Leviathan(88)

“It's pretty clear, Chesterton,” Connor responded. “If that thing is still coming after us, we've got to get out of this cavern. We've got twelve hours left. So I say we make for the elevator shaft. Then we rewire the elevator and load everyone up. We can stop halfway to set charges to blow the shaft when we reach the surface. But we've got to get moving. We've rested up enough already.”

Chesterton nodded. “If that thing is closing on us again can you rig up something like you rigged earlier in the Matrix?”

“I should be able to.”

“How much electricity did you use the first time?”

“About 100,000 volts.”

“And is this place full of 100,000-volt lines?”

“There's enough of them.”

“And why is that? That seems like a lot.”

Connor took a deep breath. “The current is sent from a Norwegian nuclear plant. They have to send it out to the island at about a billion volts because of the distance it has to travel. After the current gets to where it's going, it has to be broken down at substations for various applications. But I've sort of bypassed some breakers in the power plant and we've got lines running as high as they'll go. Some of them are carrying 300,000 volts.” He paused. “It's an unsafe situation.”

Chesterton laughed harshly. “Tell me about it.” He rose, holding his M-16. “All right, boys, let's get moving. I don't intend to die in this place.”

Connor met secretly with Beth as she crept casually from the computer. She held Jordan in her arms. The boy shouted in joy and reached out for Connor as soon as he saw him.

Taking the half-awake boy in his arms, Connor spoke. “Those goons wouldn't give Chesterton the code. So Chesterton says we're moving out of the Housing Cavern right now. How does it look?”

Beth's face was pale. “I've broken everything but the last encryption. It's something that's not a number or anything else that I can identify. It's . . . it's vaguely like some kind of bizarre hieratic-geometrical hybrid swirl. More like a signature than any code I've ever seen. And it's three pages long. At least that's how I glimpse it.” She blinked tiredly. “So I've just set up the terminals to do a constant light matrix screen-search against the megabyte blasts of the encryption that came through the relay. It's slow going.” She shook her head. “I'm sorry, Connor. I had no idea how difficult this was going to be.”

“You're a genius, Beth. Nobody could do better.”

She leaned back. “But I still don't know how long it will take. I've never dealt with anything like this before.”

“Are you certain that Frank can't help?”

“No. Frank is brilliant but communications isn't his field. He knows GEO and that's in his mind.”

“All right. It probably doesn't matter, anyway. Chesterton says we're moving for the front of the cavern. If we can reach the surface we can load up on the Hueys.”

“We're moving for the elevator? All of us?”

“Yeah.”

Beth cast a suspicious glance over the rest of the crowd, then she lightly caressed Jordan's head. Without another word she spun and walked quickly into the computer room, toward the terminal. “Beth,” Connor whispered, “what are you doing?”

She turned, burning a vicious glance over everyone in the cavern. “I'm going to make sure the terminals continue working on that last encryption,” she answered. “I'm going to set it in a loop to unlock that last code.”

“Why? We're probably not going to need it.” He stared at her. “What are you thinking, Beth?”

“I'm thinking that we've got a long way to go, Connor,” she replied, grim. “And I'm thinking that a lot of Adler's people, especially Tolvanos, care a lot more for that creature and this facility than for any of us.”

* * *

It took over an hour to lift the vault doors, moving through tunnels and passages and picking up a few trapped scientists found along the way. And it was Barley, as heavily armed as any man Connor had ever seen, who led at the front.

The big lieutenant was mortally prepared for a final conflict with the Dragon. He had three LAW rockets slung over his back and two additional bandoliers of grenades. He carried his rifle in his hand and had secured three pistols—one on each thigh and another in a shoulder holster. Ammo clips and explosives and other weapons Connor couldn't even identify were stuffed in every conceivable pocket in the man's dirt-smeared fatigues. But the most ominous, and faintly chilling, preparation was a Velcro body harness stuffed heavily with what Connor thought was C-4.

Before they began the long march Connor had remarked on it. “What's that, Barley?” He pointed, almost delicately, to the harness. Barley had frowned, reaching up to rip down a palm-sized Velcro cover. Beneath the opened black flap, Connor saw two small red rings, one above the other. Barley's face was grim.