Atlantis

“I know. You’ve done your best.”

Though Jack was overjoyed that York had made it, Peter Howe had been a boyhood friend. It was like losing a brother, and the cost suddenly seemed far too high. Jack closed his eyes.

York put the receiver on hold and returned a few moments later.

“We’ve just had a message from Ben and Andy in the Kazbek. They’ve managed to float a radio buoy. They’re standing by.”

The roar of the approaching helicopters began to drown out the conversation.

“We’re going to have to terminate while the cavalry arrive,” Jack shouted. “Tell the captain to sail to the following co-ordinates and maintain position until further notice.” Jack read out a map reference corresponding to a point one kilometre north of the submerged pyramids. “I have some unfinished business to attend to. You’ll be hearing from us. Out.”

Jack was in an emotional turmoil, anguished at the fate of Howe yet elated that the others had survived their ordeal. He looked at Costas’ battered face and was amazed at his friend’s unruffled demeanour.

They were squatting on the steps outside the rock-cut doorway. They had left Katya seated just inside the audience chamber, a Heckler & Koch MP5 resting on her legs. Jack had tried to comfort her after the death of her father but she had been unable to talk about it or even make eye contact. He knew there was nothing he could do until the initial shock had worn off.

In addition to the three bodyguards lashed together on the central dais, there were twenty men from Vultura. The crew had surrendered after Jack and Costas boarded the disabled vessel and informed them of their leader’s demise. Despite his injuries Costas had insisted on coming along, claiming that he was in no worse condition than Jack had been on their journey through the volcano. Katya had asked to be allowed to guard the prisoners, a way of being alone with her thoughts.

“The good guys are finally winning,” Costas said.

“It’s not over yet.”

Costas followed Jack’s gaze beyond the island where Sea Venture’s Lynx was carrying out a grid search over the site of York and Howe’s stand. Four Zodiacs were combing the waves beneath.

The first of the Sikorsky S-70A Seahawks thundered overhead, the downdraught a refreshing blast of cool air. Above the stone circle beside the other peak the doors sprang open and disgorged heavily armed men who rappelled past the smoking wreckage of the Ka-28 Helix. As they made their way up the steps towards them, Jack and Costas looked at each other and mouthed their age-old refrain.

“Time to kit up.”

Just over an hour later the two men stood dripping inside the torpedo room of the submarine. Using fresh equipment airlifted from Sea Venture they had made their way back through the labyrinth, following the tapes that Costas had paid out on the way up. In the membrane chamber they had heaved shut the gold-plated doors and tapped a signal on Kazbek’s casing. Moments later the pump emptied the chamber and the hatch swung open to reveal the gaunt faces of Ben and Andy.

“We haven’t got long,” Ben warned. “The hydrogen peroxide CO₂ scrubbers are saturated and the reserve air tanks on the DSRV are nearly empty.”

They quickly doffed their equipment and followed the crewmen round the edge of the torpedo room and up the weapons loading chute. The door to the sonar room with its macabre sentinel was closed and they could hear a muffled banging inside.

“Two of Aslan’s men,” Andy remarked. “Left behind as guards after the rest fled in the submersible. They surrendered almost immediately. We thought they’d like to keep our KGB friend company.”

“The others weren’t so lucky,” Jack said grimly.

Ben and Andy’s haggard appearance matched their own, but Jack still marvelled at their stamina after so many hours holed up in the submarine.

Moments later they were inside the control room. Jack stood at the spot where he had taken the bullet that so nearly cost him his life. In the corner a blanket covered the body of the dead Kazakh gunman. The evidence of their firefight had become part of the scenery, another layer to the devastation caused years earlier during the crew’s desperate last stand.

“Where’s the ballast control?” said Jack.

“Over here,” Andy replied. “It’s pretty smashed up, but luckily we don’t have to do anything sophisticated. We think there’s enough pressure left in the air tanks to carry out an emergency blow. All you have to do is yank these handles and the valves open manually.” He pointed at two mushroom-shaped protrusions on top of the panel, both designed to be pulled down by an operator standing in front of the console.

“Right,” Costas said. “Time to saddle up. You guys deserve some R & R.”

While he and the two crewmen went aft to disengage the DSRV, Jack went over the next stage in his plan, the final act that would extinguish Aslan’s evil empire once and for all.

When Costas returned from the escape trunk, Jack was seated behind the weapons panel in the fire control alley. It was one of the few areas to have escaped damage.

“What are you doing?” Costas enquired.

“I have a score to settle.” Jack glanced at him with cold eyes. “Call it loss adjustment.”

Costas looked intrigued if a little dumbfounded. “You’re the boss.”

“Leaving Aslan’s headquarters intact is asking for trouble. There’ll be plenty of good intentions but neither the Georgians nor the Turks will touch it for fear of escalating the civil war and provoking the Russians. And we’re not talking about just another warlord. The place is a tailor-made terrorist centre, a dream for the al Qaeda operatives who must already have had Aslan’s number and been waiting for just this kind of opportunity.” Jack paused, thinking of Peter Howe. “And this is personal. I owe it to an old friend.”

Jack activated the two LCD screens in front of him and ran a series of operational checks.

“Katya gave me a briefing before we left. Apparently even junior intelligence officers of her grade were trained to shoot these weapons. In a nuclear holocaust they might be the last survivor in a submarine or bunker. All systems were self-contained and designed to be operable in extreme conditions. Katya reckoned the back-up computer would still be functional even after all this time.”

“You’re not going to fire a cruise missile,” Costas breathed.

“Damn right I am.”

“What about the works of art?”

“Mostly in the domestic complex. It’s a risk I have to take.” Jack quickly surveyed the monitors. “I checked after we defused those warheads. Number four tube is occupied by a complete all-up Kh-55 Granat ready to fire. The canister is still sealed by the membrane pressure cap. Eight metres long, three thousand kilometre range, mach point seven zero cruising speed, one thousand kilogramme direct-impact fused HE charge. Basically a Soviet version of the Tomahawk land-attack missile.”

“Guidance system?”

“Similar terrain-contour-matching software and GPS to the Tomahawk. Fortunately the course is a direct over-sea route so no need to program in evasive tactics. I have the exact target co-ordinates so we won’t need the seeker head and search pattern system. I’ll be able to bypass most of the complex programming procedures.”

“But we’re too deep for a launch,” Costas protested.

“That’s where you come in. I want you to operate the emergency blow valves. As soon as we reach twenty metres you give the order to fire.”

Costas slowly shook his head, a crooked smile creasing his ravaged features. Without a word he took up position in front of the ballast control panel. Jack remained hunched over the console for a few moments and then looked up with grim determination.

“Developing fire-control solution now.”

Their movements gave no hint of the momentous force they were about to unleash. Jack was fully focused on the monitor in front of him, his fingers tapping a sequence of commands with brief pauses while he awaited each response. After inputting the necessary presets, a pattern of lines and dots appeared on the screen. In a typical operational scenario the solution would represent a best-fit search area, but with the destination coordinates known, the screen simply showed a linear projection of range and course with the target pinpointed.

“I’ve loaded a mission profile into the TERCOM computer and am warming up the missile,” Jack announced.