‘I’m not saying you should do it!” Barn looked shocked. “I’m saying there’s no other way to break the stalemate.” He looked puzzled. “I mean, you asked.”
“Everyone here will be dead in an hour if we don’t do something,” Sherman said. “And none of you geniuses have got another plan.”
He stepped between Barn and his horrified companions.
“Well done boy,” he said softly.
19.10
Sherman led the others down the lift shaft. There was a small maintenance ladder set into the brickwork, which made the descent easier, but it was still tough going. Sherman and Nulce slung weapons across their backs and the children had the handcoms stuffed inside their jackets.
They were hampered further by the discovery that Dave had a paranoid fear of heights. Nulce had to keep hold of him as they descended and their progress through the claustrophobic darkness was punctuated by a stream of whispered Glaswegian curses.
“Will you shut up?” Nulce hissed. “Why don’t you send the enemy a goddamned postcard to say we’re coming?”
“Keep yir shirt on, action man.” Dave was breathing like a steam train. “I fall doon that shaft an the whole base will ken aboot it.”
They reached the elevator and let themselves down through the hatch on the top. Darren and Barn took one side and Jimmy and Sherman the other. Sherman stuck his gun barrel between the small gap and together they levered the lift doors open and fell through.
They padded a few feet down the passageway and entered the Ops Room.
“Oh God,” Barn said, turning away.
Personnel were draped across consoles or sprawled on the floor like broken straws and the room was awash with gore. Dunwoody had been merciless in his execution of the occupants. Barn clapped a beefy hand over his mouth and tried not to gag.
“Ah’m gonnae be suing the army over this.” Dave looked at his feet in disgust. “Ah’ve got guts all over mah Adidas, man.”
“I’m warming to you, kid.” Nulce slapped Dave’s back and grinned approvingly at the boy.
Madrid and Simon were almost finished in the Maintenance Depot. They had punctured the fuel tanks of every vehicle and tipped over the oil drums. Now the concrete floor was a lake of petrol, shimmering under the fluorescent lights.
“You sure you want to do this?” Simon said, his voice muffled by the ill-fitting asbestos suit.
“No choice.” Madrid tipped over the last drum and watched the viscous liquid burble out. “This place blows up in forty seven minutes.”
“I suppose.” The boy went to a panel on the wall and punched in 1234. “I just don’t know how I’ll live with myself after this.”
The doors in the floor were hidden by a reservoir of petrol, but it was easy to tell they were now open, for the level of black liquid began to rapidly go down.
Simon and Madrid waited until the petrol had almost leaked away. The woman took out a lighter, flicked it to life and threw it onto the floor. A wave of blue flame raced across the concrete and they threw themselves behind a stack of truck tyres.
The flame vanished down the ramp. There was silence for several seconds.
Then the screaming began.
19.15
On level one, Dunwoody’s men were sheltering behind a barricade of filing cabinets, desks and upended lab tables. It was a makeshift but adequate defence between themselves and any base soldiers, should they make it past his troops on the stairs. But, as soon as the petrol began flowing along the corridor behind him, the Lieutenant knew his forces were doomed.
“Head for the Operations Room!” Dunwoody shouted.
The men abandoned their positions and raced for sanctuary. The passageway twisted and turned several times, studded with doors leading to labs and accommodation units, but he know none of these would withstand the heat of an intense fire. The Ops Room, on the other hand, had reinforced doors and Dunwoody had left them open. If his men could get there in time they might survive.
He sprinted round the last bend, several feet ahead of the others and skidded to a halt.
“What the hell?”
The Operations Room doors were closed. Dunwoody threw himself against them and his men joined in. They weren’t just shut. They were locked.
Behind them a torrent of petrol sloshed round the corner, lapping at the walls.
“Down there!” Dunwoody pointed to the next stairwell a few feet away.
His men took the stairs three at a time, some of them vaulting over the railings in their desperation to escape the deadly liquid. An awful ‘whump’ somewhere above meant the petrol had finally ignited.
The main SWAT team, dug in on level two, looked up in astonishment as Dunwoody pelted down the steps and crashed into their makeshift fortifications.
“Down the next flight to level three,” he gasped. “All of you!”
The soldiers looked at him in bewilderment.
“The base forces are at the bottom of the next stairwell,” one protested. “There’s dozens of them! We can barely hold our position as it is!”
“We’ve no choice!” Dunwoody cried, glancing back the way he had come. A torrent of burning petrol began pouring down the steps, oily smoke boiling above the flames.
“Sweet lord,” the soldier said. He turned to the others.
“What are you waiting for?” he roared. “Let’s take them!”
His men hoisted their weapons and leapt over the barricades, Dunwoody pulled out his pistol and joined their suicidal charge. Half way down, a hail of bullets from below slammed into him and sent him catapulting over the rail. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Screaming defiance, his condemned men thundered down the stairwell, and into the base soldiers, firing as they went.
19.20
Simon and Madrid followed the fire, portable oxygen masks pressed to their faces.
Barn had been right. The corridor was filled with smoke and flames licked the walls, but the main conflagration was well ahead of them. When they reached the Ops Room, Simon punched in 1234 and the door slid open.
They stumbled inside, peeling off the asbestos suits, while Jimmy closed the door behind them.
“Get behind something solid,” he rasped. “Quick as you can.”
“What for?” Madrid’s har was sticking to her forehead and her face was smeared. “Dunwoody’s men are gone.”
“You’ll see.”
Sherman’s team and the other teens were crouched behind desks and cabinets and Nulce had reinforced his makeshift barrier with corpses.
“Good job I grew up on an industrial estate,” Dave whispered loudly. “Or all this violence would have warped my fragile little mind.”
Nulce giggled.
“Will you shut up for once!” Barn shouted. “I’ve just sent dozens of men to their deaths, for God sakes.”
“Away and boil yer heid, ya big jessie!” Dave snapped back. “This is how I deal with it! Awright?”
Barn was sitting on the floor, tears streaming down his face.
“I did what you told me to do,” he sobbed. “I just did what you told me to do.”
“What’s happening?” Madrid hunkered down beside Jimmy. “We should be moving out now, to take advantage of the situation.”
“You’re pretty emotionless, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t join the army to win a popularity contest,” Madrid said curtly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
Jimmy shone a torch on his handcom.
“The fire is now raging on level four and filtering into level five,” he said. The base soldiers have retreated to level six◦– the lowest level.”