‘Fenrir, please!’ cried Lonmore, wide-eyed. ‘We — we can talk about this, we can reconsider! We’ll take another vote!’
‘You have already cast your ballots,’ the Icelander said. ‘Now we will cast our bullets.’
‘No, wait—’
Another gesture — and De Klerx opened fire.
The first rounds tore bloodily into Lonmore’s chest. Petra screamed and tried to run, but only made a single step before another rapid-fire fusillade cut her down. Behind them, Spencer leapt from his chair and sprinted in panic across the room—
De Klerx tracked him. A couple of bullets narrowly missed the running man, one of the panoramic windows exploding — but another hit him in the shoulder, shattering bone. Overcome by blind agony, Spencer collided with a chair and fell to the floor. De Klerx rounded the table and closed on him. Before the young man could recover, a last bullet hit him in the side of his head, an exit wound bursting open on the other side of his skull and spraying its contents across the pale wood floor.
Eddie saw that the gun’s slide had locked back: the magazine was empty. ‘Nina, run!’ he yelled, but the Dutchman was already replacing it with a new mag from the strap of his shoulder holster and bringing his weapon to bear.
Nina, Eddie and Olivia froze by the fountain. An ice-spiked wind blew in through the broken window as De Klerx looked to Mikkelsson for instructions. ‘What are you waiting for?’ the Icelander snapped. ‘Shoot them!’
33
The Dutchman glanced at Anastasia, who smiled, then back at his targets—
Nina stamped on a metal pedal.
The fountain gushed into life, boiling water erupting from the model volcano — and instantly producing a blinding, choking cloud of steam as it hit the freezing air from outside. The gusting wind swept it across the lounge, swallowing De Klerx.
‘Run!’ Nina yelled. She raced for the exit, hauling her grandmother behind her.
Eddie had nearly been caught by the scalding steam. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped as he darted clear and followed the two women. ‘You almost lobstered me!’
‘Better red than dead!’ she replied. Eddie overtook and barged open the doors. Behind them, the cloud was already dispersing. ‘We’ve gotta get to the jeeps!’ Nina headed for the nearby stairs to the west entrance, but the exterior doors below crashed open. ‘Whoa, not that way!’
Eddie snatched a fire extinguisher from its wall clips and hurled it down the stairwell. Honnick, charging up the steps, tried to dodge, but not quickly enough. The heavy metal cylinder struck his skull, bowling the hapless mercenary back to ground level with another deep cut to his head to add to those he had received in Reykjavik and aboard the Pactolus.
The Englishman was about to vault down to grab his gun when he saw the shadows of more guards running towards the glass doors below. ‘Keep going!’ he yelled instead, reversing course.
He quickly caught up with Nina and Olivia. ‘Come on, come on!’ the redhead cried, tugging at the old woman’s wrist.
‘I can’t!’ Olivia protested. ‘I’m eighty-nine years old!’
‘You want to reach ninety? Then move your bony ass!’
Olivia looked offended, but before she could say anything, Eddie scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. She shrieked. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he ran down the corridor alongside Nina. ‘But she’s right, it is on the bony side.’
‘You—’ the elderly lady began, only to gasp in fear as two men reached the top of the stairs behind them. ‘Look out!’
Nina darted around a corner as they entered the main lobby. Eddie swerved after her. Plasterboard exploded behind him as bullets hit the wall, but the rounds didn’t penetrate, impacting against concrete beneath the surface.
They were still far from safe. The gunmen were already haring after them, and a gust of cold air warned that more guards were coming up the stairs from the main entrance below. ‘In there,’ said Eddie, running for the geothermal power plant’s entrance.
‘You think there’s another way out?’ asked Nina.
‘I bloody well hope so!’
‘There is,’ Olivia told them. ‘At the back. I’ve got a keycard.’
‘Great.’ He put her down. She produced the card and swiped it across the lock.
They entered the cavernous white chamber. There was nobody else inside. Nina slammed the door, seeing a bolt and shoving it closed, even though she knew it wouldn’t stop their pursuers for long. ‘Which way?’ she asked Olivia.
‘There.’ Her grandmother pointed. The hydrogen sulphide pipes ran into the rear wall, a doorway nearby. ‘There’s a door to the outside past the storage tanks.’
Eddie spotted something mounted on the wall beside a fire hose and veered away as they ran across the room. ‘Keep going! I’ll catch up!’
Nina looked back. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Slowing ’em down!’ He grabbed a fire axe and rushed back to the pipes leading into the twin turbines. The door banged as someone tried to open it. Another thump, louder: a kick. The bolt buckled.
Eddie reached a set of valves. Red-painted wheels allowed the flow of superheated water to be controlled manually. A deep breath, then he raised the axe.
A crack as the bolt snapped and the door flew open. A man burst in. He saw the Englishman directly ahead and took aim—
Eddie swung. The axe sheared off one of the valve wheels — and the jutting stub of pipe to which it was attached.
He dived clear as a high-pressure water jet blasted at the doorway. It hit the gunman and hurled him back into the lobby, his skin instantly blistering and liquefying. He skidded across the floor, other guards scrambling clear as boiling droplets sprayed off him.
The stench of rotten eggs filled the room as suspended hydrogen sulphide escaped into the air. Eddie coughed, rolling back to his feet. Some of the super-hot spray had caught him, the exposed skin of his hands red and stinging. He looked at the doorway. It was shrouded in steam, the fist-thick jet still rushing through it. Nobody else would be coming in that way.
There was another entrance higher up the wall, though, an elevated walkway leading around the turbine hall to a ladder. It wouldn’t take De Klerx’s men long to reach it.
He caught up with the women at the rear door. Olivia was panting, her gait unsteady. ‘I’ll carry you!’ he shouted.
‘Please, no!’ she insisted. ‘At least leave me some dignity!’
‘You want to die with dignity,’ Nina said, ‘go to Switzerland—’
The whine of the machines suddenly fluctuated and dropped in pitch. Alarms shrilled as the bright overhead fluorescents flickered, then went out. A moment of darkness — then illumination returned, but at a much lower level as emergency lights came on. Both turbines spun down to silence.
‘What happened?’ asked Nina, blinking into the gloom.
‘I think the emergency generators just kicked in,’ replied Olivia. ‘But that would mean something had happened to the geothermal pumps.’ She saw the dripping axe in Eddie’s hand. ‘Ah. Mystery solved.’
He smirked. ‘Just be glad this isn’t a nuclear plant.’
They opened the door. The room beyond was as tall as the turbine hall, but less deep, complex pipework connecting a row of large stainless-steel tanks. Eddie hefted the axe, but the chamber was empty. At the room’s far end was another door. ‘There are some offices through there,’ said Olivia. ‘There’s an emergency exit past them.’
A bang from behind as one of De Klerx’s men barged through the upper door. ‘Time to go!’ Eddie said, bundling the women into the room. The guard fired. A bullet whipped past the Yorkshireman’s back and clanked off a piece of machinery.