Timeline - Michael Crichton [186]
De Kere was still stalking him, but now he paused, uncertain about this new development. Suddenly Arnaut grabbed Chris by the throat, holding his sword high. Arnaut pulled him close, shouting, “Oliver! Where is Oliver!”
Chris pointed to the far door.
“Show me!”
He went with Arnaut across the courtyard, through the door. Following stairs spiraling downward, they came to a series of underground chambers. They were large and gloomy, with high curved ceilings.
Arnaut pushed ahead, panting, red-faced with fury. Chris hurried to keep up with him. They passed through a second chamber, empty like the first. But now Chris heard voices up ahead. One of them sounded like the Professor’s.
00:36:02
On the control room monitors, the computer-generated undulating field had begun to show spikes. Biting her lip, Kramer watched the spikes grow in higher and wider. She drummed her fingers on the table. Finally, she said, “Okay. Let’s fill the tanks at least. Let’s see how they do.”
“Good,” Gordon said, looking relieved. He picked up the radio, began to give orders to the technicians down in the transit room.
On the video monitors, Stern watched as heavy hoses were dragged over to the first of the empty shield tanks. Men climbed up ladders and adjusted the nozzles. “I think this is best,” Gordon said. “At least we’ll—”
Stern jumped to his feet. “No,” he said. “Don’t do it.”
“What?”
“Don’t fill the tanks.”
Kramer stared at him. “Why? What can—”
“Don’t do it!” Stern said. He was shouting in the small control room. On the screen, technicians were holding water nozzles above the fill aperture. “Tell them to stop! No water whatever in the tank! Not a drop!”
Gordon gave an order on the radio. The technicians looked up in surprise, but they stopped their work, lowered the hoses back to the floor.
“David,” Gordon said gently. “I think we have to—”
“No,” Stern said. “We don’t fill the tanks.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll screw up the glue.”
“The glue?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know how to strengthen the tanks.”
Kramer said, “You do? How?”
Gordon turned to the technicians. “How much time?”
“Thirty-five minutes.”
He turned back to Stern. “There’s just thirty-five minutes, David. There isn’t time to do anything now.”
“Yes there is,” Stern said. “There’s still enough time. If we go like hell.”
00:33:09
Kate came into the central courtyard of La Roque, to the place where she had last seen Chris. But Chris was gone.
“Chris?”
She heard no answer in her earpiece.
And he had the ceramic, she thought.
All around her in the courtyard lay burning bodies. She ran from one to the next, looking to see if one of them was Chris.
She saw Raimondo, who gave her a little nod and a wave—and then he shuddered. For a moment she thought it was the heat waves from the flames, but then she saw Raimondo turn, bleeding from his side. There was a man standing behind him, hacking repeatedly with his sword, cutting Raimondo at the arm, shoulder, torso, leg. Every cut was deep enough to wound, but not to kill. Raimondo staggered backward, bleeding freely. The man advanced, still hacking. Raimondo fell to his knees. The man stood over Raimondo, cutting again and again. Raimondo fell backward, and now the man was slashing Raimondo’s face, cutting diagonally across lips and nose, sending bits of flesh flying. The attacker’s face was hidden by flames, but she heard him say, “Bastard, bastard, bastard,” with each blow. She realized he was speaking English. And then she knew who the man was. The attacker was de Kere.
:
Chris followed Arnaut deeper into the dungeon. They heard voices echoing somewhere up ahead. Arnaut moved more cautiously now, staying closer to the walls. At last they could see into the next chamber, which was dominated by a large pit in the ground. Above the pit, a heavy metal cage hung from a chain. The Professor was standing inside the bars, his face expressionless as the cage was lowered by two soldiers who turned a winch crank. Marek had been pushed against the far wall, his hands tied. Two soldiers