Those in Peril (Unlocked) (61 page)

‘Roger, Hector. I am opening the CO
₂
cylinders now!’

‘Paddy, we go in exactly four minutes. By then Kamal should be down.’

‘Sure, and so will Nastiya,’ Paddy replied bitterly. Hector turned a deaf ear as he watched the luminous second hand of his Rolex. It moved around the dial with all the deliberation of an Alpine glacier. It had reached the zenith and started its second circuit when Hazel spoke again, her voice taut with anxiety.

‘We have lost contact! Kamal and Nastiya have disappeared off our screen.’

‘That’s not possible. Is the IR sensor in the tunnel still functioning? Perhaps Kamal has found it and disabled it.’ Just when he was sure he had the situation well in hand, Hector felt it all beginning to unravel.

‘Affirmative. It’s still functioning, but Kamal has gone. No contact!’ Hazel repeated urgently. Hector braced himself to ride the panic he felt rising to carry him away.

Think like the fox!
he exhorted himself.
Think like Kamal! What is the bastard doing?
His intuition kicked in and he found the answer to his own question. He spoke into the battle radio. ‘Paddy, Kamal has probably smelled the gas. That odour is unmistakable. He knows it’s CO
₂
and he knows it’s heavier than air. He knows that to survive he must get above it. But how would he do that?’ It took him another few seconds before he had the answer. ‘The Number Two egress shaft! The bastard has climbed to the top of the shaft, and taken Nastiya with him. There is no IR sensor in the shaft, and the sweet air will be trapped in it. In there he can breathe and he has Nastiya as a shield. We can’t fire up the shaft without hitting her.’

‘We have to go in now, Hector!’ Paddy’s voice rose to a shout. ‘Let me go! For Christ’s sake let me go to her.’

‘You’re right, Paddy. We have to go in!’ Hector said crisply. ‘Cyril, open all the hatches! Then cut the gas off and start venting the compartment.’ He drew a deep breath and then went on, ‘Hazel, get the doctor down here. Somebody is going to get hurt.’

‘I am coming with the doctor,’ Hazel told him. Hector thought of arguing, but he knew from experience that was futile. Besides which the hatch was sliding open, and he had to go. He ducked through the open hatch and sprinted down the catwalk. There was no time for caution. He knew exactly where Kamal was. The egress shaft rose up from the centre of the compartment above the gas pump; at this rate he could reach it in two minutes. Without breaking his stride he called Paddy again.

‘Paddy, when you reach it, take cover behind the gas pump. I will be on this side of it. Tell me when you are in position. We must work together on this. Don’t you pull a Lone Ranger act on me.’ Paddy did not respond and Hector saw the dark bulk of the gas pump looming just ahead of him. Above it the entrance to the egress shaft gaped like the mouth of a toothless monster. Hector slid in under the shelter of the pump and came up on his knees. The Beretta 9mm was in his hands and aimed up into the mouth of the shaft.

‘Okay, Paddy, are you in position?’ he asked softly and the reply came back instantly.

‘In position, Hector!’

‘Cyril, do you copy?’

‘Copy you, Hector.’

‘At my count of five, switch on all the lights. One. Two. Three. Four. Lights!’ From utter darkness, the compartment was lit up with the bright electric glare. There was a 180-watt bulb in a wire cage at the top of the egress shaft. It back-lit Kamal and Nastiya like a stage effect. Kamal was crouched on the narrow steel landing. Nastiya was standing on the rung of the ladder below him. She had both her hands pinioned with cable ties in front of her. There was a rope around her neck. Kamal was holding the other end of the rope in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other. He was aiming the rifle down the shaft, and as soon as he saw Hector and Paddy in the shaft thirty feet below him he fired a burst at them with one hand. The moment before he fired they both ducked behind the pump.

The report of the rifle was ear-splitting in the enclosed area of the shaft. The bullets clanged off the steel bulkheads and the heavy gas pipes, throwing up bright showers of sparks. As soon as the rifle burst ceased, Hector risked a quick glance around the dome of the pump. There was no chance of a shot at Kamal. Nastiya’s body screened him almost completely, yet he saw that she had somehow managed to twist a bight of Kamal’s rope around her bound wrists. He could no longer use it as a garotte. She was balancing precariously on the rung of the ladder, without any handhold. Hector saw at once what she was planning to do, even before she yelled wildly, ‘Catch me, Babu!’ Then she threw herself backwards into the shaft. The rope jerked up tight but she took the strain on her wrists rather than with her neck. The end of it was whipped out of Kamal’s hands and he was almost dislodged from his perch. He scrabbled wildly to keep his balance.

Who the hell is Babu?
Hector thought irrelevantly. His unspoken question was answered at once as Paddy raced out from behind the gas pump and stood under the mouth of the shaft with his arms spread wide, looking up at Nastiya as she hurtled down towards him. She had balled her body, tucking in her elbows and knees, and the fall was almost thirty feet. She was accelerating to bone-shattering velocity, but Paddy did not flinch. He snatched her out of the air and into his arms, and was knocked down by her momentum onto the steel deck, absorbing most of the shock of the collision with his own body. The impact sounded like a sack of coal thrown from the back of a dray onto a cobbled street, and Hector heard the crackle of breaking bone. But Paddy never released his grip. He held Nastiya to his chest.

Hector did not spare even a glance at the two interlocked bodies under his feet, but he concentrated every last iota of mind and muscle on the figure high above him in the steel shaft.

Kamal was clinging to one of the ladder rungs, kicking and struggling to keep his balance. Hector’s first shot with the Beretta ricocheted off a rung of the steel ladder directly beneath him. The deformed bullet lost only a little of its velocity as it tumbled in the air and then went up between Kamal’s legs, piercing the perineum and burrowing deeply into his bowels. Kamal’s whole body bucked and convulsed. He hung on to the ladder with a death grip, but could not maintain his hold on the rifle. It dropped, rattling against the bulkheads and bouncing on the rungs of the ladder. Hector ducked as it flew past his head, and then he fired three more shots in rapid succession. Every one of them tore through flesh, bone and vitals. Slowly Kamal’s fingers opened until he lost his grip on the steel ladder and dropped down the shaft, his loose robes fluttering around him until he struck the deck at Hector’s feet. Hector leaned over him and fired two more shots into his head, before he turned to where Paddy and Nastiya lay.

The tunnel was still flooded with CO
₂
gas which had not yet been purged by the ventilators. Nastiya was at risk. Hector knelt beside her and unhooked the two-litre oxygen bottle from his belt. He opened the tap and clapped the mask over her nose and mouth.

‘See to Paddy first!’ Nastiya demanded and her voice was muffled by the plastic mask. Paddy was trying to sit up, but he was injured. His body was out of shape; his one shoulder drooping.

Collarbone gone and probably a couple of ribs
, Hector thought.
Certainly a few sprains and torn muscles, but is there any brain damage?
Then he said aloud, ‘Come along, Babu. Lady says I have to look after you.’

‘One of these days you are going to go too far, Cross,’ Paddy warned him but without real rancour. His face was twisted with a mixture of pain and adulation as Nastiya knelt over him and he looked up into her eyes.

‘No brain damage. The lad is still hot as a pistol!’ Hector said with a grin and switched on the mike of his radio. ‘Now hear this all of you! Kamal is down and out. So is Uthmann Waddah. Adam is captured. Paddy has broken a couple of bones, but he is tough and they’ll mend. Main thing is that Nastiya and I are just fine. So no real worries!’

H
ector and Hazel stood together on the wing of the
Golden Goose
’s bridge. He had his arms around her and she was leaning back against his chest. In silence they watched the last boats coming off the beach, packed with the seamen that Sam Hunter’s column had released from the prison stockades ashore. The men were being ferried out to their ships in the bay.

Sam’s men were torching the buildings of the town, after making sure that no widows and orphans had been left behind by the fleeing populace. Hazel had been very definite about that. Already most of the pirated ships in the bay had the majority of their original crews on board, and they had started their engines in preparation for sailing. Eight ships that had been lying at anchor for many years had deteriorated to such an extent that their engines were rusted solid and their hulls were so riddled with rust that they were totally unseaworthy. Hector ordered them to be scuttled, to deprive the pirates of even these meagre rewards. When their seacocks were opened to flood the hulls many of them capsized, while others sank to the bottom in an upright position with only their rigging showing above the surface. At last Sam Hunter’s squadron of AAVs trundled down the beach into the sea and started swimming back to the
Goose
, leaving the town in flames. Hazel broke their silence.

‘So, my darling, the job is over and done,’ she said in what was almost a whisper.

‘Almost but not quite done. There is just one more thing we have to see to,’ Hector replied, and she turned in the circle of his arms and looked up into his face.

‘I know. I’ve been dreading this part of it.’ She sighed. ‘Where is he?’

‘Tariq has him locked in the armoury in the covert area of the ship.’

‘We should do it at once, and get it over with before I lose my nerve.’

‘We will only do it once we are at sea,’ he demurred. ‘But neither of us will lose our nerve. We owe it to Cayla and Grace.’

‘I know,’ Hazel whispered and stirred against his chest, ‘we must have justice for them. Without that none of us will ever have peace. When, my darling? When must we do it?’

‘We sail this evening. We’ll do it at dawn tomorrow, when we are out of sight of land.’

‘Just you and me?’ Hazel asked softly. ‘Nobody else?’

‘Others have suffered,’ Hector reminded her. ‘Tariq, Paddy and Nastiya.’

‘Very well. But I have to do it. It’s my sacred duty.’

The sun was setting, and there was only just enough light to make out the channel as the
Golden Goose
led the convoy of strangely assorted ships out of Gandanga Bay. They sailed southeast during the night. While it was still dark the next morning Hector and Hazel bathed and dressed in fresh clothes. Then they each drank a mug of strong black coffee, standing together in the kitchenette of the master suite without speaking. At precisely five o’clock Tariq knocked on the door and Hector opened it.

‘Everything is ready,’ Tariq told him.

‘Thank you, old friend.’ Hector left him at the door and went back to see Hazel sitting on the bed. She looked up at him. Her eyes were a shade of blue he had never seen them before, cold and sunless as an Arctic sea.

‘Yes?’ she asked.

‘Yes!’ he said and taking her hand he lifted her to her feet. He led her to the lift and they descended to the lowest level. When the doors opened he took her elbow and steered her out onto the stern deck. A section of the deck had been screened off with a heavy tarpaulin. Tariq walked ahead of them and held open the fly in the canvas. After they passed through he closed it behind them.

Paddy and Nastiya were waiting for them. Paddy was seated in a folding canvas chair. His chest was strapped with surgical tape and his left arm was in a sling. Nastiya stood beside him with one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Hector and Hazel went to stand at Paddy’s other side. Hector looked at Tariq.

‘Fetch Adam,’ he ordered. Tariq went out through the opening in the canvas screen and returned almost at once. Two of the Cross Bow men followed him. They had Adam between them. His legs were paralysed with terror. His guards were half-dragging, half-carrying him. They let him drop on his knees in front of Hazel. Hector nodded at them and they went to stand guard at the entrance to the enclosure.

Adam knelt facing Hector and Hazel and his eyes were dark and swimming with tears. The black attaché case was still chained to his wrist and with both hands he hugged it against his chest.

‘Why does he still have that case? Take it away from him,’ Hector demanded.