State of Emergency (22 page)

They heard a voice – someone was shouting to them up the
ramp. Marty was the first to turn. Through the haze he saw
a dimly lit figure. His hands were cupped to his mouth and
he was bellowing to them above the sound of fires and the
groaning of concrete and steel. 'This way!' said the voice.
The man was wearing a dark suit. About average height,
he had jet-black, greased-back hair. Now he was beckoning
to them, urging them away from the impassable tangle of
metal.

A few seconds later, they were back down on B3. The man
was a dozen yards ahead of them. He was running down the
ramp to B4. They followed blindly. There was nowhere else
to go.

'Keep going,' the man called back to them.

They reached B4, then on to B5, and still the way was
clear. The damage was far less dramatic here. They paused
for a moment to catch their breath. Marty looked completely
finished. He sat down for a moment. Dave collapsed next to
him. He had a nasty cut across his forehead, and blood was
running down his cheek. He lifted his T-shirt, dabbing at the
wound, and saw an even worse gash along the inside of his
forearm, a jagged rip from elbow to wrist.

Foreman reached the man first. 'Thank you,' he said,
looking at the ID tag around the man's neck. He was CIA.
'Mr Goddard.'

'Please – call me Jerry. Glad to be of help, Senator. I was on
a special security attachment to your group. You wouldn't
have noticed me, I hope.'

'Watching over the security people?'

'Something like that,' Goddard said, smiling briefly, his
teeth perfect. He was still wearing a knotted tie, his jacket
buttoned. But the suit was soiled with oil and caked with
dust. The left leg of his trousers was ripped from the knee
down, and his calf was smeared with blood.

'I take it your cell is dead?' Foreman said.

'Lost it in the blasts.'

'So, what now?' Marty asked.

Goddard considered the old man. 'Have you gotten all
the way down here from Ground Level?'

Foreman nodded. 'The bombs went off in the middle of
my speech. The auditorium is totalled. There was no way
out the front. Some crazy bastard with a semi-automatic was
making that a little difficult.' He looked away and sighed.
'Why did you bring us down here?'

'I think it's the best chance any of us have.'

'How come?' Dave asked.

Foreman noticed the blood streaming down the young
man's face. He walked over, pushed Dave's back gently and
took a closer look.

'Part of my prep was to study this building inside out. It's
not on the public maps, but there's a secondary service elevator
that goes straight from B6 to Ground. B6 is where a lot of the
heavy equipment for big shows and stuff is stored.'

Foreman looked up at Goddard. 'Where is it on B6?' he
asked, helping Dave and Marty to their feet.

'Back of the building, smack in the middle,' Goddard
replied, pointing down the ramp to the floor below.

'Will you be able to make it?' Foreman asked his two
companions.

Dave nodded.

'Lead on,' Marty rasped.

Goddard walked ahead down the ramp, limping slightly.
Foreman noticed that he walked with the trained caution of
a law-enforcement officer. You could tell it a mile off.

The air was clearer down here and it was cooler. Every car
was dented, their windows nothing but frames, not a
windshield left intact. But quite a few ceiling lights were
still working and cast a hazy glow. A stream of filthy water
ran down the left side of the ramp, pooling in newly-made
holes.

The ramp opened out onto the lowest level of the car
park. This was different to the other four floors. Here only
half the floor space was car park; the back, or north side of
the building was a vast storage area. Ahead of them a wide
corridor stretched into the gloom. They could just make out
the end where it curved to the right.

They walked along the corridor, their footfalls echoing
around the concrete walls. From behind them came the
sounds of fires still burning out of control. To the left and
right were wide roller-doors, like those used in warehouses.
One was open. Goddard flicked a switch and the light came
on, revealing a huge storage room.

They took a couple of steps inside. Wooden frames,
partitions twenty feet wide, were stacked just beyond the
roller-door. To one side of the room lay a row of massive
stage lights. Beyond these were a pile of metal flight cases.
On the other side of the room dozens of chairs were stacked,
and on the floor beside these lay thick electrical cables and
more lights.

They retreated back to the corridor. 'The service elevator
is around this corner,' Goddard said, without slowing.

They reached the end of the corridor and turned.

The elevator doors were open. A man was slumped
over the top of a huge cubic flight-case on wheels. From
twenty feet away they could all see that the back wall of
the elevator had ripped open, revealing brightly coloured
wires and gun-metal grey cabling. A length of twisted steel
protruded from the centre of the man's back, and his blood
was dripping into a large red puddle on the elevator floor.

'Sir?' the voice said in Mark Harrison's comms at Cyber
Control.

'Dr Singleton.'

'I think I've found something important. Can you come
to the lab?'

'Please tell me it's something I want to hear.'

'Not sure about that, sir. But it'll certainly interest you.'

'Swell,' Mark sighed and eased himself out of his chair.
'On my way.'

A few minutes later he was standing in Base One's
laboratory with Dr Lucy Singleton.

'We had precious little to work with – just a few molecules
of DNA scraped from one of the guns on the roof,' she began.
'I suspect it's from a hair that fell on the gun. Conventional
analysers would need millions of times more DNA to get a
result. Even so, the sample would have been useless if we
couldn't match it up to anything.'

'But you have the Global Genetic Database.'

'Indeed we do.' Dr Singleton observed Mark Harrison over
her glasses. She was in her early forties. She had a strong,
intelligent face, her black hair pulled into a bun. She paced
over to a console that was hooked up to Sybil.

Base One's quantum computer had complete access
to one of the wonders of the 21st century. CARPA, in its
wisdom, had created a database of every piece of genetic
information known to humanity. It did not have the DNA
profile of everyone on earth, but by combining the records
of every police force in the world, every military institution
willing to supply such information to the UN, every business
institution that could be bribed to release its information,
and every Western scientific organisation, CARPA had established
a database of the DNA profiles of over five billion
individuals, dead and alive.

'So who do we have, doc?'

'A certain Igor Andrei Makanov. Born in Moscow, October
1963. Soviet Army recruit, 1980. Blood sample stored and
recorded, June 1984. DNA profile registered by CARPA in
April 2005, using this sample. There are no more recent
samples on file.'

'Soviet military training,' Mark said quietly.

'Special forces,' Dr Singleton replied, glancing at the
holographic image. 'Spetsnaz, 1985 to 1989.'

'Extremely dangerous.'

'I guess so,' Dr Singleton said, 'except for this.' She touched
the light keypad and the holographic image altered, and
text scrolled down in front of their eyes. Mark Harrison read
the next line. 'Died during training exercise, St Petersburg,
May 1989.'

Exiting Dr Singleton's lab, Mark almost collided with Tom's
electric wheelchair as it sped along the corridor.

'Just the man I wanted to see,' Tom said, and thrust a
glossy print into Mark's hands.

'What's this?'

'A picture of the foundations of the CCC under
construction in 1996. This –' and he tapped the glossy with
a dirty fingernail – 'is a municipal drain built in the 1930s
and left intact. It passes within a few feet of Level B6. It's a
way in – and out.'

Mark stared at Tom for a moment, his face expressionless,
then he gripped the boy's shoulder and smiled. 'I think it's
time I got over there myself.'

Marty's face was pale as death. 'Oh my God,' he said quietly,
and walked slowly back along the corridor. Dave stood
motionless, his face buried in his hands.

'Jesus Christ!' Foreman exclaimed, one hand on his
forehead. His face was creased with anxiety. He looked around
as though a way out could be found in the very air. 'Right,' he
said after a moment. 'We're running out of options here.'

'Sure are,' Dave said through his fingers.

'May I make a suggestion?' It was Jerry Goddard. 'We
can't go back up the ramp – the smoke is too bad up there
and more cars could blow. How about I go see if I can get
back up to the elevator shaft on B5, get the door open and
climb the access ladder?'

'That's basically how we got down to B3,' Marty said. 'But
the access ladder was almost destroyed, and it was ripped
from the wall above B3.'

'But it might be possible to get to B3 and then find another
way up from there. If we can reach B2, we might be able to
get up the entrance ramp to Ground.' Goddard looked at
each of them. Apart from his injured leg, he seemed in the
best shape of the four.

'But we've just come from B3.'

'I know, but there might be options from there.'

'How are you going to get to the elevator shaft on B5? You
can't use the ramp, the smoke's too bad now,' Dave said.

'The emergency stairs. One of them must be passable.
Might even be able to get higher than B5.'

'It's a plan,' Foreman said after a moment. 'I'm coming
with you.'

Goddard shrugged. 'If you feel up to it, Senator.'

Foreman turned to Dave and Marty. 'Dave, we need to
look at that arm. Let's get into one of the rooms along the
corridor.'

They made their way back. Along the corridor they found
a water fountain they had missed on their way down. Dave
tried it. It was working. He bent his head down and took a
long draught of the cold water. It had a metallic edge to it.

They returned to the room with the open roller-door.
Foreman wandered off and came back a few moments later
with an armful of white fabric. 'Tablecloths,' he said.

They ripped the cloths into strips and wetted a couple
from the fountain. The tear in Dave's arm was deep but
not life-threatening. Foreman bound it tightly with a damp
cloth, then made a sling from another length of material.
Then he cleaned the blood from the young man's face and
dabbed at the cut across his forehead. Meanwhile, Goddard
cleaned and bandaged the cut in his calf.

'We'll be back soon,' Foreman said to Marty and Dave as
he turned towards the door.

The senator followed Goddard into the corridor and they
set off in the direction of the ramp. The smoke was worse
than before. There was no way they could get to the eastern
side of the building. This meant they only had two chances.
The emergency stairs at the back of the complex, and the
ones at the front – both were on the western side. They
headed for the stairwell at the back of the CCC.

They found a corridor to their right with more storerooms,
one or two with open roller-doors. Goddard led the
way. The air became clearer with each step. More lights were
working here. They took two turns, a left and then a sharp
right, and found themselves at the door to the emergency
stairs. It was shattered and half the staircase had been
destroyed. It was impassable.

'Oh, swell!' Goddard exclaimed. 'The front stairs are our
last chance.' He pushed back past Foreman and ran along
the corridor towards the front of the CCC.

The two men emerged in the parking area of B6. It was
as packed as the levels above, but most of the cars were in
better shape. Goddard wove between them, with Foreman
close behind. In a few minutes they had reached the front
emergency stairwell. Goddard leaned on the door and
pushed. It opened. Concrete steps led upward.

'Phew!' Foreman exclaimed.

Goddard turned. He had a gun in his hand, a Smith &
Wesson Model 500 Magnum. He lifted it to waist height.
Foreman looked at the gun, confused. Then he noticed
Goddard's sleeve had ridden up to reveal a gruesome
tattoo.

'Phew indeed, Senator Foreman. I'm afraid this is the end
of the adventure. My name is the Dragon. I'm here to kill
you.'

California Conference Center, Los Angeles
Josh, Mai and Stephanie had just emerged into the night air
through the shattered doors of the eastern side of the CCC
when Mark's face appeared on their wrist screens. He was
wearing a cybersuit, complete with flight helmet.

'Status?' he asked.

'Plan A's shot, Mark,' Josh said. 'The emergency stairwell
below B1 is useless, and we can't get anywhere on that level
– there's too much damage. We're running out of options.
You're suited up?'

'I'm coming over,' Mark replied.

Josh raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

'Tom's just found a new option,' Mark continued. An
image of the CCC's foundations appeared on the team's
flexiscreens.

'How do we get in?' Mai asked.

'A ground level entrance about a hundred yards north of
the complex. Here.' He sent them a map. 'Take the Pram . . .
and you'll need the Sonic Drill. There's about a yard of earth
between the drain and the wall of the CCC.'

'How do we know if we can get to B3 from B6?'

'No need. Pete's working his way onto B3 in the Mole –
he's just picked up a faint trace of four people on B6. We're
pretty sure it's Senator Foreman and the others. God knows
how they got there. Just have to hope they stay put. Steph?
What's the status of your suit?'

She tapped at her wrist and studied the screen for a second.
'The tear is almost fixed.'

'Yeah, copy that here. Sybil reckons your systems should
be fully operational in a few minutes, but I think you
should stay back at the Big Mac.'

'Wilco.'

The Pram got its name from a conversation between the
designers that had turned ironic over a beer. Known officially
as a High Speed Ground Transporter (or HSGT), it was about
as far removed from a pram as any vehicle could get. Inspired
by the hovercraft invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell in
the mid-1950s, it was a sleek, low-profile transporter that
skimmed along an inch above the ground. Capable of speeds
up to 200 miles per hour, it was easy to manoeuvre and
could carry six passengers and more than 2000 pounds of
equipment.

With Mai at the controls and Josh beside her, the Pram
shot from the exit hatch at the back of the Big Mac, swerved
sharply to avoid a pile of twisted metal and concrete, then
swung past Ringo and onto the slip road to the south of
the CCC. Its powerful headlights cut through the gloom.
The husk of the gas station – where the shooter had been
– flashed past on their left. One of the underground gas
tanks had blown, shattering the forecourt and reducing the
building to rubble.

The road swept west and then curved north. Approaching
the back of the CCC, Mai took the Pram across a well-manicured
lawn now strewn with detritus. Sheets of paper
whipped up by the breeze cascaded onto the windscreen.
They tapped on the glass like impatient fingers before flying
off into the night. A line of trees to the left was lit up by the
white beams of the headlights. The trees were stripped bare.
Paper and other debris had caught in the branches.

Mai pulled on the steering column and they swung a sharp
right, slowed and drew to a halt. Jumping out, they could
see the orange and yellow flames still licking the western
wall of the Conference Center, and smaller fires dotting the
horizon. A couple of yards from the Pram was a low brick
wall. A concrete slope led down to a metal door.

They were each armed with stun pistols that could fire
a narrow electromagnetic pulse that had a similar effect to
the tasers used by police forces. Mai had a small med-kit on
her shoulder and Josh carried the Sonic Drill, a device that
looked like a bulky rifle. Made from a carbon-aluminium
composite, it was extremely light, but a powerful generator
at the business end produced a focused ultrasound beam in
the range of 35 kilohertz. This could cut through almost any
material with astonishing ease.

They reached the door. It was locked.

'Stand back,' Josh said, raising the Sonic Drill. With the
device set to its lowest power setting, he fired a pulse. A
foot-wide hole appeared where the lock and the handle had
been. The door swung inward, limp on its hinges.

They flicked on their helmet lights, revealing a short,
sloping corridor with a low, sodden roof. Green slime and
moss hung down. They could see a narrow vertical shaft at
the end. It was little more than a yard wide and had rungs
cut into it. Mai led the way. She peered down the shaft, her
helmet light illuminating the first twenty feet. Beyond that
lay a featureless black.

It was unnerving in the shaft. Josh and Mai felt as
though they were floating in space. All that was visible
was concrete above and below, as far as their lights could
break the gloom. They knew from the schematic that it
was a deep shaft, descending to a depth of some 80 feet
below the surface, but it felt as though they were climbing
down hundreds of feet. They could see from their wrist
screens that the temperature was dropping rapidly as they
descended. The oxygen content of the air was also falling,
and the moisture level rising.

Mai saw the concrete floor light up in the beam from her
helmet. After a dozen more rungs she had reached the base
of the shaft. She stepped aside to let Josh into the narrow
space. Ahead, a low-ceilinged circular passage fell away into
darkness. Water ran along the ground, gurgling into a hole
close to the foot of the ladder. A few moments later they
were standing in the drainage tunnel itself, their helmet
beams lighting up swatches of curved wall.

The tunnel – which was once the primary drain of the city
– was ten feet high and twelve feet wide. It ran under Los
Angeles for fifteen miles, emerging just south of Marina del
Rey. It had been decommissioned and superseded by a more
modern pipe in the early 1990s, but a trickle of water still
flowed along it in a shallow channel. Its walls were coated in
slime, and it smelled of damp and rotting organic material.

Mai looked at her flexiscreen, which was glowing with a
soft light in the darkness. She could see the schematic of the
area. A little under a hundred yards to the east was the lowest
level of the CCC, a black block on the display. The tunnel
showed up as a narrow red line. It curved slightly north,
then ran in a straight line east for more than 50 yards, before
curving sharply south and almost touching the north-west
corner of the CCC. After that, it ran along the edge of the
building to the north-east corner.

'Base One? We're in the tunnel.'

'Copy that, Mai.' It was Tom. 'You can see on the schematic
the tunnel gets closest to B6 exactly 12.6 yards along the
north wall of the CCC. That will get you into the storage
area – room B63. I can't tell what's immediately behind the
wall there, so take care.'

'Okay. Where's Mark?' Josh asked.

'I'm aboard John,' Mark's voice came over the comms.
'ETA at emergency site in nineteen minutes.'

Josh led the way along the tunnel. The only sound was
their own breathing and the faint trickle of water.

'I never even knew this thing existed,' Josh said into his
comms.

'Don't think many people do,' Mai responded from a few
yards behind him. 'But there's a complex web of tunnels
and drains under Los Angeles, just as there is under most big
cities. Over the decades, developers just built on top of what
was already there. It's kind of tranquil, don't you think?'

'Maybe it is to you, spacegirl. You're used to being cooped
up in confined spaces. It's not my favourite thing.'

'Josh Thompson! Not a weakness, surely? Not a chink in
the armour?'

Mai could hear Josh sigh. 'Wish I hadn't said anything,'
he said with faux-seriousness.

The way was almost completely clear, with just the odd
pile of something unsavoury close to the trickling channel
– organic waste and decaying wildlife that had somehow
found its way into the drain. Josh and Mai made rapid
progress, covering the hundred yards in under a minute.

As they approached the point where the wall of the CCC
almost touched the rim of the tunnel, their flexiscreens
showed their position. Mai walked ahead and stopped. Her
helmet beam swept across the slime-covered wall of the
drain.

'Right there,' she said, pointing to a spot at the centre of
the light beam.

Josh swung the Sonic Drill from his shoulder. Pushing
a button on the side, three retractable legs shot out and
unfolded, before snapping into place automatically. He
stood the device a foot from the wall, altering the height of
the legs so that the barrel of the drill was level.

Suddenly, they heard a small splash of water, as though a
foot had slipped into the channel running the length of the
tunnel. It was followed by a tap, then a high-pitched whine.
They spun around towards the source of the sound. Josh
almost knocked the drill over but caught it in time.

Mai was closest to the sound. Her hand shot to the stun
pistol at her hip. In a second she had adopted the 'power
stance' – left leg a little in front of the right, both hands
holding the pistol at arm's length, her body turned slightly
to the right. The light on her helmet cracked open the
blackness.

Instinctively, they held their breath as they tried to detect
the source of the sound. There was a sudden movement, a
shape at the edge of the beam. Mai swung the stun gun.
'Who's there? Stop! I'm armed.' The shape vanished.

Silence for a second. Then another scrape. Josh flicked on
a secondary light at his sleeve, allowing the beam to dance
along the filthy wall of the tunnel. The shape reappeared
and Mai fired. A rat the size of a tabby cat staggered into the
pool of light, writhing in agony as the stun pistol sent an
intense electromagnetic pulse through its body. The creature
threw its head back, jaws open, eyes rolling. Then it seemed
to crumple, its legs twitching as it died.