The Abigail Affair (31 page)

The taxi pulled up outside a wooden house. An attractive local woman stood on the front porch. She held a straw broom in her hand. A child of around five sat on a white plastic chair, playing on a pink Nintendo DS. A couple of hens clucked and scratched in the dirt.

“You seein’ this on TV?” said the driver to his wife. Then to Toby: “Come in, man. Have a glass of sorrel. We’ll just try and see what’s going down here.”

They all went inside to the tiny living room. The curtains were partially drawn and it was surprisingly cool. A huge, ancient CRT television stood on a dark wooden stand with ornate curly features. Toby saw that the news was on the TV too. The attractive wife handed him a plastic glass full of a substance that looked like cough linctus. He sipped it. It tasted like cough linctus. “Lovely,” he said.

“We’re here at Dickson Bay, speaking to Elias Goodfellow. Tell us what you saw, Elias.”

“Yeah, man, I saw it all,” said Elias, a tall, local man in his twenties wearing long, kaleidoscopic bathers. “Fust of all, a noise come from deep down, like a thump. Then summat like a black oil slick races towards the beach. Only it ain’t oil, it’s a kind of black water. It leaves no mark on the beach. Then a little ways out to sea, maybe half a mile, or three-quarters, rise up a great devil waterspout. An’ ah mean rise up. He not coming down from the heavens, like regular waterspout, and there ain’t no cloud anyways. This spout, he rise up from the deep like a mighty pillar of water, thousands of feet high. You can see it through this big ball of mist round it. Then the mist gone, the waterspout gone. We all just standin’ and lookin.’ It was dread, man. Then after a minute, we sees boats rocking out to sea, then we gets a big wave on the beach, like a tsunami, and some tourists get swamped, an’ the wave pulls all the sand off this end of the beach, leavin’ rock showing. Man, this is Satan’s work.”

“How long did this all take, Elias?”

“From start to finish, with the waterspout and the mist, mebbe ten seconds. The wave come a minute after.”

The camera panned from Elias to show the beach. Towels, beach loungers, inflatable toys and debris lay strewn everywhere. A number of coconut tree trunks appeared to have washed up. The end of the beach had indeed been stripped clean of its sand, revealing a skeletal mass of shining rock. Holidaymakers could be seen wandering around in a dazed manner. A small group of maybe six local boys were swimming in the sea, apparently unconcerned.

Toby, the driver, and his wife stood in awe. This was some event. The camera turned back to show the interviewer. As he opened his mouth to speak, it was clear that there was some disturbance. The camera jiggled. “Hey,” said the interviewer. An unseen man was now heard. “We have to evacuate the beach. Quickly, everyone.” The camera panned round to show the sea. Two policemen in full uniform ran down the beach towards the local children in the surf. They waded in, grabbed two of the boys and heaved them out. The others quickly followed.

“I ... we’re ... the police are moving us away from the beach. They must fear another eruption of this volcano. We’ll update you as soon as we have moved away. In the meantime, back to the studio.”

Toby knew what had happened.

This was no underwater volcano.

But he didn’t dare say what it was.

Chapter 31

“Can we get on?” he said. “The sorrel was delicious, ma’am, but I have to get to Nelson Harbour. That’s not near this incident, is it?”

“No, Nelson Harbour on the south coat, Dickson Bay on the north-west.”

They set off, Toby more worried than ever. The driver did his best, but a high speed was impossible due to the many obstacles to motor traffic that Antilla provided. These included wandering goats and cows, potholes, children playing cricket in the middle of the road and over-laden trucks weaving unsteadily.

At every street corner bar, groups of local people stood huddled round the TV sets installed on the counters. They were worried too. The driver stopped briefly by one bar with a particularly large TV, and they watched it out of the taxi windows for a moment.

The TV station appeared to have no footage of the incident.

At Nelson Harbour, Toby piled out, paid off the driver with some of his US dollars from Smithers and hurried towards the marina. This was a larger affair than St Helen’s. Antilla was a magnet for yachtsmen, Toby knew. Nelson Harbour provided a huge, safe anchorage. Nelson had once hidden his entire English fleet in here. The French marauders had sailed straight past the narrow entrance to the bay, completely unaware of their enemy ensconced within.

Toby looked around. One road led down to Nelson’s Marina, according to a large sign. The other led to hotels and the main beach, which was situated inside the bay. Toby looked up at the headlands, maybe a mile away. Everything looked peaceful from here. But he knew that there would be frantic discussions underway between the leaders of the Caribbean States and most probably the USA, UK, France and many other countries.

It hadn’t been an underwater volcano.

What Elias had witnessed from the beach at Dickson Bay was an underwater nuclear explosion.

What else could explain the “mighty pillar of water with a big ball of mist round it?”

This was exactly what the observers of Operation Crossroads had observed during the notorious American nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in 1946. Toby had taken a special interest in the post-war nuclear build-up, and Crossroads had formed part of his coursework.

What the Americans had done was to explode a nuclear bomb thirty metres or about a hundred feet underwater, in a bid to understand the impact of a nuclear strike on their naval fleet.

The shot, codenamed Baker, produced many unusual phenomena. There was no big bang. Instead, the detonation produced a “bubble” of hot gas, which generated an underwater shock wave travelling at 36,000 miles, or nearly 60,000 kilometres, per hour. On the surface, this wave produced a rapidly expanding circle of black water, resembling the “oil slick” that Elias had so accurately described from his vantage point.

When the gas bubble reached the surface of the sea, it pushed the displaced water into a huge geyser, which rose 1,800 metres, or over a mile, into the air. Brief low pressure behind the shock wave caused instant fog, which shrouded the developing column in a “Wilson cloud” of condensation, obscuring it from view for two seconds.

By the time the Wilson cloud vanished, the top of the column had become cauliflower-shaped, and all the spray in the column and its cauliflower was falling down, back into the sea. There was no mushroom cloud and no fallout rose into the atmosphere. However, the water surrounding the blast site was severely contaminated, and to the present day, fish caught in the area were radioactive and unsafe to eat.

All this, and more, Toby knew from his dissertation, which had been entitled
The Cold War and Nuclear Proliferation 1946-1963
. But he reckoned that very few other people on Antilla would have made the same connection. The event would have been all over in seconds. There would scarcely have been time to take a photo, unless someone luckily had a camera ready to shoot at the critical moment, or was taking movies and could just pan across out to sea.

But the police had reacted very quickly to remove the local children from the surf. Did they know the truth, or did they just fear another “tsunami?” If the authorities on Antilla knew or suspected what had really happened, they were not passing the information on to the populace, or at least not for the time being.

Luckily, the trade winds blew from the east and the ocean currents went the same way. There was not necessarily a great immediate danger to the population of Antilla. Of course, any small vessel, such as a fishing boat, near the explosion would have been sunk, and any vessel further away that remained afloat could be contaminated with sea-borne radiation. Toby feared for the fishermen who had seen the fish coming up dead and already boiled. He hoped nobody caught and ate those.

As he stood and looked out towards the peaceful ocean that shimmered before him in the late afternoon sun, Toby suddenly made another connection.

The explosion must have ruptured the submarine cables bringing telephone and Internet services into Antilla. That would explain the sudden and total loss of the international services. This would also greatly hamper the exchange of news and information between the Antillan authorities and the outside world.

The hollow feeling grew in Toby’s stomach as he realised it was unlikely to be a coincidence that the explosion had occurred on Antilla while the
Amelia
, with her possibly radioactive mystery cargo, was in port.

Had Krigov acquired, deployed and set off a nuclear device? If so, what for? The man was surely not that mad. What possible motive could there be? Or was it an accident?

Alarming as these all developments were, Toby’s immediate and pressing problem was Julia. Regardless of whether the text had come from her or not, she had been compromised, and was in terrible danger, he was sure. Quite possibly, she had obtained advance information of the explosion and had been caught trying to get it out.

Toby knew, at that moment, that somehow he was the key to Julia’s life.

In a flash of revelation, he also realised that his own life to date had consisted of twenty-two years of privilege, frivolity, lack of commitment and underachievement.

Not good enough.

Time to put that right.

Time to grow up.

And here was a gold-plated opportunity to show what he was truly made of, and to do something worthwhile for someone he admired and cared about and wanted to be around.

Nobody else was going to do it.

So Toby would rescue Julia.

Or die trying.

Chapter 32

Toby scanned the bay. It was very busy, with yachts, motor yachts and all kind of other pleasure vessels at anchor. There were several ships that could be the same size as, or even bigger than, the
Amelia
. He mentally divided the bay into a grid and did a quick count of one square. Twenty boats. Multiplying that up by twelve squares, there were around 240 boats in the bay, waiting for the big New Year’s Eve celebrations and the firework displays from the various luxury hotels around the shore.

From this distance, the huge millionaire yachts all looked very similar, to his untrained eye. They were all big, and white, and sleek, with multiple decks. A couple had little toy-like helicopters on deck.

Was that the
Amelia
? He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted. One of the largest vessels was at anchor among a group of other sail and motor yachts in what Toby presumed was the deepest part of the bay. He watched as a gentle ripple moved across the bay from left to right. The puff of wind shifted the anchored vessels, and they swung slowly around to face a new direction. Now he could identify the
Amelia
clearly. She had been obscured at first by a magnificent square-rigger, a sail training vessel, probably. Toby had seen posters for such ships during his Sea School course. You got to climb up the rigging like Johnny Depp.

He couldn’t make out any figures on deck from this distance. But what he could see now was that the boat bay doors were open. The sole remaining white RIB tender bobbed alongside, and just behind that floated the two iridescent-coloured jet skis.

Toby made another stab at guessing the distance.

Less than a mile, anyway.

Easy.

He loped down the track towards the beach, rucksack in hand. He passed between two hotels on a footpath strewn with smelly black rubbish sacks. A scrawny dog scrounged for scraps. It looked up in alarm and bolted as he approached. The alleyway opened out directly on to the beach. Here everything looked normal. No sign of evacuations or panics. Every sun lounger was occupied by a white, pink, red or brown body in repose.

He picked his way through the loungers. He needed a friendly-looking couple. Here they were. She was small and petite, a strawberry blonde with a nice figure and a tiny bikini. He was probably a little older than Toby, a touch overweight, reading a Stieg Larsson novel while listening to his iPod. Actually, he was not reading the novel. He had it open near the beginning, but his eyes were closed. It obviously hadn’t grabbed him.

Toby approached the girl. “Excuse me, I’m going for a long swim. Are you planning to be here for an hour, and if so, do you mind watching my rucksack?”

The man opened his eyes, glanced at him and pulled out his ear buds. She said, “Of course, delighted to. Just leave it there under the table.”

The man said, “Do we need to check if there’s a bomb in it?”

Everyone laughed.

“Look if you like,” Toby said. “Just my stuff, my phone and passport and wallet. And some smelly clothes.”

“OK, mate. Enjoy your swim.”

Nothing for it now. He strode down the beach towards the sea, picked a clear space and stripped down to his underpants. Luckily, they were the Armani fancy stretch trunks with the decorated waistband and would pass as swimmers to the casual observer. He folded his clothes and waded into the sea. He had kept on his watch, and checked the time.

The water was as warm as the air. He ran for two or three paces into the shallows, then put his hands together and dived.

He came up after a few strokes and pulled strongly towards the
Amelia
. While he swam, he tried to plan. The first step was obvious.

Swim up to the boat bay, stay unobserved, sneak aboard.

Then what?

Find Julia.

Then what?

He stopped worrying about it after a few minutes. He needed all his concentration for his swimming. He tried to create the least possible disturbance in the water consistent with maintaining a steady, fast stroke rate.