Infestation

- 15 -

Banks, with Hynd at his side, saw the others coming, headlong and fast, down the long corridor. Within a minute, all five were together at the prow exit leading up and out onto the forward deck.

Banks was already soaked through and frozen to the bone; he and Hynd had spent the last ten minutes out in the storm, checking out the anchor housings and the cabling connecting the vessel to the drilling rig. It hadn’t taken them long to discover it was a larger job than they’d hoped. Clamps held some of the cables and some of those could be removed relatively easily once ice was chipped away from metal but others were corroded and fused in place; those were going to need cutting. With an oxy cutter on hand, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem in better weather. But the storm showed no signs of abating; wind and sleet lashed a deck that rolled and heaved in a sea only getting heavier. It was going to be dangerous, almost deadly, work to disengage from the rig.

And then there were the anchor chains to deal with – two of them, inches thick black iron, both attached at spots wide open to the elements without a single hint of shelter. There was probably a place under decks where access could be had to the chain mechanism but it would involve more searching and working down there in the dark with the possibility of more of the isopods appealed even less than facing the weather.

Banks had hoped to get the job done in shifts, two two-man teams working in tandem at the cutting, giving the others some rest and respite. But one look at Mac put the idea to bed straight away.

“How you doing, Mac?”

“I’ve had better weekends, Cap. All in all, I’d rather be in Cairo.”

Mac raised an arm to show the green-tinged bandages. The smell came almost immediately; rot and vinegar hitting hard in nostrils and at the back of the throat.

Banks spoke directly to Svetlanova.

“The bleach didn’t work?”

“We don’t know yet; it may have slowed the infection or toxin enough to let him fight it off. But he won’t let me look at the wound.”

“Hey, Cap, I’m right here,” Mac said. “I don’t have the energy to go out in the rain, I’ll admit. But I can still watch your back and I can still handle a gun.”

Banks spoke to the woman again.

“How about you? Can you work a cutting torch?”

She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t know where to start. But I’ll do anything I can to help. Just tell me.”

“Do what you can for Mac,” he said, then turned to the Glaswegian. “The nice lady is going to clean your bandages. Do me a favor, don’t be an arse about it?”

Mac gave him a weak salute.

“You’re the boss, Cap,”

Banks turned to McCally and Hynd.

“The three of us have got a lot of work to do. Zip up and gloves on. This is going to be brutal.”

Hynd spoke up.

“You help with Mac. McCally and I will take first dibs,” he said. “I’ll send him back in, you join me, then we take it in turns?”

“Ten minutes max for McCally now, then I’m coming out and we’ll rotate after that. We’ll concentrate on the rig cables first; if we get lucky, the storm will take the rig apart for us. Then we work on the anchors. And if we don’t get it done in an hour, it’s not going to get done at all,” Banks replied. “Move on out, Sarge. And good luck.”

“There’s something else, Cap,” McCally said. “Yon beasties are definitely still aboard; we caught sight of them in the cargo hold but we let them be and they didn’t bother us.”

“Hopefully, the weather will keep them down below. But even if not, there’s bugger all we can do about right now,” Banks said. “We’ll concentrate on the cutting and keep an eye open while we’re at it; it’s all we can do.”

Banks held the deck door open while Hynd and McCally dragged the cutting rig up the short set of stairs. He let them out into the howl of the gale and spatter of sleet.

“Ten minutes, max,” he shouted.

Hynd gave him a salute, then they were gone into the storm. Banks only closed the door after he lost sight of them; the sound of the wind abated in the corridor but not by much.

Svetlanova was already working on Mac. He sat on the floor, back to the wall, a freshly lit cigarette between his lips and a grimace of pain on his face as she unwound wet, green-tinged bandages. Banks went to take the soiled wrappings from her but she knocked his hand away.

“We shouldn’t touch it if we don’t have to. If it’s bacterial or viral…”

He got the message and merely watched the pile of bandages grow on the floor. As they did so, the smell reached him even stronger than before, the same acrid stench that had come off Nolan. And Mac’s wound looked to be in the same condition as the Irishman’s. His wound had split the butterfly clips and was open, gaping and gray, with green goop bubbling and festering in the cut. Svetlanova started gently removing the seeping fluid with a cotton swab but more bubbled up as quickly as she wiped it away.

Mac looked at the wound and quickly looked away.

“Take the arm off, Cap. Find a big fucking blade and take it off at the elbow. I cannae feel a thing below my shoulder anyway. I’m up for it.”

“Don’t talk bollocks, man,” Banks said. “The shock would kill you, if nothing else. Just hang on. The chopper’s on its way.”

Mac laughed.

“Now who’s talking bollocks, Cap? We both ken they’ll be avoiding this weather somewhere safe. Those fly boys might be full on fucking fuckwits and glory hunters but they’re not daft.”

Mac had voiced what Banks hadn’t wanted to look at too closely, but he was right in his assessment. The chopper wouldn’t risk it in this weather.

We’re on our own until this storm blows itself out or the boat sinks. Either way, it’s up to us to survive it.

Svetlanova had got the wound cleaned as much as she could and quickly finished bandaging up Mac’s wrist with clean dressings. She lifted his chin to look in his eyes and in the process exposed his neck to view. Banks saw it but said nothing and turned away so Mac couldn’t see his gaze; the big veins stood out proud, pulsing, not red but green.

He said a silent prayer to the weather gods.

Give us a break here. Mac needs help and I can’t watch another man go like Nolan.

Mac looked up at him.

“Want a smoke, Cap? For auld time’s sake?”

Banks laughed bitterly.

“Aye, that’s all we need, another addict on the squad. You have one for me. I’ll stick with the whisky and have two with you back in the mess when we get home.”

Mac didn’t reply.

He knows a lie when he hears one.

Mac and Svetlanova smoked in silence for a time and McCally returned not long after Mac finished his cigarette. The door opened, letting in a wash of sleet and a howl of wind, then he stepped in and shut it behind him quickly.

“How’s it going?” Banks asked as McCally shook off icy sleet from his jacket and legs.

“The clamps are undone and two of the four cables holding the rig,” he said. He had more ice at chin and nose, his eyebrows looked frozen to his forehead, and he was soaked through. He looked about as miserable as anyone Banks had ever seen.

And now it’s my turn.

“Get out of the jacket at least,” he said as he made for the door. “Wear Mac’s the next time out. It’ll help.”

He saw the look on McCally’s face; it wouldn’t be helping much.

He pulled his jacket as tight around him as he could manage, pulled his hood around his face until he only had a small viewing area ahead of him, left his weapon on the floor at Mac’s side, and headed out into the storm.

Wind and sleet hit him face on almost immediately. He turned sideward into it, got his bearings on where the drilling rig would be some ten yards to his right and, bent almost double, headed toward it.

After two steps that felt like twenty, fighting the gale for every inch, he saw the blue flare of the cutting torch and was able to follow the light to where he found Hynd, hunched over one of the drilling rig cables.

“Last one, Cap,” Hynd shouted, his voice almost completely lost in the wind. The cable parted and, not bothering to switch the torch off, Hynd and Banks dragged the iron frame and the cylinders across the deck towards the first of the anchor chains.

The weight and heft of the frame was enough to give them some stability but as soon as they got to the first anchor cable, the wind threatened to tug them, tools, canisters and men, off to one side and it was a constant fight against it. They used the canisters themselves as a makeshift windbreak, with Banks keeping them upright with his back against the frame while Hynd worked. He turned the flame yellow and started the long process of warming the anchor chain enough so it might be able to be cut. The wind lashed at them, sleet hammered against their hoods and backs and legs and Hynd struggled to keep the flame on the same piece of chain for more than a few seconds at a time.

This is going to take a while. And it’s a while we don’t have.

Banks checked the gauges; they’d used up almost half of their oxygen already and still had the bulk of the cutting to do.