The Abigail Affair (39 page)

So many deaths ...

“What is it? Do you have a signal? Move, Toby!”

He quickly keyed in the number.
Even with penalties ...
A repeated fast bleep was followed by a female West Indian voice with a strident tone. “All circuits are busy. Please try again later.” He pressed “redial.” He got the same result.

“Try the US Embassy.” Julia rattled off the number. Presumably she had committed all such important numbers to memory.

“We are sorry, your call did not go through. Try again later.”

“The mobile network is overloaded! Everyone’s calling, either because of the explosion or to speak to friends at New Year’s, or both,” he said. He tried the two numbers again, with the same result.

“Keep trying while we go find the coordinates.” Julia stood up. She took the ice bucket and poured some more iced water over the prone extortionist. Together they raced inside the yacht and down the now-familiar corridors towards the linen store. Toby kept pressing “redial” and kept getting no line. “Come on, come on!” he hissed at the phone. “Just one line. Please.” But the network was in some sort of meltdown. Now he was getting only silence most tries—not even the “call failed” messages.

Julia flung open the door of the linen store. “I wasn’t expecting you to return. I put your issue of uniform back on the racks.” She reached up to the rail of uniform shorts, pulled a handful off, and flung them down. “Quick. The fanny pocket.”

“That’s rude in England,” Toby said.

“Toby,
shut up
and work!” she yelled at the top of her voice. He complied. They undid the buttons on the shorts with feverish haste. Nothing—nothing—nothing. The pile of shorts grew. Minutes ticked by. Toby tried the cell phone again. Now he didn’t even get a dial tone, though the signal bars showed adequate strength, even down here below decks.

They worked on.

They had tried about half the twenty or so pairs when Toby saw a pocket with the trace of a damp patch on it. He unbuttoned it, inserted his fingertips, felt paper and cried, “Eureka!” He extracted the folded sheet. It was still damp and soggy. “So much for your laundry standards. I would have had a wet bum if I’d put these on like this.”

“The syllabus at Langley didn’t include laundry,” Julia said.

Toby put the soggy, pulpy mass down on the floor and carefully lifted up the top section. The paper fell apart at the folds into square pieces, but the laser printing was still visible. He pieced the document back together. “I think it’s all legible. A few doubtful numbers over the folds.”

Julia reached up and took down from a shelf a clipboard with pen attached, used for stocktaking. She turned the stock sheets over to get a blank page. Toby read off the five sets of coordinates and she scribbled them down. The she read them back to him as a double-check. “Two of these are very near here,” she said. “I’ll wager one was Dickson Bay. We have to get these numbers out quick. I’ll have to go public on the VHF, assuming it’s working. Failing that, I’ll go ashore on a jet ski. How long until midnight?”

Toby consulted his watch. “It’s nearly nine. Three hours. Cutting it fine, to get divers to all these locations, find underwater devices in the dark and disarm them.”

“Let’s get on with it, then. Keep dialling.”

They hurried back up through the yacht, Julia with the clipboard clutched to her chest, Toby thumbing “redial” like a maniac.

They headed for the bridge, both panting by now. Toby keyed in the code and the door slid open. They went inside and Julia reached up to the VHF radio.

Just as she did, all the lights went out, and it was suddenly quiet. The only illumination now was that supplied by the full moon.

“Strange,” Toby said. “I thought they just fitted the new generator today.”

“They did,” Julia said slowly out of the gloom. “Obviously not competently. But we should have the emergency gen set kick in.” They waited. After a few seconds, there were some bleeps and clicks as the instrument panels came back to life and started up. Julia exhaled. “That’s all we needed. Let’s see where these positions are.” She prodded buttons on the big chartplotter. It lit up with a bright, full-colour chart of Nelson Bay showing the little ship icon at dead centre. The current GPS position showed in green LED typeface along the bottom. Julia compared it to her scribbled notes. “God, we’re right on the second location! It’s here, Toby!”

They both reached the same conclusion together.

“The new generator!” whispered Toby. It seemed appropriate to keep his voice down. “That’s how they got the devices in! The new generator is a dummy! And one of the devices is either right underneath us here on the seabed or ...”

“Still on board,” breathed Julia. She flung down the clipboard. They raced for the door.

Julia banged her palm on the bridge exit button, the door slid open and without further conversation, they hurried down through the decks towards the generator room. The dim orange emergency lighting made progress difficult, and twice Toby stubbed his already-injured bare toe on a steel door threshold. He cursed and padded on, looking down for obstacles in the half-darkness.

Julia, in the lead, came to the big hatch, and pulled the handle down using both hands. She stepped up and through and Toby followed, lifting his feet carefully.

They were in the caged walkway. The two big diesel generators were silent. The new one had been installed hastily, by all appearances. Tools lay around in heaps. Presumably at some stage, Timmins and the chief engineer had simply been hauled off and shot before they discovered the truth about the equipment.

They stepped across to the original generator. Its panel flashed E15 and there was an alarm beeping. The machine was hot. Toby could feel the heat from where he was standing. It seemed to be the same problem as before.

The new generator appeared to be connected up, at least. Toby could see the green glow of its status readout panel. He stepped over to it and examined it.

The voltage readout number said 11,100. That was weird. As he watched, it changed. 11,099. 11,098.

It was a second countdown. “Over here!” he called. Julia joined him in a crouch by the glowing readout. “Look. A countdown. This thing itself is a bomb. The other devices must have been inside the casing too.”

“Not much room for more than one,” Julia said thoughtfully. “You need a mass the size of a basketball just for the fissionable material. Then you need explosive rods, casing, detonators and so on. You can’t make one the size of a suitcase.” She opened the hatch on the side of the machine. It looked like the same engine as on the other unit, which Toby had watched Timmins working on. It was shiny and new, with gleaming injectors and pipes, and wires neatly clipped into bundles.

Julia went to the other end of the generator and opened another hatch. “The alternator is gone!” she said. “It must have been the Dickson Bay bomb, inside an alternator casing. Haase probably sabotaged the original gen set. Then Spiegl set up the dummy generator and shipped it down here today. When the yacht left St Helen’s and came round here today, they evidently stopped off at Dickson Bay and heaved the first device over the side. The crew must have been dead by then. Or maybe they made them lug the bomb down to the boat bay at gunpoint.”

“That would explain the tools and things lying around, and the fact that the unit hasn’t even been bolted down,” Toby said.

The countdown timer read 11,066. They watched it for a moment. Toby pulled out the mobile phone and selected the calculator function.

“Just over three hours. Midnight,” Julia said before Toby had got halfway there with the sum.

“Cutting it fine,” Toby said. “Do you think there are nuclear bomb disposal experts handy on Antilla?”

“
HMS Surrey
is the best option,” Julia said. “We’ll raise them on the VHF or get a relay. They must be nearby, after the first explosion.”

“Let’s get on with it. This thing is making me edgy.”

They straightened up.

At the same moment, the device started to bleep continuously, like a digital camera on its self-timer. “Shit! Run!” Toby said.

“No point,” Julia said. They looked at the display panel. A red light flashed. The bleeping continued. The countdown still proceeded, though.

“Early warning for the operatives?” suggested Toby. “A three-hour reminder?”

“Maybe,” Julia said. “Watch.”

The bleeping stopped. Toby instinctively covered his face with his hands. As long as he could feel his heart pounding, he was alive. It thumped away reassuringly.
Please, don’t let us fail!
Toby thought.
We are so close to success!

Thump, thump, thump.

“Shit!” This time it was Julia’s turn to swear. Toby peeped through his fingers with one eye. He saw the number 998. Then 997. Then 996. His heartbeat went into overdrive.

“They’ve sent a signal and reset the timer!” cried Julia. “They must have realised there was a problem when Spiegl didn’t answer that call!”

“You think that was their fallback—detonate the weapons immediately if the operation appeared to be compromised? Look, 990 seconds and counting! That’s no time at all! How long, Julia?” He desperately tried to do the mental arithmetic himself.

“Around fifteen minutes. Come on. Change of plan. Back to the bridge. Check the time and remember it.”

Toby looked at his watch. “They’ll never reach any of the locations in fifteen minutes, let alone defuse them!” he panted as they sped back up through the decks towards the bridge. “Not even time to evacuate an area! They’ve beaten us!”

Chapter 42

“At least we can get this vessel away from here, and save the lives of the people on the island,” Julia said. “Quick! Toby, do you have a stopwatch function? Set it to fifteen minutes from the time you noted as soon we get to the bridge.”

They flung doors open and charged down the final corridor. Julia keyed in the passcode, and the bridge door slid open. At least there was enough light on the bridge to see. Toby jabbed at his watch to select the stopwatch feature. He pressed too many times and went past the function. His fingers trembled. Damn! He did it again. Third time lucky. Three minutes had passed. He set the timer to twelve minutes. That was about right. “Eleven minutes, fifty seconds!” he called to Julia, who was at a control panel.

“Anchor’s coming up!” she said. “Here are the engine starters.” She indicated two buttons on the instrument panel on the helmsman’s seat. “Wait for the green lights and then go for the open sea. Use the chartplotter. Can you see the way out?”

“Where are you going?” Toby asked in a flap. “I can’t steer this thing.”

“I’m going to check Spiegl, try to get him conscious, slap him around and see if I can get the PIN code for the Iridium phone and then call back the last caller, tell them Spiegl is alive and try to get them to stop the detonations. It’s the only chance. There’s no point in even broadcasting the locations of the weapons at this stage. The VHF channels are public and it will only cause panic. How long?”

“Just over ten minutes,” Toby said. This was looking hopeless. Nevertheless, he saw the logic in Julia’s strategy. He installed himself in the captain’s seat and peered at the instruments.

“Not too fast until you are out of the bay, then full throttle due west. Leave the starboard channel markers to port as you go.”

“Eh?”

“Sorry. Keep just to the right of the red flashing lights in the water. I’m outta here. Wish me luck.” She produced the toy-sized handgun from her waistband.

Toby looked up from his instruments and opened his mouth to say good luck, but the door was already sliding shut.

Julia was gone.

Toby took a deep breath. Engine starts first. He pressed the two buttons. Nothing seemed to happen. He pressed again.

Perhaps there was a choke or a glow plug heater or something she hadn’t told him about.

However, after a few seconds, he felt a rumble through the floor, and the twin rev counters crept up to the idle mark.

Come on!

Everything seemed to take forever. Then two green lights blinked on in quick succession. Was the anchor up? He scanned the displays. Here it was, with a red light. There was an LCD panel with a number counting down, a bit like on the bomb. It must show the amount of anchor chain down. It showed 20. As he watched, it counted leisurely down. 18—17—16. Should he go anyway? As he contemplated this, the light changed to green. The anchor chain indicator accelerated its countdown.

The anchor must be out of the seabed, at least.

Time to go.

He looked out through the bridge forward windows. The yacht faced the shore. The moon hung big and baleful in the sky, and cast an eerie light on the decks outside. The yacht’s bow was a hazy mass somewhere out there. He was inside a cocoon of glowing instruments. There were loads of other yachts around them, swinging on their anchors.

He looked at the chartplotter. It confirmed that the
Amelia
was facing the shore.

A 180° turn, then head for the gap in the hills that framed the entrance to the bay. Keeping close to the red buoys. They would come into sight once he turned. He pushed the twin throttles forward a touch, and the engines responded. He turned the wheel hard left. Nothing seemed to happen. He turned it some more. Still nothing. More speed? He didn’t seem to have steerage yet. He pushed the throttles forward a touch more.

A sharp, educated male voice with an Australian accent issued from the VHF loudspeaker above his head. “
Amelia
,
Amelia
,
Amelia
, this is the
Ocean Victory
, are you under way? You are showing no lights and your boat bay is open with tenders in the water. Come back,
Amelia
?”