Robin took a deep breath, shook her reeling head, crawled sideways and pulled herself up on the far-side banister. Using it as a crutch to support her damaged leg, she staggered on upwards once again. She was surrounded by the increasingly overpowering sounds of timbers groaning and shattering, light fittings dropping and smashing, concrete beginning to fracture, marble and tile to shatter. Rain beat against those few windows which had not broken. Water cascaded everywhere. And in the background, reverberating in a bass note so deep it could be felt as well as heard, the relentless mudslide sought to tear the building apart and bury it.
Robin reached level ten and looked around, still dazed. At the far end of a corridor, the major was just pushing his father up into a staircase that was clearly so narrow they needed to take it one at a time. ‘Major!’ Robin bellowed. But as she spoke, the whole level slammed down by more than a metre, as though the top half of level nine had just vanished. The major disappeared. Robin fell forward and just had the presence of mind to land with all of her weight on her undamaged knee. She looked around for something to support her. And there, just within reach, was a portable commode consisting of a chamber pot on a metal frame that made a rudimentary chair. It was about the same height as a Zimmer frame. She grabbed it, pulled herself stiffly and unsteadily on to her feet, put as much of her weight on it as she could and began to shuffle forward. ‘You’re a robin,’ she said bitterly to herself. ‘Pity you can’t bloody fly.’ Suddenly the mudslide which had been trying to kill her decided to help her. The corridor leaned sideways so that she and her makeshift walker were abruptly proceeding downhill. It was a big help, and she arrived at the door through which the major had vanished just in time to see him step out of a doorway at the top of a narrow flight of steps that clearly led to the roof.
Robin let go of the lifesaving commode and pushed herself into the narrow stairwell. Because of the angle of the building, she was able to put most of her weight on her right shoulder and pull herself upwards without having to rely on her damaged knee. But the increasing angle of the stairwell, though it was helping her, also made it brutally obvious that the hospital was falling over increasingly rapidly. Richard’s madcap scheme to get people off the roof was likely to be history now. The hospital’s top, like the stairwell leading up to it, would be falling sideways increasingly rapidly. Robin simply could not believe that the beautiful dirigible would still be close enough to help the last survivors with the hospital beginning to come apart beneath her.
And yet Robin refused to give up hope; simply would not stop. ‘“The impossible we perform at once,”’ she quoted from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer, saying the words aloud, unable to hear them among the sounds of the dying hospital. ‘“Miracles take a little longer …”’ Icy water dashed into her face, shocking her into full wakefulness. The doorway stood in front of her like a still from a German Expressionist film where everything was shot at odd angles. She pushed herself up through the last few steps and fell out of the doorway on to the roof. The rain that had woken her now tried to knock her senseless again, pounding down on her as forcefully as the back of Miguel-Angel’s skull. She began to pull herself up but her knee gave out. ‘Where’s your commode when you really need it?’ she asked herself dreamily, looking around. The whole rooftop was sloping downhill at an increasing angle. Halfway down the slope, the nose of the massive dirigible Dragon Dream miraculously still nestled against the asphalt roofing. There was even a ramp leading up into an open hold and, as Robin watched, the Guerreros staggered up it into the dry security of the huge airship’s interior. Helping them to safety were the familiar figures of Richard and Dr Potosi.
Robin pulled herself up once more and stood, like Long John Silver, one-legged but lacking a crutch. The fictional pirate — a childhood hero of hers — had been able to move quite easily on one leg, and it occurred to her that she might simply hop to safety. But the slope of the roof fooled her once more and she fell forward on the first attempt, skinning her hands on the rough roofing. Increasingly wildly, she rolled over and sat up, trying to work out whether she could skid down the slope like a child on a playground slide. But the roughness of the asphalt made any hope of it impossible. The roof lurched again. Dragon Dream moved several metres closer, keeping in contact with the increasing incline. ‘Help!’ she screamed at last. ‘Richard! Help!’ But Richard was in close conference with Major Guerrero, not that he could have heard her over the sounds of the rain, the flood, the mudslide and the destruction of the building. It was at this point that she began to understand the bitter truth: she was going to die with the hospital. But still she would not give up. With her bad leg sticking straight out behind her, she began to crawl forward on all threes. But this too was spoiled by the slope. She had moved perhaps two metres before she crashed forward, skinning her already battered forehead. She rolled over and sat up, her mind racing, feeling the roof beginning to tilt more rapidly, like a sinking ship going into its final death-dive.
Then she looked up and saw Richard running across the slope towards her. For an instant, she thought Dragon Dream was at last lifting off behind him. But then she realized that the airship was not lifting. The pilot was holding it hovering exactly in place. The hospital was finally falling. ‘Go back!’ she yelled. ‘It’s too late! Richard, go back!’ But still he pounded towards her, sure-footed in spite of the increasing unsteadiness of the toppling roof. She closed her eyes, feeling hot tears burning on her cheeks amid the numbing chill of the downpour. But what about the twins? She thought numbly. Desperately. What will the twins do if we both die here?
‘Here we go, old girl,’ came Richard’s voice, deep and calm, as always. She opened her eyes and he was standing immediately in front of her, his blue eyes dazzling in the dullness of the stormy afternoon. He must have jumped out of Dragon Dream and dashed across the roof to be with her in extremis, she thought. He stooped and caught her under the arms, pulling her erect and holding her in the tightest bear hug she had ever experienced, and which she returned with interest, for it was the last embrace they would ever share, she realized. He was too late. The roof gave way and they were both falling as the hospital was swept under the countless tons of mud that had once been Nic Greenbaum’s lovely Dahlia Blanca estate. Robin had a moment of dream-like weightlessness, during which she thought that, after all they had been through, it was strangely appropriate that they should die in each other’s arms. She opened her eyes and looked over his shoulder at the huge forepeak of Dragon Dream hanging in the sky seemingly just above them. So close, she thought, and yet so far.
Then their wild tumble was brought up short with a jerk that nearly tore her arms out of their sockets, and she realized that Richard was joined to the massive dirigible by a long line clipped to a safety harness. Wrapped around each other in an unbreakable embrace, they swung safely above the rearing waves of the mudslide as it rolled over the ruin of the hospital and on down the hill. ‘A trick I learned from a bloke named Raoul,’ said Richard. ‘He used to jump out of choppers into stormy seas for a living.’