‘I’m making Vaskovich’s system work. Too bad he didn’t get to see it, but hey!’ He lifted Nina’s hand from the sword; the glow instantly vanished, but the noise of the generator remained constant. ‘Yes! It’s passed the threshold - I was right!’
He lowered Nina to the floor, then shrugged off his flat backpack and opened it. Inside was another piece of metal, which Chase recognised as the largest section of Caliburn. Mitchell carefully slid the broken blade into the frame next to Excalibur, the two swords touching. Then he brought Nina’s hand back up to touch Excalibur. It glowed brilliantly once more - and Caliburn lit up too, though much less brightly. The electrical hum began to rise again.
Mitchell withdrew Nina’s hand. The blue light disappeared, but the noise of the generator continued to climb. He grabbed Excalibur by the hilt and yanked it out of the system, leaving Caliburn in its place. The roiling electrical discharges kept flashing across the dome. He put the sword in his pack and pulled it over his shoulders, then bent to lift Nina, took up his rifle and returned to the elevator.
‘Gonna have to say goodbye, Eddie,’ he said when he reached the top level. ‘It’s nothing personal, but I can’t leave anybody who knows what I was doing.’
‘I honestly fucking don’t!’ Chase shouted back, keeping behind cover. ‘So, you going to shoot me?’
‘In a way. This whole place really is only one step away from being a weapon - the antenna array can draw in power, but it can also pump it out. Millions of watts of it. Now there’s a superconductor in place - not as effective as Excalibur, but it’ll do - and the reaction’s become self-sustaining, the system will just keep on drawing in more and more earth energy. I’m going to let it all out - in one blast.’
‘You’re going to blow the place up?’
‘Might as well get some empirical data for DARPA’s own system! I’ll set the array to heat up the ionosphere directly above, then fire the system’s entire output into it - and the focused earth energy will bounce straight back down and destroy the whole facility.’
‘Nice and neat,’ Chase said sarcastically. ‘What about Nina?’
‘I’m taking her with me - I need her alive. At least, until I find someone else who can make the effect work. So long, Eddie.’ He clambered back up the ladder, carrying Nina.
‘Shit!’ Chase searched desperately for some other way out of the generator room. Nothing presented itself. Above, he caught occasional glimpses of Mitchell as he operated the consoles. The intensity of the flashes above him increased, electrical bolts coiling across the machinery like liquid snakes.
He ran to the end of the broken catwalk. A twisted section across the gap hung down, a drooping tongue of grillework protruding from it. He might just be able to reach it . . .
He hurried back to give himself a run-up. A glance at the control room: Mitchell was no longer in sight. Was he still programming the system, or already fleeing with Nina?
Her name spurred Chase on. He ran. The floor clanged beneath him as he reached the edge of the damaged section and leapt across . . .
Falling . . .
Falling short.
He threw out his arms, clawed hands smashing painfully against the hanging section. One slipped away - the other hooked into the grille. For a moment he swung as the catwalk section buckled under his weight.
Then the whole thing tore loose and plunged into the pit.
The mid-level catwalk flashed past—The plummeting walkway section crashed against it. The impact flipped him round, tearing loose his hold on the grillework and tossing him under the catwalk, still falling.
He hit a bundle of cables, tried to wrap his arms round it, failed. His hands slipped over the thick insulation, each successive line popping from his grip and bringing him ever closer to his death beside Kruglov below . . .
He caught the last cable.
Pain seared through his shoulder as he jerked to a stop. The cable bounced above him, shaking him like a doll. Gasping, Chase managed to bring up his other arm and secure himself with both hands.
For all the good it did him. He was still hanging over eighty feet up with nothing but concrete and metal to break his fall - and a countdown to destruction already ticking away above.
‘Well, this isn’t good,’ he muttered.
Much to his surprise, he got a response: a groan. He twisted to see Maximov still hanging by one leg in another skein of cables above and to one side. The huge Russian blinked blearily, then focused on him - and his face twisted with upside-down fury. ‘
‘Yeah, me,’ Chase said. ‘Oh, shit,’ he added as Maximov reached down, stretching for the cables beneath him.
His hand wrapped round the topmost of the bunch. ‘You try to kill me. Now I kill you!’
‘Nonono,
Maximov replied with what from his tone could only be the Russian equivalent of ‘Yeah, whatever’, pulling the cables harder.
‘No, listen, you stupid bastard!’ Chase cried with growing desperation as his hold began to slip. ‘Mitchell’s fucking betrayed us all!’
‘Ha! Serve you right for trusting him!’
One of Chase’s hands was jolted loose. ‘Whoa, fuck!’ he gasped. The pit whirled below him. He tried to regain his grip, but couldn’t reach the juddering cable. ‘Vaskovich is dead!’ he shouted desperately, running out of ideas. ‘And if you don’t get out of here soon, you’ll be dead too!’
That got a reaction, Maximov pausing mid-shake. ‘The boss is dead?’
‘Mitchell killed him! The whole thing was a set-up - he’s killed everyone to cover his tracks. We’re the only ones left - but if we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead too! Look!’ He pointed frantically up at the furious auroral display flashing across the dome. ‘It’s going to fucking explode any minute!’
Maximov’s expression went from anger to concern. ‘You not lying?’
‘No, I’m not fucking lying! We’re both going to
‘If I help you, how do I know you will help me?’
‘You’re ex-Spetsnaz, right? Special forces? I’m ex-SAS - special forces. Same job, just different bosses! You’d trust your squad mates - so trust me, please!’
The Russian considered this, sluggish thought processes almost visible on his face. Finally: ‘What you want me to do?’
‘Pull me up! Then I can climb up to the catwalk and pull
Another agonisingly slow moment of thought. ‘Okay. I help you. But if you don’t help me, I kill you! Even if I have to rise out of grave to do it!’
‘Just pull me up, for fuck’s sake!’ With the cable no longer being shaken, Chase was able to reach it with his other hand. Maximov waited until he had a firm grip, then strained to lift the heavy skein until Chase could reach across and pull himself up the cables in the larger bundle above.
‘Okay, let it go!’ he ordered. Maximov released the cables. They dropped back down, and Chase braced his feet against them. With a foothold, it was a relatively easy task for him to scale the tangle of wiring until he reached the stability of the mid-level catwalk.
The vertical track of the elevator was not far away. He looked at Maximov, still entangled below. Part of his mind reminded him that he would have a much better chance of escaping alive if he left now, alone.
He ignored it. He’d given his word.
A metal bar lay on the floor a few feet away, a broken piece of the fallen catwalk. Chase grabbed it and ducked under the railing, extending the bar out below him with one hand as he gripped the handrail with the other. ‘Hold this!’ he shouted. The noise of the generator had risen to a piercing screech, energy crackling back and forth across the dome.
Maximov bent at the waist, trying to reach up for the bar. Chase strained to bring the end closer to his grasping fingers. He was just short, barely two inches away. ‘Come on!’
‘Can’t - reach!’ gasped Maximov, tendons bulging in his neck. He was so overmuscled that his own body was limiting his movement, unable to crunch any tighter.
‘Can’t reach?’ Chase’s voice changed to a mocking drill-instructor bark. ‘Yes, you
