‘Give the fishing boat a heads up and go for the other one.’
Jock sounded his klaxon as he started to turn away from the fishing boat.
The fishing boat’s captain stepped out of his small booth to investigate the horn and his mouth dropped open when he saw the wave less than half a mile away. His two crewmen, folding nets on the deck, also looked up and froze in horror.The captain quickly spun one-eighty degrees to find the entrance to the walled harbour several hundred metres away, his mind racing to calculate if he could make it in time. The harbour was made up of two stone sea walls that curved out from the land and overlapped where they met out to sea with a gap between them wide enough for a large boat to pass through. Inside was a calm harbour housing hundreds of yachts.
He ran back inside his booth and pushed the throttle fully home. The increase in power was barely discernable. Keeping a hand on the wheel, he stepped out of the booth to take another look back at the wave as his mates dropped what they were doing to join him.
‘My God,’ he murmured.
The tour boat was also heading for the harbour but it was much further away than the fishing boat and would never make it in time.
A woman passenger taking photographs of the horizon was the first to notice the wave through her lens. She put the camera down, hoping it wasn’t what she thought it was.
‘Ken. What do you think that is?’ she said to her husband.
Within seconds the twelve other passengers were on their feet staring at it.
‘It’s a tidal wave!’ one of them shouted in horror, and panic immediately swept through the boat.
The pilot glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the klaxon and blanched. He quickly gauged the distance to the harbour mouth and, his engines already at full power, knew they would not make it.
Stratton looked at the fishing boat as they moved away from it. If it had a chance, it was a slim one. The VSV could get to the tour boat before the wave.The question was could they unload it in time? He was prepared to leave some people behind if he had to.
Jock looked back at the wave as they closed, mentally preparing himself for what was going to be a delicate procedure. He assessed it would be at the tour boat in less than a minute.
‘We’ve got about twenty seconds to load that lot and I’m pulling away,’ he said.
‘Understood,’ Stratton said. ‘You got the next bit worked out?’
‘Nope.’
Stratton patted him on the shoulder and headed for the back of the VSV.
‘Stratton,’ Jock said. ‘You’re a good man. But if I don’t get the chance to tell you later, you can also be a real arsehole at times.’
Stratton stepped through the rubber door flap to join Scouse and Jab outside.
All eyes in the tour boat fell on the strange vessel approaching at speed wondering if it had come to help, but as the VSV bore down on them, for a tense few seconds it looked as if it was going to smash right through.
Jock gauged the distance perfectly and half a dozen boat lengths away he slammed the engines into full reverse at the same time turning the VSV hard over. As it halted its forward progress it slammed broadside into the tour boat and Stratton immediately yelled at the passengers.
‘Get aboard. Now. Go, go, go!’
They needed no encouraging as Stratton, Scouse and Jab formed a chain and grabbed the first person, a woman, and pulled her violently on to the VSV and into the cabin.
‘Move yourselves!’ Scouse shouted. ‘Or we’ll leave you behind!’
It was enough to shift any doubters into top gear. They piled out of the boat as quickly as possible. A woman tried to jump on to the front of the VSV and slipped, landing brutally hard on the side of it, cracking several ribs, but managing to hold on. Jab scurried along the side, grabbed her unceremoniously and hauled her back and inside the cabin despite her groans of pain.
Stratton jumped on to the tour boat and pulled a man clutching his frightened wife up on to the side and across the small gap between the boats where Scouse took over and virtually rammed them inside the cabin.
Stratton snatched a look at the wave now only two hundred metres away.The VSV’s engines gunned, a message from Jock he was leaving any second.
The passengers fell into the VSV like lemmings. A man slipped out of Jab’s grasp and landed face first on the deck, his nose exploding on the metal surface.
When the wave was less than a hundred metres away, there were three people still in the tour boat: the pilot and his only crewmember, wrestling with a hysterical woman. The pilot finally punched her in the face and, as she staggered under the blow, with the help of his crewman threw her over the side and into Scouse’s arms.
The wave was now close enough for them to hear the deep lashing sound of tons of water rising up and curling over the frothing peak, coming on relentlessly and hungry to roll and crush the boats to pieces.
Stratton leapt off the tour boat and on to the VSV. ‘Go for it!’ he shouted back at the pilot and his crewman.
As the back of the VSV started to rise with the front of the wave it powered away and the crewman and pilot took Stratton’s advice and leapt into the growing void. Jab grabbed the crewman’s hands as they slapped on to the back of the VSV, but the pilot missed and plunged beneath the water. Scouse and Jab pulled the crewman in as the VSV screamed away from the tour boat, which angled up the slope of the vast wall of water into the vertical before flipping over. It tumbled once, pieces flying off it, and was then consumed by the wave.
The fishing boat was three lengths from the staggered mouth of the harbour when the wave hit it like a hammer coming down on a toy.The two crewmen leapt over the side in desperation just before it struck but the old captain remained in the doorway of his booth, holding the wheel, defiant to the last. The wave picked up the boat and threw it against the wall where it shattered into a thousand pieces. The two crewmen suffered a similar fate, their bodies smashed against the granite and obliterated by the tons of water that followed. The vast harbour wall held and the sea shot vertically into the air along its length. Those inside could only freeze in horror as the wave shook the wall with a thunderous roar and the spent monster gushed over the top.
Jock held the VSV’s engines at full power and headed towards the beach half a mile away as if he intended to drive up it. Stratton stepped into the cabin, past the shattered people seated in the neat rows of plastic chairs and into the cockpit.
‘Well, Jock?’ he asked.
‘Only one option,’ Jock shouted as he gradually turned the wheel and the VSV leaned steadily over. The frightened people in the cabin held on to the boat and to each other, aware that they were far from out of danger.
‘I think the trick will be not to hit it too fast,’ Jock said. ‘Our problem isn’t going in, it’s getting out the other end before we sink. Get everyone to hold on. We might tip so be ready to get the fuck out.’
The VSV turned around smoothly until it was facing the wave. ‘Come on, you bitch,’ Jock shouted as he held the power steady and they closed on it. Stratton wasn’t sure if he was talking to the boat or the wave. ‘Have some of this, why don’t you,’ he added.
‘Hold on!’ Stratton shouted to the civilians.
Scouse grabbed the hysterical woman who was weak with shock and clamped her between his body and the side. Jab helped a father hold his son fast to the deck. Stratton remained standing in the doorway of the cockpit, looking out of the front window which was filled with nothing but a wall of water running vertically.
Jock throttled back allowing the boat to ride up the slope a little instead of going straight into it, which might put them too deep underwater. As the nose of the VSV started to rise, he opened up the engines again and cut deep into the wall. As they disappeared inside everything went instantly dark. The sea engulfed the back and thumped hard against the rubber flap, bending it inwards in an effort to get inside where, if it did, it would flood the boat. The flap was nothing more than a sheet of reinforced rubber designed to fall back against the opening to create a seal in the event the VSV went underwater, but that was envisaged to last no more than a few seconds, and at no great depth. As the VSV penetrated the mountain of water the pressure soared and the flap was barely holding, and way beyond its spec.
Stratton looked around at Jock who was standing doing nothing but looking out of the window and praying for daylight. ‘Jock?’
‘This isn’t a submarine,’ Jock shouted. ‘It’s not meant to be anyway. I can make it go left and right but I can’t make it go up!’
To make matters worse the boat started to tilt.The civilians were horrified enough and might have been more so if they knew it was not meant to happen quite this way.
Scouse was staring at the flap that creaked gradually inwards. Water started to leak through one side of the seal and he turned to Stratton. An ounce more of pressure and it was going to break. Seconds later they would flood and sink.
Suddenly the water around the front of the cockpit was not as dark as the sides and then daylight flooded in through the windows as the boat punched its way out of the sea and skyward with the grace and power of a killer whale. For an instant it was airborne and the propellers speeded up, the engines roaring without the resistance to stop them. Jock remained standing, holding on to the wheel and throttle like a rodeo rider. As the VSV came back down, slightly on its side, Jock throttled back, and as the stern dropped into the water he turned the wheel hard over and applied full power once more. The belly of the boat flopped heavily to level out and as it continued its roll, Jock powered into a tight turn. The VSV responded and Jock then turned the wheel in the opposite direction until the boat straightened up. He immediately throttled back, put the engines into neutral, and the boat slowed until it gently bobbed on the calm surface.
Jock looked back at Stratton with an exasperated expression. Stratton nodded a compliment and turned his attention back the way they had come.
Jock followed Stratton, Scouse and Jab out on deck where they could get a better view of the wave as it pressed on towards the Torquay coastline.
The focal point of the wave once the left flank had passed the harbour, was the coast road where people had already seen it and raised the alarm.Those on foot ran away from the beach to higher ground. Several elderly people shuffled away as fast as they could, some fortunate enough to get help. People stepped from shops to investigate the commotion only to take immediate flight.
The wave rolled in relentlessly, sweeping moored boats along with it. As it hit the beach and rolled up it, it gushed over the sea wall bringing several of the boats with it. The wall took much of the force but there was still power enough to roll cars parked or driving along the sea road. The last vestiges of thrust were spent slamming into buildings across the road where several shop fronts were shattered, and then, suddenly, it had expended its energy and the threat disappeared.
Seconds after the water subsided, the front was strangely quiet and void of life. It was absurdly surreal; a clear, sunny day, the seagulls cawing above and little evidence of the weapon which had struck the mighty blow, other than soaked streets and the carnage it had caused. Upturned and shattered hulks of boats lay on the road, one almost inside a building. Not everyone escaped with their lives. A handful of bodies lay unmoving, twisted amongst the debris.
People began gradually to surface, tentatively at first, unsure, then quickly to help the injured and search for those who might still be alive.
‘Poor bastards,’ Scouse muttered.
‘Hey, over there,’ Jab shouted, pointing towards some wreckage, all that was left of the tour boat. Someone was in the water, hanging on to a piece of deck, waving weakly. Jock hurried inside and hit the throttle, shunting the VSV forward. It was the tour boat pilot and somehow he had survived. He was as surprised to see them as they were him.
As they headed back to the tanker, a Sea King flew past, circled and came in to hover over the tanker’s heli-deck in preparation for landing.
‘That’ll be the nuke and bio-chem specialists,’ Scouse said.
Half an hour later Stratton and Scouse were back on board the tanker. Several tugs were on their way to pull it off the sand bar as soon as the incoming tide allowed and if that didn’t work then some of the crude would have to be pumped off. But there was a lot of speculation the tanker might have broken its back already, and if not would probably do so when they tried to pull it off. So far there was no sign of an oil leakage but no one was calling this a success yet. Stratton had doubted the wisdom of his action as soon as he had done it. He had caused the deaths of those fishermen and God knows who else in the town. It was an on-the-spot decision, and it was always luck if those ever turned out to be faultless. He hadn’t known the depth of the sea here, and what damage and loss of life might have occurred had the tanker carried on into town. He pushed it out of his mind.
Another Sea King had landed on the tanker, which was now crawling with various specialists, forensics and bomb-disposal experts scouring every nook and cranny.
The operatives had done their job and were hanging around as security while they waited for a Royal Navy frigate to arrive and take over.
Stratton was carrying out his own inspection of the boat, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. He had never seen anything quite like this before. So far there was no sign of any devices of any kind. It was a well-carried-out assault, execution of the crew, a successful withdrawal and then the tanker itself was turned into a weapon. There was no evidence of the perpetrators, but the scale, organisation and target all suggested a powerful anti-West terrorist group was behind it.
After seeing the dead officers and crew in the superstructure, he headed along the length of the deck to his last stop, the bosun’s locker in the extreme bows. He stepped in through the narrow doorway between the massive winches that raised and lowered the enormous anchors, and walked inside to the end of the short balcony at the top of the stairwell from where he could see to the bottom of the ship. The cargo holds on a tanker end some ten metres short of the pointed bows and the remaining area is used as a store for things like ropes, chains, cables and rat-guards. A hundred feet below Stratton could see two operatives chatting beside what looked like a couple of bodies.