Noah's Ark: Encounters (18 page)

Since the cruiser’s lifeboats had all burned, and its two tenders had been destroyed, flimsy inflatable life rafts had been their only means of getting to and from land. The four ports they had visited so far had been too badly damaged to bring their giant ship in close. Debris in the water made such manoeuvres too treacherous, as Lucya had discovered to everyone’s cost when she had punctured the hull on a chunk of concrete pier hidden in the freezing waters of a Svalbard fjord.

The
Lance
on the other hand, was tiny in comparison. With the agility offered by her bow thrusters, her reinforced hull, and her relative size, she would make the perfect runabout to ferry landing parties ashore as they continued to explore further and further south.

That wasn’t all she had to offer. As there hadn’t been any pressing reason to return to the engine room of the
Arcadia
after checking out the
Lance
’s own motor, he’d taken the time to explore the rest of the ship. The laboratories appeared to his untrained eye to be very well equipped. He suspected that Surgeon Lieutenant Russell Vardy would be overjoyed with what he would find there. The
Lance
also had an impressive stash of food supplies. For such a small crew, they really were very well stocked.

But perhaps the best features of the research vessel were her winches, nets and baskets. She even had an old harpoon launcher up near the bows. Her heritage as a converted fishing boat was plain to see. They may have lost an excellent and well-liked fisherman in Stieg, but they had gained a terrific tool for catching more food. Stieg’s homemade nets and Martin’s cobbled-together winch system had served them well thus far, but there was no doubting that the efficacy of the
Lance
would far outweigh their current methods.

All in all, Martin thought to himself as he crossed the walkway between the
Lance
and the
Spirit of Arcadia
, the day had gone very well. Things were looking up.

It was as that thought played out in his mind that there was a massive explosion.

It came from the other side of the
Arcadia
, out of sight. The noise was one Martin would never forget. It sounded like a dozen volcanos erupting at once.

Beyond the bows of the cruiser, a tsunami wall of water rose up, spreading out in all directions. It hit the front of the ship within a second of the deafening sound, sending her rearing up and then over to the starboard side.

The ropes securing the
Lance
tightened as they were stretched to their fullest extent, pulling her towards the hull of the
Arcadia
. The walkway buckled and folded in two. Had Martin been a metre further ahead, he would have been eaten up by the closing jaws of twisted wood and metal. As it was, he was thrown into the air, where he executed an unbalanced somersault, and came crashing down into the sea headfirst, just as the tsunami reached the
Lance
.

Martin was lucky. He had time to draw a breath before hitting the water, so was already under as the tidal wave rolled over him. He kicked and pulled at the bubbling, swirling sea, disoriented, struggling to find the surface. When the wave, as high as a house, passed over, he was sucked back to the top in its wake. His head broke through into the air just in time for him to see the sky-blue hull of the
Lance
tumbling down the back of the wave towards him.

He had seconds remaining before he would be crushed between the two ships.

• • •

The North Koreans who had taken the
Lance
had exchanged their position of power for a deck-one dungeon, not unlike that into which they had thrown their captives. Like the room that had held the
Lance
’s true captain, their new home was in the very bowels of the ship, well below the waterline. The old store room was similar to the one used as a temporary morgue, but much smaller. It had previously housed stocks of alcohol for the ship’s numerous bars. These had long since been moved. Too many people who worked on the
Arcadia
knew where the booze was stored, and as alcohol was not part of the rationing system and was therefore effectively banned, it was deemed too risky to leave it where it could be found, even if the room was secure. Instead, the hundreds of cases of drink had been relocated, along with thousands of cigarettes, cigars, and other luxury products, into a store in which mechanical spares were supposed to be kept. In fact there were very few spares, and a lot of space. It made it the ideal hiding place for substances that would undoubtedly lead to temptation, and thus possibly to crime.

The room smelt of alcohol. Over the years, many a bottle had been dropped and broken in there, and the smell was hard to get rid of. Its whitewashed metal walls were entirely featureless, as was the metal floor, and ceiling. Fluorescent tubes protected by metal cages provided the illumination. The switch for these was situated outside, next to the heavy door. So when the lights went out, the North Korean prisoners naturally assumed that their guard was punishing them, or toying with them in some sadistic way.
 

On the other side of the door, security officer Rupert Bembridge, assigned to watch the new brig, was far less certain as to the reasons for the sudden plunge into darkness. His first thought was that his charges inside had somehow cut through a power cable in a bid to make their escape, or at least to make his life difficult.

His orders from Max had been perfectly clear: “You watch the door. If any of the bastards try and get out, shoot them. If anything else happens, you call me.”

He had thought Max had been joking about the shooting part, but then he’d been handed a gun. He had to sign for it in the arms register, and then Max had left him to it. Suddenly the job, which he had seen as a significant step down from patrolling the restaurant, had taken on a whole new level of importance.
 

Although Rupert had never been part of SCO19, the armed response unit of the Metropolitan Police, and therefore did not carry a weapon in his day job, he had undergone a firearms training course when he had been promoted to sergeant. The training had given him an enormous respect for the power of a gun. He really didn’t want to shoot anyone at all, even a North Korean who had, he’d been told, done terrible things to fellow survivors. The trouble was, when he tried to contact Max via the radio, he found the device wasn’t working. The
Spirit of Arcadia
, being built from steel, aluminium, and other metals, made radio communication difficult at the best of times. The superstructure acted as a giant Farrier cage, blocking transmissions. For the security radios to work, relays were installed throughout the vessel, part of a spider’s web of communications infrastructure. Without power, those relays were little more than decoration. Unfortunately, the technicalities were lost on Bembridge. He simply saw a radio that didn’t work, and no way to contact his boss.
 

However, there was another, more pressing problem. The lock on the brig door was not manually operated. Instead, it used a magnetic card reader which was linked to a series of electromagnetically operated bolts. Under normal circumstances it was a highly secure system. Bar staff were issued with key cards, and a computer logged all access in and out of the store. Any time a crew member was reassigned, or left the ship’s company, their card was deactivated. With no lost keys, or stray copies floating around, it meant there was almost no problem with theft of the stock, as every movement could be accounted for. But when the
Ambush
dived, cutting the power connection to the cruise ship, the door went into emergency mode. Using a capacitive charge, it immediately disengaged the four hefty bolts that secured it shut. This was a safety override, designed to ensure nobody was locked inside the room in the event of power failure or other catastrophe.

Bembridge heard the bolts retract. He knew that the prisoners would hear it too. He raised his pistol towards where he knew the door was, and fumbled around on his belt for his torch. His hand closed around the substantial body of the Maglite, and his thumb found the rubber switch. He pressed hard, and a tightly focussed beam of light picked out the door. He was just in time. It was already swinging open.

“Stop! Step away from the door or I will shoot!” His voice boomed around the cave-like passage, making him sound far more authoritative than he felt.
 

The door opened wider, but nobody came out. Bembridge stepped to the left, to better see inside the brig. He had one foot on the ground, the other moving through the air, when the explosion happened.

The deafening sound ripped through the deck. A second later, the
Spirit of Arcadia
lurched to the side, throwing him off balance and sending him skidding across the slippery painted floor on his back. His torch fell to the ground with him and was lost, rolling away unseen. He gripped the gun tightly, desperate not to lose it. Too tightly. His finger clamped round the trigger and the weapon discharged, sending a bullet ricocheting off the thick metal walls. A tenth of a second later, his head hit one of the same walls, knocking him out cold.

• • •

Carrie Walters was attending to Captain Gibson Coote, changing the drip that kept him sedated when the lights went out. Then she heard the explosion. In the medical suite on deck five, the sound itself wasn’t so frightening. It was more of a distraction than anything.

The tidal wave that followed was another matter.

The ship reared up then listed to the starboard side, groaning and creaking as it went. The movement was violent, and it happened quickly. Carrie, like almost everyone aboard, was tipped off balance. She was thrown into the wall of the treatment room. The drip in her hand burst open, sending liquid into the air.

She could see Coote rolling towards the edge of his bed. She tried to turn, to get to him and stop him falling, but the floor had become a steep incline and her shoes failed to grip sufficiently. She watched, helpless, as he plunged to the ground, rolling in mid-air and landing face first.

• • •

The view of the explosion from the bridge was quite spectacular. Jake pulled away from Lucya in time to see it: a column of water erupting from the sea off the port bow. It looked for all the world like a skyscraper sprouting from the ocean as the seawater pushed its way upwards, higher than the deck of the ship, higher than the bridge, its tip sharpening as it stretched for the sky.

As the massive plume reached its zenith, a secondary eruption burst from the seabed, spraying black silt into the air, giving the scene in front of them the appearance of a deathly aquatic firework display.

The explosion was accompanied by a deafening boom, a sound wave that threatened to blow in the bridge windows.

As the ship reared up and rolled, Jake, Lucya, Vardy, and McNair were all thrown backwards towards the banks of consoles. Jake caught hold of a handrail that ran around the perimeter of the room and steadied himself. He was still hanging onto Lucya, and pulled her close to him again, preventing her fall.

Vardy stumbled and managed to turn so that as he pitched into the side of a control panel, he bent over double, absorbing the shock.

McNair was not so lucky. He hurtled into the map table, his back connecting with it with a crack. His head was flung backwards. He bounced and seemed to fold in two, before once again falling back, rolling away under the table and out of sight.

Twenty

B
EING
AN
ENGINEER
meant enduring derogatory comments from most other crew members at some point in one’s career. “Bolt tightener”, “stoker”, “grease monkey”; the list of belittling nicknames went on. Officers above deck enjoyed telling those below that they weren’t intelligent enough to get a real job. Engineering was where you went if you were a bit slow, they said. Martin had learnt long ago to let these types of comments pass. It wasn’t so much that he had developed a thick skin, it was more that he knew they were simply wrong. His team were some of the brightest people he’d ever met. He himself, although no genius, was also prone to bouts of inspiration and quick wit. As he watched the
Lance
— which from his new perspective appeared considerably bulkier than before — fall towards him, his brain ratcheted up a gear. The faster he thought, the more time seemed to slow down.

He turned so he was facing the
Arcadia
, then pushed his head below the water and dived. He could never have got far enough below the surface under his own power, but he didn’t need to. The timing was impeccable. As he inverted himself, he brought his knees in close to his chest. The
Lance
connected with his feet, and Martin pushed off with all his might. The momentum of the research ship launched him forwards and downwards. As the
Arcadia
was still rolling to her starboard side, he was pushed into the space that her hull was vacating, his back sliding along her underside.

Behind him there was an almighty crash as the two ships connected. The cruiser continued to roll, pushing the
Lance
down into the water and threatening to submerge her altogether. Martin didn’t think about that. He didn’t think about anything except kicking for all he was worth, until finally, with his lungs ready to burst, he broke free, passing under the keel of his beloved ship and into empty water beyond. Then he pulled with his arms, fighting his way to the surface. He escaped into the air, gasping, filling his oxygen-starved lungs to capacity.

Yet there was no time to recover. Behind him, the
Spirit of Arcadia
had rolled as far as she was going to, and had started to pitch back in the other direction. If he hung about much longer, she would come crashing down on his head. Martin took another lungfull of air, dipped his face back into the churning sea, and started to swim away as fast as he could.

• • •

The first thing Rupert Bembridge noticed when he came to was that his head was throbbing so hard he wasn’t entirely sure he was alive at all. He didn’t think it was possible to be conscious and in so much pain.