But Bane wasn’t taking any chances. He fired the remainder of the Uzi’s clip into the console until it smoked, flamed, and popped. His eyes moved to the vault door, knowing it would be blasted open before the next minute was out and caring more than he thought he would.
Bane knelt next to Davey and cradled the boy’s head in his arms. Davey’s blood soaked through his green surgical outfit and Bane had to force down his tears.
“I’m here, Davey, I’m here.”
He couldn’t tell how serious the boy’s wound was and didn’t bother to check. He was not even sure Davey could hear him. It was over; nothing could change that now. The Winter Man was out of miracles. He cradled the boy closer.
“We did it, Josh,” he murmured, “didn’t we?”
Before Bane could answer, a blast came from outside and the vault door swung all the way open. Bane sat there waiting for the bullets to come from the guns of the rushing guards.
They stormed the door, rifles ready. Bane found himself rising, unable to stem the instinct for survival that had controlled him for so long. But the move this time was pure reflex, nothing more.
And then the explosions started.
The first came with a force sufficient to slam the vault door back on the two guards who were not quite all the way inside, crushing them between steel with thousands of pounds of pressure. The next explosion sounded and it seemed to Bane that the whole building was collapsing, and in fact, fragments of the false ceiling did shower down on the swarm of guards waiting beyond the vault. The entire COBRA underground structure rumbled, pulsed.
The King! The wondrous, glorious King! The explosions had come from his charges!
Where a moment before there had been no hope, Bane saw a flicker and seized it. The vault door was swinging open again, allowing the two crushed guards to tumble to the floor and revealing stun grenades on each of their belts. Bane grabbed a pair along with a fallen rifle; then swooping up the half-conscious Davey in his free arm, he roared into the main computer area to be greeted by another blast which seemed to come from directly above. Bane lobbed one of the stun grenades to the left and one to the right. The blasts were deafening. The rest of the guards staggered, their shots which otherwise would have been straight going well wide of their targets and allowing Bane the instant he needed to make it through them.
His forward motion toward the door was constant, keeping his and Davey’s frames low all the way. Thick gray electrical smoke from a host of shattered computer terminals and wires filled the room, turning all shapes into shadows that further shielded his escape. Then the main lighting died yet again, obscuring him even more.
He raced into the corridor at the moment a fourth riveting blast pounded the walls. Holding his balance, he slung the M-16 over his shoulder and grasped Davey in both arms for the flight down the corridor. Bane’s bearings had returned to him. He was one floor up from the garage where Chilgers’ limousine was stored — right now his only sure means of escape.
He noticed that the bullet had penetrated Davey’s right shoulder and passed straight through. The boy was losing a lot of blood, and in his already weakened state the strain of the wound would prove fatal unless Bane reached help fast.
The limousine … It was his only hope.
Bane found a stairwell and descended it effortlessly, aware for the first time that the emergency alarm was wailing again, although buried at regular intervals by the King’s explosions. COBRA was out of control, the system of command broken, no one sure precisely what was going on. Everywhere people rushed to find answers, save equipment, flee. Smoke from damaged wires poured through the stairwells and corridors. Sprinkler systems randomly switched on, adding to the confusion.
You outdid yourself this time, King.
Bane blended perfectly with the havoc. He bolted down the fifth underground level’s corridors with Davey clutched in his arms, unchallenged by COBRA personnel. He swung round the last corner and made out the vague outline of the hidden garage panel in the half light. He rushed to the control button against the wall, pressing it twice without success and realizing the system had shorted out. Footsteps rushed about him, pounding the floor. Orders were screamed. Bane had to take a chance.
Since there was no way to operate the door electronically, he’d have to lift it manually. The panel itself, though, was nothing more than a slice of wall — no place to gain purchase — and he doubted that he’d be able to lift it alone anyway.
Three men in white coats charged forward, oblivious to his presence.
“Quick! Help me!”
They took a look at his green surgical outfit, still matted with blood, and then at the prone figure in white on the floor. They moved toward Bane without speaking, taking note of his rifle only when he stripped it off his shoulder and carved a series of chasms in the hidden garage panel with a single spray to serve as handgrips.
“Help me get the door up!” he screamed at the technicians, eyes raging with a surety that made the three men obey.
The door resisted at first, then gave. The men realized only then that something was very wrong. After all, this was the colonel’s car, the colonel himself!
Bane leveled the M-16 at them. “Get your asses the hell out of here!”
The men scampered away. Bane had no more time to waste. Security would certainly be on his trail now if they weren’t already. Worse, they’d know his precise location and plan, and he couldn’t count on any more miracles from King Cong to help him get out of the building. He lifted Davey gingerly but quickly and hurried toward the black limousine, stretching the semiconscious boy out on the back seat.
“Josh,” he muttered. “Josh …”
“Over there! Over there!” Bane heard someone scream as he slammed the front door behind him, lunging behind the wheel to find the keys still in the ignition. He hadn’t even bothered to consider the very real possibility they were in the pocket of the uniform he had appropriated from the dead chauffeur.
Bane gunned the engine and then hit a switch on the dashboard he prayed would activate the hydraulic lifts under the bay.
Nothing happened. He clicked it again. Nothing still.
Something cold gripped Bane’s insides. To have come this far to find the lift mechanism shorted out … No, it couldn’t be. Chilgers would have covered all angles to provide for his own escape in an emergency. The lift would operate off a separate power line and generator. The problem was the switch; where was it?
Bane’s fingers probed about the dashboard and discovered the correct switch on a separate panel under the glove compartment. The lift began to rise, the squealing sound it made the most beautiful he had ever heard. A throng of green-uniformed COBRA security men reached the bay when the lift was halfway to the fourth level. Bane ducked under the steering wheel as a rapid burst of fire tore into the windshield on the passenger side. He heard bullets clanging up into the car’s front grill and could only hope penetration hadn’t been deep enough to do any severe damage.
The engine grumbled briefly, but stayed on. Bane gunned it, looking back over his right shoulder and preparing to tear out as soon as the bay opened on ground level.
The lift sighed to a halt. Bane hit the button which had done him no good the first time and incredibly the hidden ground-level door began to slide upward.
A jeep — no, two of them — screeched to a halt just as the door’s rise was completed, trying to cut off possible escape routes for the car, trapping it in the bay. Bane didn’t hesitate. As the jeeps’ spotlights flooded the limousine’s interior, he shoved the big car into reverse and floored the gas pedal. Its tires spun furiously, grabbed hold. The big car lunged backward, Bane spinning its wheel to angle its rear bumper against the front of both jeeps. Impact shook him, smashing his teeth together and wrenching his neck. He held his breath, conscious of the effect on Davey.