Fast (22 page)

            Of all the strategic points Cairns now controlled, this was his most heavily guarded. Two gunmen covered the stairwell. Two gunmen covered the lift. The six gunmen accompanying Cairns now moved to guard the two men working on their knees.

            These last two men were assembling Cairns’s special equipment.

            The Belington drill.

            The only one of its kind in the world. All Belington drills were uniquely designed to the client’s specifications.

            This drill was modeled on the portable Belington ‘K’ Series Safecracker – the same type of drill that penetrated the infamous Boustead Estate safe room in 2005. That drill had been used to gain access to the family’s self-contained bunker where they had hidden when the estate came under siege.

            Cairns’s drill made the Boustead Estate machine look like a portable hand-drill. Computer software had been designed for this one and only task. Built into the drill’s supporting struts were three levels of vibration-dampeners. The dampeners would erode internally as they absorbed the drill’s energy. After today, the Belington would probably never leave the Complex.

            The Belington had been one of Cairns’s most difficult covert acquisition. It also took up valuable space in the freight capsule. Without it, however, the mission would have been impossible. The security system before Cairns was a complete mystery. There was no information available at any price on the black market. No blue-prints. No construction material specifications. They couldn’t even discover the
name
of the company
who had installed the mysterious system. What little information they had to use was stolen by Gould from the engineering workshops where they stress-tested the new building materials.

            That had been the key in the end. This Complex, these very scientists, had provided Cairns the details he needed to breach the lab’s security. It was ironic, but somehow perfectly fitting.

            Cairns walked across the antechamber and ran his hand over the containment door. This represented the last obstacle between himself and Sharp’s templates.

            Terrorist-proof engineering?

            Cairns whispered to the containment door. ‘There is no…such…thing.’

            Success was less than ten minutes away. He stepped back and signaled the two men to push the drill into position. The first man knelt at a laptop connected to the drill. At a few keystrokes, tiny motors moved the drill-bit into perfect alignment.

            ‘Ready, sir,’ advised the driller with the laptop.

            ‘Begin,’ instructed Cairns.

#

Third Unit swam single file through the underlab.

            Vanessa led the way, stroking hard.

            The scene looked totally surreal.

            They swam down a single long corridor. Every ten feet, ceiling lights passed overhead. The blue-green light silhouetted their bodies on the corridor floor. Coleman heard a repeated
clink, clink, clink
of metal hitting metal as a piece of someone’s equipment came loose, but otherwise it was quiet.

            It felt like diving at night into a backyard pool. Except the underwater lights were above you. And this pool had no surface when you needed to breathe.

            Pacing his strokes, Coleman was using minimal energy and oxygen to propel himself through the water.

            It had taken Vanessa eight seconds to open the hatch. They had now been swimming for another twenty seconds. Her movements became jerky and rapid. Swimming in her clothes, in sneakers, she had to be experiencing a pretty intense lung-burn by now.

            Coleman watched Marlin and King’s shadows gliding along the floor. They were using the same measured stroke.

            The plan was to emerge in D-lab, a good fifty meters from the saturation chamber. They were over halfway there, but now it was getting tough. If the fully-clothed underwater swim wasn’t enough, they hadn’t actually started swimming until the flooding chamber was totally saturated and the hatch could open.

            They might find anything in D-lab. If Cairns had already breached the labs, Vanessa might emerge into a ring of hostile gunfire. If they were allowed to emerge at all.

            The water color changed around Coleman.
It looks red now.

            Looking ahead, he saw Vanessa reach the flooded gallery under D-lab. The red light came from a diamond-shaped ceiling panel.

            She swam along the ceiling and thumped the glowing red diamond.

            The diamond instantly turned green.

            The entire ceiling began sliding away like an oversized manhole cover being dragged aside by a giant. A crescent of expanding light appeared in the ceiling.

            When Vanessa said
hatch
, she meant
HATCH
.

            She kicked frantically for the light.

            Coleman drew his colt and emerged beside her. Breaking the surface, he tried to control his breathing in case any hostiles were close. He twisted in the water, trying to scan D-lab for danger, but it was hard to see without pulling himself up.

            Vanessa gasped noisily at the pool edge.

            Marlin and King broke the surface. For a few moments they all clung to the edge, recovering and listening.

           
Nothing
. Just some deep droning sound from the west.

            When his breathing evened, Coleman lifted his head over the edge.

            They had emerged into what appeared to be a fairly standard-looking research laboratory. About fifteen meters across, it could have been a chemistry lab in any large university. The round lab had a single exit to the west. The exit was sealed by a plexiglass barrier. Their pool was four meters wide and set right in the center of the lab’s floor. The ‘edge’ of the pool, the floor of the lab, was five inches of solid steel. The lab was dim and shadowy. Through the plexiglass barriers there was no sign of movement.

            ‘This lab looks clear,’ reported Coleman, lowering himself back into the water. D-lab had most of its research equipment built into the walls. There didn’t seem to be anywhere for a creature to hide. In the muted light it was hard to tell. ‘Why is it so dark in here?’

            Vanessa finished coughing and said, ‘This entire level is isolated from the Complex. All the lights conserve power when the labs are empty. I can turn them up again now we’re inside.’

            ‘Not yet,’ said Coleman. ‘The darkness might work in our favor. Can you raise the plexiglass barriers from here?’

            ‘No. The security measures can only be countermanded from my main lab. We have to keep swimming.’

            ‘How much further?’ asked King

            ‘Same distance again,’ muttered Vanessa. ‘It’s harder than I thought.’

            She started to pull herself from the pool. ‘Actually, it’s probably a bit shorter. The pool in the main lab is offset on this side of the room. I can open the pool hatch from this computer terminal.’

            ‘Stay down,’ hissed Coleman, grabbing her shoulder before she could climb from the pool. ‘Which terminal?’

            ‘That one near the plexiglass.’

            Coleman looked over the edge and saw the computer she meant. Through the plexiglass, the narrow visible section of her main lab was still clear of hostiles. ‘Okay. Go now.’

            Vanessa pulled herself from the pool. Her wet sneakers squeaked across the lab floor to the computer terminal. She glanced through the plexiglass before she dashed back to the pool.

            ‘It’s done. The pool hatch is opening.’

            ‘Alright,’ said Coleman. ‘I’ll swim through first. I’ll signal back through the plexiglass if it’s all clear.’

            Coleman placed his palms under the edge of the pool. He pulled straight down, pencil-diving his body under the water. With the hatch open, there was no longer a red tinge. Above him, three sets of legs kicked in the water. There were two underwater exits. One back to the saturation chamber and one leading off towards the main lab. Coleman made a mental note that this intersection was the only way out of the research level and back to the saturation chamber where Forest waited.

            He struck out for the main lab, not wasting any energy in diving deep. Skimming along just under the gallery ceiling, he used the same steady stroke as before. After twenty meters he saw the underlab gallery serving Vanessa’s main lab. The underwater chamber was brightly lit.

            If there was anyone in the main lab above, they would instantly spot him emerging in the pool.

            Mirroring the main lab, six submerged exits led away from the flooded gallery. A simple steel pool ladder stretched from the underlab floor to the pool edge above.

            Reaching the ladder, Coleman pulled himself up and silently broke the surface. He forced himself to inhale slowly and quietly.

            The lab was quiet, except for the slightly louder droning sound to the west. The lights were dim in here too. The pool’s underwater lights sent shimmering blue patterns up over the ceiling.

            He knew there was a very good chance one or more creatures occupied this room. Personal vibrations needed to be kept to an absolute minimum.

            Lifting his face over the edge, he looked back through the plexiglass. Marlin peered back from D-lab. Coleman signaled him to swim through, then pulled himself quietly up the ladder, placing each boot down carefully onto the pool’s edge.

            So far, so good.

            He glanced back through the plexiglass and saw King starting his dive. Marlin would be partway through his swim. Vanessa would follow.

            From the pool’s edge, his fatigues dripping liquid onto the floor around him, Coleman quietly drew his colt.

            He scanned the room over his pistol sights.

            Unlike the first lab they’d reached, this place was straight out of a science-fiction movie. A shallow dome seventy-five meters across, the lab was dotted with crowded islands of specialist workstations. Its open plan separated into six zones, each with dedicated equipment and facilities. On both sides of the pool stretched two long work benches.

           
Strange
. The middle of the lab appeared suspiciously clear of equipment, bare except for a large, round floor grill.

            Coleman’s gaze rose to the ceiling above the grill.

            His eyes widened as he recognized the equipment embedded into the ceiling.

           
It can’t be
, he thought.
It can’t possibly be what it looks like.

            It was. An emergency extraction fan. The largest extraction fan that Coleman had ever seen in his life.

            Emergency extraction fans were used to suck away contaminated air or toxic gases. They were sometimes used in labs that studied infectious diseases. This one looked like the wing engine from a Boeing passenger jet had been grafted into the ceiling. Masses of thick silver ducting surrounded the huge turbine.

            Coleman stepped forward and looked
down
the floor grill.