Lelache watched with growing alarm. She jabbed the ‘down’ button for what must have been the hundredth time. She got nothing but a warbling buzz in response. The explosion down below had damaged the elevator’s mechanism, stranding it in place.
Suddenly, her groping fingers found a handle just below the button panel labeled EMERGENCY in Cyrillic letters. She tugged it open. Inside she found a respirator mask, a flashlight, and a loaded flare gun. Her hand closed around the gun’s handle without a second thought.
Lelache took a step to one side. October clung to the cage, one arm shoved into the car and groping towards the ceiling to get ahold of another vertical slat. If he could rip out one more of the decaying metal bars, he’d be able to force his way inside.
“Privet, idiota kusok! Smotri syuda!” she spat. Hey, idiot! Look over here!
She lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
The flare shot out and hit October in the torso just under his armpit. It bounced off and spiraled into the distance. The impact wasn’t much compared to a proper firearm.
However, the nitrate powders in the flare spattered across his flexible bodysuit and started to burn. The high-density polyethylene fibers weren’t flammable. But they could and did melt under the heat. The sticky, flaming mass clung to October’s clothes and skin. He fell away, screaming and writhing on the ground.
Lelache hit the ‘Open’ button on the car panel. The cage whined and rattled as it rolled up. She ran past where the big Russian rolled on the ground in agony at her feet, ignoring him. After all, she had bigger fish to fry now.
She took one last look at the wreckage of the middle and forward modules. It was likely that everyone else was dead, but that wasn’t a concern for her. She made her way to Module F and stepped into the chemical decontamination shower.
Dark foam turned to sparkling suds that scrubbed the suit’s plates clean. She went over the rest of her ‘Plan B’ while she waited for the cycle to finish. Once it had completed, she shrugged her way out of the hardsuit.
Still wearing the hood and light protective gown she’d had under the hardsuit, she walked up to Module E. But instead of heading further along the corridor past the makeshift autopsy table, she turned and headed for the infirmary full of dead men.
Behind her, Lelache’s hardsuit lay forgotten on the floor like a snake’s shed skin.
Chapter Forty-Seven
October had just managed to crush the fire out beneath him when he heard a buzzing coming from inside his hardsuit helmet. He gnashed his teeth and willed himself to listen. The buzzing resolved itself into static-filled words.
“Dammit, October!” a man’s voice shouted, “Get a hold of yourself and stop…snarling!”
That finally cut through the film of pain that clung to his side. “Navarro?”
“Who else?”
“It is you!” October pounded the ground with his fist with relief and then got up. “I am happy that you are not dead!”
“Yeah, that makes two of us.”
“What of Leigh?”
“I’m alive too,” Austen chimed in. “No thanks to Helen Lelache. You saw her on the elevator, right?”
“Yes,” came the shamefaced reply. “She got past me.”
“She what?” Navarro exclaimed. “How in the hell–”
“Will not happen again,” October insisted. “I go and hunt she-wolf down. Make nice rug from her pelt.”
“Hold on, we need your help more. We’re trapped down at the bottom of the mine here. Can you send the elevator down?”
There was nothing but the pop and crack of static on line for a few moments.
“Nyet,” October reported. “Car not moving. Lelache jammed it.”
“More likely that the explosion did it, but that’s six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Navarro grumbled. “You still got power up there?”
“Da, lights are still on.”
“Can you figure out a way to switch on the power down at our level?”
“Okay, I go see.”
Far below, at the base of the mine, Austen turned to Navarro. “I don’t get it. If the elevator’s jammed, how will switching on the power down here help anything?”
“The elevator wasn’t the only way they brought stuff up to the surface,” Navarro said. “Any mine I’ve seen always has a parallel system to haul up the raw ore.”
On cue, a pair of lights a quarter of the way around the massive base of the pit flickered on. The hum of a massive machine at the ready filled the space between them. Navarro squinted and made out the sloped confines of an ore lift.
A vertical conveyor belt shot straight up the steepest of the slopes out of the pit. Bucket scoops a meter across and half as deep had been welded to the belt at regular intervals. The entire system was surrounded by a skeleton of steel bars and rings that held the system in place and firmly attached to the Karakul’s sheer wall.
October’s voice filled their helmet again, though it was half-submerged in static.
“I found engineer’s booth,” he reported.
“Great! Shut everything down. When I tell you to switch it back on again, you hit it. Stand by.” Navarro motioned to Austen as the mine floor darkened and went quiet again. “Come on.”
The two jogged over to where they’d seen the lights. As they drew close, the ore lift they’d seen loomed out of the shadows. Austen stopped as she came face to face with the gap-toothed buckets.
“Are we sure this is the only way out of here?” she asked. “This looks dangerous as hell.”
“Yeah, it’s not the fanciest – or safest – mode of transportation, but it’s our only ticket out of here,” he replied. Navarro stepped into one of the buckets. It swayed ever so slightly under his weight. He held his hand out to her. “Remember: We’re all travelers in the wilderness of this world...”
“…and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” Austen threw him an indignant look. “Are you actually quoting Robert Louis Stevenson to me…at a time like this?”
“I can’t think of a better time.” Navarro grinned, making the bruised and swollen side of his face somehow less than monstrous.
Austen took his hand. The bucket swayed more this time, causing her to grab on to his waist. She tried turning around to face her back to his front, but there was hardly enough room to do so.
“Tight quarters,” he grunted. “Just lean into me and hold on. This thing might give a kick.”
“That’s the sort of thing I’m worried about,” she said under her breath, but she wrapped her arms about his hardsuited torso.
Navarro reached up over his head. He grabbed hold of a handle that projected from the bottom of the next bucket in the line. Then he spoke once more, this time to October.
“Okay, let ‘er rip,” he said.
A clank, and the machinery went into motion in a blur of lights and turning gears. Navarro let out a pained grunt as the handle almost jerked his arm from its socket. Austen made no noise, but she clung to him even more tightly.
Navarro hurriedly spread his feet, trying to keep upright as the bucket floor swayed and bucked like an unruly bronco beneath him. The steel frame that encased the shaft made a constant shriek that could curdle milk. In the meantime, the buckets shot up the vertical shaft at an incredible pace, gaining speed with every second.
This thing is used to working when there’s tons of ore weighing down each bucket, Navarro realized, with a sick shock. This thing’s going to shoot us off the end like a catapult!
“October!” he shouted. “Cut the power! Cut it!”
There was no reply. His friend couldn’t make out his words over the ear-crushing din of the machinery.
He craned his neck to try and estimate the distance to the top. One of the frame’s razor-sharp reinforcement rings shot by as he did so. It made a horrific ker-chack! that made him jerk his head back in.
Navarro took a breath, swallowed, and tried again. He spotted a circular opening high above
where the support frame ended. Further up, the belt’s buckets tilted as they dumped their payload. And at the very top, the buckets disappeared as the belt reversed course to plunge back into the mine.
Another reinforcement ring appeared overhead as if by magic, ready to decapitate him.
“Son of a bitch!” Navarro cursed, as he tucked his chin to his chest. The ring screamed past, missing by a fraction of an inch.
He took another breath, nerved himself, and took one more look.
The opening was a larger circle against the cloudy afternoon sky. It grew larger and larger by the second as the belt picked up even more speed. Navarro watched a second or two longer, until a third reinforcement ring forced him to look away.
But he’d observed just long enough. He had his best guesstimate as to when they’d reach the opening. He reached down and clasped Austen to him with one arm, while loosening his death grip on the handle above.
Another ring slashed by with a ker-chack!
Then a second one. The thick metal ring jarred the bucket, making it oscillate like a recently struck church bell.
A third one rumbled by with a deeper ker-chack!
The end of the shaft’s reinforcement frame snapped past. Navarro tensed his knees and let go of the overhead handle. With a creak of rusty metal, the bucket tipped sickeningly to one side.
“Jump!” he cried.
Austen let go of him as they leapt into the open air. The two just cleared the edge of the next bucket as it shot past.
Navarro had jumped blindly, not knowing how high the conveyor belt had taken them. He tumbled in mid-air and caught a glimpse of the nearby buildings’ roofs. He even made out the battered form of the mobile field lab.
I jumped from too high up, he thought despairingly. We’ll never survive a fall to the ground!
Chapter Forty-Eight
Navarro fell through open air for a full second.
Then his shoulder blades hit a patch of loose gravel. The hardsuit plates took the brunt of the impact, but his breath whistled out between his clenched teeth. He tumbled head over heels down a steep slope until he came to a stop.
His staggered to all fours, head awhirl. The bruises on the side of his face throbbed anew. The taste of blood came iron-rich in his mouth.
“Oh, my aching head,” came Austen’s voice from nearby. That was followed by the sound of someone jogging up and the scrape of someone’s hardsuit against rock. “It’s okay, I can stand.”
“Then I go check Nicholas,” October said.
The big man’s blocky head appeared in Navarro’s field of vision. A huge arm reached out and pulled him to his feet. Finally, the world slid into place and he was able to put two and two together again.
“Tailings pile,” Navarro said, amazed. “We jumped off the bucket line too high up, but we landed on a twenty-foot high pile of leftover ore.”
“Is true,” October agreed. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, sure. This is the only way to travel.”
October looked at him. “Sounds like you took new bumps to skull.”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” Navarro put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, I’m done with anything to do with that mine.”
Austen staggered up to join them. “That goes double – no, triple – for me.”
A visit to the decontamination showers and a quick shucking of their suits followed. Navarro and Austen traded concerned glances as they came across Lelache’s discarded suit, as well as footprints in the freshly fallen dust leading to the infirmary. But she wasn’t their main concern anymore.
They joined Preble and Redhawk in the broken remnants of Module A. Redhawk looked up with a cry of relief as they arrived. He stood up from his desk and clapped hands with both Navarro and October.
Austen looked with amazement to where Preble had sent up a makeshift medical station to care for Ian Blaine. The man lay on his back, eyes closed and peaceful. But he looked as if he’d been through hell, and his left leg had been wrapped in a red-stained bandage below the knee. An IV dripped clear fluids into his arm from a telescoping pole and hanger.
“What the hell?” she sputtered. “I thought you said that Ian was–”
“One of my drones spotted movement in the wreckage of the Falcon,” Redhawk explained. “October was good enough to bring him back here, while Preble gave him first aid.”
“Which is something you all need!” Preble exclaimed, as he looked among them. “Leigh, you look peaked, but well enough. Navarro, you’re not going to be able to see out of one eye if you don’t watch that swelling.”
“I’ve just got a bump on the head,” Austen demurred. “Show me where the aspirin is, and I’m good.”
“Same here,” Navarro said.
Preble pointed them to the relevant bins of medicine he’d placed on one of the shrapnel-pocked desks. Then he gasped as he got a look at October. The man held a blood-soaked rag to his side, just below his armpit.
“What the hell happened to you?” the older man demanded.
October tried to make a dismissive shrug but winced as he did so.
“Is nothing,” he said unconvincingly. “Stings a little.”
Preble grabbed a syrette of tramadol. “Sit down over there and let me take a look. We’re out of vodka, so this will have to dull the pain.”
“It’s good stuff,” came a weak voice. “Even if you can’t drink it.”
“Blaine?” Austen said, astounded. She went to kneel next to the man. His eyelids fluttered open. “From what I’ve heard, I ought to leave you here to bleed to death.”
“I’m…I’m sorry, Leigh,” he said, his voice a harsh croak. “I wasn’t going to strand any of you, I swear. And I have something…something you…”
Blaine extended one hand and pointed across the room. He tried to speak, but the effort was too much. His eyes closed again.
“He was in a lot of pain,” Preble explained, as he worked on October. “I had to triple the dose of tramadol. It doesn’t induce sleep like morphine, but it’s still pretty potent.”
“As long as it keeps him quiet, I’m all for it,” Navarro grumbled. “Leigh, we saw the Colonel loading a hundred-gallon brood tank onto a truck before leaving the base. Assuming he had help from Lelache, could he start a Nostocales pandemic?”
Redhawk went back to his seat. He tapped a few keys to bring up the footage he’d shot of the tank being wheeled out to the truck. Austen stared at it in horror.
“A tank that size? He’d be able to start multiple pandemics if he knows the right strain and climate conditions for growing the bacteria. And I’m afraid that thanks to our work, he’s got that now. It’s why he, Lelache, and Blaine called this expedition into being. Though to be fair, even Blaine was being used here.”
“He thought this was a great opportunity to make some money,” Navarro said, with a sad shake of his head. “He didn’t know he was helping along someone’s doomsday plot.”
“There, that should do it,” Preble said, as he completed his work. October’s torso was now taped low on one side, bulged out by a bandage on the other. “Now that we’re all back together again, I need to ask the obvious question: Is there any way possible for us to get to Chelovik and stop him?”
“Grumpy’s got the best remaining camera,” Redhawk said. “Let me get him on it, see what we can see.”
He input a few commands and the drone turned away from its orbit about the airstrip. The little machine passed over the main road, the infirmary, and then the motor pool. Redhawk slowed the drone for a moment so that they could look inside the open garages.
“Looks like Chelovik’s people took everything with wheels on it,” Navarro remarked.
Empty garages yawned open before the aerial camera. Several tire tracks belonging to heavy trucks converged on the main gate. The tread of a single motorcycle came out from behind the infirmary and merged into the main set of tracks as well.
“That motorcycle tra
ck,” Austen said. “It must be Helen Lelache’s.”
Navarro nodded. “Could be. She’s probably trying to catch up to Chelovik’s convoy.”
The drone ascended higher while running its camera through a pre-programmed search pattern. Finally, it spotted a column of dust along the main road as it headed north and east towards the mountains.
“There they are,” Redhawk said flatly. “At the speed they’re going, I’d guess that they’ll be well and truly gone into mountain country in thirty, maybe forty minutes at most.”
He zoomed Grumpy’s camera in on the little convoy. A half-dozen trucks lumbered along in the distance. Four were the heavy six-wheeled KAMAZ trucks, while the two at the rear were lighter, open-topped versions.
“Chelovik can breed a hundred gallons of lethal cyanobacteria in a brood tank,” Austen said tightly. “We’re going to need to take desperate measures if we’re going to stop him. What about the cargo jet, the Antonov? What weapons does it have?”
“It has no weapons,” October said, as he cautiously flexed one arm to test the bandage. “Is cargo jet. It carries cargo.”
“Do we have anyone left who can fly it?”
“October can,” Redhawk said. “That is, with my help. It’s a two-person job, particularly if one of us can’t read Cyrillic that well.”
Austen let out a breath before speaking. “Can you fly it well enough to crash it on top of that convoy?”
“You want us to pull a kamikaze?” Redhawk’s spare black eyebrows rose in sheer surprise. “Shit, I’m Apache, not Japanese. We don’t do that crazy bushido crap!”
“It wouldn’t do any good if you were a born samurai,” Navarro said, as he jabbed a finger at the last truck in the column. “Fine-tune the zoom there.”
Redhawk did. He spotted a pair of long, cylindrical tubes carried in the truck’s open rear bed. He sat back and let out a low whistle.
“Da-amn. This Chelovik really did think of everything.”
The Devil’s Noose Page 21
