Exit Alpha (40 page)

‘And at the mercy of the cyclones that sweep around these latitudes,’ the chief dourly added.

Flynn leaned close to Cain, murmured, ‘Would the Holy Father care for an apple?’

He wondered why old people were treated as objects — hardly ever addressed directly. It seemed even popes weren’t immune. ‘Why not ask him?’

‘Your Holiness?’

The pope didn’t move.

Flynn plucked at his sleeve but the old man just stared through the windows.

Cain leaned forward. ‘John?’

The eyes behind the glare glasses hadn’t moved.

Flynn respectfully touched his arm again.

The pope slid sideways.

‘Oh no.’ Hunt got up, felt his neck, waited a moment. ‘Nothing. He was just speaking to us.’

Flynn was appalled. ‘Terrible. That this should happen here. On my ship. Dear God, my mother will never forgive me.’

Hunt removed the old man’s glasses, closed his eyes.

Cain and the engineer carried the body upstairs and laid him on a bunk. When the other had gone, he squatted beside his teacher and sobbed. Then he took the priest’s manuscript from his pack, went to the small galley, and hid it behind saucepans in the locker under the stove.

T
he Russian icebreaker looked big — at least 10,000 tonnes — and badly maintained, its red hull mottled by rust. The dark water at its stern was being closed by moving ice. The eastern drift could move 80 kilometres a day. There were twin hangars behind the ship’s flight deck and enclosed wings projected from the bridge. The raised hydraulic tower abaft the swept-back side-by-side funnels had a glassed-in pod at the top that could have been used for spotting ice leads, although the ship’s choppers would be its main scouts. Above the pod, a windsock bellied out. Then a wisp of low cloud obscured the view.

The airship did two more circuits. Cain and Hunt watched from the saloon.

Their next glimpse was closer. They could see the ship’s raked bow smashing through pack ice that reared each side of the hull, could see the jagged white clumps fall back and roll to expose fretted, algae-stained bases.

‘Thick ice,’ Hunt said. ‘They must have huge shaft horsepower. I thought they’d be hove-to.’

‘Could have to sail into the wind to stop the airship fouling the ship. Why don’t we get up front? Be a once-in-a-lifetime sight.’

It was controlled-panic mode in the gondola. Flynn and Duckworth’s leisurely flying style had gone. The ship’s comms leaked from their cans. ‘Baby, bridge. Flight quarters. Green deck. Wind 15 knots, speed three for approach and standing by.’

Flynn acknowledged. ‘Ready and inbound on final.’

Duckworth called altitude readings as they closed the stern, drifting toward the tower so slowly they seemed to be hovering against the wind. As they nosed down, the ducted props swivelled on their outriggers. Sailors scrambled for a steel cable dropped to the deck and secured it to a cable hanging from the mast. A man in the tower-top pod directed operations as Flynn eased the nose of his craft back just above the stern.

The cable was winched in and they were drawn toward the top of the mast. The nose dipped unpleasantly once, then mated with the cup. The tethered craft shuddered like an animal trying to get free as they hovered above the chopper pad, fretfully swinging.

Flynn removed his headset, shook hands with Duckworth, elated. ‘Made it. Everyone not on station’s invited on board for sausage rolls and a hot toddy. Sorry, Ducky. You and keels stay on duty.’

Cain had never been winched to the deck of a moving ship. The damn thing wouldn’t stay still. For long moments he dangled above ice rocks that rasped along the hull. As the envelope above him veered and swung him back over the flight deck, the cable dropped him lower with a bounce and a sailor signed him to let go.

He fell to his knees in the centre of the landing circle on a pile of canvas bags that gave as if filled with sand. Red-clad, red-helmeted crewmen beckoned him from a hatch but he waited for Hunt to come down. As she dropped he went to help her up. The insides of his nostrils were freezing but the air was breathable again.

They stood on throbbing deck plates and stared past ice-encrusted railings at endless pack ice.

She slapped frost off her parka. ‘That hot toddy sounds good.’

‘Let’s do it.’

They entered a corridor smelling of fuel oil that ran beside one hangar. Bright-painted spares and tools were clipped to its cream metal walls. As they padded on black rubber beneath a maze of wiring and pipes they heard the hull drum as ice scraped and clanged along the sides. The crew waved them on. He suspected they only spoke Russian.

Through a clipped-back door on the left he got a glimpse inside the hangar. Wheeled cabinets with long red drawers, high shelves with lashed cases, hoses on reels . . .

. . . All mere background to the shock of the chopper.

Black and orange stripes!

The man behind must have seen his reaction.

Cain’s head exploded with pain as he was coshed.

I
t looked like the captain’s stateroom, was probably high on the deckhouse below the bridge. The curtains of the two small windows were drawn back but it was still a gloomy space — dirty cream paint, dark built-in cabinets, scratched brown-leather chairs, a dartboard on one wall. Cain found it hard to see and the pain between his eyes was splitting his head.

He, Hunt and a burly, bearded man in a seaman’s sweater were bound to the legs and arms of the chairs. Two surgeons stood in front of them, disguised in red crew waterproofs but identified by Ingrams fitted with long tubular suppressors.

‘You walked into that one, Cain.’ Zuiden’s grin. ‘Thanks for delivering the pope.’ He tried to switch on overhead lights. They didn’t work.

Cain didn’t recognise the second man — broken nose, red hair — probably one of the senior surgeons recalled from assignments around the world. ‘Bastards. So what are you waiting for?’

‘Vanqua wants a word.’ Zuiden’s cruel smile. ‘That’s why we didn’t retire you yesterday.’

‘Big of you. Where is he?’

‘Still at Alpha. I expect he’ll tell us to fly you back. Then he’s going to ask you some questions while I make sure you talk.’

‘Questions?’

The red-haired man was happy to explain. ‘Department D files are altered. Things don’t square. We want to know what Rhonda set up.’

‘Why ask me? I’m out of the loop.’

‘You were her crony,’ Zuiden said, then pointed to Hunt. ‘She was, too. We’ll get it out of one of you.’

‘Pirates.’ The heavily accented voice of the burly seaman. ‘What you do with my crew?’

‘We’re minding them, Captain,’ Zuiden said, ‘while we collect our property. We’ve got no beef with your operation.’

‘You destroy expedition, dumb shithead.’

‘Bullshit. I’m letting your officer of the watch and the airship crew get on with their work.’

‘You know half of fuck-all. Bergs to west. Temperature drop. Wind rise. We hit pressure ridge — airship is wreck. I have to be on bridge.’

‘Tough.’ Zuiden turned to his offsider. ‘Watch them. I’m going to call Alpha.’ He left.

The carrot-head pulled around the remaining chair and sat facing them, the sub-machine-gun across his knee.

‘So how’s the genocide tracking?’ Cain said.

The man grinned. ‘We getting to you, Cain? That’s good.’

Cain tested the strength of the old wooden-armed chair. The right arm was slightly loose on its upright but he couldn’t do much with that. He looked across at Hunt who was watching for the slightest diversion.

A knock at the quarter-open door. A man’s deferential face peered around it and gaped at the trussed form of his captain.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ The surgeon aimed the Ingram. ‘Get in here.’

The crewman came in reluctantly. He carried an electrician’s kit and, outside his overalls, wore a belt-pouch holding screwdrivers and wire cutters.

When the surgeon challenged him again, he shrugged as if he didn’t speak English. The captain muttered to him in Russian and the surgeon told the captain to shut up, then jerked the gun at the wall. ‘Over there.’

The wary crewman placed his tools on the floor and stood against the inboard wall.

The captain drawled on in Russian, ignoring the carrot-head who levelled the gun at him and swore.

The sailor’s blink rate rose. The two seamen were up to something. Cain tensed, ready.

Then the crewman snatched a dart from the board behind him and hurled it at the surgeon. He was good — just south of a bull’s-eye. The spike flashed across the room and buried itself in the surgeon’s right lower eyelid up to the brass.

A roar of pain from the carrot-head as he plucked it from his face, then the crewman was on him, gripping a screwdriver like a dirk.

This was the best it would get.

Cain wrenched the right arm from the chair’s front upright and thrust his hand forward until the rope around his wrist slid off the end. He lunged until the chair toppled, grabbed for the tool-box.

Hunt and the captain were yelling.

The Ingram popped. The subsonic round and suppressor made the loudest sound the slap of the bolt.

The crewman staggered against the door, heading for the great dry dock in the sky.

Cain cut his second wrist free with a Stanley knife — expecting to be shot. But the surgeon was on one knee, a screwdriver planted in his belly and a hand to his bloodied eye.

Cain lunged, got his arm inside the gun before the half-blinded, grunting man brought it up. As he shoved it wide, bullets punctured overhead pipes.

Hot steam sprayed down as Cain cut the man’s throat.

He retrieved the Ingram, used the dripping blade to slash his ankle bonds then free the others.

The captain lurched up, rubbing his wrists. ‘Now we get these shitheads good.’

‘How many left?’ Cain grabbed the Ingram.

The captain shrugged. ‘Eight? Ten maybe?’

Hunt frisked the surgeon and found another clip while the captain unlocked a cabinet and produced a pistol of his own.

Cain checked the Ingram, caught the spare mag tossed by Hunt. He gripped the forward webbing hand-strap that formed a rudimentary fore-grip. ‘Okay, I go first. Back me up.’

Hunt’s grim smile. ‘Dentists forever.’

The outside passage. Clear.

The captain pointed up a ladder. ‘Bridge.’

‘Has this ship got a chopper?’ Cain asked him.

‘One. Is taking equipment on contract to scientist at Hally base.’

‘So there’s just the one helo in the hangars? Theirs?’

‘Yes. They make us stow it to hide.’

They entered the chartroom, walked through to the bridge. The setup reminded him of a frigate — two raised chairs with readouts and a miniature engine telegraph between them. One display showed a high-res view of the pack ice ahead, probably coming from a camera on the tower. Two men were taped to the chairs and had tape over their mouths.

The captain muttered, ‘Steering station, starboard wing.’

Cain looked along the glassed-in projection. It had a duplicate console at the end where an officer was conning the ship. The surgeon minding him was halfway along the wing, lighting a cigarette. He turned.

Too late.

Cain fired and took him down.

As Hunt retrieved the man’s gun, the captain swore with satisfaction and started ripping the tape off the crew. ‘Leave you with it,’ Hunt said.

The captain nodded, lifted the bridge phone to his ear.

He and Hunt descended the musty creaking levels of the ship, feeling the engine throb, hearing the ice grinding the hull. They inched down a final ladder until they stood on thick black rubber.

He said, ‘Looks like the main deck. Machinery spaces below here.’

They grouped at the next corner, covered the new angle fast.

A red-clad figure, Ingram lowered, climbing from an access trunk.

Hunt fired.

The man crumpled against the metal lip.

A dull crack echoed from below. Not a gun. The hull — under stress.

She went forward, kicked the body down the ladder out of sight.

They doubled back along the fore–aft passageway beside the starboard hangar, brushed past a frightened sailor wheeling propane cylinders strapped to a handcart. Loose items in the tool-tray under it shuddered and chattered. The general noise of the ship was giving them cover enough.

At the hangar doorway, they did the one-two entry routine. Just the pilot in there, his back to them, examining the Sikorsky’s tail rotor.

Hunt shot him and, when he collapsed, Cain sprayed the tail blades until they splintered then emptied more into the rotor hub and the final drive gearbox.

A yell and firing from the passageway.

Cain was at the door. Too late.