At that moment, her arms gave up. Tired, numb, devoid of feeling and ignoring the instructions from her brain, her hands fell open. The empty vial rolled silently across her right palm, then clattered down onto the shaft, bouncing three times. The sound echoed all the way back to the plant room.
• • •
He released the transmit button and repositioned himself behind the launcher. Out loud, he counted down the seconds.
“Fifteen elephants, fourteen elephants, thirteen elephants, twelve elephants…”
His hands gripped the wide handle. The cannon swung easily, even with the unwieldy package protruding from the end. He held it fast, pointing out to sea, away from the Spirit of Arcadia. The trigger mechanism was operated by a secondary handle. Jake thought it looked like a bicycle brake; a strange association for such a potentially deadly device. He pushed the thought aside and realised he had almost lost count.
“Seven elephants, six elephants…”
No time to lose. He stretched his fingers out and curled them around the lever. Without another thought, he squeezed.
There was a one-second delay.
“Five elephants…”
Then, a muffled crack as the explosive charge fired. The twin harpoons forced themselves deeper into the capsule, and for a split second Jake was afraid they were going to come right out the other side. His fears were for nothing though. As the spikes pushed against the compressed raft inside the plastic cocoon, they could bury themselves no more, and their momentum was transferred to the capsule itself. With a strange whoosh like a dud firework going off into a crazy spin, the whole bizarre assembly launched itself forwards and out of the cannon.
“Four elephants, three elephants…”
It flew better than he had expected, and whilst it didn’t exactly soar like a bird, it did travel a good ship’s length, maybe more, all the time arcing downwards towards the sea.
He scrabbled around in his pocket and found the second radio. Realising he should have switched it on before launching, he poked at the power button repeatedly.
“Two elephants, one elephant…”
The radio popped into life. He twisted the dial and watched as the digital readout counted up to the frequency he was desperate to hear.
“Zero!”
One more turn.
The capsule hit the water.
The radio remained dead.
“Shit!”
Then he heard his own voice from the little speaker, tinny and compressed. At the same time, he watched as the white plastic cocoon split in two.
“Spirit of Arcadia, this is Captain Coote of HMS Ambush. The enemy submarine has disappeared, we are surfacing. Prepare for docking.”
The black-and-orange raft spilled out of its shell. Even from his position on the Lance, Jake could hear the hissing of the compressed-air cylinder filling its chambers. Folds of rubber unfurled and expanded, growing and taking shape at incredible speed.
Jake’s voice echoed from the radio once more, the auto-repeat function doing its duty perfectly. The radio hissed static for a second, then squelched itself silent. The raft was fully inflated, drifting freely, a dark blob on a darker ocean.
“Come on…see it. See it!”
He moved to the very bow of the ship and leaned over the handrail, scanning the sea, looking for any sign of activity, of life.
It didn’t take long.
From his port side he caught sight of movement. Below the surface of the water, a slender object moving at high speed. In another time, another place, it could have been mistaken for a dolphin, riding alongside the cruise ship, playing in the wake. But this was no dolphin. This was death in a tube. It was headed directly for the life raft.
Thirty-One
DAN FOUND HER on the floor on all fours when he returned. Her strained expression told him everything he needed to know.
“Where….argh!” A scream, then panting, before she could speak again. “Where’s Carrie?”
He wrung his hands, knelt down, and kissed her again. “I’m sorry, there’s nobody. I can’t find anyone.”
She was sucking in tiny breaths. Her face was covered in sweat, her head hung low. “The baby’s coming. The baby’s coming now, Dan!”
From nowhere, a sense of calm enveloped him. For the first time in their nearly six years of marriage, he was the only one who could help now. It was up to him to get her through this, and although at any time prior to that instant he would have panicked at the prospect, faced with the inevitability of what was about to happen, he found a new peace. Vicky, it dawned on him, was undergoing the most difficult, painful, and traumatic of experiences any human being could be subjected to. Anything he could do to ease that, to help, would be worthwhile.
“Okay, first things first. Your breathing,” he said. He got onto his hands and knees in front of her, looked into her eyes, and smiled gently. “Remember? We’re not letting those classes go to waste. Let’s do it together. Breathe with me…ready? In!” He drew in a long, deep breath through his nose. “And slowly, out…”
She looked at him as if he was mad, then burst out laughing.
“Well, not quite the effect I was hoping for, but it’ll do. You keep breathing, I’m going to get some towels and stuff. Don’t go away!”
“As if….” She let out a grunt, which turned into a shriek as the next contraction gripped her.
• • •
The reaction in the classroom was instantaneous. The leader roared at his men. There was mayhem as those who could move scrambled to the ventilation pipe opening. Someone found the flashlight they had taken from Bembridge, and Lucya was momentarily blinded as it was shone through the grille, scanning the space inside.
More voices, more shouting. They were coming for her.
She tried to push herself backwards, but it was as if her arms were no longer part of her. She could still move her legs, but the more she tried to use the toes of her gym shoes to pull herself back, the more she succeeded in pushing herself forwards, even closer to the grille.
Outside the noise became louder as orders were shouted back and forth. A chair made a scratching sound as its legs scraped across the floor. She saw it being flung towards the grille as it was used as a crude hammer, trying to dislodge the screwed-down vent. The banging reverberated through the pipe, nearly shattering her eardrums. She screamed, kicked, pushed, and yelped. The tube seemed to close in on her, gripping her, squeezing the air from her lungs.
The chair struck again, the noise even louder. The right side of the grille fell away, unseen by Lucya in the blackness of her panic attack. A wild pack of hands snatched at the vent cover, pulling and twisting it until it came free. The pack turned to the opening and tried to force its way in, but the hands became tangled in one another, impeding their own access.
More shouting as the leader brought order to the chaos. The pack retreated, and a single hand replaced it. It ventured inside the tunnel, patting the sides, groping in the dark, blind. It found her wrist, latched on, and yanked hard. Had the nerves in her arms not given up long ago, the pain would probably have been too much to bear. As it was, she was already in another place. Her mind had retreated, escaping the physical realm for the safety of its own inner space. Lucya was vaguely aware of her body being dragged forwards, but the awareness was external to her, as if she was imagining it happening to someone else.
When her arms were free of the grille, the rest of the pack returned, clamping around any exposed part and pulling. The joint effort achieved the near impossible: first her head, and then her shoulders were somehow squeezed through the narrow opening.
• • •