He paused for a moment, his breath catching at the sight.
The immense cylinder into which he had emerged was three hundred feet long and almost entirely filled the hollowed-out innards of the World War Two-era destroyer. Four metal walkways ran the entire length of it at the top, bottom and to either side, suspended by metal struts to the multi-faceted walls of the particle accelerator. Lines of thick tubes, currently glowing a dull, suffused bluish tinge lined the sides also, terminating at a large red and blue disk at the bow of the ship which itself was injected with dozens of cables and antennas.
He had the sudden sense of being on some alien planet, an unwelcoming realm into which he had trespassed.
Indeed, he supposed he had.
Half way down the aft bulkhead, the control room was little more than a single-story box, about ten feet high but extending into a conical tip about thirty feet long. The tip itself was attached to numerous high-tech antennas and emitting diodes.
A sudden loud clang startled him and he wheeled about to see that the hatch through which he had just come had slammed shut. The mechanical clunk of large bolts electronically sealing echoed through the cavernous space.
For a moment, he felt trapped and toyed with the idea of climbing back up the ladder, but then he focussed his thoughts, set his resolve and headed off down the catwalk to the control room.
“All access hatches are sealed,” one of the technicians reported.
Lawrence Gibbs glanced at Doctor Tobias. Small, bald and bespectacled, Tobias was everything he expected him to be. Reserved and quiet, there was no doubting his genius. For the last thirty years he had been involved with Phoenix, struggling to use constantly developing technology to put the theory of science’s greatest minds into practice. Now, his lovechild was about to be born, one of the greatest moments in history was developing, and still he hunched over the screen of his quantum computer, watching the readouts with a meticulous and oh-so-unexcitable demeanour.
“Okay,” he replied. “Bring the accelerator online. Lock the source material into position—”
“Doctor,” the technician interrupted. “The particle accelerator’s failsafe is preventing the start-up sequence.” He paused. “It’s detecting an unexpected heat signature on the upper walkway.”
“What?” Tobias frowned.
“What’s going on?” Gibbs demanded. By order of the president, this was his project, his baby. He wanted to be in-the-know every step of the way.
Tobias held up a hand to silence him as he accessed the technician’s readings. He brought the surveillance cameras up on the position of the heat signature and gasped when he saw that it was a human heat signature.
A human that Gibbs recognised all too well.
“King,” he snarled.
Raine and King could wait, Alex Langley had decided.
He limped up the stairwell, the agony of his broken ankle shooting white-hot fire up his leg and almost overloading his nervous system. After every few steps, he had to pause to catch his breath before it was snatched away again the moment he placed his foot back down.
Bill and Godfrey were both dead. Godfrey had passed out from the pain and blood loss and never woken back up. Bill had struggled on, determinedly clinging to life until Langley had put him out of his misery with a bullet to the head.
For a moment, he had considered pursuing King, certain that the archaeologist intended on using the Moon Mask to rescue his lost fiancé. Instead, he had decided to continue with his original plan. Whether it was King or Gibbs, someone was going to try to use the mask. The best thing he could do was stick to the plan, sink the ship and prevent anyone from messing with the timeline.
He made it to another landing and paused, catching his breath. When no further resistance was met from the marines, he proceeded up the next flight, slowly but surely heading for the bridge.
“Benny, answer me,” Raine called angrily into his radio. “Where the hell are you?”
Only static answered him. He upped his pace, running faster through the maze of corridors, swinging expertly around corners with his M1911 handgun held out before him. The corridors were empty, devoid of life. He wondered if the entire contingent of marines was dead. If so, other than the Eldridge’s skeleton crew, the only resistance he would meet would be from Gibbs’ team. Unfortunately, Gibbs’ team was the worst kind of resistance to meet.
He spun around the next corner, handgun aimed straight ahead of him. At the far end of the dull, featureless corridor a door was open. It was the only open door he had seen on his journey through the ship. He grinned.
“Gotcha.”
He ran to the door and hauled himself through it, onto the ladder inside and descended quickly, landing on top of a hatch. He tried to turn the wheel to unlock it but it wouldn’t shift an inch.
Just then, from below, muffled by the hatch, he heard the unmistakable crack of gunfire.
“No!” Doctor Tobias snapped at Gibbs as he heard the gunfire. “I told you, no guns! The chemicals in those pipes are highly volatile. They could blow us all to hell.”
“Lake, Garcia,” Gibbs snapped into his radio. “No firearms.”
“Sir?” Lake’s voice came back through his ear piece.
“Knives only.”
There was a pause, then both Lake and Garcia confirmed their orders. Gibbs glanced at O’Rourke who remained silent and still behind him. He couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his harsh glare and O’Rourke knew it. Gibbs was certain that his next in command had helped King to survive certain death. If King was here, he knew, Raine wouldn’t be far behind.
Shifting his eyes from the traitor, resigning himself to questioning him later, he turned and stared out through the control room window, up at the walkway above where the tiny figures of Lake and Garcia advanced on King.
Two highly trained Special Operations Group soldiers in a knife-fight with a geeky archaeologist would finish him off in moments he knew, and then they could proceed with the experiment.
King watched them coming, moving towards him with knives drawn. They were vicious looking weapons, each blade ten inches long, one edge razor-sharp, the other serrated like a shark’s jaw. He remembered Bill using one just like it to slice Sid’s face and the thought of her sent new jolts of agony coursing through him.
She was dead because of him. But now, he was in reach of her again. He could save her!
He whipped his P-90 up and aimed at the soldiers.
“Wouldn’t do that, Doc,” Garcia said, his voice surprisingly airy considering the situation. “One stray bullet and you’ll detonate this entire chamber, kill us all and destroy your chances of saving Sid.”
Nadia may have fired the bullet, King knew, but Gibbs and his team were just as responsible for Sid’s death. He couldn’t forget the callousness of them hurling her corpse into the shark infested waters to be ripped to shreds. Raine had tried to shield him from the sight but the glimpses he had caught had ripped his soul right alongside her body.
The fact that the operatives had drawn their knives instead of their guns persuaded King that Garcia was speaking the truth. He dropped his rifle to the catwalk, the metallic clang echoing through the cavernous space, and drew his own knife.
His palms were sweating and his hands were trembling, his heart thudding. What was he thinking? What was he hoping to achieve by hurling himself into a knife fight with trained killers. But as Garcia lunged towards him, King surprised himself with his reflex. He dropped his shoulder, allowing the blade to whoosh over his head, then he slammed into the soldier’s midriff in an expert wrestling tackle. The man was thrown over his body, somersaulting through the air and clearing the safely railing at the edge of the catwalk. He screamed in terror, arms cart-wheeling as the realisation of gravity took hold and he dropped down through the enormous chamber. He screamed all the way down until the noise was silenced by a dull thud far below.