Deadlock (13 page)

‘I’ll be with you in a moment,’ Nathaniel said, hurrying over to what looked like an electrical junction box mounted on the wall. He opened the cover to reveal a numeric keypad and he quickly punched in a series of numbers. A digital readout above the keypad lit up and began to count down from two minutes.

‘Now would be an extremely good time to leave,’ Nathaniel said, climbing down into the boat. ‘Unless you’ve always harboured a secret desire to be explosively vaporised.’

Darkdoom didn’t need to be told twice and he pushed forward hard on the boat’s throttle, sending it roaring across the flooded chamber and into the darkened tunnel on the far side. The HUD in the boat’s windscreen lit up with a glowing green infrared image of the darkened tunnel ahead of him.

‘Take the next left,’ Nathaniel yelled to Darkdoom over the screaming turbines of the boat’s engine. Darkdoom did as he was instructed as Nathaniel plotted a course for him through the twisting maze of tunnels that led away from his home. There was the sudden muffled sound of a huge explosion somewhere behind them and Otto felt a wave of hot air wash over him as the self-destruct charges hidden throughout the structure of Nathaniel’s studio simultaneously detonated. It was impossible to know if any of Furan’s team had been caught in the blast, but there was no way that they were going to be following them down into the tunnels now, regardless.

‘I’m sorry that it came to this, Nathaniel,’ Darkdoom said.

‘It’s just bricks and mortar,’ Nathaniel said, ‘And you know, I’ve always rather wanted to do that. I’ve designed dozens of self-destruct systems over the years, but never actually got to set one off. Quite invigorating. I’m starting to understand the appeal. Besides, there was no way I was leaving all of my records for Anastasia Furan to go nosing through. That information would have been far too dangerous in her hands.’

Nathaniel continued to direct Darkdoom through the pitch-black watery labyrinth for a couple more minutes until, ahead of them, they saw the illuminated outline of a gated archway, similar to the one they had passed through earlier. As they approached the gates swung open and the boat shot between them and out on to the building-lined canal beyond.

On a rooftop overlooking the canal, a man with a pair of high-powered binoculars studied the passengers on board the sleek black boat as it raced past beneath him.

‘This is observation post nine to all Artemis Section units,’ the man said quickly into his throat mic. ‘Positive ID on targets, heading east at high speed. All units converge and apprehend.’

chapter six

The miniature submarine glided silently along the hull of the Megalodon, dwarfed by the massive vessel. It had approached undetected by any of Darkdoom’s crew and it now drifted down on to the larger vessel’s armoured hull, attaching itself to its outer skin with a soft thud as its magnetic clamps engaged.

On board, the Megalodon’s captain and his bridge crew tracked the position of the boat carrying Otto and the others as it made its way through the city’s canals, oblivious to the parasitic vessel attached to the outer hull, just a few metres away from them.

‘Bring us in as close as you can, helm,’ the captain instructed. ‘We need to get them out of there as quickly as possible.’ He studied the map of the canals as Darkdoom’s boat sped through them. There was a limit to how close he could bring the Megalodon without risking detection. These were after all some of the busiest waterways in the world. He began to plot a course towards a potential rendezvous point, trying to pick a route that would make their approach as inconspicuous as possible without them risking running aground.

‘What the hell?’

The captain spun around and glared at the crewman manning the Megalodon’s fire control station.

‘Sorry, sir,’ the crewman said, shaking his head, ‘but I’m locked out of my station.’ The captain looked over his crewman’s shoulder at his display. Not only was the station locked, but a new target was somehow being fed into the system. He studied the targeting data for a moment and his eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

‘Shut down all weapons systems NOW!’ the captain shouted, but it was already too late. From somewhere forward of the bridge there was a series of whooshing sounds.

‘Three Moray torpedoes in the water,’ the fire control officer barked. ‘All tracking on target. I’m still locked out.’

‘I don’t care what it takes,’ the captain snapped. ‘I need fire control back online now, we have to . . .’

His final command was never completed. In the armoury below the bridge one of the Megalodon’s remaining conventional torpedoes received a single digital command and detonated. The resultant series of explosions ripped the Megalodon’s belly open, flooding the interior of the giant vessel in seconds and sending it drifting towards the bottom of the Adriatic, further secondary explosions marking its death throes as it disappeared into the blackness of the deep.

The mini-submarine that had detached itself from the doomed vessel just moments earlier shot away at high speed as the three Moray torpedoes raced towards Venice, relentlessly closing the range to their target.

‘We’ve got company!’ Otto yelled as Darkdoom wrestled with the speedboat’s controls, weaving through the far slower vessels that filled the Venetian canals. The water taxi drivers and gondoliers gesticulated wildly at them, hurling elaborate Italian curses as the powerful boat’s wake crashed into them. Behind them, three equally fast-moving boats wove through these scattered vessels in hot pursuit. Darkdoom glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a man in the closest pursuing boat raise a compact sub-machine gun to his shoulder. He took careful aim and fired a short burst over the heads of Otto and the others. The man at the helm of the lead boat raised a handset to his mouth.

‘That was a warning shot,’ the helmsman’s amplified voice barked from the speaker mounted on the front of the boat. ‘Heave to and surrender immediately or you will be fired upon.’

‘Who are these guys?’ Otto shouted over the noise of the engine. ‘They can’t be Furan’s men.’

‘Why not?’ Raven asked, raising her pistol and returning fire, putting a round through the plastic windshield of the lead pursuit boat. It slewed to the left, bouncing over the foaming wake of Darkdoom’s boat as the helmsman tried to avoid the incoming fire.

‘Why would they be bothering with warning shots?’ Otto asked, grabbing the nearby handrail as Darkdoom threw their boat round a corner and on to an adjoining waterway.

‘Maybe they’re trying to avoid hitting her,’ Raven said, nodding towards Gretchen.

‘I don’t think so,’ Otto said. ‘Hold on a second.’ He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate despite being slammed from side to side as Darkdoom plotted his breakneck course through the waterborne traffic ahead of them. He could sense bursts of encrypted data packets that were being transmitted both from and to the pursuing boats, but he could make no sense of them.

Would you like me to attempt decryption?
H.I.V.E.mind asked inside Otto’s head.

‘No harm in trying,’ Otto replied, as another burst of automatic gunfire hit the water just a few metres from the boat in a shower of spray. It was considerably closer than the first warning shot had been.

‘Darkdoom to Megalodon,’ Darkdoom said, holding the radio handset to his mouth, as he wrenched at the steering wheel and sent the boat veering sideways around another corner. ‘Come in, Megalodon.’ He frowned, disturbed by the lack of response.

‘What’s wrong? Are they jamming us?’ Otto asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Darkdoom said, shaking his head as he wrestled with the controls. ‘It shouldn’t be possible, but . . .’

His sentence was cut short as a black shape leapt from the water directly ahead of them. The Moray drone flew over the boat, its long blade-tipped tail whipping through the air. Otto dived for cover as the razor-sharp tip of the drone’s tail slashed through the air where his head had been just a moment before, ripping the headrest of his seat to shreds. Raven turned, pulling one of the swords from her back with her free hand and swiped at the drone as it shot past, taking a chunk out of its armoured tail before it disappeared back into the water on the other side of the boat with a splash.

‘Was that what I think it was?’ Otto asked as he grabbed the handrail and tried to get back to his feet.

‘A Moray,’ Darkdoom replied. ‘Yes, it was.’ He suddenly realised that something must have gone terribly wrong on board the Megalodon if the Moray had been launched with his boat and its passengers as its target. There was no way that could happen by accident. He quickly tried to establish contact with the Megalodon again, hoping that there might be some sort of explanation as to why his own weapons had apparently been turned against him, but there was no reply. He pushed the throttle even further forward, even though he knew they had no chance of outrunning the submerged drone. Otto tried in vain to sense the Moray’s on-board electronics anywhere within the murky water around them, but there was nothing. The drone’s electromagnetic shielding was proving just as effective now as it had been when he had first seen it on board the Megalodon.

‘Nathaniel!’ Darkdoom yelled. ‘What’s the fastest route out of the canals and into the lagoon? I’m going to need to get to open water – we need room to manoeuvre if we’re going to have any chance against these things.’

‘Take the next left,’ Nathaniel yelled.

There was a thump from somewhere under the boat and a second later the black segmented tail of the Moray smashed up through the floor, tearing a hole in the bottom of the boat and thrashing around the cabin. Gretchen barely had time to register the threat before the drone’s tail lanced towards her. It punched straight through her chest, its bloody tip protruding from the back of her seat, and she slumped forwards with a gurgling cough. Raven threw her pistol to the deck, drew her other sword and sprang towards the segmented metal tentacle as it whipped backwards, coiling to strike again. The glowing purple blades scythed through the air, no glancing blow this time, and the severed sections of the Moray’s tail clattered to the deck, thrashing uselessly. The stump of the tail withdrew, leaving a gaping hole in the hull. Otto grabbed the back of Gretchen’s chair and lifted her head, but even if he’d wanted to help her there was nothing he could have done – she was already dead. Water was starting to pour through the tear in the deck as Raven sliced through the cuffs that shackled Gretchen’s limp form to her chair, before rolling her body over the side of the boat. It hit the water with a splash.

‘Dead weight,’ Raven said coldly, with a glance at Nathaniel, who just gave a sad shake of the head. Ahead of them a blue and white boat with the words
Polizia Municipale
on the side powered out of an adjoining canal, trying to block the way. The chaos unfolding on the waterways had clearly drawn the attention of the local police. Darkdoom wrenched at the steering wheel, sending their boat sweeping past the prow of the police boat, missing it by just centimetres. The sudden manoeuvre caught Otto off balance and he lost his footing on the rapidly flooding deck, toppling over the side and hitting the cold, dirty water in a shower of spray. The impact knocked all the air from his lungs and he struggled to right himself beneath the surface of the murky water. As he kicked his legs, swimming for the surface, something dark shot through the water beneath him, just a few metres away. As his head appeared above the waves, Otto heard an enormous crash from behind him. His head whipped around to see the blazing wreckage of one of the boats that had been pursuing them. It had ploughed straight through the police boat and was now bouncing across the water towards him. A split second before it hit him something yanked hard at his legs and pulled him back below the surface. Otto struggled desperately as he saw the burning wreckage crash into the surface of the water just a couple of metres above him. He looked down and was horrified to see the tail of another Moray hunter killer coiled around his ankles, the machine’s weight dragging him inexorably down into the murky depths of the canal, the lifeless red eyes of its sensor package staring up at him. He felt his lungs burning as sinking chunks of debris from the destroyed boat began to slowly drift down past him. He thrashed his arms, desperately trying to claw his way back to the surface, but the drone’s hold on his legs was too strong and he felt a sudden wave of panic as his strength began to fade. He looked up to the patterns of light dancing across the waves above him. The surface was just a few metres away, but it might as well have been miles. Grey shadows began to dance around the fringes of his field of vision.