‘Stay there, you fuck!’ he bellowed. ‘Stay right where you fucking are!’

Slinging Mia over his shoulders, the big man hooked onto the line, and launched off the lip. Nash prayed Mia wouldn’t fall as Boerman braked his descent in a white mist of smoking rope. When they slammed down on the gantry, Nash thought it would break, but it bounced them into the air like a springboard, before swaying violently back and forth.

Boerman untethered from the cable and began dragging a terrified Mia along the gantry. She fought with all her might, but her blows and kicks were like a child’s to a raging bull. Then they vanished from sight.

Boerman was taking Mia inside the submarine. But why?

Nash knew Boerman’s oxy-cut hole was just twenty metres further along on the starboard side, but there were precious few handholds he could use to reach it. The quickest way in was via the gantry. Climbing fast, Nash had just reached amidships when a furious banging of metal on metal inside the hull stopped him dead. What the fuck was Boerman doing?

Stepping around the remains of the inverted safety rail, Nash used fingers and toes to grip a join in the steel plate, barely clinging on to the near seventy-degree incline as he inched around the curvature of the hull. Somehow, he had to get far enough around to drop down to the gantry, without breaking his legs in the fall. Gritting his teeth, he was close to the point of no return, when he craned his neck down and saw Boerman perhaps five metres below, staring up at him.

‘Where is she?’ he yelled down.

‘I’m going to give you a chance, Nash, which is more than you gave Sura.’ The big man was shaking, trying to get a grip on his emotions.

‘Let Mia go! You know this has nothing to do with her.’

Boerman’s face was grey-white, his blue eyes strangely washed-out like chips of mica.

‘You won’t admit you’re a coward. So, I’ve set you a challenge to prove it.’

‘No games, Jaap . . .’

‘I’ve locked your woman in the forward compartment.’

‘You’ve what?’

Boerman gestured at the churning water, which had almost reached the gantry.

‘In about ten minutes, she’ll be stuck in there for the rest of the wet season.’

‘Damn you, Boerman. That’s inhuman.’

‘Save your energy, Nash. You’ll need it.’ Boerman turned to go, and then he paused. ‘Oh, and just in case you’re thinking of hiding down there with that pony tank and waiting for all of this to go away . . . I’ll be up here, wiring this old sub to blow.’

Pony tank?

Flushed with adrenaline, Nash had completely forgotten it was hooked to his belt.

‘Boerman, wait!’

The Afrikaner gave him a two-fingered salute.

‘See you in Hell, Nash.’

Returning to the cable, he hooked on and swiftly began to climb.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39