Davey wasn’t finished yet.
He pushed for The Chill again and all of COBRA was plunged into total darkness, broken after three seconds by the sparsely located battery-powered emergency lights. An ear-piercing alarm began to sound every other second, adding to the chaos.
In the naked light of the operating room, Bane saw Davey’s eyes squint, his temples throb. He reached over to pull him from under the table and found the touch of his flesh to be that of a live, exposed wire. He yanked his fingers away convinced they were singed, imagining almost he could smell his own burnt, smoldering flesh.
Bane shook himself from the spell, grabbed Davey again and yanked hard. The boy gave way, clung to him with one arm. There was a laundry chute in the far right corner and together they crawled through the blood toward it. More guards would be coming soon and Chilgers would certainly give a kill order now, meaning no time could be wasted.
Bane pushed Davey into the chute, then plunged in after him, the drop seeming to last forever.
The impact from the blast had thrown Chilgers off his feet into the back wall of the observation gallery. He had felt the sudden energy surge stand his neck hairs on end an instant before the glass disintegrated and knew in that same instant he had been a fool not to have had the boy killed at the first sign of danger.
Chilgers knew now the invader was Bane, knew somehow he had escaped from the army sent after him to the Poconos. The Winter Man was the only one capable of damaging his plans so thoroughly … but not completely. Even the Winter Man couldn’t stop him from triggering the final stage of Vortex at this point.
The regular screeching wail of the alarm kept Chilgers from blacking out into an oblivion that would have doomed Vortex to failure. He was dazed all right and the back of his neck was numb with pain. But he still found the reserve strength to push himself from the floor and, using the wall for support at the start, to find his way into the corridor.
No ordinary man could pose a threat to the vast power of COBRA. Bane, however, was no ordinary man, and now he had the boy with him who was anything but ordinary as well. All told, Chilgers felt threatened for the first time in longer than he cared to remember. His whole professional life had been built around avoiding moments like this, moments when the cold grip of failure fights to grab hold as you writhe and squirm to twist away from it.
The corridors looked like a darkened, fuzzy labyrinth to Chilgers’ throbbing eyes. He knew he had to get to the console in his office to trigger a Red Flag alert at Bunker 17 and change the face of civilization. He’d had the equipment set up there and rigged through the main computer banks on underground level four so the moment of this supreme accomplishment could take place in the same solitude in which all the great moments of his life had occurred.
Chilgers was still a soldier, not as physically capable as he’d been years before but mentally as strong as ever. He fought to clear his mind. The corridors became sharp again, his sense of direction was restored. Breathing heavily, he stepped up his pace and focused his thoughts on the button he would be pressing in a matter of minutes.
Bane felt Davey cling to him as they moved away from the laundry chute. The boy sobbed and moaned alternately, wrapping his arms tightly around Bane’s shoulders.
“I had to do it! I didn’t mean to hurt them so much but I can’t control it! I can’t control it!”
Davey smothered his head against Bane’s chest and the Winter Man held him, held him like he’d never let go. His green surgical outfit was caked with drying blood, as were the baggy white pants and shirt the boy was dressed in. Bane was glad Davey had collapsed against him because it prevented the boy from seeing the horror still in his eyes. Bane recalled the sensation of watching the boy “make” the Twin Bear turn his knife on himself in the New York hotel room. That had been eerie, frightening. What he had witnessed in the O.R. just minutes before was a hundred times more potent, a power stretching beyond the scope of human comprehension.
The emergency alarm continued to wail.
Chilgers had wanted Davey’s brain as a weapon, perhaps to create a thousand more like him. Now Bane could understand why.
The boy hugged him tighter.
“It hurts!” Davey’s feet started to slip. “My head! Oh God, my head! They made me use The Chill when I didn’t want to. They hurt me when I wouldn’t. It hurt me bad, so bad, but they didn’t care. They just kept making me use The Chill.” The boy pulled away, then looked up, eyes wide with fear and uncertainty. “I didn’t mean to kill all those people. I didn’t!”
“I know,” Bane said.
“The pain won’t stop! Why won’t the pain stop!”
Bane placed one arm across Davey’s shoulders. “Let go, Davey, let go. It’s all right now. Just let go.”
The boy went limp against him. The emergency alarm stopped screaming. The regular overhead lighting snapped back on. At the end of the corridor, Bane saw an elevator, a second elevator in fact because one also rested directly in front of the laundry chute.
Strange, Bane thought, but maybe not so strange. Yes, in the event of an emergency Chilgers would want potential escape routes both up … and down. The second elevator must be a direct route to and from his office where the final activating device of Vortex had to be located! There would be a way to get back to ground level from here somehow, a hidden stairwell or something. But Bane cared nothing for that. The elevator was all he needed.
“Come on,” he said to Davey, already leading him toward it.
The boy’s feet squeaked against the linoleum floor, Bane realizing for the first time they were bare. Bane reached the elevator and pressed the button. Gears ground above.
Come on! Come on!
“What I saw,” Davey said suddenly, “all the death The Vibes showed me. It’s gonna happen. We can’t stop it, can we?”
Bane couldn’t find an answer for him, couldn’t find any words at all. He heard the elevator floating down, locking into place. Slowly its doors slid open.
Chilgers reached his office and locked the door behind him. That Bane was nearby and closing, he didn’t doubt for an instant. But time was on the colonel’s side now. One quick motion with his wrist was all that remained to set the final stage of Vortex into operation.
Chilgers hurried over to what looked like an unstocked dry bar in the corner of his office, aware suddenly that his private elevator was in motion. He knew it was Bane but didn’t care; there was nothing the Winter Man could do to stop him now.
Chilgers flipped a switch on the side of the dry bar. The top gave way to a square console no larger than a portable typewriter and decorated with a series of lights and buttons, all surrounding a large red button the size of a silver dollar in the center.
Chilgers hit five switches below the red button and five above it, waited.
The elevator’s gears whined to a halt.
The lights on the console flashed green.
The elevator’s doors started to open.
Chilgers moved his finger deliberately for the red button in the console’s center.
Bane had the.45 out and aimed in the same motion. The gun’s roar reverberated in the small compartment and stung his ears.
Chilgers’ finger had made contact with the trigger button at the instant the bullet grazed his wrist and spun him around. His balance was gone and he was falling but the red button was still there and he reached for it, as the floor was pulled out from under him and a second bullet whizzed past his ear.