by Sam Fisher
Mai opened the roller-door and pulled it closed as soon as Dave was inside. She had been binding Josh's dislocated fingers with tape, and returned to finish the job and give him a shot of painkiller. Dave and Foreman set to work knotting together tablecloths. Dave laid the two poles on the floor and the two of them tied the cloth to the metal struts to create a makeshift stretcher.
'We'd better get going,' Dave said. 'The air out there is really nasty.'
Foreman and Mai lifted Marty onto the stretcher while Dave held up his drip. Then Mai clamped the last of the oxygen masks to her face and checked Marty's vital signs. Josh pulled up the shutter and led the way out. They made slow progress. The floor of the corridor was slippery and strewn with detritus. From the car park came the omnipresent orange glow of fire.
At the end of the passage they turned right, the beams from Mai's and Josh's torches scything through the cloying air. The fabric of their suits protected them from the condensing fumes, but the strips of skin between the edge of the oxygen masks and the necks of their suits tingled from the burning acid.
The main corridor was black with smoke. The torch beams fought the dark but it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. A dozen paces along the corridor they turned right. Ahead they could see closed shutters on each side of the passageway. Close to the end, on the right, was the roller-door to B63. Dave put the drip onto the stretcher beside Marty and knelt down. Using his good arm, he tugged on the shutter rim and pulled it up. Mai backed into the room and they lowered the stretcher to the floor.
In the far wall they could see the hole they had come through earlier. Taking deep breaths from their oxygen reservoirs, they made for the opening.
96
Even though the sonic generators of the drills did all the cutting work, driving a hole through the blockage was still exhausting work. And when their cybersuits went down Mark and Stephanie found the task almost unbearable.
It was filthy work. They were making a hole just over a yard square, and the drills were slicing through the soil as though it was air, but the machines were not designed to be used this way – they were meant to be mounted on stands and controlled remotely. Stephanie and Mark had them poised like assault rifles, and they vibrated so much it was almost impossible to keep hold of them.
The Sonic Drills shattered the soil into an ultrafine powder which would normally have dissipated, but in the confined space of the tunnel it filled the air with a dense cloud of tiny particles, making it impossible to see far beyond the end of the drill handle. With their cybersuits down, Mark and Stephanie felt the heat given off by the powerful drills almost immediately, and the miasma of dust and atomised soil shot through the inert filters of their suits like water through a sieve.
'How much further?' Stephanie yelled over the noise.
Mark glanced back. 'I'd guess another yard.'
A large chunk of concrete began to slither away from the top of the hole. They killed the drills immediately and jumped back. A beam about four feet long fell through the void and landed nose-down in the soil with a dull thud, before tipping backwards towards them.
Stephanie climbed onto the beam and pushed her Sonic Drill against the wall. Just as she was about to turn it on, she hesitated. A glimmer of light had appeared. Stephanie saw a tiny hole in the wall of soil and debris. The light vanished and then reappeared, brighter.
'There's a light the other side,' she said, turning quickly to Mark. 'Hello?' she shouted into the opening. 'Josh? Mai? Is that you?'
97
Pete felt as though he had dived into a pool of hot water. His skin was lathered with boiling sweat, and he had to wipe the moisture from his eyes just to see clearly. He estimated he had 60 seconds left before the heat inside the Bullet started to drain the life from him. Thirty seconds after that, he would be dead.
He hated this. It was not in his nature to lie down and die. He was a fighter, a battler – he had been all his life. This was the big one. If he did not fight now, he told himself, he would never fight again.
But what could he do? Pete wracked his brains for an answer. There was a solution to every puzzle – he knew that.
Then a desperate idea struck him. No, it was more than desperate, it was crazy. But then, what choice did he have? Even the craziest idea was better than just giving up. He reached under the seat and felt around. His hand came to rest on a small cylinder. He ran his fingers over its hot contours, the metal barrel and the nozzle at one end. He grabbed it and pulled it into view.
It was a miniature fire extinguisher. Pete's only option was to open the back door of the Mole and to run through the flames. If he could get through the fire he would put out his burning clothes with the extinguisher. He had no idea how intense the fire was nor how big it was, and he knew that once he was out there he would become disoriented almost immediately. But he kept coming back to the same argument – what was his alternative?
Kneeling down close to the back door, Pete touched the manual override lever and quickly jerked his hand away. It was scorching. The heat seared through the fabric of his suit glove. He bent down to look under the bench, searching for something he could grip the handle with, but there was nothing.
Time was running out. Pete could feel his breathing becoming laboured. He glanced at his watch. His time was almost up. He would just have to grab the handle and pray. He leaned forward, closed his eyes and thrust his hands forward, waiting for the agony to hit.
Suddenly the lights came on and a deep growl came from the front of the machine. Pete froze, his fingertips a fraction of an inch from the scorching handle. There was a hum and then a single loud note that started to ascend the scale. The control panels flickered to life, the screens came on and the voice of the onboard computer boomed through the inside of the Mole.
'Warning, warning – internal temperature critical. Immediate renormalisation essential.'
'Tell me something I don't know,' Pete muttered.
98
Josh's and Mai's cybersuits powered up just as they were manoeuvring Marty's stretcher into the tunnel.
'Thank Christ!' Mai exclaimed. They stopped for a moment and lowered Marty to the ground. Mai and Josh removed their oxygen masks and pulled on their helmets. It took only a moment for them to realise that comms were still down, but at least the suit coolant was working and the air-filters were operational.
They lifted Marty again and began to walk along the tunnel. Turning a bend in the drain, they caught their first glimpse of the blockage. It looked like a barricade from a battlefield, a huge mound of soil and concrete, twisted metal and pieces of plastic.
'Stop,' Josh said, his voice just audible through the helmet. He had a hand up, indicating they should stay quiet for a moment.
They all stood still, holding their breath.
'You hear that?' he asked Mai.
She nodded. 'Doesn't sound like the Mole.'
'It's a Sonic Drill. Actually, it's two.' Josh's cochlear implants were working hard to decipher the sounds.
They picked up the pace, and as they came closer Dave could hear the low hum of the drills. As they reached the blockage the sound stopped abruptly. They lowered Marty carefully to the floor of the tunnel. Dave hooked his drip onto a metal strut poking out of the barrier, while Mai crouched beside her patient. Josh clambered over the barrier to the area where the sound had been loudest.
Mai ran a sensor over Marty's chest. A series of coloured lights blinked in the darkness of the tunnel, and the device emitted a succession of bleeps. She checked the small screen on the top of the machine. Returning the sensor to the med-kit, she plucked out the Vasjet, replaced the cylinder containing the medication with another, and held it against Marty's bare chest, just over his heart.
Josh had stopped close to the wall of the tunnel. He was looking back towards Mai when they all heard a woman's voice calling to them. Josh scrambled up the wall of detritus and soil and quickly found the tiny opening into the blockage. He waved his to
rch across the opening, then lowered it. A return flash appeared.
Josh leaned in. 'Steph!' he shouted. 'Is that you?'
'Josh! Are you okay?'
'I am now that the cybersuits are back on.'
'Who's with you?'
'Mai and three survivors – Senator Foreman, Dave Golding and Marty Gardiner. Marty needs urgent medical attention.'
'Okay. We're no more than a yard away from you now. We're using the Sonic Drills. Suggest you stand back. We'll be with you ASAP.'
Josh clambered back down the jagged piles of soil, slipping in the slurry until he reached the floor of the drain. He began to tell Mai the news when the wrist of his suit emitted a bleeping sound, and Mai's went off at the same moment.
They both gazed down at the flexiscreens moulded on the wrists of their cybersuits. They knew immediately that normal comms were still down, but the computer in the suit had an emergency backup that allowed it to operate as a conventional computer hooked up to the internet via an internal modem.
In the grey darkness of the tunnel, the miniature screens were iridescent squares of intense light. Stretched across the brightness, Josh and Mai could each see a dark strip of letters appearing like a line of typing on a manual typewriter. It was an email giving them news that came straight from their worst nightmares.
99
Base One, Tintara
The message Tom had sent through the internet was succinct and uncompromising. 'There's a bomb on B6. It'll go off in under six minutes. Tom.' Then he had typed in his E-Force ID serial number – 8683823567#5 – a code known only to the six team members. Hitting the send button, he spun his chair around. 'Jerome,' he said to the nearest technician, 'I need to speak to Senator Evan Mitchell immediately.'
The technician nodded and leaned over his virtual keyboard. 'He's not picking up, Tom,' he said a few moments later.
'Damn it! He has to. What's the number?'
The technician told him and Tom typed it in. Tapping a couple of keys on his own virtual keyboard, he pulled up a file on his holoscreen. He opened it and inputted a complex alphanumeric sequence. A moment later the holoscreen was filled with numbers and letters. The sequence flowed down in two columns. Tom thrust his cursor into the stream and plucked out a segment of numbers. A dial tone came from the speaker on his computer. There was no reply. Tom tapped at the keyboard again and a voice jumped out of the speaker.
'But Senator –' the voice said.
'No buts, Sam, no buts –'
'Senator Mitchell?'
'Who's that? We have a crossed line.'
'Senator. It's Tom Erickson, E-Force.'
'What?' the man named Sam interjected. 'Who the –'
'Tom?'
'T, O, M,' Tom intoned.
'Sam, I have to go,' Mitchell said.
'But –'
'Please, just hang up, yeah?'
There was a heavy sigh and a click.
'Alright, Tom. You have my attention.'
'There's another bomb in the CCC,' Tom said.
'What?'
'Another –'
'Okay, okay. Where?'
'On B6.'
'Any details?'
'It'll go off in –' Tom glanced at a digital clock to the left of his holoscreen – 'five minutes and 21 seconds.'
100
California Conference Center, Los Angeles
Captain James McNally had been ordered to lead a small group down the slope to the east of the CCC. It would take them from the Ground Level down to B2, the first floor of the car park.
Smoke billowed towards them as he and two others, Phil Lazardo and Julio Lopez, a rookie, descended the slope. They pulled on their oxygen masks but the smoke was so dense that they could see nothing further than a few feet beyond their noses. McNally led the way. His torch was as good as useless, its light swallowed up by the black fumes. A moment later he reached a clearer area.
'Over here,' he called through his radio, and he signalled to the other men. The smoke had cleared suddenly and they could see the devastated car park, cars ablaze and shrouded in dust and filth, the ceiling bowed from the weight of collapsed masonry on B1. 'Fan out,' McNally said. 'Phil, skirt along the north edge. Julio, you take the centre lane. We'll meet up at the ramp.'
Some of the electric lights were working, but they presented more of a hazard than a help as they swung loose on frayed cables, and it was hot. McNally made steady progress along the southernmost aisle between rows of demolished vehicles. There was no sign of life, which hardly surprised him considering the state of the place. All he could hear were flames crackling, the fizz of gas, the sound of falling debris. Then he thought he heard something else. He stopped and held his breath. He strained to listen and heard the sound again – a banging.
Turning, McNally ran back towards the slope, then up the next aisle. The banging sound was growing louder, and then he heard two children yelling for help. At that moment a message came through from the Chief – a 10-33, which meant 'Get the hell out – now!'
Then McNally learned the dread news: 'Another bomb will go off in four minutes, 45 seconds.'
As he ran towards the cries, Phil burst in over the radio. 'Boss? Where are you?'
'Just get out. You and Julio. Head straight for the ramp.'
'But –'
'Just do it!'
McNally could see where the yells had come from. A BMW four-wheel drive stood at the end of a line. There were two faces at the rear windows, two kids, a boy and a girl, about seven or eight. They were hammering on the glass, their screams coming through a tiny air-gap at the top of the window.
McNally didn't hesitate. 'Get back,' he shouted, loosening the axe from his belt. He swung it at the door of the vehicle, creating a great gash in the metal panel that knocked the lock inwards. A second heavy blow shattered the lock. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
McNally ripped his mask away from his face. 'Come on!' he yelled.
The kids scrambled across the seats towards him and he dragged them through the jagged doorframe. They were so petrified they could hardly move. McNally crouched down in front of them. The boy was the older of the two by maybe eighteen months. His sandy hair was matted to his face with sweat, his deep blue eyes bloodshot, his cheeks moist with tears and sweat. The little girl had her blonde hair in bunches and was clutching a toy dog.
'Okay, we're going to get out of here,' McNally said. 'What are your names?'
'Tim,' the boy said shakily. 'My sister's Juney.'
'Tim, Juney – you must be brave. You understand?'
They both nodded.
'The way out is over there. A ramp leads to the surface. Come on.'
He stood and pulled the kids to each side of him, an arm around their shoulders, guiding them on. They ran along the aisle. McNally checked his watch. Under four minutes.
He pulled his mask back on. He couldn't save anyone if he was overcome by fumes. They reached the end of the row of cars, and McNally saw Phil and Julio at the foot of the slope. The two firemen turned and saw them.
McNally waved and Phil started to move towards them, when an explosion directly overhead on B1 shook the whole building. McNally just caught sight of the ceiling buckling. Juney screamed and McNally grabbed the two kids, pulling them under the nearest car.
101
Pete was at the control panel of the Mole when Tom's email arrived on his wrist-screen. He spat out an expletive and responded immediately. 'Coordinates, Tom?'
The wait for the reply was agonising.
'Grid ref 9N, 6P, about five yards west of up-ramp on B6.'
Pete had swung the machine around in its tracks even before he had finished reading Tom's message. The Mole slid effortlessly through the flames that had been life-threatening only a few minutes earlier. Now the blue tongues of burning fuel slithered harmlessly around the outer skin of the machine.
The tracks of the Mole crunched over the concrete floor slick with oil and petrol, flattening piles of
metal and wood. In a few moments Pete had manoeuvred the vehicle to the top of the down-ramp. He slammed on the accelerator and the Mole rocketed forward, picking up speed as it went. At the bottom of the ramp it spun on its axis and pointed west.
Pete braked hard. He scanned his control panel and tapped at the keyboard, and an image of the scene appeared on his holoscreen. His fingers flew over the controls, activating a set of sensors on the front of the Mole. They swept across the full spectrum of the space ahead.
Pete peered at the 3D image, searching for a 'bomb signature' – a unique cluster of colours on the screen. Suddenly he saw it – a small cylindrical device inside a plastic bag. A sensor just below the forward camera of the Mole detected the chemical profile of the object. It showed up as a bright yellow and purple shape. Below this was a stream of text: 'Steel casing, interior composed of a blend of calcium chloride, D-2 wax and phosphorus'.
'Gotcha!' Pete exclaimed. He tapped at the control panel and a series of numbers appeared on the screen. He read the numbers and whistled. Six pounds of HBX – it was a bomb bigger than either of the first two.
He fired off another email to Tom as the Mole nudged slowly forwards, clearing a path through the rubble. 'Found bomb. Attempting defuse. Where are the others?'
Tom's reply came a few seconds later. 'Copy that. Take care, buddy. Steph, Mai, Mark and Josh are in the drain with three survivors, including Senator Foreman. How big is the bomb?'
'Big enough,' Pete typed back, and then he turned to the holoscreen. Pushing back his chair, he said to the vehicle's computer, 'Activate probe and position it directly in front of the Mole.'
The computer set to work. Pete heard a hatch opening and a whirring sound coming from the front of the Mole. Adjusting the external camera, he saw the probe resting on the cleared concrete floor. It was squat, a metal cube about a foot square, perched on tracks. On top of the cubic base was a cylindrical chamber that moved independently. A metal arm projected two feet ahead of it.