The Devil's Breath (29 page)

Mr. Slye ignored him, flipped open his personal organizer, and ticked his daily schedule, noting the exact time of his arrival. Slye liked to know where he was even when he was already there. He looked at Zhernastyn. There was no need for words; his gaze was command enough. Zhernastyn nodded and turned on his heel. He pressed his palm against a panel and a stainless-steel door slid open, revealing a room of unyielding spartan facilities which reflected the icy determination of the man in charge down here—Zhernastyn. There was a bed, a steel toilet, a sink, and a man, unshaven from his imprisonment, but dressed in clean overalls. The whole thing gave the unmistakable impression of a condemned man in a death-row cell.

“Progress?” Slye demanded.

“Slight,” Zhernastyn said.

“Slight is not an answer. It is not defined by any qualitative analysis or quantitive measurement. Progress?”

Zhernastyn grimly controlled his desire to spit in Mr. Slye’s face, grab him by the neck and shake him until the blood spurted from his eyes and his tongue turned purple. And to scream that he, Zhernastyn, was a scientist, not a lowly minion who emptied bedpans and changed the sheets. He needed time to analyze and compute what was happening inside his patient. The elaborate pathways of the neurological system were not as simple to understand as a map of the London Underground. But he simply nodded.

“Of course, Comrade Slye, forgive me. His blood pressure is now stable and his cognitive ability has increased by thirty percent, given that he was in an almost vegetative state for two weeks, that he could not walk, that whatever drug he had taken to effectively block out his memory was in complete control of neurological functioning, that—”

“I know what happened to him,” Slye interrupted. “He’s a scientist. He took a memory blocker that shut him down like a bank vault so we could not get any information from him. Do not state the obvious. We need to find out what he knows. Do we know anything more than we did then?” Mr. Slye asked emphatically. “That is the progress Mr. Chang seeks. Progress?” he repeated.

“None.”

“Ah.”

“But he is standing and walking, as you can see.”

“Yes, I can see him leaning against the wall, but he does not speak, he shows no sign of hearing, he seems to be a dead man propping up a corner of his cell.” Slye looked at Tom Gordon, who was gazing at the far wall: a blank, uncomprehending stare that reflected the drugs which had closed down his mind. Zhernastyn gasped as Mr. Slye made a sudden move to strike his patient but pulled up short just before contact. Tom Gordon did not even blink.

Mr. Slye looked at Zhernastyn. “Time is now extremely short. If he has passed on what he has discovered, Mr. Chang could be destroyed. Increase the dosage of the drugs.”

“That could destroy his mind forever. He could die,” Zhernastyn said, seeing his experiment being suddenly
taken away from him, caring less about the man than the possibilities of scientific exploration.

“Then he will die—and we will be forced to run the risk of not knowing whether anyone else has the information.”

Slye turned away. He needed to escape the cloying hospital smell that lingered down here and the doctor’s sour breath that betrayed his gum disease. Perhaps Zhernastyn’s lack of dental hygiene was just another of the weapons he used to destroy a prisoner’s mind.

The heaving stench of the crocodile’s breath had an even more repellent effect on Max than its teeth. The crocodile lunged, its jaws open, sheaths of skin at the side of its mouth stretching to accommodate the size of the bite. If those teeth snapped shut on an arm or a leg, the crushing power alone would sever the limb. Or—the worst nightmare scenario—it would drag him from where he perched between the massive blades, twist and spin him around, tearing him apart as this blind, scaly reptile’s mates scrambled for a piece.

Max yanked his leg back just in time. The circular blades were big enough for him to almost stand inside them, but there were two sets, one behind the other, which meant that each blade within this huge, fanlike mechanism was slightly out of line with the other. When water slammed into these front blades, they would whirl into life, forcing the driven water to spin the second set of blades. A mighty big egg whisk. Max wedged a shoulder against one of the
front blades, his feet within the flattened rim where the blades spun.

The crocodile’s chest struck the base, halting its attack. Max’s adrenaline-charged body flooded with relief.

The dead animal’s splintered rib, which Max still held firmly, was of no use in this fight. The crocs were already blind, so he couldn’t go for their eyes, and the rib wasn’t strong enough to use as a spear against their tough hides. Right now it steadied him as his feet floundered in the knee-deep water that lay beneath the turbine blades, but he continued to jab at the crocodiles’ snouts in a futile attempt at self-defense. The blades themselves still turned slowly, and Max had to negotiate one set while trying to synchronize his escape through the second. There was no room to maneuver, no second chance. Beyond this, stretching as far as he could see, was an overspill room where the water lay, barely moving, in a tank. Impossible to tell how deep it was, or whether any machinery lurked beneath the surface. Worse still, what if any of these crocodiles had got through this blade system and lay in wait in the gloomy water?

The others were now surging forward. Like a savage pack of dogs, these blind prehistoric killers had his scent and they were frenzied enough to clamber over each other to reach him. If they did, they would have a firm purchase for those clawed feet, would miss the rim and lunge straight through the blades. He had to get out now.

Between the two sets of blades there was just enough space for him to stand—his back towards one set, his face towards the other. It was like flattening himself against a wall, except that this wall might spin and chop him into
pieces. There seemed to be only one option. The water was churning, the crocodiles in their blood lust were blocking each other’s passage towards him, and Max could feel the water was getting deeper. He’d have to turn his back upon the horror, face the second set of blades and then judge his moment, before jumping through. Turn his back. Go
on! Turn!
his mind yelled at him. Then another question forced its way through his desperate fear. Why was the water rising? Why were the blades moving that bit faster?
Whoosh, whoosh
. They were cleaving air and water now. Max stared into the darkness. Something was coming. He could feel air pressure on his face. It was another flood! The surge of water would lift and push these crocodiles right onto him, or the blades would blur and he’d be mincemeat.

Jamming the piece of bone into the groove that guided the blades, he turned his back to his attackers. There was a horrible splintering crunch. The bone had shattered, unable to slow the fan for more than a second, but he used that time to step forward, stretching out his arms sideways for balance. The whooshing of the blades increased, water pushed against the back of his legs. The big wave was coming! If he didn’t get through now, the weight and power of the coming water would slam him into the blades.

Another tearing, squelching crunch and half a crocodile, cut in two by the blades, writhed beside him in a welter of blood, its jaws still snapping. Max recoiled involuntarily from the horror and felt the back blades brush his hair. He jerked his head forward and was nearly hit by the ever-increasing rotation of the front blade. He had to jump. He couldn’t gauge it now. It was going to be sheer luck.

Max did not even have time to make the decision. The wall of water hit the hydroelectric turbine blades behind him and they churned into action, the force of air and water thrusting him forward.

He fell headlong into the blades.

His yell was munched by the slashing metal and water, but the space he tumbled into was enough for his body to get through. Plunging deep into the murky water, he flailed desperately for anything that would help him clamber out onto dry land.

His fingers touched steel. Coarse and broken, it crumbled in his fingers. Rust. Thrashed around by the turbulence, he held on tightly, his legs floundering behind him as the full power of the water fought for release through those blades. He’d found iron inspection rungs that went down into this overspill tank.

With the sinews in his arms stretched like bowstrings, he pulled himself upwards, hand over hand, until his face broke the surface. He sucked in air and looked back over his shoulder. The frothy, turbulent water in the holding tank was only the aftermath of a surge from the Devil’s Breath like the one that had carried Max down the tunnel only a couple of hours previously. Now the blurring blades whispered a fanlike hiss. There was a bloody froth on the surface—crocodiles forced through the blades into this tank, churned and blended like a fruit smoothie.

Once he’d reached the concrete platform that surrounded the tank he saw the huge pipes that cut away upwards through the rock face. They must go to the generating room, he reasoned. Above him was an iron grid with what
looked like a walkway of metal plates across it. The grid mesh was wide enough for a man to crawl through, and anyone inspecting the area from above would be able to check the tank and blades quite easily. Spotlights were strategically placed at each corner so the area would be illuminated at night. Up there was the way out, but the grid was three meters above his head.

Max huddled in the corner; the air vibrated from the whirring blades and he was desperate for rest. Since falling into the chasm he had had no time to think about !Koga, but now he wondered what the Bushman boy had done. Whatever happened to Max, everything might depend on !Koga’s finding Kallie, delivering that hydrology map, and bringing help. Would anyone come? Would any of those marks on the map convince anyone that poisoned water was killing people and that their bodies were being hidden?

He was shivering violently. The time spent in the tunnel and the encounter with the crocodiles—as well as almost being scalped by those blades—had taken their toll. But to stay in this chamber would only lead to being discovered. He hunched up, pulling his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible, trying to stop any more heat escaping from his body. He let his gaze roam over the walls, the grid, the floor, the water, but there were no clues as to how he might escape. The noise from the blades grew distant and less intrusive, and the constant churning of the water settled into a kind of white noise in the background.

Concentrate. What can you see? Stay awake! Look! Come on!

He uncurled himself. Sitting down wasn’t going to solve
the problem. The lights, the power—there had to be a feed somewhere. He skirted the chamber, his hands feeling the wall, searching for something his instinct told him must be there. A bulge in the corner of the wall, a narrow pipe, plastered and painted over so it couldn’t easily be seen, but his fingers found it, and he could tell that it ran from top to bottom of the concrete platform where he stood.

He needed something to cut away the covering, but his knife and all the weapons the Bushmen had given to him at their camp had been swept away by the Devil’s Breath. He searched around for anything that might help him, and found a square piece of metal, about the size of a cigarette packet, with a hole in the middle. It was probably a retaining washer for one of the big bolts holding the support plates on the hydraulic pipes. As Max scraped its edge down the corner of the bulge, the plaster and paint fell away, and a few minutes of diligent gouging created enough space to bare the metal behind the conduit. Moments later there was enough room to curl his fingers between the narrow pipe and the wall. He yanked, and a meter-long length of pipe came away. He pulled again, using his foot against the wall for leverage, and the plastic conduit cracked. He fell back, losing his grip and balance, but now he had a means of escape. The split piping held electric cable. With both hands wrapped around the rubber-coated cable, as thick as a broom handle, he heaved again, and the cable ripped free of the brittle plastic pipe.

This was all he needed. He pushed his feet against the wall and climbed upwards, hand over hand. The heavy-gauge iron grid above his head, each bar as thick as his arm,
was old and rusted, but had stood the test of time. It was probably built into the original construction. That made sense. If this area had been the dungeons and the crazy German aristocrat knew there were crocodiles down here, then having a huge caged floor built into the rocks would serve as a threat to anyone dragged down here. Not that the history of the place mattered now, as Max hooked an arm through the grid and pulled himself up.

The area he stood in was quite bare. There was a stainless-steel door to one side, and another in the opposite wall. He could hear the steady hum of machinery, muted by the thick walls, so he guessed that all the fort’s power and utilities were located down here. He had visited a German castle in Bavaria on a school trip and wished he could remember more of the layout. That would have helped him get a clearer picture in his mind of where he was within the fort’s structure. Wherever it was, he was at the bottom, so the only way out was up. But how? Air ducts were fastened to the walls and the roof, more piping, but no way out. What was it he had seen and heard when he whirled through that darkness? Max ran his hands over the door’s dull sheen. Next to it, on a slender column of the same brushed steel, was a square of glass, the outline of a spread hand etched into it. Max hesitated, his hand hovering over the lines. Obviously it was a coded access, a palm-print recognition terminal, but would it set off every alarm bell in the castle if he tried it, or would it simply deny access?

He looked above the door. Between the wall and ceiling was a glass panel, running the whole length of the room. Below it a smallish pipe ran, suspended from sturdy-looking
brackets. He could reach that. One good jump and he’d get a grip, then he could see what lay on the other side of the wall. He flexed his knees, feeling the strain on his thigh muscles. Forcing his legs upwards from a squat position, he threw his arms as high as he could. He grasped the pipe, but his hands were sweating and he didn’t have a strong enough purchase—the pipe was just that bit too wide. Focusing all his attention on the strength in his wrists, he curved his hands as tightly as he could. Shaking with effort, he pulled the weight of his body up, feeling his biceps bite, but he was losing his grip.