Temple (40 page)

In the control booth high above the mine, the timer on the
Supernova's laptop screen continued to tick downwards.
00:15:01 00:15:00 00:14:59
Ehrhardt keyed his radio. 'Obergruppenfiihrer?'
No response.
'Anistaze, where are you?'
Still nothing.
Ehrhardt turned to Fritz Weber. 'Something's wrong.
Anistaze's not answering. Initiate protective counter measures
around the device. Seal the control booth.'
'Yes, sir.'
Ren6e and Race dragged Uli into the glass-walled office overlooking
the mine and laid him down on the floor.
A large digital timer on the wall ticked downwards: 00:14:55
00:14:54 00:14:53
'Damn it,' Race said, 'they started the countdown!'
Ren6e immediately went to work on the gunshot wound to Uli's
stomach. As she did so, however, a fax machine on the far side of
the office began to clatter loudly.
Race, now carrying a G-11 assault rifle, went over to it as a fax
began to scroll out. It read:
FROM THE OFFICE OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
SECURE FACSIM]V,F, TRANSMISSION
ORIGINATING FAX NO: 12025556122 DESTINATION FAX NO: 5134549775
DATE: 5 JAN, 1999
TIME: 18:55:45 (LOCAL)
SENDER CODE: 004 (NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR)
MESSAGE IS AS FOLLOWS:
Having consulted with his advisors, and in keeping with his
well-known views on terrorism, the President has instructed me to
inform you that he WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES pay to you any
sum of money to restrain you from detonating any device you may
have in your possession.
W. PHH,VP LIPANSKI
National Security Advisor
to the President of the United States
'Jesus,' Race breathed. 'They're not going to pay…'
Ren6e came over, looked at the fax. 'God, look how forceful the
wording is. They're trying to call his bluff. They
don't think he'll blow the Supernova.'
'Will he blow the Supernova?'
'Absolutely,' Uli said from the floor, causing Race and Ren6e to
spin around.
Uli spoke through clenched teeth. 'He talks constantly of it. He's
insane. He only wants one thing—his new world.
And if he can't have that, then he will simply destroy the existing
one.'
'But why?” Race said.
'Because that is the currency he trades in. It is the currency he
has always traded in—life and death. Ehrhardt is an old man, old
and evil. He has no further use for the world. If he
doesn't get his money—and hence his new world order—he will just
destroy the old one without even thinking twice.'
'Wonderful,' Race said. 'And we're the only ones who
can stop him?'
'Yes.'
'Then how do we do it?' Ren6e said, turning to Uli. 'How do we stop
the countdown?'
“You have to enter the disarm code into the device's arming
computer,' Uli said. 'But as I said before, only Weber knows the
code.'
'Then somehow,' Race said, 'we're going to have to get that code
out of him.'
Moments later, Race was running around the rim of the
immense crater, heading for the southern cable bridge.
The plan was simple.
Ren6e would wait at the start of the northern bridge while Race ran
around the crater to the southern bridge. Then, when he arrived
there, they would both make a run for the control booth at the same
time, from opposite ends.
The logic of their plan was based on the fact that the two cable
bridges that stretched out to the control booth were quite advanced
and very sturdy each bridge was constructed of high-tensile steel
threads and to drop either of them would require someone to
uncouple four separate pressure couplings.
If Race and Ren6e bolted down the two bridges at the same time, one
of them might make it to the booth before Ehrhardt and/or Weber
managed to uncouple both bridges.
After six-and-a-half minutes of running, Race arrived at the
southern cable bridge.
It stretched away from him, out over the mine. It was so
monstrously long—a feature which was accentuated by its narrowness.
While it was only wide enough for one person to travel down at a
time, it was easily as long as four football fields stretched end
on end.
Oh God, Race thought.
'Professor, are you ready?' Ren6e's voice said suddenly in
his earpiece. It had been so long since he'd used his radio
gear, Race had almost forgotten he was wearing it.
'As I'll ever be,' he said.
'Then let's go.'
Race stepped out onto the rope bridge.
He saw the white box-shaped cabin at the far end of it, suspended
high above the floor of the mine saw the door sunk into its wall at
the point where the bridge met it. At the moment, that door was
closed.
There was no movement inside the control booth's long rectangular
windows, either.
No. The booth just sat there—silent—hovering perfectly in the air,
seven hundred feet above the world.
Race moved down the bridge.
At that very same moment, Ren6e was moving quickly down the
northern cable bridge.
She moved with her eyes locked on the closed door at the end of her
bridge—watched it with tense anticipation, wait ing for it to burst
open at any moment.
But the door remained resolutely closed.
Odilo Ehrhardt peered out from behind one of the windows of the
control booth, saw Ren6e coming down the northern bridge.
Out the opposite window, he saw Race mirroring her
movement, coming down the southern cable bridge.
Now Ehrhardt had to make a choice.
He chose Race.
The tiny figures of Race and Ren6e made their way down the two
swooping suspension bridges, converging on the control booth.
Ren6e was moving a little faster than Race, running quickly, her
gun up. When she was about halfway down her walkway, however, the
door at the end of it burst open and
Odilo Ehrhardt stepped out onto the bridge.
Ren6e stopped dead in her tracks, froze.
Ehrhardt was holding the tiny figure of Dr Fritz Weber in front of
him, shielding himself with the little scientist's struggling body.
Ehrhardt had one pudgy arm wrapped around Weber's throat. In his
other hand, he held a Glock- 20 semi-automatic pistol levelled at
the scientist's head.
Don't do it, Ren6e's mind pleaded, willing Ehrhardt not to kill the
only man who knew the code to disarm the Supernova.
She obviously wasn't wishing hard enough. For at that moment—that
singular, chilling moment—Odilo Ehrhardt gave Ren6e a final
sinister smile and pulled the trigger.
The gun in Ehrhardt's hand went offwloud and hard, echo ing
throughout the crater.
It sent a geyser of blood exploding out the side of Weber's head,
sent his brains spraying out over the handrail and down into the
crater.
Weber's body went completely limp as Ehrhardt tipped it over the
railing and Ren6e could do nothing but stare in stunned horror as
the corpse dropped—dropped and dropped and dropped—seven hundred
horrible feet before it hit the bottom of the mine with a muted
distant thud.
Race heard the gunshot too, and a second later, he caught
sight of Weber's body as it went sailing down into the
crater.
'Good God…'
He started moving more quickly toward the control booth, started
running…
Back on the northern side of the control booth, Odilo Ehrhardt
wasn't finished.
Having tossed Weber's body off the bridge, he now hur riedly began
uncoupling the pressure hoses that connected the cable bridge to
the control booth.
“No!” Ren6e yelled, gripping the handrail on either side of
her.
With a sharp snap-hiss! one of the pressure couplings came free,
and the handrail to Ren6e's left just dropped away.
Ren6e did the calculations in her head. There was no way she could
get to the control booth before Ehrhardt released the other three
couplings.
She turned around and ran, ran for all she was worth,
back up the cable bridge.
Snap-hiss!
Another coupling broke free, and the other handrail dropped
away.
Two couplings to go.
Ren6e was running hard—now on a rail-less bridge— seven hundred
feet above the ground.
A few seconds later, the third coupling went and the boards beneath
her started to sag to the left.
Then, with a final grin of satisfaction, Ehrhardt snapped open the
last coupling and the massive suspension bridge— connected to the
northern rim of the crater, but now no longer connected to the
cabin in its centre—fell into the abyss, with Ren6e Becker on
it.
Ren6e was only about fifty feet from the rim when the bridge
dropped away beneath her. As soon as she felt it give way, she
dived forward, clutching onto the steel floorboards with her
fingers, holding onto them for dear life.
The cable bridge fell flat against the slanted wall of the crater.
Ren6e slammed into the mine's earthen wall, bounced off it,
but—somehow—managed to hold on.
Race reached the door at the end of his cable bridge just as
Ren6e's voice came blasting in over his headset.
'Professor, this is Rende. My bridge is down. I'm out of the
equation. It's up to you now.'
Great, Race thought wryly. Just what I needed to hear.
He took a deep breath and gripped his gun tightly. Then he grabbed
the doorknob and turned it, and pushed open the door with the
barrel of his G-11…
Beep!
Race saw Ehrhardt before he saw the source of the high- pitched
beep.
The big Nazi general was standing on the other side of the control
room, over by the northern door, with his Glock hanging lazily by
his side. He was smiling at Race.
To Ehrhardt's left, Race saw the Supernova—its silver- and-glass
surfaces gleaming, the cylindrical section of thyrium situated in
its core, suspended inside its vacuum- sealed chamber in between
the two thermonuclear warheads.
Two Cray YMP supercomputers sat against the wall to the side of the
Supernova. The two warhead capsules that had been used to transport
the nukes sat on the floor beside the big device, and the idol—now
with a hollowed-out section in its base—sat on a nearby bench,
discarded.
On the laptop computer attached to the front of the Supernova—the
source of the beep—Race saw the countdown timer ticking down toward
zero: 00:05:00 00:04:59 00:04:58
Underneath the countdown, he saw the words: 'ALTERNATE DETONATION
SEQUENCE INITIALIZED/
Alternate detonation sequence?
'Thank you, Little Man Trying Desperately To Be Brave,'
Ehrhardt sneered. 'By entering this cabin, you have just condemned
yourself to death.'
Race frowned.
Ehrhardt's eyes flicked left.
Race followed them, and saw—situated along the eastern wall of the
control booth eight yellow 200-gallon drums.
The words 'CAUTION!' and 'DANGER: HYPERGOLIC FLUIDS'
screamed out from their sides.
Other words were stencilled across the front sections of the huge
yellow drums:
403
'NITROGEN TETROXIDE.'
There were four drums of hydrazine. Four of nitrogen tetroxide. A
complex web of cables and hoses connected each plastic barrel to
the next.
Hypergolic fluids, Race recalled from his chemistry days, were
fluids that exploded on contact with one another.
A second countdown timer sat on top of one of the hydrazine drums.
This timer, however, sat motionless,
frozen at five seconds.
00:00:05
And then—just then—Race saw that the eight yellow drums were
connected to the Supernova's arming computer by a thick black cord
that snaked its way across the floor of the cabin.
00:04:00 00:03:59 00:03:58
'How?' Race demanded, his G-11 pressed against his shoulder,
trained on Ehrhardt's chest. 'How have I con demned myself to
death?'
'By opening that door, you just triggered a mechanism that will, in
one way or another, end your life.'
'How goddamnit!“
. Ehrhardt smiled. 'There are two incendiary devices in this room,
Professor: the Supernova and the hypergolic fuels. One will blow up
the entire planet, the other will only blow up this cabin. I know
you wish to disarm the Supernova, but if you
succeed in doing that you will do so at a price.'
'What price?'
'Your life in exchange for the world's. By opening that door,
Professor, you set off a mechanism that linked the Supernova's
arming computer to the hypergolic fluids.
Now, if for any reason the Supernova's countdown is termi nated,
the timer on the hypergolic fuels will be started. In five seconds,
the fuels will mix and when they do they will detonate, destroying
this cabin, destroying you.
'So now you have a choice, Professor, a singular choice,
unique in the history of mankind. You can die with the rest of the
planet in exactly three-and-a-half minutes—or you can save the
world. But in doing so, you must sacrifice your own life.'
Race couldn't believe what he was hearing.
A singular choice…
You can save the world…
But to do so, you must sacrifice your own life…
The two men stood on either side of the control booth, Race
standing in the southern doorway with his G-11 pressed against his
shoulder, Ehrhardt over by the northern
door, with his Glock by his side.
00:03:21 00:03:20 00:03:19
'The President has agreed to pay your ransom—' Race said quickl)5
trying a last-ditch ploy.
'No he hasn't,' Ehrhardt snapped, snatching a sheet of paper from
the bench beside him and flinging it at Race.
The sheet fluttered to the floor. It was a copy of the same fax
Race had seen in the mine's office earlier. Ehrhardt must have had
a fax machine in here too.
'And even if he had said that he would pay,' the Nazi spat, 'I
still wouldn't be able to disarm the device. Only Weber knew the
disarming code and he, my friend, is dead.
No. Now, it is you or it is nothing. Now, whatever happens, at
least I will have the satisfaction of knowing that you will not be
leaving this cabin alive.'
'But what about you?' Race said defiantly. 'You'll die too.'
'I am old, Professor Race. Old and decayed. Death means nothing to
me. The fact that I can take the rest of the world with me,
however, means everything…”
And at that moment, quick as a rattlesnake, Ehrhardt
whipped his Glock up, aimed it at Race and pulled the—-
Blamt.
Race's G-11 bucked against his shoulder as he fired a single
round.
The caseless bullet smacked into Ehrhardt's enormous
chest, causing a gout of blood to explode out from it, the impact
hurling the big man into the wall behind him.
Ehrhardt slammed into the wall and—bablam!—his Glock went off,
firing into the ceiling, smashing a smoke alarm to pieces, and
suddenly a series of fire sprinklers in the ceiling of the cabin
burst forth with showers of water.