27 July 2012
Bronson tensed, knowing that now he had to reach for his pistol, because he had nothing left to lose.
But before he could move a muscle, two shots rang out and the German seemed to crumple to the floor of the truck.
Bronson swung round to see Weeks framed in the side door, the Heckler amp; Koch MP5 held steady in his hands.
“I thought you were dead,” Bronson said.
“I deal in illegal weapons, Chris. Wearing a Kevlar jacket under my clothes is second nature to me. The bullet just knocked the wind out of me, and my chest’ll be bruised for weeks. Is he the last of them, do you think?”
“I bloody hope so.”
Bronson turned back to the control panel as Weeks hauled himself up inside the truck.
The timer now stood at fifty-seven seconds.
“We need bolt-croppers or something like that, to cut the cables that power the device,” Bronson said.
His voice radiated the tension and resignation he was feeling. Because at that moment he believed Marcus was right, that there really was nothing they could do to stop the Bell.
“There are police cars and a fire engine heading this way,” Weeks said, peering out of the open rear door.
“Yes,” Bronson said, because now he could hear the sound of the sirens getting closer. “But will they get here in time?”
“Can you shut it down from here?” Weeks asked, stepping over to the control panel.
“Not without the key that unlocks the controls, and probably not even then. The key,” he repeated.
He ran over to Marcus’s body and swiftly searched it. He pulled out a bunch of keys, but as soon as he looked at them he knew they were house keys or similar, and he slipped them into his own pocket. But around the German’s neck he found a chain with a single key attached.
Bronson ripped off the chain, ran back to the control panel, stuck the key in the lock and turned it. Immediately, the various controls lit up, but Bronson could see nothing that looked like an abort switch.
The timer reached seventeen seconds.
He pressed a couple of buttons experimentally, just to do something, but to no avail.
At fourteen seconds to go, a figure in army uniform climbed into the truck through the rear door.
Weeks covered him with his MP5, but the man ignored him and strode forward.
“Russell. Bomb disposal,” he announced. “What have you got?”
“Do you speak German?” Bronson demanded.
“A little, yes.”
“Good. There’s twelve seconds to go and the control panel’s unlocked.”
The army officer stepped over to the control panel and looked down at it, his lips moving silently as he rapidly scanned the illuminated labels.
“Right,” he said, and pressed two buttons simultaneously. “That should be the abort,” he said.
Then he frowned, because the counter was still unwinding and a message had popped up in an alphanumeric display.
“It’s asking for the abort code,” Russell said. “Do you have it?”
Bronson and Weeks just stared at him.
“I said: do you have the code?” Russell repeated.
“No,” Bronson replied.
Russell’s face seemed to age five years in an instant.
“Then we’re buggered,” he said.
55
27 July 2012
The three of them stared at the timer in horrified fascination as it counted down to zero.
Then a new message appeared in the display.
“That says that the actuating sequence has begun,” Russell said, in a small voice.
Bronson strode across to the viewing pane in the steel partition and looked into the other compartment.
The Bell was in motion, the outer shell beginning to rotate slowly, a faint whine just audible through the steel wall.
“It’s started,” Bronson said.
“Did Marcus tell you what it did?” Weeks asked.
Bronson nodded, but then, as a pale violet light suddenly became visible in the viewing port, the color deepening with each passing moment, a sudden thought struck him.
“Lateral thinking,” he exclaimed. “After two minutes, that thing becomes self-sustaining. We’ve got to cut the power to it right now.”
“But we haven’t got any bolt-croppers,” Weeks pointed out, “and the cables are under the floor.”
“I know,” Bronson said, seizing his MP5, “so we have to hit the generators. Blow their fuel tanks. Stop them operating.”
“That’s bloody brilliant.”
Russell ran for the door as Bronson and Weeks aimed their Heckler amp; Koch submachine guns at the fuel tanks of two of the petrol-driven generators.
The interior of the truck echoed to the sound of machine-gun fire as the two men, standing side by side, opened up with their weapons, firing short bursts. The bullets ripped through the two fuel tanks, sending petrol flying through the air, the fuel splashing down onto the hot engines below. In moments, the petrol ignited with a heavy “whump” and that end of the truck turned into hell on earth, blazing fuel igniting everything flammable.
The heat was intense, and the oxygen was being sucked out of the air Bronson and Weeks were breathing. They needed to get out. But the third generator was still running, still supplying power to the nightmare device inside the locked compartment, and both men turned their weapons on it.
As they did so, both the other generators died, the fuel in their carburettors exhausted. Again, fuel spewed everywhere as the third fuel tank ruptured, but the blaze ensured that it was ignited immediately. Maybe that tank held more than the others, or there were other supplies of fuel there they hadn’t spotted, but for whatever reason the third petrol explosion was both louder and more powerful than the other two, blowing Bronson and Weeks off their feet.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bronson said, helping Weeks stand up again.
They staggered to the rear doors of the truck and jumped down to the ground, both blackened and barely recognizable as human beings. And at that moment something else-perhaps another can of petrol-blew up in the truck behind them with a deep booming sound.
All around the vehicle, police officers and firemen were assembling, the latter preparing their firefighting equipment, though it was already clear that little inside the truck would survive the blaze.
Then there was a scream from inside the truck, and Marcus, his clothes sodden with blood, flames licking around his limbs, stood framed in the rear doorway, silhouetted against the blaze like some devilish creature from the pit, his pistol in his hand as he looked for a target.
Bronson and Weeks acted as one, swinging round and aiming their MP5s at him. The four shots sounded like two as they simultaneously each fired two rounds.
Marcus tumbled backward into the flames, the pistol falling from his hand to land on the ground outside the truck. And he didn’t move at all as the raging fire began to consume his body.
“Christ, I thought he was dead,” Weeks said.
“Well, he is now,” Bronson replied.
“Do you think we stopped it in time?”
“I have no idea, but I suppose we’ll soon find out.”
