Combustion (31 page)

‘You’re telling me there’s a giant lake of oil
in the middle of LA?’

She nods. ‘The oil seeps up through the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field. It’s a major tourist attraction. There’s a museum with all the fossils they’ve found over the years, schoolkids go there on excursions, it’s a whole thing.’

Corey thinks about this. ‘So, they detonate the bomb there and ignite and infect the oil. What for?’

Judd’s voice is distant but certain: ‘To pump all that infected smoke into the atmosphere and send the virus global.’

They all process this for a moment, then Lola breaks the silence: ‘That’s just evil.’

Corey’s eyes move to the Air-Crane. It’s a long way above them, but they’re almost parallel with it now. ‘So, Mandy, what’s the plan for getting off that thing?’

‘I was hoping they’d land and I’d just sneak away. Or maybe they’d fly over open water and I could jump.’

‘You just didn’t think this through
at all,
did you?’

‘Yeah, definitely turned into a bit of a chook-with-its-head-cut-off situation, if I’m honest.’

‘They don’t know you’re there, do they?’

‘No, but when they release the bomb and I plummet to my death I’m pretty sure they will.’

‘There’s nothing to hold on to when they drop it?’

‘Not really.’

‘Okay. I’ve got an idea.’

‘Before you say anything you gotta know they have a loaded missile launcher in the rear cabin.’

‘I’m sure they do.’

‘Good old Mister Handsome has it lying across his knees, just waiting for you to drop by.’

‘Okay, good to know. Now, tell me, are you still wearing your jacket?’

~ * ~

The Tyrannosaur churns across the burning skyline.

In the rear cabin the rocket launcher lies across Bunsen’s knees, but he’s not spending a lot of time searching for airborne threats. His primary concern is Kilroy as he wraps a fresh bandage around the old guy’s now fingerless hand.

The rudimentary medi-kit in the Tyrannosaur isn’t sophisticated enough to treat this wound. Normally Bunsen would take him straight to the private hospital in Santa Monica he’d used previously, but that will have to wait until they have completed Phase Three. Bunsen gives the old man three tabs of codeine so at least he’ll feel okay until then.

‘Have you released the video yet?’ Kilroy’s voice is low and thin.

‘Soon. Don’t worry about it. Just rest.’

Kilroy takes a deep breath, leans back and closes his eyes.

Bunsen remembers when Kilroy was the one tending his wounds, inevitably from a schoolyard scuffle brought about by Bunsen espousing some left-of-centre ideal, unpopular and unappreciated by the greater student body at the conservative prep school he attended in Brentwood. With his mother long gone and his father focused on his career, this old man was there for Bunsen when the pressure of that school became too much. Sometimes they’d play hooky together, go explore the city in Kilroy’s black Lincoln, or eat chilli fries on Venice Beach, or watch one of his collection of action movies on VHS. Whatever they did, this man was
always
there for him. So Bunsen would be here for him now.

~ * ~

Judd looks out at the smoke cloud below, searches for the little yellow Loach.

‘Where is it?’

Thump, thump, thump.
It stabs out of the layer of smoke, low and to the left, almost directly behind the Air-Crane, the better to stay out of sight, and thunders towards the giant chopper.

~ * ~

Lola ties the severed end of the rope onto the largest hook in the bucket, drops it through the hole in the chopper’s floor for the winch, then turns to the Australian: ‘How long do you want it?’

Corey’s eyes are glued to the giant chopper as he adjusts the controls. ‘Twenty metres, please.’

Lola fires up the winch and watches the hook drop away. She estimates twenty metres as best she can, then kills the winch, the rope and hook now trailing behind the Loach.

~ * ~

In the Air-Crane’s rear cabin Kilroy’s eyes are half open as he stares out the window. ‘You really need to release the video ASAP.’

Bunsen turns to him with a nod. ‘I don’t want you to worry about that now —’

‘What the
hell?’
Kilroy’s eyes spring wide open and with his good hand he points out the rear window.

Bunsen turns and looks - and gets the shock of his life. Five metres away, Judd Bell hangs off the side of the Tyrannosaur.

~ * ~

Judd has one foot on the bomb and one on the wheeled landing leg directly beside it. He holds on for dear life in the one-hundred-knot breeze as he studies Handsome and Ponytail frantically searching the cabin for something. He’s certain they’re looking for a weapon to blow him off the side of this aircraft.

Judd turns and looks back at the Loach. ‘Come on, Aussie!’

~ * ~

Turbine screaming and rotors thundering, Corey corrects the Loach’s angle of attack. ‘Okay, you need to hold on because this might be a little ...’ He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Lola grips the side of her seat in preparation. ‘Be a little
what?’

Corey really concentrates as he finetunes the chopper’s controls again. ‘Tricky. I really need to be . . . quite accurate ... to get this right.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Tell me if you see any missiles.’

She swallows hard. ‘Okay.’

Corey stares at the Air-Crane as he make one last adjustment to the controls. ‘Alrighty, here we go.’

~ * ~

Judd watches Handsome and Ponytail scour the Air-Crane’s rear cabin for - oh, yep,
there it is
- they’ve found what they’re looking for. A 9mm pistol. Handsome cocks the weapon, unbuckles his seat-belt and leans across to open the door.

Judd’s eyes flick back to the little yellow chopper as it surges towards the giant chopper. Two hundred metres becomes one hundred becomes fifty becomes fifteen -

The Loach is right there, fills the sky, then tips into an impossibly sharp turn. The trailing rope is yanked into the turn too, and like a cracked whip, flicks out towards the Air-Crane, the heavy hook leading the way. It swings straight towards Judd -

Clang.
It snags the Air-Crane’s landing gear upright, directly in front of the astronaut. The airframe shudders.

Twang.
The rope yanks tight between the two choppers. Judd is stunned. When the Australian told him the plan, he never expected it to work but here they are. Judd turns back to the rear cabin as Handsome, pistol in hand, pushes the door open, then stops.

~ * ~

Christ!

What should he do?

Bunsen is in two minds. Shoot Judd Bell with this gun or blow that chopper out of the sky with the SAM? By the time he has the missile aimed the chopper could be gone. But if he hits the chopper then all his problems are solved, including the Australian.

What should he do?

One thing he knows he shouldn’t do is waste any more time making a decision.

~ * ~

Judd can see Handsome can’t decide what to do next. He’s not sure if he should shoot the astronaut or blow up the chopper.

Perfect.

He who hesitates is lost.

Time to go. Judd yanks his heavy-duty cotton Carhartt jacket from around his waist, flaps it over the rope, grabs the arms of the jacket in each hand, winds his fists tightly around them and pushes off -

Ohmigod!
It’s the Flying Fox From Hell -
Part Deux.
The Loach is a little below the Air-Crane so gravity is Judd’s ally and he slides towards it
super
fast. Halfway across he glances back at good ole’ Handsome and sees muzzle flash. So he went with the pistol instead of the missile in the end. The pistol is not directed at Judd, though; he shoots at the rope that’s attached to the hook that’s attached to the Air-Crane -

Boom.
The rope collapses behind him as a bullet hits the mark.

‘Damn—’ Judd falls, drops, plummets, still holds the jacket in his left hand -

Clang.
He hits the Loach’s skid and grabs at it with his right hand, catches hold, dangles over the abyss. His hand slips -

Wham.
Lola grabs the jacket in his left hand. She might be slight, but she’s strong as steel. She pulls on the jacket and yanks him up and into the Loach.

‘Hold on!’ Corey tips the Loach hard right.

‘Whoa, momma!’ Judd clambers into the back seat as the chopper drops into a horrendously steep spiral dive, down and down and down. It plunges into the smoke layer.

And suddenly it’s upright again. Nobody says a word as they just catch their breath.

A moment passes.

Corey glances back at Judd, gestures for him to put on his headset, which the astronaut does. ‘Yep?’

‘Never
do that again!’

‘Deal.’ Judd claps both of them on the shoulder. ‘Thanks, guys.’

~ * ~

In the Tyrannosaur high above, Bunsen scans the blanket of smoke below, SAM missile in hand as he attempts to locate the yellow Loach. He cannot. He went with the pistol instead of the missile and now believes it was an error.

Enrico’s voice echoes in his ears. ‘Now what?’

‘We continue as planned.’

‘What about the Item? Should we check it?’

‘Unless he had an oxy-welder back there there’s nothing he could have done to it. What’s our ETA?’

‘Six minutes.’

‘Good. Let’s ice this cake and go home.’

~ * ~

41

The Loach cuts through the haze as the setting sun turns the world an eerie orange-purple.

Lola pats the dog beside her then turns to Judd. ‘So, it sounds like they did the same thing at the West Pico and Moreno High School. Injected something into the oil wells.’

Judd nods. ‘But what? And why?’

‘Could they be explosives?’

Judd’s unsure. ‘Maybe, but you’d think that bomb would be enough.’

Corey has a thought. ‘Are those wells linked in some way? I mean, are they pumping oil from the same field or something?’

Lola shakes her head. ‘Don’t think so. They’re too far apart.’ She thinks about it and talks to herself in a low voice, though Judd and Corey can still hear her through their headsets. ‘Moreno High and West Pico and La Brea. What do they have in common?’ She absently looks at Spike’s back and the splotches of blue that spot his white coat. She points at one. ‘Moreno High.’ Then another. ‘West Pico.’ Then a third. ‘La Brea.’ She draws a line to link the three then studies it - then stops dead. ‘Oh, fuck!’

Judd leans forward. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

She pulls out her iPhone and works the screen, launches the web browser, taps letters into the search engine.

Corey watches. ‘Everything okay -?’

‘Hold on! I gotta check something.’ She stares at the screen, waits for the browser page to refresh. It takes an age. ‘Come on!’

It refreshes.

She studies the screen - then pulls in a deep breath.

Corey glances at her. ‘What?’

She looks at him. ‘They’re on a fault line. Moreno High, West Pico and La Brea. They’re
all
on a fault line.’

‘Which one?’

‘Puente Hills. I think they did inject explosives and they’re going to detonate them - and rupture it.’

The blood drains from Corey’s face. ‘So they can start an earthquake.’

Lola nods as Judd leans forward again.
‘What?’

Corey turns to him. ‘The Puente Hills fault runs right under downtown LA. When it goes it’ll be huge. Some people think it’ll be twice as big as the North Ridge quake.’

Lola nods. ‘It’s true.’

Judd looks at Corey, surprised. ‘How do you know this?’

‘I spent some time studying quakes and fault lines.’

‘Really? Why?’

Corey hesitates - then forces himself to say it: ‘My - my mother died in a quake in ‘97.’

The mood shifts in the cockpit. Lola turns to him. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’

Judd puts a hand on his shoulder, concerned for his friend. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’

‘I just - it was a long time ago.’ Corey stares into the distance, lost in the pain of the memory.
Jeez.
Fifteen years later and it’s still terrible. ‘I wasn’t able to save her - so I...’ He breathes in, shakes it off, pushes it away. ‘Anyway, afterwards I was trying to understand what happened so I read. California is the earthquake capital of the world after all, so I read all about it. It was the only thing that made sense of it.’

Lola places a hand on his and looks at him. Corey can’t meet her gaze, just wants the moment to pass. He changes the subject. ‘Anyway, why would they do something like this?’

Judd thinks it through as he speaks: ‘They know the city will be so busy dealing with the aftermath of a big quake that no one’s going to worry about putting out a single oil fire in the middle of parkland that’s not a threat to anyone.’