“What just happened?” Tom asked Elise in a panic.
He never heard her reply. Instead a large explosion rocked the elevator shaft, echoing throughout the engine room.
Veyron listened intently and then grabbed Tom. “Get away from the door — Now!”
A moment later, the door smashed open as the elevator came crashing through the floor. Tom fought through the smoke and debris. He looked inside the destroyed elevator.
“Elise, are you all right?” Tom caught his breath. “What the hell just happened?”
Silence.
Veyron tried his own radio and then stopped. “It’s pointless.”
“Why?”
“The radios have been jammed again by that depressing music — Gloomy Sunday.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tom watched as the red glow of the second elevator started to ascend. He tried his access card again, but received the same message: Access Denied. The engine room security codes must not have been included in the list Gerald had sent him. The elevator stopped on the second crew level.
“We’ve got to get to her!” Tom yelled.
“Of course we do.” Veyron grinned viciously. “And to do that, we need to get to the crew level above. Come on, we’ll take the stairs.”
Tom kicked at the locked door, throwing the full weight of his two hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle into it. The door barely moved. The two men tried kicking it together. Nothing happened. The door was designed to stop flooding water from ascending to the levels above — there was no way they could kick it open.
“You have any ideas?” Tom asked.
Veyron returned to the elevator and picked up the carbine lamp. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Elise brought the Browning M2 machinegun out of the crook of her shoulder, where it had butted in while she shot. Close to sixty 50 caliber used shell casings were scattered on the floor to the right of her. The weapon smelled of burnt gunpowder and smoke still wafted from the firing mechanism. She grinned. The weapon had fired smoothly and accurately.
She left the Browning on its tripod on the floor and stood up. With her right hand she took hold of the Uzi and approached the second elevator. Something exploded when she fired on the first elevator, but there was no explosion with the second. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d fired a number of rounds into the closed door of the second elevator before it had the chance to open.
She watched carefully. Standing in a firing position, she aimed her Uzi at the door, which looked like Swiss cheese. The door opened and she stared inside. The back wall of the elevator was scattered with bullet holes. There was only one thing remaining in the otherwise empty elevator. It took her a moment to recognize it.
A large teddy bear.
It was one of those novelty-sized, soft and cuddly toys. Its wide eyes stared at her with an expression of affection. The bear’s round tummy was shredded by bullets, but otherwise it was entirely intact. It had a big grin made out of black stitching to match its eyes. The thing had probably been an intimate gift for one of the crew or entertainers below. Around its neck a yellow sign was attached by a small silver chain.
Elise recognized the card immediately. It was written in the same lazy scrawl she’d seen throughout the rest of the shopfronts. The card read: I’m sorry. Do you want to play? I’ll be back in five minutes.
She noticed a small camera at the back of the bear’s head. It had fallen off during the shooting, but the light still glowed red. Elise picked it up. “I’m sorry, I don’t play with toys. I’ll be waiting for you, in five minutes time.”
Elise then swiped her own card on the elevator door and pressed descend. She watched as the elevator lights showed it descend until it stopped at the second crew member’s level. She depressed the transmitter to her radio. “I’m all right guys. I just sent a teddy bear packing.”
There was no response.
She waited a full minute and then depressed the transmitter again without speaking. The radio was full of static. Mostly white noise. When she listened long enough she heard the depressing music. She let go of the transmitter — someone had blocked the radio channel again.
Elise sat down at her security station and looked at her computer. Someone had restarted the power to the two other elevators on board. The ones she’d disconnected earlier so she would only face an enemy from one location at a time. Both elevators were stopped on level two. She glanced through the images taken from the 205 security cameras on board the Antarctic Solace.
According to her computer, none of them had identified any movement. She felt reassured she was still alone on the sixth level. She typed on her keyboard and quickly executed a search of any movement in the past ten minutes.
Her eyes stopped at the one entry.
The aft elevator moved from the second level up to the sixth. There it remained for a total of three minutes. At the same time, the cameras on the sixth floor suffered a power outage, before the elevator returned to the second level.
The question was — did someone return with it?
Elise thought about it for a minute. Someone was playing with them, and she didn’t like it. She considered the most secure place for her to take command of the situation.
She gripped her Uzi for comfort. If someone had taken the aft elevator up to greet her, she was ready to play.
A moment later, she heard the sound of a large explosion below.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Jesus Christ!” Tom swore. “Do you think you used enough acetylene?”
Veyron looked at the now demolished door. “Hey, it opened the door, didn’t it?”
Tom nodded and walked through the new opening. His Remington shotgun led the way through the smoke and debris. It was kind of empowering to know their enemy already expected them and so there was no reason to attempt to go in quietly.
The smoke cleared and Tom could see the entire room well enough. It was narrow and had a series of ladders reaching to the ceiling far above. Unlike the other decks which had all been slightly less than a story high, the distance between the engine room and the crew deck was close to thirty feet to house the massive diesel engines.
Veyron looked up to the opening near the ceiling. “You climb up first and I’ll cover that door in case anyone has other plans.”
“Sure.” Tom slid the strap of the Remington over his shoulder and began climbing.
There were three ladders. All of them were surrounded by a semi-circle of grated steel to stop the climber falling. Each ladder was then divided by a small landing partition so that the climber could only ever fall a maximum of ten feet.
He climbed quickly. Hand over hand, he took three rungs at a time and reached the highest platform in just under a minute. He then unslung his shotgun and aimed it at the steel hatch. If anyone tried to come in while Veyron climbed they’d never know what hit them.
“All right, Veyron,” he called out. “Your turn.”
Veyron smiled and climbed up behind him. The platform was barely adequate to accommodate the two grown men.
“Is the door locked?” Veyron whispered.
“No.”
“Then I suggest we go through it.”
Chapter Forty
Tom turned the handle and slowly opened the hatch. It opened to a long passageway. The lights were turned off along it, but in the distance the lights were on in the large living area for the crew and entertainers. The sound of a television being played came from the room ahead. It was some cheap daytime sitcom. Tom couldn’t hear the sound of anyone. He shined his flashlight in the other direction. It finished only a few feet away at the aft elevator.