The Secret of Excalibur (36 page)

Amoros sat straighter, shocked. ‘He’s kidnapped Nina? What are you talking about?’

‘Kidnapped Nina, tried to kill me - and my niece. Because he didn’t want to leave anyone alive to talk about this black-ops superweapon he’s built.’

‘And you think I had something to do with it?’ Amoros asked.

Chase regarded him with flint-hard eyes. ‘If I did, you’d already be dead.’ Amoros tensed, knowing he meant it. ‘But you know more about Jack than you’ve let on. I want to know where he is.’

‘All I knew about Mitchell was that he was ex-Special Forces intelligence, now supposedly working for DARPA, and that I’d been told to give him total co-operation in the interests of national security. That came from the highest level at the Pentagon.’

‘Well, it seems Jack doesn’t take his orders from the Pentagon. Seems he doesn’t take them from
anybody.
He’s got his own little black operation, and he tells the Pentagon what to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He got picked up from Russia by a sub. An
American
sub, inside Russian territorial waters.’ Amoros reacted with clear surprise. ‘I saw the hull number,’ Chase went on. ‘I looked it up - SSN-23, Seawolf-class attack sub, USS
Jimmy Carter
. Mitchell’s old boat. And funnily enough, it’s been modified for Special Forces operations. Be a bit of a coincidence if it just happened to be there.’

‘There’s no way he could have that kind of authority,’ protested Amoros. ‘Even black projects report to
somebody
.’

‘Doesn’t seem to bother him much. He had a little rant about what he was doing being too important to leave to politicians. The bastard’s gone rogue, Hector - and he’s got Nina, and the sword, and everything he needs to make his weapon work. I’ve seen one like it in action; it’s pretty fucking nasty. So I need you to help me rescue her - and stop him.’

‘How? I don’t know where he is.’

‘Someone does,’ said Chase, leaning back in the chair. The gun drifted away from the former admiral, very slightly. ‘He might be running a black project, but he’s using regular military assets as well. Intel and civilian ones an’ all. The sub, helicopters, jets, cars, even the weapons he’s requisitioned - there’ll be a paper trail, somewhere. Somebody at the Pentagon knows how to find him. You must still have lots of old mates there. Get on to them.’

Amoros shifted uneasily. ‘That would mean I’d be revealing knowledge of a black project I wasn’t cleared for. I wouldn’t just lose my post for that - I could go to prison for it.’

The gun moved back. ‘At least you’d still be alive to go to prison.’

Amoros stroked his beard, considering it. ‘I’ll . . . make some calls.’

33

The Norwegian Sea

N
ina jumped from the bunk as the cabin’s steel hatch was unlocked and swung open.

‘Whoa, now,’ said Mitchell, his open palm snapping up to intercept her fist just before it smacked into his face. He closed his fingers round it and forced her arm back down. ‘Guess it’s true about redheads having a bad temper.’

She narrowed her eyes in pain as he squeezed her hand; then she lashed out with one foot at his kneecap. He jerked back, her heel barely missing him. ‘I’m going to kill you,’ she promised.

‘No you’re not,’ Mitchell replied, unconcerned. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go where?’ The initial helicopter flight the previous night had been short, transferring to a private jet at Southampton airport that then flew the length of the country to Wick, on the north-eastern tip of Scotland. Another, larger helicopter was waiting for them there, quickly taking off and pounding northwards over the dark wastes of the North Sea, the flares of oil platforms below the only markers of the passage of hundreds of miles. Eventually even these fell behind, nothing outside except blackness.

Until a ship appeared ahead, a blazing beacon of lights in the void. It seemed to be a cargo vessel, the main deck loaded with stacked containers. The chopper landed on a pad overhanging the stern, and Nina was bustled through the ship to the windowless metal cabin. After being released from the cuffs, she had been left by herself.

Her fear for Chase and Holly gradually gave way to a simmering fury. Despair would get her nowhere. What she had to do now was stop whatever Mitchell was planning, and make him pay for everything he had done.

‘To Excalibur,’ said Mitchell. ‘It’s in place, the system’s ready . . . there’s only one thing we need.’

‘Me.’

‘Yup. Let’s go.’

There were two large men accompanying Mitchell, one with a pair of handcuffs attached to his belt, but they weren’t needed; Nina was all too aware that even if she broke away from her escorts, there was nowhere for her to go. Instead, she examined her surroundings for anything that might help her as they descended through the superstructure. A momentary glimpse through a porthole told her it was again dark outside, a whole day having gone by.

They passed below the level of the main deck and continued to descend. ‘So I’m guessing this isn’t a regular container ship,’ she finally said, faux-conversationally.

‘You got that right,’ Mitchell answered. ‘By the way, this is the
Aurora
- I didn’t get a chance to welcome you aboard last night.

Guess my manners are slipping. Made entirely out of non-magnetic steel and titanium. It’s DARPA’s latest toy.’

‘I thought you didn’t work for DARPA.’

He smiled. ‘DARPA paid for it - only they don’t even know it. That’s the great thing about having an agency where most of its budget is off the books. It’s hard to challenge the construction of something if no one even knows it exists.’

‘So you’re basically just stealing money from the government. ’

‘Hardly.’ His expression became colder. ‘When it comes to the defence of the United States, any expenditure is justified. And any price is worth paying.’

‘Including murder?’

‘Maybe you should ask Eddie about that,’ he said sarcastically. ‘He didn’t exactly go around handing out candy and flowers while he was defending
his
country.’

‘He’s nothing like you.’

‘Yeah, you’re right - because he just did what he was told, went where he was sent. Killed who he was told to kill. I’m being active. I’m taking care of threats to my country before anyone even knows they exist. You should be thanking me for what I’m doing.’

Nina laughed incredulously. ‘Y’know, I really don’t think I want to be indebted to you. Or anyone like you.’

‘Then it’s a good job we never ask for those debts to be paid. What the hell would you know about making sacrifices for a greater cause, anyway?’ He shot her a scathing look as they continued down another flight of stairs. ‘My work cost me my marriage, but I’d do it all again, because it has to be done. What’ve you done? Poked around in the mud finding trinkets. And don’t give me any crap about it being for the benefit of humanity - it was all for your own personal glory, don’t try to deny it.’

Nina snorted. ‘A little defensive there, Jack, ain’cha? All those lonely nights getting to you?’ Mitchell ignored her, prompting her to let out a self-satisfied ‘Hah!’ under her breath as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

He went to a large metal door and pushed a button beside it. It slid open with a hydraulic hiss. ‘This is it,’ he said, directing her inside.

Nina stepped through to find herself in a control room, surprisingly similar to the one at Vaskovich’s facility. There was even a view through a large window out at another huge piece of machinery . . . but where the Russian generator had been built vertically, descending into the hill, this one lay horizontally, running along the length of the cavernous hold. The rings of electromagnets, more of them than in the Russian system, receded hundreds of feet into the distance. Knots of cables wrapped around everything like black veins gave Nina the feeling of being inside a monstrous biomechanical ribcage.

At the far end of the hold, spotlights picked out a gleaming silver cross at the bottom of the final ring.

Excalibur.

‘This is
our
earth energy generator,’ Mitchell announced proudly, ‘and it’s better than Vaskovich’s system in every way. For a start, it’s mobile; the lines of energy aren’t limited to dry land. They occur at sea, too, and we can move the ship to wherever the flux convergences are the strongest.’ His smugness increased when he saw that Nina was unable to conceal her awe at the scale of the structure. ‘So what do you think?’

‘I’d be a lot more impressed if it hadn’t been designed to kill people,’ she said acidly, taking his smile down several notches. She turned to a large screen on one wall which displayed a map of the North Pole, the shapes of the continents distorted around it. She located the United Kingdom near one edge of the map and looked polewards from it, seeing a green circle marked with longitude and latitude co-ordinates in the sea at the edge of the Arctic Circle between Norway and Iceland. ‘So that’s us, huh? I take it we’re not freezing our asses off in the middle of nowhere without a good reason.’

‘Damn straight.’ Mitchell went to one of the consoles, waved the technician manning it aside, and entered commands into the computer. More symbols appeared on the map: groups of green circles and red triangles in the open ocean between Russia and the polar icepack. ‘The red symbols are Russian warships.’

‘Red Russians? Gee, that’s original.’

‘I didn’t pick the colours. But the green symbols are the two carrier strike groups we’ve deployed in the Arctic Ocean, the
Enterprise
and the
George Washington
. I know you haven’t exactly seen much CNN for the last week, but I’m sure you remember that the Russians are being kinda belligerent about their territorial claims at the pole. There’s a lot of oil and gas up there, and they want it. They want it all.’

‘And you don’t want them to have it,’ said Nina, realising. ‘You’re going to sink their ships, aren’t you? You’re going to use this thing to blow them out of the water without anybody ever knowing who did it.’

‘Not exactly.’ Mitchell’s smug look disappeared, replaced by one of grim determination. ‘I’m going to use it to sink one of
our
ships.’

‘
What?
’ Nina gaped at him. ‘You want to blow up an
American
ship? Why?’

‘If one of our carriers gets attacked, it’ll automatically be assumed that it was by the Russians, and the other ships in the strike group will retaliate. We’ll take out the bulk of the Russian polar fleet, including their carrier, the
Admiral Kuznetsov
- their only carrier.’

‘But - but the Russians have
nukes
!’ Nina cried, horrified. ‘If you do this, it’ll escalate into World War Three!’

‘No. It won’t. The Russians don’t want Moscow to be nuked any more than we want to see New York go up. So after the initial skirmish, the hotlines’ll get
real
hot for a while, then things’ll gradually cool off. But the job’ll be done - the Russians will be out of the game. After that, there’ll only be one power in the Arctic. Us.
We’ll
control the resources up there, not them.’

‘But what if you’re wrong? What if the Russians don’t back down?’

‘Then,’ Mitchell said in a chillingly matter-of-fact tone, ‘we’ll have to deal with them. But it won’t come to that. The loss of the
Enterprise
’ll make it obvious to the world that we were the victims.’

Nina was appalled. ‘You were an American naval officer! How can you even
think
about attacking one of our own ships?’

‘The
Enterprise
is fifty years old, and about to be decommissioned and scrapped anyway. This way, at least she serves a purpose for the good of the country.’

‘And what about the crew?’ Nina demanded. ‘There must be thousands of people on an aircraft carrier!’

‘Over four thousand.’

‘And are their deaths for the “good of the country” as well?’

‘I’m not taking this lightly,’ Mitchell insisted. He indicated the other people in the control room. ‘None of us are. But when those sailors signed up they took an oath to serve and protect the United States of America, and by securing those resources from the Russians that’s exactly what they’ll be doing. It’s all about power - the power to protect our future.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure their families’ll see it that way,’ Nina said angrily. ‘You really think the American people would approve of what you’re doing?’

‘Yes!’ said Mitchell. ‘Yes, I do. They want security and stability and cheap gas and
American Idol
, and they don’t want to get their own hands dirty to have it. I’m the one who gets my hands dirty, I have to live with it. But I
will
live with it. Just like all the others who’ve been doing the same thing for sixty years. Because we know we’re
right
.’

‘My God,’ Nina said despairingly. ‘You’re worse than Vaskovich. You honestly think you’re some kind of patriot, don’t you? You know what you
actually
are? Completely fucking batshit insane!’

Mitchell regarded her silently for a long moment, then went to a locker and took out one of the futuristic-looking assault rifles she had seen him use in Russia. Before Nina realised what he was doing, he shot her in the thigh.

She dropped to the floor, screaming and clutching the wound. The 3.6 millimetre bullet had gone cleanly through her right leg, Mitchell deliberately aiming to miss the bone and any major arteries - but it was still agonising. ‘Jesus Christ!’ she shrieked. ‘What the
fuck
are you doing?’

‘It’s just a scratch, a flesh wound,’ he replied with cold sarcasm. ‘I only need you
alive
. I don’t need you
unhurt
- and to be honest, I’ve had enough of the sound of your voice.’ He put down the rifle and turned to the startled occupants of the control room. ‘Stick a Band-Aid on that wound, then get her into position. It’s time.’

‘How much further?’ Chase asked over the incessant buzz of the propellers, surveying the darkness below.

Amoros checked the plane’s instruments. ‘It can’t be much further, if it’s where my contact said it was.’ He gave Chase a look of concern. ‘Eddie, we’re getting close to the fuel limit. If we don’t find this ship in the next ten minutes, I’m going to have to head for land.’

Chase wanted to order him to stay out for as long as it took them to locate Nina, but knew it was pointless. The Piper Seminole that Amoros had managed to wangle from another UN agency had already burned through more than half its fuel; even landing in nearer Norway rather than returning to Scotland would be cutting it fine.

But he was sure Nina was out here. Amoros had made use of his Pentagon connections to probe more deeply into the recent actions of Jack Mitchell, and though it had taken several frustrating hours the name of a ship had eventually been provided:
Aurora
. Chase suspected that whoever gave Amoros the name had put their entire career on the line by doing so, but the former admiral had a lot of good friends in the military - and a lot of favours he could call in.

The
Aurora
itself, when they looked up its details, seemed unremarkable: a container vessel of slightly under nine hundred feet in length, registered to a Panamanian shipping company - almost certainly a front. Why Mitchell would have taken Nina aboard, Chase wasn’t sure, but Amoros’s sources suggested that he had.

So Chase was going aboard too.

If
they could find the
Aurora
in time.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to do,’ Amoros said, glancing across as Chase gave the pair of pistols he was carrying a final check, then attached a sheathed combat knife and two hand grenades to the webbing round his chest. ‘There’ll be an entire crew aboard, not just Mitchell.’

‘They won’t have any problems if they stay out of my way,’ Chase told him. ‘I’m just there to get Nina.’

‘And then what? Put a gun to the captain’s head and tell him to turn for port?’

‘If I have to. I’ll figure it all out when it happens.’

Amoros was about to offer his opinion of Chase’s tactics, or lack thereof, when he spotted something in the distance. ‘I see a ship. Eleven o’clock.’

‘Got it.’ Chase scanned the cold sea through a pair of powerful binoculars, quickly picking out a cluster of lights in the ink-black void. ‘Container ship, could be the
Aurora
.’ The barely discernible flag at the stern looked Panamanian, but it was hard to be sure. ‘Get in closer.’