on those computers that he can take back down with him, then I don't believe anyone back home is going to thank us for letting him get away.'
Buddy's face looked as though it was carved from stone. 'Fuck them' he said quietly.
They were standing almost face to face now, and Kendrick started to turn away. From out of the corner of his eye he saw Buddy move towards him, reaching out to grab his arm.
Kendrick swivelled rapidly, taking hold of Buddy's wrist and punching him hard in the face as he did so. Buddy reeled back in surprise, then slipped and fell to the ground. Kendrick stepped over and clouted him a second time – unable to halt the sudden terrible anger that threatened to overwhelm him.
He became distantly aware that the air around him felt chillier than it had only seconds earlier. A sudden wind rippled through his hair, becoming stronger. Something was happening to the atmosphere in the station.
Buddy still lay flat on the ground, gasping and cursing.
'Don't get in my way,' Kendrick yelled at him. 'Don't dare come after me.' He stepped away, panting. 'I wish it didn't have to work out this way.'
Buddy stared up at him with angry pain-filled eyes. But he didn't try to move from where he lay.
Kendrick retreated for a couple of metres, keeping Buddy well in sight. Then he turned and ran for the facility entrance. He turned a corner and stopped to make sure that his pistol was loaded.
Buddy was right about one thing: just charging in after Draeger would be like committing suicide. Kendrick had felt sure that by now some plan would have come to mind, some way to thwart Draeger without placing himself in such immediate danger. Unfortunately, his mind remained obstinately blank.
The screaming started again, a ragged and terrible animal sound, drifting from somewhere deeper within the building.
Kendrick was far from surprised to find more bodies inside, lying next to a pair of wide doors at the far end of a hallway. Kendrick gagged again at the stench of blood and viscera until his senses could adjust to filter it out. He noticed that both doors had been partly blown off their hinges.
Stepping closer to the corpses, he recognized them as some of Draeger's men. Marlin Smeby was not among them. At first Kendrick assumed they had been blown apart by the force of the explosives after having made a dangerous error in trying to blast their way into the facility interior. But closer inspection revealed that their flesh had been torn and ripped as if by claws. He nudged one body with his foot, trying very hard not to think about what these injuries signified.
The corpse cradled something in its arms. Another nuke, Kendrick realized, shuddering. It had almost certainly been retrieved from one of the dead Los Muertos whom he and Buddy had come across earlier. Two nukes now located, but still with the possibility of another.
Kendrick passed through the ruined doors into a wide office space scattered with the mouldering corpses of yet more Los Muertos. One even appeared to have raked his own eyes out of his skull, while another had clearly blown his own brains out with his rifle. The wall against which he had propped himself was still liberally smeared with the resulting gore.
Kendrick heard another sound, neither screaming nor gunshots this time. More like a bell gently tinkling, as if far away. He stood stock-still, trying to work out what this was, but it faded away to nothing after several seconds.
As far as he could tell, most of the corpses around him had engaged in what looked like mutually assisted suicide. Some lay twisted together in a deadly embrace, knifes still clutched in their fists. Kendrick could not imagine what demons had driven them to such deaths.
He moved on, through another door and into a room filled with racks of delicate-looking computer equipment. He halted, tensing up, at first thinking that something living was in there with him. He relaxed again on seeing that it was another body, a woman's.
He stepped closer and discovered, shocked, that it was his erstwhile interrogator. Leigh squatted in a corner, her combat rifle propped between her knees, its barrel placed under the shattered remains of her jaw. Kendrick looked away quickly.
He glanced around the room and, though he was no expert, he was prepared to bet that she'd raked the banks of machinery around her with automatic fire before ending her life.
He froze on hearing movement nearby. Then, holding his gun out in front of him, he stepped through a further door into a darkened corridor.
'Hold it right there.'
The voice came from an adjoining doorway. Kendrick stopped dead, feeling cold metal press into the side of his neck.
'The gun. Drop it, kick it away.'
Kendrick reviewed his options and discovered that he had none. He let the pistol slip from his fingers, then pushed at it with his foot. It skidded across the floor and stopped near a wall.
'Turn around.'
He'd expected Draeger, or even Buddy. Instead it was Sabak, accompanied by two armed Labrats.
Kendrick was stunned. How had they got here so quickly? They must have gained access to the transport system. That was surely the only way.
'Whatever you're intending, you're not going to do it.' Sabak sounded calm, in control.
'I haven't done anything.'
'I was at the door of the transport terminus. I saw you beat the fuck out of Buddy.'
'I can explain.'
Sabak shook his head. 'Forget it. I wouldn't believe you anyway. You're working for Draeger, right?'
Kendrick blinked at Sabak, standing with two tough-looking types immediately behind him. He laughed.
'Me, working for Draeger? That's rich.'
Sabak bristled. 'You've been very vocal against our whole operation from the start. Did you kill those other men back there?'
Kendrick stared at him, incredulous. 'Now you're out of your mind. Most of them have been dead for days.'
'I still don't feel convinced.'
'I'm not working for Draeger. For Christ's sake, I-'
And there it was again: a sound like wine glasses tinkling gently together. Or moths beating against a light bulb.
They all turned as one. Light flickered at the far end of the darkened corridor, briefly illuminating the outline of a doorway that until now had been lost in shadows. The strange sound grew louder before fading again.
And then they appeared: tiny, frail, dream-like bodies, all with the face of Robert Vincenzo and each of them wrapped in an eerie halo of light. At first just a few, then a dozen, then yet more emerged from the darkness.
Kendrick turned to Sabak. 'Those are the things that killed all these people.'
But Sabak wasn't listening to him. 'I didn't think…' Clearly frightened, he turned to his men. 'Get hold of him.'
Kendrick was gripped by both arms and dragged back the way he had come. Now he was hustled along a corridor he hadn't yet explored, to a room at the far end. To Kendrick's despair, Sabak had meanwhile confiscated his pistol.
'What do you know about this?' Sabak was pointing to an untidy pile of electronic junk lying in the far corner of the room. Racks of equipment filled the surrounding walls, stretching into unlit gloom.
As Kendrick looked closer, the junk resolved into something else altogether.
He recognized the tiny read-out and the oblong box it was attached to. Plastic explosives were carefully packed around it, and myriad wires linked it all like the serpent-hair of a cybernetic Medusa.
The third and previously unaccounted-for nuke, which he'd been so sure that Draeger had in his possession.
Kendrick licked his lips. 'It's a nuclear bomb.'
