“We’ve got two handguns on board,” Jesse told me. I hoped our captors, if they were listening, couldn’t speak English. “In a secure compartment on the bridge.”
I said, “Somehow I don’t think a firefight is going to work to our advantage.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t get them. But in case we need them.”
“If we need them, we’re already fucked.”
Anya looked at me as if that was cowardice rather than simple truth, then returned to working on the lower hinge. The other was already unbolted and loose enough to pull free of its bracket. I glanced at my iPhone’s screen. The camera on the UAV parked up top showed two men on the aft deck, one looking down at the propellors, one talking on a satellite phone.
“So you have no idea where the killer Colombian drones came from,” I said to Jesse.
“How would we know anything about that?”
“Why does the DEA think you do?”
“We didn’t give anything to a drug cartel.” He hesitated for a second. “At least not directly. I can’t believe you thought that for even a second. I mean, come on, man.”
“Not directly,” I pounced. “Meaning what exactly?”
“We have been sharing the tech with a… kind of grassroots NGO,” he admitted. “Sort of like Amnesty International, or Transparency International, but more active. Somebody there might have -” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Not might. Did,” I corrected him, almost enjoying this; it wasn’t often I got the opportunity to rake Jesse over conversational coals. “Who are these selfless altruists?”
“Called Grassfire.”
“Never heard of them.” But Sophie had twitched at the sound of that name.
“You’re not supposed to. They’re not an NGO in the traditional sense. More of an open source insurgency.”
“Insurgency. Sure sounds nonviolent.”
“It’s not like it sounds. I’ll explain later.” Jesse sounded testy.
Anya grunted with triumph as the lower bolt came loose. We only had to lift the door up off its hinges to open it. Unfortunately, we had no idea what was outside, except that there were three violent and heavily armed men somewhere on board, who had probably already reported their predicament to whoever had sent them, and we were probably fifteen miles from land on a ship whose engine no longer functioned. I had little faith in Jesse’s ability to able to explain anything later. The odds still seemed heavily in favour of there being no later for us at all.
“We have to move fast. We’ll have two minutes at most.” Sophie passed me my phone. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“No, I’m not sure. But I think so.”
Anya and Jesse looked deeply dubious.
“OK,” Sophie took a deep breath. “First we knock on their door.”
She pushed a button on my phone, thus issuing commands to the USVs now clustered around the ship. I waited and listened as ten of the twelve submersibles began to bump repeatedly into the hull. I had hoped for something unnerving and intense, but all I heard was a faint tapping.
I checked the view from the drone up top. Still two men on the aft deck, meaning one gunman unaccounted for, very possibly right outside our door. At least the men I could see were up on their feet, with anxious body language.
“Now we break it down,” Sophie said, and looked at me.
Guiding the second UAV was easier, partly because the target was bigger. I simply divebombed it straight for the Ark Royale. It didn’t really matter where it hit, but I aimed it right at the men on the aft deck, hoping to scare them, and caught a gratifying glimpse of them fleeing into the common room fast enough that we heard their pounding footsteps as the pale blob of the ship expanded rapidly to swallow up the UAV’s camera. Then the camera view went dark.
I switched back to the view from the drone above and squinted at the screen. This was the important part. Wreckage from my controlled crash lay scattered all over the aft deck. As we watched, the gunmen went out to investigate, impelled, I hoped, by inescapable human curiosity, although their body language was more like scared and bewildered. One figure appeared, then another… and then the third.
“Now,” Sophie commanded.
The cabin door was unwieldy but we managed to lift it off its hinges and open it. Anya and Sophie darted outside. Jesse and I followed. The three of them fought to replace the door on its hinges as I began to guide the third and final UAV down towards the Ark Royale, piloting it remotely as I followed the others out and along the narrow external passageway alongside the ship, towards the bow. The whole point of this third sortie was to hold their attention, so I brought it in shallowly from behind the ship, at a moderate altitude, hopefully visible and audible the whole time.
It wasn’t easy to simultaneously steer the UAV, which required both hands, and walk along the narrow passageway above the ship’s edge while the deck heaved and surged beneath me, all as quickly and surreptitiously as possible, while suffering from a piercing headache. Somehow I managed, probably because my mind was so focused on the iPhone’s screen that it didn’t interfere with my body’s instincts. My problem with tricky physical feats had always been that I thought about them too much.
The gunshots began just as I reached the the flat deck at the bow of the ship. I started, nearly pitched forward over the railing and into the ocean, but Anya grabbed my bicep and pulled me to safety. I held tightly to my phone as I spun around to see – nothing. We remained undiscovered. The gunmen were shooting at the drone arrowing towards them.
Their anti-aircraft fire swallowed up the loud whoosh of the inflatable life raft’s expansion. I made one last UAV course adjustment while Jesse and Sophie hurled the raft over the side of the boat and jumped after it. It landed open-side-up almost directly beneath me. I tossed the phone into it before leaping into the sea. The water was warm, but my sudden immersion was still a physical shock. Anya followed.
They must have heard the splashes. By the time I made it into the raft Sophie was already busy on the iPhone, and Jesse had already connected the rope to the D-ring at the back of the waiting USV, the plan was working at top speed – but it wasn’t enough. The submersible vehicle launched forward, towing us behind it, but it was too slow. We weren’t more than a hundred feet away when I looked back and saw the three Hispanic men armed with assault rifles, standing behind the bow railing.
Sophie groaned aloud, as if she had been cheated.
“Game over,” I muttered, hardly hearing myself. We had come so close, but it hadn’t been enough. I realized with horror that now we couldn’t stop if we wanted to, it would take too long to detach the raft from the USV. We had left them with no option but to shoot us, and they would almost certainly wound or kill some or all of us before they sank the raft.
One of them levelled his weapon at us.
I closed my eyes. I felt like I was already drowning.
Nothing happened.
When I looked up I saw the three of them gesticulating violently. Whoever didn’t want to shoot us won the argument. Instead they climbed to the bridge, where they tried to restart the Ark Royale. Black smoke immediately began to rise from its engine, which ground to a loud and painful halt. Meanwhile we moved away unharmed. Soon we were out of rifle range; and then, slowly, the white dot that was the Ark Royale vanished on that line where blue ocean met cloudy sky.
The life raft had an onboard survival kit with fresh water, a solar still, some tasteless but allegedly nutritious crackers, sunscreen, a first-aid kit, rope, signal flares, paddles, life jackets, and a transmitter that would broadcast a distress signal to the world. We decided not to use that last just yet: no sense painting a bullseye on ourselves when our hunters had doubtless already called in assistance. There was a brief dispute over the water, but eventually the carry-it-in-you crowd, which consisted of me and Sophie, won out over the ration-it faction by the simple expedient of drinking our share and ignoring Jesse and Anya’s protests. It was stale but the sweetest I had ever tasted. Captivity and escape were thirsty work.