Dead Sea (32 page)

‘Shit,' came Nic's voice at his shoulder. ‘So that's her, is it? She's sure an ugly-looking brute. Sparks is trying to contact her but she's not answering.'

But no sooner had Nic said this than Sparks, the radio officer, was on the bridge wing beside them. ‘I have
Katapult
,' he said. ‘Captain Mariner's on.'

‘Richard,' said Robin's voice in the radio headphones an instant later. ‘Where are you?'

‘Only a couple of hours away, closing up behind you in
Poseidon
,' he replied.

‘
What?
Why ever are you doing that?' she demanded.

‘In case this garbage gets to be anything like as dangerous as it looks.'

‘You're fussing over nothing! We've got this far without needing any help and we've no intention of starting to ask for any now. This is a race, not a regatta! We're being careful. The radio's been playing up and the sonar's on the blink but the radar's fine and we're tracking the bottle and
Flint
clearly enough. We see
Poseidon
's echo and identification numbers clearly enough, now you mention it, though I can't get over the fact that you're aboard her! And anyway, if anything goes wrong, there's a bloody great freighter just pulling over the northern horizon. I haven't managed to raise them yet but I'm sure they'd be happy to help.'

‘Well, my love, about
that
 . . .'

Richard was in the middle of his explanation – though he hadn't got to the bit about the lottery ticket yet – when the four bells gently announced that it was ten a.m. ship's time midway through the forenoon watch, and the most unexpected thing happened. Suddenly Nic's cell phone started ringing. He got it out, shaking his head with surprise. And froze.

‘Son of a bitch,' he said. ‘It's Liberty!' Then suddenly he was locked in a conversation with his daughter that was in many respects the same as the one Richard was having with his wife.

Neither man had made any real progress with the fiercely competitive women, when their attention was called to the next stage in the chess game that seemed suddenly to be evolving with disturbing rapidity out across the dead sea ahead of them. For, no sooner had
Dagupan Maru
settled into their field of vision than a helicopter lifted off it, leaping up from behind the solid wall of the bridge house and skimming forward with disturbing speed.

Richard broke contact with Robin and crossed to the bridge wing once again, grabbing the binoculars as he went. Then he was out in the stinking morning with the glasses glued to his eyes, scanning the skies for a close-up of the machine. As soon as he focused on it, he started swearing under his breath, for before he could even register the make or model, he saw that it had been fitted with floats. ‘Nic,' he called, without taking the glasses from his eyes, ‘get Ironwrist and Fatfist to fix floats to
Poseidon
's chopper . . .'

‘Already done! That was one of the things we were discussing when you joined us on A deck. The pilot's ready too. You want to go up and see what's going on out there?'

‘Yes,' Richard growled. ‘And soon. I hate being caught on the back foot . . .'

He turned and as he went back through the bridge, he asked, ‘Straightline, can you guide us to Tanaka's bottle if we go up in the chopper?'

‘Yes, Captain. I can get you to the location, but from the look of things it would be too risky for you to land and pick it up.'

‘OK. We'll see when we get there . . .'

Ten minutes later,
Poseidon
's Changhe lifted off with floats attached in case a landing on the water was possible and both Richard and Nic aboard. Richard was happy to occupy the co-pilot's seat and direct the pilot according to Straightline's advice from
Poseidon
's bridge.

As soon as
Dagupan Maru
's chopper saw the Changhe, it speeded up and so both aircraft sped low across the littered water. Richard's rotors nearly took the tip off
Katapult
's mast as he raced due east and she tacked northward one, maybe two, tacks away from her goal. And for a moment, Richard thought he could hear Robin's howl of protest at this underhanded cheating.

The two helicopters arrived at the same point at almost the same moment, saw the same thing and made the same decision – as though they had a choice. For both Chang and Straightline were correct. The sea beneath them was thick with thousands of plastic bottles. Only a very detailed search at sea level would show precisely which one was Tanaka's Cheerio bottle. But such a search was forbidden to the helicopters by the heaving thickness of dangerous rubbish that the armada of bottles surrounded. There were more containers, clashing together like bergs on the restless Arctic Ocean. Oil drums half the size of tree trunks rolled restlessly in the choppy water. Swathes of commercial netting swirled, waiting to wrap themselves round the choppers' floats and drag them down. There was no clear water here – none in fact closer than either
Katapult
which they had just overflown or
Flint
which they could see approaching on a southerly tack.

And yet neither chopper wanted to be the first to leave. They circled round the place, watching each other like duellists, as soon as they realized landing was out of the question. And Richard, the earphones clamped over his ears, looked straight into the cabin opposite and saw his opposite number quite clearly. And it took him a moment to register, with a frisson of icy shock, that the man in the
Dagupan Maru
's helicopter was not wearing headphones like his own. That the black boxes on those distant ears were permanent fixtures.

That the unaccountably shocked and angry face opposite did not belong to Professor Reona Tanaka. It belonged to Professor Satang S. Sittart.

‘R
ight!' snapped Richard. ‘We go back. Now. If Sittart's involved personally and directly then that changes the game. Gets rid of the rule book, for a start. And makes our car accident, Nic, look a lot less accidental. But Sittart's not going to risk drowning himself – even for a fortune in lottery winnings! He might be ruthless, sadistic; murderous, even. But he's not barking mad!'

The Changhe lifted, turned, began to race back the way she had come. Sittart's chopper did the same. As they sped towards their next move in this strange, deadly chess game, Richard continued planning aloud. ‘But he'll have other tricks up his sleeve. Lucky that chopper of his doesn't look powerful enough to carry anything heavy, or he'd be dropping one of
Dagupan Maru
's lifeboats right on top of the bottle next. But he can't. He could drop a swimmer or a diver I suppose but he'd have a hell of a job retrieving them – even if they could survive in that mess for long enough to find the bottle. So if he wants to go in at sea level he'll have to wait till the freighter's closer and lower a boat from there. And lifeboats aren't noted for their speed. Which explains why the freighter's running at the top of the green. Straightline, do you think we could risk one of
Poseidon
's Zodiacs? They're faster than lifeboats.'

‘I wouldn't like to put an inflatable into that,' cut in Captain Chang decisively. ‘Even the Kevlar-reinforced sides would stand very little chance. I would hesitate to permit
you
to try it – and I would forbid
my crew
outright.'

‘Right,' said Richard. ‘That settles that! Flank speed for the moment, please, Captain and get ready to try Plan B as soon as we land.'

‘Flank speed?' spat Chang across the airwaves. ‘Not through this, Captain Mariner. I go
safe
speed, thank you very much. Still plenty fast though!'

‘No,' said Richard gruffly twenty minutes later, sounding a lot like Captain Chang. ‘Even if you have got her prepped and ready, it's too risky for you to take her out, Nic, even after Liberty. We stick with what we discussed at breakfast and on the flight back in. I don't mind running the risk of dropping
Neptune
overboard without slowing down but if you go out in
Salacia
, we'll have to heave to. And you know we can't afford the time. Not only that, but
Salacia
is our camouflage. She's positioned between
Neptune
and
Dagupan Maru
. She'll mask what we're doing and give us an element of surprise. But if we deploy her, that will simply give our hand away. Besides,' he continued, moderating his tone, ‘you know we'll be more flexible if we're all still aboard. Far more use to both of our girls if push comes to shove . . .'

Nic turned mutinously and strode across the foredeck until the port-quarter safety rail stopped him. He stared out into the gusty grey morning as though he could see
Flint
in the distance racing towards them along her southerly tack. But all Richard could see over his friend's shoulder was the restless ocean with
Dagupan Maru
still well to the north smashing relentlessly southward, and
Katapult
running up towards her, ready to change tack – perhaps for the last time before she reached the bottle. The wind battered fitfully under the upturned hull of
Poseidon
's port-side Zodiac and howled in the equipment supporting
Salacia
above Nic's head. The starboard gantry above Richard groaned as it jumped into motion, swinging
Neptune
out over the littered surface. Then Nic turned back. ‘When you're right, you're right,' he said, decisively. ‘Let's get to work.'

He joined Richard at the starboard rail, and they felt the deck angle slightly as
Neptune
swung out over the water. Then the pair of them watched with sharp-eyed concentration for a relatively clear bit of ocean. Richard didn't mind taking the risk of dropping
Neptune
while her mother ship was still running, but he was not about to drop the precious remote vehicle on to a solid container or into a cat's cradle of tangled netting.

Then, ‘There!' called Nic, and Richard saw what he was pointing to: a patch of water that seemed to be soiled with nothing more substantial than a rainbow skim of oil. Richard raised his hand and the team in charge of the gantry tensed at his signal. ‘Three . . . Two . . . One . . .' he growled, then slammed his arm down. And started swearing at the sudden pain that seared through his shoulder.
Neptune
dropped.

Richard hurried down to the control room in
Poseidon
's bulbous bow where Ironwrist sat waiting for him to fill the second operator's chair. The Chinese controller was flooding the submersible's tanks at the same time as running through the speediest of start-up routines.

Richard took over as soon as he arrived, pushing the throttles to maximum even as the lights came on and the video-feeds from the on-board cameras went live. The first thing the submersible saw was the stern of her mothership departing in a swirl of bubbles as
Poseidon
raced on forward. Richard and Ironwrist angled
Neptune
's crablike body like the well-practised team they were, following
Poseidon
as faithfully as a duckling chasing its mother, checking for a safe depth without losing too much forward motion, but staying on the surface for the moment. At full speed,
Neptune
could manage ten knots, a fantastic pace for a submersible, and one that Richard had found useful in the past. Ten knots was about half the velocity the cautious captain was currently allowing
Poseidon
to do. And just comparable with the ten knots Sittart's freighter was capable of. But they needed more of an edge than that.

‘Monitors on,' said Nic's voice in Richard's headphones, confirming that they had visual on the bridge.

‘Looks like we're clear from about three metres down,' said Richard, checking the range of readouts on the screens in front of him while pushing
Neptune
forward in
Poseidon
's churning wake, relying on the adapted frigate's hull to keep things clear ahead for the moment. ‘There'll be one or two containers and maybe some drifts of netting sitting that deep, but not much.

‘Now, let's get to work. Straightline, you keep me updated on the location of the bottle and I'll get that precisely factored in to
Neptune
's GPS guidance. Nic, you keep me up to speed with both what you can see on the red-dot display and out of the clearview. I suspect we're getting close to the point where eyes in your head will be more useful than eyes in the sky. Or eyes under the water, for the moment. Going for a basic series of remote arm and gripper tests as long as they don't slow us down any. Fatfist, are you ready with the after line?'

‘
Ready
,' came the crisp reply.

‘
Engage
,' ordered Richard. And three decks above his head, the whole length of the sleek hull astern, Fatfist Wu fired the magnetic bolt on the end of the long line that would join
Neptune
to
Poseidon
until Richard chose to break contact and set his little command free to do her underwater work. The bolt flew like a harpoon from an old-fashioned whaling gun and hit squarely on the magnetic link pad on
Neptune
's broad yellow bow where it held as though superglued in place. At once,
Neptune
was jerked forward through the water at twenty knots as
Poseidon
pulled her forward. And at last, having calculated the safe depth for their vessel, Richard and Ironwrist angled the planes and finished flooding the tanks while Fatfist played the ungainly remote vehicle like a fish on the end of the towline. ‘It should be me up there,' mourned Ironwrist. ‘I'm the big fisherman aboard
Poseidon
!'

‘No can do,' said Richard, rising slowly and giving the readouts one last scan. ‘I need both of you exactly where you are. I'll be back when it's time to cut her loose. Until then, you're in full charge of the
Neptune
, Captain Wan!'