Pete was at the control panel of the Mole when Tom's email
arrived on his wrist-screen. He spat out an expletive and
responded immediately. 'Coordinates, Tom?'
The wait for the reply was agonising.
'
Grid ref 9N, 6P, about five yards west of up-ramp on B6.
'
Pete had swung the machine around in its tracks even
before he had finished reading Tom's message. The Mole
slid effortlessly through the flames that had been life-threatening
only a few minutes earlier. Now the blue tongues
of burning fuel slithered harmlessly around the outer skin
of the machine.
The tracks of the Mole crunched over the concrete floor
slick with oil and petrol, flattening piles of metal and wood.
In a few moments Pete had manoeuvred the vehicle to the
top of the down-ramp. He slammed on the accelerator and
the Mole rocketed forward, picking up speed as it went.
At the bottom of the ramp it spun on its axis and pointed
west.
Pete braked hard. He scanned his control panel and tapped
at the keyboard, and an image of the scene appeared on his
holoscreen. His fingers flew over the controls, activating a
set of sensors on the front of the Mole. They swept across
the full spectrum of the space ahead.
Pete peered at the 3D image, searching for a 'bomb
signature' – a unique cluster of colours on the screen.
Suddenly he saw it – a small cylindrical device inside a
plastic bag. A sensor just below the forward camera of the
Mole detected the chemical profile of the object. It showed
up as a bright yellow and purple shape. Below this was a
stream of text: '
Steel casing, interior composed of a blend of
calcium chloride, D-2 wax and phosphorus
'.
'Gotcha!' Pete exclaimed. He tapped at the control panel
and a series of numbers appeared on the screen. He read the
numbers and whistled. Six pounds of HBX – it was a bomb
bigger than either of the first two.
He fired off another email to Tom as the Mole nudged
slowly forwards, clearing a path through the rubble. '
Found
bomb. Attempting defuse. Where are the others?
'
Tom's reply came a few seconds later. '
Copy that. Take care,
buddy. Steph, Mai, Mark and Josh are in the drain with three
survivors, including Senator Foreman. How big is the bomb?
'
'
Big enough
,' Pete typed back, and then he turned to the
holoscreen. Pushing back his chair, he said to the vehicle's
computer, 'Activate probe and position it directly in front
of the Mole.'
The computer set to work. Pete heard a hatch opening
and a whirring sound coming from the front of the Mole.
Adjusting the external camera, he saw the probe resting on
the cleared concrete floor. It was squat, a metal cube about a
foot square, perched on tracks. On top of the cubic base was
a cylindrical chamber that moved independently. A metal
arm projected two feet ahead of it.
Pete leaned across the control panel and opened a metal
box on the wall. Inside hung a soft plastic helmet. It was a
synapse-cap, a sophisticated neural-feedback device. Covering
the outside of the cap was a matrix of wires set into
the plastic. The inside was lined with a dozen silver disks
arranged in three rows of four. A patch hung down each side
of the cap, and a strip of black plastic joined the patches.
Pete pulled on the device. The patches covered his ears and
the black strip ran across his eyes.
With the synapse-cap Pete could control the probe
remotely. The sensors inside the helmet read electrical
impulses in Pete's brain, and the onboard computer translated
these impulses into instructions. This meant he could operate
the bomb disposal probe by just thinking where he wanted
it to go and what he wanted it to do.
The probe rolled forward and stopped a foot away from
the bomb. Pete glanced at the screen. He had three minutes
left.
A small metal rod descended from the probe's arm and
stopped an inch from the metal casing of the bomb. Pete
studied the screen above the control panel and then turned
his attention to the black strip running in front of his eyes.
The strip lit up with an image of the inside of the explosive
device. The HBX was wrapped around a micro-detonator,
which was hooked up to a timer and a power cell. Pete had
seen something like this before – in Afghanistan.
Without hesitating, he extended a claw from the base of
the remote arm and clasped the base of the metal cylinder.
Pete instructed the claw to rotate anticlockwise. The metal
spun in its casing, and a few seconds later the base of the
cylinder had separated from the body of the device. Pete
made the probe lower the disk to the floor. Two wires
hung down from the opened base of the cylinder – one
green and the other red. He directed the probe to extend
its claw forward, and it started to move towards the green
lead.
A crunching sound shot though the helmet, so loud that
Pete almost fell off his chair. For a microsecond he thought
the bomb had gone off, and that he was in some nowhere
land suspended between life and death. But then he looked
at the holoscreen and realised what had happened.
The probe stood motionless, its extension arm bent
almost double. A lump of concrete two foot square had
landed on the probe, crushing the upper part of the device
and twisting its base. One of the probe's tracks was buckled.
It would never move again.
Pete could not believe what he was seeing. He glanced at
the clock on the screen and felt a tingle of fear run down his
spine. The bomb would go off in less than two minutes.
The sound of falling masonry and steel was deafening.
McNally clutched the kids to him and tried to shelter them.
The car they were under rocked on its wheels, and for a
horrible moment he thought it was going to flip over. But it
stayed upright, and the shockwave finally screeched past.
McNally left it as long as he dared before emerging
from under the car. The air was dense with white dust. The
kids came out, coughing desperately. 'Here,' McNally said,
crouching down and helping them each to draw breath
through his mask. Then he stood up, pulled the mask back
on and tried to see what state the exit was in.
McNally pulled Tim and Juney into the adjacent aisle,
and then half-dragged them 50 feet onwards, towards the
slope. It was only as they approached closer that they saw
the way was entirely blocked.
Phil's voice came through McNally's radio. 'Boss? Boss?
Are you there?'
'Are you okay, Phil?' McNally replied.
'We're fine. But you're sealed in.'
'You two get to the surface. I'll find us another way out.'
'Jim –'
'Do it, Phil! There's no time – just get the fuck out!'
McNally turned to the kids. They knew nothing about the
bomb, but they were terrified enough.
'We can't get out!' Tim cried. He rubbed at his sore eyes,
succeeding only in pushing more grit into them.
'We'll find a way,' McNally replied as reassuringly as he
could. He looked at his watch again. It told him they had
two minutes.
'Why do you keep looking at your watch?' It was the girl,
Juney.
McNally ignored her. Looking around, he tried to figure
out what they could do. He tried to remember the exact
layout of the CCC. He had studied the diagram on the laptop
coming over from Skid Row. The ramp was useless – he knew
that. It just went down. There were emergency exits at each
of the four corners of the car park. He looked over the cars
towards the north-east exit. It was shrouded in smoke, and
he could see flames lapping up to the ceiling. A twenty-foot-wide
arc of fire stretched along the car park running east to
west, blocking the way.
McNally spun around and looked towards the slope again,
and then on to the south-east corner. That exit was closer.
He could just make it out over the car roofs. The sign was
out, but he could see a white glass box with an E and a T.
'This way,' he shouted to the children.
He ran as fast as he could, dodging between the cars and
checking every few seconds to see if Tim and Juney were
keeping up with him. They passed the last row of cars and
could see the exit ahead. It was completely blocked.
McNally felt his heart sink. He stopped and gasped for
breath. He bent down, his palms on his knees. He glanced
again at his watch. One minute and 24 seconds. He turned
back towards the main body of the car park, controlling his
terror, if only for the sake of the two young kids.
'Think, McNally. Think!' he said aloud. But there was
nothing. What could he do? He looked at the two kids, their
lathered, filthy faces, their desperate expressions. Juney
started to cry. McNally pushed the front of his helmet back
an inch and ran his fingers over his grimy forehead. There
was only one way to go. One final, crazy hope. Although
it was blocked by fire, they would have to try to reach the
north-east exit.
Josh and the others stood well back as Mark and Stephanie
punched a hole into the drain.
'We've no way of telling how close we are to the bomb,'
Stephanie said, lowering her drill. Mark emerged from the
hole behind her. They were both caked in dust and soil.
'But it's near enough,' Josh replied.
'There's only just enough room in the opening for the
stretcher,' Mark said, taking the drip from Mai. 'We'll have
to crawl into it. Steph, you get the other end.' He attached
the drip to a nylon cord around the neck of his cybersuit,
turned away from the stretcher and crouched to grasp the
metal poles. Ducking low, he and Stephanie carried Marty
into the hole. Dave, Josh, Mai and Kyle Foreman followed
close behind them.
'Steph. You take the Mole,' Mark said as they emerged
into the larger opening created by the machine. 'You'll have
to drill your way out at the end of the drain. Once you get
a few yards into the soil you'll be safe from any explosion.
The Bullet is pretty tough anyway.'
Stephanie stepped into the back of the Mole and went
straight to the control panel and prepped the vehicle.
Marty's stretcher was laid along the length of the Bullet,
between the bench seats. Mark slung the two Sonic Drills
onto the floor beside the stretcher, retreated and closed
the door. Stephanie locked it from the control panel, then
slowly reversed out of the twenty-foot-long hole. The drain
was just wide enough for her to do a U-turn, and she eased
down on the throttle.
The others ran along the drain, watching the Mole speed
off around a bend. Josh glanced at his wrist. They had just
over 90 seconds to get as far away as they could. They reached
the small opening that led up to the surface and saw that the
Mole had gnawed its way through the wall of the drain, its
back end already a couple of yards into the soil.
The chute to the surface had been mangled beyond
recognition when Mark had come down from the surface
in the Mole. But the ladder Stephanie had used was still
hanging, its final rung two feet above the floor. The ladder
was made from carbothreads and was incredibly strong.
Mark helped Foreman onto the rope ladder. 'How's the
arm, sir?' he asked.
Foreman gave him a wry smile. 'You want me to pitch
you a few balls?'
'I'll hold you to that, Senator. But right now I just need
you to get up the ladder as fast as you can.'
Foreman gave Mark a salute and pulled himself up onto
the bottom rung. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he clambered
upwards.
Mai was second up, followed by Dave then Josh. Mark
glanced at his wrist. Thirty seconds. He pulled himself up
onto the ladder and started to climb.
Pete punched at the control panel and the rear door of the
Mole slid open. He checked his suit. It was functioning
normally, except that normal comms were still down.
Crouching as he moved along the low-ceilinged gantry
between the seats of the Bullet, he jumped out of the Mole,
his feet crunching on the encrusted concrete.
It was eerily quiet. Even the crackle of fire and the constant
drip of water from broken pipes had ceased.
The proverbial
calm before the storm
, Pete thought as he dashed around the
back of the machine and caught sight of the bomb.
Without wasting a second he ran to the end of the drill
bit. The cylindrical bomb lay on a pile of concrete. Three-quarters
of its length was exposed, where the probe had
pulled away the plastic bag in which it had been wrapped.
The base that the probe had unscrewed lay to one side, and
Pete could see the two exposed wires.
He crouched down and stared at the device. Suddenly he
was eight years in the past and half a world away. He and his
'bomb buddy', Matt Stevens, had been sent into a market in
Kabul. The Taliban had planted a timed device in the main
square, but British intelligence had discovered it before it
could be detonated. The army had taken a consignment of
the new Cutlass robot bomb disposal devices, but none had
been commissioned yet and the nearest Wheelbarrow robot
– the type they'd used since the 1970s – was 30 miles outside
Kabul. They had to go in themselves.
The bomb had been small but powerful, four ounces
of HBX in a tin box. A toy elephant sat on top of it. The
explosive had a killing radius of at least twenty feet. Pete had
sensed something bad about the device as soon as he saw it.
Something was not right, but when Matt challenged him he
couldn't offer anything tangible. It was just a gut feeling.
'Well, with respect, mate,' Matt had said, 'I'm going to
go by what my brain tells me, not your gut!' And he had
laughed good-naturedly, his hand on Pete's shoulder. Then
he bent down to unscrew the top of the device.
Inside, the bomb had looked just as it should, just like
the dozens of others they had neutered. 'We'll need the
microdriver,' Matt said. Pete went to pluck it from his pocket,
but it wasn't there.
'Bugger!' he'd exclaimed. 'Left it in the bag. I'll get it.' He
ran back to the edge of the square where they'd left their kit
by a low stone wall. Then he'd heard the
click
from across
the 50 feet of dirt between him and Matt – he'd known what
it meant in a millisecond.
With lightning reflexes Pete had dived behind the wall. The
boom from the device had rendered him deaf for a month, and
he'd spent six weeks in hospital. His ankles had been shattered
because he hadn't made it behind the wall in time.
Pete's body had been relatively quick to mend but his
mind had never really healed. He could never forgive
himself for Matt's death. He could have stopped him, been
more vocal about his misgivings. On top of this was a huge
helping of 'survivor guilt'. Pete had only been saved by his
own inefficiency. By rights, he should have been blown to
pieces along with his friend.
All of this flashed through Pete's mind as he looked at the
wires. And at that moment he had a bad feeling about this
bomb – precisely the feeling he'd experienced eight years
earlier in Kabul.
Pete was breathing hard, making the cybersuit work
overtime, and he could hear his own heart racing. A small
tube extended from his wrist – a miniature laser cutter. He
leaned forward ready to cut the green wire. In the corner
of his eye he glimpsed the screen on his wrist and saw the
numbers click by – 31, 30 . . .
Suddenly Pete felt preternaturally calm. The world around
him seemed to vanish. He held his breath. Glancing at the
counter on his flexiscreen, he saw the number change to 27.
He knew what to do. He shifted his hand and sliced through
the red lead.
The clock stopped at 26 seconds. Pete could hardly believe
it. Something had told him that the wires were reversed in
this device. He had no idea what it was – instinct, maybe –
but he had made the right decision.
Then he heard a
click
. A thin disk of metal dropped
inside the steel cylinder. Pete saw it fall, saw it come to rest
above the lump of plastic material next to the timer and the
detonator. The disk settled into a groove just visible above
the explosive, and the clock flicked to 25.
Pete twisted round and sped back to the Mole. He had never
moved so fast in his life. The Maxinium shell of the machine
flashed past as he dashed towards the Mole's back door. He
did not see the oil slick running beside the vehicle and hit it
at top speed. His boots lost their purchase and he went over
onto his back. For a second he struggled like a dying fly before
he managed to twist around in the slurry and find his footing.
He dared not look at his wrist. The only thing he could do
was keep moving. Keep running until he reached the door of
the Mole, or be blown to vapour by the HBX.
Pete grabbed the rim of the Mole and propelled himself
into the Bullet, pulling the door shut behind him.
A flash came first, followed – a microsecond later – by
the blast and the thunderous roar. Millions of newtons of
energy, along with tons of concrete and steel, slammed into
the Mole, sending it spiralling through the air.