Wham. Lola grabs the jacket in his left hand. She might be slight, but she’s strong as steel. She pulls on the jacket and yanks him up and into the Loach.
‘Hold on!’ Corey tips the Loach hard right.
‘Whoa, momma!’ Judd clambers into the back seat as the chopper drops into a horrendously steep spiral dive, down and down and down. It plunges into the smoke layer.
And suddenly it’s upright again. Nobody says a word as they just catch their breath.
A moment passes.
Corey glances back at Judd, gestures for him to put on his headset, which the astronaut does. ‘Yep?’
‘Never do that again!’
‘Deal.’ Judd claps both of them on the shoulder. ‘Thanks, guys.’
In the Tyrannosaur high above, Bunsen scans the blanket of smoke below, SAM missile in hand as he attempts to locate the yellow Loach. He cannot. He went with the pistol instead of the missile and now believes it was an error.
Enrico’s voice echoes in his ears. ‘Now what?’
‘We continue as planned.’
‘What about the Item? Should we check it?’
‘Unless he had an oxy-welder back there there’s nothing he could have done to it. What’s our ETA?’
‘Six minutes.’
‘Good. Let’s ice this cake and go home.’
41
The Loach cuts through the haze as the setting sun turns the world an eerie orange-purple.
Lola pats the dog beside her then turns to Judd. ‘So, it sounds like they did the same thing at the West Pico and Moreno High School. Injected something into the oil wells.’
Judd nods. ‘But what? And why?’
‘Could they be explosives?’
Judd’s unsure. ‘Maybe, but you’d think that bomb would be enough.’
Corey has a thought. ‘Are those wells linked in some way? I mean, are they pumping oil from the same field or something?’
Lola shakes her head. ‘Don’t think so. They’re too far apart.’ She thinks about it and talks to herself in a low voice, though Judd and Corey can still hear her through their headsets. ‘Moreno High and West Pico and La Brea. What do they have in common?’ She absently looks at Spike’s back and the splotches of blue that spot his white coat. She points at one. ‘Moreno High.’ Then another. ‘West Pico.’ Then a third. ‘La Brea.’ She draws a line to link the three then studies it — then stops dead. ‘Oh, fuck!’
Judd leans forward. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
She pulls out her iPhone and works the screen, launches the web browser, taps letters into the search engine.
Corey watches. ‘Everything okay — ?’
‘Hold on! I gotta check something.’ She stares at the screen, waits for the browser page to refresh. It takes an age. ‘Come on!’
It refreshes.
She studies the screen — then pulls in a deep breath.
Corey glances at her. ‘What?’
She looks at him. ‘They’re on a fault line. Moreno High, West Pico and La Brea. They’re all on a fault line.’
‘Which one?’
‘Puente Hills. I think they did inject explosives and they’re going to detonate them — and rupture it.’
The blood drains from Corey’s face. ‘So they can start an earthquake.’
Lola nods as Judd leans forward again. ‘What?’
Corey turns to him. ‘The Puente Hills fault runs right under downtown LA. When it goes it’ll be huge. Some people think it’ll be twice as big as the North Ridge quake.’
Lola nods. ‘It’s true.’
Judd looks at Corey, surprised. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I spent some time studying quakes and fault lines.’
‘Really? Why?’
Corey hesitates — then forces himself to say it: ‘My — my mother died in a quake in ‘97.’
The mood shifts in the cockpit. Lola turns to him. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
Judd puts a hand on his shoulder, concerned for his friend. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’
‘I just — it was a long time ago.’ Corey stares into the distance, lost in the pain of the memory. Jeez. Fifteen years later and it’s still terrible. ‘I wasn’t able to save her — so I…’ He breathes in, shakes it off, pushes it away. ‘Anyway, afterwards I was trying to understand what happened so I read. California is the earthquake capital of the world after all, so I read all about it. It was the only thing that made sense of it.’
Lola places a hand on his and looks at him. Corey can’t meet her gaze, just wants the moment to pass. He changes the subject. ‘Anyway, why would they do something like this?’
Judd thinks it through as he speaks: ‘They know the city will be so busy dealing with the aftermath of a big quake that no one’s going to worry about putting out a single oil fire in the middle of parkland that’s not a threat to anyone.’
Lola takes this in. ‘But why does that matter?’
Judd does his best to work it out. ‘They must need the fire at La Brea to burn for a certain amount of time, so enough infected smoke is pumped into the atmosphere to send the virus global.’
Corey looks at the astronaut. ‘You really think that’s it?’
Judd shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I’m guessing, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? Whatever it is, we have to stop them detonating that bomb.’
Corey nods. ‘You got a plan?’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘Good, ‘cause I got nothing.’ The Australian immediately slows the Loach, searches the roadway beneath them, sees a clear spot and drops the chopper towards it.
Lola watches. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re not coming with us.’
‘Excuse me?’ She’s instantly furious.
‘They have a huge bomb that might set off a huge earthquake. I don’t want you anywhere near the blast radius or the epicentre. It’s too dangerous. I can’t take that risk.’
‘That’s not your decision.’
‘It is when I’m the one flying the chopper.’
‘You wouldn’t even know about this chopper if it wasn’t for me!’
‘True, and I’m grateful — but that doesn’t change anything.’
The Loach settles on the roadway, which is empty except for coils of drifting smoke. Lola glares at Corey for a moment, then steps out of the chopper. Corey looks back at Spike. ‘You too, dog face.’
Spike growls.
‘I don’t care if you’re hungry. Out.’ Then Corey leans close and whispers: ‘Keep an eye on her.’ The dog barks and hops out.
Corey beckons Lola to his side of the cockpit. She has to shout over the whine and thump of the chopper: ‘What?’ She is royally pissed.
Corey shouts too: ‘Stay in this area and take cover. We’ll be back to pick you up soon.’ He nods at Spike. ‘If anything happens — look after him, please.’
She draws in a surprised breath, taken aback by the request. ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’ She steps closer and the anger drains from her face. ‘Be careful.’
Corey grins his crooked grin. ‘She’ll be right. Now stand back.’
Lola steps away and shields her eyes as the Loach spools up and lifts skyward.
Lola pivots, scans her surroundings then looks at Spike. ‘Well, this sucks.’
They’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere. It looks like some kind of semi-industrial wasteland and is dominated by the pungent smell of burned gasoline. Lola doesn’t know where she is and as the place seems to be deserted, she can’t ask anyone. The fact that the streets are empty must mean people now understand that inside is the safest place to be. Trouble is, if the Puente Hills earthquake theory is correct, outside, well away from buildings and structures, will definitely be the best option.