He smashed into the waves feet first, which was a small mercy in the circumstances. Training for the Special Boat Service is among the hardest and most gruelling in the world, being largely SAS training and then on top of that additional specialist underwater training.
Hawke had completed his commando training with ease and was soon a respected NCO in the Royal Marines, easily catching the attention of SBS recruiters. He had sailed through the endurance training, including the notorious ‘long drag’, a forty kilometer trek with a crushingly heavy bergen on his back, to be completed in less than twenty hours.
He had skipped easily over the special weapons training, the anti-terror training and the covert demolition courses. Combat survival techniques, jungle training, white noise torture training, food and water deprivation, piloting a boat from the ocean at full speed into the back of a hovering Chinook, interrogation resistance training that would break the hardest of men — all passed with flying colors.
But the worst was what made the men of the SBS so formidable: the underwater training. Being dropped from a helicopter into the sea in the middle of the night and having to make his own way on board a ship posing as an enemy vessel was as tough as it got, but proved to be useful because he’d had to do it for real since then on numerous occasions.
But as hard as SBS training was, no one ever tied him in ten meters of yacht rope and keelhauled him underneath a superyacht.
He knew what he was going to find down there — he had dived down beneath keels to fix mines on them enough times — and he wasn't disappointed. Despite the yacht’s pristine appearance from the surface, the bottom of the hull was peppered in razor-sharp barnacles, each one a savagely sharp blade. The lacerated body of Matteo Grasso that Sophie and Ryan told him about would have been an illustrated testament to their lethality.
Under the water the temperature dropped fast, and the light faded as he went deeper. He felt the tugs on the rope as Zaugg’s men dragged him deeper beneath the keel. Luckily, Ryan and Sophie had sabotaged the engine and this meant the ship was stationary in the water.
Thanks to that, his weight would ensure he would likely miss most of the devastating barnacle plates, and all he had to do was avoid drowning. His SBS training had taught him to hold his lungs for longer than Grasso had presumably been left underwater, and he clung to that hope as the ropes tugged him roughly under the yacht.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lea struggled against Zaugg’s grip as she watched several of his men run to their leader and inform him that the SAS man at the front of the Thalassa was dead.
Lea and the others knew they meant Sparky, a man with whom Hart had shared work and life for two decades. With Alexis also dead she had lost two close friends to Zaugg’s insanity. Lea saw the rage rise in her, but she fought it away out of a sense of self-preservation.
With Sparky dead, that left only the four of them, plus Chief, who was now being dragged up from below decks, badly beaten in the face and body.
“Sorry, boss,” he croaked up to Hart. “Overwhelming numbers. Twelve to one. I could have taken ten, I reckon, but not twelve.”
“Silence!” screamed Zaugg. He kicked Chief hard in the face and knocked him unconsious. “Even your SAS is no match for me.”
“You’ll pay for this, Zaugg,” Hart said, her voice cold and clipped.
“I think not. With your man Hawke currently drowning beneath the boat, all that remains is to execute the five of you and dump your bodies overboard.”
Zaugg walked toward the chopper which Baumann had fired up a few moments ago. The blades began slowly to whir and pick up speed until they were at full operating velocity, the rotors invisible now and pushing a powerful downdraft in Lea’s face.
Zaugg spoke with another person whom Lea presumed was Dietmar Grobel, a short, fat man who waddled away from the chopper and returned a few moments later with what unnervingly looked to her like a pack of C4 explosives. He secured them to the side of the yacht and the men climbed into the Bell.
“I bid you all farewell!” Zaugg shouted.
“I guess he changed his mind about shooting us then,” Ryan said.
Lea turned to him. “Don’t count your chickens yet.”
The chopper rose gently from the deck. It was blown to the side a little by the wind but Baumann corrected it before ascending fast into the bright blue sky and veering away from the yacht.
Lea pointed up. “We have to get off this boat. Look!”
The chopper turned in the sky and the side door swung open to reveal Grobel at the handles of an M60. Flames flashed from its muzzle as he strafed the side of the yacht.
“But we have to get Hawke!” said Ryan. As he spoke Chief began to regain consciousness. He rubbed his temple and spat some blood on the deck.
Ryan began heaving at Hawke’s rope, helped by Lea and Chief.
“It’s jammed!” Ryan shouted. Without saying another word he took a knife from one of Zaugg’s dead guards and jumped into the water, diving beneath the surface. Moments later he emerged, dragging Hawke behind him. The SBS man was slipping in and out of consciousness.
Behind them the M60 chattered away, peppering the deck.
“They’re aiming for the C4!” Hart shouted. “Everyone off the boat!”
Down in the water, Ryan cut at the nylon yachting rope which secured Hawke’s hands behind his back as everyone else leaped off the yacht and joined them.
Ryan hacked at the rope and released Hawke. As he did so, Hawke smiled for half a second but slipped into unconsciousness again. With seconds to spare the others hit the water and dived for cover as Ryan hauled Hawke back under the surface again, this time to protect him from the blast.
Lea went into the water the second the yacht went up in flames. The shockwave felt like a punch, but being underwater had protected them from the worst of the explosion as the yacht turned into a giant fireball. Through the distorted surface and the burning wreckage she watched as Zaugg’s chopper spun one-eighty and headed for the mainland.
When Hawke came back up for air, the bright blue Mediterranean sky was now black with the burning oil and wreckage of the Thalassa.
He knew he’d been unconscious, but for how long he wasn’t sure. He could smell the fuel on the surface of the sea, rank and nauseating. Then, he heard the cries of his friends as they scrambled in the water, trying to find anything to cling to. None of them except Hawke and Scarlet had the benefit of serious underwater training. Luckily, they had located the box of emergency equipment and flares.
He swam over to Ryan, pulling a piece of smashed door along under his arm. Ryan slipped under, but Hawke dived down and pulled him back up again. He hoisted him over the door fragment.
“Thanks, Joe,” he said, coughing sea water from his lungs.
“It's me who should be thanking you,” Hawke said.
“What for?”
“You saved my arse back there, so thanks Ryan.”
Ryan was speechless for a few seconds, half-drowned, and dazed with concussion as he bobbed up and down in the Ionian Sea. “Really, there’s no need to — hang on — you called me Ryan.”
“All right, calm down. We’re not getting a room or anything. I just said thanks.”
“Sorry.”
“Seriously though — thank you, Ryan. There’s more in there than I thought,” he said, tapping Ryan’s chest. “I owe you, mate.”
“So what do we do now, He-Man?” Lea shouted.
Scarlet laughed. “Yes he does look a bit like He-Man. We’d need to dress him in those silly little shorts for the full effect.”