Atlantis

CHAPTER 16

Jack watched Katya on the other side of the walkway. She was leaning over the gap talking to Costas, her contorted position emphasizing the narrow confines between the weapons racks and the hull casing. The bobbing dance of their headlamps seemed to magnify the sepulchral gloom around them. There should at least be the groan of ageing bulkheads, the signs of fallibility that gave life to any hull. He had to remind himself that Kazbek had been laid down less than two decades previously and still had the integrity to withstand many times the current water pressure. It seemed at odds with the ghostly interior, with the shroud of precipitate that looked as if it had built up over eons like the secretions of a limestone cave.

As his gaze strayed into the dark recess beyond, Jack felt a sudden tightening, a jolt of primeval fear he was powerless to control.

He could not let this happen to him again.

Not here. Not now.

He forced his gaze away from the interior towards the activity below. For a moment he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as he summoned all his strength to fight the nightmare grip of claustrophobia. The anxiety of the last hours had left him vulnerable, had opened a chink in his armour.

He would have to be careful.

Just as his breathing was settling, Costas glanced up at him and gestured at the holographic display with its virtual-reality image of the cliff face. It was mesmerizing proof they were exactly on target.

“Phase three is to get through the hull to that entranceway,” he said to Katya.

“A piece of cake, as you would say.”

“Just wait and see.”

There was a sudden hiss like water escaping through a radiator valve.

“There’s a five-metre gap between the submarine’s casing and the cliff,” Costas explained. “We need to create something like an escape tunnel.” He pointed to a cylinder attached to the unit. “That’s full of a liquefied silicate, electromagnetic hydrosilicate 4, or EH-4. We call it magic sludge. That hissing is the sound of it being forced by gas pressure through the hole we’ve just made onto the outside of the casing, where it’s congealing like jelly.”

He stopped to peer at a percentile display on the screen. As the figure reached one hundred the hissing abruptly ceased.

“OK, Andy. Extrusion complete.”

Andy closed the valve and clamped on a second cylinder.

Costas turned back to Katya. “In simple terms, we’re making an inflatable chamber, effectively creating an extension of the submarine’s casing out of the silicate.”

“The magic sludge.”

“Yes. That’s where Lanowski comes in.”

“Oh.” Katya grimaced as she remembered the new arrival from Trabzon, the ill-kempt figure who refused to believe she could possibly know anything about submarines.

“Maybe not the ideal dinner-party companion,” Costas said. “But a brilliant polycompounds engineer. We poached him from MIT when the US Department of Defense contracted IMU to find a way of preserving the Second World War wrecks at Pearl Harbor. He discovered a hydraulic sealant which can triple the strength of metal hull remains, extract damaging sea salts from old iron and inhibit corrosion. We’re using it for a different purpose here, of course. Lanowski discovered it’s also an exceptional binding agent for certain crystalline minerals.”

“How do you blow it into a bubble?” Katya asked.

“That’s the ingenious part.”

While they were talking, Ben and Andy had been busy assembling another component of the laser unit. Around the chalked circle they had placed a ring of small devices, each one secured to the casing by a suction cup activated by a vacuum gun. Wires fanned inwards to a control panel beside the console.

“Those are diodes.” Costas pointed at the devices. “Solid-state semiconductors. Each one contains a solenoid coil which acts like a bar magnet if you pass a current through it. The cable from the DSRV plugs into the control panel and connects to those wires. We’ve been using the cable to charge up a reserve battery so we can operate independently if necessary. Either way we’ve got enough voltage to propagate a directional beam of electromagnetic radiation right through the hull casing.”

Costas moved aside in the increasingly cramped space to allow the crewmen to assume positions behind the control panel.

“The extruded mixture is suspended in liquid carbon dioxide, CO₂ hydrate,” he explained. “The solution’s denser than seawater and the pressure at this depth keeps it from breaking up into droplets. The anechoic coating on the submarine is like sandpaper and should keep the mixture from flowing off.”

The two crewmen had called up a version of the holographic image on the computer monitor. Andy was reading off co-ordinates while Ben tapped the figures on the keyboard, each input producing a small red cross-hair on the screen. The cross-hairs began to describe an irregular circle round the doorway.

“Lanowski worked out a way of using crystalline nanotechnology to grow a magnetic lattice through the solution,” Costas went on. “At the moment the mixture is like liquefied fibreglass, with millions of tiny filaments compressed against each other. Add a blast of electromagnetic radiation and they lock together as a rock-hard mesh in the direction of the pulse.”

“Like reinforced concrete,” Katya said.

“A fair analogy. Only for its weight and density our stuff is about a hundred times stronger than any other construction material known.”

The cross-hatches became a continuous circle and a green light flashed on the control bar below. Andy slid off the seat and Costas took his place in front of the holographic box.

“OK.” Costas straightened up. “Let’s do it.”

Ben flipped a switch on the diode transistor panel. There was a low humming and the light surrounding the image began to pulsate. The percentile counter sped through to one hundred and flashed green.

“We’re in business.” Costas glanced at Katya, his face flushed with excitement. “We’ve just fired a 140-volt electromagnetic current through the diodes, magnetizing the EH-4 into a ring which was then projected as a one-centimetre-thick membrane to the co-ordinates represented by the cross-hairs. The chamber’s cone-shaped, with the wide end encompassing the entire rock platform.” He tapped the keyboard. “The current binds the membrane to the casing as a continuous solid mass. The probe showed the basalt has a high degree of magnetism, so the current was able to lock into the rock despite the irregularities of the surface.”

Andy disengaged the wires that led from the diodes to the transistor panel.

“Now that the initial surge has gone through we only need two wires to maintain the charge,” Costas said. “Removing the rest allows us to access the casing and complete the final stage.”

“Cutting through the hull?” Katya asked.

He nodded. “First we need to drain the compartment. Andy’s about to activate a vacuum which will suck the water out through the hole and dump it into the sub. The bilges can take another metre. This boat’s not going anywhere anyway.”

“Not yet,” Jack said. He had been silently watching the proceedings from the walkway, the E-suits and the laser contraption like a scene from science-fiction. His thoughts were dominated by the nuclear horror it was their duty to prevent.

“Ready to activate pump,” said Ben.

Costas flicked the switch and the hum of the transformer was drowned out by the whine of an electric motor. Seconds later they could hear the spray of water being ejected into the darkness below.

“We’re simultaneously injecting air at atmospheric pressure,” Costas said. “The membrane’s strong enough to prevent the chamber from imploding under the weight of the seawater.”

The spray abruptly ceased and Andy gestured towards the screen. “We’re dry,” he announced. “Initiating phase four.”

Jack leaned down and peered intently at the holographic box for any changes in the appearance of the cliff face. The pulsating image showed the scanner had reactivated and was relaying data to the holographic converter.

“The rock-cut door seems to be holding,” he said.

Costas glanced at the hologram. “The probe is detecting fine leakage along the jamb. It’s exactly as we predicted.”

“We modelled this scenario last night on Seaquest,” Jack explained. “We assumed the stairs would lead to some kind of doorway. We also assumed that seawater would have worked its way through and flooded whatever lies beyond. The fact that the door didn’t spring open under the weight of the water inside shows there’s a rock-cut jamb that prevents it from opening outwards. There’s very little marine growth as the hydrogen sulphide in the water eats away any calcite secretions.”

There was a sudden sound of spray beneath them as the vacuum pump automatically kicked in to expel the puddle of water that had begun to accumulate at the far end of the chamber.

“There must also be some kind of locking device,” Jack murmured. “If this really is the way to the heart of Atlantis then they must have gone to great lengths to keep out unwanted visitors.”

“Either way, we’re going in wet,” Costas replied.

Katya looked bewildered. “ ‘Going in wet’?”

“Our only way of getting beyond those doors,” Costas explained. “We’ll walk out dry but then we’ll need to seal the hull and flood the chamber. If the doors hinge inwards we’ll need to equalize the pressure against the weight of water on the other side. Once inside we’re going to be underwater until we reach sea level.”

Ben and Andy were making final adjustments to a robotic arm which they had extended from the central unit to a point just above the chalked circle. After they double-checked its position Ben slid a locking pin through while Andy sat behind the console and tapped in a sequence of commands.

Costas leaned over to inspect the device before addressing the other two.

“That arm’s an extension of the laser we used to bore the hole in the casing. It pivots clockwise on a central axis and should slice through the hull with ease. Fortunately the Akula-class was made of steel, not titanium.”

“How will the hatch keep from imploding inwards when the chamber fills with water?” Katya asked.

“The cut’s angled outwards so the hatch will only open into the chamber and will reseat with water pressure once we’re gone.”

Andy swivelled round to face Costas. “All systems go. Ready to activate final phase.”

Costas gripped the edge of the walkway and surveyed the equipment one last time.

“Engage.”

Katya watched in fascination as the laser began to describe a clockwise arc on the submarine’s casing, the manipulator arm pivoting round the central unit like an outsized draughtsman’s compass. The cut was only a few millimetres wide and followed the line of the circle chalked by Costas round the GPS fix. After the beam had traversed the first quadrant, Ben positioned a small metallic tube against the cut. With a deft movement he cracked a miniature CO₂ cylinder at the back which punched a magnetic strip through to the exterior, creating a hinge so the hatch would swing back against the membrane of the chamber wall.

“Fifteen minutes to go,” Costas said. “Time to kit up.”

Jack lent a hand as Costas hauled himself up onto the walkway.

“The moment the hatch is shut there’s no safety net. Our lives depend on our equipment and each other.”

Slowly, methodically, he double-checked the self-contained life support equipment they had donned in the DSRV. After calibrating the decompression computer on his left wrist he inspected the sealings on Katya’s E-suit.

“The Kevlar mesh has good resistance to rock and metal,” he said. “The rubber sealings divide the suit into a number of compartments, so a leak doesn’t mean you’ll get completely flooded. Even so we’re going to have to be careful. At almost one hundred metres we’re below the deepest thermocline and the temperature will only be a couple of degrees Celsius, as cold as the Atlantic.”

After getting Jack to cast an eye over his equipment Costas disengaged a small console from his left shoulder. It had a digital LCD display and was connected to the manifold on his backpack.

“When that chamber floods we’ll be subject to the pressure of the surrounding seawater, almost ten atmospheres,” he explained. “That happens to be the same depth as the Minoan wreck, so we’re using our tried and tested trimix formula. Any deeper will stretch the envelope for oxygen toxicity. We badly need that passageway to go up and not down.”

“What about decompression sickness?” Katya asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” Costas snapped the console back on its retainer. “At this depth the trimix is mainly helium and oxygen. The nitrogen increases as we ascend, the regulator automatically adjusting the mixture as the pressure decreases. Unless we linger too long we should only need a few brief decompression stops to let the excess gas dissipate from our bloodstreams as we go up.”

“We’ll be going up,” Jack asserted. “My guess is this will lead to some kind of peak sanctuary.”

“That makes sense geologically,” Costas said. “It would have been a Herculean task to bore horizontally through layers of compacted basalt. They would have run into vents and even the magma chimney. It would have been easier to tunnel upwards along the line of the lava flow, at about the angle of the stairway.”

“Well, we already know these people were brilliant engineers.” Katya spoke as she fine-tuned her two-way VHF receiver to the same frequency as the other two. “They could quarry an area the size of a football pitch, build pyramids more impressive than anything in ancient Egypt. I don’t think tunnelling would have posed any great obstacle for them.” She reinstalled the communications console on her helmet. “We should expect the unexpected.”

The only noise was the low hum of the generator as the laser worked past the halfway point. Unlike the ragged cut of an oxyacetylene torch the edge was as smooth as if it had been tooled by high-precision machinery. The steady advance of the manipulator arm seemed to count down the final minutes before they would step into the unknown.

Just as the laser was entering the final quadrant, there was a sudden vibration. It was as if an earth tremor had shaken the entire submarine. It was followed by a dull thump and a muffled clanging noise, then an ominous silence.

“Engage reserve battery!” Costas ordered.

“Already done. No break detected in the current.”

The electrical hum resumed as Andy yanked out the cord leading back to the DSRV and scanned the screen for faults.

“What the hell was that?” Jack demanded.

“It came through the hull casing,” Andy replied. “I can’t source it.”

“Not forward,” Ben asserted. “We’re only a few metres from the bow cowling and would know about any impact there. It must be aft, maybe just this side of the bulkhead sealing the reactor chamber.”

Costas looked grimly at Jack. “We have to assume the DSRV has been compromised.”

“What do you mean, compromised?” Katya demanded.

“I mean we’ve got visitors.”

Jack pulled back the slide on his Beretta and checked that a round had been chambered. After satisfying himself, he let the slide spring forward to close the receiver and gently flicked the catch to the safety position. He would be able to empty the fifteen 9 millimetre Parabellum rounds within seconds should the need arise.

“I don’t understand,” Katya said. “Is it our people?”

“Impossible,” Costas said. “The storm will be raging until dawn tomorrow, another twelve hours from now. Seaquest is at least ten nautical miles north. That’s too far for an Aquapod insertion, and in this weather there’s no way the helicopter could get low enough to drop divers close to the site.”

“If they were IMU divers they’d have made contact by now, even just tapping Morse on the casing,” Ben said.

Katya still seemed mystified. “How could Seaquest have missed them? They must have arrived before the storm began, yet the monitors showed no surface craft within a fifteen-mile radius.”

“In these conditions satellite surveillance is next to useless, but Seaquest’s radar should have picked up any surface anomaly in this sector.” Costas paused, his fingers drumming against the railing. “There is one possibility.” He looked at Jack. “A vessel could already have been in position on the far side of the volcano, hove in too close for its radar signature to be distinguishable. A submersible launched from there could have found Kazbek and mated with the DSRV, allowing an assault team to enter the escape trunk.”

“That would account for the noise,” Ben ventured.

“Already in position?” Katya wasn’t convinced. “How could they already be in position behind the island? No one else has the Atlantis text, no one else has the expertise to translate and interpret the directions.” She looked at the men. “I fear for the safety of Seaquest.”

Jack held Katya’s gaze a moment longer than the others. In that split second he sensed something was amiss, that she was withholding more than just the apprehension they were all trying to suppress. Just as he was about to question her, another jolt rattled the submarine and ended all room for speculation. He thrust the Beretta into the holster on his chest.

“Costas, you’re here with Andy. That hatch may be our only escape route. Ben, you’re with me.”

“I’m coming too.” Katya spoke matter-of-factly. “We’ll need all the firepower we can muster. Akula submarines carry a reserve armoury in the wardroom on the deck above us. I know the location.”

There was no time for argument. They quickly stripped off their SCLS backpacks and propped them against the casing.

Jack spoke as they crouched together on the walkway. “These people haven’t come to dig up ancient relics. They’ll assume we’ve found their prize and are cut off from surface communication. Eliminate us and they can complete the transaction that went so badly wrong all those years ago. This is no longer just about Atlantis. Five metres away are enough nukes to end western civilization.”

As Katya stepped onto the first rung of the ladder leading to the deck above, she leaned aside to avoid the flurry of white precipitate dislodged by Jack’s ascent. After cautiously climbing a dozen rungs she tapped his leg, at the same time signalling to Ben, who was following behind.

“This is it,” she whispered.

They had reached the level above the torpedo room where they had seen the crew’s quarters on their way down less than an hour before. Katya stepped through the hatch and pushed aside the debris scattered around the entrance. Jack followed close behind and Ben a moment later. As they huddled together in the gloom, Jack reached over and switched on Katya’s headlamp.

“It’s on the lowest setting,” he whispered. “It should be OK as long as you don’t shine into the chute where it might reflect into the alleyway above us.”

Katya traversed the narrow beam across to the far side of the room. Beyond a pair of mess tables a hatch was ajar. She gestured for them to remain put and made her way across the floor, taking care to avoid any noise and keeping the beam fixed ahead. As she crouched through the hatch, Ben leaned back into the chute to listen for any sound above.

After several minutes of tense silence Katya reappeared, her headlamp switched off to avoid shining into the chute. As she made her way towards them they could see she was festooned with equipment.

“An AKS-74U,” she whispered. “Also a nine-millimetre Makarov pistol, same as the Walther PPK. The weapons locker had mostly been emptied and this is all I could find. There’s also a box of ammunition.”

“This will do nicely.” Ben unslung the weapon from Katya’s shoulder. The AKS-74U had similar dimensions to the Heckler & Koch MP5, the familiar arm of police in the West, but unlike most submachine guns it chambered a high-velocity 5.45 millimetre rifle round. The engineers at the Kalashnikov Arms Design Bureau had perfected a sound suppressor which did not compromise muzzle velocity and developed an expansion chamber which made the weapon more manageable on automatic than any other firearm of similar calibre.

There was another muffled sound far away in the bowels of the submarine. Jack raised his head in alarm and they all strained to listen. What at first seemed a distant metallic clatter became steadily more distinct, a succession of dull thuds that continued for twenty seconds and then ceased.

“Footsteps,” Jack whispered. “In the level above us back towards the escape trunk. My guess is our friends are in the control room. We must intercept them before they reach the loading chute.”

Jack and Katya each took a Kalashnikov magazine and quickly pressed in rounds from the ammunition box. Katya passed her magazine to Ben, who placed it with the remaining loose rounds in a pouch on his belt. He attached the other magazine to the weapon, pulled back the bolt and flicked the selector to safety. Katya cocked the Makarov and slid it under the tool belt on her waist.

“Right,” Jack whispered. “We move.”

It seemed an eternity since they had stumbled on the horrifying spectre at the entrance to the sonar room. As they reached the final rungs of the ladder, Jack felt thankful for the darkness that concealed them from the sentinel’s baleful gaze.

He reached down to help Katya up. Seconds later all three of them stood with weapons at the ready. Through the passageway aft they could see the glow of the emergency lighting in the control room.

Jack led them in single file along the left side of the passageway with the Beretta extended. Just before the entrance he froze and raised one arm in warning. Katya huddled behind him while Ben seemed to melt into the darkness on the other side.

From her restricted viewpoint all Katya could see was the mass of disarticulated machinery and smashed consoles. The shroud of precipitate lent a two-dimensional quality to the scene, as if they were viewing a painting too abstract to register any separate shapes or textures.

She suddenly saw why Jack had stopped. Beside the twisted remains of the periscope a ghostly figure disengaged from the background, the form only discernible when it moved. As it advanced towards them it was clear the figure was oblivious of their presence.

There was a deafening crack from Jack’s Beretta. Through the storm of white that shook from the walls she watched the figure stagger back against the periscope housing and drop awkwardly to the deck. Jack fired five more times in quick succession, each round sending up a hail of bullet fragments that shrieked and rattled around the room.

Katya was stunned by the ferocity of the noise. To her horror she saw the figure slowly raise itself and level the Uzi submachine gun it was carrying towards the passageway. She could clearly make out the pockmarks where Jack’s bullets had bounced harmlessly off its Kevlar exoskeleton. Their opponent opened up with his Uzi, a savage ripping noise that sent bullets whining down the passageway and sparking off the machinery behind them.

From out of the darkness to the side came a staccato burst from Ben’s AKS-74U, the noise through the silencer less ear-rending than the Beretta but the effect more deadly. The rounds slammed into the advancing figure and hurled him back against the periscope housing, the bullets from his Uzi tracing a wild arc on the ceiling. Each impact punched him with the force of a jackhammer, his limbs jolting in a crazy rag-doll dance. As the Kevlar shredded, his torso slumped forward at a grotesque angle where his spine had been blown out of his back. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Another automatic weapon from somewhere in the far recess of the room added to the shattering din. The reverberations sent a tremor through the submarine, the concussions sucking the air as the bullets snapped past.

Jack crouched down and rocked on the balls of his feet like a sprinter before a race.

“Covering fire!”

Ben emptied the remainder of his magazine into the room as Jack broke cover and ran towards the central dais, the Beretta blasting into the space beyond the periscope array where the other gunfire originated. There was a scream and a clatter followed by retreating footsteps. Katya ran out behind Jack, her ears ringing from the gunfire. They were quickly joined by Ben and the three of them crouched side by side against the smashed base of the periscope housing.

“How many more?” Ben asked.

“Two, maybe three. We got one of them. If we can hold them in the passageway that’ll limit their field of fire.”

The two men ejected their magazines and reloaded. While Ben pressed the loose rounds from his pouch into the magazine, Katya looked at the scene of carnage beside them.

It was a sickening sight. Amid a slew of congealing blood and spent Uzi casings the man’s body sat bizarrely angled, his torso bent double and his head resting facedown. The bullets had torn apart his breathing pack, the cylinders and regulator array splattered with fragments of bone and flesh. In the space below was a ragged hole where his heart and lungs had been. A ruptured hose from his oxygen regulator had blown into the cavity, producing a bloody froth that hissed and bubbled in a grotesque parody of the man’s final breaths.

Katya knelt down and lifted the man’s head. She shuddered and quickly let go. Jack felt sure she recognized him. He reached over to put a hand on her shoulder and she turned round.

“There has been enough death in this boat.” She suddenly looked tired. “Now is the time to end it.”

Before Jack could stop her she stood up and raised both arms in surrender. She stepped into the gap between the periscopes.

“My name is Katya Svetlanova.” She spoke loudly in Russian, the words resonating through the chamber.

There was an immediate commotion and the sound of muffled conversation. At length a male voice responded in a dialect neither Jack nor Ben recognized. Katya lowered her arms and began a heated dialogue which lasted several minutes. She seemed in complete command of the situation, her voice exuding authority and confidence, whereas the man was wavering and deferential. After a final curt sentence she slumped down and shoved the pistol into her belt.

“He’s a Kazakh,” she said. “I told him we’d booby-trapped the passageways between here and the torpedo room. I said we’d only negotiate face to face with their leader. That won’t happen, but it’ll buy us time while they work out their next move.”

Jack looked at her. She had twice been instrumental in averting disaster, first by preventing an attack by Vultura in the Aegean and now by negotiating with the gunmen. It seemed that as long as she was present, their adversaries would keep their distance and bide their time.

“Those men,” he said. “I’m assuming they’re our friends from Vultura.”

“You are correct,” she replied quietly. “And they are utterly ruthless.”

“What do we do now?” Ben asked.

There was a dull thumping noise from far off in the submarine.

“There’s your answer,” Jack replied. It was a prearranged signal from Costas that the operation to cut through the hull was complete. Jack got up and led the other two out of the control room, skirting round the slick of blood still seeping out of the corpse by the dais. As they retreated down the corridor, Jack glanced back one last time at the wreckage of the room to make sure they were not being followed.

They left Ben squatting in the shadows beside the top of the loading chute. He had signalled his intention and waved Jack and Katya on. With only a magazine and a half at his disposal the odds were stacked against him, but Jack knew if it came to a showdown every round would find its mark.

It took only a few minutes for Jack and Katya to traverse the now familiar route down the chute and round the edge of the torpedo room. As they reached the opening in the grating, they wordlessly donned the SCLS packs they had left there, checking each other’s straps and activating the regulator consoles.

They knew what they had to do. There was nothing to be gained from lingering with Ben and Andy, a siege that could have only one outcome. Their defence rested on the potency of Katya’s threat and as soon as that failed their numbers would make no difference. This was their only chance, their only hope of reaching help while the storm raged overhead.

The stakes were terrifyingly high.

As they lowered themselves onto the bilge floor they could see Costas had already shut his visor and sealed his helmet. They quickly followed suit, but not before Katya handed her pistol to Andy at the console.

“You may have more need of this than me,” she said.

Andy nodded appreciatively and holstered the weapon before turning back to the screen. While Jack quickly recounted the stand-off in the control room, Costas finished retracting the telescopic arm. The laser had cut a perfect circle a metre and a half wide in the hull casing.

“It pivots on the hinge we inserted,” Andy said. “All I need to do now is reduce the air pressure in the chamber and it should spring outward like a hatch.”

They looked with mixed emotions at the casing, apprehensive about the perils awaiting them yet drawn by the overpowering excitement of a lost world beyond their wildest imaginings.

“OK,” said Costas. “Let’s do it.”