The Abigail Affair (40 page)

Should he answer? No time for that distraction. He pushed the throttles forward more. The yacht was still not moving.

He looked at the anchor display. The countdown had stopped. The anchor must be stuck on a rock.

He pushed the throttles forward. The floor vibrated. Still nothing.

Then the ship leapt forward, the anchor freed from its encumbrance. Toby fell back in his seat and almost slipped to the floor, his damp shorts sliding on the leather of the helmsman’s seat. He kept hold of the wheel and recovered. The
Amelia
was moving now, and turning. A sloop came into view on his port side, lit up like a Christmas tree from masthead to waterline.

He gathered speed as he turned. It was like driving in a car park covered in ice. The yacht seemed to have a mind of its own, going sideways as much as forward. He was getting closer to the sloop. Much too close! More revs? Or would he simply ram the other vessel harder? He pushed the throttles forward more. Now his speed showed as two knots. That didn’t sound like much, but things were swinging into view with alarming speed.

He was going to hit the sloop!

He remembered the thrusters just in time. He rested his right hand on the control panel and tweaked the joysticks.

“Come on! Give me that power!” he murmured.

The vessel responded immediately. He could hear water thrashing somewhere. The bow moved sideways. This was more like it.

Just a video game controller, really.

He tweaked the aft starboard thruster joystick in the opposite direction to set up a spinning effect.

Yes, that worked, and helped. The
Amelia
was turning fast now, and without going forward too much. He eased back on the main throttles. Lights and boats came into view and seemed to spin around him. How much had he turned? It was just a blur of lights outside. They seemed to move; he seemed almost stationary.

He remembered the chartplotter and tore his eyes off the view outside the windows. The icon was almost pointing up now, towards the bay exit.

He flinched instinctively as something appeared out of nowhere, white and brightly lit and really close. He looked out again and saw the sloop, right by the bridge side window, so near that he could see the faces of the four young uniformed crewmen lined up at the rail. They all looked alarmed and waved their arms.

Before he could react, the sloop had disappeared. He had slid by it with barely a coat of paint to spare, and missed it somehow.

“
Amelia
,
Amelia
, this is
Island Lass.
What are your intentions? Are you under command? You are showing no running lights. Come back,
Amelia
.”

Another urgent, edgy voice on the VHF. He reached up and turned the volume down. He glanced at his watch.

Eight minutes.

He needed Julia back to handle this thing. Then he saw a line of red, winking lights ahead of him, down in the moonlit sea.

They were leading him out, making a path.

Each one blinked at a different rate. He compared what he saw outside with the chartplotter. There were green lights around too, on the right.

Hopefully they didn’t matter so much.

By some miracle, he was on course and hadn’t sunk himself or anyone else, as far as he knew.

He pushed the throttles forward some more, and pointed the vessel at the open sea. He could make out the twin hills that formed the narrow entrance to Nelson Bay. The moonlight helped.

Go just to the right of the buoys? Or to the left?

Hell. He tried to recall Julia’s instruction.
Leave them to port
. Port was left.
Leave them to port
must mean
Go to the right of them.

Yes.

That was it.

“Leaving red buoys to port, Captain Kirk, sir,” he said aloud.

It made him feel better, anyway.

They were motoring now as the
Amelia
accelerated. It said only 10 knots on the speed readout. But it felt like 120 miles an hour in his father’s BMW. They’d only tried it once, on an autobahn in Germany, for about a minute. Toby remembered the surge of adrenaline as his father overtook a vehicle going at 100 mph.

The first red light approached. Go just to the right. He used his thruster. It didn’t seem to respond. He was going too fast for it to help. He turned the wheel more instead.

Bingo. He was in control.

As the
Amelia
gathered speed, she became easier to steer. The downside was that things happened very fast. Like now. There was a boat ahead of him, entering the bay. It was a motor yacht, not as large as the
Amelia,
but big enough.

Toby decided to hold his course. The other vessel could budge.

The intruder appeared to think he had right of way, because he too held his course.
Idiot! Move!
Or they were going to collide.

“Vessel leaving Nelson Bay, this is the
Ariadne
, pass red to red, red to red, do you copy? Over.” A third voice from the VHF. Quiet, because Toby had turned the volume down. Calm, but urgent. It must be the guy heading for him. Why couldn’t
he
give way? The voice came again. “Vessel directly ahead of me, turn to starboard
now
, do you copy?”

Toby reached for the hand-held mic and pressed the transmit button. “This is the
Amelia.
I have an emergency. Stay clear of me. I am holding course for the open sea.”

After barely a second, the loudspeaker sounded again. “I copy you have an emergency,
Amelia
. Passing green to green. Can I help? Your port-side waterline hatch is open, you appear to be towing your tender, and you have just lost your two jet skis.”

“I know, cheers, I’ll get back to you,” Toby said and dropped the mic. It swung from its coiled cord just in front of his nose.

He was almost on top of the first red buoy and needed to take evasive action again.

The
Ariadne
passed by to his right without mishap. He jinked the wheel now, and the red buoy disappeared from view.

He hoped he had missed it.

One ... two ... three ... looking good ...

A loud bang was followed by an expensive-sounding grating, graunching sound which echoed up through the hull.

Evidently, he had not missed it.

In fact, he had hit it.

And hard.

The grating continued, tortured metal in agony, sounding like someone scraping steel fingernails down a metallic blackboard. He tensed. There was no change to the ship’s motion. That was something.

The noise stopped. He realised he had been holding his breath and exhaled with relief.

He would keep further out from the next buoy.

“
Amelia
,
Amelia
, you have collided with the number four channel marker and lost your tender. It is entangled with the buoy and punctured. There appears to be damage to your boat hatch. Part of it is in the water. Do you copy,
Amelia
?”

He’d lost the RIB—their prime means of escape. And the jet skis. Bummer. Time check? He glanced down, keeping his hands firmly on the wheel. Six minutes. The
Amelia
still gathered speed. The instrument said thirteen knots. Toby pushed the two throttle levers fully forward.

The
Amelia
responded, but she appeared to have developed a slight list to port. The steering was not so responsive, either.

Too bad.

The remaining red lights flashed by on his left without further mishap. His boat speed was now seventeen knots and felt like it. There was another speed readout, preceded by the letters SOG, which was even higher—nineteen knots.

What was the top speed of this tub? The floor vibrated now with the engines distinctly audible, a cross between a hum and the deep bass rumble from a club disco woofer.

The bridge door hissed open. Julia was there by his side. She peered at the chartplotter. “Good work, Toby, but you need to take a right, quick—you’re heading straight for the Dog Reef. Watch your depth. That one. Look.” She pointed at another instrument with green numbers, which were going down fast.

“Roger that. Did you get anything out of Spiegl?” He turned the wheel hard to the right. The green display held steady at five. Then it crept up. But the
Amelia
was not steering well. He had to hold the wheel over now.

“Negative. He’s conscious, just about, but uncooperative. I broke three of his fingers, but it didn’t help. We’re on our own. Time?”

“Five minutes. And I’ve lost the RIB. How can we get off this hulk?”

Chapter 43

“It’s all a bit technical unless we can raise the
Surrey
,” Julia said.

“Here,” Toby said, and pressed the button labelled “AIS OVERLAY.” Text boxes sprang up on the screen, showing the names of the large vessels around them. “I don’t see the
Surrey
. I’ll zoom out.” He did this until he had a range of one hundred miles. “Still nothing. The
Surrey
isn’t anywhere near.”

“Not necessarily.” She reached up and took the VHF mic. She pressed the transmit button and spoke clearly and calmly. “Royal Navy destroyer
Surrey
, this is the motor yacht
Amelia
.
Surrey, Surrey, Surrey, Amelia, Amelia, Amelia
. Over.”

She took her thumb off the button and waited.

Nothing.

“Surrey, Surrey, Surrey,
this is the
Amelia, Amelia, Amelia
. Channel One-Six. Over.”

There was a crackling sound, but no audible words. “OK. I think they hear us.” She reached up and twiddled a knob labelled “squelch,” and turned up the volume to maximum. “
Surrey, Amelia.
Say again.”

A loud burst of static filled the bridge. Then, through the distortion, Toby just heard “
Amelia
, this is the warship
Surrey
. We copy you faintly two by one. Go ahead with your traffic on this channel.”

To Toby, she said: “Time?”

“Five minutes precisely ... now.”

Into the mic, she spoke loudly, slowly, and clearly: “CIA Agent Simons here, call sign Amber Rain. Robinson and I are in control of the
Amelia
heading out to deep water from Nelson Bay on a course of two-eight-zero degrees. Current position ...” She read off the numbers from the chartplotter. “There is a second device on board. It appears to be armed and counting down.

“Sink the
Amelia
in four minutes.

“I say again, sink the
Amelia
in precisely four minutes. Over.”

Chapter 44

The VHF speaker crackled again. Toby strained to hear through the static and distortion.

“Captain Gill Boyd here. Copy you wish us to sink the
Amelia
in four minutes.”

“Affirmative. We will try to get off now.”

“Good luck. Toby, are you there?”

Julia held the mic over towards Toby, who said simply, “Yes, I’m here.”

“However this ends, you are a credit to yourself and your country.”

“Thank you, sir. See you soon.”

Julia turned off the VHF. “Nothing more useful to say.”

“What now?”

“Engage the autopilot and let’s get off. I want to bring Spiegl, too.”

Toby looked down and saw the autopilot control. “This one?”

“Yes.”

Toby pressed the small red button. The wheel now jinked from side to side, under control of the autopilot.

The
Amelia V
ploughed on into the night. She now had a definite list to port. A track of moonlit sea extended away in front of them like a roadway heading west. The depth sounder said twenty metres.

Julia said, “We’re still on the ledge. It drops off to 1,000 metres quite soon. Let’s hope we get there. Come on.”

“Leave bloody Spiegl! Let the bugger go down with the ship, or up with the ship, or whatever’s going to happen! We don’t have time for him.”

“Toby, we need him alive if we can.”

“How can we get off? The tender is wrapped around a buoy and the jet skis have torn away and anyway we’re going too fast.”

“You can dive, can’t you?”

“Shit. I guess. Yes. Right-oh.” It didn’t sound promising, but it was better than being here when the
Surrey
opened up with its long-range guns or sent off its Cruise missiles or whatever it had.

After one last glance at his instruments, Toby slid out from his seat. He followed Julia. They scampered down through the staterooms and out. It was quite hard to keep your footing now on the sloping decks.

There was much more noise outside. The engines were making a din, there was water noise, and a sloshing, banging cacophony from down on the water line.