Return to Atlantis_A Novel

  “God!” she gasped. “What is this, Satan’s amusement park?”

  “Kern did say he was right below us. This way.” He ducked under another chute, heading toward the stacks. “And watch what you step on. I think the tracks are electrified.”

  “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.” Eddie hopped over the track; she waited for a shuttle to clatter past before following. “Where are we going? We’re heading away from the elevators.”

  Staying clear of the rails, they hurried down an aisle. “Have to see if we can find those emergency stairs Kern mentioned,” said Eddie.

  “That’s a hell of a climb!”

  “You want to stay here reading ancient documents for the rest of your life? Wait, don’t answer that. But if we can get off this floor, we’ve got a chance.”

  “We still have to get back to the surface—and even then, there’s only one door that goes outside.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a pretty big door!”

  Shouts came from behind them: The troops were spreading out in pursuit. Eddie looked back, alarmed. “Christ, we’ll be sitting ducks if they shoot at us down this aisle.”

  Nina had drawn ahead, passing an intersection. “If we turn at the next—whoa!” One of the towering shuttles rounded the corner directly behind her—and kept going, forcing her onward. It was carrying a large container, not leaving enough room for her to squeeze past. “Eddie, I can’t get back to you!”

  “Go on ahead!” he shouted. “Go left, I’ll catch up!”

  Nina ran ahead of the advancing machine. Eddie doubled back to the intersection, cutting across to the next aisle. He looked along it. The next junction was about eighty feet away; he could catch up with her there—

  “Here! Over here!”

  The yell was from behind him, one of the airmen at the start of the aisle.

  Bringing up his rifle—

  Eddie flattened himself against the end of the towering stack as bullets seared past. Even as the echoes of the gunshots faded he ran again, cutting across the endless rows of shelves. He had to draw the troops away from Nina, then find a way to double back past them.

  Ranks of stacks flashed past. He kept his pace and footfalls as precise as those of a hurdler—if he tripped on the tracks, he would be an easy target.

  Another aisle ahead—and a shuttle bearing several boxes rolled into view. If it turned toward him, he would be trapped—

  It carried on past the intersection, heading for the cabins. Eddie swung around the corner and into the new aisle, running away from the retreating machine. It would give him temporary cover from the pursuing airmen, maybe even cause them to lose track of him.

  More shouting, this time over a loudspeaker. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Ogleby’s amplified voice boomed. “You’ll hit the files! Catch them and take them outside—and then shoot them!”

  That restriction would help—if the guards took orders from a civilian. Not willing to gamble his life on that, Eddie kept running. If Nina had taken the route he’d suggested, she would be eight or nine aisles back to his right. But now that shots had been fired, she might have followed a different path.

  He reached the next junction and ducked into the cover of the cross-aisle, stopping to look across the cavernous hall. No sign of Nina. Damn! Had she carried straight on, or gone into another aisle?

  He glanced back around the corner. The shuttle had switched tracks to deliver its cargo to a collection point, leaving the way free for some of the airmen to run toward him. The others would be charging up the neighboring aisles to cut off their prey. Eddie took a deep breath and ran again, heading—he hoped—back toward Nina. He glimpsed two men as he crossed an aisle and a single shot cracked past behind him, plunking into one of the metal storage boxes, but he was already clear.

  “I said don’t shoot!” screeched Ogleby over the PA system. “Do! Not! Shoot! How hard is that for you to understand?”

  The next aisle had nobody in it, nor the one beyond that. Eddie turned up it and raced deeper into the hangar. If he could reach the next intersection before any of his pursuers saw him …

  Sparks lit the aisle as another shuttle rounded the corner ahead, coming in his direction—then stopped, its lifting arm rising up to pluck a large box from a shelf. He cursed. Squeezing past the machine would slow him, but he was too far down the aisle to turn back and find an alternative route.

  Not that he could anyway. “Stop or I fire!” a man bellowed.

  The guards had found him.

  Eddie was more than ten feet from the stationary shuttle as it lowered its cargo. He would be shot before he could get past the machine. He stopped, and turned. Two airmen had him in their sights. He held up his hands. “Nina!” he called out. “They’ve got me. Get out of here, don’t let them catch you!”

  “Shut up!” one airman shouted as he and his partner advanced. Another two men reached the junction behind them and followed. “Drop the gun!”

  Eddie obeyed, then glanced back at the shuttle. If it set off again, he might be able to dive behind it as it passed. But it was still lowering the box.

  He would have to risk it. It was clear that Dalton’s plan was for them to simply “disappear.” Better to try to run than meekly accept his fate.

  The guards approached. The leading man took one hand off his rifle to take a set of flex-cuffs from his belt. The M4’s muzzle swayed away from Eddie.

  This was his chance.

  He tensed, about to rush for the shuttle—

  Metal crashed above. The startled airmen looked up—and were knocked to the floor by a cascade of storage boxes falling from a high shelf.

  Nina popped her head through the gap where the containers had been. “Eddie, run!”

  “I told you to run!” he complained. But he was relieved beyond belief to see her. She ducked back as he slithered sidelong past the shuttle. Fallen boxes clanged and thumped as the groaning guards tried to get up.

  Eddie rounded the corner, emerging in the next aisle in time to see Nina jump to the floor. “Are you okay?” she asked, hurrying to him.

  “Yeah, but there’re more of ’em out there. Let’s find the stairs.” They headed for the nearer of the hangar’s long side walls.

  Ogleby’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “You morons!” he shouted at the airmen. “They’re getting away! They’re in area seven. Stop them!”

  “Shit, he can see us!” said Nina. There had to be security cameras somewhere above. If Ogleby could guide the troops after them, they had no hope of escaping.

  Eddie looked ahead. They were coming up to another intersection, a set of points clacking to direct an approaching shuttle. He snatched a box file from a shelf. “What are you doing?” asked Nina.

  “Putting things on the wrong track.” He kicked at the points to force the switch open, then jammed the box into the gap. “Down here, get back.”

  They retreated into the cross-aisle as the shuttle rumbled into the intersection. With the points out of position, it tried to continue straight ahead where it should have turned—then hit the box. The metal container was crushed by the shuttle’s weight, but it was enough to jolt the entire machine …

  And send it off the tracks.

  The thirty-foot crane tower made it very top-heavy. The shuttle wobbled before finally overbalancing and crashing against one of the stacks—which itself toppled, containers sliding off its shelves in a cacophonous chorus. It hit another stack, and that too fell, a giant domino reaction sweeping inexorably across the hangar.

  But it wasn’t only the stacks that were falling. The top of the shuttle’s tower snagged the power grid as it tipped, tearing down a section. It slapped across the tracks—

  There was a loud bang and a huge spray of sparks as the system short-circuited. The sudden overload blew out other parts of the Cold War–era electrical system—and the entire hangar abruptly fell into darkness. Ogleby’s horrified cry at the sight of the destruction of his library was cut off with a
squawk of feedback.

  “Wow,” said Eddie as the last echoing slam of a felled stack faded away. “That worked better than I thought.”

  “It doesn’t really help us, though, does it?” Nina complained. “We can’t see anything either!” But as her eyes adjusted, she realized they were not in total blackness. Amber emergency lights high overhead had come on, casting a dim fireside glow across the great chamber.

  She could just about make out Eddie’s grin. “We can see enough. Come on.” He took the lead as they ran into the gloom.

  With the power off, they no longer had to worry about the repository’s machines, and in short order they reached the side of the hangar. About fifty yards away, an illuminated box shone red above a recess in the wall: an EMERGENCY EXIT sign. They ran to it. Behind them, their hunters shouted across the stacks, but they were having enough trouble locating one another, never mind their prey.

  Eddie barged through the door at the back of the opening. More sickly lights revealed a metal staircase switch-backing upward into a tall shaft. No sign of movement above, but he still paused. “Can you hear anyone?”

  Nina strained to listen, picking out a distant clamor of feet pounding on steel. “Someone’s there, but they’re a long way up.” Eddie nodded and started up the steps. “Whoa, wait! I know your hearing’s not great, but didn’t you hear what I just said? They’re probably waiting for us at the top.”

  “Good job we’re not going all the way up, then. Come on, give it some high knees!” He set off again, Nina following in confusion.

  “What do you mean?” she panted. “How are we going to get out?”

  “Not by running up three thousand bloody stairs, for a start.” As they climbed, another sign came into sight: the next level. “That big lift was on this floor.”

  “I think it may be a little hard for them to miss us if we ride up on that!”

  “Depends what we ride up with.” They reached the landing; Eddie checked that nobody was lurking beyond the door before entering.

  Lines of dark and silent armor lined up inside the vast space greeted them. The main lights were still on in this level, but the brightest illumination came from the portable rigs set up around the tank undergoing maintenance. Nina cautiously peered around one of the M60s to see the two mechanics standing by their charge, talking animatedly; they had heard the alert, but seemingly had no idea what was going on. “We’ll have to go past those guys to reach the elevator.”

  “I’ll take care of ’em,” Eddie assured her.

  “How? As soon as they see you they’ll raise the alarm.”

  “Why?” He indicated his now rather untidy uniform. “I’m an officer, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, but the second you open your mouth they’ll know saahmthang’s wraahng,” she said, imitating his attempt at an American accent. “What are you going to do, use sign language?”

  Eddie cracked his knuckles and gave her a devilish smile. “I think they’ll get the message.”

  TWENTY

  In the administration block, Colonel Kern listened to a crackling report over the intercom from Silent Peak’s lowest level. “We still haven’t been able to restore full power down here, sir. We need a maintenance crew to fix the breakers.”

  “We’ll have to call a team in from Groom,” said Kern, concerned. “What about the intruders?” From the moment the alert had come through directly from the Pentagon that their security clearances had been forged, his honored guests had been reduced in status to targets.

  Ogleby came on the line. “They’ve wrecked the place!” he cried. “Kern, I hold you entirely responsible for this fiasco. How the hell did you allow them to just stroll in here?”

  “I see from the system that you approved their clearances too,” Kern replied irritatedly, checking a monitor. “But it looks like security’s been breached at a very high level. There’ll have to be an investigation—”

  “Sir!” his lieutenant interrupted, pointing excitedly at a status board. “The main elevator—it’s coming up!”

  “I think we’ve found them,” Kern told Ogleby before ending the call. He turned to his subordinate. “Assemble a group, everyone armed, then get to the elevator. But keep the guards at the main door in case it’s a ruse and they’re trying to escape some other way.”

  The lieutenant acknowledged and rushed out. “Keep monitoring things here,” Kern ordered a corporal as he headed for his office.

  He opened a desk drawer and took out his sidearm. Silent Peak’s quiet obscurity and official status as a reserve facility meant that only its security personnel were routinely armed, but right now he wanted every man on the base to have a gun at the ready. Whatever Nina Wilde and her companion were doing here, it was going to be stopped. Flicking off the Beretta’s safety, he hurried after the lieutenant.

  In the control room, the corporal’s eyes bugged as he saw on a CCTV screen what the enormous elevator was carrying. “Uh, sir?” he called, but his commander had already gone.

  Kern met his men outside the cluster of cabins, where the lieutenant had rounded up twelve troops. Some were support staff armed only with pistols, but the majority were members of the base’s security detail, carrying M4 rifles. “Okay, everyone with me,” he ordered, starting to run. The men fell in alongside him. “We have two intruders who infiltrated the base using falsified credentials, and gained access to the repository. They’re to be considered armed and dangerous.” He hesitated before continuing, but the command from the Pentagon had been clear. “You have shoot-on-sight authorization.”

  The responses from the running men showed that few, if any, shared his misgivings.

  They raced down the length of the hangar, passing the parked aircraft and vehicles. The great chasm of the shaft opened up ahead as they neared it. A deep mechanical grumbling grew ever louder—the massive elevator platform was approaching the top.

  “Spread out,” said Kern as the group reached the shaft. “I want every part of the platform … covered …” His voice trailed off as the elevator’s cargo rose into view.

  The corporal’s nervous voice sounded over the PA system. “Uh, Colonel Kern, sir! They’ve, ah … they’ve got a tank.”

  The M60’s main gun was pointing directly at Kern. “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “Okay, we’re at the top!” Nina announced, standing in the commander’s position to peer through the narrow portholes in the armored cupola atop the turret. “And we’ve got a welcoming committee.”

  Eddie, in the driver’s seat inside the cramped forward compartment, had also seen the troops through the three slot-like periscopes in front of him. “Doesn’t look like they want to give us tea and biscuits,” he said as weapons came up. He switched his foot from the brake to the oversized gas pedal and shoved it down. The twenty-nine-liter diesel engine roared, the tank jerking forward with a piercing squeal from its tracks. He saw Kern dive aside as the M60 cleared the platform and accelerated down the hangar.

  Nina yelped and instinctively ducked as bullets clonked against the turret. “Whoa! That just made them mad.”

  Eddie wasn’t worried—not about the gunfire, at least. Against the inches-thick steel armor, Kern’s men might as well have been firing Ping-Pong balls.

  His real concern was the line of parked military vehicles. He had checked the M60’s fuel gauge during the ascent, and found it had only the bare minimum needed to power it for maintenance. It would soon run out—meaning that the troops could simply drive after them and wait for the engine to die.

  He turned the steering yoke to the right. The brakes on that side shrilled, the tank making a juddering change of direction to head for the trucks.

  Nina yelped again as the unexpected turn jarred her heavily against some of the cabin’s many hard-edged protrusions. “What are you doing? You’re going to crash into those trucks!”

  “Not into ’em—over ’em! Get into the gunner’s seat!”

  “I thought there wasn’t any ammo?”

&n
bsp; “This thing’s got a twenty-foot steel battering ram—it doesn’t need ammo!”

  Nina understood what he meant, but was still uncertain as she clambered awkwardly across the cabin into the gunner’s position. The primary controls consisted of another aircraft-style yoke. “How does it work?”

  “It’s not rocket surgery! Just turn it and see what happens!”

  There was a periscope lens above and to the right of the controls; she peered into it, seeing the view ahead. The M60 was thundering straight at the first truck. She hesitantly turned the yoke a little. With a skirl of hydraulics, the turret turned in response. A vertical twist of the handgrips and the main gun rose, the view through the periscope also tilting upward.

  She swung the turret back to its original position—to find the truck looming in her sights. “Hold on!” Eddie shouted.

  The M60 slammed into the truck’s front quarter. It was shoved sideways until it hit its neighbor—and the tank then rode up over it, crushing it flat. The second truck suffered the same fate, glass exploding everywhere as steel tracks chewed through its cab.

  Eddie turned the yoke back to the left. The M60 lurched around as if grinding the remains of the trucks beneath a treaded heel, then advanced on the first of the Humvees. There were two rows of the big four-by-fours, too widely spaced for the M60 to squash them all in one go; Nina braced herself, rotating the turret and lowering the main gun to hit the second line.

  The Humvees were smaller than the trucks, but the ride over them was no less bumpy, throwing Eddie and Nina about in their seats. The back ends of the leading row were flattened into scrap. Those in the second line fared little better, the M60’s gun barrel slicing into their engine compartments and tearing off wheels.

  Eddie turned the tank again to demolish one last truck, then swung it back toward the giant hangar doors. There were other guards ahead, but they were already scurrying for safety. The way out was now clear. The M60 was at its full speed of thirty miles per hour. Hardly blistering performance, but with so much weight behind it the armored vehicle was almost unstoppable. He kept his foot down, glancing at the fuel gauge.