The Midas Legacy

41

It took the fugitives a few minutes to reach the tunnel’s end. Two other conveyors ran into the chamber beyond from adjoining passages, their termini choked with mounds of rubble. The reason it had not been cleared was instantly apparent: all the slave workers had been shot, bloodied corpses littering the floor.

‘Bastards,’ Eddie growled. He surveyed the area, but the soldiers who had committed the murders were gone. ‘The guards must’ve evacuated.’

‘Yeah, but they’re coming back!’ Nina said in alarm. A large elevator shaft was cut into the room’s side — and the cables within were moving.

‘Everyone with a gun, with me!’ Eddie shouted, running towards it. The armed prisoners followed as Ock relayed the command.

‘What are we doing?’ asked Nina.

‘If anyone gets out of that lift, we’re screwed, so we make sure no one gets out of that lift!’ He looked up the shaft, seeing the descending car less than a hundred feet above.

‘How?’

‘You ever heard of anyone wearing bulletproof shoes?’ He opened the elevator’s wide gate as the large rectangular platform came towards them. It would only be seconds before it dropped below ceiling level and the soldiers aboard would be able to see out—

Eddie pointed his gun straight up and pulled the trigger, stitching a weaving line of bullet holes into the elevator’s underside. Nina followed suit, the Korean prisoners joining in. Splinters rained down on them as the wooden platform was perforated by a storm of metal. The cacophony was deafening, but even over the thunder of the guns they heard screams from above — which were cut off as the onslaught continued.

Magazines ran dry. The shooters pulled back as the elevator reached floor level — and continued past it, the soldier operating it slumped dead over the controls. ‘Oh bollocks!’ Eddie gasped, jumping down on to the platform and navigating the two dozen or so bullet-torn bodies to drag the man off and shove the large brass lever to the neutral position. The elevator stopped with a squealing jolt. He pushed it the other way to bring it back up, stopping with another clash from the cables. A couple of corpses flopped out grotesquely. ‘Basement!’ the Yorkshireman announced. ‘Perfume, stationery and garden tools. Going up!’

‘That’s great,’ said Nina, stepping with trepidation over the lacerated soldiers, ‘but now we’re out of ammo.’

Eddie tossed away his empty rifle and replaced it with a slightly bloodied one from the lift’s deceased passengers. ‘North Korea really is an arms supplier!’ The floor was riddled with holes, but the wood still seemed intact enough to take everyone’s weight. He kicked out more bodies to make sure, then waved everyone on to the platform. ‘All aboard!’

The prisoners stepped on to the elevator, some reacting with fear or revulsion at the dead men before the hope of freedom took over. Eddie operated the lever. A whine of motors somewhere high above, the cables singing, then it began its ascent.

‘They’re probably waiting for us at the top,’ said Nina, peering up the shaft. Patches of light marked the levels above.

‘I dunno,’ her husband replied. ‘How long is it since they gave the evac order? Ten minutes, twenty? If it was a radiation alarm, that’ll have encouraged everyone to get their arses outside pretty damn quick.’

‘It was radiation,’ Ock confirmed. ‘First they gave the order for soldiers and technicians to get out. Then Bok said to kill the prisoners. The elevators could not take everyone fast enough.’

‘This place is like an underground Titanic,’ Nina muttered.

To her surprise, Ock almost smiled. ‘Titanic. It is a good movie.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘On a DVD, smuggled from China. I watched it with my wife.’ The smile disappeared. ‘I hope she…’

‘We’ll try and find her,’ Eddie assured him. ‘But you’re right, Nina — this place is like the Titanic. ’Cause it’s gonna go down.’

‘How?’ she asked. ‘I forgot to pack my iceberg.’

‘Remember where they were building the missiles, on the top level? They were making fuel for ’em too. And I just happen to know,’ a sly smile, ‘that North Korea uses kerosene and some stuff called red fuming nitric acid for fuel in its Scud knock-offs. If they come into contact with each other…’ He spread his hands apart to mime an explosion.

The elevator rose through the next level, which had also been evacuated. ‘You want to blow up the base?’

‘Saves someone else doing it, doesn’t it? Seeing as they really were using it to make nukes.’

‘The nukes,’ Nina echoed. ‘Damn it, they’re probably on their way out of here already!’

‘Yeah, along with Mikkelsson. And his money, and his gold, and probably the bloody Crucible too — the small one, anyway. Hopefully the big one got buried when the particle accelerator blew up.’

‘Great. They can just start the whole process all over again. We’ve got to stop him.’

‘Let’s worry about getting out of here alive first, eh?’ He looked towards the approaching top of the shaft. ‘Okay, this is it. Anybody wearing a stupid big hat with a red star on it, shoot ’em!’ He waited for Ock to pass on his instructions, then asked him: ‘You sure you don’t want a gun? Doesn’t look like these twats have exactly been treating you well.’ He indicated the lurid bruise on the Korean’s face.

Ock bowed his head. ‘No, I… I am not a soldier like you.’

‘I haven’t been a soldier for a long time now. Doesn’t stop me from protecting myself. Or people who need it.’

‘No, no. I cannot. I just… I just want to find my wife and go home.’

Eddie and Nina traded downbeat looks: the chances of Ock’s wife still being alive were vanishingly small. But they said nothing, instead watching the upper gate draw closer. ‘Everyone get ready,’ said the Yorkshireman, readying his gun. The action told the others what to do without the need for a translation. He took hold of the control lever. ‘And… now!’

He slammed it to the stop position, one of the unarmed workers throwing open the gate. Everyone rushed out.

Half a dozen soldiers stood by a truck at the end of the runway. Only a couple had time to react to the unexpected new arrivals before the prisoners opened fire, bullets tearing them apart. More rounds ripped into the truck’s cab, blood from the driver’s head splashing the splintering windscreen.

Another couple of soldiers were standing near the blockhouse. Both fell to sharp bursts from Eddie’s rifle. He checked the area. Nobody else in sight.

Nobody alive. There were large piles of rubble that had been brought up from below but not loaded for disposal. As before, the reason was appallingly clear. More workers lay still and bloodied amongst the debris, twisted in the frozen agonies of death.

Ock let out a keening cry, staring in horror at one of the bodies. He ran to the motionless woman and fell to his knees. Nina felt a deep dread. ‘Is she… your wife?’

The quivering man’s eyes filled with tears. He had to choke back sobs before being able to speak. ‘Yes…’

She regarded the dead woman with an almost overpowering sadness, knowing she would feel just as lost in the same situation. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

He tried to reply, but couldn’t form the words. All he managed was a moan as he bent lower until his face almost touched the floor, gripping his wife’s still hand. The other prisoners looked on with sympathy, some offering whispered condolences. Finally a word in Korean escaped his lips — spoken not with grief, but with anger. He jerked back upright and repeated it in an enraged scream as tears rolled down his face.

Eddie looked on sorrowfully, then noticed something in the huge hangar beyond. Or rather, the absence of something. ‘Shit!’ The three missile transporters were gone — along with their cargo. But he could still hear the echoing roar of powerful diesel engines. With some of the prisoners following, he ran to the runway. The sound grew louder. He peered cautiously around the corner to look down the main tunnel.

The TELs were approaching its mouth, travelling in a convoy with several jeeps, another two-ton truck like the bullet-ravaged one nearby, and the 4x4 in which he and Nina had been brought to Facility 17. As he watched, one of the jeeps veered off sharply and skidded to a halt, its occupants jumping out. Even at this distance, Eddie could tell from his clothing that one was an officer rather than a regular soldier.

Bok.

The echoes of massed gunfire from the runway’s far end had alerted Bok that something was wrong. He ordered his driver to swing out of the convoy and stop.

The other vehicles all slowed in response. ‘Bok!’ barked Kang over the walkie-talkie. ‘What’s happening?’

The security chief got out and stared back down the tunnel. In the distance, he saw figures spilling from one side of the blockhouse — and dead soldiers on the ground. ‘Some of the prisoners have escaped! They’ve—’ One person stood out clearly, even from this distance. Red hair. ‘The American woman, she’s still alive!’ he cried in disbelief.

Kang’s voice turned even colder than usual. ‘None of them get out. Do you understand?’

Bok stiffened at the understated but clear threat. That Wilde and her husband had survived in the first place was already a black mark for him; his rank and privileged background would not help him if he failed to prevent them from escaping the facility. ‘They’ll be dead when you reach the airbase, sir,’ he replied.

‘It had better not take that long, Bok.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The major shouted hurried orders into the radio. Three more jeeps pulled over to form a barricade across the runway, the soldiers jumping out and aiming their rifles down the tunnel. The rest of the convoy accelerated again, clearing the mountainside and rumbling away into the night.

Bok clipped the radio back to his belt, trying to conceal his worry, then looked around. At this range, without telescopic sights, his men’s Type 58 rifles would be all but useless, but there were other weapons nearby that could do the job. Flanking the runway just outside the tunnel entrance were the two minigun turrets, intended to repel invaders trying to enter Facility 17… but also able to turn through a hundred and eighty degrees to prevent anyone from leaving it.

‘The guns!’ he shouted. ‘Man the guns — point them into the facility.’ Two men ran for one, while he and a soldier from his jeep started for the other. ‘No one gets out of there alive!’

Eddie saw the North Korean troops head for the turrets. ‘Shit! Everyone get back, get into cover!’ He pushed Nina around the corner as he withdrew, but several prisoners had already raced past him on to the runway. Without Ock to translate, they didn’t understand his warning — and by the time they realised for themselves, it was too late.

The miniguns opened fire with chainsaw snarls, sending twin streams of bullets down the runway, tracers giving them the appearance of laser beams. The gunners swept them across the end of the hangar, fifty rounds impacting every second. Concrete splintered under the onslaught, lines of death homing in on the running figures—

The miniguns only used standard 7.62-millimetre ammunition, allowing them to draw upon North Korea’s vast reserves of Kalashnikov-compatible rounds, but fired at such a fearsome rate that the result was like being struck by cannon shells. The first man to be hit literally disintegrated, his body blasted into a bloody spray. The woman beside him screamed as her arm was ripped off at the elbow, but her agony lasted only a moment before the gunfire cut her in half.

The other escapees tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to hide. More fell, exploding into bloodied shreds. A few managed to get behind the truck, but it did not save them. The minigun streams tore its bodywork into shrapnel, tearing apart the men and women cowering behind it before its fuel tank exploded, scattering blazing wreckage all around.

The gunners focused their attention on the spot where the fugitives had emerged. Eddie and Nina fled as the corner of the cavern wall shattered behind them, blasted apart by the six-barrelled weapons—

Sudden silence as the miniguns ceased firing. ‘What happened?’ Nina gasped. ‘Why’ve they stopped?’

Eddie signalled for everyone to stay put, then moved back through the haze of dust to risk a brief peek around the bullet-gnawed corner. Both turrets still pointed down the runway. ‘Run out of targets. Probably worried about wasting ammo, too — if those miniguns are like American ones, they can fire over three thousand rounds per minute.’

‘So what can we do?’

‘There’s no way we’ll get past ’em,’ he replied, grim-faced. ‘We—’

Ock pushed past him, now holding a rifle. ‘We kill them,’ he growled. ‘We kill them!’

Eddie dragged him back. ‘No, don’t!’ cried Nina. ‘They’ll kill you!’

‘I do not care! She is dead, she is dead!’ A despairing wave at his wife’s body. ‘I have nothing left!’

‘You’d be dead before you got twenty feet,’ Eddie told him. ‘You’ll die for nothing! Would your wife want that?’

The question shook Ock. ‘No, she…’ He slumped. ‘No. But what can we do? We are trapped!’

Eddie looked back into the cavernous underground factory. His gaze fell upon the ranks of vehicles near the cargo elevator. ‘Come on,’ he said, hurrying to one.

‘You want to float out of here?’ Nina asked incredulously. ‘In that?’ Even with its military modifications, the four-seater hovercraft seemed almost toy-like.

‘I want to see how thick this armour is.’ He examined the wedge of plating covering the craft’s nose. ‘Everyone get back!’ He waved for the others to retreat, then raised his gun and fired a single shot. The round banged off the armour and screamed away into the depths of the hangar. The drab camouflage paint spalled away around the impact point to reveal dull grey metal beneath, but the surface itself had only a slight dent.

‘What was that for?’ Nina asked.

‘Miniguns use regular rifle ammo,’ he replied. ‘And a rifle round hardly scratched this.’ He knocked on the armour. ‘Looks like Chobham, or summat similar. They’ll have built these to charge through the demilitarised zone — the South Koreans won’t be able to hurt ’em with regular weapons until they’re already over the border.’

‘At which point they can just shoot them in the back as they go past,’ Nina pointed out, indicating the hovercraft’s open, unprotected body behind the plating. ‘And they’ll do the same to us if we try to get out in these!’

‘I wasn’t thinking of getting out in ’em.’ A glance at another vehicle, one of the microlight aircraft. ‘We’ve got to take out those turrets first, and I think I know how…’ He turned to look across the runway. Some of the giant fuel tanks were visible beyond the blockhouse. ‘Ock!’ he called. ‘Tell everyone I need help with some hover bovver!’

Bok stared intently down the runway. The dust from the miniguns’ assault had settled, nothing moving at the tunnel’s far end except the flames licking in the wrecked truck. He had glimpsed someone looking out around the corner, but they retreated before the guns could be brought to bear.

He was about to raise his radio to order some of the men along the barricade to move into the tunnel when a low growl reached him from the depths of the mountain. ‘They’ve started an engine,’ he announced instead. ‘They must be making a run for it. Whatever they’re driving, I don’t want it to reach the exit.’

Acknowledgements crackled through the ether. The man operating the turret pointed the minigun at the bullet-riddled corner. Bok watched as the distant engine roared, eagerly awaiting its appearance.

But nothing came into view. It sounded as though the vehicle was being driven across the facility behind the blockhouse. ‘They’re up to something! Everyone be ready!’

Ock stood in the hovercraft’s front passenger seat, looking over the armour as Eddie piloted the little vehicle across the factory floor. ‘Right, right!’ the Korean shouted as it drifted towards a stand of machinery on the missile production line. ‘Go right!’

The Englishman flicked the rudder, bringing the hovercraft around in a wide, slithering turn. The narrow viewing slits were practically useless, too low to give him a clear view even when hunched down in the uncomfortable fibreglass seat. ‘Are we clear?’ he asked as the obstacle slid past.

‘Yes, yes! Go forward!’

Eddie straightened out. He had driven similar vehicles before and knew how much of a handful they could be, but the nose-heavy North Korean example was even harder to control. He glanced back, seeing several prisoners following at a run. ‘How much further?’

‘Not far… Stop! Stop, now!’

Eddie closed the throttle. The hovercraft wallowed, skidding along on a residual cushion of air before its Kevlar-toughened rubber skirt deflated. The Korean grabbed the mounted gun to steady himself as the vehicle lurched to a stop. ‘You okay?’ Eddie asked.

Ock’s eyes still betrayed his grief-stricken rage. ‘Yes,’ was his curt reply. ‘What are we doing?’

The Yorkshireman climbed out. Before him were the fuel tanks, ranks of great metal cylinders rising above a rat’s nest of pipework. ‘There should be two different kinds of fuel. One’ll probably be kerosene — or paraffin, it’s called in Britain. The other’ll be a kind of nitric acid.’

Ock surveyed the tanks, spotting warning signs. He pointed at one of the larger vessels. ‘Yes, that is kerosene. And that’ — he turned to indicate a group of smaller, but still capacious, tanks about a hundred feet from the first set — ‘is acid.’ He gave Eddie an odd look. ‘You said you were a soldier, but you know this. Are you a scientist?’

The Englishman laughed. ‘Not even close! I don’t know if Nina’d find that funny or be offended.’

The other prisoners arrived. ‘Okay, we need a barrel of the stuff from those tanks,’ Eddie pointed at the kerosene store, ‘and another barrel from those.’ He turned to indicate the containers of augmented nitric acid as Ock translated his instructions. ‘Fill ’em about two thirds full. But whatever you do, do not fucking spill any. If they mix, if they even touch, they’ll explode — and the more there is, the bigger the explosion.’ Widening eyes told him that the danger had been successfully communicated. ‘It looks like you can drain stuff using those valves, so get a barrel of each and bring ’em back to the hovercraft. Really carefully,’ he added as the group split up.

‘What are you going to do?’ Ock asked.

‘If we load up the hovercraft with the barrels, we can send it down the runway to crash into those jeeps they’ve set up as a barricade. The barrels go flying, the stuff inside mixes — and boom. We’ve got our way out.’

The Korean was sceptical. ‘It is a very big runway.’

‘It’ll be a very big boom. Trust me.’ The metal drums he had seen stacked near the tanks were of a standard fifty-five-gallon size, over two hundred litres. If they were filled as he had asked, the combination of more than seventy gallons of hypergolic fuel and oxidiser would produce an extremely satisfying explosion.

The remaining prisoners, Nina with them, approached pushing one of the microlights. ‘Okay,’ she demanded, ‘why exactly did you want us to bring this?’

‘Because we need a way out of here.’

‘And the half-dozen jeeps back there aren’t suitable because…?’

‘Because A, they’ll never catch up with the missile convoy on that twisty road, and B, there’ll probably be a shitload of troops coming back up the road once they realise what we’ve done.’

‘Which is?’

‘Blow this place to fuck.’ He took out a stick of dynamite, then smiled and nodded towards the fuel tanks. ‘About fifty thousand gallons of rocket fuel ought to do it.’

‘Yeah, it might,’ she said with alarm.

‘And speaking of…’ Eddie watched as three straining men carefully carried a barrel of kerosene towards the hovercraft. A lid had been placed loosely over its top, but he could still hear its contents sloshing about. ‘Put it here,’ he said, pointing at one of the rear seats. Ock relayed the command, the trio carefully lowering it into position.

By the time they were done, the other group had returned from the more distant tanks. The noise from their drum was far more worrying: a frothing hiss as the nitric acid tried to eat through the metal. The lid had been pushed down more firmly to hold in the choking fumes, though one of the prisoners carrying it had a very sickly appearance from accidental exposure while filling the barrel. Eddie directed them to the other rear seat. ‘Careful, really careful,’ he warned as they lowered it. ‘Okay, that’s good.’ There was a rolled-up camouflage tarp in the rear; he used it to wedge the second container in place. ‘Let’s get this thing moving.’

‘Wait, so now what?’ Nina asked. ‘You’re just going to push it out and hope it goes in the right direction? These things steer like cows on ice skates!’

Eddie was about to make a sarcastic reply, but Ock spoke first. ‘I will drive it.’

‘You what?’ said the Englishman. ‘You can’t — you’ll be killed!’

The Korean fixed him with an unwavering look. ‘I do not care. I have lost everything.’ He gestured in the direction of his late wife. ‘I want to kill them. I want to kill Bok! If I do, you can all get out of here.’

‘There has to be another way,’ Nina said, pleading.

‘No. I must do it. Now, before… before I become afraid.’ He pushed past Eddie to climb into the pilot’s seat.

‘They’ll be shooting at you, so let’s at least give you a chance to shoot back,’ Eddie told him. As well as the tarp, the hovercraft held various other supplies, including an ammunition box. He opened it and pulled out a belt of bullets. The weapon on the pintle was a North Korean copy of a Soviet-era PK machine gun; while Ock was familiarising himself with the vehicle’s controls, he quickly loaded the belt. ‘Okay, that’s about a hundred rounds,’ he said. ‘There’s a lever there to aim it, and,’ he pointed out the mechanical linkage running down from the gun’s trigger to between the front seats, ‘if you pull that? Ock’s gon’ give it to ya.’

Ock nodded, then restarted the engine, the skirt inflating. ‘I am ready,’ he said, testing the rudder pedals. Even with the main propeller only idling, there was enough airflow to nudge the craft’s tail around.

Nina hurriedly retreated from the blades. ‘You don’t have to do this.’

He looked back at her, fearful but also determined. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘My Korean’s a bit rusty, so you’d better tell the others that if this works, they need to run for the outside as soon as the way’s clear,’ said Eddie. Ock did so, then the Yorkshireman held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ The Korean shook it before turning back to the controls. ‘Goodbye. I hope you see your home again.’

‘So do I,’ said Nina morosely.

Eddie pulled off both barrel lids, then Ock edged the main fan to full power. The hovercraft moved off, making a sweeping turn towards the tunnel.

The return of the distant engine noise had drawn the attention of the soldiers at the tunnel entrance. ‘They’re coming!’ Bok shouted into his radio. ‘Ready all weapons!’ The men along the vehicular barricade raised their rifles, the two miniguns spinning up their barrels ready to fire.

The hovercraft came into view. ‘There it is — quick, quick!’ the major snapped, waving for his gunner to lock on. By the time he found his target, it had already turned on to the runway and started towards them, rapidly gaining speed. ‘Fire!’

The buzzing rasp of the miniguns and the stuttering bark of the soldiers’ rifles was drowned out by the thunderous clanging of bullets off the hovercraft’s frontal armour. Ock cried out in terror, before realising that he was still alive… and still moving, the tunnel walls rolling past at an increasing pace.

He squinted into one of the narrow slits in the plating. Paint flecks whipping through it stung his face, but he still made out the line of jeeps, and the gun emplacements on each side.

Bok was in one of them. He knew that an explosion at the runway’s centre had the best chance of clearing the way for the prisoners to escape — but the thought of the man who had ordered his wife’s murder made him veer angrily to the right instead, aiming straight for the turret.

More bullets pounded the armour like a hail of hammers. Fibreglass cracked behind him, the propeller’s hooped cowling splintering. His turn had exposed the rear of his craft to the other minigun, and it would only get worse the closer he got to the tunnel mouth.

The gun—

He turned the handle to swing the PK towards the left side of the entrance — then pulled its trigger control.

The noise was almost deafening, broken links from the ammo belt showering down on his head as the machine gun roared. The pounding of bullets against the hovercraft’s prow abruptly halved as the minigunner dropped behind sandbags. Another look ahead. Bok’s turret was right in front of him. The flame from its Gatling gun grew brighter, the storm of lead hitting with greater force as he closed in.

The hovercraft shuddered with each impact. Ock glanced back at the two barrels. Fumes trailed from the drum of nitric acid, the kerosene beside it slopping and splashing almost to the open top. He swung the machine gun back across and pulled the trigger again, sending a snarling burst of bullets at his target. The strobing flame briefly cut out as the gunner ducked, then returned with even more fearsome intensity.

The other minigun locked back on — and this time caused more than superficial damage. One of the rudders shredded, its supports shearing away. The hovercraft slewed around. Ock tried to counter it, but the vehicle was now even harder to control, swinging away from the turret.

He cursed, struggling to straighten out. More rounds hammered the armour — which started to warp and buckle under the relentless assault. One of the jeeps came into view through the slits. He was running out of both room to manoeuvre and time. Finally regaining control, he aimed the hovercraft at the vehicle with a defiant roar—

Bok clenched a fist in triumph as a chunk of armour blew off the hovercraft, only for the gesture to freeze in surprise as he saw something in the rear of its passenger compartment.

Barrels, one of them leaving a wispy trail of what looked like smoke…

Not smoke. Vapour.

The fugitive had come from the rocket fuel stores. His mind made the connection—

‘Run!’ he screamed in horrified realisation, scrambling over the circle of sandbags surrounding the turret even though he knew he was doomed. The gunner looked around at him in surprise. ‘Get out of here, run!’

The hovercraft’s main propeller was torn apart by the withering gunfire, shedding blades — but it was too late to stop it.

Ock howled as the hovercraft ploughed into the jeep. The barrels flew forward, their contents sluicing out…

And mixing.

The spontaneous ignition of the two chemicals was instant — and devastating.

Both vehicles disintegrated in a colossal ball of fire.