Outpost

‘Why me?’ asked Jane, daunted suddenly to find herself in a position of responsibility. ‘Why do I have to choose?’

‘You’re a priest. You’re impartial. And I better stay downstairs otherwise there’ll be a riot.’

Rawlins took his yellow Taser pistol from his desk drawer and checked the charge.

‘Let’s finish this quickly,’ he said. ‘The sooner that boat is out of here the better.’

‘Christ,’ said Sian, when Rawlins was gone. ‘We could be deciding if people live or die, you realise that?’

‘Let’s start a list,’ said Jane. ‘See if we can narrow it down.’

There was a whiteboard on the wall next to a picture of a tropical beach. Jane bit the cap from a pen and wrote names.

‘Okay,’ said Jane. ‘Who stays for certain? Who can we strike off the list right away?’

She put a cross through FRANK RAWLINS. ‘Goes down with the ship. He’d be insulted if we even considered him.’

She put a cross through ELIZABETH RYE. ‘The installation needs a doctor. Essential personnel.’

‘Says here she has a son,’ said Sian.

‘Rawlins won’t let her go. I guarantee it.’

She crossed out GARETH PUNCH. ‘We need a chef.’

‘Any fool can flip an egg.’

Jane shook her head. ‘Everyone is talking like we will be out of here in a week or two, but truth is we might be stuck a while. We need someone who can manage a kitchen, eke out provisions.’

Jane crossed out three more names. ‘Senior ops. Maintenance. Maintenance. We need people who can keep the lights on.’

‘Six down.’

‘Anything in the files?’

‘I can give you two names right away. Rosie Smith and Pete Baxter. Rosie is diabetic. She injects insulin every day. They have a crate of the stuff on ice in medical. We’re supposed to feed her sugar or something if she has a fit.’

Jane circled ROSIE SMITH. ‘All right. She’s on the boat. Pete Baxter?’

‘Heart attack four years ago. He takes some kind of bloodthinning medication. I heard he brought his own defibrillator. Keeps it by his bed. I’m astonished they gave him a job.’

Jane circled PETE BAXTER. ‘Two more. Maybe we should pull names out of a hat. It might be the easiest way.’

Fox News looped the same footage over and over.

‘…may God defend us in this dark and difficult hour..

The President’s sombre wave as he climbs aboard Marine One and flees the White House.

Food riots. Flaming cars. Humvees in the street.

Nail stood, arms folded, in front of the TV. He stood close enough to see the President’s face reduced to picture grain and blur.

He turned round.

The captain was sitting in the corner of the canteen. He was hunched over a bowl greedily spooning soup. His shotgun rested on the Formica tabletop easily within reach.

Nail crossed the room and sat next to his gym buddy, Ivan.

‘Reckon you could pilot that boat?’

‘Little tug like that? Sure,’ said Ivan.

‘Seriously. You could get it going? Navigate?’

‘Yeah. Pretty certain I could.’

‘We have to get his gun.’

‘He’s got his back to the wall. And look at him. He’s twitchy. He’s watching for someone to make a move.’

‘I should go over there,’ said Nail. ‘Offer him another coffee.

I want to see if the safety catch is on.’

‘We could wait until he’s up and walking. Catch him in a stairway, a corridor. It would give us a chance to get close, but we’d have to take his gun.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about the first mate?’

‘What about him? We’d have a gun.’

‘Could you do that? Could you shoot a man?’

‘I’d fire a warning shot.’

‘But if it came down to it?’

‘Then, yeah,’ said Nail. ‘Him or us, right?’

‘Okay. You and me. Gus, Mal, Yakov. You give the signal. We move at once. We do it quick. But we’d have to be on the boat and gone before anyone has a chance to react. Bags and coats ready to go.’

‘I’ll tell the guys. Go to the kitchen and fix yourself a sandwich. Get some knives while you are in there.’

Rawlins brought the captain to his office. The captain still carried his shotgun like he expected to be jumped any moment. They examined a map of the Arctic.

‘They sent us to a pump station in the Kara. The place was deserted. We swung by Severnaya to see how the Russian team were doing but they had cleared out. Norway is closed for business. Don’t dare approach. They have a couple of AWACS planes guiding gunboats.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘We’ll catch the current south. Skirt Norway. Skirt Iceland. Western Scotland seems like a good place to ride out doomsday. We’ll find an island. Hide ourselves away.’

‘So what have you heard?’ asked Jane. ‘All we have is the television.’

‘Dave, my first mate. He saw it for real in Roscoff a month ago. He was sitting in a cafe eating lunch. Noon. Not much happening. Suddenly people ran in, yelling for the police. There was a woman in the street trying to bite everyone like a rabid dog. She was bleeding.’

‘Bleeding?’

‘That’s what he said. Some soldiers shot her dead. Then they shot everyone she had bitten. They made a big pile and burned the bodies.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Sorry to break it to you folks, but no one is coming to your rescue any time soon. You might have to find your own way home.’

‘Christ.’

‘Have you picked your men yet?’

‘We’re working on it.’