“Great, it works. Can we go now?” Jake asked.

“Not yet. They need to get the entrance open first.”

“How hard can that be?”

“You’d be surprised. This isn’t a local corner shop, it’s a naval base. You don’t just ring the doorbell.”

Jake wondered how you did get into a secret base, especially when there was almost certainly nobody inside to open up.

He was still pondering the question, when he heard the explosion.

Sixteen

MARTIN MUTTERED TO himself as he worked alone. Of all his team of engineers, only two had shown up for work. A couple more had at least had the decency to call him and explain why they were staying in their cabins, and he had no doubt that the others were hiding out for the same reason: they were afraid of catching the virus. It wasn’t exactly broadcast news that there was a morgue on deck one, but gossip travelled fast, and everyone knew exactly what Janice was up to down there. For many in Martin’s team, her activities were too close to the engine room for comfort. Not that they would ever admit that in the macho culture that still ruled in the male-dominated machine rooms below the water line.

The two engineers who had overcome their fear and had been assisting Martin in reconnecting the power supply, had become paralysed within ten minutes of one another. Martin thought they had been messing around, playing the sort of practical joke that was such a common way of relieving the boredom and monotony of life in the windowless engine room. But they hadn’t been joking; their paralysis was real, and when it came, it came quickly and painfully. The chief engineer had called medical straight away, but nobody had answered. And so it was left to him to escort his men to deck eight, wheeling them unceremoniously through the ship on trolleys normally used for carrying heavy equipment.

Deck eight itself had been a surreal experience. Martin had felt like he had stepped into a zombie movie. Behind closed doors, people moaned and groaned heavily. The only people he saw were nurses, rushing from room to room administering what few painkillers remained. Their faces told a story of resignation; they knew they were fighting a losing battle. For the first time, Martin felt afraid. He left his men with Mandy and beat a hasty retreat, desperate to be as far away from this sickness as he could get.

Safely back down in the familiar and friendly surroundings of his engine room, he had got back to the task in hand. The connections to the Ambush, already a rush job, had been cut quickly and shoddily in an effort to get the submarine away as fast as possible. Now he had the difficult task of repairing the almost unrepairable interface between the two vessels.

It was perhaps the stress of trying to carry out such an important task alone. It could have been the fatigue brought on by working such long hours in difficult conditions. Or it could have been the dim emergency lighting, in use because the ship was restricted to running only essential systems on backup power. Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same. As Martin made an elementary error and connected a live cable from the Ambush directly to the battery system, an enormous spark arced across the engine room with an almighty cracking sound, emptying the batteries of their last reserves. The bolt of energy lifted Martin clean off his feet and hurled him through the air. He was fortunate, crashing down on a spaghetti-like heap of cabling that broke his fall. Even so, the impact knocked him out cold.

• • •

“What the…?” Jake looked up at the plume of ash that was rising from the ground above them. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears, and it was a few seconds before he realised Vardy was trying to speak to him.

“I said don’t panic!” the doctor shouted through his mask. “They just blew the door; it’s fine!”

“You could have warned me!”

“I didn’t think it would be that loud to be honest. Quite impressive, wasn’t it?”

“So that’s what was in the crate? Explosives? Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have sat so close if I’d known.”

“Perfectly safe, Jake, just a detonator pinched from a spearfish. One of our torpedoes,” he added, remembering Jake wasn’t a navy man. “Although judging by the noise, I suspect they used some of the explosives too. Hell of a bang, eh?”

Jake felt the ringing in his ears start to subside. “I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of you lot.”

“Shall we get going? It looks like the dust is settling.”

The cloud of ash had mostly dispersed on the wind. Jake was glad of the mask; the powder was so fine that he could imagine it would be easy to breathe it in without realising. He didn’t need to be asked twice, and bounced out of the raft and onto the rubble. Using his gloved hands for support, he scrambled over the concrete boulders without looking back. It felt good to be on land once again, even if it was dangerous and inhospitable land.

He paused only when he reached the top, before stepping onto the ruined dock and the carpet of grey ash. Images of Stacy and Horace melting in the powder streamed through his mind, alongside doubts about the wetsuit he was wearing. Was he sure it was the right kind of rubber? Would it provide adequate protection, or just slow down the action of the ash? A slap on his back shook him from his thoughts.

“Come on then, Captain Noah, what are you waiting for? Out of breath?” Vardy stepped fearlessly onto the greyness, and headed in the direction the explosion had come from.

Jake took a deep breath, and followed. He stepped from the security of his loch-washed boulder and planted one foot firmly on the ground, then the other. He took another step, and looked back at the imprint his improvised shoes had made. He walked forwards gingerly, placing each foot carefully, as if walking a tightrope. The feeling of ash compressing underfoot reminded him of walking in light, powdery snow, and in the dim light from the ever-darkening sky, it was almost possible to imagine that was what it was.

Vardy was a few paces ahead, and was following the footprints left behind by his colleagues. They led towards another stubby column of concrete, perfectly in alignment with that by which they had moored their raft.

They found Eric and Ewan behind the huge pillar. They were sitting on the crate, waiting for the two men. In front of them, set into the round concrete, was an opening. Torn metal framed a black hole. A slab of metal, six inches thick, lay flat on the ground in front of it.

“I wonder why the asteroid didn’t blow the door in?” Vardy wondered aloud as he surveyed the scene.

“Judging by the way the debris is scattered, it came from that way,” Eric said, pointing back towards the loch. “So the pillar provided some protection.”

“The PBX did the job then?”

“Yes. I think we could have got away with using half as much. The door was twice the size before we blew it!”

Jake was peering into the blackness. He could just make out a few steps of a metal stairway. “Right then, are we going to find this machine of yours?” he asked, looking at the three men.

“I’ll lead the way, Captain,” Ewan said. He opened the crate and extracted a gun.

“Is that really necessary?” Jake asked. The look of disappointment on his face was hidden by the gas mask he was still wearing.

“If anyone is in there, they probably won’t be expecting us. We might give them a bit of a shock. Never know how they might react,” Ewan replied.

“Fair enough,” Jake sighed. “But I would have thought that if there was anyone there, not only would your bang have alerted them to our presence, but that they would be pleased to see some friendly faces. Lead on then, Ewan.”