The Sacred Vault

geodesic struts. Metal bent, then snapped under a second below. The panels shattered, freezing wind gusting round them.

The resulting hole was now large enough to fit through. Nina went first, finding herself on a narrow ledge, looking down at the composite building’s roof close to thirty feet below. ‘Whoa! It’s higher than I thought.’

There was no sign of a ladder. ‘We’ll have to jump,’ said Eddie.

‘Are you kidding? We’ll break our legs!’

Another explosive crackle of electrical fury came from behind them. ‘Well, we could just stand here and watch the aurora, but we won’t have long to appreciate it.’ He ran to one corner. ‘Here!’ he said, pointing down. Though the heat from inside the radar station had melted most of the snow off the sloping roof, the elements had still maintained a hold on some areas, a steep drift having built up against the northern wall.

‘It’s not very deep.’

‘Better than nothing!’ He clambered over the rail, hung from it . . . then dropped. There was a flat whumph as he hit the piled snow, followed by a string of expletives.

‘Are you okay?’ Nina called as he crawled from the drift.

‘You were right - it’s not very deep. Come on, jump down.’

She reluctantly dangled from the railing, muttering darkly before releasing her hold. The drift exploded round her as she landed, the mound of snow doing little to cushion her landing. ‘God damn it!’ she gasped, spitting out ice.

Eddie helped her up. ‘It’s going!’ He indicated the little windows above them. Actinic flashes from the sparking, overloading transformers stabbed through the orange flicker of flames. ‘Come on!’

Nina couldn’t see any skylights or other ways back into the building, only the jutting tops of the station’s eight blocky support legs. ‘Where?’

‘Behind that!’ He pointed at the nearest leg. ‘Get down and cover your ears!’

They rounded the structure, finding another snowdrift on its exposed side. Eddie practically threw Nina into it, diving after her—

The remaining transformers, hulking Cold War relics filled with hundreds of gallons of mineral oil coolant, exploded.

The floor of the dome erupted with liquid fire, the blast from below ripping the geodesic structure apart. Zec was killed instantly; Khoil, higher up, screamed and thrashed as the flames consumed him in his own personal funeral pyre. The walls of the central core collapsed on to the roof and smashed through it into the floors below, the burning remains of the dome tumbling down on top of the devastation.

Shielded by the support leg, Eddie and Nina were still pounded by the force of the explosion as the colossal building shook. Flaming fibreglass fragments hailed down around them. Eddie hurriedly brushed cinders from his scalp and crawled to peer round the leg, seeing the communication masts topple and crash to the ground like great steel trees. ‘I think that’s the jammer sorted out, then.’

‘And everything else,’ Nina added. ‘This whole building’s going to burn - we’ve got to . . .’ She tailed off.

‘What?’ Eddie demanded, suspecting that he wouldn’t like the answer.

‘The vault,’ she gasped. ‘We left the vault open - if the building burns down, the debris’ll fall down the elevator shaft and destroy all the treasures!’

‘So let me guess - you want us to go down there and save everything? We’ll have a sod of a job carrying that statue back to the lift!’

‘We don’t have to take anything out, just make sure they’re protected. Eddie, we have to,’ she went on, pleading. ‘We can’t let them be destroyed, not now. You saw how thick that door was - all we have to do is close it. Even if the building collapses, someone can still recover everything later.’

‘Yeah, and they might recover what’s left of us if we’re down there when it happens!’ But he saw her point. The war the Khoils had hoped for might have been averted, but if their private collection of stolen cultural treasures was destroyed, they would still get one last laugh from beyond the grave. ‘Okay, okay. But we’ll have to be quick. I don’t know how long this place’ll hold together.’

Nina stood. ‘First thing we need to do is get off this roof.’ She gingerly made her way to the edge and looked across the aurora-lit plain. Far below, several people were running for one of the smaller structures at the base’s periphery. ‘Where are they going?’

‘Emergency shelter, probably,’ said Eddie, more interested in the building on which they were standing. At one end of the roof, metal stairs led downwards: access so that the flat expanse could be checked for weather damage. ‘C’mon.’

Skirting pieces of burning debris, they ran for the stairs and descended to a short catwalk. At its end was a door; Eddie kicked it open. A narrow stairwell led down through the composite building. The air was already hazy with smoke.

They hurried down the stairs, Eddie wincing at the pain from Tandon’s beating. At the bottom, he held Nina back, feeling the door for heat on the other side, then cautiously opening it a fraction in case anyone was still in the building. But the corridor was empty. The way clear, they headed for the elevators.

Both of the cage-like cars waited at the top of the shaft. Eddie regarded them dubiously. ‘Bad idea, using a lift when there’s a fire . . . but I’m not climbing down that bloody ladder again.’ They entered one of the elevators, which began its rumbling descent into the glacier.

‘Now that the jammer’s down, how long before help gets here, do you think?’ Nina asked.

‘Couple of hours, probably.’

‘I hope Walther can hold out that long.’

‘I hope we can hold out that long. The Khoils are dead, but some of their staff’re still around, and they seemed pretty big on loyalty. I don’t want to have got through all this and then get shot by their pastry chef. When we—’

They both looked up sharply at a noise from above, a deep metallic groan punctuated by ominous thumps and bangs. The elevator shook, the vertical tracks rattling as the building’s weight shifted on its support legs.

‘So,’ said Eddie, hovering a hand over the emergency stop button, ‘are some bits of old junk really that important to the world?’ Nina glared at him. ‘Yeah, thought so.’ He stepped back - then froze as he spotted something in the adjacent shaft. ‘Shit!’

The cables of the other elevator were moving. They looked up again - and saw that the second car was descending after them. It was moving at the same speed as theirs, meaning it would arrive at the bottom some thirty seconds later. Someone leaned over the guardrail.

Vanita.

Holding a gun—

Nina and Eddie dived in different directions as she opened fire with an MP5K. They were far enough below her to be beyond the range at which the compact weapon could be aimed effectively - but she was unconcerned about accuracy, spraying the lower elevator with bullets. Rounds clanged off the metal floor like hailstones, stray shots striking the girders between the two elevator tracks.

‘Jesus!’ Nina cried, wedging herself tightly into a corner in the hope that the car’s frame would give her some protection. ‘I thought she was dead!’

‘No such luck,’ Eddie growled, doing the same on the other side. He winced as a shot ricocheted off the guardrail above him. ‘But she’ll be out of ammo any second—’

The firing stopped. Nina cautiously raised her head. ‘Yes!’

‘Unless she’s got another mag . . .’

The gunfire resumed.

‘Why do you always have to tempt fate?’ Nina shrieked, cringing back into what little cover she had as more bullets ripped into the elevator.

‘You were the one fighting her! You should’ve hit her harder!’ Eddie fired back.

The onslaught stopped. Eddie had been counting the shots; Vanita had only used about two-thirds of the gun’s thirty-round magazine. That suggested she didn’t have any more mags - but she still had more than enough ammo remaining to kill them.

They were almost at the bottom of the shaft. ‘She’ll be right behind us,’ he warned, ‘so get ready to run.’