the northern mist astern of Pilar. He didn’t really know what he was looking for. And when he saw the danger approaching, he didn’t recognize it for what it was or understand the menace that it represented. For it seemed simply to be a bigger wave than most. It was approaching from the same direction as the other waves. It might have just been a seventh wave — traditionally taller than the rest. But it kept growing until it threatened to touch the top of the circles of clarity that the binoculars presented. Miguel-Angel lowered them, looking back at the approaching wall of water, frowning. The leading edge was steep. The top few metres were capped with foam, though the wave itself was nowhere near breaking into surf. But it had brought a wind with it, the boy realized suddenly. A steady wind that was building with astonishing rapidity. The wave and the wind seemed somehow very dangerous. But the boy who had faced down a shark laughed at his fears. Pilar was a boat, and boats rode over waves. Even waves such as this one.
But then the crew on the deck saw it. They started shouting and milling around. The winch sprang into life and it seemed as though the men who had pulled the nets aboard were suddenly pushing them overboard again. One of them grabbed the section of the transom that would close off the open section, but he could not put it in place until the nets were out of the way. Someone reached over and grabbed the hatch cover, fighting to pull it shut, but it was old and stiff. Then the wind snatched the mist away and Miguel-Angel was distracted by the sight of the boat he had been sent up here to look for. She was too expensive-looking to be a fisheries protection vessel. But she was dark, dead. She seemed battered. Damaged. In danger. Especially as she was tipping helplessly backwards over the crest of the wave that was just about to hit Pilar.