‘Fuck the regulations,’ Queequeeg said.
Then, ‘Uh oh,’ Bazza said, ‘Rangi shows a raider coming in on you.’
Colby saw the rival chopper: ‘Enemy coming in at three o’clock.’
It was Gonzalez. Even though Queequeeg hadn’t arrived, she turned to Drake.
‘Post our flag!’ she screamed. ‘Now!’
Drake’s thumb was already on the trigger. The flag, boosted by rockets, sped towards Moby Dick. At the same time, Drake saw Gonzalez let loose with an interceptor. It made contact and the flag was diverted, exploding in the air. ‘Flag number two on its way,’ Drake shouted, gritting his teeth. From the corner of his eye he saw that Gonzalez had also unleashed a pennant. Which one would claim Moby Dick first?
‘We beat the bastard!’ Colby yelled as she saw the small puff of snow. At the impact, Moby Dick leapt sideways, revealing the extraordinary chambers shimmering, transforming themselves, creating instability within. But Colby was readying the harpoon. ‘Give me a clear shot.’
Gonzalez was dancing around the chopper, making it difficult for her. Colby found a window and pressed the firing button. ‘Come on,’ she muttered to herself.
The harpoon rocketed away, just missing Gonzalez’ landing gear, and a neat little puncture opening appeared on the surface of the berg. ‘We’re through the skin.’ Was that Moby Dick roaring his anger? Colby was too busy steering the harpoon through the berg.
Caught in an updrift of air, Drake was wrestling with the controls.
‘Are we locked on?’ Drake asked. ‘Gonzalez isn’t going to give up until we are. Moby Dick is still up for grabs.’ And Moby Dick flicked his tail. It was almost black, with stripes of embedded moraine debris, and it trailed the cables of ancient harpoons. The tail’s slipstream tumbled the Pequod like a toy.
Gonzalez’ mocking voice came over the intercom. ‘Drown, you fucker! Hey, Drake, gringo, I’m right behind you and if you don’t make it, I’m coming up your ass. Give me a shot too?’
‘Fuck off, Gonzalez.’
‘Oh, but I want to squeeze into him. Open up, Moby baby.’ And then Gonzalez screamed at Drake: ‘Give him to me! I want to pay him back for my leg.’ Drake wasn’t the only one with a grudge against the berg.
‘No way!’ Colby’s shout turned to triumph: the harpoon had found the gravitational centre. In a trice it was blasting a shaft and burrowing down. ‘What the hell is that?’ On her screen, halfway down, Colby saw a mass, an inconsistency. Something dark, like an insect trapped in glass. ‘Drake? Do you know what it is?’
‘Could be some rock and fossil material embedded millions of years ago. Forget it. Keep an eye on the progress of our harpoon.’
Nodding, Colby began to concentrate on the digital readout and calling out the depth that the harpoon was reaching. ‘We’re now at thirty, sixty, ninety …’ She punched some coordinates into the computer, checking the cable left on the drum. ‘One fifty, one eighty …’ There was alarm in her voice. ‘Drake, we’re at three hundred! Three thirty-five, three sixty-five, three ninety-five … and we’re only a third of the way through.’
Gonzalez purred over the intercom, ‘Lucky me to have more cable than you, gringo. Hasta la vista, baby.’
Drake knew what this meant. The Pequod would be pulled down with the cable to crash onto the berg. Or into it.
‘We might just make it,’ Colby screamed. ‘Brace! Here comes the hit.’
On the screen, Drake saw the harpoon break through into the sea below the berg. The spear point flexed, and eight prongs were released, snaking themselves across the bottom of the berg, attaching themselves with small popping explosions, attempting to find the best pattern to maintain the equilibrium.
A sudden snap. ‘We’re attached,’ said Colby.
The hawser took up the slack. Drake felt the whiplash shuddering back up to the helicopter. He battled to keep the chopper airborne as it yawed and flicked through the sky.
Thrashing with rage, Moby Dick was creating mountainous waves around him. I will never be taken. Never. Meanwhile, Gonzalez was still hovering. Drake had a sudden chilling thought. ‘You wouldn’t shoot us down, would you, Gonzalez?’
‘All’s fair in love and war,’ Gonzalez answered. ‘And nobody’s looking. But, oh fuck … this time we gotta bring Moby Dick in, eh amigo?’
‘I’m not sharing him,’ Drake warned.
‘Okay, but I give you just a leetle help?’
Just in time, Queequeeg came in, flying low. The berg was shimmering, changing colour, filling its chambers with water and ready to plunge downward. Queequeeg whizzed past Gonzalez and fired his own harpoon. And now came Starbuck, firing one harpoon after another.
The three choppers pulled. Heaved Moby Dick back from the depths where he was sounding. Back to the surface, back.
Time and time again Moby Dick tried to sound.
Time and time again, Drake, Queequeeg and Starbuck pulled him to the surface, the engines of the choppers whining into overload. They had the berg triangulated, keeping the centre of gravity so that no matter how hard he tried to shift the weight within his massive chambers, they corrected.
‘Don’t let him go,’ Drake yelled as he watched Queequeeg and Starbuck being whiplashed across the sky as if they were holding on to the end of two ropes.
And when Moby Dick finally submitted, shuddering, riding the tumultuous sea, Drake hovered cautiously. Was that it?
‘We’re down to fumes,’ Colby said.
To come all this way — and crash into the sea? ‘Not me,’ Gonzalez called. ‘Colby, I hate you, you beetch, but I fuck you next time. Go right up your ass with my big Argentine cock and come out your mouth.’
‘I love it when you talk dirty, Gonzalez.’ Drake grinned. ‘Adios, amigo.’ There was only one thing to do. ‘We’re landing on the berg,’ Drake ordered. ‘Queequeeg and Starbuck, join me, and that’s an order.’
‘What happens if Moby Dick’s still got some life in him? Does a death roll?’
‘Then land in the sea if you want to,’ Drake said. With a shudder, he brought the Pequod down. Queequeeg and Starbuck alighted close by.
‘I’m not getting out,’ said Colby. ‘I don’t trust this berg.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, I’ll stay inside where it’s just you and me, and we’re nice and comfy, and one thing could lead to another, and it’s a long, long way to Tipperary …’
‘I’m bailing,’ Colby said. Together they walked over to the other pilots and harpooners.
‘Are we good or are we good!’ Queequeeg laughed. He and Starbuck were waltzing together on Moby Dick’s back.
Drake was smiling. ‘Colby? Radio Bazza. Where the hell are those tugs and mini-subs?’
He should have been ecstatic, but he had a cold feeling up and down his spine.
‘This was too easy,’ he muttered. ‘Way too easy.’
It’s not over yet, e hoa.
Even before they reached the fiord, Drake knew that the whole base had turned out to watch. The lights were blazing in the dusk, welcoming them home. This time, Bazza put on Handel’s Messiah.
Tugs and mini-subs came out to greet them, drones were looping the loop and Ralph in the operations centre had raised the solar reflectors to dance on the encircling hills. It was party time for the Yahoos: bungy jumpers and sky gliders trailed colourful smoke in celebration. Bazza, of course, had to save face: ‘Squadron Leader Haapu, report to the main office immediately.’ When Drake did, Bazza screamed, hopped and yelled and would have continued but for the arrival of Kuia. ‘I’ve broken out the best champagne for you, e hoa,’ she said