‘Ascent commencing in five seconds,’ said Hansen.
Running for the opened hatch of the diving room, Gallen leapt through behind Letour into a room filled with people.
As the Ariadne started moving towards the surface again, Gallen heard a loud explosion. Turning, he saw the hatchway’s lock being propelled across the control desk at full force into the opposing bulkhead, taking the entire top row of monitoring equipment with it.
Water gushed behind it as Winter got the hatch shut and screwed it down. The vessel lunged as they went to the surface at full speed, feeling like an elevator without its side-tracks. Behind the hatch they could hear the water filling the control room and the sea splashing against the hatch with the force of a thousand punches.
‘Stay calm,’ said Gallen to the scores of mostly men who stared back from the gloom of the standby lights. ‘We’re going straight to the surface and we’re doing it without getting our feet wet.’
‘If we don’t suffocate in the meantime,’ said an Irish voice. Several had already succumbed to the low-oxygen environment.
It seemed to take forever, but according to Gallen’s G-Shock it was only three minutes forty before he felt a swinging sensation, suggesting they were lurching free of the water.
Men surged towards the hatch and Letour stopped them. ‘Have to wait,’ he gasped. ‘Let the water run out.’
Another man collapsed and his friend demanded to be let out. Gallen drew his SIG. ‘We do it the way the XO wants it done and maybe we’ll live. Okay?’ He looked the rig worker in the eye; slowly the man backed away
There were clanking sounds outside the hatch and then it was being unscrewed. On the other side stood a seaman from the Fanny Blankes-Koen in his red suit, as the fresh air flooded in like a wave of life. The men rushed for the exit, Gallen not game to stop them now. Standing back, he and Letour watched them clamber out into the destroyed control area, where they sucked in the air. When they’d left, Gallen noticed a group of men standing around something.
‘Over here,’ called Winter, beckoning.
Walking to the group, Gallen looked down and saw a dead man: Anglo, balding, with a tattoo on his forearm that Gallen had just recently discovered was for the US Army nuclear reactor officers.
‘Negroponte,’ said Winter, spitting. ‘The fuck’s he doin’ in the emergency lock?’ Kneeling, he checked the dead man’s mouth, neck and eyes. ‘Strangled,’ he said.
‘Killed in the power station, dragged to the emergency lock,’ said Gallen.
‘Yep,’ said Winter. ‘So who’s in the power station now? Who’s holding the key to that thing?’
Standing, Gallen gulped at the fresh air sluicing in off the Beaufort like the best drug. ‘Let’s find out.’
On the deck of the service ship, they found Tucker and Ford keeping Du Bois company. Aaron had his pistol held to Du Bois’ kidneys and then he was pushing her along the deck, back to the state rooms.
‘Aaron,’ said Gallen, seeing a raised eyebrow from Winter as he walked past. ‘What’s up? I need to talk to her.’
‘So do I, Gerry. This is no longer Oasis business.’
‘What?’ said Gallen, surprised.
Aaron kept walking. ‘Join us if you want.’
Two men in Ariadne jumpsuits peeled off and joined Aaron, who steered Du Bois through the companionways and passages, into his state room, where he threw her on the bed. From his briefcase he pulled a digital recorder and flicked it on, slamming it on the small writing desk.
‘Martina Du Bois, of ArcticWatch, my name is Aaron Michaels, I’m an agent of the US Government. I need to ask you some questions and anything you say will be recorded and used in any way deemed fit by the government.’
‘Fuck you,’ said the Frenchwoman, struggling against one of Aaron’s undercover heavies.
‘Who are you working with?’ said Aaron, as though she hadn’t said a word.
Du Bois spat at Aaron, kicked one of her captors. Grabbing the recorder, she threw it at a mirror, smashing both items.
‘This isn’t a joke, Martina,’ said Aaron, wiping off the spit as the heavies got their hands on her again.
‘Who are you, anyway?’ said Du Bois.
‘It’s best if I ask the questions,’ said Aaron, and Gallen knew he’d lost the battle.
‘Aaron, can we talk?’ he said, inclining his head to the door.
Outside, Gallen immediately started in. ‘What the fuck, Aaron? I asked if you were Agency.’
‘And I said no, which is the truth. You’re ruining my interrogation.’
‘You ruined it yourself as soon as you went with the Gestapo line.’
Aaron rocked back on his heels, pushing his hair back. ‘Shit, Gerry. This has been a long, hard road.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘An agency that monitors illegal use of nuclear technology.’
‘Shit, you’re DIA?’
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘We work with them a lot. But this is separate.’
‘That leaves NSA.’
‘No comment, Gerry. We’ve been chasing Mendes for years.’
‘Years?’ said Gallen, aghast. ‘She only made CEO two weeks ago.’
‘She was planted at Oasis, groomed up,’ said Aaron. ‘Shit, I’m saying too much.’
‘Say more,’ said Gallen, nostrils flaring with annoyance.
‘Harry was going to die in a hunting accident in Russia, but another hit team got to his plane first and almost took Florita Mendes and the rest of you with it.’
‘Planted?’ said Gallen, stunned. ‘By whom? Why?’
‘Does it matter? Right now we have a team of terrorists on the sea bed with a nuclear device.’
‘You tell me why it matters,’ said Gallen, ‘and I’ll work on Martina for you, if you ask me nice.’
Aaron sighed, shook his head. ‘Florita Mendes works for the Bashoff crime family in a sleeper capacity. The STARs she’s been pushing for in the underwater rigs? They’re a Russian design, produced by a Bashoff company. The Oasis takeover of Thor is illusory. It was a reverse takeover orchestrated by the Bashoff bankers and Florita herself.’
‘It can go two ways, Martina,’ said Gallen, lighting a smoke when he was back in the state room and half recovered from the conversation with Aaron.
‘You talk in clichés, you Americans.’
Gallen ignored her, cracked a porthole for his smoke. ‘You’ve killed an American sea captain and a former US Army officer, who happens to have been a nuclear reactor officer.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ snapped the Frenchwoman.
‘The CIA might overlook that detail and go straight to the part about nuclear terror. If the Pentagon’s spooks get to you first, you’ll be rendered to a basement in Egypt where they can have a long chat with you — see who else is planning nuclear attacks against the United States.’
‘I’m a French citizen,’ she snarled. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Try me,’ said Gallen, exhaling smoke. ‘There are few things less humorous to Washington than a bunch of unfriendlies playing rock-paper-scissors with nukes.’
A knock sounded at the stateroom door and Ben Letour entered.
‘I know nothing about this,’ said Du Bois, ‘except what I told you. I didn’t know they were Mossad. I still don’t know that.’
‘Maybe,’ said Gallen. ‘But there’s a whole layer of intelligence bureaucracy devoted to finding people like you and extracting every ounce of information. It’s called the Greater Good theory, Martina— you know what that is? ‘
‘I know what civilised Europeans think it is.’
Gallen smiled. ‘Let me give you the Pentagon’s version of Greater Good: violating the human rights of one Frenchwoman is okay if in doing so you can save an American city from a nuclear strike.’