She nods. ‘Anytime. And thank you for doing the same.’
He sees the Loach appear out of the gloom. A young guy lies on the ground in front of it, terrified. That’s because Spike stands on his chest and growls at him with bared teeth, his snout inches from the poor sucker’s nose.
Corey takes in the tableau. ‘You picked the wrong dog, mate.’
The guy’s voice trembles. ‘I was just looking at the chopper, I didn’t mean anything by it, honest.’
Lola climbs into the passenger seat. ‘I think we all know anyone who says “honest” at the end of a sentence usually isn’t.’
‘You gotta get this crazy mutt off me.’
Corey slides into the pilot’s seat. ‘You’ll need to be much nicer than that.’
‘Get this. . lovely animal off me?’
Corey fires up the Loach’s turbine. ‘And what’s the magic word?’
‘Please?’
The rotors start to turn. ‘Not in the form of a question.’
‘Please.’
‘There you go. Spike, get behind.’
The dog hops off the guy, who immediately scrambles away. Spike chases him for a moment, then doubles back and leaps into the cockpit and lands beside Lola. She rubs his head. ‘Oh, you’re a good boy.’ He nuzzles against her. Corey takes this in as he works the controls and the Loach springs off the roadway.
They both pull on their headsets and survey the horizon. The haze is thick and Corey can see no sign of the Air-Crane. ‘Where is it?’
Lola drags the telescope out of her jacket pocket, scans the smoke. ‘There!’ She points to the far left and up. ‘It’s high.’
Corey looks high and sees a distant black dot. ‘Right. Thank you.’ He sets a course for it and shakes his head. ‘What the hell was he thinking?’
Lola holds up her phone. ‘Why don’t we find out?’
Corey points to a cable that protrudes from the communications panel. ‘If you plug it in we should both be able to hear him.’
40
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
In reality it’s possibly the worst idea Judd’s ever had. Ever. He’s so desperate to prove he’s not a fraud that he’s going to dig himself an early grave. And by ‘early’ he means a little later today.
At least it’s not as loud up here as he expected. From his position directly under the airframe and above the weapon he is protected from the worst of the wind and noise. The only real negatives are the vibrations that have made his hands numb from holding the weapon and the fact he’s about to die.
What the hell was he thinking?
He watches the ground sweep past for a moment, then turns and looks into the rear cabin. He can see only the legs and torsos of Handsome Guy and Ponytail in the Air-Crane’s rear cabin. The old man seems to be injured in some way. Handsome is holding what appears to be a missile launcher across his knees. Judd’s certain he’s surveying the horizon to make sure they’re not being followed, which, Judd is also sure, is exactly what Corey and Lola are doing right now.
Judd turns and studies the weapon he’s lying on. The sides are cloaked in camouflage netting but from the top he can see the whole thing clearly. The three weapons inside the football-shaped lattice are surely US Army bunker busters from their length, width and markings.
Somehow he has to disarm them. That’s the reason he climbed up here after all. Being so close to the weapon he can see it is completely handmade, which gives him hope, for an exposed wire or a loose detonator or some other manufacturing defect that will present him with a way to disable it.
He goes in search of it.
Corey drops the Loach low, maybe fifty metres off the ground, skims the smoke haze. Beside him Lola studies her phone. The call to Judd still isn’t going through. She hits redial, then peers through the brass telescope and focuses on the Air-Crane as it cuts across the darkening horizon above them. ‘It’s closer, but we’re still two clicks away.’
‘Okey-doke.’
She looks at the Australian. He got a little annoyed with her before, but she takes it as a good sign. If he didn’t care he wouldn’t get upset, would he? She’s always thought the opposite of love isn’t hate so much as indifference. Then she realises she really shouldn’t read too much into anything he said. She blew him off and embarrassed him last night so he was probably just venting frustration.
The call fails again. She hits redial.
Judd shakes his head. Amazing. He’s searched this thing and found no manufacturing flaws at all. The weapon may be handmade but the craftsmanship is first rate. He can tell by the quality of the welding used on the metal tubes that connect and surround the three central bombs and make up the latticework. He can’t even find any exposed wires for the electronics systems. And that means just one thing: catching a ride on the back of this thing has been a monumental waste of time—
He hears sloshing. Liquid sloshing. Is it coming from the av-gas in the Air-Crane’s fuel tanks directly above him? No. It’s definitely coming from the weapon, specifically those metal tubes. He sees what looks like a welded radiator cap at the centre of the weapon. He feels around the base and touches liquid. It’s clear, but has an almost grainy texture when he rubs it between his fingers. He smells it. Sweet, but with a synthetic edge. Definitely not oil or gasoline or any kind of accelerant he’s aware of.
It’s the Swarm. He’s sure of it.
This bomb is full of the Swarm.
That cannot, under any circumstances, be a good thing.
There’s a buzz in his pocket. Judd pulls out his phone and answers it with a shout, the microphone’s noise-cancelling feature working overtime. ‘Hello?’
Judd’s voice is distant and muffled, but Corey can hear him well enough. ‘What the hell are you doing, mate?’
‘Trying to disarm this friggin’ thing.’
‘Did you?’
‘No — but I’m pretty sure it’s full of the Swarm. There’d have to be four or five hundred litres inside it at a guess. Enough to infect something really big.’
Corey listens. ‘Like what?’
‘Somewhere with a lot of oil. A reservoir maybe? A refinery?’
Lola hears this as she scans the horizon with the telescope, focuses on the Air-Crane, then something beyond it. She studies it for a long moment then yanks the telescope from her eye. ‘I think I know where they’re taking it.’
Judd’s voice echoes down the line. ‘Where?’
‘La Brea. You’re flying straight towards it.’
‘Christ, that makes sense.’
Corey has no idea what they’re talking about. ‘What’s a La Brea?’
Lola turns to him. ‘The La Brea Tar Pits. There’s like a — cluster of oil lakes around the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard. One of the lakes is huge — like, millions-of-gallons huge. The Air-Crane’s heading straight for it.’
‘You’re telling me there’s a giant lake of oil in the middle of LA?’
She nods. ‘The oil seeps up through the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field. It’s a major tourist attraction. There’s a museum with all the fossils they’ve found over the years, schoolkids go there on excursions, it’s a whole thing.’
Corey thinks about this. ‘So, they detonate the bomb there and ignite and infect the oil. What for?’
Judd’s voice is distant but certain: ‘To pump all that infected smoke into the atmosphere and send the virus global.’
They all process this for a moment, then Lola breaks the silence: ‘That’s just evil.’
Corey’s eyes move to the Air-Crane. It’s a long way above them, but they’re almost parallel with it now. ‘So, Mandy, what’s the plan for getting off that thing?’