sometimes passing over, other times under it on its ascent. To each side, the hill was covered by what at first glance he thought was a forest of leafless trees . . .
‘Christ,’ he said, seeing what they really were. ‘Your TV reception must be pretty crappy if you need that lot to get a decent picture.’
The ‘forest’ was man-made, metal: a vast antenna array stretching round the entire hill and on to the tundra beyond. The receiver for Vaskovich’s earth energy station, Chase realised, like the American HAARP facility Mitchell had described, only on a much greater scale.
He got a better view of the large building on the hilltop as they approached. It was circular, with a domed roof resembling an observatory. More electrical cables were draped down the sides of the dome like morbid streamers, linking it to the array.
The funicular reached the upper station. Two more waiting SUVs took the group the few hundred metres across the freezing hilltop to the facility. Inside, Chase was hustled through the building’s blank corridors to what resembled an airport’s security screening station. Warning notices in Cyrillic plastered the walls; he had no idea what they said, but the stylised symbols accompanying them suggested danger from both high voltages and magnetism. A thick line of striped red and yellow was painted on the floor.
The station was manned by two men in orange overalls. When Kruglov stepped up to them, one man ran a sensor wand over his body while the other monitored the results on a screen. The machine bleeped several times. With a look of resigned annoyance, Kruglov emptied out his pockets, placing all his metallic belongings, including a gun, in a plastic tray. The first man ran the wand over him again. Satisfied with the result, he put the tray in a nearby locker and waved Kruglov over the painted line.
The process was repeated with the other members of the group.
Chase went next, having to turn over his watch, keys, phone and - to his irritation - leather jacket. The teeth of its zip were steel, susceptible to magnetic fields. The titanium pins in his left arm initially caused some consternation, but once it was determined they were non-magnetic he was sent through. Presumably the plate in Maximov’s skull was also non-magnetic; if not, he would get very attached to the machinery when it was switched on.
The one item that set off warnings yet was still allowed through was Excalibur. Carrying the case, Chase was led from the entrance into another room beyond, the facility’s control centre.
Waiting for him was Nina.
The makeup and dress from the party were gone; she looked pale and vulnerable in a set of ill-fitting overalls. ‘Eddie!’ she called, relieved, but also worried. Vaskovich, standing beside her, was now in complete control.
‘Hi, honey,’ Chase replied. He was just as delighted to see her, but forced himself to remain outwardly cool. ‘You okay?’
Nina made a sarcastic noise. ‘Oh,
‘Yeah, I think the black rubber number definitely wins out.’ He turned to Vaskovich. ‘I brought the sword. Now let her go.’
‘Show me,’ said the Russian. Chase opened the case. Vaskovich regarded Excalibur with a look somewhere between awe and greed, then carefully lifted it from the foam, holding the polished metal up to the light. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would really do it. I have a hard time believing Jack would let it go so easily.’ Suspicion crossed his face. ‘Let’s be sure he really has.’
He clicked his fingers, and one of the control room technicians hurried over bearing an electronic device. Vaskovich carefully placed the sword on a table; the technician clipped a pair of electrodes to it, then switched on the gadget. He watched its display for several seconds, then nodded to his boss.
‘It really is Excalibur,’ said Vaskovich, sounding almost surprised as he picked up the weapon again. ‘A genuine high-temperature superconductor.’
‘If I say I’m going to do something, I do it,’ Chase told him.
‘And so do I. You can have Nina back, Chase - after I test my system with the sword in place.’
‘Don’t seem to recall that being part of the deal,’ said Chase icily.
‘I think it was implied.’ Vaskovich smiled slightly, then handed Excalibur to another technician, who climbed down a ladder leading through an opening in the floor. ‘Take a look,’ he said proudly, striding to the room’s glass wall and opening his arms wide to encompass the much larger chamber beyond. ‘This is what I have been working for. This . . . is the future.’
The control room overhung the edge of a huge concrete-walled circular pit, a hundred feet across at its top and over twice as deep, narrowing as it descended. Overhead was the dome, the cables Chase had seen earlier hanging down through open louvres to the vast machine below. A hexagonal framework running down to the base of the pit supported a series of massive rings of electromagnets, suspended from electrical insulators. Outside the frame were three catwalks, one just below the level of the control room, a second midway down, and the third near the bottom of the apparatus. A small elevator platform was descending the framework, the technician taking Excalibur down to the lowest level. It was unmistakably some kind of generator, but on a truly enormous scale.
Chase wasn’t impressed, however. ‘Yeah. The future of war.’
Vaskovich shook his head. ‘Do you know the purpose of war, Chase? The true purpose? It has nothing to do with ideology, or morality. It is about
‘But you already do,’ said Nina, stepping forward to join Chase and taking his hand. ‘You control a huge chunk of Russia’s oil and gas reserves. You already have that kind of power.’
‘Oil and gas will not last for ever,’ Vaskovich said. ‘I know what governments say, even here in Russia: that peak oil production is a long way away. But I know the truth - we have already passed that point. The price will only go up from now on. You think over a hundred dollars for a barrel of oil is expensive? Soon it will be two hundred. Then three.’
‘And you get to profit from it all,’ Nina said scathingly.
To her surprise, Vaskovich responded with anger. ‘No! What use is money if Russia freezes and starves? This is my country - my homeland! I will not let that happen!’ He calmed slightly, looking back out over the generator. Below, the technician was carefully lowering Excalibur into a piece of equipment at the bottom of the pit. ‘This will change all that. This will change the world - and Russia will take her rightful place as its leader.’
‘By threatening to blow up everyone else with this thing?’ Chase asked.
Vaskovich rounded on him, angry again. ‘This is
‘Which won’t exactly hurt your political ambitions,’ Nina realised.
Vaskovich smiled triumphantly. ‘Who wouldn’t vote for the man who restored Russia to greatness? And it is a war Russia has already won. Anyone else who wants this technology will have to come to me - because I am the only person who has it.’ He looked through the window. Excalibur in place below, the technician was ascending again. ‘And now, I can make it happen.’
He issued an order in Russian. The technicians turned to their consoles, activating the system. Vaskovich’s attention was on the machines; Chase surreptitiously looked round for any opportunity to escape. Kruglov and Maximov, he saw, were watching him. A corner of Kruglov’s wide mouth twitched mockingly - the Russian knew exactly what he was thinking. He opened his jacket and revealed a knife, with a black carbon-fibre blade. Non- metallic. Chase mouthed ‘Fuck off ’ at him, then returned his attention to Vaskovich.
A deep electrical hum rose in volume. The sharp tang of ozone filled the control room as the air took on a strange, almost tingling quality, literally charged. Nina flinched at a sudden lightning-flash from above, a crackle of electrical energy arcing between two of the cables descending from the dome. More bolts flicked across the generator as the power rose.
Vaskovich pointed out a particular digital indicator. It read 0.34, and rising. ‘This gauge shows the system’s power level,’ he explained. ‘Right now, all the power is coming from the submarine’s nuclear reactors.’
