He thought it over.
Brainwave. AFC. Air Freight Container.
Specialist hydrocarbon pump equipment had been shipped to the refinery in aluminium crates. Two or three crates shunted to the back of each plant room. Lufthansa. Emirates. Gulf Air. Each crate could be broken down into sheets. Lightweight. Easy to cut. Easy to shape. Easy to weld.
Nail got to work. He wheeled an oxyacetylene tank through derelict plant halls. Smoked visor. Heavy gloves. Vaulted chambers lit incandescent by crackling flame-light. He piled silver panels on the storeroom floor.
He stripped to his waist despite the cold and pounded scaffold poles until a skeletal ship frame began to take shape.
Sometimes Nikki watched him work. His skin steamed with sweat. She was revolted. She needed Nail. It was a tactical alliance. He was a strong, amoral survivor. But she gagged at the smell of him as she shivered through their brief, brutal fucks on the storeroom floor. Trading sex for a ticket home.
Nikki studied the plans.
‘The sail. What’s it made from?’
‘Guess.’
‘B Fx3. What does that mean?’
‘Puzzled me for days.’
‘Figured it out?’
‘Balloon Fabric times Three. Mylar. Thin. Light. Rip-proof.’
‘So how do we get this thing outside?’
Nail took a lamp from the table and held it up.
‘See? A winch in the ceiling and a hatch in the floor. They used it for hauling shipping containers aboard. The floor opens like a bomb bay. Hydraulics. Big enough to lower our boat. The winch can take about ninety tonnes.’
‘But there is no electricity.’
‘That’s right. We need the power back on. Two, three minutes. That’s all it would take. Get the hatch open and we’re out of here.’
They carried Ghost on a stretcher.
‘We need to get him somewhere clean,’ said Rye. ‘Some place that hasn’t been used much.’ They took him to the chapel.
‘Get some light,’ ordered Rye.
Jane positioned a couple of battery lamps.
‘Help me get his shirt off.’
‘He’ll freeze.’
‘Fine. It’ll reduce bleeding.’
‘Want me to get the altar? Lie him down?’
‘No. I need him sitting with his back towards me.’
They dragged Ghost to the front of the chapel and positioned him straddling a chair.
‘So what’s the deal?’
‘I reckon there is liquid building up beneath his lungs.’
‘Infection?’
‘Maybe. Antibiotics tend not to penetrate the pleural cavity. It’s kind of a blind spot.’
‘What’s the plan?’
‘Pleural tap. Siphon off the liquid with a big-ass hypodermic. Place is about as sterile as a toilet seat, but it’s the best we can do.’
Rye emptied her pockets on to the altar: 20cc hypodermics; gloves; iodine; dressing.
Rye prepped a needle.
‘Ghost? Can you hear me?’
Ghost struggled to focus.
‘The cable,’ he whispered. ‘Listen. In case I don’t make it. You need fourteen-centimetre, single-core. Easy to splice. Bolt sockets every thirty, forty metres. Should say Con-Ex on the insulation. Look beneath C deck corridors. One length. That’s all it takes.’
Rye measured ribs with her fingers. Second intercostal space. Iodine swab.
‘Hold his shoulders.’
Ghost lolled semi-conscious until the tip of a big-bore needle pricked his side and punctured his skin. He convulsed. Jane gripped his shoulders.
‘Look at me. Look at me, Ghost. We have to do this. We have to get this done.’
Ghost clutched the back of the chair. Rye drew off three syringe-loads of fluid. She patched the wound. She pressed a stethoscope to his chest.
‘Better?’
Ghost gave a thumbs up and passed out.
‘Let’s get him out of here,’ said Rye. ‘Get him back in front of that fire.’
C deck. Jane lifted floor grates. Fire had spread through the conduits carried by melting insulation. The cables were burned.
Jane glimpsed Nail at the end of a corridor. He was carrying a sheet of aluminium. She quickly shut off her flashlight. She followed him to the pump hall.
Ghost lay with his back to the yellow hull of the submarine. He took occasional Heliox hits from a SCUBA tank.
‘You look better,’ said Jane.
‘A little less dead.’
‘Doing okay?’
‘Dr Feelgood and her magic pills.’
‘Jesus, you are tripping your brains out.’
‘Ask for the pink ones. Seriously.’
‘Nail is building something next to the pump hall. Know anything about that?’
‘A boat. You saw it. I was going to carry you off into the sunset. Sketched a few plans. I suppose Nail and Nikki found them and decided to finish the job.’
‘I’m not sure I can be bothered to intervene.’
‘Let them go. Nobody will miss them.’ ‘You’re staying?’
‘I’m not in much shape to embark on a long voyage,’ said Ghost. ‘Besides, I can’t ditch these lads.’
‘No?’
‘You and me. We’ll get them home.’
‘Want to shake on it?’
Ghost held out his hand.
‘Last men off?’
‘Last men off.’
Jane visited Punch and Sian in the observation bubble. They had invited her for dinner. Mushroom risotto. They ate from mess tins.
‘So you cook for yourself now.’
‘The men have stoves,’ said Punch. ‘They’ve got pasta and sauce. They’ve got dried figs. They aren’t helpless.’
‘Cosy little den.’
‘All this doom and gloom. You don’t resent a few snatched moments of comfort, do you?’
‘The guys are jealous. You can’t blame them.’
Sian looked over Jane’s shoulder out to sea.
‘See that?’ she said, pointing at the horizon.
‘What?’
‘Look west. The stars are going out.’
‘Christ.’ Jane threw her mess tin aside and stood up. ‘That’s a serious cloud bank.’
