Coldbrook(17)
Across the garage a wisp of smoke rose from the huge door’s securing mechanisms as they melted into lockdown. The smell of burning filled the air, and the acrid whiff of hot metal. The clicks and clanks of warping locks echoed through the space. Vic had always thought such a process was overdramatic, and that secured locking of the exits would be enough in any emergency. But his boss had always been keen on his safeguards.
Jonah’s started! he thought, and he ran for the doors to the air-conditioning room. Once inside he consulted the palmtop again, then dashed for the largest duct that led up through the mountain. There was a maintenance-access point at the base of the duct, sealed with three coded locks. He tapped in the codes and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the quiet clicks of release.
The metal duct was a little over five feet wide, with a vertical ladder bolted into the inner wall. Vic pulled a head torch from his tool belt and flicked it on, securing it on his forehead before beginning the climb. He went as fast as he could, knowing that he would tire quickly but desperate to get as high as possible before lockdown of the duct commenced. The idea that he might become trapped in here had not even crossed his mind: concern for his family drove him on, and he had confidence in his ability to bypass any secured barriers.
As he climbed he wondered what was going on down below. He knew so little, and that made the fear stronger, a sense that the vast extent of the facility was loaded with threat. Once he was out and with his family he would use the satphone to find out what was happening. Jonah would hate him for running. And Vic was certain that the old man wouldn’t even understand. But they had worked together for eight years and he was confident that Jonah would talk to him.
As he approached the first of the duct’s three fire dampers – an automatic divider that would double as a security barrier during a facility lockdown – it started sliding shut. He speeded up but was too late, reaching the damper just as it snicked closed and its internal mechanisms started overheating and warping. He winced at the acidic odour of superheated metal, but being poisoned was just something else to be afraid of.
So this would be when he’d test how good he was. There were three dampers in the vertical duct to make his way past, all of them now probably sealed shut. Beyond that, he would have to open the surface hatch from the inside and then sneak past the compound guards. And then he’d have to run a mile across the dark mountainside to Danton Rock, and his family. Perhaps once he got there he might allow himself a few seconds to relish the fact of his escape.
Vic braced himself on the ladder, and as he caught his breath he consulted the Palm Pilot. The best way past the barrier was around, not through it. As he plucked items from his tool belt, his satphone started chiming. He plucked it from his pocket and glanced at the screen: Jonah. He turned it off and set to work.
It took three minutes to create the necessary opening in the duct wall and start on the still-hot damper mechanism, and another two minutes to dismount the mechanism itself. Vic twisted and slid it out of sight on top of the damper, then squeezed through the gap. It was a tight fit. His tool belt caught and caused him a moment of panic, but then he was through. Two more to get past, and fifty feet of climbing in between. He hoped to be out of Coldbrook and into the cool night air within fifteen minutes.
He slid the mechanism back into place to block the opening, a fresh surge of guilt making him feel queasy again. And as he climbed, Coldbrook pulled at him, with its terrible gravity and the implications of what they had done there. He resisted, sweat running down his sides and teeth gritted against the pain in his arms and legs. He wasn’t used to physical exertion. They had a small gym down in the living quarters – a few treadmills and exercise bikes squeezed into an unused suite – but it was rare that he spent any time in there. Vic was naturally skinny, but that didn’t mean he was fit. He regretted his laziness now.
The second damper took longer to get past, and the third one longer still. Maybe it was exhaustion, or panic, but the head torch started slipping on his sweaty skin, and he dropped three screwdrivers back down the duct. He held on tightly to the fourth – it was his last. Drop that one and he’d have to climb back down to retrieve it . . . he was starting to fear that Coldbrook would never let him out. It had its claws in him, and Jonah had called him four more times. He was tempted to answer and find out exactly what was going on, but he had gained a momentum now. Jonah’s voice might be enough to change his mind. Ignorant old bastard, Vic thought, surprised at the affection he suddenly felt for the old man. He hoped Jonah was safe.
And Holly. But he was trying not to think of her, and when she did cross his mind it felt as though she was strangely far away.
As Vic climbed, he tried to ignore the fact that he was leaving an open route behind him. He shoved the mechanisms back into the openings he’d crawled through, though he could not secure them again from above. Jonah will lock it all down, he kept thinking, a mantra to persuade himself that security would be maintained. And he willingly let panic conceal the illogicality of that idea. What was ahead mattered more.
Reaching the head of the duct, he squatted on the small maintenance platform and started immediately to undo the access hatch that led outside, working quietly in case the compound guards were nearby. His nostrils stung with the acrid stink of melted metal and plastics, his hands shook from exertion, and for the last fifty rungs of the ladder he’d been desperate to breathe in the air outside the duct, a desperation that had grown the higher he climbed. He tried to calm himself, but as he scrambled out of the hatch and dropped into the cool night he sobbed.