‘Yeah, but—’
‘Great, now fucking run!’ He hurried up the slope, pulling her behind him. ‘Kagan’s goop worked, but all the fucking crystals are melting! They’re going to collapse!’
She looked down — and wished she hadn’t as she saw a wave of diseased grey seeping up the crystalline pillars after them like ink through tissue paper. The smaller spars within the cavern were already breaking apart and falling back into the lake; the thicker structures snaking towards the surface could not be far behind.
A nightmare ascent followed. Every step was a strain as the pair clambered up the steep spans, switchbacking from one side of the shaft to the other as they hunted for navigable routes through the vertical maze. Nina spotted Berkeley’s body as they passed, but there was no time to acknowledge his redemption and sacrifice.
Instead, she followed Eddie upwards, climbing and jumping between the crystal bridges. The cracks and booms from below grew ever louder as more of the eitr formations were destroyed by Thor’s Hammer. Fractures scythed through the crystals around them—
Eddie abruptly stopped and shoved Nina against the rock wall, shielding her with his own body as one of the thinner of the great serpents disintegrated and plummeted past them, cascading debris smashing crossings as it fell. He looked up to see that the collapse had torn away almost a quarter of the winding pathways above. ‘Shit! If another one goes like that, we’ll never reach the top!’
‘I can see the ropes,’ Nina said, narrowing her eyes against the glare of the sky. They were about fifty feet from the lip of the shaft, the lines placed by Lock’s team dangling over its edge.
Eddie scanned their surroundings. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing at one of the surviving crystals. They made their way around a ledge, then scrambled up. The span trembled underfoot, echoing snaps reaching them from below as more spires crumbled. ‘Nearly there!’
They leapt across a gap to the final span, the ropes hanging tantalisingly above its top. Escape was in sight, but now Nina remembered that there was another danger waiting for them. ‘How long before the missile gets here?’
Eddie glanced at his watch. ‘Fuck! Two minutes, if that!’
‘You’re faster than me — get to the radio and tell the Russians. Don’t worry about me.’
‘Sorry, love, but that’s my job!’ He reached the ropes, then stopped and waited for her to catch up. ‘Come on, come on!’ he said, holding one out to her. ‘Grab it, quick! The crystal’s about to—’
A colossal boom came from far below.
Nina dived, grabbing the rope—
The remaining crystals lurched, then plunged down the shaft in unison as their corroded bases finally gave way, breaking apart as they smashed against each other. Even the sections that had spiralled up the walls and bonded with the blackened stone were scoured away by the falling debris, leaving only a vertical drop into the bowels of the earth.
Long seconds passed before the pounding clamour finally began to fade. Dust swirled around the shaft… and then, coughing, two figures painfully dragged themselves up the ropes on to the steep incline above. ‘Oh my God,’ gasped Nina. She wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest, but knew she had to keep going. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ll live — but only for about a minute if we don’t call Moscow,’ Eddie replied, grimly hauling himself onwards. The slope became shallower. They let go of the ropes and ran for the surface, feet like lead. ‘You know,’ he gasped as they scrambled up the final few yards, ‘if Tova’s got any sense, she’ll have buggered off in the chopper already.’
‘Yeah, but I hope she left us the radio,’ said Nina. The lip of the pit came into view as they both emerged into the light, the snow-topped runestone beyond. A gap had opened in the clouds, weak sunlight finding its way through, but her eyes were locked on the nearby helicopter. ‘Thank God! Tova!’
Eddie ran ahead of her. ‘Radio!’ he yelled as Tova peered out of a cabin window. He waved furiously for her to open the hatch. ‘Radio, radio! Radioradioradio!’
She opened the door and jumped out, the gun still in one hand — and Kagan’s satellite transmitter in the other. ‘Eddie, Nina! What happened!’
‘Just turn on the radio!’ the Englishman shouted as he pounded through the snow. By the time he reached her, she had done so. He snatched the unit from her. ‘Hello, hello!’ he said into it. ‘Can you hear me? It’s Eddie Chase — we used Thor’s Hammer, we’ve neutralised the eitr! Abort the missile!’
Nothing for a few seconds, then a voice replied — in Russian. ‘What the hell’s he saying?’ panted Nina as she arrived.
‘I dunno!’ Eddie turned to Tova. ‘Do you?’ She shook her head. ‘For fuck’s sake! English, nyet Russkie!’ he told the radio. ‘Abort! Abortski!’
His wife clutched his sleeve. ‘Uh, Eddie…’
‘What— Oh, fuck.’ He looked around to see a small black dot against the grey clouds to the north-east.
Small… but growing.
‘It’s the missile,’ Nina said in disbelief. ‘Oh God, it’s here!’
Eddie tried the radio again. ‘English, English! Er… Anglijski!’ he said, dredging up something from his limited knowledge of the Russian language. ‘Speak bloody English, and abort the missile!’
Nina held him tighter. ‘It’s too late.’ The dot was still growing. A faint jet-engine shrill became audible over the wind. She exchanged a last look with her husband. ‘Eddie, I love—’
The missile suddenly angled steeply upwards, disappearing into the overhanging cloud layer. ‘What happened? Where’s it going?’ she asked.
‘They aborted it!’ Tova cried with an astonished smile.
Eddie’s expression told Nina that was not the case. ‘It’s going up — so it can drop straight back down into the hole.’ As if in response, the missile reappeared through the gash in the clouds as it kept climbing… then reached the top of its arc and rolled over to make a final plunge to earth.
He shouted into the radio once more, gripping it so tightly that its casing creaked. ‘The eitr’s been neutralised, Thor’s Hammer worked — I repeat, Thor’s Hammer worked! Abort the missile!’ The cruise began its vertical descent. ‘Abort the missile! Jesus Christ, abort the fucking missile! Come on, you stupid beetroot-eating bastards, abort—’
The pale grey pencil of the Kh-102 rocketed towards them—
And exploded.
Nina shrieked, thinking that the nuclear warhead had detonated — then realised that if it had, she would not still be there to have the thought. ‘Whoa, cover!’ Eddie yelped, grabbing both women and pulling them against the helicopter’s fuselage as smoking debris showered over the plateau.
The missile’s burning engine and warhead, the heaviest parts of the weapon, continued on their final course and plunged into the opening. Further crashes and explosions echoed up from below as they hit the collapsing remains of the serpentine crystal pillars.
Smaller chunks of debris smacked into the chopper, denting aluminium and cracking Perspex. Then the metal hail stopped, the explosion’s echoes fading to leave only the ever-present moan of the wind.
The Englishman peered cautiously at the pit. Dark smoke had replaced the pale steam rising from the gash in the earth. ‘Buggeration and, well, you know,’ he said, moving into the open. ‘That was too bloody close.’
Tova gazed wide-eyed at the scene. ‘Is it safe? The nuclear bomb — if it exploded, won’t it…’
‘We’re okay,’ Eddie assured her. ‘The missile blew up, not the warhead. It’s down in the pit somewhere — hopefully at the bottom of a big pool of slime where nobody can dig it up.’