Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

‘Can you dock on your own?’ Eddie asked the pilot.

‘Yes, it’s — it’s automatic.’

‘Good. Where does the hatch open, and how many people will be there?’

‘The docking port goes into the engine room. I don’t know how many people will be inside — three or four, usually.’

‘But there might be more,’ Nina said. ‘Coming to congratulate you for killing us.’

‘They won’t be celebrating for long,’ said Eddie grimly. ‘All right, dock this thing.’

Sweating, the pilot manoeuvred the Mako into position. A graphic of the docking port appeared on a monitor, crosshairs guiding him into the perfect position. A series of bleeps, and the crosshairs turned green; he pushed a button, and the computers took over to lower the sub into position. A couple of bumps and clanks from below, then the engines shut down as flashing text on the screen announced that the minisub had docked safely.

‘That everything you need to do?’ Eddie asked. The pilot nodded. ‘Cheers, then.’ He smashed the rifle’s butt against the man’s head, knocking him back into unconsciousness. ‘You’re fucking lucky I didn’t kill you.’

‘What next?’ said Nina as they headed for the hatch. ‘I don’t want to rush down there without knowing who’s waiting.’

‘We don’t have to,’ Eddie replied. ‘We’ll let them come to us.’

At the bottom of the docking connector, two of the submarine’s crew watched as an engineer released the hatch, stepping back from the residual drips of water before looking up into it. The Mako’s own hatch was already open at the top.

But nobody was coming down it.

Seconds passed. ‘Where is he?’ asked one of the men, moving closer to see for himself. The submersible’s cabin lights were off.

‘I don’t know,’ said the engineer. He called up through the hatch. ‘Moritz?’ No answer. Giving his companions a look of concern, he tried again. ‘Moritz! What’s the problem?’

‘Yours,’ said Eddie, stepping out of the gloom and firing the rifle down the shaft.

The nail round hit the engineer in the face and went straight through his head, bursting out behind one ear in a bloody spray. The man standing beside him only had time to flinch in shock before a second sharpened spike plunged into the top of his chest and ripped open his heart. Both corpses crashed down on the deck.

The third man turned to flee. Behind him, Eddie dropped from the docking port with a bang. Another shot, and six inches of steel punched through the running man’s upper back to clang off the bulkhead beyond.

There was only one exit from the chamber. Eddie stepped over the bodies and opened a hatch to find a flight of steep metal stairs leading down into the submarine’s engine room. Two more crewmen were in the compartment, one staring up at him in stunned surprise, the other already sprinting towards a door. The Englishman tracked him and fired. The recoil from a nail round was different from that of a bullet, but when the first smacked noisily into a bank of batteries just behind his target he immediately adjusted — and the next shot hit home, tearing into the man’s neck.

He snapped the gun back at the other engineer — who was diving for a control panel. Eddie fired, but the man had already slapped his hand down on an alarm button — his last act on earth before the nail pierced his skull. A siren sounded, red lights flashing.

Nina emerged from the docking chamber. ‘So much for the stealthy approach!’

‘It’s not really my thing anyway.’ Eddie switched the ASM-DT to conventional ammunition and ran down the stairs. ‘Okay, what’s a good thing to break?’

As well as the batteries, the two-deck-high room housed a pair of diesel engines for use when the submarine was on the surface, plus electrical generators and hydraulic pumps. But what caught his eye were two identical sets of machinery, complex networks of pipes and valves connected to large metal cylinders. Both systems were hooked to overhead ducts that led through the forward bulkhead into other parts of the sub. Eddie was no engineer, but it seemed a safe bet that the machines were part of the submarine’s air supply. ‘Nina!’ he shouted as he hurried across the room. ‘Find an intercom and tell Glas we want to talk to him.’

She descended the stairs, spotting a panel with a telephone-like handset near the door. ‘What if he refuses?’

‘Then he’ll have trouble breathing!’ He reached the nearer of the two machines. A prominent warning sticker told him that the device was an oxygen generator, using chemical reactions both to create and to recycle the life-sustaining gas, and that the greatest potential danger from it was potassium chlorate burns. That was, in an odd way, reassuring: since it didn’t store compressed oxygen in pressurised tanks, there was far less risk of an explosion.

He still retreated to what he hoped was a safe distance before taking aim. ‘Okay, Nina, get down!’ He waited for her to duck behind the batteries — then fired.

The bullets tore into the generator’s pipework. A pump shattered, gas escaping with a shrill hiss. The rest of the machinery rattled furiously for several seconds before rasping to a stop. Warning lights flicked on.

Nina hesitantly raised her head. ‘What did you do?’

‘Took out one of their oxygen generators. There’s a backup, but I’ve got enough bullets left to fuck that up too. Get on the phone and let them know. Oh, and say that if they try to force their way in here, we’ve wired the place to blow.’

‘We have?’

‘No, but they don’t know that!’

He found a toolbox and took out a crowbar as Nina went to the intercom and picked up the handset. ‘Hello, hi,’ she said into it. ‘This is Nina Wilde calling for Harald Glas — I guess you know me, since you’ve been trying to kill me for the past week. I just wanted to tell you that we’ve destroyed one of your oxygen generators, and we’ll take out the other one if we don’t hear from you in, oh… thirty seconds?’

Eddie used the crowbar to jam the hatch’s handle. ‘Bit casual, and I would’ve told him to surrender straight off, but not bad. You’re getting the hang of this whole being threatening lark.’

‘Everyone at the IHA thinks I’ve already got it.’ Eddie moved back to cover the hatch as Nina waited for a reply. The seconds ticked by. ‘Is he going to answer?’

Eddie grinned crookedly. ‘Maybe we caught him while he was taking a dump. Even billionaires have to crap.’

‘There’s a delightful thought,’ she said with a disgusted sigh.

Still nothing but silence from the intercom. Eddie eyed the remaining oxygen generator. Now that the threat had been made, they might have to go through with it…

A click from the handset. ‘Dr Wilde. This is Harald Glas.’

Nina switched the intercom to speaker mode so Eddie could hear. ‘First things first. If you try to break in here, we’ll destroy the other oxygen generator, and the engines and batteries too. You’ll be trapped down here. You got that?’

‘I hear you.’ The Dane’s voice was sonorous, measured, calm even under threat. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want you to stop trying to kill my wife, for starters,’ said Eddie. ‘Then if we’re still making deals, maybe also an Aston Martin. And a pony.’

‘You’re as irreverent as I’ve heard, Mr Chase.’

‘You seem very well informed about us,’ Nina said.

Glas didn’t offer a response to that, instead saying, ‘I assume you wish to see me in person.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Eddie replied. ‘You get your arse down here — alone.’

A brief hesitation. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. But… I will send a representative to bring you to me. A hostage, if you prefer.’ The background hiss from the speaker briefly cut out as Glas closed the mic; Nina guessed that the newly appointed ‘hostage’ was unhappy about the arrangement. ‘They will be with you shortly. Alone, as you wished.’