The Secret of Excalibur

Circle between Norway and Iceland. ‘So that’s us, huh? I take it we’re not freezing our asses off in the middle of nowhere without a good reason.’

‘Damn straight.’ Mitchell went to one of the consoles, waved the technician manning it aside, and entered commands into the computer. More symbols appeared on the map: groups of green circles and red triangles in the open ocean between Russia and the polar icepack. ‘The red symbols are Russian warships.’

‘Red Russians? Gee, that’s original.’

‘I didn’t pick the colours. But the green symbols are the two carrier strike groups we’ve deployed in the Arctic Ocean, the Enterprise and the George Washington. I know you haven’t exactly seen much CNN for the last week, but I’m sure you remember that the Russians are being kinda belligerent about their territorial claims at the pole. There’s a lot of oil and gas up there, and they want it. They want it all.’

‘And you don’t want them to have it,’ said Nina, realising. ‘You’re going to sink their ships, aren’t you? You’re going to use this thing to blow them out of the water without anybody ever knowing who did it.’

‘Not exactly.’ Mitchell’s smug look disappeared, replaced by one of grim determination. ‘I’m going to use it to sink one of our ships.’

‘What?’ Nina gaped at him. ‘You want to blow up an American ship? Why?’

‘If one of our carriers gets attacked, it’ll automatically be assumed that it was by the Russians, and the other ships in the strike group will retaliate. We’ll take out the bulk of the Russian polar fleet, including their carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov - their only carrier.’

‘But - but the Russians have nukes!’ Nina cried, horrified. ‘If you do this, it’ll escalate into World War Three!’

‘No. It won’t. The Russians don’t want Moscow to be nuked any more than we want to see New York go up. So after the initial skirmish, the hotlines’ll get real hot for a while, then things’ll gradually cool off. But the job’ll be done - the Russians will be out of the game. After that, there’ll only be one power in the Arctic. Us. We’ll control the resources up there, not them.’

‘But what if you’re wrong? What if the Russians don’t back down?’

‘Then,’ Mitchell said in a chillingly matter-of-fact tone, ‘we’ll have to deal with them. But it won’t come to that. The loss of the Enterprise’ll make it obvious to the world that we were the victims.’

Nina was appalled. ‘You were an American naval officer! How can you even think about attacking one of our own ships?’

‘The Enterprise is fifty years old, and about to be decommissioned and scrapped anyway. This way, at least she serves a purpose for the good of the country.’

‘And what about the crew?’ Nina demanded. ‘There must be thousands of people on an aircraft carrier!’

‘Over four thousand.’

‘And are their deaths for the “good of the country” as well?’

‘I’m not taking this lightly,’ Mitchell insisted. He indicated the other people in the control room. ‘None of us are. But when those sailors signed up they took an oath to serve and protect the United States of America, and by securing those resources from the Russians that’s exactly what they’ll be doing. It’s all about power - the power to protect our future.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure their families’ll see it that way,’ Nina said angrily. ‘You really think the American people would approve of what you’re doing?’

‘Yes!’ said Mitchell. ‘Yes, I do. They want security and stability and cheap gas and American Idol, and they don’t want to get their own hands dirty to have it. I’m the one who gets my hands dirty, I have to live with it. But I will live with it. Just like all the others who’ve been doing the same thing for sixty years. Because we know we’re right.’

‘My God,’ Nina said despairingly. ‘You’re worse than Vaskovich. You honestly think you’re some kind of patriot, don’t you? You know what you actually are? Completely fucking batshit insane!’

Mitchell regarded her silently for a long moment, then went to a locker and took out one of the futuristic- looking assault rifles she had seen him use in Russia. Before Nina realised what he was doing, he shot her in the thigh.

She dropped to the floor, screaming and clutching the wound. The 3.6 millimetre bullet had gone cleanly through her right leg, Mitchell deliberately aiming to miss the bone and any major arteries - but it was still agonising. ‘Jesus Christ!’ she shrieked. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘It’s just a scratch, a flesh wound,’ he replied with cold sarcasm. ‘I only need you alive. I don’t need you unhurt - and to be honest, I’ve had enough of the sound of your voice.’ He put down the rifle and turned to the startled occupants of the control room. ‘Stick a Band-Aid on that wound, then get her into position. It’s time.’

‘How much further?’ Chase asked over the incessant buzz of the propellers, surveying the darkness below.

Amoros checked the plane’s instruments. ‘It can’t be much further, if it’s where my contact said it was.’ He gave Chase a look of concern. ‘Eddie, we’re getting close to the fuel limit. If we don’t find this ship in the next ten minutes, I’m going to have to head for land.’

Chase wanted to order him to stay out for as long as it took them to locate Nina, but knew it was pointless. The Piper Seminole that Amoros had managed to wangle from another UN agency had already burned through more than half its fuel; even landing in nearer Norway rather than returning to Scotland would be cutting it fine.

But he was sure Nina was out here. Amoros had made use of his Pentagon connections to probe more deeply into the recent actions of Jack Mitchell, and though it had taken several frustrating hours the name of a ship had eventually been provided: Aurora. Chase suspected that whoever gave Amoros the name had put their entire career on the line by doing so, but the former admiral had a lot of good friends in the military - and a lot of favours he could call in.

The Aurora itself, when they looked up its details, seemed unremarkable: a container vessel of slightly under nine hundred feet in length, registered to a Panamanian shipping company - almost certainly a front. Why Mitchell would have taken Nina aboard, Chase wasn’t sure, but Amoros’s sources suggested that he had.

So Chase was going aboard too.

If they could find the Aurora in time.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to do,’ Amoros said, glancing across as Chase gave the pair of pistols he was carrying a final check, then attached a sheathed combat knife and two hand grenades to the webbing round his chest. ‘There’ll be an entire crew aboard, not just Mitchell.’

‘They won’t have any problems if they stay out of my way,’ Chase told him. ‘I’m just there to get Nina.’

‘And then what? Put a gun to the captain’s head and tell him to turn for port?’

‘If I have to. I’ll figure it all out when it happens.’

Amoros was about to offer his opinion of Chase’s tactics, or lack thereof, when he spotted something in the distance. ‘I see a ship. Eleven o’clock.’

‘Got it.’ Chase scanned the cold sea through a pair of powerful binoculars, quickly picking out a cluster of lights in the ink-black void. ‘Container ship, could be the Aurora.’ The barely discernible flag at the stern looked Panamanian, but it was hard to be sure. ‘Get in closer.’

Nina’s leg was being bandaged, but she was offered no painkillers. Her body fought her mind, wanting to shut down to find relief from the burning in her thigh, but she refused to cave in to it, doggedly resisting unconsciousness.

‘Is she ready?’ Mitchell asked impatiently.

‘Almost,’ replied the man securing the last of the bandages.

‘Bring the reactors up to stage one power. We’ve wasted enough time.’

‘Reactors?’ Nina asked. ‘This thing’s nuclear?’