Marsh felt beads of sweat begin to break out on his forehead. His mind froze itself to the realisation of what Khan had planned for him. Strangely though, he couldn’t believe that Khan was willing to leave Challenger beneath the surface. Abandon it? Although he had never really believed that Khan would kill him, the reality of it hit him with shocking force; that Khan had planned this moment all along. He cursed himself for his own stupidity and weakness.
He tried to think rationally. Fear was impeding his thought processes and he was on the verge of blind panic, but he knew that those emotions would never get him out of the awful nightmare he was in.
He breathed in slowly in an attempt to calm himself down, trying to reduce the rate at which his heart was now pounding in his chest. He had to think. Think!
He started dumping ballast. He dumped the lot. As he did, thousands upon thousands of particles of lead shot tumbled from the Challenger and turned the sea bed into little spiralling columns of sand that drifted upwards in a cloud to envelop him.
He felt the Challenger strain, but she didn’t move. He knew then that Batista and Zienkovitch had not released the clamps on the skirt.
Marsh slumped back in his seat. He was devastated. He could not believe that the two divers would be willing accomplices in this deadly game. But it was no game; it was murder.
He then thought of the explosive collar, but something told him it would not work. But he had to try. He leaned forward and opened the firing panel. There were two buttons and two lights. He pressed and held the green button which, he hoped would charge the firing capacitors. He expected to see the red light glow that would signal that the explosive collar was armed and ready to fire. But nothing happened.
He tried again, holding the charging button longer than the mandatory five seconds. But still nothing happened; there was still no light. Desperate now he flipped the cover of the firing button open and pushed the button all the way home.
Five seconds and the explosive collar would fire.
He counted.
“….. four, five, six, seven.” Nothing. “Come on, come on!” he shouted in desperation. “Fire damn you, fire!”
But there was nothing. He hammered the firing button, but still nothing happened; the explosive collar remained dormant.
He looked up at the tiny speaker mounted just above his head and screamed abuse at Khan. He hurled every blasphemy he could lay his tongue to and screamed insensibly. But there was nothing except his own voice in that bubble; bouncing off the smooth interior, assaulting his ears and fading into a sob; the deep despair of a frightened man.
And outside the cockpit, the Challenger’s arc lights peered into the emptiness of the pervasive darkness. Now there was nothing but silence and a thousand demons laid their hands on him and waited for him to die.
Chapter 17
Helen could hear the wind; its whining threnody changing pitch as the Taliba dipped its prow and then lifted above the restless waves. She sensed that the motion of the ship had changed in a subtle way; as if shorn of a burdensome yoke.
By now, Helen would have expected Marsh to have returned to his cabin. He would usually have knocked on her door to let her know the dive was finished. The fear that he had attempted to conceal from her before the dive now drove itself into her and she felt impatient to be with him.
For some reason, unknown to her, Helen’s cabin door had been locked from the outside, which only added to her blossoming fear. She banged on the door for a few moments and called out, but there was no response. She pummelled the door again with her closed fists and called out Malik’s name, but still there was no reply.
Her fear was turning to anger and she began beating ferociously on the door and picking up loose objects from her cabin and hurling them at the barrier between her and the alleyway outside the cabin.
It was some time before Helen heard a cautioning voice and a key turning in the lock. Her hands began to tremble and she had to clasp them together to stop them from shaking. The door opened and Helen reached forward, pulling it open. She knew now, instinctively, that something was terribly wrong. Ignoring the crewman who had opened her door, Helen pushed past him and rushed out, flew up the stairs two steps at a time and fetched up on the open deck.
The wind struck Helen with such savagery that she almost toppled over. It took her breath away and she had to clutch at the hand rail for support. She suddenly felt very cold; the temperature had dropped remarkably and there were dull, thunder clouds scudding overhead like massive anvils that obscured the sun.
The sea around her was grey and the waves burst open upon each other in fingers of angry surf which the wind picked up and flung at the Taliba. Helen gasped at the cold and winced as the driving spray lashed at her clothing. She put her head down and lunged forward awkwardly, grasping the hand rail with each step, hand over hand.
She reached Khan’s stateroom just beneath the bridge and clutched at the handle of the door. Just before she made an attempt to open the door, she glanced forward and froze in terror: the Challenger was no longer there!
Helen held that pose, staring with disbelief at the forlorn, empty space where the submersible was always stowed. For a moment she was oblivious to the cold spray and punishing wind. All that occupied her thoughts then was that something terrible had happened and Marsh would be with the Challenger.
That moment of realisation numbed her so intensely that she no longer felt any fear. She reached for the cabin door and wrenched it open.
The Navy Seals were assembled in the briefing room at the United States Base at Guantanamo Bay on the Island of Cuba. Lieutenant Santos had briefed his men and they now waited for the word to go. Outside the operations building, on the pan was a Sea Stallion Helicopter, crewed up and waiting for the Seals to board once they had received the final brief from James Starling. Remo Francesini was standing nervously beside his boss silently praying that everything would go smoothly and they would be in time to prevent an awesomely, devastating terror. And he prayed that the weather would not be against them.
In the ops, room, the commanding officer was conferring with his Met. Officer about the risks of sending the Sea Stallion into the storm that was fast approaching. The phone bleeped and the Met. Officer picked it up.
“Ops.”
He listened for a moment and held the phone out for the captain. “It’s Lieutenant Santos, sir.”
The C.O. took the phone and listened, then gave an affirmative. “We go now.”
In the briefing room, Lieutenant Santos replaced the phone and gave a nod to his men. Silently they all stood up, gathered up their equipment and followed a deck officer, who had been assigned to them out to the waiting Sea Stallion Helicopter. Francesini, who had been given permission to ride with the Seals, followed them out; his nerves bubbling inside him like a boiling cauldron of water.
He followed the Seals out to the helicopter, praying fervently inside that these men would be able to stop Khan and his murderous plans. As he boarded the Sea Stallion, Lieutenant Santos turned and helped him up.
“We’re in God’s hands now sir,” he said, and pulled the door shut behind him.
Khan looked up from his desk as the door flew open. Helen stood there, framed in the doorway. Her hair was wet and much of it lay across her face in waspish strands. Her dress clung to her body accentuating the curve of her breasts and the provocative bulge between her thighs. Had he not known why she was there; Khan could not have failed to be aroused by her ingenuous display of overt sexuality.