Noah's Ark: Encounters (15 page)

There were other advantages to launching an attack before dawn. The darkness offered extra cover, for one. And for another, most of the community aboard the
Arcadia
was tucked up in bed, soundly asleep and blissfully oblivious to the dangerous operation that was now underway.

There had been debate about whether or not to make the plan public. Very few thought it was a good idea. They weren’t organising a spectacle, but that was what it would become.

Jake looked at the big screens mounted on the wall. By day, this television lounge showed DVDs on a loop, and was mostly used by retired folk who had little else to do with their time except reminisce. They would have been shocked by the images now being shown. The middle screen carried a live feed from a shoulder-mounted waterproof high-definition camera, attached to Able Seaman Brian Thomas, who was leading the team. Its encrypted signal was sent to the communications room on the submarine, unscrambled, and relayed up to the makeshift operations room for the benefit of the committee members who were to witness the operation first hand. It was one of the conditions that had been agreed upon when they had voted whether or not to take military intervention.

The left-hand screen showed a digitally enhanced shot of the
Lance
, beamed directly from HMS
Ambush
’s photonics mast. The ship was lit up like a football stadium, with floodlights illuminating every inch of her as clear as day. More lights shone outwards, creating a halo of light on the sea around her. A surface attack would stand little chance of success. Fortunately, a surface attack wasn’t on the cards.

The right-hand screen showed another image of the
Lance
, this one even closer in. It was the thermal scan from the infrared mast. Again, Ralf’s equipment had greatly enhanced the picture, and even a layman like Jake could see the bright red patches that were people inside the ship. Most were in the middle section. Three on the bridge, two more on the deck below, and then others scattered throughout the other decks. More red blotches stood guard around the perimeter of the vessel. Jake was very conscious of the fact that there were still no signs of life shown within the hull itself. He didn’t doubt that someone had been there, banging out Morse code to the divers, but were they still there? And more worryingly, were there more people in there? They’d counted sixteen people on the I.R. scan. The submariners were confident that their team of fifteen could easily take them all; they had the element of surprise, and they were well trained for exactly this kind of thing. But if there were more, hidden out of reach of their scanners…

“Fifty metres.”

The clipped report cut through Jake’s thoughts, bringing him back to the moment. He focussed on the middle screen. Brian’s camera showed little more than a haze of tiny swirling bubbles in a sea so dark as to be almost black. He sped through the water on his DPV, closing in on the
Lance
with the rest of the team just behind.

“Still no activity at the afterends,” Ralf said, his calm voice helping ease the tension in the room.

The image changed. Brian was slowing, and up ahead, Jake could see the shadow of the
Lance
’s hull, a cut-out in the surrounding light. The ship was still moving. They were all moving, keeping their distance, circling each other like two tigers poised to pounce. The shadow grew bigger until it engulfed the entire screen.

Two more divers appeared in the shot. They moved towards the spinning propeller, then when they were in place, joined their thumbs and index fingers together, making the sign for “Okay”.

Brian also moved forwards until he was touching the back of the ship, a little to the left of the churning and dangerous propeller. His DPV was nowhere to be seen, but Jake knew it was following along by itself, programmed to remain at a fixed depth and distance from the
Lance
.

Quite without warning the image suddenly became very clear, as the camera came up out of the water. Jake looked to the left-hand monitor. He could just make out Brian, and some of the others, scaling the sheer stern of the ship.

“Bloody hell.” He broke the silence in the room. “I was sceptical of those suction cups working, but look at them go!”

Martin smiled smugly. “We use something similar for getting under the
Arcadia
for checks and repairs. I had total confidence.”

“You never said, when we were going over the plan.”

“I was enjoying watching you squirm.”

“Shh!” Amanda Jackson hushed them. She sat on the edge of her seat leaning forwards, studying the screens. “One of those bad guys is getting too damn close.”

Ralf had seen it too, because his voice once again broke through the speaker, as calm as before. “Be advised: OD headed afterends.”

There was a muffled booming sound as Brian tapped his microphone with a finger, indicating he had received the message. All the divers paused, stuck to the stern of the
Lance
like flies on a window. The red blot changed direction, moving towards the bows again.

“Clear,” Ralf chirped.

The men were on the move instantly, and within seconds Brian was climbing over the lip of the hull and onto the deck. The others were right behind. The thermal image showed six new red spots on at the rear of the ship, but these spots were different. On top of each was superimposed a green blinking dot.

“We see six aboard. Transponders operational,” Ralf reported.

Two of the green dots started climbing up the gantry that supported the helipad.
 

“Blue Team: Red Team is in place. Proceed with caution.”

The screens didn’t give any indication as to what was happening, but Jake knew the plan by heart. It had been covered in detail, refined and honed. When he’d tried to sleep, early in the evening, in preparation for this moment, he had turned it over again and again in his head. Right now, two divers were feeding thick rope into the
Lance’s
propeller, choking it up completely. The engine would protest as it tried to spin the shaft without success. Jake hadn’t been on any kind of scientific vessel before, but he knew ships, and he knew that right about now, a series of warning lights and alarms would be going off in the engine room and on the bridge.

Movement on the thermal image caught his attention. Then, through Brian’s open microphone, he heard shouting in a language he didn’t recognise. Someone on the bridge was barking orders at the men down on the deck.

Just as they had planned it.

Two red blobs sprinted to the rear of the
Lance
, sent to look overboard and see what was fouling the propeller. They were met by members of the Red Team armed with Taser X3s they had extracted from waterproof equipment pouches. On the middle screen Jake saw the scuffle, and he heard the crackle of electricity as fifty thousand volts were blasted into the necks of the enemy men, who crumpled to the ground almost silently.

“Two down. Both targets Asian in appearance, and in uniform. Both armed. If these men are polar scientists, I’m a fried-egg salesman—” Brian whispered into his microphone. He was interrupted by the sound of someone shouting. They were swiftly cut off with another blast of electricity. “Make that three. You didn’t tell us about that one.”

“Didn’t have eyes on. Must have come from the dark side,” Ralf said, with no hint of remorse or emotion in his voice.

With the immediate rear guard taken care of, the divers began to work their way forwards, edging along the deck. Two of them took the far side, out of sight of the
Ambush
’s sensor array. Brian stayed on the starboard side, relying on Ralf’s aid. At the same time, the second wave of divers, Blue Team, began to haul themselves out of the water and onto the ship. They took the same route, climbing the stern, out of sight of the bridge and any remaining lookout.

“Red One: OD ten metres ahead of you, another ten metres after. That’s all I see.”

There was no confirming tap on the microphone; Brian was too busy concentrating on his task. He had his back against the wall. The lifeboat suspended over his head meant he was in shadow. A set of steps leading up to the bridge partially blocked the line of sight. It was a good place for an ambush. He pushed himself as far back as he could, then let out a whistle. Jake watched as the image on the left-hand screen zoomed in closer. With the lights glaring out from the
Lance
it was difficult to see much, but he caught a movement to the right of Brian. The thermal image confirmed that one of the lookouts was moving towards him.

“Red One: OD headed your way.”

As the guard rounded the steps, Brian’s hand shot out and grabbed him, pulling him into the darkness. He was dispatched with a dose of current, and folded away beneath the stairway.

The last guard made no move to follow. Brian tried whistling again, but he must not have been heard over the noise of the engine straining to overcome the bindings around the propeller. Very slowly, he edged out of his hiding place and crabbed along the deck, keeping his back to the wall.

He almost made it, but the guard was more alert than anyone had really expected, and he must have heard Brian’s approach because he whirled around, gun raised, and shouted something that nobody understood.

Brian, like the other divers, was armed only with a Taser and a knife. Close-combat weapons; discreet, silent. They hadn’t come to kill, only to take control of the
Lance
and find out what was really going on there. He had no means to defend himself against the man standing ten metres from him. Jumping overboard would be too risky; the guard could easily get off a shot or two before he hit the water. Instead, he raised his hands above his head.

“Red One in trouble. If anyone is nearby, assistance is required at the mid-section, starboard side.” Ralf remained as calm and detached as always, relaying the information to the other divers.

Jake could barely bring himself to watch, so looked away, choosing to regard the thermal scan rather than the terrifying view from Brian’s shoulder cam: the image of a man pointing a gun directly at him. He couldn’t block out the sound though, and the sound was of the guard shouting incoherently. He was raising hell, and now their cover was well and truly blown.

Several things then happened at once. A face appeared at the starboard-side bridge window, looked down at Brian and the guard holding him at gunpoint, then disappeared just as quickly. A siren blared out across the
Lance
. Jake could hear it outside without the aid of the video links.

At the same instant, on the thermal image screen a red blob with a flashing green dot popped into view, coming round the mid-section of the ship. Jake’s eyes flicked back to the middle screen and he saw the submariner approach the gun-toting guard from the rear. As he raised his Taser to the guard’s neck, Brian dived to the ground. A second later and he would have been comprehensively perforated by the spray of bullets that erupted from the weapon as the man’s muscles contracted around the trigger, a side effect of the intense electric shock.

That wasn’t the only gun to fire. Windows behind the bridge had been thrown open and gun barrels were poked through, firing indiscriminately towards the deck. The middle screen in the situation room flickered then went black, the images replaced with the words:
“No Signal”.

“What happened?” Jake asked.

“Is Brian shot?” Amanda shrieked. Her hands flew to her mouth.

Nobody answered.

There was movement on the left-hand screen and Jake realised it was the two divers who had been climbing the scaffold-like structure. They had run across the helipad and were now on the roof of the bridge, pulling open a hatch and throwing something inside.

“Red six: where are you?” Ralf’s voice again.

“Almost… Shit!” Jake didn’t recognise the voice that spoke. There was the sound of a struggle, a shout, then the unmistakable crackle of another stun-gun going off. “Sorry, the engine room was manned. Okay…”

Smoke began billowing from the bridge hatch as the tear-gas canisters discharged their payload. Some of the shooting stopped, but it was replaced by more from the middle deck.

Then, quite suddenly, the left-hand screen also went blank.

“Generator cut. I repeat, generator cut. Blue Team: go, go, go.”

It was very difficult to make out what was happening from that point forward. With no video aside from the thermal camera, Jake had to rely on the occasional clipped voice report, and the movement of anonymous red blobs, some of which were accompanied by the tell-tale blinking transponder signals of the submariners. Even so, he had a good idea of what was going on from the planning. The Blue Team divers equipped with night-vision headsets were now sweeping through the
Lance
, taking out anyone who looked like they were a threat. Anyone and everyone they found was to be restrained and bound. They could ask questions later.

To everyone’s great relief, Brian’s voice came back over the speaker. Not whispering this time, but shouting to make himself heard over the sound of the gunshots. “Outer deck is secure. Red Team is heading down.”

“Your camera is out, Red One.”

“Affirmative. Broken whilst avoiding fire.”

Once below the line of the outer deck, it was no longer possible to follow the Red Team, even on the thermal camera. The thick reinforced ice-breaking hull masked their body heat, and played havoc with the signal from their transponders. The green dots popped up every now and then, but they skittered across the screen like penguins across ice. Voice communications were similarly intermittent, with bursts of sound breaking through. From the snippets of information they had, Jake believed they were working their way through the two levels below the deck, from the stern to the bow. He thought he heard more tear-gas canisters being deployed, although the hissing sound could simply have been static on the radio channel; it was hard to be sure.

Sixteen

H
E
HAD
HEARD
them coming, of course. They were hardly discreet. As soon as the first shot had been fired many decks above, its distinctive sound filling every corner of the small ship, even finding its way into the deep storage room in which they were held, he had known they were going to be saved.