The Lost Key

“You’ve fast-roped before?”

“Yes, in training. It’s been a while.”

“It’s our only decent ingress. It’s going to be windy, so plan to go fast. Slap that strap over your shoulder, the rifle will lay nice and snug against your back. The minute we hit the deck, you spin it around and cover me.”

“Roger that.”

He looked at her then, really saw her. Her face was pale, composed and set, but her eyes, he could tell she was excited, blood pumping, locked and loaded. She was holding the C8 in a death grip.

He said, “When we’ve wrapped this all up, I’ll buy you a proper meal.”

“No haggis,” she said.

“You’re in luck, it’s not haggis season. A nice cottage pie, that will warm you from the inside.”

He broke open the first-aid kit. He was in luck, God bless Her Majesty’s Navy.

He shook out the pills. “Here, Mike, take two—potassium iodide. It will protect us from radiation.”

She swallowed the pills. “I’ll bring the first-aid kit along. We don’t know what we’re going to encounter down there.”

The chopper was swinging low over the loch now. A herd of red deer sprang away from the cliff’s edge, ru

Mike tucked the kit inside her jacket. The adrenaline was starting to pump hard through her body. She took a few deep breaths to tamp it down, pulled on the gloves, grateful she wasn’t going to have to try this bare-handed.

She ran through the weapon, checking it, as she’d been trained to do. When she was comfortable with it, she set it square in her lap and tried to empty her mind of everything but each action she was going to undertake. She was glad she’d put on a heavy sweater under her leather jacket. She had a sinking suspicion it was going to be freezing cold once they slid out the doors of the chopper.

The pilot came over the air again.

“Two minutes to jump.”

“Roger,” Nicholas said, then opened the chopper door. The cold breeze whistled in.

“One minute to jump.”

She took a deep breath, moved into position. There was a thick black coil attached to the floor of the chopper, the ropes they were going to slide down. The copilot joined them, his own weapon at the ready. He shouted, “I’m Lieutenant Ryan Halpern. I’m going to cover your insertion. Careful to keep your feet free of the rope, ma’am, since I’ll be right behind you.”

Mike gave him a thumbs-up. She saw the Gravitania’s lights below, bobbing in the waves.

The pilot said, “We’ve circled twice, I don’t see any activity of any kind from the ship. We’re going to insert you low, so if there are bad guys down there hiding, they’ll come out like lice so you’ll have to be ready to rock ’n’ roll. You’ll have a thirty-foot slide, okay?”

Nicholas smiled at her. “Mike, you ready?”

Her heart jumped into her throat, blood thundered in her head. She gave him a mad grin, took the thick braided rope in her hand, fed it around her arms and left her legs free.

The pilot said in her ear, “Fast-rope on my mark—three, two, one, jump, jump, jump.”

And they went out the door, snaking down the lines onto the deck of Havelock’s ship.

74

Gravitania

Loch Eriboll

7:00 p.m.

The moment they hit the Gravitania’s deck, the helicopter peeled off, the whump of the rotors fading slowly until they were surrounded by nothing but a pervasive silence. Mike got the C8 into her hands immediately, Nicholas did as well. Where was everybody? They had to be hiding somewhere. They kept quiet and used hand signals: Nicholas to lead, Mike behind him, Lieutenant Halpern bringing up the rear to cover.

The ship rocked a bit in the still waters, listing gently from side to side. The mountains on either side of the loch rose like silent sentinels.

Nicholas saw a small T-shaped spit of land about one hundred yards away, a bleached wooden hut on the spit, and what looked like caves fronting a small beach. Like the Gravitania, the land and hut seemed deserted.

They moved out, stepping lightly, and worked their way through the ship. There was no one aboard. The Gravitania was empty.

“Where is everybody?”

“Havelock must have off-loaded them,” Nicholas said. “Why? I don’t know.”

Lieutenant Halpern moved closer. “If so, he probably has another ship nearby. I’ll call it in.”

Nicholas again looked from side to side. “Lieutenant, after you make that call, take another circuit. Mike, let’s go to the bridge, see if we can figure out what happened here.”

With a quick nod, Halpern melted away. They heard him speaking quietly. Mike followed Nicholas up the steps at the rear of the boat. The spit of land was on their port side. A small Bell helicopter blocked most of their view of the stern. Mike looked over at the small hut. Still no sign of anyone.

The ship was anchored, the engines were off, but the electrical system was still ru

Havelock had been trolling for the exact location of the sub, and he’d found it.

Nicholas stepped closer to the sonar display. He tapped the screen, then pointed left.

“There,” he said.

Mike said, “Underground?”

He nodded. “That’s why no one has ever picked up on it. To regular sonar, the blip would appear to be the land itself, but it’s not. It’s under a rock ledge.”

Mike looked at him. “How deep is that water?”

“The cha

“And they’ve been hiding for a century, tucked up under this spit of land. Amazing.”

“A secluded spot, even with the seagoing vessels coming in and out. This is the only sea loch on the northern coast of Scotland. It’s far from civilization, the perfect spot for a sub to hide.”

“Who’s idea was it, do you think? To hide the sub here?”

Nicholas shrugged. “The captain of the sub, if they’d been damaged and he didn’t want anyone to find them.”

Mike looked again toward the wooden hut. “We don’t have time to wait for the Dover and a submersible. Nicholas. As you know, I can’t dive.”

Halpern came onto the bridge. “I dive, sir. What’s more, I saw all the dive equipment we’ll need. But before we go down, there’s something you need to see. I found one of the crew.”

—

HALPERN LED THEM down the stairs, to the stern of the boat. There was a man, half off the back of the boat, caught in netting that had most likely held a small rescue raft. He was pale, waxy, nearly the same color as the graying sky. And wet. He was wearing a T-shirt and a bulletproof vest. His hand stretched onto the deck of the boat, and there was blood smeared along his arm.

Suddenly, he moved. “He’s not dead!” Mike shouted and ran to him.

“Mike, no, get back!”

She was on her knees beside him. “Nicholas, it’s Alex Shepherd. He’s been shot.”

He was alive, barely.

“I’d as soon leave him for the crows,” Nicholas said.

Alex grabbed her hand, and looked up into her face. “Help. Me.” There was a pause, he dropped her hand. She barely heard him whisper, “Please.” He was out cold.

Nicholas said, “We do need to know what happened on this boat, and I suppose that means helping the bastard.”

“He did leave us a note at Weston’s house to tell us where to come. We need to call the Dover right now, get them to send the chopper back and airlift him out of here.”