The Devil's Trinity

Chapter 17

Helen could hear the wind; its whining threnody changing pitch as the Taliba dipped its prow and then lifted above the restless waves. She sensed that the motion of the ship had changed in a subtle way; as if shorn of a burdensome yoke.

By now, Helen would have expected Marsh to have returned to his cabin. He would usually have knocked on her door to let her know the dive was finished. The fear that he had attempted to conceal from her before the dive now drove itself into her and she felt impatient to be with him.

For some reason, unknown to her, Helen’s cabin door had been locked from the outside, which only added to her blossoming fear. She banged on the door for a few moments and called out, but there was no response. She pummelled the door again with her closed fists and called out Malik’s name, but still there was no reply.

Her fear was turning to anger and she began beating ferociously on the door and picking up loose objects from her cabin and hurling them at the barrier between her and the alleyway outside the cabin.

It was some time before Helen heard a cautioning voice and a key turning in the lock. Her hands began to tremble and she had to clasp them together to stop them from shaking. The door opened and Helen reached forward, pulling it open. She knew now, instinctively, that something was terribly wrong. Ignoring the crewman who had opened her door, Helen pushed past him and rushed out, flew up the stairs two steps at a time and fetched up on the open deck.

The wind struck Helen with such savagery that she almost toppled over. It took her breath away and she had to clutch at the hand rail for support. She suddenly felt very cold; the temperature had dropped remarkably and there were dull, thunder clouds scudding overhead like massive anvils that obscured the sun.

The sea around her was grey and the waves burst open upon each other in fingers of angry surf which the wind picked up and flung at the Taliba. Helen gasped at the cold and winced as the driving spray lashed at her clothing. She put her head down and lunged forward awkwardly, grasping the hand rail with each step, hand over hand.

She reached Khan’s stateroom just beneath the bridge and clutched at the handle of the door. Just before she made an attempt to open the door, she glanced forward and froze in terror: the Challenger was no longer there!

Helen held that pose, staring with disbelief at the forlorn, empty space where the submersible was always stowed. For a moment she was oblivious to the cold spray and punishing wind. All that occupied her thoughts then was that something terrible had happened and Marsh would be with the Challenger.

That moment of realisation numbed her so intensely that she no longer felt any fear. She reached for the cabin door and wrenched it open.

The Navy Seals were assembled in the briefing room at the United States Base at Guantanamo Bay on the Island of Cuba. Lieutenant Santos had briefed his men and they now waited for the word to go. Outside the operations building, on the pan was a Sea Stallion Helicopter, crewed up and waiting for the Seals to board once they had received the final brief from James Starling. Remo Francesini was standing nervously beside his boss silently praying that everything would go smoothly and they would be in time to prevent an awesomely, devastating terror. And he prayed that the weather would not be against them.

In the ops, room, the commanding officer was conferring with his Met. Officer about the risks of sending the Sea Stallion into the storm that was fast approaching. The phone bleeped and the Met. Officer picked it up.

“Ops.”

He listened for a moment and held the phone out for the captain. “It’s Lieutenant Santos, sir.”

The C.O. took the phone and listened, then gave an affirmative. “We go now.”

In the briefing room, Lieutenant Santos replaced the phone and gave a nod to his men. Silently they all stood up, gathered up their equipment and followed a deck officer, who had been assigned to them out to the waiting Sea Stallion Helicopter. Francesini, who had been given permission to ride with the Seals, followed them out; his nerves bubbling inside him like a boiling cauldron of water.

He followed the Seals out to the helicopter, praying fervently inside that these men would be able to stop Khan and his murderous plans. As he boarded the Sea Stallion, Lieutenant Santos turned and helped him up.

“We’re in God’s hands now sir,” he said, and pulled the door shut behind him.

Khan looked up from his desk as the door flew open. Helen stood there, framed in the doorway. Her hair was wet and much of it lay across her face in waspish strands. Her dress clung to her body accentuating the curve of her breasts and the provocative bulge between her thighs. Had he not known why she was there; Khan could not have failed to be aroused by her ingenuous display of overt sexuality.

“Where’s Marsh?” she asked with a biting edge to her voice. The sound of the wind almost whipped her words away.

“We had to leave him” Khan answered levelly, without a trace of emotion in his voice. “The weather was too bad for recovery.”

His voice rattled suddenly in his chest and he coughed as Helen stepped into the cabin.

“I don’t believe you,” she screamed at him. “You’ve murdered him!”

Her eyes were blazing with an intensity that made them sparkle like precious stones. Khan thought it looked like controlled insanity. Although Helen had not closed the door there a great deal of warmth of the cabin and her cheeks began to glow fiery red. Khan found the whole effect quite disarming.

He got up from his desk and walked past her to the cabin door which he closed. The noise of the wind abated and a semblance of peace descended.

“Challenger was unable to surface because of the storm,” he told her tritely.

Helen’s teeth flashed as she spat out her words.

“You’re lying, Khan. Marsh has sat through worse storms than this. He is a very skilful pilot. He would know what to do.”

Khan shrugged. “We did all we could, but Marsh understands. We have marked the area. Recovery will begin as soon as the weather conditions permit.”

Khan’s manner was so offhand it was offensive. Helen swung her hand out and slapped him with a tremendous blow to the head. Khan rocked back immediately as blood began to seep from the marks left by Helen’s slashing fingernails.

“Then why are we underway?” she shouted at him. “We should be keeping station over the Challenger until the weather calms down.”

He put a hand to his face and pulled it away. He looked at the blood on his hand and then at Helen.

“You bitch,” he snapped back at her, ignoring her question. “You will pay for that.”

His breathing began to sound quite laboured.

“You’ve murdered Marsh,” she screamed at him. “You’re nothing but an evil, murdering bastard.” She flung herself at him and started punching him about the head.

For a moment, Khan was too surprised to react to the torrent of blows that Helen rained down on him. Then suddenly he thrust his arms upwards and brought a single, punishing blow with the back of his hand that caught her on the jaw bone.

Helen rocked back and staggered towards his desk, falling against it. The blow jarred her spine and the pain seemed to rocket through her body. She cried out and clung to the desk for support as her legs weakened and threatened to buckle beneath her.

The fight was gone from her; drained in that one awful blow from Khan. She knew that she would be no match for his man’s strength and would achieve nothing but pain if she tried to attack him again.

Khan walked past her and slumped in the chair. He looked up at her and suddenly smiled.

“I admire you for your pluck, but it serves no purpose. Marsh is not here and you now have to think of your own safety.”

“I can think of nothing but Marsh,” she cried. “Why did you have to kill him? He did what you asked.”

“No,” Khan said sternly. “Marsh did what I told him to do. If he had agreed to do what I had asked, you would not have been involved and you would have both been free to live your lives as you both saw fit. Marsh has brought this upon himself.”

She studied him for a while. There was an eerie silence, intruded upon only by the sound of the winds outside. He looked expressionless; absolved by his own warped ethics of complicity in Marsh’s death.

“What are you planning to do that is so important that you quite willingly took the life of a perfectly innocent man? She asked quietly.

Instead of answering immediately, Khan got up from the desk and walked over to a control console from where he could listen to, and if necessary, supervise the dives. Above the console was a small door set into the bulkhead. He unlocked it with a key from his pocket and swung the door open. He turned then and looked at Helen like man who was about to reveal a masterpiece: a hidden treasure.

Helen could see a series of illuminated digits on a screen. Below these was a combination wheel, similar to those found on safes. Beside the wheel was a red button.

“The bombs that Marsh placed beneath the sea for us are the frontline of our war against the unbelievers, the Great Satan of America and the heretics who persecute Islam and the prophet, Mohamed.”

His eyes glazed over and Helen realised he was switching mentally from his Western, democratised character to that of his terrorist masters in their Middle East hideouts. It was a sudden metamorphosis that Helen found both intriguing and appalling.

“When I key in the correct figures,” he went on, pointing to the panel, “a lock is released. This will allow me to arm the bombs and commence a countdown to their firing. But to arm them, a satellite has to be in position above us. The computer behind this panel transmits a command to the satellite which will then arm all three bombs simultaneously by digital signal. It is vitally important that the bombs are all armed at precisely the same moment. Once the arming has been completed, I can then begin the countdown sequence by pressing this red button.” He reached up and touched the red button.

Suddenly he felt a pain ring itself around his heart and he fell forward, clutching his chest. Helen instinctively made a move towards him, but stopped herself. Khan straightened and turned away from the console.

“Once that button had been pressed,” he muttered breathlessly, “there is nothing on this earth that can stop the countdown. Victory will be ours.”

Helen felt herself weaken and she began to shake uncontrollably. She was in the company of one of the most evil men on earth and she felt powerless to stop him. She leaned against the desk for support before she collapsed and felt something bulky press against her side. She glanced down at it and saw it was a heavy, paperweight cast in bronze.

It was the Challenger.

In that moment an uncountable number of things tumbled through Helen’s mind with such speed that she was unable to find time for cogent argument. She picked up the paperweight and hurled it with all her might towards the screen

Khan ducked instinctively and put his hands up, crying out as he did so. The paperweight flew past his head and impacted on the glass. The screen immediately disintegrated with an implosive ‘plop’, and a fine, grey dust billowed out from the scarred and jagged gap.

Khan’s face fell apart. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. He kept looking at the smashed monitor and then at Helen, his uncomprehending expression not changing.

Suddenly, Helen felt very afraid, expecting him to hurl himself at her and beat her savagely in his blind fury. But unexpectedly, Khan’s expression changed. He seemed to relax and stood up straight. He reached up to the door, pushed it shut and locked it.

“You know, my dear. We men still have a lot to learn.” He walked toward her. “I’m afraid my ego got the better of me. But not to worry, it’s only a monitor. It can be replaced.”

He saw the look of dismay on Helen’s face. “And we also have a back-up,” he said. “It would be insane not to.”

He took her arm and led her towards the cabin door. Pulling open the door he looked at her.

“Now, go back to your cabin and stay there. If you become too much of a trial, I will have Malik deal with you. Do you understand?”

He pushed her out and closed the door. Then he leaned back against it as the pain began to assail his chest. He staggered towards the desk where his tablets were and prayed to Allah that he would live to complete his glorious intifada against the great Satan, America.

Helen found herself out on the windswept deck wondering if it had indeed really happened. The surf lifted itself above the handrails and drove into her. She felt cold and miserable as the ship heaved beneath her.

“To have faith and hope is to survive,” she had told Marsh. And now it was all in vain.

She looked at the grey, beckoning sea and pushed the thought from her mind.

Marsh sat slumped in his seat, the agony of despair and hopelessness weighing on him like a physical burden. He stared at the instrument panel without seeing it. The images in his mind were not those in front of him, but dark, coalescing images of revenge and despair. He wanted to reach up and tear the black heart from Hakeem Khan, from Malik, from Batista, from them all. But he could not; he had no hope. Even while his heart beat strongly within him, he knew this would be the end. He lifted his head and breathed in a sigh of deep despair and closed his eyes. Now there was only blackness where there should have been light.

Beneath the dark waters he imagined the warmth of the sun in his mind; its caress like the touch of a woman. He rolled his head back and imagined the fragrance of flowers, of new mown grass, all offering a pleasure as tangible and apposite as the fear now crawling round in his belly.

He blinked and shut the hallucinatory images from his mind, bringing it to bear on the dreadful predicament he was in. He knew there was no way out of his prison and he knew that there was no way Khan would return to rescue him from his misery. He was cocooned in an environment that was designed to support life yet ironically; it was holding him in a deadly embrace and eventually he would die.

Marsh wondered what death would be like. Would he succumb to insanity before death took him? Would he grow weary and eventually suffocate in his own, exhaled carbon dioxide? Would he just fall asleep and not wake? Would he be given the last, immeasurable pleasure of being with Helen, even if only in a dream?

He shook his head vigorously and snapped out of it and began to apply his mind to the problem again. He knew that to give up so soon was to accept the inevitability of death. He checked the power meters; the instruments that told him how much longer Challenger’s own batteries would last and how much oxygen was left in the cockpit.

He knew that if the oxygen content fell below a dangerously low level, the automatic valves of the oxygen bottles would bleed a steady amount of life giving gas into the bubble’s atmosphere so that life could be sustained until an orderly recovery or rescue could be carried out.

But if the submersible’s power became low and unstable, there was a risk that the bottles could eventually pressurise the cockpit and kill him.

He began to shut down various systems that were no longer need to conserve battery power. He extinguished the low grade cockpit lighting, relying instead on the glow from the instrument panel.

After about two minutes of technical distraction, he found himself devoid of ideas and things to do. He knew the was no hope of anyone finding him on the sea bed, so his last hours would be painfully slow and would probably end in insanity.

“Damn you Khan!” he shouted suddenly. “Why didn’t you just put a bullet in me?”

His shoulders sagged and he slumped back in his seat. That was the first sign of the loss of control. How long would it be, he wondered, before he was clawing at the smooth walls of the bubble in a manic, pitiful attempt to escape? He let his mind drift again, peering out into the deep, mindful yet mindless.

How long Marsh sat in torpid despair, he didn’t know, but suddenly he sat up straight. The diving tanks! God in heaven, why didn’t he think of it?

Marsh kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier but put that down to his state of mind. He forced himself to think clearer now because he believed this would be his best chance of getting out of this alive. By blowing the water from the diving tanks and the decompression chamber, he would lighten the load and greatly increase lift, and the upward thrust of the air, less the weight of the water, should overcome the force of the clamps.

He began switching Challenger back on to full power. He knew he was taking a chance because of the drain on the batteries, but it was his only hope. Once the computer signalled that all systems were operational. Marsh keyed in the commands that would open the air valves. He listened to the rush of compressed air leaving their cylinders and flowing into the diving tanks and the decompression chamber.

All at once the sea boiled around him as the Challenger purged herself of the surplus sea water, and something moved beneath him as the enormous thrust of air fought to break the power of the clamps.

“Come on, damn you” he mumbled through clenched teeth. “Come on!”

He could feel Challenger straining at every limb to break free of the deadly grip of the clamps.

“Come on,” he urged again. “Get up, get up!”

He moved his body, pounding the seat with his own weight as if to add impetus to the mighty struggle going on beneath him.

“For God’s sake, Challenger, break free damn you! Break free!”

The noise of the rushing air reached a crescendo of sound and then began to subside until finally the pressure in the tanks and the decompression chamber reached that of the air cylinders.

“No, don’t stop now!” he beseeched her. “Not now! Please, not now!”

Challenger seemed to give one last desperate heave and then succumbed to the awesome strength of the clamps.

She didn’t move.

“No. Oh God, no” Marsh looked around him imploringly. “Please Challenger, please. Don’t let me down. Please.”

But Challenger had lost the battle, surrendering herself to the deadly embrace of the clamps.

Marsh stopped shouting and cursing. His mouth fell open as tears streamed down his face. He could taste the salt on his lips and he kept blinking the wetness from his eyes. His head fell forward into his hands and he kept asking ‘why?’

He cried alone in his tiny world; a ball of encircling light, holding life like a baby in the womb, suspended in dark waters. He cried until there were no tears left to cry and soon his mind closed down and he drifted off into the merciful world of sleep.

Marsh woke in a sleepy haze, his mind unable to focus at first on his surroundings. Sleep had robbed him for a moment of the ability to recognise or be aware of anything. But quite soon, recognition dawned on him and the awful truth of his dilemma swung down on him like the sword of Damocles.

He was aware of condensation building up on the inside of the smooth polymer. It gathered in small droplets of water; like pearls in a polymer oyster. He glanced at the power meters and saw there was little left in Challenger now. Soon the valves on the oxygen bottles would open. He reached up and closed the valves, prepared now to suffocate in his own exhaled air as the oxygen fell below the danger level. Once the carbon dioxide was concentrated enough inside the bubble, he would drift off in to an eternal sleep.

Marsh thought of pleasant things, but mainly the yard back at Freeport. He thought about the Helena, their own submersible that was still not quite ready for sea because their mechanic had not yet completed fitting the explosive collar.

The explosive collar!

Marsh sat bolt upright. Could he do it, he wondered?

He opened the valves on the oxygen bottle, switched to manual and immediately felt an uplifting sensation as his brain responded to the sweet, life giving air.

“Careful, Marsh,” he counselled himself. “It may not work.”

He thought about the collar and how it might have been disconnected. It was unlikely that it would have been done outside the cockpit because the collar was designed to form a watertight clamp that engaged on the firing socket. Once fitted there was no chance of water seeping into the cockpit.

The screened, wiring circuit that connected the collar to the firing button was encapsulated and ran through the centre of the ‘thorax’ to the rear of the instrument panel. Therefore it would have been simpler, and quicker, to have disconnected the collar inside the cockpit.

Beside the firing panel was a small bank of capacitors. When the circuit was energised by pressing the first button, it initiated a charge to the capacitors. After a ten second delay, the firing circuit would be closed and a red light would come on above the firing button. When this was pressed, the capacitors would discharge down the firing lines, into the collar and detonate it. The shaped charge inside the collar would explode and sever the polymer cockpit from the submersible.

All Marsh had to do now was to figure out a way of reconnecting the collar to the firing panel.

He needed a tool or something with which he could remove the front of the firing panel. He looked around the interior for something he could use. The smooth, contoured features stared back at him. Everything in there had been designed for ease of handling, simplicity. No sharp objects. Helen had proclaimed it was the only place she could safely work where she wouldn’t snag her nylons.

He ran his hands beneath the seat, then opened up a small, virtually unnecessary toolbox and found it was empty. It didn’t surprise him. He continued the search and thought about Richard the Third who offered his Kingdom for a horse. What Marsh would have given for a simple screwdriver.

He sat there for a while thinking furiously, playing with the watch on his wrist. Then realised he might have the answer there in his hand; or more correctly, on his wrist.

He removed the watch and placed it on the floor, then stamped on it with his foot. It smashed immediately and he picked it up. Ignoring the little shards of glass, Marsh pushed the entire works through the back of the watch. As they popped out, the steel back dropped on to the floor. This was to be Marsh’s screwdriver.

One by one, even with his hands trembling and sweating, Marsh removed the facia screws from the panel until it swung free and revealed the wires in the firing loom.

It was as he had suspected; the loom had been cut!

Marsh began working on the cotton bindings of the loom until he could strip away the braided steel armour of the loom, exposing the cables. He then began to strip back the insulation of the two cables leading up to the capacitor bank.

Marsh knew that all the return circuits in the Challenger’s systems were coded blue and that none of them were switched. After twenty minutes, with his fingers raw and bleeding, he had managed to connect the return cable from the capacitors to the blue cable running from the firing panel. Then he gently lifted the power cable from the panel and touched it against the exposed copper wire that supplied the bank of capacitors. Nothing happened for a moment, and then he heard the sweet, soft, high pitched whine rising in crescendo as the capacitors charged up.

Marsh was almost crying by now and shaking nervously. Sweat poured from his forehead into his eyes. He stopped, took in several deep breaths and then let the power cable drop away from the charging circuit.

The capacitors were now full charged.

At the rear of the firing panel, Marsh could see the metal, braided firing lines which ran through the loom to the explosive collar. He reached in and pulled them clear and looked at the severed ends. He knew he still had time before the charge in the capacitors began to decay, but his fingers were sore and bleeding, making him wonder how much time he had before the strength in his hands began to decay too. And his eyes were stinging now because of the sweat running from his forehead.

Using the watch back again, he paired back the insulation to expose their bright, copper conductors He attached one to the capacitor bank and brought the other cable to within a fraction of the cables that ran from the firing button.

His hands began to shake again. He breathed in, concentrated and carried on. Marsh knew it was vital that once he had made contact, he had to keep the cables together long enough for the energy now stored in the capacitors to discharge along the firing lines to the explosive collar.

Then he was ready.

And he prayed.

Oh, how he prayed.

Slowly, he brought the ends together and held them fast. There was just time to reflect that he was not strapped into his seat when he heard the dull ‘crump’ as the shaped charge in the collar exploded and severed the thorax from the Challenger.

For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened. Then the bubble moved and began to lift. Slowly at first, shaking off the pull of gravity and the pressure from the sea above it as the air inside exerted its own force and went in search of its own pressure level above that black, forbidding sea.

It moved up rapidly, gaining speed and momentum at the same time. It also began to roll to one side as Marsh lost his balance and fell. As he tumbled he could just see the Challenger, clamped to the sea bed and looking like his launch platform. It faded from view as the gathering light intensified until the cockpit bubble broke through the surface like a shot from a cannon.

It spun in the air and crashed down on to the surface. Marsh felt a terrible blow to his head as the bubble fought back against the pull of the sea and bobbed upright.

Marsh’s last memory of that moment before he passed out was of the blessed, beautiful sky; beautiful but menacing with huge, black clouds.

The bubble settled and canted over gently under the pressure of the wind. The automatic beacon switched on, punching out its distress signal on the international distress frequency. And the Gulf Stream current carried the odd looking craft towards the Florida Channel and the vast, open reaches of the Atlantic Ocean.