The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [190]
Shielded by the support leg, Eddie and Nina were still pounded by the force of the explosion as the colossal building shook. Flaming fibreglass fragments hailed down around them. Eddie hurriedly brushed cinders from his scalp and crawled to peer round the leg, seeing the communication masts topple and crash to the ground like great steel trees. ‘I think that’s the jammer sorted out, then.’
‘And everything else,’ Nina added. ‘This whole building’s going to burn - we’ve got to . . .’ She tailed off.
‘What?’ Eddie demanded, suspecting that he wouldn’t like the answer.
‘The vault,’ she gasped. ‘We left the vault open - if the building burns down, the debris’ll fall down the elevator shaft and destroy all the treasures!’
‘So let me guess - you want us to go down there and save everything? We’ll have a sod of a job carrying that statue back to the lift!’
‘We don’t have to take anything out, just make sure they’re protected. Eddie, we have to,’ she went on, pleading. ‘We can’t let them be destroyed, not now. You saw how thick that door was - all we have to do is close it. Even if the building collapses, someone can still recover everything later.’
‘Yeah, and they might recover what’s left of us if we’re down there when it happens!’ But he saw her point. The war the Khoils had hoped for might have been averted, but if their private collection of stolen cultural treasures was destroyed, they would still get one last laugh from beyond the grave. ‘Okay, okay. But we’ll have to be quick. I don’t know how long this place’ll hold together.’
Nina stood. ‘First thing we need to do is get off this roof.’ She gingerly made her way to the edge and looked across the aurora-lit plain. Far below, several people were running for one of the smaller structures at the base’s periphery. ‘Where are they going?’
‘Emergency shelter, probably,’ said Eddie, more interested in the building on which they were standing. At one end of the roof, metal stairs led downwards: access so that the flat expanse could be checked for weather damage. ‘C’mon.’
Skirting pieces of burning debris, they ran for the stairs and descended to a short catwalk. At its end was a door; Eddie kicked it open. A narrow stairwell led down through the composite building. The air was already hazy with smoke.
They hurried down the stairs, Eddie wincing at the pain from Tandon’s beating. At the bottom, he held Nina back, feeling the door for heat on the other side, then cautiously opening it a fraction in case anyone was still in the building. But the corridor was empty. The way clear, they headed for the elevators.
Both of the cage-like cars waited at the top of the shaft. Eddie regarded them dubiously. ‘Bad idea, using a lift when there’s a fire . . . but I’m not climbing down that bloody ladder again.’ They entered one of the elevators, which began its rumbling descent into the glacier.
‘Now that the jammer’s down, how long before help gets here, do you think?’ Nina asked.
‘Couple of hours, probably.’
‘I hope Walther can hold out that long.’
‘I hope we can hold out that long. The Khoils are dead, but some of their staff’re still around, and they seemed pretty big on loyalty. I don’t want to have got through all this and then get shot by their pastry chef. When we—’
They both looked up sharply at a noise from above, a deep metallic groan punctuated by ominous thumps and bangs. The elevator shook, the vertical tracks rattling as the building’s weight shifted on its support legs.
‘So,’ said Eddie, hovering a hand over the emergency stop button, ‘are some bits of old junk really that important to the world?’ Nina glared at him. ‘Yeah, thought so.’ He stepped back - then froze as he spotted something in the adjacent shaft. ‘Shit!’
The cables of the other elevator were moving. They looked up again - and saw that the second car was descending after them. It was moving at the same speed as theirs, meaning it would arrive at the bottom some thirty seconds later. Someone leaned over the guardrail.
Vanita.
Holding a gun—
Nina and Eddie dived in different