“Come on…see it. See it!”

He moved to the very bow of the ship and leaned over the handrail, scanning the sea, looking for any sign of activity, of life.

It didn’t take long.

From his port side he caught sight of movement. Below the surface of the water, a slender object moving at high speed. In another time, another place, it could have been mistaken for a dolphin, riding alongside the cruise ship, playing in the wake. But this was no dolphin. This was death in a tube. It was headed directly for the life raft.

Thirty-One

DAN FOUND HER on the floor on all fours when he returned. Her strained expression told him everything he needed to know.

“Where….argh!” A scream, then panting, before she could speak again. “Where’s Carrie?”

He wrung his hands, knelt down, and kissed her again. “I’m sorry, there’s nobody. I can’t find anyone.”

She was sucking in tiny breaths. Her face was covered in sweat, her head hung low. “The baby’s coming. The baby’s coming now, Dan!”

From nowhere, a sense of calm enveloped him. For the first time in their nearly six years of marriage, he was the only one who could help now. It was up to him to get her through this, and although at any time prior to that instant he would have panicked at the prospect, faced with the inevitability of what was about to happen, he found a new peace. Vicky, it dawned on him, was undergoing the most difficult, painful, and traumatic of experiences any human being could be subjected to. Anything he could do to ease that, to help, would be worthwhile.

“Okay, first things first. Your breathing,” he said. He got onto his hands and knees in front of her, looked into her eyes, and smiled gently. “Remember? We’re not letting those classes go to waste. Let’s do it together. Breathe with me…ready? In!” He drew in a long, deep breath through his nose. “And slowly, out…”

She looked at him as if he was mad, then burst out laughing.

“Well, not quite the effect I was hoping for, but it’ll do. You keep breathing, I’m going to get some towels and stuff. Don’t go away!”

“As if….” She let out a grunt, which turned into a shriek as the next contraction gripped her.

• • •

The reaction in the classroom was instantaneous. The leader roared at his men. There was mayhem as those who could move scrambled to the ventilation pipe opening. Someone found the flashlight they had taken from Bembridge, and Lucya was momentarily blinded as it was shone through the grille, scanning the space inside.

More voices, more shouting. They were coming for her.

She tried to push herself backwards, but it was as if her arms were no longer part of her. She could still move her legs, but the more she tried to use the toes of her gym shoes to pull herself back, the more she succeeded in pushing herself forwards, even closer to the grille.

Outside the noise became louder as orders were shouted back and forth. A chair made a scratching sound as its legs scraped across the floor. She saw it being flung towards the grille as it was used as a crude hammer, trying to dislodge the screwed-down vent. The banging reverberated through the pipe, nearly shattering her eardrums. She screamed, kicked, pushed, and yelped. The tube seemed to close in on her, gripping her, squeezing the air from her lungs.

The chair struck again, the noise even louder. The right side of the grille fell away, unseen by Lucya in the blackness of her panic attack. A wild pack of hands snatched at the vent cover, pulling and twisting it until it came free. The pack turned to the opening and tried to force its way in, but the hands became tangled in one another, impeding their own access.

More shouting as the leader brought order to the chaos. The pack retreated, and a single hand replaced it. It ventured inside the tunnel, patting the sides, groping in the dark, blind. It found her wrist, latched on, and yanked hard. Had the nerves in her arms not given up long ago, the pain would probably have been too much to bear. As it was, she was already in another place. Her mind had retreated, escaping the physical realm for the safety of its own inner space. Lucya was vaguely aware of her body being dragged forwards, but the awareness was external to her, as if she was imagining it happening to someone else.

When her arms were free of the grille, the rest of the pack returned, clamping around any exposed part and pulling. The joint effort achieved the near impossible: first her head, and then her shoulders were somehow squeezed through the narrow opening.

• • •

Jake was transfixed. He knew he should be running, should be getting as far from the impending explosion as possible, but he stood glued to the spot.

The torpedo moved at incredible speed. As it got closer, he realised it was much faster than any dolphin he had ever seen. Faster than any jet ski or speedboat or indeed any powered vessel he’d seen too. Fast, and silent.

It reached the raft.

There was a microsecond between the torpedo disappearing out of view under the slowly deflating rubber, and anything happening. It was enough time for Jake’s brain to offer up a worrying scenario: what if it doesn’t blow up? What if it blasts right through the thick material of the life raft and keeps on going? Does it have to impact on a hard hull to detonate? As he reached the conclusion that it didn’t really matter either way, the torpedo exploded.

If the view from the bridge of the first torpedo blowing up had been spectacular, the view from the Lance of the second device going off was downright terrifying. For one thing, the noise was deafening. The wave of sound knocked him back on his feet, and when it bounced off the high side of the cruise ship, the second wave hit him almost as hard.

The column of water seemed to shoot even higher into the sky, though Jake understood at once that this was just an effect of his being so much lower. Unlike the first explosion though, this column was blown towards the Lance. The first drops of water splashed down on his nose, then more hit him in the face with considerably more force, spurring him into action at last. Turning away from the spectacle, he began to run towards the stern. It was far too late. A curtain of icy water hit the Lance full on, slamming into Jake’s back and sending him sprawling across the deck. The tidal wave caused by the underwater eruption reached the ship moments later, sending her riding high into the air, and dowsing Jake for a second time in the falling spire of seawater.

The Lance rolled over the crest of the wave and came crashing down the other side. Pitched at such a steep angle, Jake couldn’t prevent himself from rolling down the deck towards the bow and the handrail. The ocean was below him, threatening to swallow him up. He thrust out a hand and grabbed onto the foot of the harpoon launcher. The deck seemed to fall away from him, and he was briefly suspended in the air. Then as the vessel reached the very bottom of the wall, the floor came up once more to meet him, knocking the air from his lungs as they collided.

She rolled some more, but the worst had passed. The tower of water thrown into the air by the torpedo was now no more than a cloud, evaporating as it retreated behind them.

Jake coughed noisily, spluttering as water he didn’t even know he had swallowed ejected itself from his lungs. He hauled himself onto his hands and knees, wheezing and gasping. Through the handrail in front of him he saw a plume of smoke wind its way lazily into the sky.

The raft was gone. Beyond where it had been, a new movement. Another form stirring beneath the waves. Bigger than the torpedo, and slower too.