Nadia reckoned she spent way too much time in the back of military transport airplanes. This one was Canadian, routing home from a layover in Riga. She didn’t ask how MI6 had arranged it. She and Greaves faced each other, kitted up, ready to go, but the light was red.
‘Have you jumped before?’ Greaves asked. He had to shout. It seemed the military abhorred any kind of sound-proofing.
She recalled the last time, her first jump. The parachute had failed. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. We’ll have a long drop, downwind of the platform, so no one will hear us coming.’
‘There’s only one platform, right?’
He nodded, holding up an index to make it clear. ‘There’s a cluster further south on the ridge, but here, just one.’
Something had been bothering her. ‘If … if he has a nuke, and dropped it down into the ridge, couldn’t he cause an earthquake, mess with tectonic plates?’
Greaves pursed his lips, then shook his head. ‘I asked that same question. Unlikely, apparently. First, even though it’s a ridge, it’s a pretty stable one. Second, once a nuke is below a thousand feet of water, it doesn’t do too much of anything, because there’s so much pressure on top of it. Won’t even generate a tsunami, because the ice at the surface would dampen it. No, if he has one, he’ll detonate it on the platform, to light up the well for years to come. The amount of ice that will melt and never refreeze … it’ll trigger a rise in the global temperature, not to mention sea levels. It could push the planet over the edge, Nadia. The game-changer to end them all.’
She recalled Michael’s dying words. He will make the sky bleed. And the world will weep.
Not on her watch.
She gazed at the sled, hoping it would work after it hit the ground. She didn’t fancy a long trek across the ice. The light changed from red to yellow. Five minutes. Greaves fiddled with his kit, checking it over. Nadia had something on her mind.
‘Blue Fan told me something about Salamander.’
Greaves stopped what he was doing, and looked up.
‘She said he liked symmetry. I didn’t put too much store in it, but after the video—’
‘One of you, one of Jake.’
She nodded. ‘Blue Fan said it might help understand his strategy.’
‘I don’t suppose she said how?’ He waited, got no response, and re-started his fiddling.
Nadia tried to figure it out. ‘She said he believed history repeats itself.’
Greaves blew air out of slack lips, and sat back, folding his arms. ‘Okay, let’s do this. But you need Jake, not me, I’m a dumb soldier, a grunt, not intelligence.’
She didn’t like it when good people put themselves down. ‘You’re only dumb when you say things like that.’
He mock-flinched.
‘Prove me right and you wrong,’ she said.
He studied her a moment. ‘Okay.’ His face grew serious. ‘His whole life is fixed on one event.’
‘Kai Tak Airport. His wife killed in front of him.’
‘Bingo. So, it’s pretty obvious really.’
Was it? ‘Humour me.’
‘Really? I mean, you don’t get what he’s doing? Maybe you’re too close, that’s why you can’t see it.’
Her blood simmered. ‘Spit it out, Greaves.’
‘Him and his wife. They stopped a prototype low-yield North Korean nuclear weapon from being deployed.’
Nadia needed to hear it. The part that she’d been denying.
‘Salamander and his wife. Jake and you. A nuke. From North Korea. History is repeating itself, Nadia.’
It fell into place like an arrow thwacking into a tree. Could it be true? Did he want them both there?
Greaves continued. ‘And the videos, the killings of Hanbury, the Marshall, Jake in Pyongyang with Salamander … If he pulls it off, you’re both going to be disavowed by your governments, even though they know it’s a lie.’
Shit. Symmetry.
She fought against it. Destiny was bullshit, especially if orchestrated by someone as sick as Salamander. ‘But he tried to kill me, and from what you’ve told me, Jake too.’
Greaves shrugged. ‘Maybe so. But he’s always left a small chance for you to escape. As if …’
‘As if what?’ Her heart pounded in her ears.
‘To see how good you both really are. To recreate history, not just the events, but a team as good as he and his wife were.’
This sounded absolutely psycho. And yet … ‘To what end?’ She was shouting more than she needed to. So many dead on account of him. She was sick of this, sick of Salamander, sick of being a puppet dancing to his tune.
Greaves shrugged. ‘From what I’ve heard of him, he despises everyone, even his granddaughter. He wants someone worthy there at the end.’
‘To stop him?’
‘No, Nadia. I’m sure he aims to kill you both. But he’s a grandmaster, a strategist. He needs a worthy opponent to go down with him, to witness it, because this is his last play.’
The storm inside her ebbed. She went quiet for a while. ‘What if we turn around, and don’t go?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s too far gone. He’ll just decide you weren’t worthy after all, and …’
And kill Jake, take Jake with him. And suddenly she understood. Because she wanted more than anything to be there, with Jake, whatever the outcome.
‘You’re only half-right,’ she said.
‘How so?’
‘He wants us there because he needs someone to finally understand his rage, to understand why he became the way he is.’
Greaves nodded. ‘You and Jake,’ he cleared his throat. ‘You feel for each other as they did, and you will lose each other for the greater good, yet be remembered as criminals.’
The light changed to green. Thirty seconds.
Greaves got to his feet, tested his straps one last time. ‘Do you believe history repeats itself, Nadia?’
She’d never thought about it. Her father had been a killer. She’d sworn never to become one. History had proven otherwise.
‘No.’
‘Then don’t play his games. Don’t inhabit his universe. What are the rules when dealing with a terrorist?’
She half-smiled. ‘There are no rules.’
‘Bingo.’
Greaves was right. Stop playing Salamander’s game. The only way to beat him was to kick over his gameboard and shoot him dead. The ramp descended. The light flashed. She didn’t hesitate. She dashed forwards and dived into the bitingly cold air.
Freefalling was easier this time, because it was in daylight. Still, they had to open their chutes as late as possible to avoid being seen, having been dropped from twelve thousand feet. Greaves had said not before one thousand, not after five hundred. She took in the scene through her goggles. Visibility was forever. She spied the platform in the distance, the only structure in her fifty-mile-plus field of vision. All she could really tell was that it was quite low, close to the ice, with a tall derrick reaching up high. It looked like a squat crab impaled on a giant nail. She’d expected to see other buildings or portable cabins around the platform, but it appeared self-sufficient, a man-made island in a desert of snow. But there was something unexpected: a ship, about half a kilometre from the platform. From what she could tell it was stationary, locked in ice.
Her face began to numb, despite the windproof balaclava and hood. She glanced at her altimeter. Four thousand feet. The dazzling white below seemed closer, but it was hard to tell, there was nothing, no bushes, trees, animals. No reference point. She looked towards the platform again. The top of the derrick seemed almost level with her. She glanced at the altimeter again. Four thousand. Fuck! Her altimeter was frozen! She yanked the cord, and watched the ground rush towards her. At the last second, she was whipped upwards as the chute deployed.
She hit the ground hard, her boots thudding into the ice beneath its thin dusting of snow. Her momentum cartwheeled her forward, her face grazing the crisp floor. She lay there for a moment, legs and arms splayed, face down, snow melting on her lips. Nothing broken. She grinned, happy to be alive. The transparent chute fluttered and settled around her like a deflating balloon. Like a shroud.
Not yet.
By the time Greaves landed, she’d balled up her chute and buried it under a mound of snow, along with her altimeter, which she’d accidentally stepped on. Three times.
‘What took you?’ she said to him.
He eyed her for a moment. ‘Let’s find the sled.’
Greaves released the crate from its chute, opened it up and dragged out the sled. They climbed aboard, Nadia behind him, and it whispered off, its battery-powered engine super-silent, the only sound soft snow swishing under the skis. They kept their hoods up, the only non-white aspect being their sunglasses. Even their rifles were white. Greaves’ was longer-barrelled, like a sniper’s.
‘How far can you shoot that thing?’ she asked.
‘I’m not a good sniper. About three hundred metres.’
Not bad. Nadia was good at close quarters, pretty crap at long range.
They updated their tactics while humming through the snow. The ship was stationary, and had been for a little while, so most likely Salamander was already on the platform with Jake and the nuke. She and Greaves needed to get onto the platform and search for Jake and Salamander together, after first securing the drill floor. She’d take point, Greaves would have her back.
But as they approached, she began to re-think it. Salamander would expect her to come for him, just as Jake and Greaves had gone after him last time, which hadn’t worked so well. The alternative was that Greaves stayed out on the snow, sniper-style, waiting for Salamander to appear in his cross-hairs. It was a decent Plan B, because Salamander didn’t know Greaves was there. But the platform was full of metal-clad rooms. Few clean shots would present themselves. Truth be told, she needed a Plan C, only she didn’t know what it was. She remembered what the Chef had said; that as Salamander gets closer to his endgame, unorthodox tactics could upset his strategy.
They stopped after coming out from behind a large bluff of ice and snow, the stationary ship between them and the platform. The air rippled above the ship’s funnel, so something was still working.
‘Your call, Nadia.’
‘Let’s check it out,’ she replied.
Greaves steered the sled up behind the starboard side, using the ship’s hull for cover so Salamander couldn’t see them. They found a recessed ladder near the stern. She tested the ice next to the hull. Firm as a rock. Nadia went first up the ladder – slippery as hell – then waited for Greaves. They went straight to the bridge, which was deserted, then descended deck by deck until they reached the forward hold. Nadia heaved open the hatch, and immediately wished she hadn’t. A pile of bodies, all shot or garrotted. Holding her breath, on account of who she might find, she checked the faces of all the men, and then breathed again.
Greaves pulled out something the size of a large mobile phone. It made a noise like a cricket. A Geiger counter.
‘There was a nuke here,’ he said. ‘No question.’ He muttered a curse she didn’t catch, and switched it off.
They both heard a knocking, exchanged glances, drew their pistols, and headed back the way they’d come. It grew louder, and they traced it to a closed storage cupboard. As soon as they unlocked it, a half-naked man burst out, yelling obscenities in Russian – every other word was blyad, or a derivative – waving his hands, shouting at them. Nadia started laughing, then said something to the man that stopped him dead. She spoke some more, and the man dashed forward to the hold with the bodies.
‘My Russian’s dermo,’ Greaves said.
‘From the description he just gave, Jake locked him in there. The guy wants to tear his head off.’ She grew serious again. ‘I just told him the entire crew is dead, that he was lucky Jake knocked him out and hid him, or he’d be dead too.’
‘Let him radio for help,’ Greaves suggested.
‘Might tip our hand.’
‘Want to lock him up again?’
The man returned, and she spoke with him, and then he disappeared upstairs.
‘So?’
‘He’s first mate on this ship,’ Nadia said.
‘And?’
‘I might just have an idea of how to change the game.’
They went back to the bridge. The radio units had been disabled, but the first mate, fully clothed again, had gotten the engines warmed up. Nadia sat down and talked to him. She told him about the nuke, that the man with the trigger was on the platform, that he had to be stopped. And then she told him what she wanted him to do, at which point he began swearing again, shaking his head violently, stumbling backwards away from her.
‘Go downstairs and look at those bodies again. Your captain is there. If you don’t have the balls, show me how to do it!’
It took another five minutes of convincing, during which the man frequently tugged at his hair. Greaves kept an eye on him, ready to intervene, but all of this had to be done in Russian. Eventually, the first mate nodded. He set up everything on the bridge so all she would have to do was steer using the wheel, and apply the thrust levers. Then he took some supplies and quit the ship. Those had been his conditions, because he wouldn’t be a party to what she was about to do. They waited for him to leave.
‘Nadia,’ Greaves said. ‘There’s something you need to know. About Jake.’
Greaves looked troubled, his brow tied up in knots. She braced herself.
‘He said Salamander put something in his head.’
‘What does that mean?’
Greaves eased up a little. ‘He didn’t know. But he was sure they’d operated on him, said it affected vision from his right eye.’
She tried to remain logical. Make that clinical. ‘Then it’s on his retina.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Are you sure it’s his right eye?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, why?’
‘Okay, thanks for telling me.’
‘Nadia, we should discuss—’
She steeled her voice. ‘Unless you have further intel, I’d rather park it if it’s all the same to you.’
For a moment he looked wounded, then he glanced behind him. ‘First mate’s leaving. I offered him our sled. He said there’s a sub-station twenty klicks from here.’
Nadia didn’t blame him. She busied herself with the ship’s controls, and heard the rumble of the engines settle to a smooth hum, then grow louder into a growl, slowly rising in pitch. The rev counter for the props climbed steadily. The ship didn’t budge. She shoved the two silver levers forward, all the way. The rev counter flicked into the red, and there were creaking sounds, and she imagined the two props in a fury of foam underwater. The ship lurched, and with a sound like rocks being snapped apart, the ship edged forward.
Greaves went to take the helm.
‘Hands off!’ She grinned. ‘My idea, remember, so I get to play captain.’ Her Plan C. She moved behind the wheel, spun it a quarter, then waited as the ship slowly banked, sprays of snow gusting over the prow. The platform was dead ahead. The ship ploughed onwards, on a collision course with the platform.
‘This is your plan?’ Greaves asked. ‘I appreciate the shock value, but—’
‘What do you do if you’re operating a drilling platform and a ship is bearing down on you?’
‘Aside from evacuate? Ah …’
‘Secure the well. And the only fast way to do that is—’
‘Activate the blowout preventer. Nice one.’ He lifted a pair of binoculars from the console, and took a look. ‘There are probably quite a few innocent people on board that thing.’
‘We’re only doing five knots. They can get off in time if they want to. I’m sure they have motorised vehicles. But the people on the drill floor will be the last to leave. They always are.’
‘Well,’ Greaves said. ‘I don’t know if this will earn you Salamander’s respect, but it bloody well earns mine.’
‘Get your rifle ready in case he shows his face.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
The platform loomed closer. People were running about, shouting, waving. She hunted all of them for the only two faces that mattered. Without warning, gunfire strafed the ship’s deck, shattering the glass windows on the bridge. Not so innocent apparently, at least not all of them. She and Greaves hunkered down behind the metal console. She kept one hand on the wheel, staying the course.
‘You realise I’ll never get my bloody pension now?’
‘Tell the story to Mallory. Trust me, girls are impressed by this sort of shit.’
A klaxon sounded, followed by an audible warning. ‘Collision imminent, collision imminent.’ She pressed the alarm cancel button.
‘Ready?’ she said.
He nodded. She breeched her pistol, and he readied his rifle. Nadia started a mental countdown, and waited for impact.
Coming, Jake.