The Sacred Vault

  Khoil hurried up the steps, a hand to his bloodied mouth. Tandon moved to help him, but was waved back. ‘Kill him, kill him!’ the billionaire screeched. His bodyguard jumped down to the walkway as he took his position at the invisible controls once more.

  Eddie was struggling upright when he heard a crash from above as Tandon landed. The Indian vaulted the railing - flying straight at him. With a yelp, Eddie rolled sideways. A heel slammed down where his head had just been.

  More world leaders were on the stage, the smaller nations being introduced first. The president of South Korea shook hands with his hosts, flashing cameras recording the moment. The countdown had been affected by Eddie’s hijacking of the controls, but it was still ticking away as Khoil brought the drone back on course.

  Three minutes, thirty-two seconds to impact.

  The railing clanged dully against Nina’s forearm as she shielded her head from Vanita’s attack. She held in a cry of pain, retreating from another blow - and backing into the enormous video wall. Unlike the one in Bangalore, which was divided into segments to allow access, this infotarium formed an unbroken three hundred and sixty degree circle inside the dome. The aluminium framework rattled with the impact, one of the LCD screens flickering as it was jolted.

  Teeth bared, Vanita swiped the makeshift club at her—

  Nina dived sideways. The railing smashed one of the screens behind her, its backlight panel blowing out with a bang and a sputter of sparks. The broken display crashed to the floor, exposing the geodesic fibreglass panels of the radome behind it.

  Tandon kicked Eddie hard in the side, bowling him across the floor to the stairs leading up to the walkway. Wheezing, Eddie used them to clamber to his feet - as his attacker thrust a killing blow at his chest.

  Even battered and winded, he had enough strength to jerk aside. The blow missed the lethal pressure point, but still hit his ribcage agonisingly hard. He staggered backwards as Tandon struck again, and again, aiming for his throat, his heart. Each time, he was just barely able to parry the blows, but all that did was shift the pain to his arms. And Tandon wasn’t even breaking a sweat - the bastard was playing with him, wearing him down little by little until he was unable to defend himself.

  Khoil glanced at the two fights playing out below, but remained fixated on the screens. The Japanese prime minister walked to the stage. Three minutes, ten seconds.

  Vanita swung the railing again, knocking Nina against another screen. She raised the club high over her head, about to smash it down on Nina’s skull—

  Nina grabbed one of her earrings and pulled. Hard.

  The piece of jewellery tore away from Vanita’s ear - with a chunk of lobe the size of a thumbnail still hooked on it.

  Vanita screamed as blood gushed down her neck. Nina seized her by her sari and yanked with all her strength, slamming Vanita face-first through the gap between the screens - and into the triangular panel behind it.

  The fibreglass broke apart with a splintering crack. A freezing wind blasted through the hole, frost and condensation instantly forming on the inside of the dome and the nearby screens. Vanita pulled back - and screamed even louder as the panel’s razor-sharp edges ripped into her cheeks like bear claws. The railing clunked to the floor.

  ‘Vanita!’ Khoil cried. But he didn’t move to help her, his mission the higher priority. He adjusted the drone’s course slightly. The countdown reached 02:50.

  Nina snatched up the railing and was about to clout Vanita with it when she realised there was someone who needed it more. ‘Eddie! Catch!’

  She hurled it across the dome like a javelin.

  Eddie fended off another blow, looked up, saw the railing arcing towards him - and caught it. He spun and swung it at Tandon’s head. Suddenly on the defensive, Tandon jumped back, protectively whipping up an arm. The railing cracked painfully against his wrist.

  Eddie swung his new weapon again, the reversal of fortune filling him with a surge of energy. ‘That’s more fucking like it!’ He forced Tandon towards the wall. The Indian tried to dart away, but Eddie hit his shoulder, knocking him back into the support frame. It shook, rattling the video screens. ‘Oi! I’m not finished with you!’

  ‘Yes!’ Nina cried triumphantly as her husband turned the tables - only for Vanita to throw herself at her with a shriek, overcome with rage as blood ran down her ruined face. She slammed the American back against the video wall, driving a knee up into her stomach. Nina groaned, winded - and Vanita clamped her hands round her throat. The fingers tightened, taloned thumbs digging deep into her neck.

  Eddie attacked again, the metal pole thudding against the Indian’s ribs. He grinned nastily as his opponent’s face twisted in pain. A couple more blows would knock Tandon down, and then he could deal with Khoil. He pulled back the railing for another swing—

  Tandon leapt - and grabbed a horizontal cross-member above. He pulled himself sharply upwards, swinging his legs up like a trapeze artist as the pole whipped past an inch beneath him. He hooked one foot round a strut, using the support to haul himself round, spider-like, and climb higher.

  Eddie swung again, but Tandon was just out of reach. The railing smashed a video screen, which fell to the floor with a bang. Tandon glared down at him as he clambered across the framework. Its aluminium joints squeaked and juddered under his weight.

  The projector rig at the top of the dome also shook, causing the images on the big screens to wobble. Khoil glanced round to find the cause of the disruption. 02:25 remaining on the countdown.

  The framework had been designed to support the screens and the overhead rig, Eddie realised - nothing more. The extra weight of a grown man was straining it to its limit . . .

  He swung his makeshift bat - not at Tandon, but at the exposed metal structure where the screen had fallen away. A vertical strut broke at the joint with a sharp snap of metal. A whole section of the framework jolted violently, screens flickering. The projector rig lurched. Khoil looked round again, this time in alarm as Eddie kept bashing at the weakened frame. Another screen broke from its mount, swinging on its power cord before shattering on the floor. ‘Chapal! Stop him!’

  Tandon dived at the Englishman from above, deadly hands outstretched like claws—

  Eddie whipped up the pole.

  Fear flashed in Tandon’s eyes - but too late.

  The broken end of the railing punched through his chest, spearing out through his back with a gout of blood. Even impaled, though, he still knocked Eddie down, dead weight slamming him to the floor.

  Both Khoils stared at the length of metal jutting from their bodyguard’s back in disbelief. ‘Chapal!’ Vanita cried, for a moment the woman she was choking forgotten—

  Nina drove the heel of her palm up against Vanita’s chin. The Indian woman’s open mouth snapped shut - catching the end of her tongue between her teeth. Vanita spat out blood, a half-inch of muscle hanging only by a few threads of mangled tissue.

  ‘Bite your tongue!’ Nina gasped, throwing a punch. It only caught Vanita a glancing blow on the cheek, but it was enough to make her stagger backwards and slip on the film of frost that had formed on the metal floor as the icy wind shrilled through the hole in the dome. She stumbled . . .

  Landing beside the MP5K.

  Vanita grabbed the gun and jumped up—

  Nina dived at her, skidding on her stomach along the frost. She wrapped both arms round Vanita’s ankles and twisted. Already unbalanced by her missing shoe, Vanita staggered and fell . . .

  Down the stairs.

  She screamed - then the cry was cut off abruptly by an echoing bang as she hit hard metal. More thumps followed as she tumbled down the steps. The MP5K fired at each impact, bursts of bullets clanging off the machinery. A fierce eruption of sparks came from one transformer as a round shattered an insulator, the resulting short circuit causing an angry, sizzling hum to rise within it. Several screens in the dome above flickered. But Vanita didn’t hear the sound or see the flashes as she crashed to t
he floor, unconscious.

  Nina heard and saw them, though. ‘Oh, crap,’ she gasped, crawling to the stairs and looking down. Vanita was sprawled at the bottom, the gun beside her . . . but the spraying sparks and ominous crackling noise changed Nina’s mind about going down to get it. The short circuit was causing the mineral oil used to cool and insulate the old transformer to boil - to ignition point. It could explode at any moment.

  Eddie kicked away Tandon’s corpse and looked up at the platform. Khoil broke through his shock, whirling to check the still-trembling images on the main screens. The drone was closing on its target: 02:05 to impact. He made several rapid hand gestures; no longer controlling the flight of the stealth aircraft, but calling up a menu screen.

  Nina realised what he was doing as commands flashed up on the giant video wall. The game was almost over - and the billionaire was trying to fix the result. ‘Eddie!’ she yelled, voice rasping in her bruised throat. ‘He’s locking the controls!’ Even without anyone guiding it, the drone would still carry out its preprogrammed mission.

  Eddie sprang up, but knew that by the time he reached the upper platform Khoil would have completed his task. He needed a faster way to stop him. Shoot him - but the guard’s fallen gun was nowhere in sight.

  Which left—

  He stamped a foot down on Tandon’s ribs and grabbed the length of railing, yanking it out of the dead man’s chest. He spun to smash the metal pipe against the dented framework—

  The aluminium strut he hit broke in two. The effect on the rest of the weakened structure was instantaneous; a chain reaction rippled upwards as the weight of the video screens caused the horizontal supports to collapse one after the other. Eddie ran as the larger screens above him fell, smashing on the floor and blowing out with gunfire cracks and sprays of sparks and smoke.

  The breakdown reached the top of the dome. The images on the two big screens jolted crazily as the projector rig shook - then tipped sharply as one side broke free, swinging above Khoil with a shrill of tortured metal. He looked up—

  The rig tore loose. It dropped the thirty feet to the platform before Khoil could manage more than a startled scream, pounding him to the floor like a piledriver.

  Nina winced. ‘Guess you really can be crushed by the weight of information.’

  Eddie went to her. ‘Jesus! You okay? Looks like you got bitten by a vampire!’

  Nina was confused, until she put a hand to her neck and realised that Vanita had broken the skin with her sharp thumbnails. She wiped off the blood. ‘Yeah, but we need to—’

  A loud bang cut her off. Smoke swirled up from the stairs. The crackling sizzle from the transformers below grew louder, more agitated. More of the screens flickered. ‘Not keen on that,’ Eddie muttered. He looked back up at the dome. With the projectors gone, the two largest screens were now blank - no way of knowing how close the drone was to its target. ‘Come on!’

  He ran for the platform, Nina following. They reached the upper level to find that Khoil was still alive, groaning weakly under the projector rig. ‘How do we stop the plane?’ Nina demanded.

  Despite his pain, Khoil somehow managed a twisted smirk. ‘You can’t,’ he gasped, blood on his teeth. ‘The autopilot is set. In less than two minutes, the Kali Yuga will end . . .’

  35

  A large patch of dark blood was swelling across the chest of Khoil’s Nehru jacket. Eddie jammed his heel down on it, making the Indian scream. ‘Tell us how to unlock the controls!’

  ‘No,’ Khoil rasped as Eddie eased the pressure.

  ‘You’re not going to live much longer no matter what, but I can make every second of it really hurt.’

  ‘It . . . doesn’t matter. I will be reborn in a new golden age . . .’

  ‘As a dung beetle, if there’s any bloody justice.’ Realising that Khoil was utterly committed to his plan, he gave him one more jab before turning to Nina. ‘What the fuck do we do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, scanning the active screens in desperation. Maybe Khoil had made a mistake, leaving some way they could divert the drone. But she saw nothing helpful . . .

  Her gaze flashed back to one screen in particular. The display showing the live news feed from the presidential palace was still active. The British Prime Minister was shaking hands with his hosts. Only a few more world leaders still to appear, the last being the President of the United States, and everyone would be in place for the drone’s suicide strike—

  ‘Peter!’ she exclaimed, the sight of the British politician reminding her of one of the members of his entourage. ‘We can call Peter Alderley; he can warn them!’

  ‘Well, yeah, we could,’ Eddie said, ‘if we had his number. And a phone.’

  ‘We’ve got a phone. If I can remember how to work it . . .’ She thought back to the smaller infotarium in India, then raised one hand as if holding an invisible handset and brought it to her ear.

  Nothing happened. The screens remained unchanged. ‘Damn it!’

  Eddie gave her a look of disbelief. ‘This isn’t a good time to play charades!’

  ‘I saw him do it in Bangalore - like a virtual phone.’ She moved closer to the slender lectern housing the motion sensors and tried again, slowing and exaggerating the move . . .

  The screens changed, a keypad overlaid on the images. ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘What’s the number?’

  ‘How the hell would I know Alderley’s number?’

  ‘Not his number - Mac’s number!’ She raised her other hand, forefinger extended; a glowing circle appeared over the keypad as the sensors tracked her fingertip. ‘He’s with Peter, and you know his number, don’t you?’

  Eddie quickly recited the digits, Nina tapping at thin air to enter them into the virtual keypad. ‘Just hope he remembered to charge his phone.’

  The animated ‘Connecting . . .’ icon appeared, but nothing seemed to be happening. Nina and Eddie exchanged worried looks - then a hollow hiss came from speakers overhead. Another tense moment, and the ringing tone echoed round the dome. Twice, three times . . .

  ‘If the world ends because we got sent to voicemail, I’m gonna be very unhappy,’ Nina muttered. ‘Come on, Mac, pick up—’

  A click, then a familiar Scottish voice, slight puzzlement evident at being called from an unfamiliar number. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mac!’ Nina cried. ‘Thank God! It’s us, Nina and Eddie!’

  The background noise suggested that he was in a large room, a hum of conversation audible. ‘What’s going on? I thought you were in Greenland?’

  ‘We are,’ said Eddie, ‘but the shit’s about to hit the fan in Delhi. Khoil’s got a stealth drone full of explosives about to do a kamikaze run on the G20 photocall right now - you’ve got to get them out of there!’

  Silence for a second. Then an urgent shout of: ‘Peter!’

  ‘What is it?’ called Alderley.

  ‘We have a situation. Over here, now! Kit, you too.’

  ‘Where are you?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘At the Rashtrapati Bhavan - we’ve been dealing with the head of the Indian security service.’

  ‘Useful.’

  ‘Not really - he doesn’t believe the Khoils could be a threat.’ A new voice: Kit. ‘What’s happening?’

  Mac quickly summarised the situation for his companions. ‘Chase,’ said Alderley, ‘is this intel good?’

  ‘Straight from the arsehole’s mouth,’ Eddie told him, with a quick look down at Khoil. ‘I don’t know how long until it hits ground zero, but it’s less than ninety seconds. You’ve got to evacuate everyone - or at least get them under cover.’

  ‘Eddie!’ said Nina urgently, indicating the news feed. On the screen, President Cole was emerging from the palace, striding along the red carpet to meet the Indian leaders. Now that all the G20 leaders had arrived, they would gather for their group photo . . . and become the highest-value target on the planet.

  ‘Shit!’ said Eddie. ‘Mac, get them out of there! Now!’

&
nbsp; ‘We’re on it,’ said Mac. A muted thump came from the speakers as he disconnected.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Khoil said from the floor. ‘You can’t stop it.’

  All Nina and Eddie could do was watch the news feed as the world leaders began to congregate.

  Mac and Alderley hurried across the crowded room, Kit following as quickly as he could on his crutch. The majority of the guests were high-ranking Indian politicians and civil servants, the remainder diplomats and officials from the other countries attending the summit.

  There was only one person the trio were interested in, however. They spotted the portly, grey-bearded man near the doors leading to the expansive courtyard where the leaders had assembled. ‘Mr Verma!’ Alderley called, barging past a cluster of Russian delegates to reach him.

  Arivali Verma, the head of India’s Intelligence Bureau, looked round in annoyance from his discussion with his Chinese opposite number. ‘Mr . . . Alderley, yes?’ He recognised the taller, older man with him. ‘Colonel McCrimmon? What is it?’

  ‘There’s about to be a terrorist attack,’ Alderley said urgently. ‘We have to get the delegates into cover.’

  ‘What?’ Verma looked to one of his subordinates standing nearby. The man’s bemused expression told him that he had heard nothing of the sort through his earpiece. ‘Where did you hear this?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Mac snapped. ‘Just evacuate the courtyard!’

  ‘What kind of attack? I need more information! The entire world is watching - if I call an alert and nothing happens, we will look like fools!’

  ‘Better that than doing nothing until a plane crashes into them!’ said Kit, catching up.

  Verma huffed. ‘If an unauthorised plane came within fifty kilometres, I would be told immediately.’

  ‘Not if it were a stealth plane,’ said Mac.

  ‘A stealth plane?’ Verma echoed in disbelief. ‘This is absurd!’

  ‘We don’t have time for this!’ Kit growled. He tried to push past Verma to the door, but his assistant moved to block him—