by Sam Fisher
It was easy to see how Truman Maclenahan had reached his position. He was gutsy and self-motivated, but he also knew when to play the diplomatic card. It was a skill largely lost on Roseley, who snorted and folded his arms.
'I'm afraid –' Steph began, but Josh cut across her.
'The stabilisers.'
His three colleagues turned to look at him.
'How?' Steph asked.
'We used the stabilisers during training to contain the energy field inside the pods. If they were positioned carefully in Hall A, they could be set to repel each other and act in the same way as a metal strut holding up the ceiling.
Steph was nodding slowly.
'But no one outside E-Force could operate the equipment,' Pete said.
'What equipment? What're you talking about?' Maclenahan asked, his face screwed up. Even Roseley had looked up, suddenly interested.
'Steph, Mai and I could stick to the plan,' Josh snapped back to Pete. 'And you could help in Hall A, then make your approach to the basement.'
'It's not what we've been ordered to do, Josh.'
Maclenahan had his hands up in front of him. 'Could someone please explain?'
Stephanie sighed and was about to respond when Mai butted in. 'We have a way of stabilising the roof.'
'Then –' Roseley began.
'I think Josh is right,' Pete said, ignoring the assistant chief.
'But –' Stephanie started to protest.
'It's not what we've been ordered to do – I know, Steph,' Pete insisted. 'I'm sorry, but I can't obey those orders. For all we know, I could be wasting my time ploughing through the car park in the Mole. I could cause more damage. You could get to the senator long before me. Surely I'm just backup? You see that, don't you?'
'Yes,' Stephanie said. 'I get it. But who's going to convince Mark?'
51
'No! Absolutely not!'
Josh was talking to Mark Harrison using his wrist vidcom. Pete was back in the Big Mac, preparing to bring the machinery he needed down to ground level from the bowels of the giant craft. Mai and Steph were waiting for Josh close by the entrance to the CCC.
'Look, Mark. I don't have time for this.'
Mark glared back at him from the tiny screen. 'Now, you listen to me, Josh. We agreed –'
'Yes, but things have changed.'
'Not as far as I'm concerned.'
'Well, that's the whole point, isn't it, Mark? You're not here. We are. Pete can do this. He can be in and out of Hall A in the Cage in only a couple of minutes. It'll at least give the emergency services a chance to save lives without the whole ceiling coming down on them.'
Mark looked away from the camera that was transmitting his image some 1500 miles to Josh's miniature receiver.
'I have my orders,' he said finally.
'Yes, but you don't like them, do you?'
'No, I don't – but I will obey them.'
'That's your prerogative, Mark.'
'Josh.'
'Mark, we have to be allowed to make our own decisions on the ground. We have to, otherwise this whole mission will fail – every mission will fail! You have to extend us that respect.'
There was a faint crackle down the line. Josh stared at the top of his commander's head. Finally Mark looked up.
'You have fifteen minutes, Josh. Not a second more. I'll square it somehow.'
'Good call, Mark,' Josh replied, and snapped off the vidcom.
52
'We have to do something,' Todd protested. 'We could go down any minute.'
'Good at stating the fucking obvious, aren't you, Todd?' Dave snapped.
'Oh! Pardon me for breathing.'
'That's the trouble with you, dude, it's all me, me, me, isn't it? It's a wonder you don't get giddy watching the world revolve around you.'
Todd reddened. Enraged, he rushed across the two yards of the elevator, his good hand balled in a fist. But Dave was too fast for him. He sidestepped Todd's swing and landed a solid punch to the side of his head, knocking him away. He landed on his bad arm and screamed in agony.
Dave went to kick him in the guts, but Marty Gardiner got between them, holding Dave back with a surprisingly powerful grip. 'You might have five decades on me, son,' he said. 'But back in the day I was middleweight state champion. I could still flatten you, believe me.'
Dave went limp and slid to the floor, his back to the mirror. He buried his head in his folded arms. They could see his shoulders heaving and hear the sobs he was trying to keep back.
Todd shuffled to the opposite wall and nursed his arm. Lines of pain were etched into his lathered face. The bandage was wet with blood.
Marty tapped Dave on the shoulder. 'I think your friend could do with a few more of those pills,' he said quietly, and flicked a nod towards the backpack. 'May I?'
Dave put his hand in the bag. 'Here,' he said, handing Marty the bottle. 'I've got another.' He glanced at Todd, who didn't meet his eye.
'Hold on.' It was Kyle Foreman. 'The bag – Dave?' And he held out his hand. The young man passed it over grudgingly. Foreman pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and stabbed it into the back of the bag, ripping open the nylon.
'Hey, man!' Dave protested. But the senator had completely disembowelled the backpack and was yanking at an aluminium pole about a foot long and three quarters of an inch thick. He pulled two identical poles free from the bag and tossed the remnants back to Dave. At the elevator doors, he rammed one of the poles into the tiny space where the doors met.
He half-turned. 'Dave – get the other one into the gap at the bottom of the door. I'll do the top.'
Dave stepped forward and picked up the pole from between Foreman's feet. He knelt down and tried his best to slip the metal into the narrow join. He couldn't get any leverage – the gap was too narrow.
'Yes!' Foreman exclaimed. He had managed to force the end of the pole between the doors. Leaning on it, the length of metal slowly bent. 'Damn it!' he hissed, then quickly removed the pole and stuck the bent end into the join. This time it kept its shape and a gap appeared at the base of the elevator door.
Dave set to work again. He pushed down at the fissure with all his weight, forcing an inch of metal into the space between the doors.
'Lever it left,' Foreman instructed.
They leaned on the poles and the doors opened an inch. Foreman got his fingers into the gap and yanked to left and right, straining with every ounce of his strength. Marty and Todd each went to a door to help.
The doors were not giving up easily. But with a gargantuan effort the four men managed to separate them enough for Foreman and Dave to step into the breach. They forced the doors back and into their recesses.
They stepped back, breathing heavily. Dave leaned forward, hands on knees. Marty rested his back against the wall. They were all painfully aware of a new creaking sound coming from the roof of the elevator. It was higher-pitched than before. They stood still and the sound stopped.
They had almost made it to B4. They could see the top of the opening where the elevator should have docked. It was about two feet above the floor of the elevator. It would have been enough to crawl through, but it was blocked. Foreman grabbed one of the aluminium poles and scraped at the blockage. Soil fell away into the elevator. Then a large piece of concrete crashed down.
They all felt the elevator rock. Todd let out a desperate cry that caught in his throat. 'Maybe not a good idea,' he gasped.
The senator ignored him and went at the blockage again. More soil, more small chunks of concrete. A tangled piece of metal slid onto the elevator floor. Then he hit something big and solid. Attacking a different section of the opening, he brought more wreckage onto the marble floor of the elevator. They watched it scatter across the shiny surface. A cylinder of reinforced concrete a foot in diameter and two feet long suddenly plunged from above the opening. It came to an almost silent stop, cushioned by the soil and small fragments beneath it. Then it fell forward with a crash onto the floor and smas
hed into a dozen pieces.
The elevator shook violently. They all heard the sound of metal grinding against the lining of the elevator shaft. Holding their breath, they strained to hear new sounds from the elevator cable above their heads.
Foreman looked back at the opening. The falling concrete had brought down a hundred pounds of soil with it. Now the way was completely blocked. The soil up against the elevator doors had been a tease. The opening was blocked by a single huge piece of concrete that had settled against the doorway on B4. There was no way on Earth they could move it.
'What now?' Marty asked.
'We just have to wait. Try not to move too much.' Dave responded.
'To hell with that,' Foreman snapped, glaring at the floor. He felt like a caged animal. He took a deep breath, lowered himself to the floor against the wall and leaned his head on his raised knees.
For several minutes no one spoke. Then suddenly Foreman's voice broke the silence. 'There'll be an access ladder. We'll have to go through the roof.'
The four of them looked up simultaneously. In the centre of the ceiling was a square hatch.
53
Marty was first up. Dave and Foreman made a stirrup with their interlocked fingers and hauled him aloft. He prodded at the hatch and it slid back easily. The others then hoisted the old man further and his upper body worked through the opening. He just managed to scramble through and onto the roof of the elevator.
Lying flat, Marty helped Todd up through the hole. But it wasn't easy. His injured arm made the process far harder. Perched on Dave and Foreman's palms, he almost lost his balance, started to fall, then caught himself. Marty leaned forward as far as he could. Todd grabbed the edge of the hatchway with his good, right hand and made it over the lip, twisting himself to get his body and one leg through the hole.
Todd surveyed the shaft. Looking up, he could see the elevator cables had snagged on a fallen girder projecting from the side of the shaft. The motion of the elevator had put a terrible strain on the cable, which was shorn, leaving the elevator dangling from a withered length of twined steel no more than an inch and a half in diameter and badly frayed. But on the wall furthest from the doors of the elevator, and running the entire length of the shaft, was an access ladder.
'Come on,' Todd yelled to Marty, and lay flat on his stomach. The old man did the same. Foreman helped Dave up inside the elevator and the two men on the roof leaned down. Three hands grabbed Dave by his shirt and then quickly under his arms. In a moment, he was through the hole and crouching on the roof of the elevator.
'Todd,' Dave said. 'Get onto the ladder. You can't do any more. It'll lighten the load on the cable.'
Todd didn't need to be told twice. Turning, he clambered onto the ladder and took two uneasy steps upward. He gripped the edge of the ladder with his good hand, never looking away from the wall in front of his nose.
'Right, Dave,' Marty said. Looking around him, he saw what he needed, a huge metal clamp where the cables ran through a hoop on the roof of the elevator. 'You lie flat, brace yourself against that metal thing. Hold my legs. I'll reach down into the elevator. Understand?'
Marty positioned himself over the hole. Dave twisted his body around the metal bracket on the roof of the elevator. With Dave gripping his feet, Marty then scrambled forward and down the hole. As he slid into the elevator his shirt sleeves rode up. He had muscular forearms. 'Fifty pressups every morning,' he told Foreman, offering him a weak smile.
'Glad to hear it, buddy. You ready?'
Marty nodded. Foreman leapt up and tried to grasp at Marty's arms. He missed by half an inch.
'Again,' Marty said.
The second time, he made it. The senator was surprised by the strength of Marty's grip. Dave helped by pulling on the old man's legs, using the bracket on the roof for leverage. Foreman finally reached the lip of the hatch, and between them Marty and Dave got him under the arms and hauled him up.
Marty hopped onto the ladder and took a few steps up. He could see Todd a dozen or more rungs above him, halfway to B3. The boy looked extremely shaky.
'You okay, Todd?' Foreman called.
'Just.'
'Keep going up.'
Dave stepped onto the ladder and had just climbed a rung when the noise hit the four of them. It was like a thunderclap. Contained by the elevator shaft, it was tremendously loud.
Foreman leapt from the roof of the elevator to the ladder just as a steel girder tumbled end over end towards them. It smashed into the sides of the shaft, ripping away a section of the access ladder between B1 and B2. The ladder shuddered and those clinging to it felt it move an inch away from the wall, the support bolts straining and twisting.
The elevator's main cable came down a few feet behind the girder. It was a deadly coil of reinforced steel, slashing and weaving its way down the shaft like a giant cobra. The elevator simply fell away, a dead weight plunging downwards. It shuddered against the walls of the shaft, gashing a deep groove in the concrete. Hitting the ground, its walls buckled. Two edges of the roof broke loose and yawned inwards like the serrated lid of an opened tin can.
54
The principle behind E-Force's stabilisers was a simple one. If two powerful electromagnets are placed one above the other some feet apart, they can be made to attract or repel. To keep the unstable roof up, the magnets could be set to repel each other, just like the opposite poles of a magnet. It sounds simple, Pete Sherringham thought as he entered Hall A, but these magnets must have some kick in them. It had taken CARPA scientists the best part of eight years to develop that kick.
Wearing the Cage, Pete felt incredibly empowered. The nickname was entirely accurate: it was a cage, but – like a Volvo's chassis – it was designed to keep danger out, not the occupant in. It was seven feet high and had a titanium-carbon-fibre framework that was designed to shrug off an impact force of half a million Newtons – equivalent to a Steinway falling from a fifth-storey window. It also shielded the wearer against fire and explosions thanks to blast-proof windows made from specially formulated polycarbonate resin.
Pete stood just inside the entrance to Hall A, aghast at the destruction. Sure, he had seen it on the monitors, he knew the stats, the number of dead. But experiencing it was something else. The massive room was barely recognisable as an auditorium. He saw shreds of chairs and the odd square inch of fabric that once covered them. The podium stood incongruously erect on the distant stage. These things attested to the fact that, not so long ago, this room had been filled with avid supporters of Senator Kyle Foreman.
He took a step into the hall. At his feet were the remnants of a cloth banner. He could just make out the words: No Blood For Oil. It was soaked red, with a grey line of human viscera staining one edge.
The Cage was bulky, but Pete had spent many hours training at Base One and was able to pick a way through the rubble without making the ruins even more unstable. Ahead, he could see the main cause of the rescuers' concern.
The eastern half of the roof – the section nearest the entrance to the hall, where it joined with the Main Concourse and Reception – was sagging badly. In places, steel beams had nose-dived through the concrete and plaster. Fire lapped at the ceiling, compromising it further.
Inside the main entrance to the hall, Pete turned hard right. Taking three paces, he found the source of the fire. He slid his fingers over the surface of a console and a thick stream of 'megafoam', a fluoro-protein fire-quenching compound, flew from four jets built into the front of the Cage. In a few seconds the megafoam had smothered the flames.
Sybil had calculated where the stabilisers had to go. Pete could see the spots from inside the Cage. It was an equilateral triangle, some 50 feet to a side. The first site was just a few feet ahead of him. With great care he cleared a path, using an angled plough at the front of the Cage and a grappling arm to lift heavy beams and boulders of reinforced concrete.
The stabilisers were larger versions of the ones the team had used during training. Rou
ghly cylindrical, they were about a yard long and two feet in diameter. Each had a pressure pad at one end and weighed close to half a ton. The great magnetic coils inside them consisted of almost ten miles of copper wire. Each electromagnet was powered by its own energy source, which produced an incredibly powerful magnetic field using a technology known as super-cooled super-conduction. The electronic components of the electromagnets were kept at a temperature close to absolute zero, turning the metal cores of the stabilisers into heavy-duty attractors or repellers.
Reaching the first site, Pete fixed the ground stabiliser into place. Next, he took the second stabiliser from its housing on the outside of the Cage and levered it up to the delicate ceiling directly above his head. Taking great care not to compromise the ceiling further, he slowly eased the stabiliser against the concrete roof. With a small electrical pulse from the control panel in front of him, he sucked air from inside the pressure pad and the unit glued itself to the ceiling.
The path to the second site was almost clear. Pete sidestepped a pile of rubber pipes and, beside them, the remains of a workstation that had crashed through the ceiling and shattered into hundreds of pieces. Using the grappling arm, he moved aside yards of plastic air-conditioning duct.
He was soon at the second site. Repeating the attachment process, he secured the ground stabiliser and nudged the ceiling unit into place, sucked the air from the pad and withdrew. Lowering the grappling arm, he was about to turn towards the third site, some 50 feet to his left, when he heard a growling sound from overhead. A second later, the Cage rocked as a concrete boulder the size of a Harley-Davidson smashed into it directly above Pete's head.
Pete had been through all this in the simulators but nothing prepared him for the reality. He caught a glimpse of a concrete slab dislodging from the ceiling, and at the periphery of his vision he could discern the object falling through space. Then came the impact. He ducked down inside the Cage, and the instinct to run made him lean onto the control panel. The framework rocked backwards and forwards. But he had no need to worry. The Cage shrugged off the boulder like an armadillo being pestered by a mosquito.