‘They’re going to get through pretty soon,’ Jeff said, eyeing the buckled shutter.
‘I know.’ As he said it, Ben ran over to the stack of fuel drums. He grabbed one and shook it, heard the liquid swirling around inside. He carried it over to the Kettenkrad, quickly found the fuel tank hatch. The drum’s nozzle cap was rusted solid. He stabbed a rough hole through it with his knife and started sloshing the fuel into the tank.
‘You’re crazy. That thing’s been sitting dead for all these years.’
Ben didn’t reply as he ran round to the Kettenkrad’s driver’s seat, searching for the dash-mounted ignition switch. He flipped it on and prodded the starter.
Nothing. The battery was dead. He swore.
The truck roared forward again and hit the steel shutter, harder this time. The crash shook the walls and echoed all through the tunnel. The shutter was grotesquely bulged and distorted, but it still held. The truck reversed. A couple more hits like that and it would be through, and Ben and Jeff would be cornered, outgunned and outnumbered inside the workshop as the guards came spilling in.
Ben ran round to the back of the Kettenkrad and found what he’d been hoping for. He snatched the crank handle from a clip on the bodywork, thrust it through an opening in the radiator grille in the rear, felt it engage on the crankshaft. He said a prayer and turned the lever hard.
The engine coughed, then faltered and died.
The truck hit again, tearing the shutter from one of its roller mountings with a screech. The headlights streamed through the rips in the crumpled metal as it backed off for what Ben and Jeff both knew would be its final charge.
Ben tried the crank again. For a fraction of a second it seemed as though nothing was going to happen, but then he was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of smoke as the Kettenkrad spluttered into life. He leapt on board, twisted the motorcycle throttle and the engine gave a clattering roar.
Amazed, Jeff clambered up the side and dropped into the cramped space behind the twin machine guns. He swept away the thick layers of cobwebs, racked the cocking bolts.
‘Ready?’ Ben asked, blipping the throttle.
‘What is it you always say?’
‘Fuck it.’
‘Then fuck it, I’m ready,’ Jeff yelled over the roar of the engine.
At the same instant that the truck rammed the shutter, tore it clean off its mountings and came thundering inside the workshop, Ben was engaging the Kettenkrad’s forward drive and lurching onwards with a clattering squeal of caterpillar tracks. He opened the throttle all the way. Twisted the handlebars and aimed the vehicle straight at the truck.
‘Keep your head down,’ Jeff yelled as they charged right into the blazing headlights. Ben hunched down behind the bars. But there was no way to be ready for the blast of two heavy-calibre machine guns just over and a foot either side of his head. The sound was devastating.
So was the impact on the truck. The flimsy bodywork was instantly shredded into ribbons and the windscreen exploded into glass dust as the truck swerved and went ploughing headlong into the fuel drums, rupturing them against the wall. The truck hit the far wall of the workshop at an angle with a massive crash and rolled onto its side, sending tool-benches and bits of machinery spinning through the air. Flames began to flicker inside the shattered cab.
The guards in the tunnel opened fire as Ben steered the Kettenkrad around the wreckage. Bullets pinged off the tractor’s armour plating. Jeff swivelled the machine guns round in a sweeping arc just over Ben’s head, cutting down three of the mercenaries in a bloody heap.
Now the Kettenkrad was roaring and clattering down the tunnel with the throttle wide open. The wind tore at Ben’s hair as he twisted round in his seat to look at the carnage behind them. At that moment, the burning truck touched off the fuel drums inside the workshop. A huge rolling mushroom of fire swallowed everything within forty feet of the entrance. The mercenaries who had dived for cover as the Kettenkrad rumbled by were suddenly staggering about in flames.
The tunnel twisted hard left up ahead. Ben steered the handlebars into the turn, but he still had the throttle open all the way and the clumsy Kettenkrad went roaring into the bend too fast. He hit the brakes – and discovered with an icy lurch why the vehicle had been taken into the workshop all those years ago.
It didn’t have any.
He tried closing the throttle to slow the thing down, but it was stuck open. Years of corrosion had affected the throttle cable, or the carburettor slide, or both. Unable to slow down, the vehicle slammed off the tunnel wall so hard that the handlebars were torn out of Ben’s hands before he could whip in the clutch. They rounded the bend out of control at forty miles an hour with sparks screaming off the side of the bodywork.
What looked like a brick wall flashed up towards them. The Kettenkrad smashed into it with a heart-stopping crunch that sent Ben flying over the handlebars.
He was picking himself up painfully as Jeff clambered out of the trashed vehicle.
‘Ever heard of using the brakes?’
Ben pointed. They’d crashed into the entrance to the service lift.
‘Next level this way.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Adam was bleeding all over the floor and fighting to keep from fainting with pain and nausea as Pelham stood over him with the pistol and forced him to reassemble the Kammler machine.
‘There,’ he gasped when the last bolt was tightened on the service hatch. ‘It’s done.’
‘Make it work,’ Pelham said through gritted teeth.
Adam thumped the red activation knob with the heel of his hand.
Nothing.
Of course, nothing.
The silent scream of frustration had to be vented. Not even caring about the gun in Pelham’s hand, Adam snatched up a heavy lump-hammer and whacked the machine’s casing with all the strength that was left in him. The clang filled the vault. He dropped the hammer on the floor. ‘Look, just fucking kill me,’ he panted.
And he and Pelham both stood back in amazement as the machine started to hum.
It was a low vibrating throb at first, rising steadily in pitch. The upper section of the bell started to rotate like the turbine of a jet engine. Faster and faster, and it suddenly seemed to Adam as though the metal was beginning to glow with a strange blue-tinged light.
Both men were too astonished to speak. Then, as the rising hum became a tortured drone, something happened that nothing could have prepared Adam for.
The hammer moved – by itself. It was dragged across the floor, then suddenly sailed into the air and flew towards the machine. It slammed against the metal casing, ten times harder than Adam could have swung it, and stuck fast. Seconds later, the mess of spanners and screwdrivers and other tools that littered the floor, every metal object in the vault, went flying through the air, sucked towards the machine with incredible force. The pistol was torn out of Pelham’s hand. He ran to the machine, tried to prise it off, but it was as though it had been welded to the casing.
Adam was sure he could feel strange effects inside his body. The electromagnetic field that the Bell was generating must be way off any Tesla scale, hundreds of times greater than an MRI scan. But something told him that the machine was only just beginning to power up. It was nowhere near its capacity yet. He stared at it. Everything that he and Michio and Julia had dreamed about was actually happening right there in front of him. The Kammler machine was drawing energy from the hidden dimensions within empty space, sucking it in like a giant lung taking in air, initiating the process of converting it into pure power. Terrifying, limitless amounts of power.
The drone was turning into a howl. Adam’s vision was beginning to blur. Pelham staggered away from the machine, the incredulous look on his face lit blue by the intense glow coming off the casing.
Then the machine suddenly went quiet.
Oh, holy shit. Adam instinctively cringed down close to the floor. Pelham opened his mouth to say something, but the words never came out
.
The room seemed to explode as the magnetic field surrounding the machine suddenly reversed polarity. The metal objects stuck to the casing burst outwards in all directions like shrapnel from a bomb. Adam threw himself down flat as the steel toolbox went flying over his head like a missile and punched like a tank shell through the vault door. In the same instant, the lump-hammer spun violently through the air and took Pelham in the back of the head with such power that it went right through. Adam caught a nightmarish glimpse of the man’s face disintegrating as he went down.
Now the whole vault seemed to shake. Rays of strange blue light shone through the dust that filled the air. The howl of the machine had resumed, building to a terrifying scream, and Adam could feel the force field vibrating his ribs. He could feel it in the very tissues of his organs. He scrambled to escape, crying out in pain from his injured leg. Pelham’s pistol was lying in the dust. Adam had never so much as held a gun in his life, but he scooped it up and gripped it tight as he tumbled out through the ragged hole in the door.
He hobbled in flickering strobe-light down the passage leading to the circular gallery around the lift shaft. Jerked open the steel cage door, threw himself into the lift and slammed his fist against the Bakelite button, praying that the thing would work. Slowly, much too slowly, the lift began to grind upwards.
Nausea was pounding through his head, and it wasn’t just from the gunshot wound. He was sure he could feel the solid rock around him vibrating.
He didn’t know what was going to happen. All he knew was that the machine was out of control.
He had to find Rory. He had to find his boy.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Crawling on hands and knees, Rory had made his way deep into the air vent by the time he heard the movement in the shaft behind him and his heart froze.
He craned his head round in the confined space, and let out a cry of fear at what he saw. Ivan, crawling rapidly up behind him with his teeth bared in rage.
The shoes. Ivan had followed the trail of the fallen shoes.
The boy kept moving as fast as he could, but the man seemed possessed by some kind of demonic energy and he began to realise there was no way to outpace him.
‘I’ll get you,’ Ivan’s voice echoed up the metal shaft.
Rory kicked back at the hand that groped for his leg. His foot connected with something solid, but then strong fingers closed around his ankle. He felt himself being dragged back down the way he’d come. He clawed the rusty metal for a grip, but his fingertips just raked uselessly as he slid backwards.
Ivan was laughing now. ‘Come here, little fish. Come to Ivan.’ Rory thrashed out with both feet, but the man’s grip was like iron.
It took several nightmarish minutes for Ivan to drag the boy all the way back out of the vent. Rory fought him every inch, until his breath was rasping and his fingertips were raw. Ivan pulled him clear of the mouth of the pipe and dumped him hard on the concrete floor. Slapped him across the face, twice. ‘You will not run from me again.’
‘You lied to me,’ Rory screamed at him.
‘That’s right. I did.’ Ivan hit him again, making him taste blood on his lips. Then the hands were running over his body, and he felt sick. He twisted away in desperation, managed to break free. Clawed up a handful of loose dust and grit and, as Ivan came close to try to kiss him again, he dashed it in his eyes. Ivan bellowed in pain and anger as Rory scrambled to his feet and ran like crazy through the twisting passages. He was working on pure survival instinct now, his mind as blank as a deer’s running from a pack of wolves. Darting through an archway, he found himself staring up at a huge space carved out of the rock, with a gigantic lattice-work steel stairway that wound upwards through it to the next level.
Ivan was already gaining on him.
Rory grabbed the rusty handrail and started leaping up the steps. He could hear Ivan’s racing footsteps hammering behind him. The boy’s legs were like jelly, but he willed himself to keep going. He came to a landing where the stairway twisted ninety degrees, slipped on the metal floor and almost fell through the railings and out into the abyss. He managed to get back on his feet just as Ivan’s hand came lashing out at him, wriggled away and ran madly on until he was nearly at the top. But the tumble had cost him precious seconds. Ivan’s fingers closed on his belt and he cried out as he felt himself being pulled back. Ivan just absorbed the kicks. He pressed Rory down hard on the steps and started tearing at his clothes. His eyes were blazing and there was spit foaming in the corners of his mouth.
Rory was helpless to stop him.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Ben and Jeff moved quickly through the maze of corridors in the upper level, scanning left and right with their pistols. Ben checked the map again.
‘We should find the access point for the main lift shaft down here somewhere. I don’t think it’s far away.’
‘Something’s wrong with this place,’ Jeff muttered. ‘I can feel it. It’s weird.’
Ben had the same sensation. It was as though the air was crackling with energy, almost like static electricity, but somehow different. He’d never experienced anything like it before. He was convinced he could feel a thrumming vibration coming through the walls, growing steadily more intense with each passing minute.
‘Listen.’
The sound of someone yelling, echoing up the corridor. The voice was high-pitched, but it wasn’t a woman’s. It was a boy’s.
They ran towards the sound, and round the next bend they found themselves at the top of a tall iron stairway. A few steps down, a boy Ben instantly recognised as Rory O’Connor was lying on his back with a man on top of him. In the split second that he stood staring, Ben’s first thought was that the man was trying to throttle him – until he realised what he was seeing.
The man was too intent on trying to tear the boy’s clothes off to notice their presence. Ben stepped quickly over to him, grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him up and dashed his head against the steel railing. The man’s hand flew to his belt and came out holding a pistol. Ben sent it spinning, headbutted him and threw him bodily down the stairway. The man went somersaulting down the metal steps, hit the landing. His fingers scrabbled for a hold on the rails as he slipped over the edge. His scream lasted about three seconds before he hit the stone floor down below, and then was silenced by a crunching impact that echoed through the cavern.
Ben and Jeff helped the pale, trembling boy to his feet and checked him over. ‘Rory? We’re getting you out of here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of your Aunt Sabrina,’ Ben said. ‘I think my dad’s here somewhere.’
‘Well then, let’s find him.’
In the time it had taken to save Rory from the attack, the thrumming in the air had intensified. It was getting more noticeable and uncomfortable every second. The kid looked scared. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t like it.’ He held on to Rory’s arm as they moved quickly back along the corridors. By his reckoning, any time now they were going to reach the passage leading to the circular gallery where the access point was for the main lift shaft. If Adam O’Connor was down there working on the machine, they still had a chance of finding him. But Ben couldn’t ignore the nasty feeling that they were running very short of time.
Jeff was rubbing his temple. ‘Are you getting a headache? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, mate, but I’m feeling really weird.’
Ben was feeling it too. A strange kind of inner turmoil that was both mental and physical. It seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside him, as though the cells of his body were being agitated, the way water molecules were vibrated by a microwave oven. The headache was steadily getting worse, rising at about the same rate as the strange sound that was now thrumming loudly through the facility, rising to a howl.
But that wasn’t all he could hear as they drew nearer to the location of the main shaft. He strained to listen.
‘I can hear someone calling your name,’ he said to Rory.
Chapter Sixty-Five
As she and the tall man scoured the upper level for the missing boy, Irina knew something was badly wrong. She couldn’t understand the strange sensations she was feeling, like ants crawling under her flesh and the worst headache she’d ever known building swiftly to an alarming crescendo inside her skull. She was sure it was something to do with the sound that was throbbing through the walls around them.
For several minutes now she’d been trying to raise Pelham on the radio and getting nothing but strange interference. The lights were acting strangely too, dimming and flickering as if all the electrical systems in the facility had gone haywire. Her instincts were telling her that this whole operation was quickly going into meltdown, and it was going to be time to evacuate.
They emerged into the wide open space that was the aircraft hangar, scanning left and right for any little hiding place the boy could have curled himself up into. Irina eyed the derelict Me 262, then clambered up onto one of the jet fighter’s rusty wings and brusquely tore open the cockpit canopy. Empty. She swore loudly.
‘He has to be around here somewhere,’ the tall man said.
Irina jumped down from the plane wing, dusted the red powder off her hands, and strode onwards across the hangar.
Suddenly she stopped. Pointed. ‘Look.’
A glistening blood trail traced a weaving line across the hangar floor. It led from the lift shaft gallery entrance. Her nostrils flared. She glanced at the tall man, and they began to follow the trail.
It led them away from the hangar and down the passages. Irina stopped to examine a bloody palm-print on the wall. Made by a man’s hand, the blood still sticky and warm.
That was when they heard a ragged, hoarse voice calling out a single name over and over again. ‘Rory! Rory!’
The Shadow Project Page 33