Noah's Ark: Contagion (15 page)

“As you wish, Captain,” he said. “My team will be ready within the hour.”

• • •

Jake felt ridiculous in the wetsuit. The flippers only made matters worse. As they weren’t planning on any actual swimming, the flippers had been trimmed back, and the sleeves of another wetsuit had been cut off and pulled over the stubby plastic, making him look like he was wearing enormous shoes. He was beginning to regret having been so insistent on making the trip to shore, but then caught sight of the three submariners who were similarly outfitted, and didn’t feel quite so daft any more.

“Jake, we brought a gas mask along for you,” Vardy called out from his position on the hull of the
Ambush
.

“What’s in the big box?” Jake asked. He was making his way across the walkway and had a good view down into the raft. Eric and Ewan were positioning a long flat crate atop two oars, which themselves were suspended between the air-filled chambers of the life raft.

“Oh, you know, just a few essential supplies.”

“I thought we were bringing stuff back, not taking it over there?”

Vardy did not reply; instead he concentrated on clambering aboard the raft. It wasn’t an easy manoeuvre, nor a graceful one as he slid down the side of the submarine and landed in the little inflatable.

A minute later, Jake followed him down, landing with a slap on the rubber floor of the tiny boat. As soon as he was in, another submariner who Jake recognised as Brian, the conning tower guard, carefully untied the rope that held the raft in position, coiled it, and threw it to Eric. Protected from the wind by the towering ship to one side of them, and the bulk of the
Ambush
on the other, they didn’t drift far. Jake wondered if anyone had considered the question of propulsion, but before he could voice his concerns aloud, the young navy men produced more oars, and started to paddle. Silently, the raft snuck out from its safe haven and headed for the remains of the base. Behind them, two men emerged from the submarine. They were carrying Vardy’s equipment. It had been decided that a better lab would be established on board the
Spirit of Arcadia
, where there was considerably more room to work.

Above, the grey sky turned darker still. They had seen no rain since the asteroid had ended almost all life more than two weeks earlier. It was as if the destruction and the blanket of ash had somehow interrupted the normal cycle of weather. Since arriving in Scotland though, there had been progressively more and more cloud. Jake shivered. The wetsuit didn’t offer much protection against the cold; he hoped they would soon be inside the base.

“Here, try this on, you’ll need to adjust the straps. Best get it done before we get too close to that ash.” Vardy handed the gas mask to Jake. “With this wind, we don’t want to take any chances of breathing that stuff in.”

“Is it just the ash that’s worrying you, Russell? Or is there anything in that lab we should know about?”

Vardy smiled, and turned to look towards the land they were slowly creeping towards.

When they had covered a little more than half the distance, the others donned their own masks. The wind chopped about their heads. It wasn’t so strong as to slow their progress, but they could see little eddies of ash swooping and dancing across the land. The ungainly footwear and diving attire began to feel rather comforting to Jake, like a security blanket.

It took a good half an hour for them to reach the shoreline. The loch was deep, and clear of any obstacles, but whilst that made for smooth passage across the water, it meant getting out of the raft would be more difficult. Eric and Ewan paddled gently, bringing them close in to where the ship lift had once stood. The remains of a concrete pillar that Jake assumed must have been one of the corners of the superstructure, stuck up out of the loch like the trunk of a giant tree. In-between it and the remnants of the concrete dock, huge chunks of rubble had piled up like stone blasted out of a quarry.

“Here,” Ewan said, pointing at the accumulation of debris, his voice muffled by the gas mask. “We can tie up here and climb over the wreckage of the lift.”

Eric nodded, and the two men picked up one end each of the carton still resting on the oars, and heaved it over the side of the raft and onto a massive and relatively flat wedge of concrete which served them well as a jetty. They clambered out too, and while they secured the raft, Jake made to follow, but Vardy held him back.

“No, we need to wait here. Let the boys clear the way.”

“I came along to help. I can’t just sit here and watch,” Jake said, feeling frustrated at not being able to participate.

“Trust me, they know what they’re doing. It’s safer here, for now.”

Jake sank back onto one of the inflatable benches and watched as the two submariners lugged their plastic cargo from one piece of broken superstructure to another, making their way up towards the land like ants crawling across pebbles. The rubble was wet. It looked like the wind had whipped up the loch before their arrival, sending waves crashing over the concrete, washing it clean of the poisonous ash that Jake so feared. By the time they reached the top though, it was a different story. The flat dock was covered in a thick layer of the evil substance.

Before stepping onto it, Eric opened the crate and extracted a large square of black material, which flapped around in the breeze. Jake understood at once that it must have been cut from the same wetsuit as the chunks of neoprene now protecting his feet. He watched as the submariner very carefully placed the rubber square on top of the ash. Nobody spoke; all eyes were on the material, waiting to see how it would react. From their position in the raft, Jake and Vardy couldn’t really see clearly enough, but they soon got confirmation that the wetsuits would provide the protection they needed when Eric emitted a muffled whoop and held his thumb aloft for all to see. Ewan retrieved the cut-out wetsuit and held it high. Ash fell away from the underside, but the material was whole and intact.

“Great, it works. Can we go now?” Jake asked.

“Not yet. They need to get the entrance open first.”

“How hard can that be?”

“You’d be surprised. This isn’t a local corner shop, it’s a naval base. You don’t just ring the doorbell.”

Jake wondered how you did get into a secret base, especially when there was almost certainly nobody inside to open up.

He was still pondering the question, when he heard the explosion.

Sixteen

M
ARTIN
MUTTERED
TO
himself as he worked alone. Of all his team of engineers, only two had shown up for work. A couple more had at least had the decency to call him and explain why they were staying in their cabins, and he had no doubt that the others were hiding out for the same reason: they were afraid of catching the virus. It wasn’t exactly broadcast news that there was a morgue on deck one, but gossip travelled fast, and everyone knew exactly what Janice was up to down there. For many in Martin’s team, her activities were too close to the engine room for comfort. Not that they would ever admit that in the macho culture that still ruled in the male-dominated machine rooms below the water line.

The two engineers who had overcome their fear and had been assisting Martin in reconnecting the power supply, had become paralysed within ten minutes of one another. Martin thought they had been messing around, playing the sort of practical joke that was such a common way of relieving the boredom and monotony of life in the windowless engine room. But they hadn’t been joking; their paralysis was real, and when it came, it came quickly and painfully. The chief engineer had called medical straight away, but nobody had answered. And so it was left to him to escort his men to deck eight, wheeling them unceremoniously through the ship on trolleys normally used for carrying heavy equipment.

Deck eight itself had been a surreal experience. Martin had felt like he had stepped into a zombie movie. Behind closed doors, people moaned and groaned heavily. The only people he saw were nurses, rushing from room to room administering what few painkillers remained. Their faces told a story of resignation; they knew they were fighting a losing battle. For the first time, Martin felt afraid. He left his men with Mandy and beat a hasty retreat, desperate to be as far away from this sickness as he could get.

Safely back down in the familiar and friendly surroundings of his engine room, he had got back to the task in hand. The connections to the
Ambush
, already a rush job, had been cut quickly and shoddily in an effort to get the submarine away as fast as possible. Now he had the difficult task of repairing the almost unrepairable interface between the two vessels.

It was perhaps the stress of trying to carry out such an important task alone. It could have been the fatigue brought on by working such long hours in difficult conditions. Or it could have been the dim emergency lighting, in use because the ship was restricted to running only essential systems on backup power. Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same. As Martin made an elementary error and connected a live cable from the
Ambush
directly to the battery system, an enormous spark arced across the engine room with an almighty cracking sound, emptying the batteries of their last reserves. The bolt of energy lifted Martin clean off his feet and hurled him through the air. He was fortunate, crashing down on a spaghetti-like heap of cabling that broke his fall. Even so, the impact knocked him out cold.

• • •

“What the…?” Jake looked up at the plume of ash that was rising from the ground above them. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears, and it was a few seconds before he realised Vardy was trying to speak to him.

“I said don’t panic!” the doctor shouted through his mask. “They just blew the door; it’s fine!”

“You could have warned me!”

“I didn’t think it would be that loud to be honest. Quite impressive, wasn’t it?”

“So that’s what was in the crate? Explosives? Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have sat so close if I’d known.”

“Perfectly safe, Jake, just a detonator pinched from a spearfish. One of our torpedoes,” he added, remembering Jake wasn’t a navy man. “Although judging by the noise, I suspect they used some of the explosives too. Hell of a bang, eh?”

Jake felt the ringing in his ears start to subside. “I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of you lot.”

“Shall we get going? It looks like the dust is settling.”

The cloud of ash had mostly dispersed on the wind. Jake was glad of the mask; the powder was so fine that he could imagine it would be easy to breathe it in without realising. He didn’t need to be asked twice, and bounced out of the raft and onto the rubble. Using his gloved hands for support, he scrambled over the concrete boulders without looking back. It felt good to be on land once again, even if it was dangerous and inhospitable land.

He paused only when he reached the top, before stepping onto the ruined dock and the carpet of grey ash. Images of Stacy and Horace melting in the powder streamed through his mind, alongside doubts about the wetsuit he was wearing. Was he sure it was the right kind of rubber? Would it provide adequate protection, or just slow down the action of the ash? A slap on his back shook him from his thoughts.

“Come on then, Captain Noah, what are you waiting for? Out of breath?” Vardy stepped fearlessly onto the greyness, and headed in the direction the explosion had come from.

Jake took a deep breath, and followed. He stepped from the security of his loch-washed boulder and planted one foot firmly on the ground, then the other. He took another step, and looked back at the imprint his improvised shoes had made. He walked forwards gingerly, placing each foot carefully, as if walking a tightrope. The feeling of ash compressing underfoot reminded him of walking in light, powdery snow, and in the dim light from the ever-darkening sky, it was almost possible to imagine that was what it was.
 

Vardy was a few paces ahead, and was following the footprints left behind by his colleagues. They led towards another stubby column of concrete, perfectly in alignment with that by which they had moored their raft.

They found Eric and Ewan behind the huge pillar. They were sitting on the crate, waiting for the two men. In front of them, set into the round concrete, was an opening. Torn metal framed a black hole. A slab of metal, six inches thick, lay flat on the ground in front of it.

“I wonder why the asteroid didn’t blow the door in?” Vardy wondered aloud as he surveyed the scene.

“Judging by the way the debris is scattered, it came from that way,” Eric said, pointing back towards the loch. “So the pillar provided some protection.”

“The PBX did the job then?”

“Yes. I think we could have got away with using half as much. The door was twice the size before we blew it!”

Jake was peering into the blackness. He could just make out a few steps of a metal stairway. “Right then, are we going to find this machine of yours?” he asked, looking at the three men.

“I’ll lead the way, Captain,” Ewan said. He opened the crate and extracted a gun.

“Is that really necessary?” Jake asked. The look of disappointment on his face was hidden by the gas mask he was still wearing.

“If anyone
is
in there, they probably won’t be expecting us. We might give them a bit of a shock. Never know how they might react,” Ewan replied.
 

“Fair enough,” Jake sighed. “But I would have thought that if there was anyone there, not only would your bang have alerted them to our presence, but that they would be pleased to see some friendly faces. Lead on then, Ewan.”

• • •

“Looks like the phones are down too.” Lucya replaced the handset, scratching her head, deep in thought.

“Maybe they had to turn the power off to finish connecting up. You know, and they’ll turn it on again when they’ve tightened all the screws or whatever it is they do down there?”

“I wouldn’t let Martin hear you call him a screw tightener, Chuck; he’s touchy about his skills. And they never switched off the battery backup when they first connected us up. Something’s wrong, I’m sure of it. I’m going to go down there and find out what’s happening. Can you guys keep an eye on Erica?”