panel outlet. Jackson put the mouthpiece between his teeth and coughed and spluttered as he fought to inhale. He’d nearly had it.
Stratton looked back outside the vessel to see that the bodies had gone. He hoped that meant they were all inside. He glanced up to see the rear of the Chinook, its ramp still open, a figure leaning out of the red glow. Stratton extended a thumb towards George, a gesture which looked to him as if it was returned. The huge chopper thudded away into the darkness and the sound of its rotors, a constant background noise for the past few hours, was replaced by the roar of the wind, the thrashing of the sea and the sizzle of the rain coming down in heavy sheets. Another streak of lightning lit up the sky and the rolling thunder that followed it seemed to surround them.
A hand came through the grille near Stratton’s face, its thumb in the air. It was Jason indicating that everyone was on board and connected to the sub’s air supply. Stratton blew the ballasts and the submarine began to sink.
The roller-coaster effect quickly reduced to nothing as the boat dropped beneath the water and away from the influence of the heavy swell. Stratton increased the throttle and the sub eased ahead under the power of its propellers.
Stratton plugged in a cable connected to his throat microphone and earplugs and looked over at Jackson who appeared to have gathered himself. He nudged the man and offered him a thumbs-up. Jackson returned the gesture, accompanied by a nod to confirm that he was okay. Stratton indicated his own mouth and mimicked talking with his fingers. Jackson searched for the ends of his throat-mike cables and plugged them into the sockets.
‘Can you hear me?’ Stratton asked, his voice sounding slightly strange.
‘That’s fine,’ Jackson said.
‘I can hear you both,’ another voice interrupted. It was Jason in the rear cabin.
‘Everything okay?’ Stratton asked.
‘Smithy’s lost a fin. We almost lost him. Otherwise all is well.’
‘Okay. Sit back and relax. The real ordeal is coming up.’ Stratton checked the positioning device, a sophisticated gyroscopic motion sensor that monitored and recorded the sub’s every move in every direction, constantly recalculating its position from memory. This negated the need for the sub to break the surface to get a GPS fix. He turned on the Doppler sonar, a sonic equivalent of radar, and a screen on the panel lit up, illuminating the faces of the sub’s occupants in a green-blue hue. The Doppler provided a three-dimensional image of the sub’s surroundings at various ranges. Stratton carried out a full scan as per operational procedure. As expected there was only one blip on the screen.
‘How far from the Morpheus?’ Jackson asked.
‘Just over three miles. We can’t get too close to the rig in these conditions or we’ll hit the anchor cables. We’ll drop out of the sub a klick uptide and float in. Jackson will reposition downtide. He’ll wait there until he gets your signal to break surface. He should be able to hold position until first light but you will be heading towards him long before that.’
‘Understood,’ Jason said.
Stratton pulled up the platform’s preprogrammed position and the navigation system gave the direction in the form of an arrow at two o’clock to their heading.
‘It’s all yours,’ Stratton told Jackson.
Jackson took over the controls. He struggled at first to maintain the correct depth but it was not long before he had the hang of it.
Stratton unplugged one of the cables. ‘What’s it like being back in the mob?’ he said.
Jackson glanced at him, suspecting that he was talking to him yet concerned at the same time. He looked down to see that the internal communications cable was unplugged and the conversation was purely between the two of them.
‘My guess is air force,’ said Stratton.
‘How did you know?’
‘A number of clues.’
‘I stayed in college until I got my master’s but I always wanted to be a fighter pilot. Couldn’t get it out of my system. So I joined up for a few years. It was pretty fantastic - everything I’d wanted as a kid. But I couldn’t help handing in design suggestions for weapons-guidance systems. One day I got a call from an office in London. The rest is history.’
‘I know the feeling,’ Stratton said.
‘This has the new periscope system, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it’s no good in these waters. We don’t need it, anyway.’ Stratton checked the navigation system and the distance to the Morpheus.