Chapter 43 - Approach to Portland Bill
The North Sea was churning with grey, white-capped swells as the small, unmarked rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) cut through the freezing spray off the Dorset coast. The night was pitch black, swallowed entirely by a heavy sea fog that rolled off the English Channel, reducing visibility to less than ten meters.
Liam stood at the helm of the bouncing craft, his hands locked firmly on the throttle, his tactical wetsuit radiating body heat against the biting wind. Behind him sat Jason and Erica, huddled under weather-proof canvas, checking their gear in the dim, red-tinted glow of a tactical flashlight.
"We're five minutes out from the western cliff face," Liam shouted over the roar of the twin outboard motors and the crashing surf. "The bunker entrance is carved directly into the limestone shelf, roughly twenty feet above the waterline. There's an old maintenance catwalk, but the salt water has battered it for decades. Watch your footing."
Jason secured the strap of his tactical helmet, checking the magazine of his suppressed carbine. "Any sign of Viktor's advance team?"
"Negative on radar," Erica replied, her eyes glued to a handheld ruggedized scanner tracking local marine frequencies. "But that doesn't mean they aren't already inside. The automated transponders on the surface are dead, which means someone cut the local power grid twenty minutes ago to blind the harbor monitoring systems."
The boat surged forward, its fiberglass hull sliding smoothly into a narrow, sheltered sea cave carved deep into the towering limestone cliffs of Portland Bill. Liam cut the engines, letting the momentum carry them silently toward a rusted iron ladder bolted directly into the damp stone wall.
"We're ashore," Liam whispered, securing the tether. "Stay close, watch your corners, and keep comms on encrypted local channel four."
They climbed the slick, freezing iron rungs one by one, emerging onto a narrow concrete platform tucked inside the cliffside. A heavy steel blast door, marked with faded civil defense insignia from the Cold War era, stood slightly ajar—its electronic locking mechanism scorched and pried open from the outside.
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Jason’s stomach tightened. Someone had beaten them here.
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