BLOOD GURKHA: Prophesy (James Pace novels Book 5) (14 page)

''You may have done a stand-up job while I've been flat on my back but you are not me, nor do you have all the information about everything we do, or are currently involved with. I'm sorry, but there have to be some secrets, even from you.'

Baker was taken aback. 'You know a way of getting them out? Something I don't?'

McEntire nodded. 'It is already in motion.' Then, quickly, he explained himself to Baker.

Back out at sea, with the storm showing no signs of abating, the return call was welcome. The news was even better. Hanging up, Pace found himself grinning stupidly although his frozen cheeks struggled to move.

'Well, what's the score?' asked Hammond. He was sitting, hunched over by the outboard, in charge of steering and propulsion while Pace handled communications. 'Do they have a rescue plan?'

'We are going to be the honoured guests of one of Her Majesty's nuclear submarines, which just so happens to be on manoeuvres nearby. They have already been sent orders to pick us up.'

Hammond's heart leaped inside his chest as he allowed himself to feel a little hope for the first time in hours. The darkness was beginning to lighten on the rolling horizon. Wiping the driving rain from his eyes, he squinted at it hard. Daylight was only an hour away, perhaps less. 'Thank God for the Royal Navy.'

'No, thank Doyle McEntire…and Sarah.' Hammond caught his gaze and saw the look of relief threatening to reduce his friend to tears. 'They both made it,' he added. 'Sarah is doing well but remains sedated while the team purge her system of the pathogen. The old man has come though his heart surgery with no complications and is already awake and back in charge.'

'Good men die hard,' Hammond decided.

Pace eyed the same piece of horizon that Hammond had just done and came to a similar conclusion. 'The submarine can only come in a certain distance. The water is too shallow here so we need to stop heading south and run as fast as we can east, directly out to sea. If we don't hit ay snags, and the outboard gives every revolution it can, we should rendezvous with the submarine in a couple of hours.'

'It'll be broad daylight by then,' noted Hammond. 'I don't think the Royal Navy will be too keen to surface and openly take aboard wanted men, do you? Not so close to the shore.'

'Of course not. Being that close means they would be violating Uruguayan territorial waters, which would be a breach of international law. They won't be able to surface.'

Hammond sighed. 'Thought it sounded a bit too good to be true. So, we're going swimming again?'

Pace laughed, despite their predicament. 'Seems that way. Unless the submarine's commander has a trick up his sleeve that I don't know about.'

'Or some kind of invisibility ray,' barked Hammond gruffly.

'We'll find out soon enough, said Pace. 'Let's head out to sea and please try and keep that little engine going for the next couple of hours. If it dies on us, the whole deal is off and our next meeting will either be with the Uruguayan Navy or Davey Jones.'

'Have a little faith,' Hammond exclaimed, feigning hurt feelings. Despite being chilled to the bone and beginning to feel the same headache as Pace, a sense of purpose flamed within him; a survival instinct that had yet to fail him. 'I will get us to the rendezvous point if I have to get out and push.'

'Let's hope that isn't necessary,' agreed Pace. 'Let's see if this is another race we can win by the skin of our teeth.'

15

The submarine closed in on the coast, silently slicing through the dark water, her sophisticated technological upgrades reducing the risk of her being discovered to virtually nil.

Codenamed
Vixen,
the boat had no official service name nor had it been commissioned back into the Royal Navy. Brought back from the brink of death to serve the nation once more, this time her commander was free from the constraints of the Rules of Engagement, or perhaps even the Geneva Convention, if events required it.

Back on the bridge, with all systems functioning perfectly, just as they had done over the past three months of intense, covert sea trials, Appleby glanced at his watch again. He loved the look of the orange face, as immortalised in the fictional writings of Clive Cussler, and his famous hero; Dirk Pitt. The watch told him they must nearly be there. He could, of course, just check the main display panels but he preferred the watch.

'Ten minutes and we'll be in the zone,' called the helmsman; Peter Tong. Solid, two-hundred and fifty pounds of reliable, experienced submariner, Tong also had the dubious honour of being a dangerous bare-knuckle fighter in any spare time he was given. 'Shall I ease back on the engines, sir? The bottom is coming up pretty fast.'

'Come back to half ahead, steady as she goes, Mr Tong. Thank you.'

'The weather up there is still messing with our sensors,' interjected Shannon quickly. 'If they are in a small boat, as we believe, there won't be much of a chance of picking them up on our screens. A visual search would stand a better chance.'

'In these conditions, we wouldn't see them, even if I was prepared to surface, which I can't do. Their only hope would be to pop off a flare and guide us in.'

'Excuse me, sir.' This time it was his weapon's officer; Neil Williams, who spoke. Seated in his chair, eyes glued to his own screen, he could call upon numerous deadly weapon systems at the touch of a finger. For now, he was focused on helping Shannon scan the sonar, radar and satellite imagery, played in real time, across their screens. The satellite images were now clear and crisp, with the sun having risen an hour earlier. They showed an untidy ocean, piling wave upon wave against each other, in stark contrast to the curved rigidity of the coastline.

'Yes, Mr Williams?' Appleby liked all his crew but he had a soft spot for Williams. The only member of his family ever to enter the service, having gown up on a tough council estate in Birmingham and being regularly targeted with racial abuse because of his Jamaican heritage, he had earned his way in the submarine service through hard work and dedication to his adopted country, serving on no fewer than four different boats, including two ballistic missile vessels, before taking early retirement the previous year.

In his late fifties, short, tightly curling hair flecked with white, he had been headhunted away from his plan to open his own Jamaican restaurant in Plymouth to serve aboard the
Vixen
. He saw the posting as merely a delay in his plans and one that offered him the chance of a large payday to top up his pension.

'How are you planning to get these men aboard, if we are able to find them?' His voice was deep and resonant, filled with a rich sense of kindness yet purposeful and focused at the same time. 'We don't have the mini-sub aboard yet.' Williams knew that one was awaiting their arrival back at their secret, Brazilian home base but that would not help them with their current situation.

Vixen
would never come anywhere near British waters and McEntire; the source of its funding and control, had managed to pull enough strings to secure a permanent lease on an old submarine pen just south of Porto Alegre, on the Brazilian Atlantic coast. Barely a few hundred miles from Uruguay's border, it could not have worked out better.

'They will have to come to us,' Appleby stated. 'A couple of you will need to suit up and bring them down from the surface and back in through the airlock. You can take a couple of spare air tanks and masks with you. We will stay down at least twenty metres so the sail doesn't become exposed. Volunteers?'

'Not me, sir. Thanks, all the same,' said Williams immediately. He hated open water despite being a competent swimmer, mainly due to a crippling fear of running into one of the ocean's predators. Raised on the
Jaws
movie franchise, he had never been able to shake off his irrational fear. He was always glad that the submarine's massive bulk sat between him and the ocean's natural inhabitants.

Of course, he would go if ordered but that wasn't necessary.

'I'd love the chance to get out of here for a few minutes and have a swim,' said Shannon. 'Are you up for it, Peter?'

Tong nodded, smiling. An avid scuba diver in his younger years, he still liked to keep his hand in.

'That's settled then. Both of you go and suit up. Wait by the forward airlock until I give you the go ahead. Swim up, grab them, bring them back fast. Understood?' They both nodded, disappearing down the steps with Shannon practically skipping at the thought of heading out into the ocean.

With no further updates from Baker, Hammond continued to nurse every ounce of speed from the outboard that he could while Pace sat up at the bow, scanning the open sea for any sign of life. He knew he was not going to see the welcome sight of a submarine conning tower, or sail as they were more commonly referred to, but that wasn't why he was using his binoculars to scour a violently shifting horizon. The rain had eased down to a fine drizzle and the clouds were starting to lift; thinning by the minute. The sea, as though unwilling to improve its temper too soon, remained rough and dangerous.

'Any sign of visitors?'

'Not yet, Max, no.'

'What's the plan if the local boys decide to come out of port and take a look at us? Over the side and hope there's a friendly sub somewhere underneath us?'

'It may come to that,' agreed Pace, sweeping the binoculars around again. Seeing nothing but empty ocean, he swivelled around in his seat and aimed the glasses back towards the dark smudge of the coastline behind them. Again, thankfully, there was nothing on the water to indicate pursuit.

'I have been thinking about our little predicament,' began Hammond, so cold now that his speech was almost slurring. 'We are really exposed on the surface. It only takes a helicopter or spotter plane to get the all clear for flight, what with the weather clearing, and they could be overhead in minutes. A quick radio call to a gun boat and that's us.'

'If you're suggesting taking an early bath,' countered Pace; his headache now splitting and pounding in his ears, 'I'm not keen. Being captured doesn't fill me with joy either.'

Both men had taken a few minutes to drink a litre of water each, from sealed containers secreted in the boat's internal webbing, which made them feel a little better. The chocolate bar they'd each also bolted down had made a bigger impression on their morale than their energy levels. With a cold swim ahead of them, already weakened and dangerously close to being hypothermic, eating too much would have been counterproductive. The fact that both Pace and Hammond had both stopped shivering was a very dangerous sign but with no dry clothing aboard, no towels or shelter, there was little choice but to remain in their wet clothing.

'The Zodiac can be deflated,' continued Hammond. 'It has gas release valves in the bladders.'

'I know,' agreed Pace. 'What are you getting at?'

'Hear me out.' The serious edge to his voice made Pace stop scanning the water and pay closer attention. Max clearly had something he wanted to get off his chest. 'This motor is not just waterproof.'

'Okay?'

'No, it's a fairly new design, built for the SBS to help them with water-based insertions, typically from submarines. I think I'm right in saying there is small battery pack inside, sealed up tightly. When switched over, it can run the propeller for about fifteen minutes, completely submerged.'

The penny dropped and Pace knew exactly why Hammond was pushing the matter.

'Right,' said Pace carefully. 'We deflate the bladders just enough to submerge the Zodiac say down to…five feet below the surface?' Hammond nodded as enthusiastically as his aching neck and stiff shoulders would allow. 'We flip the engine onto its battery pack and run underwater until the submarine finds us?'

'Almost. My idea is that we actually take the thing down deeper and look around for it. But only if we get visitors that we need to avoid, of course,' he added quickly. 'I'm in no mood for a cold swim any earlier than necessary either. I'm not crazy.'

The Uruguayan Coast Guard intervened at that exact moment, with a glint of something shiny catching Pace's eye just over Hammond's shoulder, back towards the coast.

Pushing away a feeling of dread that immediately gripped his insides, he brought the binoculars up smartly to his eyes again and zeroed in on the point. A tiny dot on the water was definitely visible; one that had not been there a few moments before. Although it was still too far away to make out any details, it was clearly a vessel and it was heading their way at some speed.

'A boat, coming fast,' he explained to Hammond, who did not bother to turn around and look with his naked eyes. 'They either already know we're here or they're taking a chance and heading out to see if they can catch us before we make a rendezvous with anyone.'

'I should keep my bloody mouth closed and not tempt the Heavens. Next time I do, you have my permission to pop me in the jaw.'

'Never,' Pace chuckled, feeling the anxiety melt away as the need for immediate action kicked in.

'Time for a swim, James. That water looks cold though. Maybe we should just surrender?'

Pace did not bother to spin around and look at his friend to see the sly look on his red, chilled face. Hammond knew surrender was the last thing either of them would contemplate, even to a friendly nation. Too many questions would be asked with very few good answers that could be offered.

The ocean was iron grey, waves lessened now to crests of just over a metre. Still rough but both men would be able to cope with it. Pace found himself, just for a moment, suddenly back off the Antarctic again where they had both floated for miles in inflatable immersion suits; using them as individual lifeboats and surviving to make landfall against all odds. The same suit had also protected him from the extreme cold of an unpressurised, high altitude aeroplane flight.

What I wouldn't give for one of those suits now, he mused wryly.

The next few minutes passed in fast, organised activity. Pace double checked that every piece of their equipment was stowed securely in the webbing or in the small compartments beneath the bench seat. The sun was well above the horizon by now, visible in widening patches as the cloud layer started to evaporate.

The rain was a distant memory as the two men prepared to take another huge gamble with their lives.

'If she's out here, we must be close,' decided Hammond. 'I'm up for another challenge, if you are?'

'I plan to get home and see Sarah,' replied Pace. 'That won't happen from the inside of a Uruguayan jail cell. Let's stop wasting time, shall we?' His smile belied the seriousness of what they were about to attempt. Pace had years of service in the RAF, including survival training, and Hammond was a seasoned adventurer. Neither of them, however, were Special Forces soldiers nor were they trained to do what it was they were about to attempt. It was almost suicidal.

Hammond killed the engine while Pace opened the valves. Immediately air hissed out and the little rubber boat began to wallow clumsily, caught in the grip of the rolling waves. Designed to skip across the surface at speed, without its buoyancy, grey, icy water was very soon pouring in over the sides. Within thirty seconds, helped by the weight of the two occupants and several hundred pounds of assorted gear, it sank.

More quickly than he'd imagined, Pace was in the ocean. The cold crushed his chest as if he'd just been smashed on the sternum with a sledgehammer and he experienced a rare moment of panic when his lungs refused to draw breath. Beside him, Hammond splashed into the water. By the look on his horrified face, he was experiencing the exact same phenomenon.

As the boat sank beneath the surface, its body still holding at least half of the air in its bladders, they fumbled to replace the valve stops. Hanging onto it by handles on the sides; the same ones that had saved their lives earlier when the boat capsized, its descent halted.

Pace forced himself to calm down and focus on breathing. At first, the freezing water threatened to end their escapade immediately but finally, in slow, laboured gasps, both men forced their bodies to stay alive and breath.

Even above the crashing of waves and slapping of water in their exposed faces, a new sound was growing louder in their ears. A powerful engine, approaching at speed. They could not see the vessel now they were actually in the water but it wouldn't take long to reach them, not by the sound of it.

'Maybe they'll drive right on past,' wondered Pace. He wanted to smile but could not. Strangely, for the first time, the thought that he might actually die flashed across the front of his mind. He forced it aside and gathered his wits. 'Or maybe it's just going to end up being a friendly little fishing boat after all.'

'Great. They will have the strangest catch in their nets if you're right, James. Come on,' he added, serious but empty-eyed, 'we need to get going.'