Chapter Forty-eight
Angus heard the click of silverbug feet somewhere above him and madness started to creep over his brain. They were here. Here in the darkness. Closing in on him. Preparing to jump on his body and cut him to shreds.
Was that a light? He thought he imagined it at first. A light. Coming up the tunnel. A light bouncing with the regularity of someone running. God had heard his call! God had answered him! Rescue was at hand!
The light moved forward. He peered closer, fighting down hysterical laughter. He didn't know who it was, but it didn't look like Kayla. The light filled the tunnel, and suddenly Angus saw his savior.
His heart and soul shrank to a useless little puddle.
O'Doyle stood tall, smiling down, Lybrand draped over his shoulders like a dead deer.
"Hello, coward,” O'Doyle said. “I was hoping I'd run into you again."
Connell dashed down the riverbank, skirting rocks, boulders, silverbugs and useless chunks of hull that had fallen away from the towering alien ruin. The misty air caught beams of artificial blue sun pouring down from above, separating light and shadow with clearly definable boundaries. He had a good head start, but she'd catch him soon unless he could slip into the ship's depths and possibly lose her there.
A large passage into the ship's interior opened up chasm-like on his left, no doubt once serving a major thoroughfare for the vessel's internal traffic. He turned sharply and dove for the entrance just as ricocheting bullets erupted in a spray behind him, ringing off the rocks and platinum walls and filling the area with unpredictable, bouncing death. Connell screamed involuntarily as he hit the ground, fear churning in his stomach.
He scrambled to his feet, ready to rush headlong into the dark recesses of the dungeon-like ship. It was his only chance to survive for a few minutes longer. He placed all his weight on his left leg as he rose — and finally the ravaged knee gave out with a snap and a blaring spark of pain.
Connell fell to his back, face twisted into a grimace not only of agony, but also defeat, frustration, and fear. He clutched his knee with both hands. He felt the K-Bar knife handle digging into his back as he tried to rise.
Veronica reread the instruction pictures for the tenth time. After the sequence was completed, all she had to do was push one last button. One last button to start the orb's long trip to the shaft bottom. Veronica estimated the orb's descent would over an hour. Once at the bottom, the orb would detonate and rip the mountain to pieces.
If she could make it across the river and move quickly enough up the Linus Highway, she could make it out alive. But that was a big “if.” If she dropped the orb, her chances for survival were slim indeed. That didn't matter — she knew what she had to do.
Her blood chilled in her body; she shivered despite the heat as she started the sequence. With smooth, confident movements, she finished the process in less than a minute. Breath came slowly, the pit of her stomach tightened as she held her finger over the final button. One push to lower the reflective orb. One push.
Veronica's mind heard a noise behind her, the ring of spring-loaded metal. She turned quickly. Three silverbugs — long, evil blades sticking from their wedge-shaped heads — slowly closed in on her with the jittery movements of a spider moving toward a web-ensnared victim.
They were between her and the river. She'd seen no other exits in the cathedralesque room. They moved in, their spindly legs and split-clawed feet clicking menacingly on the stone floor.
Chapter Forty-nine
O'Doyle whistled in amazement when he unwrapped the wire from Angus's wrists. The little man's right hand was mangled, each knuckle hugely swollen and bloody. Angus cried out each time O'Doyle brushed the knuckles. He brushed them a few more times than necessary.
Once unwrapped, Angus scooted to the wall, his back against the stone, his ass on the dirt, looking up at O'Doyle. “Are you going to kill me?"
"That's up to you,” O'Doyle said. “I need your KoolSuit. I can either take it off your dead body or you can take it off for me."
"You can't take my suit… I'll die."
"Maybe, maybe not,” O'Doyle said calmly. “You'll probably reach the surface if you're tough enough. Anyway, I don't care if you make it or not. You have twenty seconds to take that suit off or I kill you right now."
"But you can't leave me naked down here—"
"Twenty… nineteen… eighteen…"
Angus's eyes flared with renewed panic and he raced to remove the suit with his good hand. He had it off before O'Doyle reached five.
"Now turn around,” O'Doyle said.
Angus started to whimper and cry, his voice a high-pitched whine. “You can't kill me now!” Sweat was already pouring out of his body. “I did what you said."
"Turn the fuck around!"
Angus instantly turned and faced the wall, waiting for a knife to punch into his skull or heart or throat.
"You stay there,” O'Doyle said. “Don't turn around until I tell you to.” He grabbed the limp KoolSuit and walked over to Lybrand. He started to remove her shredded suit, then simply ripped it off of her.
"It isn't really a good time for that, is it?” Lybrand said weakly. Open blisters covered her face. She smiled through dry, deeply cracked lips, her eyes half-lidded with delirium.
"Hold on, baby,” O'Doyle said as he tossed away the scraps of her ravaged KoolSuit. “Just hold on a few minutes longer."
Kayla turned the corner, a glittering shape of doom silhouetted by the canyon's misty light, the Galil clutched in her hand. Connell watched in helpless fear as she approached. Without a word, she lowered her weapon and squeezed off a single round into his upraised shin. The bullet shattered his fibia, ricocheted off the tibia and erupted out the backside of his leg, taking much of his calf muscle with it in a cloud of chunky red.
Pain like nothing he'd ever experienced filled his mind. He shrieked in agony — his hands moving from the knee to the already blood-soaked leg.
"The old bum-knee trick?” Kayla asked as she took a few more limping steps forward, gun still leveled at Connell. “Or is that old car-accident injury flaring up again? Either way, Connell, I'm not falling for it. We can do this two ways. Are you listening?"
Connell stifled his scream and blinked back the tears pouring from his eyes. He looked up at Kayla. His hands still squeezed tightly around the bullet wound — both front and back — trying to stop the torrent of blood that dripped from the raised leg down his thigh and onto his groin. He managed a nod.
"Good, good,” Kayla said, her voice ringing with admiration. “Takes a bullet in the leg and can still listen. You're tougher than I thought, Connell. I'll give you that much."
"Fuck you,” Connell said through a clenched-tooth sneer. “Let's get this over with."
"In a hurry to die, Connell?” She kept a good six feet of distance between them, the gun lowered at his chest, her finger firmly on the trigger. The canyon's half-light barely filtered into the huge hallway, casting the scene in a surreal twilight. “Don't be in such a rush."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm afraid you're not my only client. I thought I could sell the info about your platinum mine for a tidy sum. But since I saw the attack on the camp, all of this—” she waved her free hand around and behind her to indicate the ship, “—all of this is going to get me back in the NSA."