McNally was just about to turn towards the north-east
emergency exit when a flame shot up from a puddle of
oil ten feet away. He recoiled, but as he moved his head
back he saw a momentary flash of light to the far left of
his visual field. He turned and saw the steel metal plate
of a maintenance hatch. It was open, the door pinned back
against the wall.
Without another thought he dashed to the hatch. Peering
in, he saw the tunnel leading away into darkness. 'Over
here!' he screamed, beckoning frantically to the kids.
McNally helped them up into the opening. 'Crawl forward
as fast as you can,' he yelled, and he scrambled up the wall
and levered himself into the hole. He knew they had only
seconds. 'Move, move . . . Come on, we've got to go, guys!'
Without slowing he managed to catch a glimpse of his
watch – nineteen seconds to go.
He heard the little girl yelp. 'Ow! I cut myself.' She began
to cry.
'Okay, Juney, keep going, sweetie. I'll check it out when
we get to the other end.'
But the girl had stopped. Her brother had reached her.
'Move, Juney,' the boy hissed.
She started to cry harder.
McNally caught up with them just as the bomb went off.
They felt the walls of the maintenance shaft shake. Both
children screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the
roar of the explosion. McNally fell forward, pulling the kids
down with him, and waited for the shockwave to hit.
The blast roared down the tunnel, a great plug of air
sweeping dust and debris ahead of it. The force of it propelled
the three humans in the passage forward. They crashed into
the sides of the shaft and tried to clutch onto anything they
could. The children rolled and turned head-over-heels, while
McNally was knocked from wall to wall.
McNally thanked the Lord he had kept his helmet on as
his head was smashed against the sides of the tunnel. He
screwed up his eyes, covering his face with one arm and
putting out the other to help break his fall. He felt himself
crash uncontrollably against a bundle of cables. He made
a grab for a loop of wire, but it ripped away from the wall.
Then he felt a sharp pain in his back as he collided with a
metal box. Tim's foot caught him in the neck and the boy's
shoe smashed into his face.
And then suddenly they were falling, as though they had
tumbled down a well.
McNally felt his neck spasm as he landed on a smooth
metal surface. He could taste blood in his mouth. Then he
heard two dull thumps as the kids landed close by.
Mark and the others were halfway up the ladder when the
bomb went off. The roar was muffled by the solid earth
between the blast site and the access chute. Then a second
reverberation shuddered outward from B6 and along the
drain.
At the epicentre of the explosion the wave-front moved
at a speed of 23,947 feet per second, and the air around
the blast had a mean temperature of 8378 degrees Kelvin.
But by the time the wave-front ripped through the storage
rooms and the outer wall of the CCC and smacked into the
blockage in the drain, its impact was reduced by over 50 per
cent.
The blockage, 30 feet thick, acted as a giant muffler. It
absorbed 97 per cent of the kinetic energy from the blast and
put a giant brake on the expanding gases. But the blast also
blew the barrier apart and propelled the fragments west
along the drain.
The three E-Force members, along with Dave Golding and
Kyle Foreman, were some 40 feet up the air-conditioning
duct as the material from the barrier crashed along the inside
of the drain. The sonic boom – created by the explosive gases
hitting tons of material in the blockage – was ear-bursting.
The majority of material from the barrier shot along the
drain, gradually losing energy as it went. But some of it flew
up into the escape chute. Mark, who was closest to the drain,
could see a great cloud of dust and debris advancing up the
hole. 'Don't look down!' he screamed above the roaring of
the explosion. 'Press against the wall and keep your eyes
shut tight!'
The material hit them like a giant wave crashing onto
a beach, slamming them against the rock and soil of the
churned up chute. The ladder swayed violently. Mark could
just hear Dave yelling in terror above the screeching torrent
that flooded over them. Then, shockingly, the noise stopped.
But only for a second. The backdraft was even more powerful
than the blast. As air was expelled from around the blast site,
a vacuum was created and material was sucked in to fill the
void. Everything that had crashed past them in the chute
whooshed back down. Soil and lumps of rock cascaded onto
their heads.
A chunk of concrete slammed into Kyle Foreman's
shoulder. He screamed in pain and let go of the ladder with
one hand, swinging out into the black chasm. His legs gave
way and one foot slid between the rungs.
Mai heard the senator cry out. She shot a glance upwards
and a stream of soil and dust fell onto her visor. She sprung
up a rung, and with one arm wrapped tight around the
ladder, she thrust out a hand and caught Foreman by his belt.
He was writhing around in panic, but the terror energised
him. He bent his body at the waist and shook off the stream
of debris raining down on them, then caught the ladder
with his hand and regained his footing. He shook his head
and blood from a dozen cuts in his face splashed onto the
carbothreads of the ladder. Ignoring the pain that screamed
through his body, Foreman tugged on the next rung and
hauled himself up.
Thirty seconds later they emerged into the concrete
passageway that led up to the grassy area beyond the northwest
corner of the CCC. The night was ablaze with reds and
yellows from roaring fires. The air was filled with dust and
smoke. Dave and Foreman drew heavily on the oxygen
masks that clung still to their faces, then they collapsed onto
the scorched grass.
Mark was the last to emerge. He scrambled over the lip
of the chute and pulled himself onto the concrete floor of
the passageway. His cybersuit was stained and covered with
dust.
He strode up the slope towards Dave and Foreman and
crouched down. 'Are you two alright? Senator, you took a
nasty knock back there.' Mark could see that the remains
of Foreman's shirt were ripped to shreds, and a large patch
of fresh blood was soaking his left shoulder. The man's face
was coated with blood and soil, making his eyes look almost
comically white, like a character from a cartoon.
Foreman nodded slowly. His mouth was so dry and filled
with dust that he could not speak.
'We're almost there,' Mark said, turning to check on Dave.
The young man had clambered to his knees and was nursing
his damaged arm. He looked up at Mark and let out a deep
sigh. 'Man oh man,' he exclaimed, and slumped his head
forward.
Mark helped Dave to his feet, and Josh and Mai got Kyle
Foreman to a standing position with a shoulder under each
of his arms.
'Mark? Mark? Come in, please.' It was Tom.
Mark could barely believe it – comms were back online.
'Yes, Tom,' he replied.
'Thank Christ! Where are you? The BigEyes can't get a
visual from anywhere within twenty yards of the CCC.'
Mark talked as he assisted Dave across the grass towards
the Pram. 'We're out. We have Senator Foreman and two
other survivors. One with us, one with Steph.'
'Where is she?'
'In the number two Mole with Marty Gardiner. She should
be hitting the surface soon. Have you heard from Pete?'
There was a heavy silence from the other end of the line.
'Tom? What's happened?'
'The last message from him was an email. He was going
outside the Mole to defuse the third bomb.'
'Oh no!' Mark had stopped in his tracks.
'I can't see how he could have escaped the blast.'
Mark was on the flight deck of the Big Mac, where Josh and
Mai were at the controls. A big wall screen perpendicular to
the control panels showed a view of the area just beyond the
ship. The sky was a mucky blend of grey haze and piercing
firelight. The CCC had been gutted beyond recognition by
the third bomb, and the western portion of the building had
collapsed. It looked like a scene from the London Blitz.
Mai and Josh had spoken to the emergency services.
Thanks to Tom's quick thinking, they had managed to get
their teams to safety before the third device detonated.
Only one fireman was missing. None of the rescuers had
been below B2 at the time, so there was absolutely no news
of Peter Sherringham. It was now over an hour since the
final blast, and the E-Force team was beginning to fear
the worst.
The door to the sickbay slid open and Stephanie walked
onto the flight deck.
'How are they?' Mark asked.
'All asleep,' Stephanie replied, 'and all stable. Mr Gardiner
was touch and go. Another five minutes and we would have
lost him. He'll need surgery, but I think he'll pull though.'
'And the senator? He was pretty beaten up.'
'Severe acid burns to his left arm, broken nose, dislocated
shoulder, two broken ribs and multiple lacerations. But he'll
live.'
'And the boy?'
'He got off the lightest of the lot. Burns to his leg,
lacerations to his arms and face, but apart from that . . .
Anything from Pete?'
Mark shook his head. 'Sybil can't help. She's getting
nothing from his suit – no locator beacon, no vital signs.'
Stephanie sighed and threw herself into a chair. She
looked utterly exhausted.
'How about I take the Mole down there?' Josh said,
spinning his chair around to face the others.
'Too dangerous,' Mark replied. 'That place is like a
honeycomb.'
'Well, the Cage then?'
Mark was about to respond when Mai startled the others
with a piercing scream. She had been staring intently at the
holoscreen above the control panel. 'Close in, Sybil.
Close
in!
' she bellowed. Jumping from her seat, she dashed to the
main screen.
'What is it?' said Mark, moving beside her.
'This is unreal!' Mai said, her hands to her mouth.
The four of them were transfixed by what they saw. Sybil
had zeroed in on a part of the CCC close to where the main
entrance had once been. The area had been reduced to
rubble. The doorframes and the entire front of the building
had been blown away. As they watched, a human shape
emerged from behind a pile of rubble, on top of which lay
a huge metal frame of the letter C. It was one of the letters
from the neon sign for the California Conference Center,
which had once perched proudly over the main doors. The
figure was limping and covered in grime and filth. But just
discernible across his chest were the words '
E-Force
' and,
below that, the name '
Pete Sherringham
'.
As consciousness returned, McNally tried to focus, but
there seemed to be something wrong with his vision. He
felt something clamped to his nose and mouth and heard
a voice, but he couldn't make out the words. Then his eyes
began to clear and he saw Phil's face swim into view.
McNally tried to move, but nothing worked.
'You're okay, Jim,' Phil said. He was smiling down at
him.
McNally swallowed hard and managed to find his voice,
a weird croak. 'The kids . . .' Then, as paramedics lifted
him onto a stretcher, he saw them. Tim and Juney were
also on stretchers, masks over their faces, liquid-filled tubes
protruding from their arms. Tim gave him a weak smile.
'Broken bones, cuts and bruises, but they'll be good,' Phil
said.
McNally felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders.
Watching the ceiling drift past as the paramedics carried him
out through the back of the smashed-up shell of Kmart, he
could still smell the fires burning. It was a smell he knew all
too well. He also knew that, after tonight, he never wanted
to smell it again.
Josh and Stephanie were taking a well-needed rest. Mark
was on the flight deck of the Big Mac, staring at the
screen, which showed a view of the devastated CCC in
the pre-dawn light. The fires had all burned out and the
wreckage looked grey, a lifeless morass. A few emergency
crews remained, picking through the rubble and ashes.
A police helicopter circled overhead, its lemon beam
sweeping across the jagged columns and twisted piles of
concrete and steel.
Tom's face appeared on the screen. 'Morning, Mark,' he
said. 'Thought you'd be asleep.'
'Nope. Steph, Josh and Pete are. Mai's just left for Houston.
I obviously just didn't have a trying enough day!'
'When do you hope to leave?'
'I can't just yet. I'm waiting for a flight for Senator
Foreman.'
'He's still with you?'
'He insisted. Said he was happy to wait and that there
were many more urgent cases to deal with here.'
'How's Pete?'
Mark shook his head. 'A living miracle. No one would
imagine he had been so close to a massive explosion. The
nanobots are fixing him up. He has a couple of cracked ribs,
cuts and bruises. It's ridiculous, really.'
'Testimony to the engineers who built the Mole.'
'Yeah, the poor machine is beaten up beyond recognition,
but the shell of the Bullet held. Pete was just thrown around
inside. So, have you found out anything more?'
Tom frowned. 'Those guys are using some pretty
sophisticated defensive software.'
'So you haven't.'
'I didn't say that,' Tom retorted. 'You're very privileged to
have a living genius on call.'
'Okay, genius. Let's have it.'
'Sybil had broken into their system, but the files themselves
were very well protected. I succeeded in cracking
them – eventually. The owners don't have a clue I was there,
of course, and they never will. I must give Sybil some credit
for that. Once Syb and I had their defences opened up, I
found out more about the marines who got aboard the Big
Mac. It was a piece of cake to trace their connections.
'As expected, everything led back to one source – a
group of four very influential guys. They call themselves
the Four Horsemen, would you believe? Obviously some
weird reference to the Bible. They clearly fancy themselves
as Antichrists.' His expression darkened. 'Which is apt, I
suppose. Seems they weren't content with killing a thousand
innocent people in an attempt to get Senator Foreman.
When they learned of us, they wanted to steal our technology
into the bargain. Anyway, here's the info.'
As he spoke, a column of text appeared to the right of
the screen on the Big Mac. Mark whistled as he read the
information.
'Yeah, it goes right to the top – well, almost,' Tom
remarked.
'And we've got a cast-iron case against them?' Mark
asked.
'I can prove they have their paws all over the bombing
and the assassination attempt. Their IDs are in the files,
and there's a whole heap of comms records. Whenever
they communicate with anyone outside the inner circle of
four they use voice and image distortion software. But I've
unscrambled the records. Here are the ugly bastards.'
Four faces appeared at the bottom of Mark's screen. He
vaguely recognised two of them from newspaper articles, but
he couldn't put names to them. They were obviously very
powerful figures, but men who managed to remain almost
completely anonymous.
'Alright, Tom. Good work. Leave it with me.'
Mark broke the connection and stood up from the
control panel. He touched a patch on the wall and the door
to the sickbay opened. Marty was still unconscious but
Dave Golding was sitting at his bedside. Kyle Foreman was
snoring quietly.
'How are you feeling?' Mark asked, surprised to see the
boy awake. He pulled up another chair.
'I guess I'm okay . . . physically.'
Mark looked into the young man's face. 'The physical
wounds always heal a lot faster than the psychological ones.'
Dave looked at his feet for a moment. 'What about
Marty?'
'Steph reckons he'll make a complete recovery.'
Dave looked relieved. 'He's a good man.'
'Yes, and a tough one. You three never gave up.'
Dave looked at Mark and tears brimmed in his eyes, spilling
over onto his cheeks. 'All those people . . .' he began.
Mark could say nothing. The door from the flight deck
swished open and Stephanie walked in. She saw Dave's face,
apologised and started to retreat.
'No, no, please,' Dave said, wiping his cheeks. 'Come
in . . . I'm being a real wimp.'
Mark put a hand on the boy's shoulder. 'After what you've
been through, that's the last word I'd use to describe you,
young man.'
They all turned at a sound from the other bed. Kyle
Foreman was pulling himself up on the pillows, looking
dazed. Stephanie paced over to him. 'How are you?' she
asked.
For a second the senator's face was totally blank, as though
he had no idea who or where he was. He took a deep breath.
'A little muggy.' He glanced at the catheter in his arm, then
around at Dave and Mark. 'Dave,' he said. 'And Marty – how
is he?'
'Fine now, thanks to you two,' Stephanie said.
Foreman shook his head. 'You guys played your part. I
don't know how to begin to –'
A bleeping sound came from the flight deck. Stephanie
walked into the adjoining room and leaned over the control
panel. A few moments later she was back in the sickbay, a
big smile on her face.
'There's someone who wants to talk to you, Senator.'
He gave her a puzzled look.
'Sickbay screen, please,' Stephanie instructed the onboard
computer. 'And raise the upper third of Bed 3 . . . 45 degree
angle.' The screen on the far wall lit up and the head of Kyle
Foreman's bed raised slowly. Stephanie helped him sit up.
The screen filled with the face of a woman.
'Sandy!' Foreman exclaimed.
'Darling . . .'
'My God! Where are you?' He had just noticed she was
also in a hospital bed – she was wearing a green gown only
partially covered by a silk Versace dressing gown.
'Where do you think?' Sandy replied, beaming. The camera
pulled back and they could all see the face of a newborn baby,
wrinkled and pink. He was wrapped in a blanket, asleep in
his mother's arms. 'Meet Kyle junior,' Sandy said, as a tear
of joy slid down her cheek to meet her smile.