SWNOVELS Chapter High Kinetic Energy
Now see, there are actually two yacht clubs right here, more or less roughly in the same spot of the river; one of them being a small, olden days facility they keep going because of the rich people who own boat pens there as well as the heritage history of the place.
We had been tied up at one of the docks attached to the small yacht club.
And...
And, well, Alon had two large boats, both Azimut S10′s. ‘Sister ships,’ as it were. Almost identical. One was penned at the main, South-of-Perth Yacht Club. We were not on that one. That one had people on it, and she took off too, at precisely the same time that our boat left its docking spot.
The other boat went north, down the river towards the Fremantle mouth (where of course, the America’s Cup race had been contested from many years ago now).
We went back upstream, slowly, further and further into a dark bay area, not even very far away from where we had been tied up in the first place. I told the girls what was going on, where we were headed, how long it would take to get there, and approximately how long we would remain there.
Somewhere along the route of the other boat heading towards Fremantle, at a place known as Freshwater Bay, and right up close to where the Australian Special Air Service Regiment often conducted night dives and sea and river exercises, she stopped, and dropped anchor. And along with the anchor, she dropped off a ten foot diameter device that was in the shape of a spiral tube-configured kind of thing, with a pressurised gas and valve attachment on its top-side, and a central water-proof box in the middle containing some pretty sophisticated electronics. And then, seconds after, the boat weighed anchor and just took off again heading briskly back to where she had come from in the first place, which was outside of the function centre at the South-of-Perth Yacht Club at the main docks there.
When the curled up cylinder of the ten foot diameter circular device was filled with water, it descended to the river floor, spiralling slowly slowly, down.
*
In my hand I had a wireless controller that ran a few actuators on board the Azimut s10 where we were having our little gathering. Regardless of how tough the people were here, now, and despite all of their past military training – because all of them were military people although you wouldn’t know it unless you knew it – they were about to suffer some shocks that nothing would have been able to prepare them for ever before.
There were small amounts of deuterium oxide in a warm gaseous mist mix being pumped out around where the people all were gathered, most sitting on the large outdoor chaises. That and the heavy duty alcohol would keep all of their nerves on the torpid side. The rear of the boat was not all of it just completely openly exposed to the plain cool air and naked weather; half of it was underneath the overhang of the top deck, so that it was possible to maintain some ‘environment control’ in the space there where they were. There was heated ordinary air being pumped all around and also there were overhead gas valves with timed actuator controls located cunningly inside in the ceiling slat-work. The main white lights were all still completely dimmed, with only the soft mauve and violet strip lighting illumined.
Somewhere out in Freshwater Bay, at precisely this exact same moment, a team of highly-trained Australian SAS soldiers were moving into position around the radar fix on the Azimut S10 anchored there.
The thing about really great modern-day soldiers in these highly-sophisticated combat units such as could be provided by the SAS, for example, is that they have this ‘amazing tempo of operations,’ even when they are virtually silent in the field, moving fast, with a very high kinetic energy. They slip into the water, slide beneath the surface, whether it has waves or it is quite still, their flipper beat rate is very high, their breathing through the escape air bubble-less, closed, recirculation oxygen units is regular, paced, long and deep.
Someone like me, on the other hand, well, it is hard to keep your heart-rate down, isn’t it, when you are in the middle of even just a small group of such insanely good-looking women – as these girls all were.
All that I can do, is call for the Louis XIII to be brought over and placed down on the large, low, outdoor weather-proof teak table. “Thank you,” I told the tight-bodied little thing in the yacht stewardess uniform. She nicely placed the cognac glass down on the teak wood for me. She had this neatly-trimmed, short hair, a little hazy for a Chinese – she was Asiatic, very probably Chinese but maybe with some, um, what, German in there... She had a totally broad Australian accent though. Interesting. Not even a flicker of anything else in the tone, or the voice, or the inflexions, sibilants; anything.
I took out my iPhone and laid that onto the table top so that they could all see I was about to make something happen on it... ...probably. I noticed how high the Chinese trade envoy’s high heels were. And that her legs were crossed towards Charlotte and that the two of them were positioned together on the same chaise opposite to me. My, my, but what ‘cut and blasted’ calves they both had. These people, all these top-line professionals nowadays, you couldn’t even try to out-muscle any of them, really. There was always some chance they could get at least enough of something onto you that could do some damage to you, and the risk was large enough that you were only gambling if you took any of them on, regardless of how good you thought you were, or how good you even actually were. There was always some chance... ...they would get you.
Even as I was thinking these thoughts, the SAS guys had breached the surface, surrounding, well, absolutely nothing at all.
And then one after another of them turned on their tactical flash-lights and pointed those onto where the boat was supposed to be. But there was nothing there. A couple of jellyfish. Nothing else.
And then of course, just for fun the cylindrical unit’s gas valve opened and you could see the swirling bubbles come to the surface first, before the complete actual unit was visible spiralling under the waves and up to breach the surface.