The Secret of Excalibur

‘From decommissioned Los Angeles-class subs. The generator needs a lot of power at start-up, just like Vaskovich’s.’ Mitchell turned to one of the technicians. ‘Once we’re steady at stage one, deploy the antenna array. Then charge up the magnets—’

‘Sir!’ called another man from across the room. ‘Radar contact changing course, coming straight for us.’

‘On screen,’ Mitchell snapped, facing the large display on the wall. The map zoomed in on a smaller area around the Aurora’s position. A yellow square was slowly moving towards it from the south. ‘What is it?’

‘Propeller aircraft, course track suggests it came from Scotland.’

‘Identify it!’

‘Got the transponder code, checking the tail number . . . It’s a United Nations plane, sir. Attached to the Oceanic Survey—’

‘Son of a bitch,’ Mitchell hissed under his breath. ‘It’s Chase, it has to be.’ Nina’s heart jumped at the name. ‘Someone at the Pentagon’s been talking to Amoros. God damn it!’

Even through her discomfort, Nina managed a smile. ‘Oh, you’re in trouble now.’

Mitchell glared at her. ‘Get her into position,’ he ordered. ‘And take down that plane!’

Chase finished fastening his parachute straps and used the binoculars to take another look at the ship. It was now close enough to show that the flag was indeed that of Panama, and after a moment the name painted on the bow finally came into focus.

Aurora.

‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘Okay, fly over it, I want a closer look.’ He glanced at the altimeter and saw that the Seminole was at slightly over seven thousand feet. When he was ready to jump, he would get Amoros to descend by a couple of thousand; he had no way to judge the wind, and wanted to minimise the chances of being blown away from the freighter.

He looked back through the binoculars. The Aurora took on greater clarity as they approached. There was a helicopter on a pad behind the superstructure, which was unusual - most ships of the type would use the space for additional cargo - but the rest of the vessel seemed normal, high stacks of multicoloured containers filling its huge main deck.

Movement caught his eye: someone emerging from the superstructure and crossing to the edge of the open wing bridge . . .

He wasn’t going for a smoke.

‘Shit!’ Chase gasped. ‘Incoming!’ Amoros stared at him in disbelief. ‘They’ve got a Stinger!’ The man was hefting the tubular anti-aircraft missile launcher over his shoulder, lining up the heat-seeking head on their plane . . .

‘Jump!’ Amoros shouted. ‘Eddie, go!’

‘But—’

‘Go!’

With a last look at Amoros, Chase pushed open the door and flung himself out. The freezing wind was like a blow to the chest; he tumbled through the air before throwing his arms and legs wide to stabilise himself. The ship rolled into view, a splash of floodlit colour amongst the darkness.

Orange light flared from the wing bridge. A Stinger missile leapt from the launcher, a spot of fire at the head of a column of smoke.

The Seminole had already banked away, Amoros turning hard in an attempt to break the Stinger’s lock. Chase knew his chances weren’t good. The Stinger could take down fighter jets - a civilian twin-prop would be an easy target.

The missile spiralled upwards as Chase fell, its sonic boom pounding him as it passed. He turned his head to track it—

The Stinger hit the Seminole’s port engine and exploded, the wing blowing apart in a swelling fireball of burning fuel. The cabin windows flared white as an inferno swept through the fuselage, then the remains of the aircraft rolled in flames towards the hungry sea below.

Chase had no time to think about Amoros. He was dropping fast, and the Aurora was still some distance ahead. He had no choice but to deploy his parachute - but if he was seen he would be an easy target, and he might still fall short of the ship . . .

He pulled the ripcord. Nylon hissed out of the pack, blossoming above him into a dark rectangle. The harness snapped tight round his chest and shoulders.

Had it slowed him enough? Or was he already too low?

He guessed he was at about four thousand feet, but in the darkness it was difficult to be sure. He pulled the control cords, trying to give himself as much forward momentum as possible.

All he could do now was hope.

‘Got it!’ the technician said. ‘Target is going down. It’s on fire.’

‘Monitor for distress calls,’ Mitchell ordered. ‘If there are any, jam them.’

Nina’s brief elation turned to horror, part of her mind now wanting to follow the desire of her body and simply switch off to escape a new pain: loss. But again she refused to surrender.

If Chase was gone . . . then she had to stop Mitchell.

Somehow.

‘It just hit the water,’ said the technician a few seconds later. ‘No radio messages.’

‘Keep monitoring just in case. And deploy the antenna array.’ Mitchell pulled Nina roughly to her feet. She gasped in pain. ‘You wanted Excalibur?’ he said. ‘It’s yours - for the rest of your life.’

Chase willed the parachute to stay aloft. He was almost in range of the slowly moving Aurora, just a few hundred feet away, but was still losing height too rapidly. He strained to hold his position, trying to eke out every last foot as he aimed for the containers . . .

They moved.

For a moment he was stunned, unable to take in what was happening. The container roofs were opening, each swinging up and round in a mechanical ballet like some monstrous transformer toy. More mechanisms came to life within, gleaming metal spears rising up and extending as their upper sections sprouted into giant alien sunflowers.

The entire top layer of containers was nothing more than a disguise for an antenna array, smaller than the one surrounding Vaskovich’s facility but more dense, more complex, hundreds of glittering collectors ready to draw in the earth’s own energy . . . then unleash it.

And Chase was falling right into them.

He pulled the cords, trying to swing away from the antenna field towards the stern. It meant travelling further and running the risk of falling below the level of the deck, but it was better than being impaled as he landed. ‘Come on, come on, shiiiiit—’ Too low, moving too slowly . . .

He thrust his feet out as he swept into one of the still-deploying antennas with a rattling clash of metal. The parachute swooshed over him, already collapsing as he was brought to a near-stop - the antenna was stronger than it looked, bending but not breaking.

He fell, grabbing for one of the extended ‘petals’ to stop himself dropping into the pitch darkness inside the container. It twisted under his weight, creaking and screeching at its hinge, but didn’t give way. Half tangled in the parachute cords, Chase crashed against the antenna’s column. He flung his arms round it, sliding down as if on a fireman’s pole before hitting the metal floor.

The parachute was caught in the antennas, flapping in the wind. He pulled the release and shrugged off the harness, then drew one of his guns with one hand, a small torch with the other.

What looked on the outside like a collection of individual containers was revealed as nothing more than a framework supporting a facade. The whole array was now fully raised, extending high above the open roofs. Chase directed the torch at the floor, which turned out to be a solid deck. That meant the containers below were fake too, a shell with something hidden inside. The antenna array gave him a pretty good idea what. The whole ship was a floating version of Vaskovich’s earth energy facility.