Drake rarely prayed, but he threw one out for the people now. A vital wall had weakened. Still, the patients streamed out and away. Still, doctors and nurses and more patients leapt in to help. Smyth came running through with an unconscious older woman in his arms. Lauren deposited a child with a paramedic. At least two doctors were being forced to attend to patients actually inside the lobby that was crumbling all around them. Then, the far side of the lobby collapsed. Debris plumed toward them, a thick cloud. The area had been previously emptied, but that said nothing for where they were now.
Drake scooped up two limping young men and ran them outside, charged back in. A scream brought him around, let him catch a girl before she tumbled onto a jagged pile of plaster. Yorgi bounded and leapt between wreckage, clearing out passages and openings where some imagined they might be safe.
The alarm bells stopped, leaving a torturous, resounding silence in their wake. Then a deep roar and thunder like nothing he’d ever heard sent Drake into overdrive.
The lobby, a later addition to the front of the hospital and not integral, was coming down.
But he’d just seen Dahl plunging back in.
Drake didn’t hesitate, just stormed the sagging door that fronted the main body of the hospital, ducking a rain of wreckage. A lone doctor staggered past him, bleeding from the ear and scooped up by Smyth. A nurse, clothing smudged and stained, rested with her head against the door jamb. Drake eased her through and pointed her in the right direction. Few words were spoken as the selfless helped the needy to safety. Drake stopped dead in a frozen heart-rending torment as a handful of doctors and nurses hurried past, carrying and shielding babies between them. Drake felt agony, fury and a stirring sadness. He waited and then moved on, deeper into the hallways.
“Dahl!”
Then it came; the collapse of something, possibly everything. Without chance to gauge how destructive this latest shockwave would be, Drake watched the ceiling slump down to within an inch of his head. Metal fittings swung to and fro, one catching him across the skull.
Drake merely ducked and forged on.
Alicia shouted as she emerged at his back. “What’s going on?”
“Dahl,” Drake answered as if that explained everything.
It did.
The Mad Swede exploded into view, bellowing for adrenalin and pushing a hospital bed complete with terrified patient at full speed. He took the corner like a pro, ducked under debris and then clapped eyes on Drake.
“Run!” he cried.
Drake turned to Alicia. “Leg it!” he yelled.
Alicia spun to a newly appeared Hayden. “Fuck!” she screamed.
Masses of rubble slammed down all around them. Drake’s shin shrieked agony as a brick ricocheted off the bone. Dahl clattered along at his back, jolting through the piles, brute force keeping him straight. A wheel stuck, but then came free, a metal spear parted the sheets between the patient’s knees. As Drake turned back he purposely slowed, catching hold of the front of the bed.
Together.
He hauled, Dahl pushed. They hit the lobby and turned, found the front exit blocked by people and rubble. Debris surged down behind them. Hayden leapt for a window, cut and bleeding, leapt out and flapped her hands. Drake heaved on the bed and aimed for it. Alicia grabbed a fallen paramedic and threw him over her shoulder. Dahl pushed with every sinew, every ounce of will, and the last portions of his strength.
Drake stumbled as an entire glass pane fell from the windowed roof and shattered by his left leg. Shards made him wince. Dahl was going too fast. They were going to…
From the corner of his eyes, he saw the rest of the team. Kinimaka and Kenzie, Mai and Smyth, Yorgi and Lauren, all still inside and rushing to help. His heart leapt. Together, they heaved the bed and the patient over the last hurdle, and managed to feed everything through the window. Doctors were already at Hayden’s side even as wreckage poured over their legs.
Drake turned. The world was going black.
They raced for windows. Without pause they leapt head-first into an unknown fate with sheer hope and the greatest optimism. Drake landed and rolled, scraped and cut by brick and concrete and a dozen other materials. He came back up with eyes to left and right, counting his friends, looking back at the great, fragile edifice.
Kinimaka stood at a window, face staring out. The opening was too small.
Above him the entire building wilted.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
As fates balanced on a razor’s edge, as life’s patina slipped between shiny and dull, as a million unfulfilled moments and dreams passed through countless imaginations, the lofty face of the hospital building ceased its gradual slippage. Maybe a load-bearing wall held up, or a critical beam took extra weight, but the destructive process halted.
Already, ten pairs of legs were sprinting toward it.
Dahl was last, exhausted, but Hayden was at the front, stretching every sinew as she reached out for the Hawaiian. Together, they hauled him through a larger gap, Drake and Alicia and Kenzie still peering within to triple-check no one was still inside. In moments they retreated to the parking lot and then a grass bank that rose up around the boundary. Everyone collapsed onto their backs.
“We good?” Drake panted. “Anything serious?”
“Nothing a shower and a bag of painkillers won’t cure.” Dahl was already sitting up and surveying the chaotic scene. “It looks like a battle zone down there. Surgeons operating between crashed cars.” He hung his head. “I do hope we didn’t help this occur.”
“Not a chance,” Drake said. “Webb brought Amari out and with that came the insanity.”
Lauren sat up. “And we don’t know the outcome of it all.”
“Nor will we for some time,” Dahl responded.
“On the far worse, unimaginable side of all that, stands another possibility,” Hayden said. “That Webb escaped, Amari knows it, and they’re now headed for the final showdown. After this—” she looked at the wreckage “—I can’t imagine what’s next.”
The team worked on restoring their depleted reserves as they watched swarms of medics, doctors and nurses arriving to assist. Police cars motored up and filled the highways. Ambulances sped along and helicopters began to arrive. The spectacle was both uplifting at the sight of human strength and kindness, and depressing that so much effort — if not needed at the whim of a lunatic — could move mountains elsewhere.
Hayden made calls to Argento and DC. Though they knew of the catastrophe they knew little else. Eckernförde, whilst not exactly secluded, was small enough to lack a CCTV network and other security mechanisms. Drake believed Amari would not let it end there. Most likely he’d assume Webb had survived, especially since they were at the end of the quest now. The very last clue led directly to the Philosopher’s Stone, the secret of eternal life, invisibility and teleportation. Webb and Amari were both convinced it was real, and that made it real for the SPEAR team. More than anything, it was the individuals they were chasing. The rest of it was just a flame in a hurricane.
Of course, the Arab needed tracking down. Their job was far from over, even if Webb did lie beneath the rubble.
“Amari?” Dahl said.
Hayden dipped her head. “More than anything,” she said. “But the penultimate clue was here. Now we don’t know anything. I wonder if even he does.”