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.’
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
