“Your wife is a navigator?”
He nodded again.
Jake felt his stomach knot, and experienced a rush of empathy for the captain. “Do you know what they want, these North Koreans? At Faslane? With you? With us?”
“With us…a way in…to the base. With you? No.” Ove coughed, and winced with pain again.
Jake wanted to ask more questions, but Kevin was back again. “That’s enough for now, Captain Noah. Ove needs rest. Maybe you can come back later?”
Jake nodded. “Thank you for your time, Ove.” He stood, and looked around at the other surviving members of the Lance’s crew. Most were sleeping, or were too drugged to be able to offer any more information. He left the suite, his head filled with questions.
He was barely out of the door when he spotted a woman in a security uniform running towards him. She was red faced and out of breath. “Captain, there you are!”
“What’s the matter?” He felt a nervous rush when he saw the look on the officer’s face.
“You need to come downstairs,” she said, panting. “You have to come to the classroom. Right now.”
Twenty-Three
THE NARROW CORRIDOR that led to the conference suite had never been so packed. As Jake approached the barricaded classroom, he passed almost the entire security team. They were keeping the whole area sealed off, not letting anyone in or out. Those nearest the classroom were armed. They had taken up strategic positions, their weapons trained on the innocuous doorway.
“Jake!” Lucya flung her arms around him. Her puffy eyes looked into his. They didn’t need words; each knew how the other must be feeling. In the short time they had been caring for Erica, she had truly become like family to them.
Someone cleared their throat, and Jake turned to see Max. “What are they demanding, Max? What is it they want?”
“For now, they want to speak to you. Miss Levin called me and I’ve tried negotiating the release of some of the children while my officer was looking for you, but they refuse to speak to anyone but the captain.”
Jake let go of Lucya, drew himself up to his full height, and took a deep breath. He walked to the bland door and stared through the window.
Erica was still in the arms of the same man, the gun still at her neck. She appeared remarkably calm. That was more than could be said for the other children. Rounded up on the floor like sheep, surrounded by the other men, they were whimpering and sobbing.
“I’m Captain Jake Noah. Identify yourself please.” He spoke loudly and clearly, but did not shout.
The man on the other side of the door sneered. “You young. You not captain!”
Jake turned slightly to his side, showing the epaulettes on his shoulders. “I have been the captain for almost two months, since Captain Ibsen and Staff Captain Hollen were both killed following the asteroid. I don’t know any way I can prove that to you, so you’re either going to have to believe me, or we’re all going to stand around here for a very long time.” He kept his voice steady, but inside, beneath the thin veneer of control and confidence, he was ready to crumble into a million pieces. His eyes never left the man who appeared to be in charge. As long as he didn’t look at the children, he could just about hold it together.
The Korean man didn’t speak for a minute. A minute that felt like an hour. From the corner of his eye, Jake could see Max getting twitchy. He, too, was armed. Jake was as worried that his head of security would leap into some misguided heroic action as he was worried about the men on the wrong side of the door.
Finally, the Korean made up his mind. “I speak you. We want ship. Lance.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded slowly. He could see Max nodding too, encouraging him. “If you come out and leave the children there, then yes, of course, you can go back onto the Lance. We only wanted to help the crew, the prisoners—”
“No. The children come.”
Silence.
Nobody dared breathe. Nobody dared move.
“Why…” He couldn’t keep his voice from shaking now. “Why do you want the children? I can’t let you take our children.”
“We take children to Lance. We go. When safe, release children, in raft. Children are security. You try kill me? You try anything? We kill children. Okay?”
Jake swallowed hard. “I understand you need assurances. Of course you do. I have another idea. You leave the children here and you take me with you instead. When you have the Lance a safe distance away, you let me go. How does that sound?”
Max was shaking his head rapidly. Lucya was making a strange whining noise behind him.
“No, Captain. No deal. Children come. No choice. We go to Lance, or we kill. One at a time.” He pulled Erica up towards him until she was standing on tiptoes. Her eyes glinted in the light, filled with water. The gun pressed hard into her neck, making her cough and choke.
“Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt anyone. I’ll get you to your ship, but I need some time—”
“We go now!”
“No! That’s not possible. The Lance has gone. There was a torpedo, the explosion. You heard it too. She broke free. We have to get her back, but the torpedo damaged our propeller as well. We have to use a life raft to get someone to the Lance, to bring her back here. You understand? You can have the Lance, but we have to get her back first.”
The man looked unsure of himself, and for the first time since Jake’s arrival on the scene, he tore his eyes away from the door and looked at his men. They snapped a few words back and forth. Jake didn’t understand what they said, but he could imagine. They suspected he was lying, playing them for time. On the other hand, they had felt the explosion. It was what had let them escape. His story was plausible. He didn’t dare look away. To do so would be to betray his own lack of confidence.
The leader looked back at last. “One hour, Captain. In one hour, we go to Lance, or we kill child.”
• • •
At first Lucya refused to leave the classroom. She insisted on watching Erica to make sure that her captors remained true to their word and did not harm her. But Jake persuaded her to join himself and Max in a nearby evacuated classroom to discuss strategy.
Before the door was even closed, Max was making his view clear. “We’ve got an hour.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-seven minutes. That’s enough time to set up an ambush. We use my men, and some of the submariners who escorted the captives off the Lance are still aboard. They didn’t get back onto the sub before the torpedo. They can help too; they’re armed.”
Lucya shook her head as if trying to shake off a fly. “What? Ambush? What are you talking about?”
“Simple. We tell them we’re escorting them to the Lance, we lead them through a carefully chosen route and then…boom! Kill the fuckers. Silo them into a suitable location. A narrow passage with only one way in and out. We’ll be waiting for them. Then, we execute them.”
“Are you completely insane?” Lucya stood and leaned over the table. “I mean, have you totally lost your mind?
Max looked taken aback. He turned to Jake, choosing to ignore the chief radio officer’s protestations.
“Of course, we’ll have to accept the possibility of civilian casualties, but the risk is far less than letting them take the children onto the Lance. Let’s face it, if that happens we’ll never see them again. At best, we’ll find them floating headless in a life raft.”
Lucya swore. Jake held up a hand. “No. We’re not ambushing them. Casualties are not acceptable. At the first sign of trouble, they’ll harm the kids. I’m not losing a single child. I’m not losing anyone. There has to be another way.”