The Korean was sceptical. ‘It is a very big runway.’
‘It’ll be a very big boom. Trust me.’ The metal drums he had seen stacked near the tanks were of a standard fifty-five-gallon size, over two hundred litres. If they were filled as he had asked, the combination of more than seventy gallons of hypergolic fuel and oxidiser would produce an extremely satisfying explosion.
The remaining prisoners, Nina with them, approached pushing one of the microlights. ‘Okay,’ she demanded, ‘why exactly did you want us to bring this?’
‘Because we need a way out of here.’
‘And the half-dozen jeeps back there aren’t suitable because . . . ?’
‘Because A, they’ll never catch up with the missile convoy on that twisty road, and B, there’ll probably be a shitload of troops coming back up the road once they realise what we’ve done.’
‘Which is?’
‘Blow this place to fuck.’ He took out a stick of dynamite, then smiled and nodded towards the fuel tanks. ‘About fifty thousand gallons of rocket fuel ought to do it.’
‘Yeah, it might,’ she said with alarm.
‘And speaking of . . .’ Eddie watched as three straining men carefully carried a barrel of kerosene towards the hovercraft. A lid had been placed loosely over its top, but he could still hear its contents sloshing about. ‘Put it here,’ he said, pointing at one of the rear seats. Ock relayed the command, the trio carefully lowering it into position.
By the time they were done, the other group had returned from the more distant tanks. The noise from their drum was far more worrying: a frothing hiss as the nitric acid tried to eat through the metal. The lid had been pushed down more firmly to hold in the choking fumes, though one of the prisoners carrying it had a very sickly appearance from accidental exposure while filling the barrel. Eddie directed them to the other rear seat. ‘Careful, really careful,’ he warned as they lowered it. ‘Okay, that’s good.’ There was a rolled-up camouflage tarp in the rear; he used it to wedge the second container in place. ‘Let’s get this thing moving.’
‘Wait, so now what?’ Nina asked. ‘You’re just going to push it out and hope it goes in the right direction? These things steer like cows on ice skates!’
Eddie was about to make a sarcastic reply, but Ock spoke first. ‘I will drive it.’
‘You what?’ said the Englishman. ‘You can’t – you’ll be killed!’
The Korean fixed him with an unwavering look. ‘I do not care. I have lost everything.’ He gestured in the direction of his late wife. ‘I want to kill them. I want to kill Bok! If I do, you can all get out of here.’
‘There has to be another way,’ Nina said, pleading.
‘No. I must do it. Now, before . . . before I become afraid.’ He pushed past Eddie to climb into the pilot’s seat.
‘They’ll be shooting at you, so let’s at least give you a chance to shoot back,’ Eddie told him. As well as the tarp, the hovercraft held various other supplies, including an ammunition box. He opened it and pulled out a belt of bullets. The weapon on the pintle was a North Korean copy of a Soviet-era PK machine gun; while Ock was familiarising himself with the vehicle’s controls, he quickly loaded the belt. ‘Okay, that’s about a hundred rounds,’ he said. ‘There’s a lever there to aim it, and,’ he pointed out the mechanical linkage running down from the gun’s trigger to between the front seats, ‘if you pull that? Ock’s gon’ give it to ya.’
Ock nodded, then restarted the engine, the skirt inflating. ‘I am ready,’ he said, testing the rudder pedals. Even with the main propeller only idling, there was enough airflow to nudge the craft’s tail around.
Nina hurriedly retreated from the blades. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
He looked back at her, fearful but also determined. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘My Korean’s a bit rusty, so you’d better tell the others that if this works, they need to run for the outside as soon as the way’s clear,’ said Eddie. Ock did so, then the Yorkshireman held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thank you.’ The Korean shook it before turning back to the controls. ‘Goodbye. I hope you see your home again.’
‘So do I,’ said Nina morosely.
Eddie pulled off both barrel lids, then Ock edged the main fan to full power. The hovercraft moved off, making a sweeping turn towards the tunnel.
The return of the distant engine noise had drawn the attention of the soldiers at the tunnel entrance. ‘They’re coming!’ Bok shouted into his radio. ‘Ready all weapons!’ The men along the vehicular barricade raised their rifles, the two miniguns spinning up their barrels ready to fire.
The hovercraft came into view. ‘There it is – quick, quick!’ the major snapped, waving for his gunner to lock on. By the time he found his target, it had already turned on to the runway and started towards them, rapidly gaining speed. ‘Fire!’
The buzzing rasp of the miniguns and the stuttering bark of the soldiers’ rifles was drowned out by the thunderous clanging of bullets off the hovercraft’s frontal armour. Ock cried out in terror, before realising that he was still alive . . . and still moving, the tunnel walls rolling past at an increasing pace.
He squinted into one of the narrow slits in the plating. Paint flecks whipping through it stung his face, but he still made out the line of jeeps, and the gun emplacements on each side.
Bok was in one of them. He knew that an explosion at the runway’s centre had the best chance of clearing the way for the prisoners to escape – but the thought of the man who had ordered his wife’s murder made him veer angrily to the right instead, aiming straight for the turret.
More bullets pounded the armour like a hail of hammers. Fibreglass cracked behind him, the propeller’s hooped cowling splintering. His turn had exposed the rear of his craft to the other minigun, and it would only get worse the closer he got to the tunnel mouth.
The gun—
He turned the handle to swing the PK towards the left side of the entrance – then pulled its trigger control.
The noise was almost deafening, broken links from the ammo belt showering down on his head as the machine gun roared. The pounding of bullets against the hovercraft’s prow abruptly halved as the minigunner dropped behind sandbags. Another look ahead. Bok’s turret was right in front of him. The flame from its Gatling gun grew brighter, the storm of lead hitting with greater force as he closed in.
The hovercraft shuddered with each impact. Ock glanced back at the two barrels. Fumes trailed from the drum of nitric acid, the kerosene beside it slopping and splashing almost to the open top. He swung the machine gun back across and pulled the trigger again, sending a snarling burst of bullets at his target. The strobing flame briefly cut out as the gunner ducked, then returned with even more fearsome intensity.
The other minigun locked back on – and this time caused more than superficial damage. One of the rudders shredded, its supports shearing away. The hovercraft slewed around. Ock tried to counter it, but the vehicle was now even harder to control, swinging away from the turret.
He cursed, struggling to straighten out. More rounds hammered the armour – which started to warp and buckle under the relentless assault. One of the jeeps came into view through the slits. He was running out of both room to manoeuvre and time. Finally regaining control, he aimed the hovercraft at the vehicle with a defiant roar—
Bok clenched a fist in triumph as a chunk of armour blew off the hovercraft, only for the gesture to freeze in surprise as he saw something in the rear of its passenger compartment.
Barrels, one of them leaving a wispy trail of what looked like smoke . . .
Not smoke. Vapour.
The fugitive had come from the rocket fuel stores. His mind made the connection—
‘Run!’ he screamed in horrified realisation, scrambling over the circle of sandbag
s surrounding the turret even though he knew he was doomed. The gunner looked around at him in surprise. ‘Get out of here, run!’
The hovercraft’s main propeller was torn apart by the withering gunfire, shedding blades – but it was too late to stop it.
Ock howled as the hovercraft ploughed into the jeep. The barrels flew forward, their contents sluicing out . . .
And mixing.
The spontaneous ignition of the two chemicals was instant – and devastating.
Both vehicles disintegrated in a colossal ball of fire.
42
The explosion vaporised everything within fifty feet and tore a crater in the concrete. The soldiers further away were no better off, the shock wave flipping the other jeeps in flames across the runway and pulverising bones and organs.
Even at the end of the tunnel, the noise of the detonation was overpowering. ‘Christ on a bike!’ said Eddie, wincing. He looked down the runway. The vehicles that had made up the barricade were scattered like unwanted toys, crumpled and burning. Both gun emplacements had been flattened. ‘I knew that stuff was dangerous, but I didn’t realise how dangerous.’
Nina regarded the smoking crater sadly. ‘Oh God. Ock . . .’
‘He didn’t die for nothing,’ Eddie assured her. He turned to the prisoners, who were staring in shock at the destruction. ‘This is your chance – go, go!’ When nobody responded immediately, he switched to communicating by gesture, shooing them away. ‘Vamos, go on, get out! Leg it!’ They finally got the message and hurried towards freedom.
‘What about us?’ Nina asked.
He looked back at the microlight. ‘We need to get that thing ready to fly, then I’ll rig the rocket fuel tanks to blow.’
They ran to the little plane, Nina eyeing it dubiously. ‘How long will that take?’
Eddie took out the dynamite and fuses. ‘Hopefully not as long as it takes for the Norks to send more men back to get us!’
Colonel Kang turned sharply in his seat at the sound of a powerful explosion higher up the mountain. A fiery glow was visible through the trees. ‘Bok!’ he snapped into the radio. ‘Bok, report! What was that?’
No answer came. ‘Rocket fuel,’ said Mikkelsson from the rear seat. ‘That is the only thing that could cause such a blast. It must be Wilde and Chase.’
The numbed Sarah looked around at him. ‘They . . . they’re still alive?’
‘They will not be for long,’ Kang growled, switching channels. ‘This is Kang! Send squads from the evacuation muster point back to the base. The spies have escaped, with the aid of criminals – find them and destroy them!’
Eddie and Nina moved the microlight on to the runway. ‘Okay,’ said the Englishman, taking hold of the trailing edge of one of the pusher propeller’s blades, ‘hope I can do this without chopping any fingers off!’ He checked that Nina was holding down the starter button, then sharply shoved the blade down, jerking his hands clear as the engine clattered into life. The prop buzzed up to speed, a snap of displaced air stinging his fingertips – and the plane immediately began to roll along the concrete. ‘Whoa, whoa! Pull back the throttle!’
‘It is pulled back!’ Nina protested as she jogged alongside it. Even at minimum revs, the propeller was still spinning fast enough to push the lightweight aircraft along.
‘Hit the kill switch!’ She pushed another button. The engine spluttered and cut out. The propeller abruptly stopped, the microlight trundling to a halt. ‘Okay, that’s not ideal,’ he said, catching up. There was nothing to hand that might serve as chocks for the wheels. ‘I’ll have to start it right before take-off.’
‘After you light the fuses?’ Nina said unhappily. He had already rigged the tanks with explosives, using the full lengths of both coils.
‘Yeah, I know. Help me move it back over there so I won’t have to run as far.’
They wheeled the little plane to the runway’s end. The microlight was basic in the extreme, the tandem seats bolted to a simple tubular frame coated in something resembling Teflon, presumably a radar-absorbing substance; Kang had claimed that the tiny craft had stealth capabilities. From outside, the faceted front bodywork shielding the pilot appeared quite high-tech, but beneath it was revealed as nothing more than wooden panels painted with the same material. ‘Yeah, this fills me with confidence,’ Nina said, holding up a safety belt – a simple lap strap of the kind found on airliners.
‘Could be worse,’ Eddie joked. ‘At least it’s got seat belts. Beats holding on with your bare hands!’ They brought the plane into position. ‘Okay, I’ll light the fuses.’
‘How long will we have before they blow?’ Nina asked as he ran off, rifle slung over a shoulder.
‘A minute. Maybe.’
She got into the rear seat. ‘Confidence? Still not filled with it!’
Eddie grinned, then continued to the fuel tanks. The gap between them was too wide for the fuses to meet, ruling out a simultaneous detonation; he figured instead that blowing the nitric acid tanks first, then spilling kerosene on to the flood, would give him the best chance of escape. ‘Let’s see how the big bang theory works in practice,’ he said, lighting a match and touching it to the first fuse.
A spark sizzled along the length of line. He checked his watch, then raced to the second fuse and ignited it before running at full pelt back to the microlight.
Another glance at his watch as he reached the plane. Only thirty seconds remaining. ‘Okay, let’s get this thing started!’
Nina leaned over the front seat to push the starter as he spun the propeller. It made a half-turn . . .
And stopped.
The microlight shuddered, the engine coughing briefly before falling silent. Eddie tried again, with the same result. ‘You pushing that button?’
‘Yes, I’m pushing the damn button!’ Nina snapped.
‘Okay, okay! Let’s give it another shot.’ A third attempt. The engine wheezed mockingly at him as the blades juddered once more.
He looked at the fuel tanks. The spark was almost at the dynamite he had planted on the nitric acid containers. ‘Oh arse.’
‘Still pressing the button!’ his wife said with rising alarm.
Eddie swung the propeller again, and again, glaring at the portraits of the North Korean dictators smirking down at him from the blockhouse. ‘You can . . . fuck right off, Kim . . . Nob-head!’ he growled between pushes.
The engine stuttered and caught. The prop whirled—
The fizzing spark reached the dynamite.
Sharp blasts ripped open two of the tanks, a sizzling hiss echoing through the cavern as a tsunami of acid burst out and swept across the floor. To Nina’s dismay, part of the wavefront was heading for them. ‘Time to go!’
The aircraft was already moving. Eddie caught up and jumped into the front seat. Too late, he realised he was sitting on his seat-belt buckle, but there was no time to pull it out and secure himself. ‘Great, I am gonna have to hold on with my bare hands!’ he complained as he pushed the throttle lever fully forward. The engine noise rose to a screech, the microlight shimmying on its little tricycle wheels before straightening out.
He looked along the runway. In the distance, debris from the explosion littered the concrete, along with the burning wrecks of the vehicles that had formed the barricade.
More explosions behind them – and the huge cavern filled with flame as the spraying kerosene met its oxidiser.
A massive chain reaction tore through the facility, the ranks of fuel tanks detonating like hundred-ton bombs and smashing support pillars. The ceiling collapsed on to the missile production line with earthquake force, forcing the fireball through the tunnel.
A gunpowder explosion down a rifle barrel – and the microlight was the bullet.
A fragile, flammable bullet.
‘Ed
die!’ shrieked Nina, feeling rising heat as a wall of fire rushed after them.
‘Yeah, I know!’ Eddie yelled back. The wing’s fabric snapped taut as the airflow started to generate lift. He pulled back the joystick to raise the nose. The front wheel left the ground . . . then dropped back again. ‘Shit! Come on, take off, you piece of crap!’
They were rapidly approaching the tunnel mouth – but the fireball was gaining, pushing a wave of searing air before it. Eddie angled to avoid the largest pieces of debris from Ock’s suicide attack, but there were so many that a collision seemed inevitable.
He pulled back the stick again. The nose strained upwards, but they still hadn’t reached take-off speed. The rear wheels skipped and hopped over the concrete.
The rubble field rushed at them—
Eddie swerved to avoid a football-sized lump of stone. The front wheel cleared it by inches, only to hit one of the rears, snapping off the outrigger supporting it. The plane tipped sideways. He pushed the stick to level out, but in doing so the front wheel thumped back on to the runway.
A blazing jeep loomed. Flames ahead and behind as the inferno swept towards open air—
Eddie yanked the joystick again. This time the little plane left the ground – and remained airborne.
Heading straight for the jeep.
He yelled and veered away, the fuselage barely missing the wreck – only for the other outrigger to be clipped off. He fought to keep control as the plane burst out into the night—
The tunnel mouth erupted like a volcano.
An enormous gush of flame blasted from the entrance, lighting up the surrounding landscape with a hellfire glow. Debris arced across the plateau, the blast hurling metal and stone for hundreds of metres as Facility 17 was consumed by an explosion powerful enough to shake the entire mountain.
The dazzling flare faded . . . revealing the microlight straining skywards.
‘Oh my God!’ shrieked Nina. The heat of the explosion had singed her hair, exposed skin feeling as if she had leaned into an oven, but she was still alive. She looked up to check that the wing had not caught fire, and was thankful to see that the fabric was intact.