Beyond the Ice Limit

60

GREG MASTERSON HAD gathered the mutineers in the rec room, adjacent to the staff quarters, to explain the plan of attack. They had arrived well equipped with weapons. Many had knives, but some of the ex-servicemen had their sidearms, as well. At the last minute, the group had been joined by two of the security guards who had been sweeping for worms, including the deputy security chief, a man named Vinter. Vinter was a godsend: he not only knew the layout of the ship by memory, but also knew its security protocols and codes.

As the men and women assembled in the room, Masterson thought about what was coming. He had no illusions. But what had to be done had to be done. That this crazy mission kept going forward, even in the face of obvious failure, suggested to him that the top officers weren’t just affected by bad judgment, but may have actually been infected: perhaps all of mission control, or the entire bridge.

He looked around. Everyone appeared ready. “Okay, listen up.”

Silence fell.

“We’re very fortunate to be joined by Mr. Eyven Vinter. He was, or rather still is, deputy chief of security. I’m going to turn the floor over to him to describe the plan we’ve worked out.”

Vinter, a massive man with a charismatic presence, stepped forward. “The primary goal is to take the ship’s bridge. The key element will be surprise. The secondary goal is to take over, or at least incapacitate, mission control. With those two objectives complete, we will proceed directly to Ushuaia.”

His tone was blunt and direct, and he spoke with a quiet, pleasing Scandinavian accent.

“The captain and officers will defend the bridge with a strong sense of duty. We may need to resort to violence. But no one on the bridge is likely to be armed. Only security is allowed to carry arms on the bridge—and there is no security there at the present time.”

A steely look around the room. No one flinched.

“The bridge is designed to stop entry by anyone who might try to commandeer the ship. There are only two points of ingress, port and starboard doors. Quarter-inch steel. Under normal operations, those doors are left open. So we go in fast and hard, taking them by surprise, and seize control of the openings to prevent the doors from being shut and locked. Once we gain control of the bridge, then we turn the bridge’s defenses to our own purpose by sealing the doors.”

Masterson stepped forward. “Thank you, Mr. Vinter. Any questions?”

“What about the engine room?” someone asked. “Can’t they shut down the engines from there?”

“Yes,” said Vinter. “But once we’re safely in control of the bridge, we can make our case, via the ship’s intercom, which we will also control, to the rest of the crew. They can conceivably shut down the engines and power, but that will only render the Batavia dead in the water. Not much use in that—and not a good means of persuasion.” He paused, and then said with quiet and unshakable conviction: “We will have the upper hand. We will prevail.”

As Masterson looked out over the group, he saw that this man, with his rock-like presence and quiet voice, was having a galvanizing effect. “We can’t wait,” he said. “Word will leak out—it always does. So we’re doing this now. Are you all with us?”

Everyone was.

“There are twenty of us. We’re going to divide into five groups of four. We’ll head toward the bridge, strolling easily through the corridors, chatting lightly, attracting no attention. We’ll converge at the lower bridge deck below the companionway—but there will be no pause. Just keep up the momentum, rush the doors, and secure them. Those with firearms, cover the officer of the watch, the captain, and the other bridge officers. If they resist, shoot—but only as a last resort. Those with knives, take up a defensive position at the doors.”

Masterson paused. He realized he was sweating. He felt afraid. But when he glanced over at Vinter, standing beside him, he grew reassured. He wasn’t afraid. The man exuded confidence.

“What if the bridge doors are already locked?” someone asked.

“They won’t be,” said Vinter. “That’s against all security protocols. But on the off chance they are—if there has been a recent worm attack, for example—then I will talk us in, as deputy chief of security.”

Masterson divided the people into groups and sent them off on different paths, all of which would converge at the bridge. He led one group. They took a somewhat roundabout route forward, trying to look nonchalant. As they moved through the ship, Masterson was struck by the atmosphere on board; while some people were still going about their business, much of the crew seemed idle, standing about in agitated groups. Others were obviously inebriated, and one man lay in a corridor, empty bottle in hand, passed out. The withdrawal of security to sweep for worms, the lack of sleep, and the rampant suspicions among the crew about who might have been infected had caused a sharp deterioration in morale.

It only reinforced Masterson’s belief that they needed to get this ship into port as soon as possible. They could deal with the worm infestation once people were off the ship—burn the vessel to the waterline, scuttle it if necessary, put everyone in quarantine until the infected could be identified. But decontaminating the ship wasn’t his immediate problem. Right now, his problem was getting them the hell out of there.

As he walked, he felt the bulge of the .45 Vinter had given him. Masterson wasn’t a gun enthusiast, but he’d hunted with his father and knew how to aim and fire a pistol. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use it.

He led his group to the lower bridge deck, where the others were now converging. Without acknowledgment, they climbed the stairway to the bridge deck. The port bridge door was indeed open. Vinter was ahead of him, and he had his gun out. The man stepped easily through the door, Masterson following.

Everyone on the bridge was so focused on their individual tasks that no one even looked in their direction. Masterson watched as Vinter raised his gun, casually aimed, and fired at the officer of the watch, hitting him in the back. The sound of the gun going off was incredibly loud, and the man went down as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The cold-bloodedness of it froze Masterson. This wasn’t what Vinter had said was going to happen.

First Officer Lennart, who was standing next to the officer of the watch and was, to Masterson’s surprise, armed with a sidearm, spun, drew and fired her own weapon with astonishing rapidity. Vinter was hit and thrown back against the wall. She fired again, the bullet whining just below Masterson’s ear. She kept coming, kept firing; Masterson fell back through the door as a third round banged off the steel doorjamb; meanwhile, the rest of the bridge personnel were drawing weapons—they all had weapons—and were charging the mutineers, returning fire.

Vinter, up against the inside wall of the bridge, fired his weapon a second time and dropped Lennart with a bullet that, all too obviously, took out her heart and its attendant plumbing. He fired again, hitting another officer, even as he himself took a second round. He staggered back through the door, bullets ricocheting around him, sparks flying. He took cover behind the door, and a moment later it was slammed shut. Masterson threw himself against it to force it back open, but it was too late: it was sealed.

An alarm sounded on the ship’s emergency system.

“Son of a bitch!” Vinter roared, blood pouring from an ugly wound in his shoulder and another in his forearm. There was confusion among the mutineers behind them.

A shot was fired in the companionway, then another. “We’re under attack from behind!” someone yelled.

Vinter swung around and, still bleeding, charged down the stairs, gun still in hand. The others followed. Several security officers, converging on the scene, began shooting and took down a couple of mutineers, but were themselves quickly cut down by Vinter and some of the others.

“Retreat to staff quarters!” Vinter shouted. “To quarters!”

They raced along the maindeck, people scattering as they charged past. There was very little additional security to be seen. Vinter plunged down the companionway to the staff quarters; as they poured through, he slammed and dogged the door.

“Seal the doors in back!” he cried. “We can defend this space!”

The doors were sealed. Vinter leaned against the wall, his hand pressed on the gunshot wound in his shoulder.

“We’ve got to get you help,” said Masterson.

The man gave an ugly laugh. “Get me some bandages and compresses and I’ll be fine.”

There was bewilderment and confusion among the mutineers who had managed to get back. “What the hell happened?” one asked.

“They were armed,” Vinter said. “The presence of the worms must have changed the no-arms protocol. My fault.” He sagged down into a chair as the rest gathered around. “We can hold out here—we’ve got food and water. And arms. It’ll be hell for them to root us out—it would take cutting torches or explosives to get through those doors, and we’ll be keeping a watch to nip any of that in the bud. Besides, they have other things on their minds.”

“But…” Masterson felt overwhelmed with confusion. “What do we do now?”

“Stick to the plan. Take the bridge. There’s some C4 in the security armory. We’ll blow those doors. And I can hack our way into the shipwide intercom, rally others to the cause.” He took a few breaths. “We’ve had a setback. But we can still do this. Discipline on the ship is falling apart. That’s to our advantage.”

Pounding began on the door to staff quarters, followed by shouting. Vinter rose, made a gesture to Masterson. “Talk to them. Tell them we want to take the ship to safety in Ushuaia. Get them to join us—if only to save their own lives.”