The Secret of Excalibur

‘Either that or a Portaloo. Come on!’

Nina gingerly descended. The water was coming faster now, rushing down the steeply sloping floor to churn against the bulkhead below. More spray found its way into the electrics - something further down the passage exploded, sending a cloud of smoke swirling up past Chase. Flames crackled briefly before the rising water extinguished them.

Chase brought up a hand to help Nina, directing her towards the open hatch. ‘Come on, quick—’

The entire submarine shook, titanium and steel groaning as if in pain. A wave burst over the top of the corridor, hundreds of gallons of freezing water cascading down on them. Hanging halfway across the passage, Nina was hit by the deluge and slipped, sliding down the sloping deck.

Chase’s hand flashed out, snagging the baggy sleeve of her overalls. A seam tore, but he clenched his fist tighter round the bunched material as Nina swung below him. Water drenching her, she managed to clamp her hand round the edge of the hatch and shakily pull herself back up. ‘Thanks,’ she gasped.

He gave her a relieved smile. ‘Didn’t want you to miss the wedding.’

‘Uh-huh. And when’s that going to be, exactly?’

‘Oh, don’t fucking start,’ Chase moaned, pushing her through the hatch. He followed as more water gushed down the corridor, the dying submarine moaning around them.

Nina had already found a control panel by the hatch, helpfully annotated with diagrams beside illuminated push buttons. She hit each in turn.

The inner hatch rumbled shut, closing with a clang. Nothing seemed to happen for a nerve-racking moment - then the escape pod trembled as its compartment flooded. The hatches on the Typhoon’s outer hull retracted, and with a thunderous bang of compressed air the pod was blown free of the stricken sub.

Nina was thrown against Chase as the pod abruptly righted itself. A digital depth gauge rapidly counted down to zero, and before they had a chance to recover a whoosh of spray over the hull and a bobbing motion announced that they had reached the surface.

Deeper booms and thumps came from below as the Typhoon finally hit the seabed. Nina looked worriedly at Chase, pushing her sodden hair off her face. ‘What about the sub? What if the reactors explode?’

‘They won’t,’ Chase assured her. ‘That’s not how they work. And sub reactor casings are tough, they should be able to recover them without too much crap leaking out.’ He stroked her cheek, then took in the pod’s interior. As well as the hatch through which they had entered, there was another in the ceiling with small portholes set beneath it. ‘I think this is the bit where M and Q are supposed to catch us having a shag.’

Nina huffed. ‘Y’know, freezing seawater doesn’t really put me in the mood.’

‘Does wonders for your nipples, though.’

‘Hey!’

Chase chuckled tiredly, then levered Nina off him and stood, pointing at a protective plastic cover over another panel at one end of the pod. ‘See if there’s a radio under that.’

Nina lifted the cover as he looked through the portholes. There was indeed a radio beneath it - and more besides. ‘I think this thing’s got an engine,’ she told him. ‘There’s a wheel and a compass.’

‘See if you can start it.’ Chase peered out towards the shore. The glaring lights of the sub pen stood out clearly against the dark cliffs - as did the burning hilltop where Vaskovich’s facility had stood, a thick pillar of smoke and dust lit from below by the flames. ‘Jesus. Jack really fucking wrecked the place.’ He wondered what had happened to the DARPA agent; Mitchell hadn’t run for the Typhoon’s bow out of panic. He’d had a plan. Chase turned, looking out to sea.

Something in the distance stood out against the horizon, a barely discernible line of white in the dark water. Waves washing against a floating object.

The clatter of an electric starter was followed by the low chug of an engine. ‘Pretty neat, huh?’ Nina said.

‘Yeah. Are there any binoculars down there?’

She searched the compartment beneath the controls, finding a medical kit as well as what Chase had asked for. ‘Let me fix those cuts,’ she said, handing him the binoculars.

‘In a minute.’ Chase scanned the horizon. ‘Well, fuck me.’

‘What is it?’

‘Jack’s got a ride home.’ Through the binoculars, he could now see the cause of the line of waves - another submarine. A faint red light lit up an open hatch from below, figures moving around it to pull an inflatable life raft out of the water. Though Chase couldn’t make out the face of the figure climbing from it, the sword he was holding was a dead giveaway.

Once Mitchell was aboard, the other men dropped the raft back into the water and climbed through the hatch. A wash of reflected light briefly passed over the sail as it closed, letting Chase pick out the number 23 painted on the black metal before it vanished in the darkness. The sub began to move; he tracked it until it disappeared under the surface, which it did with surprising speed.

‘The bastard had a sub waiting for him,’ he told Nina. ‘Soon as it’s clear of Russian waters, he’ll probably get picked up by a chopper and taken to . . . well, wherever the fuck he’s going with Excalibur.’

‘God.’ Nina sat, rubbing her hands over her arms to warm them. ‘The whole thing was a set-up, right from the start. And Jack was, what, a quadruple agent? The hell? Shit,’ she added as a thought struck her, ‘I bet he was the one who got Vaskovich to kill Bernd - that way he could be sure I’d help him find the sword.’

‘It’s not over,’ said Chase, eyes narrowing. ‘He was going to take you with him as well. He’ll want to get you back; he needs you to make his own system work. And his is a weapon.’

‘Jesus. So what do we do?’

Chase looked through the portholes again. ‘First thing we do is get back to shore.’

‘It’ll take a while,’ said Nina, examining the controls. ‘This thing’s not exactly a powerboat. The speedo only goes up to five!’

‘Well, it’ll give you time to patch me up.’ Chase sat heavily on one of the bench seats.

Nina turned the pod towards the sub pen, then took the medical kit and sat beside him. ‘You know, you were right about Jack. He was after my body. Just in a really weird way.’

‘Yeah. I can’t believe I got jealous of that arsehole. Sorry about that, by the way. Ow.’

Nina finished dabbing one of his cuts with antiseptic. ‘Apology accepted. Just don’t do it again, huh?’

‘Oh, I won’t. Next time some bloke tries to chat you up, I’m just going to lamp the bastard.’

Nina laughed, a little uncertainly. ‘Wait, no, really?’

‘Nah, I’m just—’

‘Taking the piss, gotcha. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about other men.’ She gently kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For everything. I just realised what you were trying to tell me in London, at the embassy. About not wanting to lose me.’ She kissed him again. ‘Thank you.’

‘What made you realise?’

Nina smiled. ‘Oh, y’know, just that you’d sink a nuclear submarine to save me. Most women don’t have a fiance who’d do that. So I’m pretty sure I’ve found the right one.’ She applied a plaster to his face.

Chase lifted an eyebrow. ‘Only pretty sure?’

‘Well, there is still that whole won’t-talk-about-his-past deal . . .’

‘You know I can’t. Official Secrets Act and all that.’

‘I don’t mean the SAS stuff,’ she said with a pointed look.

‘Right.’ Chase sat in contemplative silence as Nina continued to patch up his injuries, waiting for him to find the right words. ‘The thing . . .’ he began, and hesitated.

‘It can wait,’ she assured him. ‘We’re not exactly in the ideal surroundings here.’

‘No, I need to get this out. The reason I never talked to you about my family is . . . because it hurts. There, I said it.’ He let out a breath. ‘It’s nearly twenty years ago, and it still fucking hurts. My mum was dying of cancer right in front of me, and my dad . . .’ Chase’s fists clenched. ‘My dad had a fucking affair! He was with some other woman while my mum was dying. So after she did, I just left. I didn’t want anything to do with him.’