The Resurrection Key
Page 52
A scream, abruptly cut off – and Wu’s fire stopped. The light reeled away from him and clattered to the floor.
His gun fell silent. He dropped the body and staggered forward. The Chinese woman lay on her back behind the bomb. Blood covered her neck and chin. She was not dead, red bubbles swelling and bursting in her mouth with each wheezing breath.
He kicked Wu’s weapon clear of her twitching hand. His furious burst of fire had stitched a line diagonally across her chest, blood flowing from ragged wounds. She would not be alive for long without medical help – which he had no intention of giving.
Instead he crouched to examine the weapon. A display showed the timer ticking down. Below it was an illuminated keypad . . . with every key blank.
‘You’re fucking kidding me,’ he growled. Without knowing the function of each button, all he could do was tap in random codes, running the risk of triggering an anti-tampering system – and detonating the bomb. ‘How do I stop it?’
‘You . . . can’t,’ Wu gurgled.
‘You can, though.’
‘But I will . . . not.’
‘Let’s try again.’ He jammed his thumb into one of her bullet wounds. She screamed, squirming. ‘How do I stop the bomb?’
Her reply came in strained, venomous Mandarin. He didn’t need to understand the language to know she was not being cooperative. He withdrew. She gasped, spitting blood.
The special forces operative had been trained to resist torture, as he had. It was impossible to hold out for ever – sooner or later, everyone broke – but he doubted he could bring her to that point in just twenty-seven minutes, even if she lived that long.
He straightened for another look at the panel, only to wince at the pain in his own chest. At least three rounds had hit him. Their journey through the soldier’s body had robbed them of most of their energy, but they had still had enough force to tear into his flesh. His clothing felt sticky – he was bleeding. He needed to see how badly he had been hurt; he couldn’t afford to pass out halfway through disarming the nuke. He turned towards the light—
Wu stabbed at the keypad. A bleep as her finger hit a button. She tried to enter the last digit – only for Eddie to crack his empty gun against her forehead so hard it slammed her into an unconsciousness from which she would never emerge. ‘That’s for hitting my little girl, you fucking bitch.’
He dropped his weapon and retrieved hers, using its light to examine his wounds. Three bullet hits; two were painful but relatively superficial, buried in his pectoral muscles. The third was deeper, having tunnelled into the flesh at the left side of his chest beneath his arm. Every movement produced a sharp, burning pain.
All he could do for now was endure it. He squeezed his arm against the injury to compress it, grimacing as nerve endings flared, then turned back to the cylinder. Bomb defusal – including various nuclear devices – had been part of his SAS training, and it wasn’t the first time he had been face to face with a live nuke. He still had a large scar from the crude but effective method he’d used to prevent another from exploding: jamming his arm into the explosive-propelled piston acting as a detonator.
He pulled away the canvas. That approach wouldn’t work this time. He didn’t recognise the bomb type, and the drum containing the warhead was sealed by heavy-duty bolts and screws with special star-shaped slots that a normal screwdriver would be unable to turn. The only apparent weak point was the detonator itself, the box on the cylinder’s side. It too was attached by non-standard screws – but there was a narrow gap where its case was not quite flush against the bomb.
He shone the light inside. A skein of wires was visible a couple of inches in, entering a small hole in the bomb casing. Could he cut them?
He took out the Leatherman and unfolded the blades. He was not after the longest this time, but the thinnest. It was just over two inches long – barely enough to reach the wires.
Eddie was all too aware that cutting them could trip a booby trap. But he had little choice. In twenty-six minutes, the bomb would explode no matter what. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Live nuke. No pressure . . .’
He slipped the narrow blade into the gap, wincing at a stab of pain from his chest, then probed deeper. The blade’s tip brushed the wires. There was less than a centimetre of play before the Leatherman’s grip would jam against the bomb casing. Did he have enough room to cut them?
He moved the knife above the wires, then forced it in as far as it would go. If he brought it downwards, it would hopefully catch the skein – and cut through it.
And then he would know if the bomb was booby-trapped. Although possibly only for a millisecond . . .
He took a deep breath, steadying his hand – and brought the blade down.
It caught on the wires. He kept pulling until they drew taut. The moment of truth. Any more pressure would cut the first wire.
He applied it.
A faint metallic tink – and the blade was through.
Eddie exhaled. One down. He pushed again. A second wire was severed, then a third. He was still here, along with everything around him. Keep going—
Another tink – followed immediately by a shrill bleep from the control panel.
‘Shit!’ His hands froze, eyes darting to the display. Still twenty-five minutes to go—
The timer changed. Fifteen minutes.
He didn’t know if it was an anti-tamper system or a glitch. Either way, ten minutes of his safety margin had just vanished. He withdrew the blade—
It brushed the severed wires – shorting them out.
Bleep!
Five minutes remaining.
Eddie stared in horror as the numbers remorselessly ticked down. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’
45
‘Oh my God,’ Nina gasped, staring at the laptop screen. The Chinese qi weapon was locked on to Manhattan. Zan’s doing, it had to be – the Nephilim had asked him to choose a target that would deliver the maximum shock and awe. He had in turn picked the city that both embodied modern human civilisation and represented the cultural capital of America. Even as a traitor to China, he had not selected his own country for destruction.
She collected the key, then moved to where Sidona had sat, stretching her arms so she could both hold the key against the nexus above and reach the crystal within the tracker. Touching the pillar had been almost overwhelming; with the device boosting its power, she had no idea what to expect . . .
Her mind exploded into another dimension.
It felt as if some great force was thrusting her up, up, through the rock and out of Uluru and high into the sky. The entire world spread out before her. She travelled with the flow, surfing the coursing channels of earth energy at the speed of thought. Everything was visible, felt more than seen . . .
Something raw rubbed at her psyche. The tracker. The Chinese scientists had created a machine that could interact with the currents of qi, but there was no grace or finesse to it, the device instead stabbing a hook into the other world to cling on like a parasite. Nina brought her attention to the unpleasant interloper. Could she use it to will the impending disaster to stop?
No. The machine might now be part of the network of energy, but it did not control it. Even with the boost it provided, it could only reshape what was already there.
But she could sense what was there: the ever-building eruption Sidona had brought into being, directing several flows into a single spot as she had in Xinengyuan, but on a far greater scale.
Sidona had built it – so now Nina had to tear it down.
If she could.
She reached into the flow, imaginary hands sweeping one line of energy away from the confluence, then another. Even with the tracker’s aid, it was almost a physical strain, her entire mind focused upon the task. What little perception remained of her immediate surroundings vanished. All she could now see was the churni
ng, seething mass of power rising up beneath her home. Little by little, she redirected the channels of force feeding it . . .
She couldn’t do it fast enough. The confluence had reached critical mass, becoming a black hole that drew more and more energy into its vortex.
She couldn’t stop the approaching cataclysm.
Below her, the crystal chamber was silent – until a gasp cut through the air.
Eyes closed for millennia snapped open. The warrior whose resurrection had begun earlier drew air into his long-unused lungs. His stasis had left him perfectly preserved, not a single cell decayed since the People of the Tree had forced him into his crystal prison. His last waking memory was still fresh, his captors watching impassively as darkness swallowed him. He looked around in anger. Where were they?
Nobody was there. Only his people, now greater in number, trapped as he had been.
He clumsily freed himself from the recess. What was going on? Why was he awake, and no one else? He slowly stood—
And saw bodies upon the floor of the great chamber.
A woman had been torn apart by some force more savage than a baraka. A priestess? More captives nearby had suffered the same fate, their tormented sleep brought to a cruel and abrupt end.
But there was another woman there – one he knew.
Sidona.
The high priestess, the queen of the Nephilim, was dead. She had fallen – or been thrown – from somewhere on high, her skull smashed like an egg. But her features were intact enough for him to recognise her. Rage quickly replaced shock. Her blood was still wet. Who had done this?
He looked up. A shadowy form was discernible on a crystal ledge at the summit of the chamber. Sidona’s murderer.
He had no weapons other than his hands – but they were all he needed. Fists clenched so tightly his tendons strained, he hurried up the spiral path.
Nina almost released the crystals in despair. She couldn’t stop the earth energy surge from exploding . . .
But, she suddenly realised, she could move it.
The focal point was beneath Lower Manhattan. She knew her hometown well enough almost to pinpoint the block, in Tribeca – but it was less than a mile from the waters surrounding the island. She brought her illusory hands back into the flow, now not so much trying to dam as divert it. Sweep the maelstrom clear, a little at a time . . .
Sidona had forced the channels of energy away from their natural paths to create the confluence. Some seemed almost eager to return to where they belonged, pulling the seething force with them. Nina followed the path of least resistance, even though this drew it roughly southwards over land rather than directly towards the Hudson River.
She could feel the people around it – all the lives that would end if she failed. And they now knew that something was happening. The enormous power swelling beneath the earth was affecting the city above, buildings shaking, static discharges crackling through the air. Panic spread through the streets.
Her streets. She had lived in Lower Manhattan for the first three decades of her life. Now she was the only person who could save it.
Even with the Chinese machine expanding the limits of the possible, it felt like trying to redirect a tornado with a hand fan. Her actions were having an effect, but frustratingly slowly. Everything she did brought it that little bit closer to the water, though. Keep moving—
A warning at the back of her mind. Something had happened – not halfway around the globe, but close by. Inside Uluru. A change in the energy within the crystal pillar, a life resuming . . .
She couldn’t afford to withdraw from her task to investigate. The confluence was at bursting point. Appallingly, she realised it was near the site of the former World Trade Center: Ground Zero, now a memorial garden that had left her in tears on more than one visit. Not again, she swore. It was not going to happen again!
Her determination strengthened her grasp on the intangible. She guided it clear of the park, beneath buildings, towards the waterfront. The pent-up energy started to escape; bolts lanced up into the sky, a display heralding the approaching destruction. Almost at the river, almost there—
It reached water, but she couldn’t stop. She had to get the confluence as far from land as possible – but the Hudson and Upper Bay were swarming with water traffic, commercial vessels and tourist boats rounding Manhattan’s photogenic southern tip. There would be casualties, no matter what. Her only hope was that any captain seeing the unnatural display would turn away at full speed . . .
She guided the disturbance onwards. It was now roughly equidistant between Manhattan and Liberty Island, in open water but still less than a mile from either. She tried to force it southwards into the wider bay, but she was out of time—
Nina used every remaining ounce of her willpower to hold the confluence in check, desperately trying to prevent the inevitable for a few more seconds.
It wasn’t enough.
Ten and a half thousand miles away, the planet’s raw power finally erupted in a massive burst. The effect was like the detonation of a nuclear device at the bottom of the Hudson.
Unimaginable energies flashed water to steam, blinding bolts of impossibly coloured lightning stabbing skywards as the blast kicked up a huge circular wall of water. It rushed outwards, consuming boats before smashing into land.
The flat, mostly artificial Ellis Island was all but obliterated, visitors to the Museum of Immigration suffering horrific casualties as waves demolished the historic building. Tourists on Liberty Island were also swept screaming into the bay, though the Statue of Liberty itself, high on its plinth, took only minor damage.
The same could not be said for New York, or Jersey City across the Hudson. The towering wave pounded both cities, overwhelming tidal defences and sending deadly tsunamis across parks and down streets. People were carried away by the force of the water, cars and buses and trucks dragged from the roads, subway lines and road tunnels flooded.
Then the cataclysmic release of earth energy faded to nothing, spent. The waves slowed, fell, retreated . . .
Leaving devastation in their wake.
The explosive release hit Nina almost like a physical blow, knocking her backwards – and cutting her link to the netherworld. She sat stunned for a moment, before scrambling back to the machine. What had happened to New York? She had to know . . .
She put her hands back against the crystals, re-entering the parallel world. It was instantly clear that the eruption had taken place: the pressure, the feeling of unimaginable forces straining to burst loose, was gone. She followed the paths back around the world to her hometown . . .
It was bad. The explosion had left a deep scar, severing the earth energy flows in a way that might take months or years to recover. Bringing her alternate senses closer, she found that in places where there had been life, now there was little, or none. A chill ran through her. She had failed. Hundreds of people had died, thousands injured . . .
But far fewer than Gadreel and Sidona had planned. They had meant to obliterate the entire city, killing millions. And now Sidona was dead – and with her, any hopes her husband had of using her powers against the rest of humanity.
Except that Sidona’s last act had been to begin the resurrection of her people. There were women amongst the imprisoned Nephilim; if any were priestesses, they would have the same ability to control earth energy. Nina snapped her mind’s eye with dizzying speed back to Uluru. She had to stop the process – or reverse it, returning the giants to their eternal sleep.
The chamber took on ethereal form around her. Throughout it, she sensed the tiny jewels of frozen consciousnesses – but now they were starting to thaw as the prisoners crept towards wakefulness—
One had already awoken.
And was right behind her.
Macy fearfully picked her way through the huge cathedral-like chamber. Her father’s warn
ing had been true: the bad guys, on both sides, were indeed all dead. She tried to follow his advice by not looking at the bodies, but they were scattered everywhere. The only way not to see them was to look down at her feet, and change direction if anything bad came into view.
Smoke wafted through the space, stinking like rotten eggs. Light from the giant crystal pillar came through a big archway, but the haze turned it the sickly shade of orange soda. She knew she shouldn’t go towards it; she had to find Mr Jungala.
On the right, halfway along, Dad had said. She angled in that direction, raising her gaze. No sign of him – but she did see a dead Nephilim, sprawled against a rock. She cringed in revulsion and looked down again.
Something glinted on the floor. She recognised it – a trikan. The Nephilim must have dropped it. Conflicting feelings ran through her: leave it alone, or take it? There was the ick factor that it had come from a dead man, but on the other hand, it would make her feel safer. Even though it was much larger than the Atlantean one, sized for someone ten feet tall, she still felt confident she could handle it.
She hesitated, then picked it up. The handgrip was so large she could barely close her fingers around it, and the whole weapon weighed several pounds. But she felt an odd sense of connection, as if she knew exactly what it would do if she threw it – or rather, it would know what she wanted it to do.
Whatever; it really did make her feel safer. A little. Her confidence boosted, she moved on.
Drifting smoke wafted past, making her cough and obscuring the view ahead. But she was not far from the chamber’s right wall, and nearly halfway along. Still no sign of the ranger. Dad had said he was hurt; maybe he’d passed out?
If he had, she needed to help him. ‘Mr Jungala?’ she called softly.
No answer. She advanced, repeating his name—
A low voice from the fog ahead. ‘Hey! Is that you, girl?’
‘Yeah, it’s me, Macy!’ she replied with relief. ‘Where are you? I can’t see much. Are you okay?’
‘I’m good. What about you?’