It was agonizingly slow. One foot, two feet, a yard. Bloody bubbles frothed in the back of his throat. His shirt and coat were sodden with blood and acted like a dragline, slowing him still further. Halfway to the far wall he stopped briefly when faintness threatened to engulf him again. But he could not stop for long; if he did, he knew he would never start again. Once more, he planted his feet, forced himself a few inches at a time across the floor.
Now at last his head bumped against the far wall. With a sob of pain, he forced his gaze upward. Just above were the fat ropes of Semtex, four in all, pressed against the metal bulkhead in parallel lines. Into each had been set a detonator.
Focusing his strength, Corbett lifted an arm, fumbled for the nearest detonator, and plucked it from the shaped charge. Searing pain filled his chest again and he fell back, gasping. He could hear blood dripping from his elbow and wrist onto the bare floor.
From his supine position he examined the detonator. He could dimly make out a battery, a manual timer, two thin plates of metal separated by foil, a coil of optical fiber. Everything was miniaturized. He knew only a little about explosive ordnance but it looked like a long-period-delay "slapper." When the timer went off, the foil would be exploded electrically, and the plates would deliver the initial shock to the charge.
He placed the detonator as gently as possible on the floor. Ten minutes, she'd said; he figured he had maybe four or five left.
Three detonators to go.
Marshaling his strength, he lifted his arm again, strained for the next detonator, plucked it free-careful not to accidentally readjust its timer-and fell heavily back again.
This time the pain was much worse and he almost slipped into unconsciousness. The blood boiled in his throat and he choked and coughed. A minute passed while he recovered enough strength to continue.
The third shaped charge was out of reach. Digging in his heels once again, he pushed himself along the floor until he was near. Then he looped his hand upward a third time, pulled the detonator free, swung it back to the floor.
The pain was now so intense he did not think he could move to the fourth. He lay in the darkness, struggling to remain conscious, listening to the low murmur of voices. They seemed to be involved in an endless argument over some bit of engineering trivia.
How much time did he have left? A minute? Two?
He wondered where, exactly, Bishop was. No doubt she was crouched behind some piece of machinery, listening impatiently to the chitchat, waiting for the workers to move on so she could safely escape.
Why hadn't she just shot them? The gun was silenced. There could be only one reason: the hybrid weapon had a small magazine, maybe just two rounds. And she couldn't run past them; that would give the game away. She still had a chance to escape. But not if two more people took up the hue and cry…
No. She wouldn't run past them. She'd retreat to the Semtex and readjust the timers on the detonators, buy herself some more time.
He realized he'd been too preoccupied with his task, too overwhelmed by pain, to grasp this before. She'd be back-and at any moment.
Desperation gave Corbett renewed conviction. With his last reserves of energy he swung his arm up one more time, his hand closing over the fourth and last detonator.
Just as he did so, a shape appeared in the hatchway to the second compartment, silhouetted in deep black relief. Catching sight of him, she gave a muttered curse and leapt inward.
Corbett jerked in surprise and dismay. As he did so, his fingers pinched together involuntarily; there was a crackling sound and a tiny puff of smoke from the detonator-a terrible suspension of time that lasted a millisecond, yet that to Corbett seemed to go on and on and on-and then, with an unimaginably violent scream, the universe came apart in an apocalypse of fire and steel. And water.
50
"Outer doors closed," a voice droned over the speaker system. "Pressure seal activated. Marble Three in the pipeline. Estimated time to dig interface: nineteen minutes, thirty seconds."
From a far corner, Peter Crane watched in frustrated rage as the huge robotic clamp-now empty of its burden-swung away from the water lock and back to its resting position. While the Marble was being painstakingly sealed, then lowered through the lock, he'd looked around at the Drilling Complex staff, hunting for a sympathetic glance, a furtive nod, anything that might signal a potential accomplice. But there had been none: the engineers, technicians, and support staff were already resuming their normal duties, busying themselves with the familiar motions of a dig session in progress. Nobody seemed to notice he was there.
Except for the brace of marines who stood at his shoulders. The all clear sounded, and one of them nudged him. "All right, Doctor. Let's move out."
As they walked toward the doors that led into the corridors of deck 1, a sense of unreality settled over Crane. Surely this was all a dream. It certainly had all the skewed, misshapen logic of a dream. Was he really being marched to the brig by two armed marines? Were they really still digging toward some terrible retribution? Had Korolis really taken over military command of the Facility?
Korolis…
"You don't want to do this," he said in a low voice to the marines. Their response was to pull open the double doors, escort him through.
"It's not the admiral who's unfit for command," he went on as they marched down the corridor. "It's Commander Korolis."
No answer.
"You see the pallor of his skin? The hyperhidrosis-excessive sweating? He's got the sickness that's going around. I'm a doctor; I'm trained to notice these things."
Ahead, the corridor forked. One of the marines nudged Crane's shoulder with his rifle butt. "Turn right."
"Since I've arrived at the Facility, I've seen many cases. Korolis is a classic presentation."
"You'll be better off if you button your lip," the marine said.
Crane glanced at the pale red walls, the closed laboratory doors. His thoughts returned to the other forced march he'd made: the one with Spartan, when he'd been processed and cleared for the classified sector. At the time, he hadn't known where he was being taken. This time it was different. The sense of unreality grew stronger.
"I was in the military, too," he said. "You're soldiers, you've taken an oath to serve your country. Korolis is a dangerous and unstable man. By taking orders from him, what you're doing is no better than-"
The rifle butt slammed into his shoulder, much more violently this time. Crane sprawled onto his knees, neck snapping forward painfully.
"Take it easy, Hoskins," the second marine said gruffly.
"I'm tired of his mouth," Hoskins said.
Crane picked himself up and wiped his hands, staring at Hoskins through narrowed eyes. His shoulder blade throbbed from the impact.
Hoskins nodded with the barrel of his gun. "Get moving."
They continued down the corridor, made a left. Ahead lay the elevator. They approached it and Hoskins pressed the up button. Crane opened his mouth to reason with them again, thought better of it. Maybe the brig guards would listen to reason…
With a low chime, the elevator door slid open.
At the same moment, a tremendous boom came from somewhere far overhead. The entire Facility seemed to briefly rise off its footings. The lights dimmed, brightened, dimmed again. There was a secondary explosion that shook the installation as violently as a dog might shake a rat. With an ear-splitting shriek, a piece of gray metal ducting fell from the ceiling, pinning Hoskins to the floor.
Crane acted without conscious thought. He gave the second marine a quick, disabling downward kick to the knee, then dove headlong into the elevator, pressing the floor buttons indiscriminately. His lab coat tore against the metal grille and his cell phone was knocked from its clip, skittering away across the floor.