66 Metres: A chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

Chapter One

Nadia held up a hand to blot out the glare from the London Eye’s neon lights, and scanned the night sky for the helicopter. No sign. Checking her watch, she spoke into the VHF.

‘Where’s the package?’

The reply from Janssen took longer than it should have. ‘Stand by.’

She needed five minutes to get into position. The longer they waited, the more chance of her being seen. She was the only one of the team out in the open, albeit underneath the darkened arches of Lambeth Bridge. She switched channels. ‘Sammy –’

‘I know, Nad, Janssen’s being a real dick. He must have it on radar by now. Maybe you should get in the water, the bridge is pretty clear. Don’t forget the chopper’s blades.’

How could she forget? ‘When are you going to make the call, Sammy?’

‘Thirty seconds. Can’t leave it any longer.’

She spat into her dive mask, added a little water and used her forefinger to clean the glass, to prevent it fogging up later.

‘Make the call, Sammy, I’m going in.’

She zipped the radio in its waterproof case, donned the hood of her all-black wetsuit, and shrugged on the black, waistcoat-like stab jacket that would control her buoyancy and support her air tank at the back. Regulator in her mouth, she breathed quietly to avoid the usual Darth Vader sound effects. Fins in one hand, radio in the other, she took one careful step at a time down the muddy bank into the Thames. The tide was full, so there was close to eight metres of water in the centre – deep enough. To her right, half a kilometre away, the walls of the Houses of Parliament gleamed gold, Big Ben standing proud at almost ten pm.

She could just make out tourists loitering on Westminster Bridge, awaiting the big clock’s chimes, unaware of the spectacle they were about to witness. She’d better be in position by then, because when it happened, a few hundred smartphones would swing in her direction. She glanced the other way towards MI6, farther along the river on the opposite bank, the helicopter’s destination.

A lone siren wailed in the distance. One meant nothing. Then two more split the murmuring night sky. Within thirty seconds two police speedboats, prows high in the air as they banked their way through Lambeth Bridge’s central arches, raced downriver towards the Mirage, a party boat moored on the other side of Tower Bridge. Sammy had just used an old but valid IRA code – Shamrock – to make a credible bomb threat.

Chill water lapped over her shoulders. The radio floated next to her while she pulled on her fins. She had to bend forward to do so, and her head slid underwater. The sirens were immediately muffled, the water a murky green lit by mustard streetlamps on the bridge above. She snapped the fin-straps tight around her Achilles tendons, then lifted her head.

‘– into position. Three minutes. Don’t be late.’ Janssen, finally.

She snatched the radio out of the water, and hit Transmit. ‘Moving out.’

‘Any problems, use the spear-gun.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

Janssen’s voice grew an edge. ‘Not good enough, Nadia. I want to hear you repeat it.’

She breathed out long and slow before answering. ‘If the pilots aren’t out, I use the spear-gun.’

‘Be prepared to do it. Because any bullshit whatsoever, Nadia –’

‘I know. Look, I have to move.’

‘See that you do. And if you don’t get the package, don’t bother surfacing. That way Kadinsky might at least make it quick for your sister.’

She clicked Janssen off. Her chest heaved. Kadinsky’s latest protégé never missed an opportunity to remind her, to twist the knife. But it was almost over. This was the tenth op. Not a moment too soon, as she suspected Katya had recently turned to drugs, probably krokodil – Russian magic – in order to cope. Nadia squeezed her thumbs hard inside her fists for seven seconds, the way her dad had taught her. He’d never explained how it worked. Maybe he never knew, but her breathing came back under control.

Tethering the radio to her jacket, and without making a splash, she flipped onto her back so she could survey the night sky and Lambeth Bridge above her. As she finned away from the shore, she took one last look at the spear-gun propped up against the bridge wall, its razor-sharp arrowhead glinting silver.

Cold water flooded around her ears inside her neoprene dive-hood, then quickly warmed due to her body heat. Powerful fin-strokes propelled her under the bridge, only her face breaching the surface, arms folded across her belly. She reached midway along the bridge, used the inflate button to hiss some air into her stab jacket, then floated vertically, head out of the water, listening, waiting. It was up to Sammy now.

At last she heard the fast wapa-wapa beat of the rotors, as the two-seater helicopter swooped along the Thames, well under civil radar because of its military cargo. She didn’t know much about the package – the Rose – something to do with nuclear subs, a way to break their communication codes. She didn’t need to know. This was her and Katya’s ticket to freedom. A job, nothing more. What she did understand, having overheard one of Janssen’s phone conversations, was that it was a huge deal. It would make Kadinsky a major player, move him up in the Russian Mafia world. She wasn’t sure that was such a good idea, but that would be his problem.

Big Ben did its chime thing leading up to the ten big gongs. She searched the sky, not for the helicopter, but for the drone Sammy was piloting. Grasshopper. State-of-the-art Chinese tech, able to hover perfectly still, as well as dart in fast, precise moves. She heard it before she saw it. It buzzed just above the small waves and hovered a few metres from her, its six propellers whirring like a chorus of dentist drills. It shot upwards out of sight. The helicopter’s rotors grew louder. In the distance she spotted its pulsing red beacon as it swerved past the London Eye.

Big Ben struck. She finned hard. It took three more strikes of the giant clock before she was out from under the bridge. The tide had begun running out, and she had to push against the current. She kept her fin strokes long and deep, working thighs not calves, and stared upwards. A few people on the bridge gazed outwards in her general direction. Breathing out, she arched her back and slipped beneath the surface.

The night sky rippled above her, serene. White, yellow and blue lines shimmered across the wavelets. Beautiful, almost hypnotic, and she suddenly recalled why she loved diving, how it rescued her from life’s viciousness. At moments like this she imagined she could stay underwater indefinitely. But she shook herself and finned harder. She needed to get at least fifty metres from the bridge. Sammy had buzzed her with the drone to check where she was under the arches, and would drop the helicopter as close as possible, but away from the bridge. She could then drift back to it with the outgoing tide.

Three more dulled strikes of the clock. The helicopter’s staccato pounding shook the water around her. Suddenly, a blur of lights, its white underside with the red beacon pulsing. It was directly above her, still high up. That wasn’t right.

Big Ben’s last strike gonged. She stopped finning. If the chopper fell now its blades would shred her. The current washed her back towards the bridge. Still it hovered. She surfaced, and stared upwards, no longer caring if she was spotted. It was a stand-off, the helicopter thirty metres up, the drone in its face, manoeuvring to stay directly in front as the helicopter pilot tried to go around it.

Why wasn’t the drone’s cyber-spike working? It should overload the helicopter software, shut down the engines. She resisted calling Sammy, he had his hands full. But the pilots would be calling this in, initially thinking it was a tourist’s drone, not an attack. Either way, police speedboats would be here pretty quick, with navy divers on board, just in case.

Something caught her eye. A large dark shape ploughing its way downriver, silent and sure, its white bow wave glimmering in the darkness. A massive, unstoppable barge. It shouldn’t be there. Janssen said he’d checked everything. She looked up at the helicopter, then to the oncoming barge. It would be close.

Bright flashes lit up the chopper’s cockpit, then it suddenly went dark, including the red beacon. The Grasshopper’s spike had fired, frying the chopper’s electronics. Shouts and gasps erupted above her on the bridge. People pointed, watching, clicking smartphone cameras. The helicopter tilted left, then right, then began spiralling downwards. Some people even laughed, thinking it was some kind of publicity stunt, as the helicopter alternately swayed and dropped.

Nadia stared hard at the barge, gauging its speed, and how long she had before it would run right over her head. A minute, give or take. Its wake would suck her along with it. She took a long breath and mentally flicked through the event chain: helicopter ditches; pilots evacuate; she retrieves the package; the barge misses the helicopter; she escapes before divers find her. One goal, four points of failure. And she’d forgotten one failure point, she was sure of it. Never mind. No time. She breathed out. Any sane person would abort. But Janssen would find her and kill her, and Katya would follow.

With one last look at the barge, she began a countdown, then submerged and finned harder than ever, the opposing current tugging at her mask. She needed to get below the draft of the barge and its propellers. A boom rang loud in her ears, as a pressure wave smacked the back of her head. The helicopter was in the water. She rotated onto her back. It was right above her. Sammy had told her the mechanics: it would flip upside down, the rotors still turning. He’d told her to wait ten seconds. She began counting then stopped. Dammit, she’d lost track of the barge.

Dumping air from her jacket, she sank while the white underside of the chopper rolled away from her as it capsized, red and blue lights flashing through the water as its remaining electronics popped and died. A chainsaw whine drilled into her ears as the blades macheted the river. A semi-circle of boiling water swept towards her. She kicked to get away, but the slowing rotors chased her, the blades visible as they took turns to scythe past her fins.

She thought she was out of harm’s reach, until a blade whacked into her right calf and dragged her along for a couple of metres before it slowed to a stop. She groaned, squeezed her eyes shut and almost bit off the rubber mouthpiece. She ran her hand along the length of her calf.

Not broken, so get on with it.

She grabbed the rotor, drifting downwards with it as the chopper sank. But another noise grabbed her attention. The chugging of the barge’s engine. Pulling herself along the blade towards the cockpit, she glanced up just as all lights above the surface blanked out, sealing her in darkness. The barge was right above her, though she and the helicopter were sinking. It had missed. But in about twenty seconds the barge’s prop would go over her head. Just after that, the wake would suck at her and the helicopter. She needed to get inside, grab the package, and get the hell out of there.

The pilots should have evacuated by now and be swimming towards shore. Pulling out a torch from her stab jacket, she lit up the inverted cockpit’s glass bubble. It was completely flooded. But one of the pilots was still there, crouching on the console, breathing from a small bail-out tank, clutching a bright orange box to his chest. He held a pistol in one hand, wrapped in a transparent plastic bag. Smart. Because of the bag she couldn’t tell what make it was, but it would be dry, and so would still fire underwater. He pinched his nose between finger and thumb to equalise pressure as the helicopter continued to sink, and stared towards her, blinking hard. The chomping of the barge’s propeller ramped up. Nadia had one advantage – she could see clearly because she had a mask. He would only see a blur. She switched off the torch, anchored arms and legs around the rotor, and waited.

She’d surfed once, a lifetime ago, and when the barge’s wake came, it was like a giant swell picking her up. An underwater wall of water seized the helicopter, and began rolling it. She held tight as she rose then plunged. It was a nightmarish fairground ride, water swirling around her, pulling at her mask and regulator. All the time she watched the pilot, hoping he’d bolt for the surface. He didn’t. He knew that divers would be coming to rescue him. And he was right; as the barge’s engine receded, a speedboat’s engine revved somewhere above them. She couldn’t wait any longer. She switched on the torch again, and pulled herself along the rotor as the helicopter continued to cartwheel in the black water. Then she remembered what she’d forgotten during her rapid risk assessment. The bridge, with its supporting arches. She glanced up, and had just enough time to fold her forearms in front of her face.

The cockpit didn’t shatter when it slammed into the angled concrete, instead it ripped apart like paper, spilling the pilot into open, churning water, tearing the small air tank from his mouth. One arm gripping the orange box, he raised the gun and fired three shots. The first two fizzed past her, leaving slug-like trails in the gloom. The third punched into her chest, too slow to do serious damage. He might have fired again, but the wake slapped him into the arch wall, knocking him out.

She swam fast toward him. Divers above splashed into the water, cones of light from high-powered torches filtering through the blackness. They would find her in seconds. She grabbed the box, and readied to kick away from the wreck. But the pilot… The divers might not find him in time. Switching off her torch, she took out her regulator and rammed it into his mouth, purging it so it jetted air into his lungs. She closed off his nostrils with finger and thumb to stop him drowning through his nose, and checked he was still breathing. Then she finned fast, one arm wrapped around his torso, as they washed along with the current and the barge’s wake, away from the helicopter the divers were about to infest.

After thirty seconds her lungs were bursting. She found her stab jacket deflate hose and breathed from it, swallowing a mouthful of rancid Thames first. She and the pilot sank as she slowly breathed her jacket empty, until they hit the clay-like bottom. They drifted to a stop, and she tried to think. She dug out a nose-clip and clamped it to seal the pilot’s nostrils, so she would have a hand free. They were probably fifty metres the other side of the bridge. Lights flickered in the distance behind her from where the divers would be crawling all over the helicopter, looking for the box, presuming the pilot drowned, knowing he’d wash up later. Armed police would be scouring the area up top, looking for the drone and its pilot, who’d need line-of-sight to operate it at night. Added to that, Janssen wouldn’t wait long.

The solution was obvious: leave the pilot. Let him drown. There were all sorts of ways to rationalise it later. Instead, she knelt on the cloying river bottom, the Rose locked between her knees, and undid her stab jacket harnesses. She freed the tank and, with some effort, strapped the stab jacket around the pilot, and pumped a little air into it, so he’d be buoyant and she could still breathe. Then she disconnected the inflate hose. She clipped the VHF to her weight belt, held the tank under one arm, the Rose under the other, the regulator still in the pilot’s mouth, and finned up to the surface. The beauty of a stab jacket was that it was designed to keep even an unconscious diver’s face above the water-line.

She surfaced awkwardly, made sure he was still breathing, and removed the mouthpiece. Flashing red and blue lights lined both banks. A cacophony of sirens assaulted her as water trickled from her hood and ears. Searchlights from two police helicopters zigzagged methodically across the river, heading her way. Struggling to hold onto the box and her tank, using the diver as a float, she fished for the VHF and clicked it on.

‘Janssen, I have it.’ She switched channels. ‘Sammy, I’m coming.’

She let go of the pilot and immediately sank, weighed down by her belt and the tank. Suddenly everything was brilliant white, the pilot silhouetted above her on the surface. But then it grew dark again. Dammit! She finned hard, hovering just below the unconscious pilot. The searchlight swung back and stayed. Good. She descended again.

Nursing the tank under one arm, she swam along, hugging the bottom of the Thames, finning towards the Mirage pleasure boat that had now been evacuated due to Sammy’s hoax call. By the time she got there it would be deserted; the police would have worked out that it had been a distraction. It was the one place they wouldn't be. But she was late, and the banks were crawling with police.

She surfaced briefly, to get her bearings. The Millennium Bridge was right above her, people walking quickly across it. A few stopped to take selfies. Re-oriented, she descended again and began finning. What if Sammy wasn’t there? Worse, what if Janssen was there alone, or with his two cronies? She didn’t trust him an inch, he might just take the Rose from her outstretched arms and then shoot her in the face.

Calm down. Janssen was on the other side of the river. Sammy would wait, he’d never let her down before. Nothing ruffled him. All that would be waiting on the Mirage would be Sammy, a ladder, a towel, her clothes and backpack, and Sammy’s Suzuki to get them both out of central London before roadblocks locked down the capital.

Nadia’s heart rate eased off a few notches, and she got into a smooth, powerful finning rhythm. She had the package. Soon Kadinsky would have it. Then she and her sister could get an apartment somewhere, stay out of trouble, and live a normal, inconsequential life.

She craved normal.

Twenty minutes later, on the abandoned Mirage, she dried off and sipped bitter Irish coffee from Sammy’s flask. Sammy, as usual, wore a full-face crash helmet. All she could see were his ink-black eyes. He was still on an unofficial Irish-British blacklist due to IRA activities, and there were too many surveillance cameras in London.

As she took a last sip, she dared to think it was all over. Five years, tenth op. And in the previous nine she’d never had to kill anyone. The ops had all gone pretty smoothly, a few guards or rival mafia hoods had ended up in hospital. No graves. And all they had to do now was get the package to Kadinsky. Then she and Katya… She held back the thought. It’s not done yet. But she allowed herself a moment to savour the coffee and whiskey.

She donned her crash helmet, ready to escape London with Sammy and the package. She glanced at the bag where Sammy had stashed it, and for the first time wondered what it could actually do, how dangerous it really was. But as she swung her leg over the back of the bike, three gunshots rang out clear across the Thames, from a tall tower block. Janssen’s location. She and Sammy held their breath.

Sammy’s VHF crackled, and she heard Janssen, panting as if he was running, his voice more excited than scared.

‘Three police down, we switch to site B, tomorrow.’

Sammy shook his head. ‘Site B, affirm.’ He clicked off the VHF. ‘Fuck!’

Nadia stared across the river, a gnawing certainty in her gut that all hopes of a normal life had just slipped beneath the placid waves.

Sammy nudged her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

As he threaded them through London’s smaller streets, she rested her crash helmet against his back. No matter how tough it had been up till now, everything was about to get harder. This had been their biggest operation ever, and Janssen had just upped the stakes by spilling blood. She might have to fight her way out of this one. And the question that had dogged her for the past five years, the one she’d hoped to finally put behind her, rose to the surface.

Did she really have killer’s eyes?

Chapter Two

Her father struggled, screamed at her. ‘For God’s sake, Nadia, pick up the gun, shoot them!’

The two commandos didn’t seem to know she was there. She walked calmly over to the table, lifted the newspaper, and picked up the Beretta. Odd. It had a silencer. She’d never noticed that before. As they threw the hood over his head, she stood sideways to them, feet splayed, raised the gun with a straight right arm, competition style, and fired two head-shots, one for each commando. The trio slumped to the floor. Her father lay still. She walked over, nudged his leg with her foot. No movement. Then she heard her father behind her. He sounded disappointed.

‘You must always look your enemy in the eye. You must make sure. You must let them know, let yourself know that you mean it.’

So who was the corpse? She crouched and lifted the hood. Katya. Two shots. One in each eye. Nadia tried to scream, but she had no voice.

She jerked bolt upright, gasping for breath, her heart hammering in her chest, and opened her eyes in darkness. The same fucking nightmare. Sometimes Katya, sometimes her father, once her mother. Whoever she shot, her family got killed. She lay back down. Rain pelted the wooden roof, and the previous evening’s events slammed into her mind. She closed her eyes. Out of one nightmare…

Sammy stirred next to her. They were both fully clothed, lying on stale towels inside a beach hut he’d broken into no more than four hours ago, her backpack serving as a pillow. She could smell his scent. Six ops with Sammy, and he’d never made a move on her. Not even a flirtatious remark. She’d been happy with that. But right now she wouldn’t mind some comfort.

‘You awake, Nad?’ he asked.

‘Afraid so.’

He touched her brow. It was slick with cold sweat. ‘Nightmaring again?’

She didn’t answer. She’d never told him what they were about. Not a good idea.

Sammy sat up and switched on an interior light, a single harsh yellow bulb hanging from a twisted cord. She covered her eyes, rubbed them, then forced them open again.

‘Almost six,’ he said. ‘Time we found out exactly how much shit Janssen has dumped us in.’

He turned on a portable radio. The early morning shipping forecast was just ending. They listened to the first five BBC news items, then he switched off the radio. The rain eased.

‘What the fuck?’ he said, facing her.

She didn’t get it either. No mention of the downing of a helicopter in front of hundreds of tourists. No mention of gunshots in the centre of London either. None of it had made the news.

She propped herself up on an elbow, and nodded to the black leather bag concealing the package.

‘Tell me about the Rose, Sammy.’

He shook his head. ‘It’ll only distract you. You’re so close, Nad. Just get the job done. Then you and Katya are home free.’

He was about to get up. She touched his arm, stopped him.

‘What does the Rose do?’

He leaned close, his breath raw.

‘If you can detect and localise a nuclear submarine, the Rose – Rosetta is its full name – will let you send it an encoded message the sub’s crew will trust.’

She stared at the bag. ‘What kind of message?’

‘You know, war has broken out, fire a nuclear missile, a target, that kind of stuff.’

It took a moment to sink in. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Exactly.’ He turned back to her. ‘But we didn’t make it. Those English bastards did. And now they’re shitting in their pants. Even blocked it from the news.’

‘But who’s Kadinsky going to sell it to? If Al Qaeda or IS –’

‘Not terrorists, Nad. Kadinsky’s greedy, not insane. Another government. The highest bidder. Look, these things never get used, they’re just leverage in global power games.’

He got up, peered through a crack in the door, then unlocked it and let in some fresh sea air. He glanced from the bag to Nadia, and walked outside.

Nadia had learned to trust Sammy, but knew this time his judgment was clouded by his hatred of the English. The Rose was Armageddon a la carte. If it got into the wrong hands… She didn’t want an exploding nuke on her conscience.