Stratton looked at her, for a moment wondering if this was some kind of set-up, another piece of the three-dimensional chess game. But he was free, from the chains at least, and he had a gun in his hands. Not that that seemed to make a difference to the kind of plans these characters conjured up.
Rowena took his look as one of disbelief. ‘Rigging a simple intercom phone is child’s play, literally.’
He looked away, believing her.
‘Jason wants you dead by tonight. They mentioned the pump room, and so here I am.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve figured out how to get out of here.’
‘Of course I have.’
He looked at her again, more doubt in his eyes.
‘I’m a nuclear engineer. I have an IQ forty points above genius.’
‘And a photographic memory, of course.’
‘Live with it. You doubt me, don’t you?’
Stratton thought carefully about his answer. ‘No, I don’t.’
She looked thoughtful. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. You’ve been royally screwed. By two of the best.’
‘Well, I’ve got you on my side now, haven’t I?’
Rowena wanted him to know that he did. ‘There are two lift shafts. One for cargo and everyday use by the soldiers. The other is in one of the labs for executive use only. There is a single stairwell to the surface, two hundred and fifty feet above us. Since Binning got here the guard force has doubled. But there aren’t many of them down here in the complex. They stay up top, stopping people from getting in. They don’t like being down here, anyway.’
He waited for more of the plan to materialise. So far she had given him hardly anything.
‘I can see only one way out,’ Rowena said. ‘And that’s to create a situation where everyone else down here needs to get out too.’
That interested him. ‘An emergency?’
‘Right.’
But Stratton’s interest began to fade without more info. ‘So we get to the surface along with everyone else. That’s not an escape.’
‘That depends on what kind of emergency. If there’s a serious bio leak, every safety door in the complex automatically seals the place tight and cannot be opened without an executive order from Moscow. The safety doors are between each chemical and biological storage hall and at the top of both lift shafts and the stairwell.’
‘I still don’t see it.’
‘This place is old. The door seals are shit. Everyone knows that if there was a serious bio leak it wouldn’t be contained. Those who managed to get to the surface before the place shut down wouldn’t stop at the surface. They’d keep on running for as far as they could get, just like at Chernobyl.’
Stratton perked up. But there were still holes in the plan. ‘How much time to get to the surface before the place seals?’
‘None. Everything shuts down as soon as the alarms are triggered.’
He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
‘Certain death? That’s also what the scientists who worked down here thought when they first came. They didn’t like that idea much either so they built a delay mechanism into the executive lift only. Anyone working in the labs or offices might make it to the surface. The lift’s big enough. Everyone else who didn’t make it . . . well, tough. When a leak sets off the alarms, all the doors seal within two minutes. The executive lift stays live for five minutes more. The door that seals the surface exit to the exec elevator stays open for another minute.’
Stratton was beginning to see something of a plan. ‘So, we create a fake leak and get out using the executive lift.’
Rowena shook her head. ‘Not that easy. The only way to fake-trigger the system is by using the test circuit. But the guards up top will be able to see that. They won’t run away because they’ll know it’s just a test.’
‘Then we need them to believe it’s real.’
She nodded.
‘How?’
She shrugged. ‘Only one way. It has to be real.’
He looked at her. ‘Real?’
‘I don’t see any other way.’
‘That would be another Chernobyl!’
‘Maybe worse. You won’t believe some of the shit they have down here.’
Stratton contemplated the idea. ‘You really are a cold-hearted bitch, aren’t you?’
‘You have a problem with surviving?’
He shook his head. ‘You are in the wrong job . . . How does it work?’
‘There are dozens of sensors around the place but several different locations need to detect the leak in order to trigger a full shutdown. A small leak won’t work. We need to be at the lift when the sensors trip, otherwise someone might beat us to it. Once it goes up it will not come back down.’
‘Have you figured that part out - how we set the leak and get to the lift before the sensors trip?’
‘No.’
‘Some genius.’
Rowena clenched her jaw. ‘I thought I’d leave something for you to figure out.’
Stratton ran his fingers through his hair as he pondered their next move. ‘You know where the exec lift is?’
‘I can see the map in my head.’
‘And the storage rooms?’
‘Yes.’
He gripped the AK-74 and took another moment.
‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Too crazy?’
He wasn’t entirely sure but there were no other options. ‘It sounds like my kind of plan.’
She fought back a smile. She had gone from despising the man to seeking his approval. He had something about him.
The guard moaned as he began to come around.
Stratton indicated for Rowena to lead the way along the corridor. ‘After you.’
She took a breath, focused her mind and moved ahead.
A wooden door at the end led into another, broader corridor running left and right. She did not hesitate in selecting a direction.
A short distance along it they came to one of the huge emergency doorway seals. They paused to check beyond it and Stratton took a moment to inspect the huge steel door that had a thick rubber seal lining the inside frame. An electric motor behind the door operated a hydraulic arm that closed it. It was covered in rust and when Stratton grabbed hold of the rubber seal a piece of it broke away.
Rowena saw the rubber crumble in his hand. ‘Good old Soviet maintenance under a new name,’ she muttered.
Beyond the doorway a metal gantry extended mid-height through a cavernous hall that housed several large and noisy machines. The hall was hewn out of the bare rock and reinforced with concrete and steel bracing.
Stratton leaned onto the gantry to look below and saw a couple of engineers in hard hats working on one of the machines. He gave Rowena a gentle nudge. ‘Go for it,’ he said.
Rowena was no less committed than when she had climbed the oil platform and she did not need any further encouragement. Leaving the safety of the doorway she crossed the gantry. Stratton followed close behind and they reached the other end without attracting any attention. They passed into a short rock tunnel with another emergency door seal halfway along it. Beyond lay a cavern of the same size and construction as the previous one.
Rowena crouched on the edge of the gantry to look down into the hall as Stratton joined her. ‘This is the first of three bio-storage rooms,’ she said.
Stratton leaned further out to take a look for himself. Halfway along the gantry a metal staircase led down to the floor. Two huge vats the size of shipping containers were on one side. A web of various-sized piping led from valves on the faces of the vats and threaded their way to yet more valve systems before disappearing into the walls.
‘What’s inside them?’ he asked.