‘That’s where we need to head for,’ Ben said.
They moved stealthily onwards, using the map to find a crude service lift that rumbled up to the next level. They emerged cautiously into what looked like an underground car park, a broad arched concrete roadway leading off into the darkness. There was nobody about as they paused to get their bearings.
Jeff tapped the map with his gloved finger. ‘Judging by the layout, I’d say we were just about here. So we need to follow this road. Looks to me like there’s another service lift along there.’
Snick-snack. The sound of an automatic weapon’s cocking bolt being worked, just a few feet behind them.
They turned. Bright torchlight blinded them. From behind it, the vague shapes of two men stepped out of the shadows.
A harsh voice said, ‘Guns on floor.’
Very slowly and warily, Ben and Jeff put down their MP5s, then straightened up.
‘Drop grenade launcher,’ said the voice.
Jeff cursed under his breath as he unslung the weapon and tossed it down with a clatter.
‘Also shotgun,’ said the voice. Ben shrugged the cut-down Ithaca from his shoulder and dropped it on the pile.
‘Remove head gear.’
Ben forced himself to peer through the blinding torch-beam as they dumped their precious night-vision goggles on the floor. The two guards were holding pistols. The one without a torch was clamping a walkie-talkie to his mouth. ‘This is Dovzhenko,’ he said into it. ‘I have intruders on Level Two, Sector Twelve-B.’
‘Hands on head,’ the other one commanded, shining the light in Ben’s eyes.
Ben laced his fingers together on top of his head, and Jeff did the same.
‘Step away from weapons.’
Ben heard the triumphant smile in the guy’s voice. He didn’t have to glance sideways at Jeff to know that they were both waiting for the exact same thing.
Ben knew that there were only two types of mercenary soldier. There was the type who wore the army tattoos and told all the stories, but who’d never done half the things they boasted of and therefore didn’t have the training to go with it. Then there was the type who maybe had done those things, maybe had seen a lot of action and been useful enough soldiers in their day – but they were all washed up now, worn out, cynical, living job to job, and too used to scrapping with tin-pot militia groups across weary, minefield-ridden Third World and Eastern European war zones to have any respect for the enemy. Either way, what the two types had in common was that they were sloppy soldiers and liable to make mistakes.
Ben also knew that tactics were a game. And in any game, winning was often just a question of riding it out until the opponent made that vital mistake. In armed confrontation, one of the rules was never to push your luck. Not even if all the odds seemed in your favour, not even if everything seemed to be going your way, not even if the other guy was completely at your mercy.
But to the sloppy soldier there was a huge kick, a supreme power-rush, to be gained from shoving the muzzle of a pistol right in the face of an unarmed enemy and yelling commands at them. And that sloppiness was exactly what Ben had been banking on. As though they just couldn’t help themselves, the guards came right up close, pistols extended full-arm, the muzzles almost kissing his and Jeff’s heads.
Much, much too close to get away from what happened next. The man called Dovzhenko let out a scream as Ben twisted his Glock out of his fist and felt the trapped trigger finger snap. As he was ramming the butt of the gun hard and fast into the man’s teeth, Jeff had slapped the other pistol aside, wrestled it out of its owner’s grip and clubbed him round the side of the head with it. It was all over in under two seconds.
But now things were about to get a little hotter. Ben pushed Dovzhenko down to the floor with his knee pressed into the back of his neck and the Glock to his temple.
‘Where are the hostages?’ he asked. It was a question he was only going to ask once.
The man never had the chance to respond. The arched roadway suddenly blazed bright with truck headlights and the growl of the diesel engine boomed through the echoey tunnel.
‘Time to go,’ Jeff said.
The big truck burst around the corner thirty yards away and came bearing down on them. There was no chance to pick up their discarded weapons as gunfire crackled out from the vehicle and strafed the concrete. Ben and Jeff sprinted away down the tunnel, returning fire from the pistols they’d taken from the guards.
No way they could outrun a truck.
As they ran, the headlights behind them cast long shadows on the curving tunnel wall up ahead and picked out a tall side doorway covered by a rusted steel shutter. There was a gap at the bottom, just big enough to squeeze through. Ben threw himself down and rolled under the bottom lip of the steel into darkness. Bullets hammered into the shutter as Jeff scrambled in behind him. The truck screeched to a halt outside, and they heard doors opening, voices shouting commands. Another burst of gunfire, and a line of dents punched into the shutter. Shadows appeared in the strip of light underneath. Ben fired at the gap, and they skipped away in retreat.
The two of them were safe in here – but they wouldn’t be for long. Someone would be quick to figure out how to raise the shutter, or how to flush them out using gas or fire.
Stumbling around in the dark, Ben found an antiquated wall panel with a row of big switches, and threw them all. Dusty yellow lamps flickered into life, and he saw they were in an old vehicle workshop. Rusty fuel drums were stacked up against the wall next to a partially-dismantled BMW motorcycle and sidecar. In the middle of the concrete floor, a dusty tarpaulin was draped over a strangely-shaped object the size of a small van. Ben whipped the tarp away and clouds of dust billowed in the dim light.
‘It’s a Kettenkrad,’ he said. He’d only ever seen pictures of the strange Wehrmacht all-terrain vehicle. It was a hybrid of a miniature tank and a military motorcycle. The six wheels per side were linked by caterpillar tracks, and the machine was steered by a bike front end with broad handlebars. He knew enough about them to know that they’d normally been used as tractors to haul trailers and light artillery. But someone had equipped this one with a pair of forward-facing German MG-34 belt-fed heavy machine guns, turning it into a formidable assault craft.
Outside in the tunnel, the truck gave a roar as it accelerated forward to ram the shutter. The metal buckled violently inwards, but held. The truck crunched into reverse and started backing away for another hit.
‘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 scre
ech. 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.’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 166