Velocity (10 page)

There. A square outline. He places the wing on the ground and kneels, scrabbles at the square with the fingers of his unbitten hand, pulls away leaves and dirt, hits steel. It’s a grate, one metre square, made of thick steel forged in a lattice design. He flips the wing over, unlatches a compartment door, grabs the long plastic cylinder velcroed inside. He unscrews one end, slips out two grappling hooks, positions himself over the grate, slides the hooks into the lattice and pulls up.

‘Jesus H!’ It’s as heavy as a truck. That’s why two men were sent to move it! He pulls again, uses everything he’s got. The grate scrapes on the cement surround, slowly clears the hole. He lets go of the hooks and it thumps to the dirt. Light-headed, he sucks air as he looks down the air shaft. It disappears into darkness.

He glances at his GPS unit. Nine minutes, forty-nine seconds. He sits hard, reaches into the wing’s open hatch and grabs another cylinder, opens it and slides out a white, rectangular device. What looks like a school ruler is attached horizontally to the top. A smaller ruler is attached vertically at one end. Fastened at various points over the cylinder are six lipstick-sized cylinders. A canister with a nozzle at one end is fastened to the left side. Tam places the device on the ground. It stands on four wire legs that end in suction-cap feet.

Tam reaches into the wing again, grabs a padded envelope and a smaller box. He unzips the envelope and draws out a MacBook Air. He flips open the laptop and it wakes from sleep. He pulls a Logitech joystick from the box, plugs it into the MacBook’s USB port and squeezes its trigger.

Both rulers on the device spin to life with a shriek. They’re actually rotor blades that turn five hundred times per minute. The little chopper rises a metre off the ground and hovers in place, its fuselage glowing white from a light source within. With the shrill buzz of the rotor blades it resembles a gigantic albino wasp, ready to strike.

Tam moves the joystick. The chopper flies towards the air vent, then lurches past. ‘Come on!’ Tam’s trembling hand is vibrating the joystick too much, making it difficult to control. He clenches his hand to tame the shaking then moves the joystick again. The chopper hovers to a position above the air vent. He releases the joystick’s trigger a fraction and the chopper drops into the shaft. He watches it descend. It took him six months to develop but he has less than eight minutes to use it.

Tam’s eyes move to the MacBook’s screen. It’s divided into six separate windows. Each lipstick-sized cylinder attached to the chopper’s exterior is a video camera that transmits live images of its surroundings, the glowing fuselage emitting enough light to illuminate a metre around it. He squeezes the joystick’s trigger and the chopper hovers in place, just above the bottom of the shaft. There’s a thin, rectangular air vent in front of it.

The Japanese-Irishman wipes his forehead with his free hand and drags off a sheet of sweat. His face is blanched white and his body shivers. He grips the joystick hard to stop his hand shaking, then eases it forward. The chopper flies into the vent, has five centimetres clearance on each side.

He glances at his GPS unit. The numbers are fuzzy. He blinks, focuses. Seven minutes, thirty-six seconds. He’s behind schedule. He turns back to the MacBook. To the chopper’s left is another lattice grate. Tam pivots the chopper towards it then presses a button on top of the joystick.

White foam shoots from the canister on the side of the chopper’s fuselage. It looks like shaving cream, except you should never put it on your face. The foam hits the grate and expands fast, doubles then quadruples its size. Tam works the joystick, backs the chopper away from the grate as fast as it will go.

He hears the muted explosion through the shaft beside him. The six windows on the MacBook’s screen flash white then show a mist of fine particles. The air clears and he edges the chopper back towards the grate, except the grate is no longer there. Used for detonating unexploded mines, the nitromethane foam has done its work. Tam had reconfigured its composition so it would combust after being exposed to oxygen for ten seconds. He grips the joystick hard and eases the chopper through the jagged opening. He glances at his GPS unit. Four minutes, fifty-two seconds. He hasn’t got long.

**

Dirk feathers his delta wing, knocks off some speed, looks at his GPS unit. The arrow is green and the clock reads four minutes and forty-nine seconds.

He glances at Henri, 200 metres to the left. He can’t help but feel a deep loyalty towards his commander. Henri had been the one who turned Dirk’s life around, beginning on that morning two decades ago when he recognised an ‘intriguing potential’ in the German.

There had been a time when Dirk was recognised every hour of every day, stopped in the street for a photo, an autograph or a proposition, or all three at once. Then it ceased. Abruptly. After he cut down the oak.

He hasn’t thought about that tree for the longest time. It stood in the centre of the driveway in front of his newly acquired castle, a castle bought with earnings from an outrageously successful piece of Europop ear candy called ‘Tango in Berlin’.

Dirk told everyone he wanted to cut down the tree because it blocked his view of the Düsseldorf countryside from the master bedroom. In truth, even with the curtains drawn, the tree’s gnarled branches made unsettling shadows on the ceiling above his bed at night that gave him nightmares.

Dirk decided that the best solution was to cut down the tree. That it was a 470-year-old oak, over 30 metres in height and 100 tonnes in weight, did not deter him. So, late one night, Dirk took to it with an axe. The oak, far from being the healthy, towering megalith it appeared to be, was, in fact, rotted to the core with water mould. After just seventeen spirited swipes the tree keeled over, crashed to the ground and flattened Dirk’s new Bentley. It was no great disaster. It was insured and if the insurance company didn’t pay up he could afford another.

Next morning the salvage team he employed to remove the tree uncovered two naked bodies in the car’s wreckage. It was clear that the couple had died in flagrante. The bodies belonged to Olga, Dirk’s supermodel girlfriend, and Raffi, Dirk’s best friend and band mate. While Dirk sang and was the face of Big Arena, their pop duo, Raffi was the brains of the outfit, the one who wrote and produced the music. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that his best friend and his girlfriend had an affair or that he was accused of their murder.

The court case lasted four months. Dirk was cleared but quickly became Germany’s OJ Simpson, proved innocent yet considered guilty, and ostracised because of it. He was also broke, forced to liquidate his assets to pay for his defence and settle the civil cases bought by Raffi’s and Olga’s families. He couldn’t even record music any more as no one wanted to work with the guy who cut down the oak.

So Dirk changed his name and disappeared. He worked his way around the globe, primarily on freighters, though he wasn’t choosy and would do whatever was on offer as long as he was paid. Whenever he was recognised he would start a fight, his aim being to alter his face so there was no visual connection to the pixie-featured, flaxen-haired lead singer of Big Arena. After six years of drifting and fighting this bargain-basement plastic surgery had worked beautifully. He now resembled Billy Ray rather than Miley Cyrus and was rarely recognised. He was also living hand-to-mouth on the streets of Paris.

That was when he came to the attention of one Henri Leon. Early one morning twenty years ago the Frenchman identified an ‘intriguing potential’ in the man who cleaned his windscreen at a set of traffic lights not far from the Arc de Triomphe and Dirk’s life was changed forever.

Everyone in the crew had a similar story of Henri’s positive intervention in their lives, that’s why they were so dedicated to him, and willing to go above and beyond for the man.

Dirk glances at his GPS unit once again. Four minutes, twenty seconds. Not long now.

**

The cement room is lit by a dull yellow safety light positioned above the only door, a solid-steel item locked from the opposite side. Beyond the door lies a five-kilometre passageway with a locked and guarded entry point. The now destroyed air vent was the sole means of ventilation for the room, the only way to let heat out while making sure none of those alligators or vipers found their way in.

The heat is generated by a large grey junction box that sits in the centre of the room and hums with a deep vibrato. Out of the left wall run three cables that terminate at the grey box. From the right wall three similar cables enter the room and terminate at the box too. From the middle of the box emerges a set of three large conduits. They disappear into the far wall.

Tam flies the chopper to a position above the large conduits then releases the joystick’s trigger. The chopper’s blades stop and it drops onto the central conduit. The suction-cap feet at the end of its metal legs grab the PVC casing and hold fast. With a shaking forefinger Tam types on the MacBook’s keyboard.

C U T

The underside of the chopper’s fuselage slides open and a tiny circular saw flips out and spins to life. It slices into the cable’s PVC casing and cuts an incision. The saw then pivots and cuts another incision at a right angle to the first. A camera buried within the chopper’s fuselage shows Tam what the saw is doing.

He reaches into the box that housed the joystick and pulls out a right-hand glove. Five thin computer circuit ribbons sprout from a matchbox-sized terminal at its wrist and connect to its fingers at the first knuckle. A USB cable emerges from the rear of the terminal. Tam pulls the glove onto his swollen right hand. It’s tight but he ignores it, plugs the cable into the MacBook’s second USB port. He glances at his GPS unit. Two minutes and fifteen seconds remain.

The saw pivots again, starts its third cut, parallel to the first, then pivots again, cuts to the point where it started, a small square now sliced into the conduit’s PVC cover. Tam then, with his unbitten hand, pecks on the keyboard.

H A N D

The saw slides into the belly of the chopper and out flips ‘Thing’, named as such because Tam couldn’t think of anything better. It resembles the skeleton of a small hand, except instead of bone the fingers are titanium alloy, the muscles are microactuators and the knuckles are bidirectional hinges. Each finger has a hook at its end and its wrist pivots on a motorised ball joint.

Tam wiggles his fingers in the shaking glove. On the screen, Thing’s fingers move in unison. He extends its index finger towards the cut section of PVC and flips it away to expose a myriad of wires. He studies them. There are dozens of different colours and sizes. He needs to find the wire with yellow and red stripes. He works the glove and Thing delves into the mass of spaghetti, pulls away wire after wire. It’s all been for naught if Tam can’t find it.

‘There!’ Thing grabs it, pulls it towards the camera. It’s not yellow and red! It’s orange and purple. Tam releases the wire, glances at the GPS unit. Forty-one seconds to go.

He continues the search. ‘Where the hell is it?’ There. He’s sure this time. He works the trembling glove and Thing snags the wire. It slides off. He grabs at it again, hooks it, lifts the wire towards the camera. Yellow and red stripes. ‘Yes.’ He glances at the GPS unit. Twenty-three seconds. His free hand pecks at the MacBook’s keyboard.

C U T

The saw flips out of the chopper’s belly and spins to life. Tam moves the glove and Thing jams the wire against the saw, slices it in two. Tam’s fingers work the glove and Thing pushes one end of the wire towards one of four numbered slots on the underside of the chopper. It’s difficult, his hand shakes so much. He’s practised it a thousand times before but never after he’d been cottonmouthed. He glances at the GPS unit. Ten seconds.

He guides the quivering wire into slot number one. One more to go. His eyelids sag. He forces them open, works the glove. Thing picks up the second piece of wire, pushes it towards slot number two. It misses.

‘Come on!’ He tries again. It slides home. He types three letters on the MacBook’s keyboard:

O F F

**

Every light on Launch Complex 39B blinks out and
Atlantis
disappears into darkness. A thousand feet above and a thousand feet to the east, Henri and his three bat-men approach. Henri checks the GPS unit on his chest and grins. Tam and Gerald completed their assigned task with exactly one second to spare.

A smattering of emergency lights blink on and outline the Launch Complex with a muted yellow glow. It’s enough light for the job ahead but not enough for the Frenchman’s team to be seen. He tips the delta wing into a steep dive and plunges towards the complex. The other bat-men follow suit.

A thousand feet instantly becomes 700 then 400. Henri unlatches the delta wing, pulls the ripcord and a black ram-air parachute explodes open behind him. It stays that way for exactly five seconds, just long enough to break his fall.

He lands hard beside the hammerhead crane atop the Launch Complex and rolls to a stop. In quick time he yanks off his helmet, flips off the oxygen mask, unstraps the wing’s frame, pulls in his chute and picks up the delta wing. Ten seconds later Nico lightly touches down beside him. Five seconds after that Dirk lands next to the Italian. They quickly perform the same routine as Henri.

Cobbin is last down. He comes in too hot, almost horizontal, and slams into the middle of the lightning mast. The sound reverberates. He falls, then his chute snags, jolts him to a stop. He’s hung up, 15 metres from the ground.