Trapped (25 page)

Cate shut the door again, her heart beating hard. She had a
loaded gun but knew she had to save her bullets if she could and, in any case, was not sure she could bear to really use it on another human being. She could try to attack him with the bar, but what if he managed to call for help before she had time to use the computer? Then she remembered the blue laptop. She was down on her knees in an instant, scrabbling at the tiles as she tried to pinpoint the hiding place. She found it and to her utter relief the computer was still there.

She brought it out and stuck it on one of the work surfaces that ran around the room, praying that there would still be life in the battery. It was dead. She looked wildly around her and then back into the hole in the ground and kicked herself for panicking. The lead was there. She plugged it in and the computer screen flickered into life. She willed it to hurry, to load up before the second guard realised that his mate had been gone for too long.

As the screen lit up, Cate almost wept with happiness. The internet sign was glowing, she was connected to the outside world again and, after the last few lonely hours, that felt amazing.

Relief washed over her as she saw the computer had Skype. With trembling hands she logged into her account, clicked on Arthur's number and pressed dial. The tone rang loudly in the small room and Cate jumped nervously, waiting for the guard to come rushing in. But even though it was four in the morning in London, within seconds Arthur was on the line.

‘Sis,' he said. ‘Thank God. Where are you? We've been going demented here. Dad and Monique are on their way to the South of France, raising merry hell with everyone they can
think of. Dad's even woken up the Foreign Secretary and the French Prime Minster has sent in their special forces to find you.'

‘Wow,' said Cate, impressed. ‘Didn't know Dad had those sorts of contacts. Where are they, then?'

‘Umm, the problem is that the IMIA have lost you,' said Arthur. ‘
The Good Times
must have activated its radar shield.'

Cate thought for a second. ‘Arthur, listen. Call Marcus now and tell him we're headed down the North West coast of Africa to Sibya.'

Arthur grunted anxiously. ‘Cate, I don't like the sound of that.'

‘The missiles have been disabled, but not the radar or sonar,' said Cate. ‘And I'm down at the bottom with the animals. But I won't be able to hold the guards off for much longer.'

‘OK, sis,' Arthur's voice was scared but determined. ‘You can rely on me.'

‘I know,' Cate said. ‘And Arthur . . .'

‘Yep.'

‘I really love you, you know. If anything happens.'

‘It won't, sis, I promise. Now go and hide, stay safe whatever it takes. I promise you the cavalry is on its way.'

The line clicked and Arthur was gone. There was nothing she could do now except what Arthur had said: try to stay safe and pray that her brother would be able to get her location to her rescuers. But although she had sounded brave, the reality was scarily different. She knew that it could take hours for the search party to locate
The Good Times
.

Suddenly she heard banging on the door. ‘Bobby Joe? You
in there, big fella?' There was a pause.

Cate crept to the door and shut out the light, gripping the gun tightly in her hand. The knocking started up again.

‘OK, Bobby Joe, quit messing. You're worrying me now.'

Cate silently opened the door. She felt his hesitation and then slowly he stepped inside the door. In an instant, she had the gun at his back. ‘Keep walking,' she said. ‘Keep walking. All the way to the zoo.'

‘Whatever you want, miss,' he said. ‘Whatever you want. I don't want to die.'

She left the guard in a cage, tied up with some baling string she had found in the straw and with his shirt stuffed in his mouth.

She hesitated, looking around at the animals. Then she went from cage to cage punching in the code, checking that the doors were unlocked.
Just in case I need to get them out in a hurry
, she thought.

Cate ran back to the antechamber, and felt the ship shudder as it suddenly swung round. She grabbed the laptop to stop it from sliding across the worktop and braced her legs against the floor.

Cate ran out into the corridor, her heart pounding. Should she take cover in the bottom deck or would she be safer up on the top deck? Suddenly she heard a thump and felt the ship quiver as something flew overhead and landed with a heavy splash in the water not far from the boat.

Cautiously, she went up to the main deck, knowing instantly she needn't have worried about being spotted. In front of her was utter chaos. At the desk, three men were frantically
looking from screen to screen whilst around them a troop of guards were standing by, waiting for direction, orders, anything.

Suddenly Bill appeared at the far end of the deck. ‘Get up on deck,' he screamed at the assembled men. ‘We're under attack.' As the guards rushed towards him the boat shook and swayed.

They've found me!
Cate thought, with relief.
And that was a direct hit!
She was horrified but thrilled.

Then she heard the unmistakable and wonderful sound of helicopters, dozens of them, followed by the crackle of bullets and the high frequency ping as they hit the hull.

Cate ran through to the now empty room and took the stairs three at a time. The top deck was lit up with searchlights from the choppers piercing the early morning gloom, and guards were running around taking aimless shots into the sky above them. There was no sign of Tass or Lulu and no one seemed to be giving orders.

Then, from above, Cate heard a voice booming through a loudspeaker. ‘This is the French Navy. Put down your weapons and surrender or we will open fire again.'

Bill appeared from the bridge, his blond hair standing out against the searchlights. He was carrying a gun and his face was distorted with rage. He shouted furiously at the guards. ‘You useless morons!' His voice rose over the clamour of the helicopters. ‘Man the missiles. The missiles!'

No one moved. The guards were staring upwards, hypnotised by the lights of the helicopters. Then Bill ran from the bridge to the missile stand. Screaming at the guards to help
him, he rotated the tubes so that they were facing up into the sky. Then, dodging a hail of bullets from above, he ran back to the safety of the bridge and pressed a large red button.

Nothing happened. Bill thumped the button again. Then he brought his fist crashing down on the button again and again and again. As he did, Cate saw dark figures appearing at the open sides of the helicopters and men began shimmying down ropes to the smashed and shattered deck. Suddenly Marcus was at her side, his white teeth shining at her through his balaclavad face.

‘Thank God, Cate,' he said. ‘I thought we'd lost you. If you hadn't gone online to Arthur we'd never have been able to track you down.'

Ignoring the men in black that were now disarming the guards and handcuffing them, Bill was still on the bridge, trying in vain to fire the missiles.

‘Shall you tell him about the acid or shall I?' said Marcus gleefully.

‘You can,' said Cate, grinning. ‘He doesn't like me any more.'

She looked around her. The gunshots had finally stopped, all the guards lay flat on the deck, handcuffed.

‘Tass and Lulu.' Cate felt sick. ‘Marcus – Tass and Lulu, where are they?'

Marcus spoke into a walkie talkie. ‘No sign of them. We've secured the entire ship.'

The bottom deck
, thought Cate.

She suddenly ran for the stairs, Marcus following behind her. ‘Cate,' he said, ‘Cate, where are you going?'

‘The animals!' Cate ran down the stairs and back through the deserted bottom deck. She reached the security door and charged through. A French SAS officer was standing guard by the computer desk where the guards had been sitting just a few hours earlier.

‘Have you seen a man and woman?' Cate panted in French.

He shook his head. ‘
Non
. No one.'

Cate pushed past him into the open secure room and then flicked the switch. Marcus watched in amazement as the wall moved aside to show the glass door.

‘God,' exclaimed Marcus. ‘What's behind here?'

‘The animals!' Cate was almost shouting now. ‘This is where they keep the animals.' She ran through and stopped suddenly. The cages which had held the smaller animals had been removed from their racks, the doors to the larger cages were wide open. Cate saw, with a sinking heart, that some of the leashes used on the animals were missing as well.

‘They've taken them,' she said helplessly. ‘They're gone.'

She sank down to her knees. ‘I knew he wouldn't let them go,' she said, looking up at Marcus. ‘They're all he needs to build another life.'

But Marcus wasn't listening. ‘If he didn't get them past my guard, then he must have got them out another way,' he said, hunting along the walls. ‘There must be an escape route somehow to somewhere.'

‘The submarine bay.' Cate was up on her feet now. ‘Behind this wall is the submarine bay.'

She ran back out to the corridor and looked at the screen. The instructions were there.
Open Door One
,
Open Door Two
.
She clicked on the second option but the shutters stayed stubbornly still.

Outside hatch opening
, flashed up on the screen.
Access to submarine bay denied
.

‘Oh my God,' said Cate. ‘He's taking them in the submarine.'

Marcus spoke grimly. ‘He won't get far. We'll have a torpedo on it as soon as it leaves the boat.'

‘No!' cried Cate. ‘The animals are on board. They'll die with him.'

Marcus spoke to her gently, trying to reason with her. ‘Cate there is nothing more we can do.' He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘We can't let him get away with those animals. What they have there is amazing, but it has the potential to be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. You know that. What if they use their research on more animals, or on humans? We simply cannot allow that to happen and, if that means destroying the submarine, then we'll have to do it.'

She stared back at him, trying to absorb what he was saying.

‘Cate, sometimes we have to make hard choices.' Marcus looked at her with sadness in his dark eyes. ‘This is one of those times.'

‘No!' Cate was shouting now. ‘There has to be another way.'

Suddenly she remembered what José had said to Oak. ‘If the inner door is open, the outer hatch will not open. Otherwise the whole boat will flood.'

‘I've got it,' she shouted to Marcus and the men standing behind him. ‘Get that shutter up and the outer submarine hatch will come to a halt. Come on, we've still got time.'

Marcus stared at her and then charged down the corridor, his men following. Cate was there first, her hands under the bottom bars of the shutters trying frantically to prise them up.

‘Here.' A tall soldier behind Marcus ushered her to one side. ‘It's locked. Stand back.' He brought a gun from his side and shot along the base of the shutter. Then all five men crouched down and put their hands underneath the now free bar and began to push upwards.

The shutter still didn't move.

‘Try harder,' screamed Cate. ‘Come on, move it.' She could hear the roar of the submarine's engines getting louder as Tass built up power in the engines. The men strained and pushed but nothing happened.

‘It's no good,' said one. ‘It's locked tight.'

Suddenly Cate remembered the bar she had left in the side room. It was still there standing against the wall where she had left it. She ran back down the corridor and handed it to Marcus. ‘Here,' she said. ‘Use this.'

He pushed the tip of the steel bar under the base of the shutter and, sweat pouring off his brow, pushed down hard on the other end. Another man joined him, then another and slowly, slowly the shutter began to move upwards.

‘It's working,' shouted Cate. ‘You're overriding the system.'

But now ice cold sea water was sloshing around their ankles. ‘The hatch is already open,' Marcus said. ‘We're too late.'

Just then the shutter heaved upwards and Cate and the men ducked beneath it and into the submarine bay. The submarine was already nosing out towards the hatch, waiting for the last few seconds when the door would fully open and it could leave.

‘If that hatch keeps opening, this ship will go down now the inner door's bust – and we'll all go with it!' Marcus shouted in Cate's ear above the noise of the submarine engines. ‘Cate, you have to run for it. Leave it to us.'

‘No,' said Cate. ‘I promised myself I wouldn't give up on the animals.'

‘Cate Carlisle,' said Marcus, grabbing her by the shoulder and turning her back towards the door. ‘For once, just do as you are told.'

The water was now knee high and rising fast. The boat took a sudden lurch and leaned over to one side. Marcus pushed Cate towards the shutters. ‘Go!' he said.

Then, suddenly, miraculously, the shutter shot up in the air. And at the same time Cate saw, as if in a dream, that the outer hatch had stopped its upward climb. In fact, she could hardly believe her eyes. It was now closing up again.

‘How on earth did that happen?' Cate looked at Marcus in disbelief. He shrugged, looking as shocked as she was.

‘I dunno,' he said, as soldiers swarmed around the submarine. ‘I honestly thought we were in for a night swim.'

Piot appeared behind the men, wading towards them down the corridor, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I had no idea I was that good with computers,' he said, giving Cate a hug. ‘Somehow I managed to switch the hatch instructions from open to close. I am very proud.'

‘Did you have to do it with a hand grenade?' Henri was behind him. ‘Honestly Piot, sometimes you are so heavy-handed. You've made a terrible mess.'