The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [184]
Both Khoils stared at the length of metal jutting from their bodyguard’s back in disbelief. ‘Chapal!’ Vanita cried, for a moment the woman she was choking forgotten—
Nina drove the heel of her palm up against Vanita’s chin. The Indian woman’s open mouth snapped shut - catching the end of her tongue between her teeth. Vanita spat out blood, a half-inch of muscle hanging only by a few threads of mangled tissue.
‘Bite your tongue!’ Nina gasped, throwing a punch. It only caught Vanita a glancing blow on the cheek, but it was enough to make her stagger backwards and slip on the film of frost that had formed on the metal floor as the icy wind shrilled through the hole in the dome. She stumbled . . .
Landing beside the MP5K.
Vanita grabbed the gun and jumped up—
Nina dived at her, skidding on her stomach along the frost. She wrapped both arms round Vanita’s ankles and twisted. Already unbalanced by her missing shoe, Vanita staggered and fell . . .
Down the stairs.
She screamed - then the cry was cut off abruptly by an echoing bang as she hit hard metal. More thumps followed as she tumbled down the steps. The MP5K fired at each impact, bursts of bullets clanging off the machinery. A fierce eruption of sparks came from one transformer as a round shattered an insulator, the resulting short circuit causing an angry, sizzling hum to rise within it. Several screens in the dome above flickered. But Vanita didn’t hear the sound or see the flashes as she crashed to the floor, unconscious.
Nina heard and saw them, though. ‘Oh, crap,’ she gasped, crawling to the stairs and looking down. Vanita was sprawled at the bottom, the gun beside her . . . but the spraying sparks and ominous crackling noise changed Nina’s mind about going down to get it. The short circuit was causing the mineral oil used to cool and insulate the old transformer to boil - to ignition point. It could explode at any moment.
Eddie kicked away Tandon’s corpse and looked up at the platform. Khoil broke through his shock, whirling to check the still-trembling images on the main screens. The drone was closing on its target: 02:05 to impact. He made several rapid hand gestures; no longer controlling the flight of the stealth aircraft, but calling up a menu screen.
Nina realised what he was doing as commands flashed up on the giant video wall. The game was almost over - and the billionaire was trying to fix the result. ‘Eddie!’ she yelled, voice rasping in her bruised throat. ‘He’s locking the controls!’ Even without anyone guiding it, the drone would still carry out its preprogrammed mission.
Eddie sprang up, but knew that by the time he reached the upper platform Khoil would have completed his task. He needed a faster way to stop him. Shoot him - but the guard’s fallen gun was nowhere in sight.
Which left—
He stamped a foot down on Tandon’s ribs and grabbed the length of railing, yanking it out of the dead man’s chest. He spun to smash the metal pipe against the dented framework—
The aluminium strut he hit broke in two. The effect on the rest of the weakened structure was instantaneous; a chain reaction rippled upwards as the weight of the video screens caused the horizontal supports to collapse one after the other. Eddie ran as the larger screens above him fell, smashing on the floor and blowing out with gunfire cracks and sprays of sparks and smoke.
The breakdown reached the top of the dome. The images on the two big screens jolted crazily as the projector rig shook - then tipped sharply as one side broke free, swinging above Khoil with a shrill of tortured metal. He looked up—
The rig tore loose. It dropped the thirty feet to the platform before Khoil could manage more than a startled scream, pounding him to the floor like a piledriver.
Nina winced. ‘Guess you really can be crushed by the weight of information.’
Eddie went to her. ‘Jesus! You okay? Looks like you got bitten by a vampire!’
Nina was confused, until she put a hand