The four-way link with Washington, London and the mid-Atlantic cut out, and War ordered the girls to wheel his lounger
into the shade. His second mint julep of the day stood on a
silver tray beside him, along with a heaped plate of buffalo
wings. The computer sat on the trolley beside the lounger.
War tapped at the keyboard and a set of images appeared.
They were useless, shapeless blurs. He passed the pictures
through an enhancement software package, but it did no
good.
With a curse, he opened a video link to his contact
on the ground close to the CCC in Los Angeles. His own
image and voice were scrambled, so the recipient of his call
had no idea of his true identity. The face of a young man
appeared on the screen. His name was Jeremy Nichols, an
English photographer for
The LA Times
. The tiny camera
on his laptop distorted and fractionally delayed his image.
Nichols had dust in his hair and his shirt was soiled. He had
two state-of-the-art digital cameras around his neck. When
he spoke, his voice was shaky with nerves and the trauma
of what he had witnessed. 'What can I do for you?'
'What can you do for me? What can you do for me? You're
a photographer, right?'
The young man said nothing and simply looked back at
the scrambled image on his screen.
'You're a
professional
photographer, right, Mr Nichols?'
'What's wrong?'
War giggled. Through the distortion, Nichols could see
flesh vibrating. 'The images of the aircraft. They may as well
be snaps of a blancmange at a kid's fucking birthday party.
That's what's wrong.'
The young man looked confused. 'But that's impossible.'
'Didn't you look at them before you sent them?'
'No . . . I knew you wanted them fast so I emailed them
straight over.'
'Look,' War said.
And the photographer stared at his screen, where one of
the images was now visible.
'Oh.'
'Yes, oh. I think you'll agree they're not worth much to
me, Mr Nichols.'
The photographer didn't seem to be listening as he
studied the image on his screen. 'They're using some sort of
distortion system,' he said to himself.
'What?'
'They have something that confuses the camera.'
'Oh, bullshit!' War exclaimed. He clapped his hands together
and laughed loudly. 'That technology doesn't exist.'
'Well, it evidently does,' Nichols said, forgetting himself
for a second.
War's face fell.
'If you had seen their aircraft,' Nichols went on quickly,
'you'd believe they could do anything.'
'Well, I haven't been able to see their fucking aircraft,
have I?' And War burst out laughing again.
Nichols could think of nothing to say. War filled the silence
by muttering to himself. 'So, they have image-distortion
technology, do they? Well, that is very, very interesting.'
After a moment he looked up at the screen. 'Okay, Nichols.
You can fuck off now,' and he laughed so much he made
himself cough. Then he broke the link.
'Image-distortion technology. I like that,' War said quietly.
He drained his mint julep and chuckled. 'I
really
like that.'
The text arriving down the secure line to the Dragon's cell
consisted of two short words: '
Move in
.'
From a kitbag on the back seat, he removed a dark suit, a
white shirt and a brown tie. He pulled them on with slow,
deliberate movements, placed his soiled fatigues in a plastic
bag and double-knotted it. Next he pulled on a pair of latex
gloves, removed the top from a jar of Vaseline, dipped his
finger in and smeared some along his hair line, down his
temples and across the back of his neck. He then took a
lump of black rub-in dye and worked it into his hair. After
applying four handfuls of the gloopy material, he combed
back his hair, ran a couple of handy-wipes around his hairline
to remove the barrier of Vaseline, pulled off the gloves and
placed all the detritus into another, smaller plastic bag
and double-knotted that.
The process complete, the Dragon studied his reflection
in the vanity mirror inside the sunshade. Tightening his tie,
he pinned a name badge to his lapel and was about to step
out of the car when another text arrived. It read: '
Target is
on B3
.'
The Dragon pocketed his Smith & Wesson and the Yarygin
PYa and pulled a bag over his shoulder. It contained four
M67 fragmentation grenades and a state-of-the-art micro-gasmask.
Then he buckled on a concealed belt that held his
sheathed Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife. Now outside the
car, he leaned against the door as he reset his GPS tracker
and waited for Kyle Foreman's location to appear.
The Dragon had always been a technophile. He had met
the lab guys who worked for the Four Horsemen. He knew
the level of sophistication of their surveillance technology.
Foreman had been their number one target for two months,
and preparations had been thorough. They knew he changed
his cell phone and number every three weeks, but they
had still been able to plant a microscopic bug into each of
the phones the senator used. It allowed the tech guys to
triangulate Foreman's position from his phone, even when
it was not in use or the battery was flat. And they could
transfer that information to the GPS system the Dragon now
held in his hand.
A moment later, the data began to download. After a
few seconds a red circle appeared on the screen of the GPS,
showing that Foreman was moving east from the elevators
on B3. The Dragon felt a ripple of excitement run through
him. 'Beautiful,' he said aloud. Then he reached into his
shoulder bag, removed a grenade, pulled the pin with his
teeth, tossed it through the driver's window of the car and
strode towards the road that circled the CCC. He didn't
flinch as the car exploded behind him and he felt the heat
from the blast on the back of his neck.
Josh, Stephanie and Mai entered B1 through the emergency
exit door that led from the stairwell in the rear east corner
of the CCC.
B1 was almost as badly damaged as the ground floor,
especially in its western half, which was as smashed up as
the auditorium directly above it. The second bomb had been
planted here, inside an air-conditioning duct in the ceiling.
The lights were dead, but with their powerful helmet
beams the corridor beyond was lit up pretty well. This was
the main administration level, dominated by a U-shaped
corridor with a warren of offices clustered around it. The
reception area in the centre of the level was directly below
the Main Concourse.
It was eerily calm. They could hear sounds coming from
the western wing, the crackling of flames and cascading water,
but they seemed far off. Most of the doors to the offices had
been smashed to matchwood. From close by came the fizz
of strip-lights ripped from the ceiling and still tingling with
ionised gas and stray electric current. They were moist and
deadly. The carpeted floor was sodden. The sprinklers had
gone off, then the pipes had ruptured.
Five paces down the corridor, they almost fell over a
woman in a business suit. Her body lay spread-eagled,
with her head beside her. Her torso was drenched from the
sprinklers, and her blouse pink with diluted blood. The cream
carpet beneath her was now the colour of salmon flesh.
Most of the offices were deserted. Only a handful of people
had been working down here when the bombs went off. It
seemed unlikely anyone could have survived.
They advanced slowly along the corridor, then west
towards the central reception area and the elevators. No
more bodies. No one alive, either. Reaching the foyer, they
saw the extent of the damage on the western side. Josh
checked the temperature – it was over 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
Without the filters in their helmets, the fumes would have
been deadly. Flames were lapping along the corridor leading
from the west wing to the central foyer. It was completely
impassable.
'Our best hope was to get through to the west wing,' Mai
said, an edge of despair in her voice.
'Damn it!' Josh snapped. 'And the main elevators are
obviously out. Any bright ideas?'
'The air-conditioning ducts. They link up the floors.'
'Okay, but we know B3 on this side is ablaze around the
emergency exit.'
'So we use the ducts to get one level down, to B2,'
Stephanie said. 'Then we just have to hope there's another
way down from there.'
'Doesn't sound encouraging,' Mai replied.
'Well, any other suggestions? This would be the time.'
Josh sighed. 'No, I don't have any. Mai?'
She shook her head.
'Right. You two stay here. I'll go and see if it's even
possible,' Stephanie said confidently.
They chose the third office along the bottom of the
U-shaped corridor. It seemed like a sensible choice – it was
some way from the emergency exit, which meant that if
the fire near the exit on B3 had reached the area directly
above it, on B2, the air-con ducts this far west should still
be alright. It was also some distance from the main area of
devastation on the western side of the CCC. Josh radioed
Base One and informed Tom what they were planning, and
he set to work finding a schematic of the air-con system for
the complex.
There was a good solid desk on one side of the room.
They slid it across the floor until it stood directly under a
metal grille in the ceiling, which was just wide enough for
a person to get through. Emptying a couple of metal filing
cabinets, they heaved them up onto the desk and placed a
chair on top.
Stephanie climbed up. The grille was held in place by
four wing-nuts, one at each corner. She spun them loose,
eased the grille out and handed it down to Mai. Stephanie
heaved herself up through the gap and into the air-con
duct.
The duct was a narrow square-sided channel, and
Stephanie had to half-crawl, half-slither along the smooth
metal surface. To her left, the duct led to another channel
that ran above the main corridor. To the right, it curved
away to the rear of the building.
'Base One,' Steph said into her comms. 'Do you have that
schematic?'
'Just got it,' Tom replied. 'Sending it over.'
Steph looked at the flexiscreen on her wrist. A miniature
version of the air-con schematic appeared, a complex mesh
of coloured lines. Mai and Josh received it at the same time,
and a much larger version was displayed on the wall of Cyber
Control at Tintara.
'You're here,' Tom said, and a red dot appeared among
the tangle of lines. 'You need to turn right. This will lead
you to a point close to the elevator foyer. From there the
duct splits. One channel goes up to the Ground Level. But
from the BigEye image, it looks pretty smashed up. Another
channel goes down to B2. There's no way of telling what
you'll find there.'
'Copy that, Tom. I'm taking the right turn.'
Without her cybersuit, the task would have been
completely impossible. The temperature in the duct was
over 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and noxious fumes from the
west of the building had found their way into the air-con
system. The suit cooled Stephanie's body and filtered out
the poisons, but clawing her way along the channel was still
exhausting work.
It was a relief to reach the junction. She looked up and
saw the channel blocked just a few yards above her head.
Looking down, her helmet light lit up the channel. She
could see where the down channel met another duct on B2
that ran parallel to the one she had just shuffled along.
'I'm at the junction,' she said into her comms. 'I'm going
to lower myself on a wire.'
From her backpack she disengaged a narrow carbon-fibre
wire with a pressure sucker at the end. She attached the
sucker to the wall of the duct and eased herself over the side.
The nanocomputers in her suit released the wire steadily,
lowering Stephanie into the void between the floors. It took
her just a few seconds to reach the air-con channel on B2.
Touching down on the floor of the duct, she released the
wire and it slithered back into her pack.
In the light from her helmet, Stephanie saw the channel
stretching from north to south, to the rear and the front of
the building. She looked at her flexiscreen. She could see
that she was now on B2, the first level of the car park, and
close to the main elevators. There were fewer outlets for the
air-con on this level. The nearest was about 30 yards towards
the front of the CCC. She turned into the narrow channel
and headed south.
The weakened floor plate in the air-con duct was impossible
to see. It had been caused by an exploding gas tank in the car
park 30 minutes earlier. The tank had blown into hundreds
of pieces that slammed around the car park, shattering car
windows and punching great holes in vehicles.
Crawling forward, Stephanie leant her hands on the duct
and a panel gave way. She tumbled forward. Her scream
echoed around Cyber Control almost 1500 miles away, and
in Josh and Mai's comms one floor above her.
'Steph!' Mai and Josh yelled in unison. On Tintara, everyone
working in Cyber Control froze, hardly daring to draw
breath.
Stephanie's reflexes were quick. As she tipped into the
hole that had opened up under her, she scrambled to grab
at anything solid. Her arms flailed and her suit caught on a
piece of protruding metal. The carbothreads of the suit held
fast, and with one gloved hand she just managed to grab the
edge of the duct.
Below her lay twenty feet of air. This presented no real
problem, but what did matter was the mangled pile of metal
that carpeted the floor of the car park. Six-inch spikes of
glass and coils of charred and jagged steel stuck up like
deadly stalagmites. To make it worse, motor oil was burning
all around the debris, sending up black billowing smoke and
red flames.
'Steph – status?'
For a moment she was too stunned to speak. She just
groaned. Then she brought her free arm up to improve her
grip on the edge of the hole. The metal of the duct creaked
ominously.
'I'm in one piece,' she said in a low, pained voice. 'Just.
I've gone through the floor of the duct and I'm hanging on
to the rim. Problem is, I can't get down. There's a fire directly
below me and the floor is strewn with huge pieces of jagged
metal.'
'Okay,' came Mark's voice from Base One. His eyes darted
across the holoscreen above Tom's virtual keypad, where he
could see the status of each member of E-Force. 'Steph, your
suit has held. Are you injured?'
'I don't think so. But I can't get back up and I can't jump
down.'
'Steph – I'm on my way,' Mai said. She was already
clambering onto the filing cabinets. A second later she had
pulled herself up into the opening of the air-con duct.
She moved faster than Steph had, and reached the junction
into B2 a mere twenty seconds after entering the duct.
Dangling from the car park ceiling, Steph could feel
herself weakening.
'Steph, we're releasing glucose boosters. You cool with
that?'
'Sure am.'
Mark was about to speak, when Tom cupped his hand
over the mic. 'Mark,' he said quietly. 'There's a micro-tear
in her suit.'
Mark felt a spasm of fear shoot down his spine. He
stared at the holoscreen and saw it – a rip, no more than
a fraction of a millimetre long, in the arm of Stephanie's
cybersuit.
'Steph,' Mark said, his voice booming through the comms.
'We have a problem.'
Mai heard Mark's words, and slowed for a fraction of a
second. Then her training kicked in and she increased her
pace. Whatever it was Mark was about to say, it meant she
had to get there even faster.
'There's a micro-tear in your suit. Tom's onto it and the
nanobots are already stitching it up. Our sensors tell us your
suit is coping well, but what does it say on your screen? Can
you see it?'
Stephanie fought back the terror. She could feel the
glucose boosters doing their work. She could hold on, but
what could she do about the tear? She tried twisting to see
the flexiscreen on her wrist, but it was impossible.
'Can't see it,' she said.
'Mai – what's your status?' Mark asked.
Mai had her wire out and was attaching it to the inside
of the duct. 'Almost there,' she replied, and slid down the
wire to B2.
'Keep the wire in place, Mai.'
'Wilco that.'
A red light appeared on the holoscreen above Tom's
virtual keypad. 'Shit,' he exclaimed.
Mark glanced at the figures darting across the screen,
which each represented one facet of Stephanie's cybersuit.
He could see the rip was being repaired at an incredible rate.
But he could also see that the suit's temperature control was
failing, and the methane levels in the air were increasing.
Hanging above the burning motor oil, the shards of
metal and glass glinting in the blue light, Stephanie began
to cough. Then she noticed her feet were warming up.
'Mark, I think there's a problem with the thermal control
of my suit.' She coughed again.
Mai was within a few feet of the hole, moving forward
with exaggerated care. The wire had played out behind her,
but the tension was being automatically regulated. If she fell
suddenly, it would hold her.
She reached the rim of the hole. The metal had severed
along a join. As she approached the hole, Mai could
see Stephanie. She looked like she was at the point of
exhaustion. Under the plastic of her visor, her face was
wet with sweat.
'Take my hand, Steph,' Mai said. Stretching forward, she
could see the mess below, the ghastly spikes and the black
smoke. Stephanie's eyes were ablaze in the beam from Mai's
helmet light.
'I can't . . . I'll –'
'Steph. You have to take my hand. I'm wired up. It will
easily take our combined weight.'
Stephanie couldn't move. Terrified, she had seized up. It
was all she could do to keep gripping the rim.
The metal lip of the hole creaked, then it buckled.
Stephanie screamed as she dropped six inches. Flames played
against the soles of her boots.
Mai slid around the edge of the hole. The wire tightened,
holding her in place. She looked down at Stephanie and
could see her friend's gloved fingers clinging to the metal
lip. Then she saw them begin to slip down over the buckled
metal.
Mai's arm shot out. The metal beneath her gave way,
coiling under itself, leaving only air directly beneath her.
The wire reacted automatically. Mai had Stephanie's upper
arm, gripping it tight. Stephanie let go with her other hand
just as the metal lip tore away from the duct. She grabbed
Mai's wrist.
Mai told the wire to retract slowly and they moved up
through the hole, narrowly avoiding the jagged edge. They
pushed on the walls of the vertical chute with their feet as
the wire slowly raised them through the fumy air. Stephanie
was coughing. Nanobots released oxygen into her helmet
and she could breathe better. The glucose boosters helped
her push against the walls of the duct.
In few moments they were inside the air-con channel
on B1 and the air was clearer. Two more minutes crawling
through the duct and they were back in the office, where
Josh helped them down.