‘All this time? We had—?’ They both looked up at a fleeting shadow that caught their attention above, a slight darkening in the sphere. Barthrop was standing above them. He was struggling to close the hatch.
In a feat of agility that made Aleksey breathless, Ben leapt for the top of the stairs, swung himself up and braced his arm to stop the hatch falling. Barthrop didn’t hesitate, he just kicked Ben’s arm, and the blow caught the inside of Ben’s elbow. He grunted in pain as his arm folded, but he got his hand around the rim, preventing the attempted closure. Aleksey was fighting to get a position on the stairs as well, to help, but they were twisty, too enclosed, and he couldn’t get past Ben’s body. Obviously in considerable pain, with his fingers the only thing stopping them from being sealed in, Ben usedhisshoulder as a better foothold to boost himself higher. Aleksey gripped the foot and put all his considerable strength into lifting him. The hatch eased open. Ben got his whole hand out. Barthrop, standing on the sphere, jumped onto the opening hatch, trying to crush Ben with his weight. Suddenly, he stretched over to something on the deck and grabbed it.
Aleksey heard Ben cry out.
He tried to look up beyond Ben’s body. What he saw made his heart skip with shock. Barthrop had one of the dive knives, and he was stabbing it repeatedly into Ben’s hand. There was blood everywhere.
But Ben was indomitable, he always had been. There wasn’t a man born who could defeat Ben Rider-Mikkelsen. Ben only braced himself more at this treatment and surged up again, blood now seeping through the gap he was maintaining. Aleksey was desperate to help, but if he knocked Ben off the ladder, they would be lost. Ben’s position was the only thing stopping the hatch closing on them.
Finally, Barthrop seemed to realise that Ben wasn’t going to withdraw, that he was wasting his time with the repetitive stabbing.
So he started sawing. The knife was serrated. It didn’t take long.
Ben didn’t have to withdraw his hand. What was left of it slipped back in on blood once it was detached from the fingers that had still been trapped.
Ben crashed from the ladder into him, and they landed in a heap down on the segmented glass bottom of the sphere.
And the hatch clunked finally into place above them.
Ben rose to his feet, his hand pumping blood and attempted once more to reach the hatch, but Aleksey pulled him down. ‘Give it to me. Ben! Stop!’
‘The fucker! The fucker! He fucking cut my fucking fingers off!’
‘I know. Give me your hand. Ben, calm down.’ Who was this man? Who was this calm, reassuring man? It surely the fuck wasn’t him! Inside, he was screaming with frustration and fury, horror and grief. But that was not the man Ben needed him to be. He ripped off his jacket and then his shirt and balling up the soft cotton got Ben to hold the pad against the stumps. He didn’t want to look but saw two, possibly three. Too much blood to tell.
Suddenly, he saw a way for them to get out. He started ripping up the leather seat cushions looking for the internal control panel. When he found it, he pounded the down button, but it didn’t work. It was entirely dead. Barthrop had disconnected them.
Cursing inwardly, he caught at Ben as he swayed. ‘Sit. Sit down.’ Easing him onto one of the benches, he looked over, and there was Miles, standing on the lower hull right in front of him. He was holding his telescope clutched to his chest and was staring at them, pale-faced and wide-eyed. ‘Miles! Climb up. Open the hatch.’ Miles nodded and very tentatively started to move towards the ladder to the upper deck, but Barthrop was climbing down.
Miles backed away, tripping over the kayak paddles until he could back no further. They all heard the sound of a zodiac engine at the same time, and Barthrop’s head whipped around, watching the black shape approach. Colter throttled down and brought the boat slowly towards them. Aleksey banged with frustration on the blood-splattered glass. Colter stared from him to the museum director and then shouted furiously, ‘What the bleeding fuck are you doing?’ Then, pointing at them, he demanded, ‘Get his fucking arm elevated. Hang on.’ He gunned the little boat and headed towards the winches at the bow.
Barthrop ignored all this and held out his hand to Miles. ‘Give it to me.’
Miles put the scope behind his back.
Aleksey thumped once more on the glass. ‘Give it to him, Miles!’
Barthrop pointed the bloody knife at the boy. ‘Give it to me.’
Miles shook his head. ‘I’ll throw it overboard.’
‘Good. Do it.’
Miles’s eyebrows shot up, his bluff unexpectedly called. Aleksey shouted again, ‘Miles! Give him the damn telescope!’
‘Hey! Barthrop. What the fuck is going on?’ Colter was approaching down the side of the port hull. The smaller man pointed the knife at him, and he stopped, hands held up a little in front, more to calm the situation than in self-defence, Aleksey reckoned. Colter looked incensed, not fearful at all.
‘This is my boat, mate. You’re a guest, and you’ve fucking hurt another guest.’ He glanced at Ben who was cradling his hand, holding it elevated as instructed. Then he looked to Miles, and his brows rose. ‘Fuck me. Is that my damn telescope? You did have it here!’
Miles, who’d brought the contended object back around and was hugging it to his chest once more, vigorously shook his head. ‘No, it’s mine. Well, Nikolas’s, but I’m his second-in-command.’
Colter grinned. ‘Well then, that entitles you to a share of the treasure, little matey—second-in-command’s an important job.’ He turned his attention back to Barthrop, who immediately raised the knife once more. ‘You know this is just a game, yeah?’ He waved his arm expansively around his boat.
‘It’s fun. It’s adventure. It’s the chase we’re in it for.’
‘You have no idea what you’re talking about or what this treasure is.’
‘Well, yeah, that’s the whole damn point. Come on… Let’s get these good folks some first aid, and we’ll sit down over a brew and look at the map together. I know the big Russian’s a bastard, but he’s my personal bastard. You can have the treasure, Barthrop. Shit, I don’t need it, and I can tell you now that Mr Rider-Mikkelsen surely doesn’t—that, I do know. Come on, we’ve had some fun.’ He held up his bandaged arm. ‘Epic battle with the hound of the Baskervilles aside, of course.
