Sean paused, nodding to Isobel and Jamie. “Release them first,” he said.
“You’re in no position to dictate terms to me.”
“Neither are you,” Sean said.
Eamonn’s face was murderous, then he smiled again. “Why not?” he said. He produced a set of keys from his jacket pocket, held them up for a moment, then deliberately let them fall. The keys hit the grating at his feet and slithered through into the dark void below.
“There you go, now,” he said. “It won’t take you more than – what? Two minutes to reach those? And I can’t take them back either. Fair’s fair. Now give me those stones.” He stepped closer to Jamie again. “I can still kill the boy, if that’s what you’re after?”
Sean sighed and started to move towards the nearest stairwell. As he passed me his eyes slid sideways, little more than a flicker. I followed his gaze and saw a set of tools on the wall behind us, each clipped into its own place. Right in the middle was a large pair of bolt-cutters. I blinked at him, just once, to show I’d got the message.
“I don’t think so,” Eamonn’s voice called out. We both froze, as though Eamonn had caught the gesture and divined its meaning.
Eamonn was shaking his head. “Not you,” he said, eyes narrowed on Sean. “You must be joking if you think I’d want to be getting close to you again for a while. And she’s just as bad. Give the stones to the wee faggot. He can bring them.”
Daz flushed at the insult but said nothing as Sean handed over the bag of diamonds to him. He made his way down the steep open-tread steps and approached Eamonn warily, fiddling with the pouch in his hands.
Eamonn held out his hand for the stones, his expression as arrogant as a man with his nose plastered all over his face can manage.
“Charlie! Sean! Can you hear me?” William’s voice sounded tinnily from my collar. “Erm, I think we might have a problem up here.”
“What is it?” I muttered, lifting the mic nearer my mouth as casually as I could manage.
“A big nasty-looking guy’s just come through the Off Limits gate and broken the lock off the fire control room,” William said.
“The what—?” I began, just as Daz reached out to give the diamonds to Eamonn.
At the last moment Daz flipped the untied bag upside down and the stones showered down onto the metal grating like hail, disappearing into the same dark space that had swallowed up the handcuff keys.
“You want the diamonds,” Daz cried wildly. “Here, take them. It won’t take you more than a couple of hours to get to them!”
“You stupid bastard,” Eamonn roared, bringing the baton slashing down towards Daz’s head.
Even as Daz blocked the blow with his forearm, Sean had jumped for the stairs, sliding down the handrails rather than bothering with the narrow treads.
Before he could reach the bottom Eamonn had lifted a small walkie-talkie to his mouth and shouted, “Are you in position, Michael? Hit the bastards! Hit them now!”
There was a delay of perhaps three seconds, during which time I’d started to dive for the board that held the bolt-cutters. Sean had landed at the bottom of the stairs and taken a stride for Eamonn. Daz had fallen and was rolling out of the way, hugging his injured arm to his chest.
I’d almost begun to believe that whatever nasty surprise Eamonn had planned had backfired on him when the big cooling fan next to me suddenly lost impetus and started to spin down. A piercing alarm siren wailed into life, backed by a blinding flashing light.
The engine room lights all went out, leaving only the warning light strobing in the darkness. Then the emergency lighting clicked in.
“William,” I snapped into the radio, shouting over the siren. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Oh shit,” William said. “He’s hit the manual override on the fire control system. Get out of there, Charlie! You’ve got thirty seconds before the compartment seals.”
“What?” I yelled, wrenching the bolt-cutters off the wall and racing for the stairs. “What the hell happens after thirty seconds?”
“The whole of the compartment floods with CO?. It takes less than two minutes.”
The vibrations through the deck had changed, I realised, the engines were shutting down as well. As our forward momentum dropped, the stabilisers began to lose effectiveness. The ferry had already been pitching in the swell but now it began to roll more violently as well.
“Shut it off, William,” I managed. “Jamie and Isobel are stuck down here. Shut it off!”
“You can’t,” William said, anguish twisting his voice. “Once it’s been activated, that’s it. It’s supposed to be a last resort if there’s a fire. Anybody still in there when it goes off is as good as dead. Just get out!”
“Daz,” I shouted. “Get to the door. Wedge it open!”
“With what?” Daz demanded, lurching to his feet.
“Anything you can damn well find!”
Sean had cornered Eamonn by this time. Eamonn took one look at the deadly intent in Sean’s face and tried to bring the baton up, but the confined space was against him. He backed up and prepared to make a stand but Sean just swatted the baton aside and put one hard deliberate blow straight into the middle of Eamonn’s face,
