There was a sudden flare of yellow from the right and Swain saw a gas pipe near the ceiling catch fire.
He stole a glance back at Reese -- still trudging wearily forward -- then at the little Honda Civic next to him -- still utterly useless.
Then back up at the gas pipe. At the soft blue-yellow flame that began to shoot along its length. Swain's eyes followed the pipe, ahead of the flame. The pipe disappeared into the wall, right above the mysterious door marked -- 'LER ROOM -- NO ENTRY.
Then Swain had a sickening thought.
Gas. Gas mains.
'--LER ROOM.'
Boiler room.
The racing blue-yellow flame scooted across the ceiling, following the path of the gas pipe. Then it disappeared into the wall above the door.
A long silence ensued.
Then...
The explosion was huge. It sounded like a cannon going off as the door to the boiler room blasted outward in a thousand pieces, followed by a billowing cloud of smoke and flames. Swain was thrown backwards onto the bonnet of the Civic.
Quaid wobbled slightly as the ground shook. An explosion somewhere.
'We have to go in now,' he said to Marshall.
'How many--?'
'As many as we can.'
'How do you know you'll get through?' Marshall asked.
'How do you know we won't?' Quaid said.
Marshall pursed his lips. 'No-one has ever seen anything like this before...'
Quaid just stared at him, waiting for him to make the call.
Then Marshall's eyes narrowed. 'Okay, do it.'
Swain rolled off the bonnet of the little Honda to see Reese turn to face the blazing boiler room.
Overhead sprinklers came instantly to life, dousing the whole parking lot with streams of water. It was like standing in a thunderstorm -- booming explosions from the boiler room amid the pouring rain of the sprinklers.
Swain brushed the torrents of water from his eyes as he tried to see what Reese was doing. To his right -- halfway between Reese and himself -- he caught a glimpse of the door on the western wall of the lot, the door he wanted.
The door that read: TO STACK.
'Ready? Okay, push!' Quaid yelled.
The NSA team heaved on the big lead casing, pushing it toward the electrified grille of the parking lot.
Quaid had got them to turn the big lead cube onto its side, so that the open ends -- the top and bottom -- were now pointed sideways, toward the crackling grid of blue electricity.
When the lead cube was a foot away from the blue lightning, Quaid, now dressed in full assault gear -- helmet, bulletproof vest -- called them to a halt.
Marshall handed him an M-16 assault rifle, equipped with a high-tech-looking underslung unit. It looked like an M-203 grenade launcher, except that it had two sharp silver prongs at its end instead of a wide gunbarrel. It was a Taser
'Some firepower,' Marshall said.
'Don't leave home without it,' Quaid said, taking the weapon.
Marshall reached into his coat.
'One more thing,' he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket. It was the list of times and energy recordings taken from the Eavesdropper satellite. 'Have you got your copy?'
Quaid patted his back pocket. 'Don't you think I know the damn thing off by heart by now? Thirteen surges of energy after we picked up the initial electricity field in the city. That's the starting point. Thirteen things for us to find.'
'If you get in,' Marshall said.
'Yeah,' Quaid said grimly, 'if I get in. You just make sure you're ready for whatever I bring out.'
'If we're not ready, it'll be because we're already inside with you.'
'Good,' Quaid turned to the agents around him. 'Okay, boys. Let's do it.'
The agents began pushing the lead cube toward the wall of criss-crossing blue electricity. Quaid walked slowly behind it, waiting at the open rear end of the cube.
The front end of the cube touched the electricity.
Sparks flew.
Quaid ducked instantly to look through the open rear end of the lead cube. He could see right through it. The electricity wasn't able to cut through the lead.
The NSA agents kept pushing until the cube was half inside, half outside the blue wall of light.
The lead was still holding.
They now had a tunnel through which Quaid could crawl
Gun in hand, Quaid dived inside the cube -- and for a moment, disappeared from sight -- and then he emerged on the other side of the electric grid, thumbs up.
'All right,' he called back. 'Send the others through.'
The rest of the NSA entry team -- all of them armed with Taser-equipped M-16s -- were lined up behind the cube.
The first agent in the line, a young Latin-American named Martinez, immediately dived head-first into the cube.
There came a sudden gut-wrenching
'Quickly, move! Before she goes!' Marshall yelled.
And then, without warning, the thick lead cube snapped like a twig under the weight of the surging electric wall
The wall was back in place.
Quaid and Martinez were cut off.
'You guys all right?' Marshall asked through the grille.
'One gun down, but we're okay,' Quaid said, handing Martinez his own SIG-Sauer pistol, to replace the younger man's ruined M-16. 'Guess we're on our own from here. Be back soon.'
Quaid and Martinez hustled off into the parking lot, heading toward the down ramp.
Marshall watched them go. When finally they were gone, his face creased into a smile.
They were inside the library.
Swain stood in the corner of the lower parking lot, drenched in the pouring rain. On the other side of the floor, billowing flames lashed out from the boiler room, impervious to the relentless downpour of the ceiling sprinklers.
Reese continued to limp toward him.
Somehow, she seemed determined to reach him despite the protests of her aching body; consumed by an obsession that would not rest until Stephen Swain was dead.
Swain began to think. He couldn't kill Reese, she was just too big, too strong. And even if she was injured,
