“Impossible,” Costas said. “The storm will be raging until dawn tomorrow, another twelve hours from now.
“If they were IMU divers they’d have made contact by now, even just tapping Morse on the casing,” Ben said.
Katya still seemed mystified. “How could
“In these conditions satellite surveillance is next to useless, but
“That would account for the noise,” Ben ventured.
“Already in position?” Katya wasn’t convinced. “How could they already be in position behind the island? No one else has the Atlantis text, no one else has the expertise to translate and interpret the directions.” She looked at the men. “I fear for the safety of
Jack held Katya’s gaze a moment longer than the others. In that split second he sensed something was amiss, that she was withholding more than just the apprehension they were all trying to suppress. Just as he was about to question her, another jolt rattled the submarine and ended all room for speculation. He thrust the Beretta into the holster on his chest.
“Costas, you’re here with Andy. That hatch may be our only escape route. Ben, you’re with me.”
“I’m coming too.” Katya spoke matter-of-factly. “We’ll need all the firepower we can muster.
There was no time for argument. They quickly stripped off their SCLS backpacks and propped them against the casing.
Jack spoke as they crouched together on the walkway. “These people haven’t come to dig up ancient relics. They’ll assume we’ve found their prize and are cut off from surface communication. Eliminate us and they can complete the transaction that went so badly wrong all those years ago. This is no longer just about Atlantis. Five metres away are enough nukes to end western civilization.”
As Katya stepped onto the first rung of the ladder leading to the deck above, she leaned aside to avoid the flurry of white precipitate dislodged by Jack’s ascent. After cautiously climbing a dozen rungs she tapped his leg, at the same time signalling to Ben, who was following behind.
“This is it,” she whispered.
They had reached the level above the torpedo room where they had seen the crew’s quarters on their way down less than an hour before. Katya stepped through the hatch and pushed aside the debris scattered around the entrance. Jack followed close behind and Ben a moment later. As they huddled together in the gloom, Jack reached over and switched on Katya’s headlamp.
“It’s on the lowest setting,” he whispered. “It should be OK as long as you don’t shine into the chute where it might reflect into the alleyway above us.”
Katya traversed the narrow beam across to the far side of the room. Beyond a pair of mess tables a hatch was ajar. She gestured for them to remain put and made her way across the floor, taking care to avoid any noise and keeping the beam fixed ahead. As she crouched through the hatch, Ben leaned back into the chute to listen for any sound above.
After several minutes of tense silence Katya reappeared, her headlamp switched off to avoid shining into the chute. As she made her way towards them they could see she was festooned with equipment.
“An AKS-74U,” she whispered. “Also a nine-millimetre Makarov pistol, same as the Walther PPK. The weapons locker had mostly been emptied and this is all I could find. There’s also a box of ammunition.”
“This will do nicely.” Ben unslung the weapon from Katya’s shoulder. The AKS-74U had similar dimensions to the Heckler & Koch MP5, the familiar arm of police in the West, but unlike most submachine guns it chambered a high-velocity 5.45 millimetre rifle round. The engineers at the Kalashnikov Arms Design Bureau had perfected a sound suppressor which did not compromise muzzle velocity and developed an expansion chamber which made the weapon more manageable on automatic than any other firearm of similar calibre.
There was another muffled sound far away in the bowels of the submarine. Jack raised his head in alarm and they all strained to listen. What at first seemed a distant metallic clatter became steadily more distinct, a succession of dull thuds that continued for twenty seconds and then ceased.
“Footsteps,” Jack whispered. “In the level above us back towards the escape trunk. My guess is our friends are in the control room. We must intercept them before they reach the loading chute.”
Jack and Katya each took a Kalashnikov magazine and quickly pressed in rounds from the ammunition box. Katya passed her magazine to Ben, who placed it with the remaining loose rounds in a pouch on his belt. He attached the other magazine to the weapon, pulled back the bolt and flicked the selector to safety. Katya cocked the Makarov and slid it under the tool belt on her waist.
“Right,” Jack whispered. “We move.”
It seemed an eternity since they had stumbled on the horrifying spectre at the entrance to the sonar room. As they reached the final rungs of the ladder, Jack felt thankful for the darkness that concealed them from the sentinel’s baleful gaze.
He reached down to help Katya up. Seconds later all three of them stood with weapons at the ready. Through the passageway aft they could see the glow of the emergency lighting in the control room.
Jack led them in single file along the left side of the passageway with the Beretta extended. Just before the entrance he froze and raised one arm in warning. Katya huddled behind him while Ben seemed to melt into the darkness on the other side.
From her restricted viewpoint all Katya could see was the mass of disarticulated machinery and smashed consoles. The shroud of precipitate lent a two-dimensional quality to the scene, as if they were viewing a painting too abstract to register any separate shapes or textures.
She suddenly saw why Jack had stopped. Beside the twisted remains of the periscope a ghostly figure disengaged from the background, the form only discernible when it moved. As it advanced towards them it was clear the figure was oblivious of their presence.
There was a deafening crack from Jack’s Beretta. Through the storm of white that shook from the walls she watched the figure stagger back against the periscope housing and drop awkwardly to the deck. Jack fired five more times in quick succession, each round sending up a hail of bullet fragments that shrieked and rattled around the room.
Katya was stunned by the ferocity of the noise. To her horror she saw the figure slowly raise itself and level the Uzi submachine gun it was carrying towards the passageway. She could clearly make out the pockmarks where Jack’s bullets had bounced harmlessly off its Kevlar exoskeleton. Their opponent opened up with his Uzi, a savage ripping noise that sent bullets whining down the passageway and sparking off the machinery behind them.
From out of the darkness to the side came a staccato burst from Ben’s AKS-74U, the noise through the silencer less ear-rending than the Beretta but the effect more deadly. The rounds slammed into the advancing figure and hurled him back against the periscope housing, the bullets from his Uzi tracing a wild arc on the ceiling. Each impact punched him with the force of a jackhammer, his limbs jolting in a crazy rag-doll dance. As the Kevlar shredded, his torso slumped forward at a grotesque angle where his spine had been blown out of his back. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Another automatic weapon from somewhere in the far recess of the room added to the shattering din. The reverberations sent a tremor through the submarine, the concussions sucking the air as the bullets snapped past.
Jack crouched down and rocked on the balls of his feet like a sprinter before a race.
“Covering fire!”
Ben emptied the remainder of his magazine into the room as Jack broke cover and ran towards the central dais, the Beretta blasting into the space beyond the periscope array where the other gunfire originated. There was
