‘Shhh! What do you think “never speak of” means? Now come on, we’re going to land this aeroplane now.’ She turns and moves up the aisle. Severson takes another breath and follows her into the cockpit.
Rhonda slides into the captain’s seat, takes the controls in hand and slowly but surely levels out the jet. Beside her Severson lifts the unconscious copilot out of his seat and parks him in the jump seat in the galley behind the cockpit.
Rhonda scans the instrument panel. The jet is currently at 38 765 feet and descending, but not that quickly. Its speed is seven hundred and twenty kilometres an hour and slowing, but gradually. ‘Okay. It’s under control. We’re gliding.’
Severson tentatively approaches the copilot’s seat but doesn’t sit.
She glances at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just — girding my loins.’
‘Gird ‘em on your own time. Sit down.’
He does it. ‘So what happened?’
‘We’ve lost one engine and the other has been shut down. I’m guessing they did it after the first one exploded.’
‘Christ, so we have no power?’ Severson looks even paler than he did a moment ago.
She turns to him, her voice low and flint hard: ‘Listen, if you want to sit up at the big kids’ table you stay positive and do as I say. Otherwise, go take your seat with the rest of the passengers and I’ll get one of the flight attendants to help out. Is that clear?’
Severson nods. ‘Crystal.’
‘Good. Get air traffic control on the horn. They need to know what happened and that we have to land ASAP.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Read.’
He looks at her like she’s mad. ‘Read? Read what?’
She pulls an iPad from a rack beside the pilot’s seat and holds it up. ‘The flight manual. I have to learn how to fly this thing — without engines.’
23
Kilroy’s eyes flutter open. His head aches and his vision is blurry and the left side of his face is numb from where the airbag hit.
Christ, he is screwing this up. Maybe he should retire before he really hurts himself. He has enough money to do it in style, both Bunsen and his father always paid him well.
He pushes the thought from his mind. He’s not going to retire. What the hell would he do all day? Play golf? Tomorrow the world will be a very different place and Bunsen will need him around. And it was just one accident, after all. It could have happened to anyone. He was so focused on the guy riding the bike that he misjudged the braking distance and hit the cement retaining wall, a part of which then, it seems, took a trip down the hill in front of him.
The front of the Prius is crumpled but the damage doesn’t look terminal from the driver’s seat. He cranks the electric engine and it starts first time. Relieved, he engages reverse and the vehicle shudders as it backs up. He slots it into drive and the Prius pulls away with a slight crab to the left and a deep scraping sound that sets his teeth on edge. It’s not perfect, but it works. Now he just needs to find those guys.
He sees them on the road below, three specks on North Cahuenga Boulevard. They’re maybe a kilometre away, riding the bikes, the dog beside them. Good. He needs to finish this job so he can meet up with Bunsen.
Third time had better be the charm.
24
A colossal fireball splits the sky.
Bunsen takes in the explosion from the Tyrannosaur. A reservoir tank buried beneath a gas station, owned by BP, has detonated, causing the surrounding ground to subside. He smiles. The company can consider it payback for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico that spewed five million barrels of crude oil into the ocean back in 2010.
Bunsen may feel regret regarding the human damage of his actions today, but he will never regret the destruction of petroleum industry infrastructure. Considering the overwhelming devastation that business has inflicted on the planet over the last century it only seems fair they get a little of their own back. Or more than a little.
The Tyrannosaur drops towards his Santa Monica compound and lands with a blast of dust on the helipad. This changeover had been well rehearsed, but always with four people. They are two men down today. Bunsen will have to push through with Enrico and do it as quickly as possible. It’s not ideal but he has no choice.
They climb out of the cockpit. Enrico instantly wheels the cradle under the water tank that contained the Swarm, then goes to work removing the bolts which hold it to the central section of the chopper’s airframe.
To the right Bunsen unlocks the garage’s roller door and pushes it up.
It sits on a trolley in the middle of the garage.
It is both terrible and beautiful.
Alvy did a sterling job designing and, along with Enrico, building the Item, as they named it after spending a week trying to think of a suitably understated name. Three metres long by two metres wide, it is the centrepiece of Phase Three.
He locates the electric water pump Enrico used earlier, still with its hoses attached, and removes the lid on top of a hundred-litre rhino drum that contains the Swarm. He pushes in a hose then unscrews what looks like a radiator cap on top of the Item and pushes in the other hose. He then fires up the pump. It whirs to life and the Swarm sloshes along the hoses from drum to Item. Once this drum is empty Bunsen will need to repeat the process four more times.
He glances at his Patek. He still hasn’t heard from Kilroy. He hopes the old codger is okay. It’d hurt Kilroy’s pride to call for help, but he’d do it if he really needed it. Bunsen adores the man, but he can, at times, be the bane of his life. The trouble stems from the fact that although Kilroy is an employee, he is also family, which can make the relationship difficult. Bunsen can never fire him, or discipline him, or even hold him to account. He just has to trust the old bastard will do a good job, which he usually does, and hope for the best. And if Bunsen ever wants to do something that he knows Kilroy won’t agree with, then he has to lie about it, or accept that he’s going to hear the old fella bitch and moan about it.
The water pump whirs steadily as Bunsen checks the first rhino drum. It’s only half empty. This will take a while. He heads out of the garage to help Enrico remove the water tank.
25
Lola Jacklin’s eyes flutter open.
It takes a moment before she remembers she’s not waking up at home in bed but in a building full of storage lockers on Doheny Drive.
She takes a deep breath. She can move both arms and her right leg, but her left thigh is trapped under a heavy metal beam and hurts like hell. She must get it off quickly or risk suffering crush syndrome, which she knows all about from an episode of Grey’s Anatomy one of her clients wrote. She remembers that it occurs when a ruptured muscle dumps an excess of chemicals, usually potassium and phosphate, into the bloodstream, which can then cause cardiac arrest. The longer the muscle is crushed, the more intense the release of chemicals.
She takes a deep breath, grabs the beam with both hands — it’s about a foot square — and pushes upwards.
Good God! She manages to raise it half an inch and take some pressure off her thigh, but that’s it. It’s just too heavy. She can’t even wriggle free. She holds it up, her yoga-toned arms take the strain admirably for a good ten seconds, then they start to shake uncontrollably and she has to let it down. Reintroducing the beam to her thigh hurts like an absolute mofo.
‘Hello? Need some help over here!’