“Russians?” he stammered, staring first at me and then at Mike, who, I noticed stifled a grin and turned away.
“You come with me, we have to secure your data before we leave this place,” I said, dragging him to his feet and pulling him after me.
I left Mike firing his handgun up the shaft. Those above responded in kind, and we ran back down the stairs as ricochets pinged off the rocks.
Two men had been posted at the bottom, but weren’t expecting us. I shot both before they were even aware I was there. I grabbed an AK47 and holstered my handgun. Another man was coming out of a room carrying what appeared to be a hard drive. I shot him in the knee and managed to catch the hard drive before it hit the ground. The wounded man pawed at a holster on his belt so I shot him between the eyes.
Standing vomited onto the floor.
“Professor, you have time for that later, what more do we need and how do we defuse the bomb?”
“I don’t know, I can’t think.”
“If you don’t hurry up, we will be dead!”
“The defence system is in the control room at the end. My computer is in the main test chamber.”
“Show me!” I said, pushing him along the corridor.
As we ran down the corridor, I heard an almighty explosion behind us, in the stairwell in which we’d left Mike. I felt sad, as there was another good man down. I also felt anger towards this snivelling academic, who was responsible for all this shit.
As we approached the control room, two men came out and fired their weapons. Standing lurched and made a little cry, falling forward in the corridor, so I knew he’d been shot. I managed to take down both men, and kicked the closing door open and I rolled down, slithering behind a metal cabinet. I heard several shots slam into my cover, so I pulled a pin from my last grenade and lobbed it over the top towards the shooter. The explosion shook the entire room, but silenced whoever was shooting at me.
Risking a quick peek, I saw two men down, shredded by the grenade. The room was now clear, so I returned and dragged a whimpering and bleeding professor into the room with me. He had a hole in his shoulder. It wasn’t bleeding badly, but he was very white and going into shock. I checked and saw a neat hole at the back, so it had gone right through. He’d live.
“You’ll live. Now, the bomb, how do we defuse it?” I said.
“You can’t. Once it’s set, there’s no way you can stop it.”
“How does the count-down work?”
“I have no idea, that wasn’t my department.”
“Is it on this computer?” I asked, indicating the main-frame in the corner, hopefully unscathed by the grenade and bullets. A single screen displayed the fact that we now had eight minutes, twelve seconds, and eleven, and ten.
“Yes, I suppose so, all the defence system is on there.”
“So what happens if we switch it off?”
“I don’t know, the bomb might detonate prematurely, I suppose.”
“Or, it might just reboot the system. Either way, too many people have died over this damn device of yours, so if we die, at least Haffir and the device go with us.”
“You’ll kill us!” he whined, wincing with pain as he moved.
“Possibly, but, hey, we’re expendable,” I said, pulling the plug out of the wall.
All the lights went out, flickered, and then came on again. There was no explosion.
“Right, where’s your computer?” I asked, almost forgetting the Russian accent.
“I can’t move,” he whimpered.
I pointed my gun at his head.
“Professor, I don’t care if you live or die, so, you make up your mind, yes?”
He pointed at the door down the corridor.
“There, in there.”
“Come!” I said, pushing him out. Another small explosion echoed from the stairwell, followed by several bursts of automatic weapons. I grinned, as that meant that Mike was possibly still alive.
The door was locked, so using my gun, I shot around the lock and booted the door in.
“Go, get it!”
He stumbled over to a desk and grabbed a laptop. Then he swayed, almost falling. I held him up, taking the computer and slipping it into a holdall and slung it over my shoulder.
“I’m dying!” he moaned.
“No, you’re not. Here, let me look,” I said, ripping his shirt open and staring at the wound. It was bleeding a bit more energetically, so I looked round the room. There was a first aid box over the sink, so I opened it, slapped two dressings on the professor’s holes and bound them up with a length of bandage.
“Now, you’re fixed, come, we go!”
I pulled him after me and cautiously looked round the door into the corridor. I saw some men entering the corridor from the other stairwell, so I fired at them, making them retreat. It was back to the original stairs, where we’d left Mike.
“Is there another way up?” I asked hopefully?
“No.”
Watching my rear, the men tried to enter the corridor again, so I fired my last burst. The gun was empty, leaving me with just a handgun.
We made it to the stairwell. I glanced up, as Standing slithered to the ground, and sat there crying like a baby.
There were several casualties lying about, a couple I’d put down, but the others must have been due to Mike. He wasn’t among them, but I did manage to find another AK47 with a couple of full magazines.
“Mike?”
“Here, next floor up.”
Dragging Standing upright, I forced him up the stairs in front of me. I found Mike crouched on the landing, looking pale. I saw some blood seeping darkly from a wound on his thigh.
“Want me to look at that?” I said.
“Uhuh, not yet. Got the data?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve got something, but I think I stopped the bomb.”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
I stared up the shaft, it was ominously silent.
“Where’ve they gone?” I asked.
“Beats me, unless they don’t know you’ve stopped the clock.”
I glanced at my watch. If the clock had been still going, we’d have seven seconds left.
I watched my second hand sweep round for ten seconds.
“They’ll twig any moment, come on!” I said, racing up the stairs, two at a time. I heard Mike drag Standing and follow me. Neither were in any condition to run anywhere.
I was in a muck sweat as I reached the top, without encountering any opposition. I burst into the greyish daylight, expecting to face the enemy, but found the place deserted. I glanced up and saw the helicopter climbing slowly, a little way off. By the way it moved, I guessed it was over-laden. Peering out to sea, I saw the trawler, with men on every inch of deck, rolling and pitching in the heavy swell.
There was no way off this damn rock now.
Returning to the stairwell, I found Mike collapsed one flight from the top. Standing was semi-conscious.
“Sorry, babe, leg gave out.”
“No problem, let’s get you up, then I’ll come back for this bastard.”
With one arm over my shoulder, I half carried the American up to daylight, leaving him propped against a rock while I returned for Standing. It took all my strength to carry him up the flight, so I was completely knackered when I flopped down next to Mike, with the unconscious Standing lying in a puddle a few feet away.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now I see to your leg, you dumb nut,” I said, cutting open his pants.
It wasn’t a bullet wound, but some shrapnel. It looked nasty. I knew enough to leave the metal in, just to plug the wound. I padded it and bound it as best as I could with what I had, which wasn’t much. Put it this way, Standing didn’t need his jacket or shirt.
“I’ll go look for a boat,” I said, and stood up.
We both heard it at the same time, an aircraft.
At first, I thought it was the helicopter coming back, but then recognised it as a jet. The RAF fighter flew over our heads, banking as it turned. I then saw another flying towards the helicopter, which was by now almost a mile out. There was a brief while flume followed by an explosion as the helicopter disintegrated.