Darkness Falls, page 24
Near its end, the line faded from red to yellow, depicting the section of the pipeline that was not yet fully contaminated by the bacteria.
"How long?"
"A few hours. Its growth is exponential."
Teague glanced over his shoulder to find Udo only a few feet away, his gun pointed loosely at the floor. He seemed hypnotized by the almost imperceptible expansion of the red line.
"Have you done the final bomb-test sequence?" Teague asked, concentrating on keeping his voice steady. Udo, like his brother, was a fanatic. He was obviously having a difficult time understanding Teague's change of heart and seemed to want to rationalize it as a momentary lapse instead of the reasoned reaction it really was.
"I haven't," the German said. "I thought that should be your honor."
As Teague ran his hand over the computer's keyboard, he fantasized about smashing it on the floor. But it would be pointless. The connection was wireless and they had backup computers -- something he himself had insisted on.
Teague tapped in a few commands and sixty small blue dots appeared along the pipeline. For a moment, he thought they'd failed, but then the dots began turning green as each sent a ready signal back to the computer.
"They're all go," Teague said.
Udo stepped up behind him and stared down at the screen. "So many years of work. So many sacrifices. But we're finally here."
Teague grabbed the laptop and spun, swinging it at the surprised German's head. It connected hard and Udo crumpled to the floor, the gun skittering across the room and bouncing off the far wall.
Teague lunged toward it but Udo grabbed his pant leg, forcing him to reach out for the table to keep from falling. He tried to free himself and discovered that it was easy the blow had weakened the German to the point that all he could do was watch helplessly as Teague walked casually across the room to retrieve the gun.
"I'm not going to die like this, Udo. I'm not going to die like all the others."
By the time he'd picked up the pistol and turned, the German was back on his feet, but swaying unsteadily.
"What do you matter, Michael? What do I matter? This is about the survival of the planet -- maybe the only one of its kind in the entire universe. If we don't --"
Teague shook his head sadly. "I gave up everything for this -- my career, my home, my position. But I'm not going to give up my life."
He raised the gun and Udo backed away until he bumped the wall behind him.
"I'm sorry," Teague said. "I admire your conviction, but in the end that's your problem. You're blinded by it."
He pulled the trigger and the gun clicked quietly.
Suddenly, Udo seemed to be able to stand under his own power without difficulty. His eyes turned dark and his voice took on Jonas's quiet monotone. "I'd hoped you'd be able to put your fear and selfishness behind you in the face of something as great as this. That after you had calmed down, we'd be able to finish this and walk into the wilderness knowing that because of us it would survive. Always."
Teague pulled the trigger again, and again, it clicked. He moved right, but Udo moved with him, blocking the only path to the weapons cabinet on the other side of the building. He recognized the knife that Udo produced as one of Jonas's -- a long, silver blade with deep serrations across the back.
"You never truly understood, did you Michael? After all this, you never really believed."
Chapter 48.
The full moon created a colorless haze over the top of the forest, making it indistinguishable from an ocean as it rolled beneath them. With no lights or detail to fix on, Erin finally turned away from the window and looked around the helicopter's cramped cabin. Jenna was sitting next to him, dressed in black fatigues, her gloved hand clinging tightly to his. The others were dressed exactly the same, but it was still painfully obvious who was who. The Canadian commandos all wore the same robot-like expression, their gazes fixed sightlessly on whatever was directly across from them. Mark Beamon's belly was straining at clothes not really designed for the committed nonathlete and his sweat-glazed face hinted at either motion sickness or a hangover.
The helicopter began to slow and Carl Fournier stood, holding a steel rail above him for balance. His voice reverberated in Erin's ear-phones. "This is as close as we're going to get without them hearing us. Let's move!"
The soldiers jumped to their feet in unison, rocking the helicopter nauseatingly as they threw the doors open to the cold wind. Erin squinted into it as two men tossed ropes out into the darkness, anchored them to harnesses at their waists, then flung themselves into space. It seemed like less than a second before the ropes went slack and Fournier pointed in his direction. "You're next!"
Erin shook he head. "Fuck that. You go."
"I'm staying up here to coordinate air cover. You agreed to this, Erin. There's no changing your mind now."
Jenna got up and pulled him to the open door, looping the rope through his harness before doing the same herself. "Just relax, Erin! It's going to be fine."
At least, that's what he thought she said. With the wind and the sound of the rotors, it could just as well have been "It's only two hundred feet to the jagged rocks, but don't worry, that rope was made by the lowest bidder."
It wasn't that he was afraid of heights in a classic sense -- he piloted planes without any problems. What he didn't do, though, was climb out onto the wings when they were in flight.
Jenna grabbed his shoulder and gently pulled him backwards, letting the stretch of the rope take him out into the helicopter's powerful downdraft. His footing became increasingly precarious as Jenna lowered herself onto the helicopter's skids. She grabbed him again, this time by the back of the harness and gave it a yank -- causing his feet to slip and his shins to slam into the edge of the platform.
"Goddamnit," he shouted, but all he could hear was the wind.
Jenna took hold of his rope and tried to feed some through to put distance between them and the rotors, but he pushed her hand away. He was perfectly aware that he was dangling in space beneath a man-made hurricane and that the ground would be a much better place to be. Slipping away from the relative safety of the massive chopper to dangle in the darkness from an invisible thread, though, wasn't as easy as he'd hoped.
He loosened his grip a bit and dropped gracelessly, his unwillingness to completely abandon the helicopter causing him to keep his feet on the skids and flip himself upside down. Unfazed, Jenna grabbed one of his ankles and used her weight to right him as she slipped by and disappeared.
He followed hesitantly, refusing to look down until his feet hit the branches of a tree -- the next best thing to solid ground as far as he was concerned. Instead of just pushing away from it and rappelling neatly the rest of the way, he climbed through the branches and then slithered down the trunk.
"Good job," Jenna lied, running up and helping him out of the harness. He glanced up and saw a round shadow descending a little too fast. It hit with the sound of a sandbag, though with the addition of a breathless stream of obscenities.
"Mark! Are you alright?" Jenna shouted, running toward the prone figure as Erin followed.
"I'm great," Beamon said as he untangled himself from his rope. "Just fucking great."
When he was free, the helicopter began to move away, leaving them in silence. At first, it was as though the soldiers had disappeared, but on closer inspection, Erin saw the last two melting into the tree line to the north.
"Doesn't look like the end of the world, does it?" Erin whispered.
The three of them were lying amidst the densely packed trees, looking out at a metal cube of a building glowing in the moonlight. It had taken almost four hours of hard hiking to get there and Beamon was flat on his back, his breath coming in short gasps that hung like fog in front of his mouth for a moment before being torn apart by the wind. The cut across his cheek that Erin had given him had opened up and blood was spreading dramatically as it mixed with sweat.
Jenna didn't answer, instead concentrating on the building with an intensity born of knowing that it was their last chance. It was exactly what they'd been looking for --a camouflaged building straddling the pipeline they'd found, miles from the heavily secured tar sands.
With the exception of Erin and Mark, there was no sign of life anywhere. No light bled from the building's only door, and there was no sign of the soldiers she knew were methodically surrounding the clearing.
"This is it," she said quietly. "It has to be."
Erin turned toward her but it was too dark to see his expression. The desperation in her voice was obvious, even to her. She couldn't bring herself to consider that this might be another of Teague's clever diversions or that they might be too late.
With so much darkness and silence, it would be too easy to lose herself in the consequences of her stupidity and naivete. Too easy to imagine the machines grinding to a halt, the people abandoning the cities in search of food and security, the chaos that would ensue when they discovered those things no longer existed. And, finally, the horrifying brutality and death as people fought to survive in a world that no one had ever imagined. Except Michael Teague.
"He's in there, Erin. I know he is."
"There's no way to be sure, Jen. I mean, I hope he is, but --"
A voice crackled through their earpieces, cutting him off.
"One in position. No windows or doors." Pause. "Two in position. No windows or doors." And so on until everyone was accounted for.
Beamon rolled onto his belly and shimmied in their direction, stopping alongside Erin. "This is it, then -- the only way in or out. Are you sure about what we can expect inside?"
"It'd be a pretty simple operation," Jenna said. "They'll have cut into the pipe and there'd be an outlet somewhere in the building. I don't think they'd need much of a lab--a microscope, some slides. Stuff like that. And if we're right that they've planted bombs along the pipeline, there'll be a way to detonate them. I'd guess a laptop based on the way Teague likes to do things."
Beamon nodded and spoke into his radio. "We're going. If anyone inside doesn't do exactly what you say, shoot first and we'll ask questions later."
"Wait a minute . . . ," Jenna said as the men surrounding the building confirmed that they'd heard and understood. "We aren't a hundred percent sure this is even the right building. It could be --"
"It could be what?" Beamon said. "You've been telling me for the last week that if I don't stop this thing, billions of people are going to die. That doesn't really put me in a position to take risks, does it? If this turns out to be a Boy Scout camp, we'll just have to hope they can follow instructions."
"You can't --" Jenna started, but Beamon was already on his feet, moving cautiously into the clearing, his pistol held in front of him.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll be back."
She watched the soldiers close in on the door and managed to push herself to her knees before Erin grabbed her. "You heard him, Jen. We're supposed to stay here. You'll just be in the way. I'm serious."
His tone and the weakness of his grip suggested that he knew he was fighting a losing battle. She shrugged him off and followed Beamon across the clearing, glancing back and trying to wave Erin off as he started after her.
By the time Beamon noticed them, the soldiers were on each side of the door placing charges on the hinges. He stopped and grabbed Jenna by the back of the neck. "Goddamnit!" he whispered loudly. "I told you to stay!"
"You might need us. We know --"
"Yeah, but I need you alive, okay? Now just stay here."
She did as she was told for just long enough to give him a solid lead, and then she started forward again, reaching the building and slipping along it to take a position behind a black-clad figure toting a submachine gun. Another man was holding up his fingers in an elaborate countdown. When he got to three, everyone looked away as a flash lit up the trees around them. She could feel the heat as the door was violently ripped from its hinges and the men disappeared inside.
She felt Erin clamp a hand over her shoulder, but again she pulled away, running through the still-burning hole in the side of the building.
"Nobody move!" she heard someone yell as the soldiers fanned out across the concrete floor. Beamon was partially obscured by smoke, hanging back with his pistol thrust out in front of him and letting the special forces people do their jobs.
Jenna's eye caught a sudden movement to her right and she watched helplessly as a man raced from behind a set of shelves stocked with canned food and equipment.
"Udo! Stop!" she screamed, but it was too late. The first bullet hit him in his right shoulder blade, causing his body to twist violently but not knocking him down. After that, the drone of gunfire filled the building. Udo kept lurching forward, the impacts of the soldiers' rounds seeming to add to his momentum as he tried to get to a laptop on a table near the wall.
"Mark!" she heard Erin shout. "The computer! He's going for the computer!"
At first, Jenna wasn't sure he had heard, but he adjusted his aim and, a moment later, she saw a portion of the laptop's screen explode. It slid a few feet, but didn't fall even when Udo slammed into the table and collapsed on top of it.
Ignoring the bullets flying around her she ran toward the German, unable to believe he was still moving -- his shirt was completely shredded and barely covered the pulverized flesh that had once been his back.
She'd made it nearly halfway when someone hit her from behind, knocking her to the floor and dragging her from the path of the bullets still filling the air. She struggled to get free, but this time Erin wasn't so easily dissuaded. He'd pulled her almost back to the door they'd first come through when the building suddenly went silent. No more gunshots. No Ni oices. Not even footsteps. She looked back to see everyone in the room standing motionless, staring at Udo's body. He was still draped across the table, but now had one dead hand on the keyboard of the shattered laptop.
"Don't shoot!"
She jerked around in the direction of the familiar voice and saw Michael Teague through an open doorway she hadn't noticed before. He was kneeling on the floor with one of the Canadian soldiers aiming a gun at his head.
"Don't shoot!" he pleaded again, moving as far from the man covering him as the chain around his neck would allow.
"Goddamnit!" Beamon yelled, his voice echoing through the building as he slid the laptop from beneath Udo's lifeless fingers. "Do you think he got to it in time?"
"It's still running," Erin said. "You just shot the screen."
"Fuck!" Beamon's shout was loud enough to startle a few of the soldiers sweeping the building.
Jenna's earpiece crackled to life again, this time with the voice of Carl Fournier. "Mark! What's happening in there? We have reports of explosions along the pipeline."
Jenna felt her legs go weak as Beamon slammed a fist into the laptop. It couldn't be. Not after all this. They had been so close.
She turned and ran unsteadily into the room at the back, grabbing Teague by the collar and throwing him onto his back. "How much bacteria was in the pipe? Tell me how much!"
"I tried to stop him," he said, not resisting when she grabbed the chain and pulled him back into a sitting position. He wouldn't look at her, instead staring down at the empty cans of soda and food wrappers surrounding him. "I tried . . ."
Jenna concentrated on softening her voice. "We know, Michael. We know you wanted to stop him. But you have to listen to me now. How full was the pipe?"
"At least ninety-five percent. Probably a hundred."
She backed away unsteadily, looking up at the man covering Teague and, for a moment, actually considering grabbing the gun and killing him herself.
"Michael! The valve you used to access the pipe. Can it still be opened?"
Teague's eyes narrowed at the sound of Erin's voice, but he nodded.
"Everyone out!" Jenna said, running into the main part of the building as Erin crawled onto the pipe outlet jutting from the floor.
She grabbed Mark's arm and pulled him along as she crossed the room. "That's a two-foot-diameter pipe," she explained. "We're going to open it and try to relieve some of the pressure to slow down the leaks where those charges went off."
"Won't that just move the problem from there to here?"
"Some of it. But there's no oil here -- it should go dormant pretty fast. Now, you have to listen to me. You need to set fire to the forest around this building and then to the building itself."
"What about where the pipe was perforated?"
"You'll have to use toxic chemicals that'll penetrate the sand," Erin said, using a wrench he'd found to pry out the pin locking the valve. "If I don't make it out of here, talk to Steve Andropolous. He'll know what to do."
Beamon hesitated for a moment, but then pointed to the man holding a gun on Teague. "Get that chain off him and let's get the hell out of here."
"We didn't bring bolt cutters," the soldier replied. "We used detonators on the door and planned on doing the same on any locks we found."
"Can you shoot it?"
"Risky. The bullet could ricochet . . ." "Fuck it," Beamon said. "Leave him." "What?" Teague said. "You can't leave me here."
Beamon just shrugged and everyone started filing out.
"Wait!" Teague shouted. "I can help you! I know everything about these bacteria. I can help stop it."
But they were already through the door, the sound of approaching helicopters already audible.
"Jenna!" Teague yelled. "I tried to stop Udo. You know that. You have to get me out of here."
She ignored him and climbed onto the pipe next to Erin. "I can do this myself. Go with Mark."
He grinned and shook his head slowly. "Remember our first date? What a disaster it was?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Erin, you've got to get out of here."
Beamon's voice came over her earpiece, but he wasn't talking to them. He was calling in the air strike.
"Kind of fitting, don't you think?" Erin said as they heaved on the large wheel controlling the valve. "I mean, that our last date would turn out this way?"
