The Secret of Excalibur

  ‘Looks like he’s a bit deaf,’ said Mitchell. ‘Let’s see if he can hear this.’

  He raised his rifle again, and fired.

  Deafened or not, Chase could still tell when someone was about to shoot at him. He threw himself back out of the line of fire as a burst of explosive bullets detonated against the catwalk, spitting fragments of metal.

  Nina lunged at Mitchell to knock the gun away. His left hand clapped against her arm and she felt a sharp stab of pain, followed by a spreading coldness. He pulled back his hand, revealing a plastic disc at the base of his middle finger held in place by a ring. A short spike protruded from its centre, smeared with her blood.

  She stumbled back, numbness taking hold of her limbs. ‘What - what’ve you done?’

  ‘I need you to do something for me,’ he said, his voice seeming to come from the end of a long pipe. ‘But I didn’t think you’d do it voluntarily.’

  ‘You son of a . . .’ she managed, before her knees buckled. She hit the floor, but didn’t feel it, as darkness consumed her senses.

  29

  In cover behind one of the generator’s supports, Chase cautiously peered at the control room, and saw Nina fall out of sight. ‘Fucker!’ he hissed, aiming at Mitchell and pulling the trigger.

  No response. He switched to a different ammunition and tried again. Still nothing.

  Mitchell shouted something. He strained to hear. ‘IFF, Eddie!’ called Mitchell, holding up his XM-201. ‘You can’t shoot at anyone carrying one of these! You can’t, anyway - I disabled the lockouts on mine—’

  Before he could finish, Chase aimed above the American and unleashed a stream of explosive bullets into the control room ceiling. The digital ammo counter fell from twenty to zero in little more than a second, the rifle vibrating in his hands like a chainsaw. Mitchell dived away from the rain of debris. Chase tracked him, switching to armour-piercing rounds in the hope that the gun’s sensors would be blocked by the low wall at the base of the window and let him shoot Mitchell through it, but the weapon just clicked uselessly.

  The screen suddenly flashed red. A pungent burning smell hit Chase’s nostrils, and he tossed down the gun as acrid black smoke gushed out of it, the polymer frame sizzling and blistering. Mitchell had remotely activated the weapon’s self-destruct, reducing its electronics to molten slag.

  He ducked back behind the support, waiting for Mitchell to return fire now that he was defenceless. Nothing happened. An electrical flash from above, and he knew why - a line of electromagnets ran down the other side of the column. Mitchell was serious about not wanting to damage them.

  Which might give him a chance to reach the control room. If he stayed close enough to—

  A muffled thump gave him an instant’s warning, just enough time to shield his face before a grenade blew out another section of catwalk ahead of him. Chase was knocked on his back by the blast. He scrambled back behind the protection of the magnets and saw he was completely cut off from the control room, trapped on the severed walkway.

  Mitchell surveyed the scene, looking satisfied. He moved back across the control room and hoisted Nina over his shoulder.

  Chase thought he was going to take her to the exit, but instead he climbed down the ladder to the same level as the Englishman, then boarded the little elevator leading to the bottom of the pit. Still carrying Nina, he began his descent.

  Chase watched, powerless to stop them. He eyed the generator again. The vertical supports were separated from the magnetic rings by heavy-duty insulators, but he had no idea how much power was flowing through the rings themselves - and they were the only way he could reach the catwalk beneath the control room. One wrong step, and he would be fried.

  The elevator passed the dangling, semi-conscious Maximov and reached the bottom of the pit. Kruglov’s body lay to one side, but in the centre was the frame holding Excalibur. Mitchell carried Nina over to it. He put down his rifle, then manoeuvred her into position next to the sword. Taking hold of her wrist, he crouched, holding out her hand to touch the hilt . . .

  ‘No!’ Chase yelled, afraid she’d be electrocuted, but too late. Mitchell squeezed her limp fingers around the sword—

  There was a dazzling flash of blue light as Excalibur glowed brilliantly. Above Chase, the size and frequency of the electrical arcs suddenly increased.

  His eyes squeezed almost shut against the glare, Mitchell nevertheless kept his grip on Nina’s hand. ‘What do you think, Eddie?’ he shouted, barely audible against the rising hum of the machinery. ‘Pretty cool, huh?’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I’m making Vaskovich’s system work. Too bad he didn’t get to see it, but hey!’ He lifted Nina’s hand from the sword; the glow instantly vanished, but the noise of the generator remained constant. ‘Yes! It’s passed the threshold - I was right!’

  He lowered Nina to the floor, then shrugged off his flat backpack and opened it. Inside was another piece of metal, which Chase recognised as the largest section of Caliburn. Mitchell carefully slid the broken blade into the frame next to Excalibur, the two swords touching. Then he brought Nina’s hand back up to touch Excalibur. It glowed brilliantly once more - and Caliburn lit up too, though much less brightly. The electrical hum began to rise again.

  Mitchell withdrew Nina’s hand. The blue light disappeared, but the noise of the generator continued to climb. He grabbed Excalibur by the hilt and yanked it out of the system, leaving Caliburn in its place. The roiling electrical discharges kept flashing across the dome. He put the sword in his pack and pulled it over his shoulders, then bent to lift Nina, took up his rifle and returned to the elevator.

  ‘Gonna have to say goodbye, Eddie,’ he said when he reached the top level. ‘It’s nothing personal, but I can’t leave anybody who knows what I was doing.’

  ‘I honestly fucking don’t!’ Chase shouted back, keeping behind cover. ‘So, you going to shoot me?’

  ‘In a way. This whole place really is only one step away from being a weapon - the antenna array can draw in power, but it can also pump it out. Millions of watts of it. Now there’s a superconductor in place - not as effective as Excalibur, but it’ll do - and the reaction’s become self-sustaining, the system will just keep on drawing in more and more earth energy. I’m going to let it all out - in one blast.’

  ‘You’re going to blow the place up?’

  ‘Might as well get some empirical data for DARPA’s own system! I’ll set the array to heat up the ionosphere directly above, then fire the system’s entire output into it - and the focused earth energy will bounce straight back down and destroy the whole facility.’

  ‘Nice and neat,’ Chase said sarcastically. ‘What about Nina?’

  ‘I’m taking her with me - I need her alive. At least, until I find someone else who can make the effect work. So long, Eddie.’ He clambered back up the ladder, carrying Nina.

  ‘Shit!’ Chase searched desperately for some other way out of the generator room. Nothing presented itself. Above, he caught occasional glimpses of Mitchell as he operated the consoles. The intensity of the flashes above him increased, electrical bolts coiling across the machinery like liquid snakes.

  He ran to the end of the broken catwalk. A twisted section across the gap hung down, a drooping tongue of grillework protruding from it. He might just be able to reach it . . .

  He hurried back to give himself a run-up. A glance at the control room: Mitchell was no longer in sight. Was he still programming the system, or already fleeing with Nina?

  Her name spurred Chase on. He ran. The floor clanged beneath him as he reached the edge of the damaged section and leapt across . . .

  Falling . . .

  Falling short.

  He threw out his arms, clawed hands smashing painfully against the hanging section. One slipped away - the other hooked into the grille. For a moment he swung as the catwalk section buckled under his weight.

  Then the whole thing tore loose and plunged into the
pit.

  The mid-level catwalk flashed past—The plummeting walkway section crashed against it. The impact flipped him round, tearing loose his hold on the grillework and tossing him under the catwalk, still falling.

  He hit a bundle of cables, tried to wrap his arms round it, failed. His hands slipped over the thick insulation, each successive line popping from his grip and bringing him ever closer to his death beside Kruglov below . . .

  He caught the last cable.

  Pain seared through his shoulder as he jerked to a stop. The cable bounced above him, shaking him like a doll. Gasping, Chase managed to bring up his other arm and secure himself with both hands.

  For all the good it did him. He was still hanging over eighty feet up with nothing but concrete and metal to break his fall - and a countdown to destruction already ticking away above.

  ‘Well, this isn’t good,’ he muttered.

  Much to his surprise, he got a response: a groan. He twisted to see Maximov still hanging by one leg in another skein of cables above and to one side. The huge Russian blinked blearily, then focused on him - and his face twisted with upside-down fury. ‘You!’

  ‘Yeah, me,’ Chase said. ‘Oh, shit,’ he added as Maximov reached down, stretching for the cables beneath him.

  His hand wrapped round the topmost of the bunch. ‘You try to kill me. Now I kill you!’

  ‘Nonono, shit!’ Chase yelped as Maximov tugged at the cables, trying to shake him loose. ‘This whole place is about to blow up!’

  Maximov replied with what from his tone could only be the Russian equivalent of ‘Yeah, whatever’, pulling the cables harder.

  ‘No, listen, you stupid bastard!’ Chase cried with growing desperation as his hold began to slip. ‘Mitchell’s fucking betrayed us all!’

  ‘Ha! Serve you right for trusting him!’

  One of Chase’s hands was jolted loose. ‘Whoa, fuck!’ he gasped. The pit whirled below him. He tried to regain his grip, but couldn’t reach the juddering cable. ‘Vaskovich is dead!’ he shouted desperately, running out of ideas. ‘And if you don’t get out of here soon, you’ll be dead too!’

  That got a reaction, Maximov pausing mid-shake. ‘The boss is dead?’

  ‘Mitchell killed him! The whole thing was a set-up - he’s killed everyone to cover his tracks. We’re the only ones left - but if we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead too! Look!’ He pointed frantically up at the furious auroral display flashing across the dome. ‘It’s going to fucking explode any minute!’

  Maximov’s expression went from anger to concern. ‘You not lying?’

  ‘No, I’m not fucking lying! We’re both going to die unless we help each other!’

  ‘If I help you, how do I know you will help me?’

  ‘You’re ex-Spetsnaz, right? Special forces? I’m ex-SAS - special forces. Same job, just different bosses! You’d trust your squad mates - so trust me, please!’

  The Russian considered this, sluggish thought processes almost visible on his face. Finally: ‘What you want me to do?’

  ‘Pull me up! Then I can climb up to the catwalk and pull you up!’

  Another agonisingly slow moment of thought. ‘Okay. I help you. But if you don’t help me, I kill you! Even if I have to rise out of grave to do it!’

  ‘Just pull me up, for fuck’s sake!’ With the cable no longer being shaken, Chase was able to reach it with his other hand. Maximov waited until he had a firm grip, then strained to lift the heavy skein until Chase could reach across and pull himself up the cables in the larger bundle above.

  ‘Okay, let it go!’ he ordered. Maximov released the cables. They dropped back down, and Chase braced his feet against them. With a foothold, it was a relatively easy task for him to scale the tangle of wiring until he reached the stability of the mid-level catwalk.

  The vertical track of the elevator was not far away. He looked at Maximov, still entangled below. Part of his mind reminded him that he would have a much better chance of escaping alive if he left now, alone.

  He ignored it. He’d given his word.

  A metal bar lay on the floor a few feet away, a broken piece of the fallen catwalk. Chase grabbed it and ducked under the railing, extending the bar out below him with one hand as he gripped the handrail with the other. ‘Hold this!’ he shouted. The noise of the generator had risen to a piercing screech, energy crackling back and forth across the dome.

  Maximov bent at the waist, trying to reach up for the bar. Chase strained to bring the end closer to his grasping fingers. He was just short, barely two inches away. ‘Come on!’

  ‘Can’t - reach!’ gasped Maximov, tendons bulging in his neck. He was so overmuscled that his own body was limiting his movement, unable to crunch any tighter.

  ‘Can’t reach?’ Chase’s voice changed to a mocking drill-instructor bark. ‘Yes, you can reach, you great Russian pansy! Spetsnaz? Shitsnaz, more like! Bunch of fur-hatted nancy boys, poncing about in the snow—’

  With an enraged growl, Maximov lunged upwards, and his hand clamped round the end of the bar. ‘Ha! Yes!’ Chase cried, pulling back with all his strength to lift the Russian. Maximov gripped the railing, then reached down to unravel the wiring round his ankle before climbing on to the catwalk.

  Chase ran to the elevator controls and hammered at the call button. The platform began to descend. ‘Come on, come on!’ he called to the Russian. ‘Sorry about the Shitsnaz thing, by the way.’

  ‘No problem,’ Maximov rumbled. ‘But maybe one day I tell you what we say SAS stands for, eh?’

  The platform arrived; they jumped aboard even before it stopped, pounding at the controls. After an apparent eternity, it ascended again. Electrical arcs flashed past them, the very air seeming to tremble as the power built up.

  They reached the top catwalk. Chase leapt from the elevator and rushed up the ladder to the control room, Maximov right behind him. Mitchell had gone, and so had Nina. The only people in the room were corpses.

  And two soon-to-be corpses if they didn’t get out, fast. ‘Leg it!’ Chase yelled.

  They raced through the checkpoint, Chase flicking an anguished look at the locker holding his belongings before running on to the doors, the darkness outside now pierced by unearthly flashes of light. They crashed through them and sprinted out into the cold.

  The funicular station was ahead. The car they had ridden up in was gone, its empty counterpart just arriving at the summit on the adjacent track. Beyond it, great fluid coils of energy danced over the hundreds of antennas on the hillside, sparks spitting from their tips. He could see his own shadow ahead of him, not cast by the spotlights around the facility but by something far brighter, less stable, more deadly.

  It was about to blow—

  Chase reached the crest of the hill and dived headlong over it. With a blinding flash and an earth-shaking crack of thunder a wall of lightning blazed directly upwards from the antenna array, a sheath of unimaginable energy surrounding the entire facility.

  The flash lasted only a moment, many of the antennas melting, but as Chase rolled down the scrubby hillside he was already protecting his ears, knowing there was more to come.

  A spear of intense blue-white light lanced down from the heavens into the dome, which exploded into splinters as the beam seared through it to hit the machinery below.

  All the remaining earth energy still in the system was released at once. The generator disintegrated, the force of the blast shattering the concrete walls of the pit and ripping a massive crater out of the hilltop. The circular building above was pulverised, the shockwave reducing the entire structure to rubble in a split second and hurling it outwards in a huge swelling ring of destruction.

  The force of the blast hit Chase through the ground itself, a colossal whump from within the hill knocking him into the air in a shower of soil and stones. He landed hard on a leg of the road below amidst a blizzard of churned earth, having just enough time to realise that he was almost beneath the steeply sloping trackbed of
the funicular and roll into whatever protection it offered before the shattered remains of the generator building fell round him.

  A cloud of choking dust swirled downhill. The ground shook again, a continuous bone-shaking drumming like an artillery barrage as debris smashed down all around.

  Then it began to fade.

  The rain of rubble fell to a drizzle. Chase sat up and coughed, squinting through the dust as the cold wind from the coast gradually wafted it away. The entire hillside was spotted with fires where molten metal from the twisted, blackened antennas had dripped on to the grass.

  He stepped out from beneath the track. The slope above him was shorn to the bare earth, the topsoil and grass blown loose by the explosion. Below, the lights of the dock still shone brightly. The submarine pen had been built to withstand anything short of a direct nuclear strike. There were other lights closer to him: a vehicle on a lower leg of the road, lying on its side.

  He heard a muffled Russian curse. ‘Hey!’ Chase shouted, scrambling down the hillside to the source of the swearing. ‘Thingy, Bulldozer! You okay?’

  Maximov was slumped against one of the track’s supporting girders, covered in dirt. He dizzily raised his head and peered at Chase. ‘Oh. Is you.’

  ‘Can you move? Are you hurt?’

  He grinned. ‘Da. What was that? It was like . . . fire from God!’

  ‘It wasn’t God, it was Mitchell. But I’m going to kick his arse straight to God when I catch him. You still with me?’

  Maximov nodded, and Chase helped him stand. ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘Going after Mitchell. He’s kidnapped Nina and stolen the sword - and I’m not going to let that bastard have either of ’em. Come on.’

  They picked their way down the hillside between the fires and warped antennas, following the funicular railway. The sea breeze had by now cleared most of the dust, giving Chase a better view of the base. He saw movement on the jetty.

  ‘Shit!’ Even though the figures were only tiny at this distance, Chase knew there was only one person who would be carrying another over his shoulder - especially when the person being carried had long red hair.