A churning bloody foam spilled out across the pool. Waves sloshed every which way.
After a few minutes, however, the frenzy died down and the water was calm once more.
But there was no sign of Knight.
Indeed, Aloysius Knight never surfaced again inside the deadly pool.
He did surface, however, outside the Forteresse de Valois, amid the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
Exactly six minutes after he'd dived underneath the sharks feeding on Drake's body, he breached the surface of the ocean, still holding his Pony Bottle to his lips.
The mini-scuba bottle had only just had enough air in it to get him through the long underwater passage that connected the Shark Pit to the open sea.
Knight didn't bob in the water for long. A homing transponder on his vest took care of that.
In a matter of minutes, the hawk-shaped shadow of his Sukhoi S-37 swung into place above him, blasting the water around him with its thrusters.
Then a harness fell out of the plane's bomb bay and slapped into the water beside him, and within moments, Aloysius Knight was sitting inside the Black Raven, back with Mother and Rufus.
'You all right, Boss?' Rufus said, throwing him a new pair of yellow-lensed glasses.
Knight caught them as he slumped to the floor of the Raven's rear holding cell, put them on. He didn't answer Rufus's question. Just nodded. He was still shell-shocked by the horrific execution he had just witnessed in the Shark Pit.
Mother said, 'What about the Scarecrow? And my little Chickadee?'
Knight looked up at her sharply.
Behind his yellow glasses, his eyes were the picture of horror. He gazed at Mother, wondering what to say.
Then abruptly he stood. 'Rufus. Do you have a fix on Schofield? Those MicroDots I put on his Palm Pilot should have rubbed off on his hand.'
'I've got him, Boss. And he's still moving. Looks like someone took him to that French carrier off the coast.'
Knight turned to Mother, took a deep, deep breath. 'Schofield's alive, but'—he swallowed—'there could be a problem with the girl.'
'Oh dear God, no . . .' Mother said.
'I can't talk about it now,' Knight said. 'We have to rescue Schofield.'
THE FRENCH AIRCRAFT CARRIER RICHELIEU, ATLANTIC OCEAN, OFF THE FRENCH COAST
Shane Schofield was thrown into a small steel-walled room adjoining the below-decks hangar. The door slammed shut behind him.
There was nothing in the room but a table and a chair.
On the table sat Lefevre's CincLock-VII disarming unit. Next to the unit, with a little red pilot light burning brightly on its top, was:
A phosphorus grenade.
High in the corner of the room, hidden behind a dark glass plate, Schofield heard a camera whirring.
'Captain Schofield,' the DGSE agent's voice came over some speakers. 'A simple test. The phosphorus grenade you see before you is connected by shortwave radio to the CincLock unit on the table. The only way to disarm the grenade is through the CincLock unit. For the purposes of this exercise, the final disarm code is 123. The grenade will go off in one minute. Your time starts . . . now.'
'Holy shit,' Schofield said, sitting down quickly.
He examined the CincLock unit up close.
White and red circles filled the main screen—red on the left, white on the right. Bing. A message appeared on the lower screen:
FIRST PROTOCOL (PROXIMITY): SATISFIED. INITIATE SECOND PROTOCOL.
Immediately, the white circles on the main screen began to flash—each one blinking for a brief instant, one at a time, in a slow random sequence.
The screen squealed in protest.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): FAILED DISARM ATTEMPT
RECORDED.
THREE FAILED DISARM ATTEMPTS WILL RESULT IN DEFAULT
DETONATION.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): RE-ACTIVATED.
'What?' Schofield said to the screen.
'Fifty seconds, Captain,'' Lefevre's voice said. 'You have to touch the illuminated circles in the prescribed order.'' 'Oh. Right.' The white circles began to flash again, one after the other.
And now Schofield began pressing them—just after they flashed.
'Forty seconds . . .'
The white circles' sequence became faster. Schofield's hands began to move faster with them, touching the circles on the screen.
Then, abruptly, one of the red circles on the left side of the display illuminated.
Schofield wasn't ready for it. But hit it anyway, and got it in time. The white circles resumed their sequence, now blinking very quickly. Schofield's fingers increased their pace, too.
'Thirty seconds . . . you're doing well. . .'
Then another red circle flashed.
And this time Schofield was too slow.
The screen beeped angrily.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): FAILED DISARM ATTEMPT
RECORDED.
THREE FAILED DISARM ATTEMPTS WILL RESULT IN DEFAULT
DETONATION.
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): RE-ACTIVATED.
'Damn it!' Schofield yelled, eyeing the grenade on the table beside him.
And the white circles began their blinking sequence for a third and final time.
'Twenty-five seconds left. . .'
But this time Schofield was prepared, knowing what he had to do. His hands now moved fluidly across the screen, punching the white circles as they blinked, breaking left every so often as a red circle flashed.
'Ten seconds, nine . . .'
The sequence became faster. The darting moves to the reds became more frequent—to the point, Schofield thought, where it became a test of his reflexes.
'Eight, seven . . .'
His eyes stayed focused on the display. His fingers kept dancing. Sweat trickled into his eyes.
lSix, five . . .'
The lights kept blinking: white-white-red-white-red-white.
'Four, three . . .'
Bing—a message sprang up on the screen:
SECOND PROTOCOL (RESPONSE PATTERN): SATISFIED. THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): ACTIVE. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZED DISARM CODE.
'Two..:
Schofield typed '1-2-3-ENTER' on the keypad. The numbers appeared on the smaller screen. 'One...' Bing.
THIRD PROTOCOL (CODE ENTRY): SATISFIED. DEVICE DISARMED.
Schofield exhaled, slumped back in his chair.
The door to the room opened. Lefevre entered, dove-clapping.
'Oh, tres bien! Tres bien!' he said. 'Very good, Captain.'
Two burly French naval commandos covered Schofield on either side.
Lefevre smiled. 'That was most impressive. Most impressive. Thank you, Captain. You've just reassured us of the verity of Majestic-12's claims. Not to mention the merit of this disarm system. I'm sure the Republic of France will find many uses for it. It really is such a shame that we have to kill you now. Gentlemen, take Captain Schofield back up to the hangar and string him up with the other one.'
Schofield rose into the air, his legs and arms spread wide, star-like.
He stood on the forward lifting prongs of a forklift, one foot on each horizontal prong, while his wrists were handcuffed to the vehicle's vertical steel runners.
The forklift was parked in a corner of the Richelieu's deserted main hangar bay, behind the exhausts of several Rafale fighter jets. Seated in a semi-circle in front of it were the three French military officers and the DGSE agent, Lefevre.
'Bring in the British spy,' Lefevre said to one of Schofield's guards.