was sitting on the edge of the main table in the center of the cabin.
'Bloody hell,' he said coolly. 'That was a bit dramatic.' There was a mug in his hand. 'Hot toddy,' he said, holding it up appreciatively. 'You should try some. We left some for you in a Thermos. It's in the galley.'
Trench nodded to his left, where Bobby Faulkner was stretched out on a settee. 'Fast asleep. Poor chap was absolutely shattered.'
'Think I'll crash too,' said Carver. 'Anyway… your turn. Good luck. It's bloody cold and wet up there.'
Trench grimaced and went, 'Brrrr…,' just like any man about to go out into foul weather. He made his way past Carver and put his mug in the galley sink. He showed no outward signs of tension or even alertness, yet he never completely turned his back as he scuttled up the ladder and out into the cockpit, pulling the hatch closed behind him as he went.
Carver let him go. Trench might just have been inviting an attack. And there was no guarantee Faulkner was really asleep. He didn't want to find himself fighting both men at once.
He picked up the Thermos and poured himself a mug of toddy, savoring the steamy fumes of brandy, honey, lemon, and tea. But just as he was about to take the first sip, he was distracted by a clack of hard plastic from the cabin floor. There were two mugs down there, knocking into each other. Faulkner must have had a drink too.
And now he was lying unconscious, passed out on the settee. Carver went over and shook him hard, but there was no response.
Well, that settled one thing. It would be a straight fight, Trench against Carver, master against pupil. And by the time Bobby Faulkner awoke from his drugged stupor, only one of them would be alive to greet him.
62
The Scandwave Adventurer was longer than three football fields laid end to end. It weighed around one hundred thousand tons and it could carry over six thousand standard shipping containers at a speed of more than twenty- five knots. That made it around fourteen thousand times heavier than Faulkner's yacht and a little over three times as fast. The combination of size, weight, and speed also made it about as maneuverable as a runaway steam roller.
Knowing all this, its designers had given their vessel every possible assistance. It had state-of-the-art radar, satellite tracking, and telecom equipment. The skipper knew the precise position of his ship on the surface of the globe. He could track every other ship for miles around. In shallow waters he could map the precise contours of the ocean floor beneath him, making it virtually impossible to run aground. As the men who managed the Scandwave Shipping Corporation regularly told themselves, no one needed experienced crew these days. The technology sailed the damn boat all by itself.
So when the wind changed that night and the cold, biting rain came in from the north, the watchman posted on the exposed, narrow deck, high up in the icy air beside the bridge, did not stand up proud and tall, exposing himself to the bitter blast, because that was his duty and he was proud to do it. No, he sat right down, with his back against the deck's low steel wall, cupped his hands to make a tiny shelter from the wind, and lit a cigarette. He was damned if he was going to get cold and wet on the pittance they were paying him, when the rain was so heavy he could barely see the bow of his own ship, let alone anything farther out to sea. And besides, there was a guy who sat by the radar screen. Let him watch out for passing traffic.
And so it was that the Scandwave Adventurer, bound from Rotterdam to Baltimore, sailed west down the English Channel, with its load of six thousand containers, while the Tamarisk, bound from Cherbourg to Poole, sailed due north, across the English Channel, with its load of three tired men. And neither had the faintest idea of the other's existence.
63
Part of Carver wanted to confront Trench and ask him what had really happened, why he'd acted the way he had. But even if the old bastard told the truth, he wouldn't say anything Carver couldn't work out for himself. Whoever had been hiring Carver for the past few years must have already put Trench on the payroll while he was still commanding the Service. It made sense. He was the perfect recruiting officer and Carver had been the perfect candidate for an assassin's job: capable, well-trained, and sufficiently angry and disillusioned to get his hands dirty for the right price.
There was no point feeling sorry for himself. He'd been bought and paid for. Once he'd outlived his usefulness, Trench had planned to dispose of him, just like any other redundant piece of gear. It wouldn't be the first time Trench had sent men on suicide missions. Any commanding officer had to be willing to sacrifice lives for the greater good. Carver could moan all he liked about betrayal, he could play the wounded child wondering why Daddy was being so beastly, but Trench hadn't asked to be his surrogate father even if he'd been happy to exploit the feelings Carver projected onto him.
In any case, Carver concluded, he'd spent his entire working life being paid to kill people. He wasn't in any position to complain if someone wanted to kill him.
But he didn't have to let them get away with it.
There was a deep pocket in Carver's waterproof jacket. It was sealed by a vertical zipper, and it ran right down the left side of his chest. In it were two plastic tubes a little less than a foot long. They were colored red at their base, then lightened via an orange band to a yellow top, decorated with a silhouette of an archer standing on top of a logo that read 'Ikaros.' At the bottom of the tube there was a red plastic tag.
Carver took one out and moved to the side of the ladder. He reached up and pulled the hatch open with one hand, letting in a blast of spray-soaked air and the crashing, pounding noise of the storm. Then he lifted up his other hand, holding the tube horizontally, level with the deck outside. He pulled the tag. There was a sudden propulsive 'Whoosh!' like a firework being launched, then a man's shout of alarm, the scrabble of ricochets on the side of the cockpit as the tube shot to and fro, and finally, less than a second later, the explosion of a distress flare.
As thick red smoke roiled through the open hatch, Carver hurled himself up the ladder, through the opening, and into the hellish scarlet fog. Ahead of him he could just make out the outline of a man. He saw his arm being raised, then came the flame of muzzle flashes and the crackle of small-arms fire as Trench fired into the smoke, toward the hatch. Three rounds slammed into the wooden door frame, somehow missing Carver on their way, and then Carver crashed into Trench's midriff, pushing him backward onto the bench at the back of the cockpit.
Carver drove his right fist as hard as he could into Trench's groin. His left hand reached out for Trench's right, driving it against the side of the cockpit in a desperate attempt to knock the pistol from his grasp. The two men were fighting the smoke as much as each other, almost as if they were underwater, unable to breathe, desperate for oxygen, lost in a primal struggle for survival.
At last, Carver felt Trench's grip slacken on his gun. Ignoring Trench's desperate attempts to hit him with his free hand, and the swiping of the older man's legs, he forced his right hand between Trench's fingers to grab the handle of his gun. He caught hold of one of the loosened fingers and bent it back, making Trench cry out in agony as the lowest joint was dislocated.
The gun fell to the deck and skittered away across the bucking, rain-slick surface.
Carver scrambled to his feet, his chest heaving and eyes streaming with tears. Trench was sitting in front of him, holding his wounded hand, coughing and gasping for breath. The older man tried to get up, but Carver hit him twice, left and right to the face, putting the full power of his shoulders behind each punch. Then he grabbed a handful of Trench's gray hair and smashed his head against the wooden rim that ran around the top edge of the cockpit's perimeter, three savage blows that left Trench semiconscious and bleeding.
Carver grabbed the front of Trench's jacket and hauled him into an upright position on the bench.
'Sit on your hands,' he commanded.
Wincing with pain, Trench forced his hands under his thighs.
The flare was still spewing out smoke, though the relentless gale was now blowing it away in a billowing red plume. For a second, the air around Carver cleared and he was able to drag some pure, clean sea air into his
