The Sacred Vault

by Andy McDermott

  She backed away. ‘We found everything - so now we need to make sure they get back to where they belong.’

  ‘We need to wreck that radio jammer first,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Sounds like your area of expertise. We’d better get moving.’ They left the vault, heading back past the unconscious guard. ‘Although I’m really not looking forward to climbing back up that ladder.’

  Eddie gave her a weary smile. ‘Have to admit, I’m coming round to the idea of using the lift—’

  Someone had beaten them to it.

  One set of elevator doors rumbled apart - revealing Zec and Tandon. Both men pointed handguns at them, fingers tight on the triggers.

  Neither Eddie nor Nina had their weapons raised. They froze. ‘Cock,’ Eddie muttered.

  ‘Drop the guns,’ said Zec. A half-smile as they obeyed. ‘You are really incredible, Chase. What does it take to kill you?’

  ‘A bullet to the head should do it,’ Tandon said, kicking the fallen MP5Ks away. He pushed his gun against Eddie’s temple. The Englishman tensed, Nina drawing in a sharp breath of fear. ‘But . . . Mr Khoil wants to see you first.’

  ‘Lucky us,’ said Eddie as the gun withdrew. ‘How’d he know we were here?’

  Zec nodded towards the laptop. ‘It has a webcam connected to the security office. As soon as I saw the guard was not at his station, I rewound the stream. And there you were.’

  ‘Move,’ Tandon ordered. ‘Into the lift.’

  The elevator was a wide square platform, surrounded by railings but otherwise worryingly open. Nina and Eddie unwillingly stepped aboard. While the Indian kept them at gunpoint, Zec dragged the unconscious guard into the lift. Once both men were inside, Tandon pushed a button and the doors rattled shut. With a whine of motors, the elevator began its long journey to the surface.

  The ride ended at the lowest floor of the composite building. Two more armed men were waiting as the doors opened. One picked up the guard and carried him away as Zec and Tandon ushered Nina and Eddie out. ‘Up the stairs,’ said Zec, gesturing to a staircase.

  The utilitarian, military-drab environment of the bottom level gave way to considerably more high-tech surroundings as they ascended. Two entire floors of the old radar station had been gutted and replaced by massive data centres, rank after rank of computer servers processing information.

  ‘Christ,’ said Eddie as they kept climbing. ‘All this just to play Tetris?’

  ‘It’s part of their plan,’ Nina realised. ‘Pramesh said he had archives storing information so it wouldn’t be lost when civilisation collapses. This must be one of them. He’s recording every bit of data that passes through the internet.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause that’s what the world’ll need after the apocalypse - funny pet videos and porn.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be very selective about what survives and what “accidentally” gets lost to history.’

  Zec gave them an odd look. ‘What do you mean, the apocalypse?’

  Nina and Eddie exchanged glances. ‘Taking a dump during the briefing, were you?’ Eddie asked. ‘Or did they just not tell you that part?’

  ‘You’ve been told everything you need to know,’ Tandon said firmly to Zec as they continued upwards. The next level appeared to be living areas; the one above was the same, but more expensively appointed - the Khoils were reluctant to give up the comforts of wealth, even in the Arctic.

  The stairway ended here, but they still had higher to climb. Nina and Eddie were escorted along a short hallway to another set of stairs, this one spiralling upwards through the building’s central core to the giant dome. It took them via a distinctly industrial level, large - and from their appearance, Cold War vintage - electrical transformers emitting menacing hums. They had once fed power to the giant radar antenna; now they supplied energy to the 360-degree lightshow that had replaced it.

  ‘Dr Wilde!’ called a familiar voice as they trooped into the infotarium. ‘And Mr Chase, too.’ Pramesh Khoil stood with his wife atop a circular platform at the dome’s centre.

  Vanita regarded them with disgust. ‘Why are they still alive?’

  ‘They have gone through a lot to be here, Vanita,’ said Khoil. Smug pride blossomed on his face as he waved a theatrical hand at the giant projection displays. ‘Bring them to the walkway. We may as well let them witness the end of the Kali Yuga.’

  ‘You are showing off,’ she said in a scolding tone as Zec, Tandon and the guard marched Nina and Eddie up to the circular walkway. ‘We should just kill them.’

  ‘Soon, my beloved, soon,’ he replied, looking up at the two screens displaying the view from the aircraft. The city lights drifted across the picture as the plane continued its long circle. His gaze shifted to the news feed. ‘But it is almost time to begin - the G20 leaders have all arrived.’

  ‘That’s your plan?’ Nina asked, appalled. ‘You’re going to crash a plane on to the summit?’

  ‘You won’t have a chance,’ said Eddie. ‘Twenty world leaders in one place, including the American, Russian and Chinese presidents? If there’s a fucking sparrow in the air over Delhi, it’ll have a missile locked on to it.’

  ‘That is Delhi,’ said Khoil, nodding at the screens. ‘My drone is circling on automatic pilot fifteen kilometres west of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Nobody knows it is even there.’

  ‘You’ve got a stealth plane?’ Eddie said in disbelief.

  ‘There are advantages to owning a stake in a military aircraft company. Stealth is a major area of research. I have access to that research, and have put it to better use than any government project.’

  Nina remembered what she had seen at the Khoils’ palace. ‘Wait, this plane of yours - dark grey, propeller at the back, weird-looking? ’

  ‘Yes. I was test-flying it at night.’ He raised one hand, palm flat, and tilted it to the left; the airborne images followed suit. ‘It takes a little getting used to, but I have mastered the controls. A shame this will be its last flight. It is fun.’ He lowered his hand. After a moment, the horizon tipped back. ‘As you see, when I am not controlling it directly it follows its default programming, which currently is to fly a standby orbit. Once I fly it past a certain point, though, it has another program.’

  ‘A kamikaze run,’ guessed Eddie.

  ‘Correct. Even if I lose communication, it will still carry out its mission. But for maximum effect, precise timing will be needed.’ He indicated the news feed, which showed a floodlit stage. As yet, the only people on it were technicians making final preparations. ‘I do not know exactly when the G20 leaders will assemble for their photocall. As soon as they start to appear, I will begin. The computers can guide the plane to the right spot, but only I can choose the most devastating moment.’

  ‘You finally admit there are things humans can do better than computers, and that’s your example?’ said Nina.

  ‘There is an irony to it. But after the explosion, everyone in the world will seek answers - and Qexia will provide them.’

  Her voice filled with scorn. ‘The wrong answers.’

  ‘Qexia does not lie,’ Khoil replied, displeased at the implied insult. ‘It simply weights the results according to user expectations. In India, it will seem that Pakistani militants carried out the attack. In Pakistan, India will be seen as falsely accusing an Islamic power that has been pointedly excluded from the G20.’

  ‘Anger will rise,’ continued Vanita. ‘People in both countries will demand action - they will demand blood! War will start between India and Pakistan, and it will escalate into a nuclear conflict. Once that happens, the violence will spread. Country against country, East against West, Hindu against Muslim, Muslim against Christian. The world will burn.’ Her face twisted with a terrible smile of satisfaction.

  ‘Not everybody gets their information from Qexia,’ Nina pointed out. ‘And not everybody’s driven by rage and vengeance, either - however corrupt and decadent you think they’ve become. You won’t start World War Three from just one
event, even something this big.’

  ‘We do not need to,’ said Khoil. ‘A global nuclear war is only a forty-two per cent probability . . . but there is a ninety-nine per cent probability that the networks of finance and trade vital to modern civilisation will collapse. The effect will be the same.’ He took position at the virtual controls. ‘You are a historian, Dr Wilde. But this is the end of history. The start of a new age. Our new age. Enlightened . . . purified. A new Satya Yuga.’

  On the news feed, the technicians cleared the stage. The camera panned across to a doorway, from which officials emerged. Camera flashes lit up the area like strobes.

  ‘They’re coming out,’ said Vanita excitedly, grabbing her husband’s arm.

  He lifted her hand away. ‘Vanita, my beloved, I need you to clear the platform so I can fly the vimana. It would be unfortunate if you nudged me and made it crash short of the target.’ She was annoyed by his undercurrent of sarcasm, but descended the steps to the circular walkway, where she stood beside Tandon.

  Khoil raised both hands, paused for a moment like a conductor preparing to cue an orchestra . . . then clenched them as if gripping invisible controls. The view from the cameras tilted sharply as the stealth plane banked. The artificial horizon matched the move, a green line indicating the course to the presidential residence swinging into sight.

  Text also appeared at the bottom of the screens. TIME TO TARGET: 04:02. The number counted down. 04:01, 04:00, 03:59 . . .

  34

  Nina stared at the screens in horror as the Indian president and prime minister made their way to the stage. ‘If you do this, millions of people will die - and a lot of them will be in your own country!’

  ‘They will be reborn in the next cycle,’ Khoil said, eyes fixed on the view from the aircraft. ‘And they will be born into a better world.’

  She had no counter to that. Khoil was a man set in his beliefs, and there were no words she could use to change his mind. Only action would make a difference now. ‘We’ve got to stop him,’ she whispered to Eddie.

  ‘Yeah, I got that.’ If he could reach the upper platform, he could disrupt the plane’s flight by punching out Khoil and taking over the virtual controls, crashing it somewhere safe - or at least forcing it to return to its failsafe orbit until the world leaders were back indoors.

  Getting on to the platform, though, was the problem. There were three men with guns there to stop him.

  Unless he could make it two men . . .

  ‘You’re Bosnian, right?’ he asked Zec in an almost conversational tone, to the mercenary’s surprise. ‘The country’s pretty much half and half Christians and Muslims, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zec, suspicious. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, that part of the world’s had some . . . well, problems between different ethnic groups. It might have calmed down now, but this’ll start it right back up again.’ He indicated the Khoils, both fixated on the big screens. ‘Your bosses just said that’s what they were after.’

  ‘That is not my concern,’ Zec said, but the idea, having taken root, was clearly troubling him.

  ‘It’ll be your wife and son’s concern, though. You said they live in Sarajevo. That’s not exactly high on the list of cities people associate with peace and harmony and good times.’ Eddie’s expression hardened. ‘They’re going to die. And you’ll have helped it happen.’

  Vanita glared angrily at them. ‘Enough! Zec, go back to security.’ She addressed the guard, jabbing a red-nailed finger at Nina and Eddie. ‘You. Shoot these two.’

  The guard pushed past Zec, raising his gun - but Tandon intervened. ‘Please, let me.’ He smiled coldly. ‘I have been looking forward to this.’

  ‘All right,’ said Vanita. ‘But quickly.’

  Eddie gave Zec a look. ‘Last chance for your son to be proud of you.’

  Tandon advanced, pocketing his gun . . . and raised his hands to deliver a lethal martial arts strike. ‘It will be quick,’ he assured Vanita, ‘but not painless.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Do it.’ The countdown on the screen reached three minutes.

  Tandon stepped closer. Nina gripped Eddie’s hand—

  A spray of blood and brain matter splattered across the dome as Zec shot the guard in the back of the head.

  Eddie pushed Nina down, crouching to give Zec a clear shot at Tandon as the dead guard fell. His MP5K clattered to the floor ten feet below, skidding away to end up near the spiral staircase.

  Zec fired again - and Tandon dodged, twisting aside. The bullet missed him by barely a centimetre. Zec tracked him, releasing another shot as the Indian dived under the railing, grabbing the edge of the walkway as he fell and flipping himself underneath it. Eddie heard soft clanks from below; Tandon was hanging from the catwalk’s underside, effortlessly swinging parkour-style along its supporting scaffold. Zec backed up, gun darting from side to side in expectation of an attack.

  Eddie ran past Nina. Vanita hurriedly retreated, but he ignored her, instead pounding up the curved stairs to the upper platform. ‘Ay up,’ he said to Khoil. The billionaire’s plump face filled with fear. ‘Can I play?’

  Nina jumped up, raising her fists as she charged at Vanita. While no expert at unarmed combat, she had still received enough training from her husband to throw a good punch - and this one would be particularly satisfying. Vanita turned and ran, Nina pursuing her round the walkway.

  Tandon’s head briefly popped up into Zec’s view. He fired, but the Indian had already ducked out of sight with snake-like speed. The Bosnian shifted his aim, shooting at the floor. Four bullets punched holes through the metal plating with shrill spangs - but Tandon was too fast. A clank of something falling as he swept hand over hand along the scaffold, then in an acrobatic, almost gravity-defying move, he swung back up feet-first under the railing - and drove a crunching kick into Zec’s stomach. The mercenary flew backwards, crashing against the outer railing—

  It gave way. Zec tumbled over the edge. His neck cracked horribly as he landed head-first, flopping limply to the floor. The broken length of railing clanged down beside him.

  Khoil backed away as Eddie approached. He reached the edge of the platform and cowered, with nowhere to run. On the big screens, the view of Delhi tipped sharply, the drone swinging back round towards its standby orbit now that it was no longer receiving control signals. ‘You - you can’t stop—’

  Eddie punched him hard in the face. Khoil spun off the platform, landing with a crash on the walkway below, smooth skin now marred by a smear of blood from his split lips.

  Wiping his knuckles on his coat, Eddie moved to the centre of the platform and raised his hands. ‘Okay, let’s see how this works . . .’ He spread his fingers as he had seen Khoil do and tilted one hand experimentally. The horizon on the screen followed his movement. ‘Yes!’ He looked for somewhere amongst the city’s lights that would be safe enough to crash the drone.

  A black line ran across both images. A river.

  ‘Let’s make a splash,’ he said, tipping his hand forwards as if pushing an imaginary joystick. The drone began to descend.

  Tandon ran to help Khoil, but the billionaire shouted, ‘No! Up there, stop Chase!’

  Nina was fast gaining on Vanita, who was trying to run on two-inch heels. ‘Get your ass back here!’ she shouted. They had completely circled the walkway, reaching the broken section of railing. Vanita jumped through the gap, landing beside Zec.

  Nina leapt after her, aiming to knock her down - but Vanita scrambled clear, one of her shoes flying off. Rolling as she landed, Nina jumped up—

  To see Vanita going for the dead guard’s MP5K.

  She dived at her, tackling the sari-clad woman just before she reached it and slamming her to the floor.

  The river grew steadily larger - but Eddie was forced to abandon the controls as Tandon rushed at him. The drone climbed steeply back to its failsafe altitude.

  Eddie and Tandon circled each other. The Englishman raised his fists.
Tandon brought up his own hands, fingers together like axe-heads - then a flash of triumph crossed his face as he remembered he had a gun. He reached for it—

  Finding nothing but an empty pocket. It had fallen out when he was swinging from the walkway.

  Eddie lunged, a powerful punch steaming at Tandon’s jaw.

  The Indian whipped his head back, the blow only grazing his chin. He snapped up an arm to hook Eddie’s as it passed, then whirled, simultaneously slamming an elbow against the other man’s head and painfully twisting his shoulder.

  Eddie staggered as Tandon released him, turning to face his enemy - and a roundhouse kick crunched into his sternum. He reeled backwards . . .

  And fell off the platform.

  Like Khoil, he landed with a bang on the metal walkway - but unlike the software mogul, his plunge didn’t end there as he slid under the railing and dropped another ten feet to the chamber’s floor. Pain coursing through his shoulder and chest, he lay on his back, winded.

  Nina grappled with Vanita, thumping a punch into her kidneys. Vanita shrieked, lashing out with one hand - and slashing Nina across her left cheek with a ring. Face stinging from the cut, Nina flinched back as the red talons clawed at her eyes.

  Her retreat gave the other woman the chance to twist and kick her in the stomach. Nina gasped, doubling over. ‘You think I’m weak?’ Vanita snarled, another strike catching the side of Nina’s head. ‘I know how to fight - I grew up in the slums!’ She scrabbled for the gun—

  Nina grabbed her trailing sari and yanked her back, stamping down hard on her bare foot with a heavy boot. Vanita screamed as her little toe broke. Nina swung her round, drawing back her fist. ‘And I’m from New York, bitch!’

  She slammed a punch into her face. Spitting blood, Vanita fell beside Zec. Shaking out her aching hand, Nina stood and turned to find the gun. It lay about ten feet away. She started towards it—

  The broken length of railing cracked against her knee as Vanita swung it like a baseball bat. Nina stumbled, almost falling. The metal tube whooshed at her again as Vanita limped after her.