Chapter 8

"They're here," Jonas said into his earpiece. "Three of them. Two from there, one from here. I don't think I can take them."

"You can. Just follow my instructions very carefully," Garth said. "You'll be fine. They won't even get a shot at you."

Jonas paused to inhale deeply. His eyes followed the two men and the woman as they headed out the door of the airport. "Alright, what's the plan?"

Gawain hugged her coat as they exited the airport. "Hell, I thought Amsterdam was cold."

"Welcome to Sweden," Tristan said. She could hear him trying to maintain the enthusiasm, but it didn't conceal his pale face and darting eyes.

"Don't worry, we just need to get a submarine, and we're off."

"Stealing a submarine won't be easy," Caradoc said. "And where from? A naval yard?"

Tristan adjusted his glasses. "We've a research vessel docked on Peter Lind. A bit illegal, but we've got contacts." He frowned. "Sorry, we had contacts."

Caradoc walked to the road to call a cab.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Gawain asked. "Losing someone, I mean."

Tristan nodded. "There was a girl. Sara was her name. She...I was going to ask her out that day."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Let's make sure Sara's sacrifice doesn't go to waste, alright?"

"I don't know. I can't trust anyone anymore."

"Hey, look." Gawain put a hand on his face. "You can trust me, okay? And you can trust Dirk. We won't let you die."

Tristan just nodded.

"And...what's your name? I only know your designation."

"Ulf. Ulf Lindstrom."

"Hey!" Caradoc waved at them. He was leaning against the driver's window of a black-and-yellow car.

Gawain gave Tristan a wink, and opened the backseat door. She climbed in, followed by Caradoc. Tristan, who knew the directions, began speaking in rapid-fire Swedish that she didn't understand.

The moment Tristan handed the cab driver a thick wad of notes, he took off at a breakneck speed, swerving around cars and ignoring the angry shouts of other drivers.

Gawain hooked the fingers on one hand around the edge of the seat to avoid slamming into Caradoc, who was similarly being thrown around by the constant change in momentum of the car.

After speeding through several red lights and making more illegal turns than Gawain could count, the driver turned off the main road onto the pier, braking hard. He turned to her and flashed a gap-toothed smile.

Gawain smiled back, and opened the door, stepping out and taking a moment to regain her composure.

Caradoc stumbled around her, while Tristan seemed unaffected. He was looking towards the sparking blue waters, shielding his eyes with one hand. "The Odin is down there somewhere."

Gawain put a hand on his shoulder. "If it is, we'll find it. Where's our boat?"

Tristan pointed towards a large wooden boat garage built into the pier. "She's in there."

Caradoc walked over, eyeing the padlock over the door. "I thought there'd be more security."

"Nobody wants to steal the Yvonne, trust me." He produced a key and inserted it into the padlock, unlocking it in a turn and tossing it away. He threw the doors open, revealing the most dangerous-looking research vessel Gawain had ever seen in her life.

In the low light, it at first seemed normal enough, with the flat aft deck and the yellow submersible hardly large enough for one man to fit in. Then Gawain took a step into the garage, and realised that termites had eaten away large portions of the deck, revealing the pipes and machinery below. The paint flaked off the hull and superstructure, and a faded word - Yvonne - written in mismatched yellow paint graced the bow.

"She's seen better days," Tristan said, smiling a little at the look on Gawain's face. "Help me untie her, will you?"

Gawain scrunched her face up at the ship, and then moved to undo the knot holding the boat to the pier. "How fast does it go?"

"Eight and a half knots."

"English, please," Caradoc said.

"Just below sixteen kilometres per hour."

"Let's just get going," Gawain said. She clambered onto the rotting aft deck, tip-toeing across the holes and to the door in the superstructure. With a grunt, she wrenched the rusted handle loose, and swung it open.

"You guys know how to drive a boat?" Tristan asked, stepping into the bridge, and wiping the dust off the console with one hand.

Gawain shook her head. "Never got the chance to learn."

"Dirk?"

"I get seasick. Boats are not my thing." He grimaced.

Tristan turned the key in the ignition, causing sputtering from the twin motors in the back. "She's still seaworthy!" He grabbed a remote off the dashboard, and pressed a button.

The garage doors swung open, sunlight streaming through the dirty bridge windows.

Gawain blocked out the light with one hand. "What's our ETA?"

"To the search area? Ten minutes, give or take a few."

"Let's go. No more time to waste."

Tristan gunned the engines and they took off slowly, the boat rocking in the waves.

Caradoc was turning a slight green. "Excuse me." He opened the bridge door, and stumbled outside just as another wave shifted the boat."

Gawain sat down inside the bridge, against a wall. "Tell me about Sara."

Tristan said nothing.

"You've got to have something."

"I'd rather not talk about her right now."

"A problem shared is a problem halved. Come on."

She could hear Tristan gulp. "Sh-she was blonde. Not totally blonde, though, like, a dirty blonde. I guess I liked that."

"Was she cute?"

"Very."

"Is that all?"

"I don't want to talk about her."

"Fair enough."

They sat in silence for around ten minutes, Gawain looking out of a side window in the bridge at the passive trawlers and freighters and yachts sailing past. She wondered if any of the people on the boats had any idea of what she faced every day.

Caradoc pushed the door back in, wiping the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his suit. "I hate boats."

Tristan laughed. "I grew up around them, so I guess I got my...well, my sea legs a long time ago. Can you read in the car?"

"Don't say that; I'll just go and vomit again."

"I can," Gawain said. "Used to be a massive bookworm. Then I joined Kingsman, and there's hardly time these days."

"Maybe I should have taken that paperwork of you."

"No, it's fine. I'll listen to audiobooks or something."

"Really? I'd much rather read real books. Maybe I'll buy one for you."

Tristan chuckled . "You two sound married."

"That's what happens when you have to work with someone every day for five years," Gawain said. "I suppose it's kind of like that."

"Ever thought of getting married?"

"No!" She looked at Caradoc, who refused to make eye contact with her. "Never! I can't stand him."

"And I can't stand her," Caradoc added.
The sound of the boat's coughing engines stopped, and Tristan turned to them. "We're in the search area. Radar says there's something right under us."

Caradoc stood up, and opened the door. "I'll help you get the sub down."

Gawain grabbed his lapel. "You sure you're not going to vomit again?"

"I have to face my own fears too, Val." He smiled at her and disappeared through the door.

Tristan, gave her a long look, and followed Caradoc outside.

It was another ten minutes before she heard her name. Gawain got up slowly, wary of the pressure in her left chest, and poked her head out.

Tristan was wearing a wetsuit that was a little bit too big for him, giving her a thumbs-up from the side of the submarine before climbing the ladder up its side, and then dropping into its bowels.

Caradoc operated the crane levers, standing at a little section of deck that was situated between two gaping holes in the wood. He pulled a lever, causing the old crane to slowly lift their submarine off the deck.

He moved the submarine to the back of the vessel, and lowered it into the water. There, he unlatched the claw holding the submersible. "There's a radio inside."

Gawain walked back into the bridge, wiping one hand over the dusty radar screen to clear it. There was a blip close to the center of the circle, representing Tristan's submarine descending. a few more blips were clustered to the slight south-west.

The radio mounted on the dashboard crackled. "I can't see shit down here," Tristan said.

Gawain picked it up. "Just keep going. We're counting on you, Ulf."

"It sounds strange when you call me that."

"It's your name."

"I don't like it. Tristan is okay, sounds like an actual name. I'll call you when I get there, okay?"

"Ulf's an actual name too. We'll talk later." She hung up.

Under other circumstances, Jonas would have love the feel of the wind hitting his face as the helicopter he was on cut through the air. Under these circumstances, however, he was more nervous than excited.

"What's the name of the ship again, sir?" the pilot inquired.

"The Yvonne," he replied, holding up his binoculars and scanning the various watercraft assembled below him.

"What kind of vessel is she, sir?"

"Research. That's all I know."

"That one to the starboard side, sir?"

Jonas swung himself over to the other helicopter door, and aimed his binoculars down at the bleak grey-and-black ship that looked like it wouldn't last a moment in a storm. "Yeah, that's her."

"What now?"

Take us lower. And further away. To the east maybe, where there aren't any other ships."

The pilot gave an acknowledgement, and turned the aircraft away from the Yvonne, dropping close to the water.

Jonas looked at the crate Harker had sent him via cargo plane, the letters MK46 stamped on the wood in red. "Can you keep this thing still for a few minutes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Turn me towards the ship."

"I'm getting a real bad feeling," Caradoc said.

"You said that a hundred times on the plan because you thought the pressure change was going to kill me."

"Can you really blame me for that?"

"No, I guess not. But I don't see any injured people spontaneously dying on planes." Gawain brushed a loose strand of her hair back.

"I'm just worried about you."

"Don't be."

The radio came alive again. "It's the Odin."

Caradoc picked it up and walked to Gawain, holding it between them. "You see any hard drives?"

"Yes. A lot of them. But they're all gone, at this rate. Geraint must have blown the ship's bottom out or something. I'm going back up."

"See you up here," Caradoc said.

But Gawain wasn't paying attention. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

She put a finger on the radar screen and tapped it. A smaller dot was moving across it, heading towards the centre.

"That's a fucking torpedo." He raised the radio again. "Tristan, you hear me? There's a torpedo heading our way. Get out of there ASAP."

Gawain leaned forwards to look outside one of the windows. "Dirk, there's a helicopter-"

Caradoc dropped to a prone position on the floor.

She dived to the side as she saw the glint of a scope, and bullets blew the windows of the ship out. Gawain landed on her left side, and a dull ache spread across her chest. "Shit, fuck."

"Are you hurt?"

"Just a little. By ribs...check on Tristan!"

Caradoc grabbed the radio from where he had dropped it. "Tristan, do you get me? Are you clear?"

"I'm almost there, just give me a se-"

A large fountain of water blew upwards next to their boat, throwing them sideways across the bridge. Gawain hit the opposite wall with her back, and dropped to the floor again. She leaned out into a broken window, expecting more gunfire.

The helicopter was turning away.

Gradually, chucks of metal appeared on the surface, painted yellow.

And among them, facedown, was Tristan.