The Tomb Of Hercules

29

Sophia stood on the Ocean Emperor’s bridge, regarding the view ahead. The lights in the room had been dimmed for nighttime operations, but even so there was little to see. The ship was almost thirty miles from shore, and there was nothing in sight but the ink-black sweep of the Atlantic and the starry dome above it.

She turned to the man beside her, Captain Lenard. The Ocean Emperor’s normal complement of forty had been reduced to a skeleton crew of just five for its final voyage, all of whom would be evacuated in the tilt-rotor parked on the helipad behind the bridge shortly before the ship reached Manhattan. “And it hasn’t reappeared?”

“No, ma’am,” said Lenard, a flint-eyed Frenchman. “Whatever it was, it seems to have gone.”

Sophia looked suspiciously at the radar screens, then back out of the wide windows. Something had shown up on the Ocean Emperor’s radar almost directly ahead a few minutes earlier, then vanished again. It had been too large to be some piece of random flotsam, and considering the yacht’s objective anything out of the ordinary had to be considered a possible threat.

But if it were a boat, it would still be visible on radar, and Lenard had already ruled out the possibility of its being the periscope of a submarine…

“Keep looking,” she finally ordered. “If it reappears, call me at once. I’ll be in my stateroom.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lenard gave Komosa, lurking at the back of the bridge, a somewhat jealous look as Sophia gestured for the giant to follow her, then turned back to the radar.

The object the Ocean Emperor had detected was now much closer than its captain would believe. With Nina’s help, Trulli had submerged the Wobblebug to a depth of just six feet, bringing it on a course to intercept the yacht. With two people working the controls, the confined space of the cabin was even more claustrophobic.

“Sorry,” Nina said again as she accidentally nudged Trulli with her elbow.

“No worries. At least you missed my ribs this time.” Trulli checked the monitor screen. At such a shallow depth, the computer was able to receive intermittent GPS signals, and the map showed that the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were now less than two hundred yards apart. The submarine was almost directly in the huge cruiser’s path, heading in the same direction but quickly being overtaken. “Okay, she’s nearly on us. I’ll move us along her port side and then surface and try to match speeds.”

“How much time will we have?”

“Not much. Subs go slower on the surface, and I’ll have to redline the pump-jets just to keep up. Even if they don’t burn out, they’ll still run out of juice real fast. And there’s something else.”

“Figures,” groaned Nina. “What is it?”

“With the bow wave that thing’ll be kicking up at twenty-three knots, water’s going to come in through the top hatch. A lot of water.”

“Wait, you mean it’ll sink?”

“She’s not going back home, whatever happens,” Trulli said, sounding disconsolate. “Ah well. She gave us a good run, at least.”

Nina gave him a worried look. “But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. Long as you’re clear, I’ll be able to get out.”

“With a broken rib?”

“Life’d be boring without a bit of challenge, wouldn’t it?” He squeezed her arm. “You just get onto that ship, okay? Find Eddie, defuse the bomb and stop this crazy bitch!”

She turned as best she could in the tight space and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem. If I get out of this, you just remember that job offer, okay?”

Nina smiled. “You’re at the top of my list.”

On the screen, the symbols representing the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were almost overlapping, and she could now hear a new sound beneath the churning rush of the pump-jets; a low-frequency rumble coming through the water.

Powerful diesel engines. The yacht was upon them.

Trulli adjusted the steering yoke to bring the submarine closer to the surface. “Okay, this is it! Start opening the hatch, but not all the way until I say.”

Nina turned the locking wheel as he guided the sub closer to the Ocean Emperor, switching the monitor to the camera on the hull. The image was almost completely dark and obscured by spray, but through the surging water bright spots were visible to the right.

Portholes. The Ocean Emperor was alongside them, the throb of its engines like the purr of a monstrous cat.

The Wobblebug bucked as it ran through the turbulent water thrown up by the ship’s bow. Nina clung to the hatch, almost falling. Trulli battled one-handedly with the controls. More portholes slid past…

“Okay, open it!” he shouted.

Nina pushed up the hatch. Freezing water immediately sluiced in, drenching them. The Wobblebug bounced through the waves, more water and spume cascading in as it plowed into each one.

She grabbed the coiled line they had hung beside the hatch and scrambled out to sit on the edge of the hull. At over twenty knots, the windchill instantly sliced through her sodden clothes like a knife of ice.

The Ocean Emperor loomed to starboard, a metal cliff face. The aft deck was closest to the water, but it was still over ten feet above the surface.

Gripping the open hatch with one hand, Nina fumbled with the line. A hook was attached to the end. If she was lucky, she would snag a stanchion or railing on the rear deck.

If she was lucky…

Another wave crashed over her, chilling her to the bone. Water poured into the cabin. The lights flickered.

“I’m losing it!” Trulli warned. “The jets are overheating, and the water’s shorting things out!”

“Get in closer!” Nina shouted back. She hefted the hook, ready to throw it.

The submarine edged towards the Ocean Emperor. The yacht’s churning wake made the pitching worse, the Wobblebug’s bow leaving the water completely before smacking back down in the troughs between the waves. Even holding the hatch cover and using her legs to grip the edge of the opening, Nina could barely keep her position.

The yacht was overtaking them rapidly, the rear deck sliding towards her.

She drew back her hand. At the speed the ship was moving, she would only get one shot…

The interior of the cabin flashed with a blue electric spark, and the lights went out. “Shit!” yelled Trulli. “I’ve lost the-”

Nina threw the hook.

It arced through the air towards the rear deck, the line whipping in the wind behind it-

And bounced off a stanchion, dropping into the maelstrom between the two vessels.

Nina watched it fall in horrified disbelief, then frantically pulled the line back in. The hook clattered against the submarine’s hull. Another wave crashed over the bow, the hatch now a circular waterfall rapidly filling the cabin. The Wobblebug’s engines were dying, and the Ocean Emperor swept past at an ever-increasing pace as the smaller craft slowed.

She grabbed the hook again, and climbed fully out of the hatch, balancing precariously on the curved hull. Below, Trulli struggled to climb out of his seat as a ceaseless torrent of water pounded down onto him.

The yacht’s stern passed Nina. She saw a surge of froth from its propellers swelling to consume them, the suction of the wake about to drag the submarine under the water-Throw!

This time the hook cleared the hull, skittering over the rear deck before sliding back as the Ocean Emperor pulled away.

The Wobblebug’s bow pitched down into the froth-The line caught.

Nina just barely had time to grip it before she was snatched off the submarine and dragged into the water behind the huge yacht.

Trulli was only halfway out of the hatch as the Wobblebug nose-dived, its stern completely clearing the water before the whole vessel plunged beneath the surface, dragged down by the weight of water flooding the cabin. Blue flashes cracked from below the waves as the massive batteries shorted out, then the sea went dark.

Nina had no time to think about the Australian’s fate. Coughing and choking as freezing spray lashed her face, she pulled herself up the line, one hand at a time. The impact of each wave threatened to rip her loose and leave her to drown in the cold black ocean.

One hand. Then another.

Little by little, she brought herself closer to the yacht’s stern. Every time her body smashed down into the froth she could feel the propellers whirling hungrily below.

The cold numbed her hands, pain the only sensation remaining. A few feet…

She gasped for air as spray exploded all around her, trying to shake the stinging water out of her eyes. The yacht’s stern was a sheer wall of white-painted steel.

But there was something off to her side, above the centerline-

A ladder!

Access to the Ocean Emperor’s swimming platform when it was lowered and the ship was stationary. But Nina didn’t care about its function-all she knew was that it was there, and she could reach it.

If she could hold on.

With a new burst of energy, she pulled herself along the taut line and finally reached the hull, her shoulder thudding against the metal. Muscles burning as she lifted her legs out of the water, Nina kicked against the stern, swinging herself sideways towards the ladder.

She was too low. Her legs dropped back into the water, the chopping waves like claws trying to drag her to her doom. With a yell, she pulled herself higher and tried again.

This time she cleared the frothing wake by inches. Feet slithering on the slick metal, Nina forced herself across the yacht’s stern. The line bit into her hands. The ladder was just a few feet away, getting closer with each footfall on the wet surface, closer…

Taking all her weight on one straining arm, Nina grasped for the ladder. It was as wet and slippery as the hull, her numbed fingers unable to gain purchase. In a moment she would lose her grip on the line…

She kicked at the hull one last time, screaming in fear and fury-

Her fingers clamped around a rung.

For a moment she could barely believe it. Then, determination surging, she swung across to dangle beneath the ladder. Her feet hit the water, dragging in the ship’s wake, but she pulled herself up and managed to hook her arm over another rung.

Shivering, she hung there for nearly a minute until sensation returned to her chilled fingers. Finally, she summoned the strength to climb the ladder, one painful rung at a time.

At the top, she flopped exhausted onto the teak decking, water streaming from her soaked clothing and hair. If anybody had been there to see her, there would have been absolutely nothing she could have done to fight him.

But the deck was empty. Slowly, Nina raised her head. Above, she could see the nacelles and tail of the tilt-rotor protruding over the edge of the yacht’s helipad.

The sight energized her. If the aircraft was here, then so was Sophia.

And Chase.

Legs still shaking, Nina forced herself to stand. Some part of her mind noted with detached irony that she was standing almost exactly where she and Chase had fought at Corvus’s party, an age ago. But this time she was here not to argue with him, but to rescue him.

She ran her hands firmly over her clothing before squeezing her bedraggled hair, trying to wring out as much of the cold water as possible. The rear deck might be empty, but the Ocean Emperor still had a crew aboard, and a wet trail through the ship’s corridors would arouse the suspicions of even the slowest sailor.

As dry as she could get, she headed for the nearest door, trying to remember the layout of the ship. Three hundred and fifty feet long, someone had told her, with six decks. Enough cabins to accommodate more than forty passengers during a cruise, in addition to all the crew quarters.

A lot of places to search.

She suddenly remembered Trulli and looked back over the stern. She had no idea whether he’d managed to get out of the submarine before it sank. For a moment, she thought she saw a small light flash amid the endless darkness of the sea, but then it was gone.

“I hope you made it, Matt,” she whispered, clutching her pendant. Then she carefully opened the door and peered through.

It was a lounge, cream leather armchairs and a small bar. Empty. Nina crept into the room, its cozy warmth hammering home just how cold she had been in the water. She shivered, rubbing her arms, and paused to work out her next move.

First priority: find Chase. Once she’d freed him, they could take care of the next steps together, which were to locate and disarm the bomb, and then deal with Sophia and anyone else helping her.

So where would Chase be? He was a prisoner, so he was most likely to be somewhere that could be locked. That ruled out the staterooms, which were like hotel rooms in that the occupant could always open the door from inside. One of the holds, maybe?

She had to start somewhere, so it might as well be at the bottom and work up. A deck plan behind the bar showed emergency evacuation routes and the locations of the stairwells. She quickly went to a door at the forward end of the lounge. An empty corridor lay beyond.

Listening for movement ahead, Nina padded down the passage until she reached the stairs. She was about to descend when she heard something over the rumbling murmur of the diesels.

A moan?

It had come from the deck above. Nina cautiously crept halfway up the stairs and stopped to listen. It sounded like a man, possibly in pain. Chase?

She held still, anxiously waiting to see if the sound was repeated.

It was.

“Oh, for-” Nina hissed in angry exasperation when she realized what she’d heard. It was a moan, but not of pain. And now it was joined by another, a woman in the throes of ecstasy. Sophia. The man she’d heard was Komosa. “Hope they both get the clap!”

Deciding that Sophia probably wouldn’t be forcing Chase to watch, Nina descended the stairs. A glance at another evacuation plan confirmed that she was on the lowest deck, with the engine room astern and the holds forward.

On the assumption that the engine room would be manned, she scurried in the opposite direction to check each door in turn. The first was nothing more than a storage closet full of cleaning equipment, the second a darkened laundry. Undeterred, she continued along the corridor, making her way door by door up the length of the ship almost to the bow before taking a narrow connecting passage to head back down the starboard side. Holds full of stacked and secured cardboard boxes, a walk-in freezer-

One door was locked.

She froze, as if the rattle of the door might alert somebody. But the only sound was the thrum of the engines. She tried the handle again, still with no luck, then rapped quietly on the door. “Eddie!” she said, as loudly as she dared. “Eddie, are you in there?”

Silence. Then: “Of course I’m in here, Sophia-you handcuffed me to a fucking pole!”

Nina let out a stifled gasp of delight. He was alive! “No, it’s me, it’s Nina!”

Another silence. Then Chase spoke again, voice filled with utter incredulity. “How the fuck did you get here?”

“I’ll explain later.” Remembering that one of the closets she’d checked had contained tools, Nina rushed back to it and found a crowbar. She returned to the locked hold. “Are you okay?”

“I’m bursting for a piss, but apart from that…”

“You’re fine,” Nina muttered as she stuck the end of the crowbar into the doorjamb and leaned against it, pushing hard. Wood creaked and splintered, then something inside broke and the door flew open.

Nina almost stumbled into the hold to see Chase standing near the opposite wall with his hands cuffed around a pipe. He couldn’t hide his joy at seeing her. “Bloody hell, it really is you!”

“Told you I’d come after you,” Nina said with a heartfelt smile. They embraced as best they could with the pipe between them.

Chase held up his wrists. “Okay, pop these fucking cuffs off me and we can try to sort out the bomb.”

“You know where it is?” Nina asked. Chase pointed across the room. She looked around, and took a sudden step back when she saw the bomb less than ten feet away. “Yeesh!”

“Don’t go fucking around with it-Sophia said it’s booby-trapped, and I actually think she might have been telling the truth for once.”

Nina lifted the crowbar, trying to work out the best way to get enough leverage to break the handcuff chain. “Maybe we could just throw it overboard?”

“That would be very bad for the poor fish,” Sophia said from the doorway.

Nina whipped around, brandishing the crowbar-but saw that Sophia, her hair tousled and her face slightly flushed, had a gun pointed at her. Komosa, standing beside her wearing nothing but leather trousers, was armed too, as was an older man in a white uniform. “Aw, crap.”

“I must admit, Nina, I’m even more surprised and impressed to see you here than I was to find Eddie poking around in my underwater base.” Sophia paused and looked thoughtful. “Hmm. ‘My underwater base.’ That does sound positively Bondian, doesn’t it?”

“How did you know I was here?” Nina asked, unamused.

“We picked up a distress beacon a couple of minutes ago, right behind us. The ship’s computer told us that it was one of ours-one of René’s, rather: that ridiculous submarine he wasted so much money on.”

“I dunno,” said Nina, “it turned out to be a pretty good investment. It got me here.”

“For all the good it did you,” Sophia replied. She stepped fully into the hold, Komosa following, and gestured with her gun for Nina to put down the crowbar. Nina reluctantly obeyed, then raised her hands. “As soon as we realized what it was, I knew it had to be you. No one else would be that desperate. Then one of the crew found wet footprints on the carpet in the aft lounge, so we just followed them.”

Nina sniffed. “Well done, Sherlock.” She gave Komosa a brief look and saw sweat glistening on his bare chest and piercings, then turned her attention back to Sophia’s untucked clothes. “Too bad you had to interruptus your coitus.”

“Aw, I didn’t need to know about that,” Chase complained.

Sophia smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Eddie-the end you always droned on about fighting until has finally arrived. Chain her up,” she said to Lenard, indicating Nina. He took a pair of handcuffs from a pocket and moved as if to secure her next to Chase, but Sophia spoke again. “No, away from him. Over there.” She pointed to another vertical pipe across the hold.

“Can’t we just kill them?” Komosa rumbled, clearly frustrated.

Sophia ran a hand down his chest. “Now, now, Joe. I know you’ve been looking forward to doing it, but I want the satisfaction of knowing that the very first people who’ll be killed by the bomb will be my ex-husband… and his bitch of a girlfriend.”

“You know,” said Chase, as Lenard locked Nina’s hands around the pipe, “most bitter ex-wives settle for cutting the crotch out of their ex’s suits. Not nuking a fucking city!”

“Good-bye, Eddie,” Sophia said as she turned for the door. Lenard picked up the crowbar and followed her.

Komosa waited for them to leave, then stepped forward and punched Chase hard in the face, knocking him to the deck. “My parting gift,” he said as he left.

“Are you okay?” Nina asked.

Chase spat out a gob of blood-and a tooth, the molar that had been loosened in Botswana finally knocked out. “Well, he saved me a trip to the dentist. That’s a gift worth at least two hundred dollars.”

“Oh, God,” Nina said quietly. She slumped to the floor, damp clothes clinging to her, and looked across the hold at the bomb. “She’s actually going to do it, isn’t she? She’s going to blow up New York.”

“This isn’t over yet,” said Chase. “Whatever Sophia says, this isn’t the end. There’s still time to do something. We’ve still got to fight.”

Nina rattled her handcuffs against the pipe. “Any suggestions?”

“Well…” Chase looked up at his own pipe. He had tried everything he could think of during his captivity to break free-with not even the slightest hint of success. The pipe was too solidly fixed, the cuffs too well made. “Actually, no. You?”

Nina shook her head disconsolately, then tried to move closer to Chase. He did the same, but with their arms secured, they couldn’t even get their feet to touch. “No,” Nina said, anger suddenly rising. “No, dammit, no!” She flailed her feet, desperate to make any kind of contact with him, but he was just out of reach. “Fuck!” She gave up, pulling away and curling up against the pipe, hiding her tears.

“Nina…” Chase whispered sadly. All he wanted to do right now was hold her, comfort her, but even that had been denied him.

He turned away, to the bomb. The counter ticked down relentlessly.

Less than seven hours to detonation…