Undersea Prison (38 page)

Gann gritted his teeth as he pushed Stratton’s head ever closer to the spinning knuckle joint. Blood and sweat poured from Stratton’s grimy face as he fought back with every vestige of his remaining strength. But he could not match Gann’s power. He blinked at the joint spinning inches from his face, knowing that Gann was intent on seeing his features sheared away. He suddenly saw two large buttons, one red, the other green, just beyond the shaft. He had no idea what they operated but he was out of options. He released his weakening grip on the edge of the machine, twisted his body round, his face passing millimetres from the joint, reached out and hit the red button. The machine immediately slowed to a stop as Stratton fell onto the smooth section of the shaft just beside the joint.

Gann twisted Stratton back over and held him down onto the shaft. ‘You wriggle like a worm,’ he snarled as he brought his fist down onto the side of Stratton’s face.

Stratton was trapped under Gann’s weight and strength and one more blow like the last would finish him. Gann raised his fist again, gritting his teeth, his aim clearly to bury it deep into Stratton’s bloody face and end the fight. Stratton made a supreme effort and twisted his head to one side just enough to avoid the main impact of the blow that glanced off his cheek. Gann’s weight followed him through and his hand slammed down into the knuckle joint. Stratton did not waste a second - he reached out and struck the green button. Before Gann could pull his hand free the shaft turned. He let out a howl that could have been heard throughout the prison as the knuckle joint turned, trapping his hand. As his arm wrapped around the turning joint the bones in the entire limb broke all the way up to his shoulder as they were twisted around it. The machine jammed and Stratton pushed himself out from under Gann’s bulk.

Gann screamed like a banshee, sparks flying from the machine as the motor short-circuited. Flames shot from the housing and ignited Gann’s uniform as he fought like a wild man to extract his mangled arm. But his efforts were in vain - the arm was jammed fast. The pain was too much for him and he went limp as the fire engulfed his head. His legs gave way beneath him.

Stratton stepped back towards the door, turning to look for Hamlin. But there was no sign of the older man. He hurried outside into the corridor but Hamlin had gone.

 

Doctor Mani helped Christine through the door into the hospital and sat her down on the edge of the operating table. She was aware of her surroundings and focused all her efforts on pulling herself back together.

‘He did you over pretty good,’ Mani said, holding a swab and a bottle of antiseptic liquid. ‘Let me have a look.’ He gently lifted up her chin.The blood had dried around her swollen nose and lips and there was a large bruise on the side of her jaw. She winced as the doctor dabbed a cut. ‘Can you clench your jaw?’

Christine clamped her teeth together and moved her jaw from side to side.

‘Any loose teeth?’ he asked as he felt her cheekbones and nose.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, moving his hands away.

‘What about the rest of you? Any broken bones, you think? I should check.’

‘I’m OK,’ she insisted as she slid off the edge of the table to stand, a little wobbly at first.

Mani looked down at the table, suddenly remembering that there had been someone on it when he had left earlier.

At the same instant Christine looked past him and froze.

‘Where’s the Afghan prisoner . . . ?’

‘Behind you,’ she said softly.

Mani turned to see the Afghan standing on the other side of the room, holding his gut with one hand, a long, slender surgical blade in the other. ‘Oh, dear,’ Mani muttered.

Durrani took a couple of steps towards them, holding himself erect with some difficulty.

‘Why don’t you let me fix you up?’ Mani said nervously, his gaze flicking between the silver blade in the Afghan’s hand and his dark eyes focused on him.

Durrani tottered slightly, fighting to control his limbs. His head throbbed and his lungs ached with every breath. He could barely see - everything was a blur - but he could distinguish the human forms in front of him. He stopped in front of Mani.

‘Please put the knife down,’ Mani’s voice quivered.

Durrani did not understand a word the doctor was saying. He had met him twice since his arrival, both for cursory medical examinations, and knew he could speak some Farsi. Durrani muttered a few words, his voice weak.

Mani was not sure what the Afghan had said at first and then realised he was asking for something to be given back to him.

‘I don’t have it,’ Mani replied in English, suddenly unsure how to say it in Farsi. ‘It’s not here. I promise you.’

Durrani assumed the man had not understood him. He also knew it was a waste of time and that he would never see the implanted object he had been entrusted with again. It had belonged to the enemy and they now had it back in their hands.

Durrani removed his hand from his wound, exposing it.

Mani glanced down at the open cut, then back to Durrani’s eyes that were filled with menace. Beads of sweat formed at the doctor’s temples. ‘I don’t have it, I tell you,’ he stammered in Farsi. ‘I can stitch up your wound. Shall I do that?’ Mani’s voice quivered as he gestured towards his instrument trolley.

Durrani held a hand out to stop him. He had come to terms with his failure. He had never had any illusions about escaping but there had always been the possibility of release one day. Now that his secret had been discovered, hoping for anything else was pointless. They would soon take him back into that room and interrogate him further. Durrani would rather die. This was the only opportunity he would ever have to control his destiny and he was going to take it. And like a good soldier he would take as many of the enemy with him as he could.

Durrani shoved the blade deep into Mani’s gut just below the sternum. Mani tensed as the cold blade entered him and his eyes widened in horror as he grabbed Durrani’s hand. Durrani clenched his jaw with the strain as he pushed the blade to one side. Mani’s knees started to give.

Unable to hold Mani’s weight, Durrani pulled out the knife and let the doctor drop to the floor.The effort caused a bolt of pain to shoot through his body and he thought he might lose his balance. But he summoned all his will to remain strong and upright, long enough to focus on the next face in front of him and kill whoever it belonged to. The person did not move and Durrani steeled himself to take one step closer to repeat the deadly thrust.

Christine stared at the half-naked man and the bloody blade in his hand. She might be weak and dazed but faced with the threat of death she would muster every ounce of strength to defend herself. She considered making the first move. The man was exhausted and in pain like her. But the knife gave him a serious advantage. Her heart pounded in her chest. Mani was moving at her feet, making gurgling moans, but she put him out of her mind at that moment. Adrenalin coursed through her veins.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she stammered, trying to distract him. ‘I can help you,’ she said, even though she suspected he could not understand her. She kept her voice soft and tender, trying to sound compassionate and unafraid. ‘Please let me help you.’ She stared into his eyes, waiting for the change in them that would signal his thrust. She would try and block it, move aside and counter. Her instincts would take over and unleash all the power she had until he was beaten.

But instead of tensing for the thrust Durrani remained still.

Christine could sense his sudden hesitation and wondered if he had understood her.

Durrani had indeed paused. He had fully intended to close the gap between them and thrust the knife deep into the blurred outline. But the voice stopped him, the voice of a woman, the first he had heard in a long time. He could not understand the words but he could hear the soft, pleading tones. Indelible memories returned. Since his incarceration with nothing to do but think he had experienced countless recollections of his mother, many of them tormenting. He had also been haunted by memories of the girl in the street when he’d been a boy, and in particular of the one he’d shot in Yakaolang while she pleaded for her brother’s life. Although they had been separate incidents, over the years those women had become one in his mind. And now she was standing in front of him, talking to him, pleading for him to recognise her.

Christine could only guess at the sudden change that had come over the Afghan. She had not expected her words to alter his murderous intent. But, bizarrely, that was exactly what had apparently happened. ‘It’s OK,’ she went on, maintaining the same soothing tone. ‘I know how you feel. I understand . . . I do.’

The room suddenly reverberated with the shriek of klaxons. Durrani snapped out of his trance. His grip on the knife tightened, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed. He came out of the fog and back into reality and stepped forward to make his thrust.

The lights went out.

The auxiliary lights came on in the OCR, triggering a cacophony of alarms, beeps and flashing warning lights as the controller and his assistant frantically moved between computer consoles, operating panels and monitors, trying to figure out what precisely was happening.

‘This is crazy!’ the senior controller shouted, his stress level rising perceptibly. ‘I’ve got pressure differentials spiking all over the goddamned place.’

‘There’s no power from the surface barge!’ the assistant called out.

‘What in God’s name is going on?’

The controller flicked through CCTV cameras all over the prison. Many did not function, some showed quiet, empty corridors while others revealed water rushing in through doors and along passageways.

‘Where’s the breach?’ the controller demanded.

‘There’s more’n one, that’s for sure.’

‘Galley’s showing four bars below normal. If it continues to drop the walls’ll give.’

‘Holy cow! We got a serious drop in pressure on level four. I can’t stabilise it.’

‘There’s no compensation control. Do we have comms with the terminal?’

The assistant grabbed up a radio handset and pushed a pre-set frequency button. ‘Mother one, this is Styx, copy!’

The speakers remained silent.

‘Mother one, this is Styx!’ the assistant repeated. ‘We have an emergency situation, do you copy?’

‘Styx,’ a voice crackled over the speakers. ‘This is mother one, come in.’

The senior controller grabbed the handset from his assistant.‘Be advised we have a serious emergency down here. I’m talking very serious. Remain on standby, OK?’

‘Can you describe the nature of the emergency?’

‘We’re flooding on just about every level as far as we can tell! Stand by.’

The controller hit a speaker button on the phone and punched in a couple of numbers.

Mandrick looked around at the flashing red light on his desk phone, took another glance at the computer monitor to see how the virus was spreading, walked over and picked up the phone. ‘Mandrick.’

‘Warden. We have a crisis situation.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘The pressure’s out of control. We’re flooding. The perimeter’s been breached in several places. We could be heading for total perimeter failure. We’re not sure how or where it started. Maybe C cell. The equalisers aren’t compensating. We’ve got a negative pressure migration to levels three and five which we are currently unable to control.’

‘What about the access doors on those levels?’ Mandrick asked casually, his voice booming over the speakers in the operations control room.

‘When the pressure equalised most of the doors popped before I could set all the manual overrides. We need people to physically close them,’ the controller said, looking at a monitor that showed a torrent of water gushing along a corridor. ‘Right now I don’t see how that’s possible.’

‘Your prognosis?’ Mandrick asked as he reached for his waterproof bag.

‘Well . . . the mains-power outage isn’t good. It’s like the barge has shut down.’ The controller looked at a computer monitor that mirrored the one in Mandrick’s office.‘The auto system has failed or is about to. It looks to me as if the program’s erasing itself. I don’t understand how we can have so many unrelated failures all happening at the same time.’

Mandrick was also curious since his virus program was only designed to affect the pressure compensators. ‘Did you say that the surface power’s been cut?’ he asked, certain his virus was not supposed to cause anything like that to happen.

‘Yes, sir. We’re running on UPS auxiliary, emergency systems only.’

‘Can we consolidate?’ Mandrick wanted to know. The controller looked around the room at the orchestra of complaining systems monitors and at his assistant who gave him a dour look before shaking his head. ‘I’d have to say that’s a negative, sir,’ the controller finally said. Despite the seriousness of the emergency he was well aware of the implications of making such a firm decision. He could already see himself facing the judicial inquiry and being grilled for the reasons behind such a catastrophic assessment. ‘If we move now we might be able to get everyone to the barges.’

‘I understand,’ Mandrick said, pouring himself a Scotch, taking a sip and then knocking it back, wincing as the fiery liquor coursed down his throat. ‘Give the order to abandon the facility.’

The controller looked at his assistant just in case there was anything to suggest that the order was premature. Nothing was forthcoming.

‘Did you hear me, controller?’ Mandrick asked, his voice echoing in the OCR.

‘Will do, sir . . . and sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘Good luck.’

‘You too,’ Mandrick said, replacing the receiver and picking up his bag. He paused to take a last look around, imagining the room flooded and wondering how long it would be, if ever, before anyone set a foot - or a fin - inside it again.