“What happened?” Jake asked.

“Is Brian shot?” Amanda shrieked. Her hands flew to her mouth.

Nobody answered.

There was movement on the left-hand screen and Jake realised it was the two divers who had been climbing the scaffold-like structure. They had run across the helipad and were now on the roof of the bridge, pulling open a hatch and throwing something inside.

“Red six: where are you?” Ralf’s voice again.

“Almost… Shit!” Jake didn’t recognise the voice that spoke. There was the sound of a struggle, a shout, then the unmistakable crackle of another stun-gun going off. “Sorry, the engine room was manned. Okay…”

Smoke began billowing from the bridge hatch as the tear-gas canisters discharged their payload. Some of the shooting stopped, but it was replaced by more from the middle deck.

Then, quite suddenly, the left-hand screen also went blank.

“Generator cut. I repeat, generator cut. Blue Team: go, go, go.”

It was very difficult to make out what was happening from that point forward. With no video aside from the thermal camera, Jake had to rely on the occasional clipped voice report, and the movement of anonymous red blobs, some of which were accompanied by the tell-tale blinking transponder signals of the submariners. Even so, he had a good idea of what was going on from the planning. The Blue Team divers equipped with night-vision headsets were now sweeping through the Lance, taking out anyone who looked like they were a threat. Anyone and everyone they found was to be restrained and bound. They could ask questions later.

To everyone’s great relief, Brian’s voice came back over the speaker. Not whispering this time, but shouting to make himself heard over the sound of the gunshots. “Outer deck is secure. Red Team is heading down.”

“Your camera is out, Red One.”

“Affirmative. Broken whilst avoiding fire.”

Once below the line of the outer deck, it was no longer possible to follow the Red Team, even on the thermal camera. The thick reinforced ice-breaking hull masked their body heat, and played havoc with the signal from their transponders. The green dots popped up every now and then, but they skittered across the screen like penguins across ice. Voice communications were similarly intermittent, with bursts of sound breaking through. From the snippets of information they had, Jake believed they were working their way through the two levels below the deck, from the stern to the bow. He thought he heard more tear-gas canisters being deployed, although the hissing sound could simply have been static on the radio channel; it was hard to be sure.

Sixteen

HE HAD HEARD them coming, of course. They were hardly discreet. As soon as the first shot had been fired many decks above, its distinctive sound filling every corner of the small ship, even finding its way into the deep storage room in which they were held, he had known they were going to be saved.

Until then, until that first gunshot, nothing had been certain. He had relayed their situation to the diver outside, through the tapping of Morse code. But the replies had stopped. There had been no message to suggest someone was coming to get them; no indication that this rescue would happen.

He’d been turning that fact over in his head since tapping the last dot of the last letter of the last message. Had the diver been captured? Killed? Or was the correspondent one of the terrible men who had taken their ship from them, and not a potential rescuer at all?

After that first shot there had been more. Many more. He had kept his eyes shut tight as he hoped and wished that whoever had come to them would not be overpowered by their ruthless captors. Above all, he hoped that his wife would be safe. She was up there, somewhere, among those animals. It would be so easy for her to be caught in the crossfire.

The firing had calmed down then. Just the occasional shot. Other sounds took their place.

Screaming. Shouting. Hissing.

The sounds were getting nearer. Whoever had come aboard was closing in. He’d tried to call to them, to make his position known, but his voice had long since abandoned him. The others were conscious though, roused by the gunfight. Some of them began to grunt and groan.

And then the bulkhead door had been opened. Just a crack at first. It was hard to tell for sure because unusually, no light spilled through. It was as dark outside as in. He’d had the feeling he was being watched, examined, like a research specimen in one of the labs up top. It was the only time his faith that they were about to be rescued had wavered. Why weren’t these people bursting through and freeing them? He had worked it out just before the submariners entered the room. They hadn’t known for sure that this was where the captives were being held. They’d been scouting, making sure it was safe.

And now, here they were: divers, peeling off night-vision masks and filling the room with light from pocket torches.

Their saviours had come at last.

Seventeen

BLUE TEAM REPORTED back first.

“We have the bridge. Repeat, we have taken the bridge.”

“Understood. Red Team is advancing below.”

There was a collective sigh from around the situation room. The atmosphere had become heavy without anyone really noticing. Now that the submariners were apparently in control of the upper decks of the Lance, much of the tension was released.

Brian reported shortly after.

“We have found the prisoners. They’re in a bad way. Alert medical that we will be bringing in twelve, repeat twelve crew who will require immediate attention.”

Someone from the Red Team must have gone back to the engine room, because shortly after that message was relayed, the lights came back on.

• • •

Blissfully unaware of the events unfolding just a kilometre away from the other side of the ship, Grace Garet was up early again. And again, she was writing up the report of her previous night’s exploits. Her pocket notebook lay open on her little square desk, and she referred back to it frequently as she wrote a more detailed narrative of events in a much larger book. It wasn’t something she had any intention of showing Max, at least not yet. It was more a matter of being professional and doing the job she had been trained for.

She put down her pen, shook the cramp out of her hand, and read back through what she had written.

After having had my cover almost blown by the indiscretions of the gardener, I proceeded to follow Mrs Heyton as she walked away from the Pytheas Restaurant, in the direction of the front of the ship. More than once she turned around. I believe she was making sure that she was not being followed. Each time, I was able to avoid being seen.

Mrs Heyton summoned an elevator and entered it alone. This made following her very difficult as I had to wait for her to exit in order to determine which floor she got out on. The elevator stopped at deck eleven. I had already summoned the other elevator, and it arrived presently. I used this to take me to deck eleven, where I began to search for Mrs Heyton. My first thought was to avoid the outer sun deck and concentrate my search on the inner area. My hunch was proved correct as I found her not far away, still carrying two portions of dinner rations. I exited onto the sun deck and followed closely, keeping her in sight at all times through the windows.

Mrs Heyton stopped at cabin 1124. She did not knock, but the door opened from the inside. I conclude from this that someone was waiting for her, watching for her arrival from the spy hole in the door. Before entering the cabin, she once again looked around, as if making sure she had not been followed. Her behaviour can only be described as suspicious.