Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘Run!’ Nina yelled. She raced for the exit, hauling her grandmother behind her.

Eddie had nearly been caught by the scalding steam. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped as he darted clear and followed the two women. ‘You almost lobstered me!’

‘Better red than dead!’ she replied. Eddie overtook and barged open the doors. Behind them, the cloud was already dispersing. ‘We’ve gotta get to the jeeps!’ Nina headed for the nearby stairs to the west entrance, but the exterior doors below crashed open. ‘Whoa, not that way!’

Eddie snatched a fire extinguisher from its wall clips and hurled it down the stairwell. Honnick, charging up the steps, tried to dodge, but not quickly enough. The heavy metal cylinder struck his skull, bowling the hapless mercenary back to ground level with another deep cut to his head to add to those he had received in Reykjavik and aboard the Pactolus .

The Englishman was about to vault down to grab his gun when he saw the shadows of more guards running towards the glass doors below. ‘Keep going!’ he yelled instead, reversing course.

He quickly caught up with Nina and Olivia. ‘Come on, come on!’ the redhead cried, tugging at the old woman’s wrist.

‘I can’t!’ Olivia protested. ‘I’m eighty-nine years old!’

‘You want to reach ninety? Then move your bony ass!’

Olivia looked offended, but before she could say anything, Eddie scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. She shrieked. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he ran down the corridor alongside Nina. ‘But she’s right, it is on the bony side.’

‘You—’ the elderly lady began, only to gasp in fear as two men reached the top of the stairs behind them. ‘Look out!’

Nina darted around a corner as they entered the main lobby. Eddie swerved after her. Plasterboard exploded behind him as bullets hit the wall, but the rounds didn’t penetrate, impacting against concrete beneath the surface.

They were still far from safe. The gunmen were already haring after them, and a gust of cold air warned that more guards were coming up the stairs from the main entrance below. ‘In there,’ said Eddie, running for the geothermal power plant’s entrance.

‘You think there’s another way out?’ asked Nina.

‘I bloody well hope so!’

‘There is,’ Olivia told them. ‘At the back. I’ve got a keycard.’

‘Great.’ He put her down. She produced the card and swiped it across the lock.

They entered the cavernous white chamber. There was nobody else inside. Nina slammed the door, seeing a bolt and shoving it closed, even though she knew it wouldn’t stop their pursuers for long. ‘Which way?’ she asked Olivia.

‘There.’ Her grandmother pointed. The hydrogen sulphide pipes ran into the rear wall, a doorway nearby. ‘There’s a door to the outside past the storage tanks.’

Eddie spotted something mounted on the wall beside a fire hose and veered away as they ran across the room. ‘Keep going! I’ll catch up!’

Nina looked back. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Slowing ’em down!’ He grabbed a fire axe and rushed back to the pipes leading into the twin turbines. The door banged as someone tried to open it. Another thump, louder: a kick. The bolt buckled.

Eddie reached a set of valves. Red-painted wheels allowed the flow of superheated water to be controlled manually. A deep breath, then he raised the axe.

A crack as the bolt snapped and the door flew open. A man burst in. He saw the Englishman directly ahead and took aim—

Eddie swung. The axe sheared off one of the valve wheels — and the jutting stub of pipe to which it was attached.

He dived clear as a high-pressure water jet blasted at the doorway. It hit the gunman and hurled him back into the lobby, his skin instantly blistering and liquefying. He skidded across the floor, other guards scrambling clear as boiling droplets sprayed off him.

The stench of rotten eggs filled the room as suspended hydrogen sulphide escaped into the air. Eddie coughed, rolling back to his feet. Some of the super-hot spray had caught him, the exposed skin of his hands red and stinging. He looked at the doorway. It was shrouded in steam, the fist-thick jet still rushing through it. Nobody else would be coming in that way.

There was another entrance higher up the wall, though, an elevated walkway leading around the turbine hall to a ladder. It wouldn’t take De Klerx’s men long to reach it.

He caught up with the women at the rear door. Olivia was panting, her gait unsteady. ‘I’ll carry you!’ he shouted.

‘Please, no!’ she insisted. ‘At least leave me some dignity!’

‘You want to die with dignity,’ Nina said, ‘go to Switzerland—’

The whine of the machines suddenly fluctuated and dropped in pitch. Alarms shrilled as the bright overhead fluorescents flickered, then went out. A moment of darkness — then illumination returned, but at a much lower level as emergency lights came on. Both turbines spun down to silence.

‘What happened?’ asked Nina, blinking into the gloom.

‘I think the emergency generators just kicked in,’ replied Olivia. ‘But that would mean something had happened to the geothermal pumps.’ She saw the dripping axe in Eddie’s hand. ‘Ah. Mystery solved.’

He smirked. ‘Just be glad this isn’t a nuclear plant.’

They opened the door. The room beyond was as tall as the turbine hall, but less deep, complex pipework connecting a row of large stainless-steel tanks. Eddie hefted the axe, but the chamber was empty. At the room’s far end was another door. ‘There are some offices through there,’ said Olivia. ‘There’s an emergency exit past them.’

A bang from behind as one of De Klerx’s men barged through the upper door. ‘Time to go!’ Eddie said, bundling the women into the room. The guard fired. A bullet whipped past the Yorkshireman’s back and clanked off a piece of machinery.

Nina grimaced as she saw a warning sign; she couldn’t read the Icelandic text, but the international explosive hazard symbol was clear even in the half-light. ‘Jesus! It’s lucky he didn’t blow the whole place up.’

Eddie glanced at the sign, then — to her alarm — grinned. ‘Yeah, ’cause it means I can give him another chance.’

‘What does he mean?’ Olivia asked her granddaughter with growing concern.

Nina took her hand again. ‘When he gets that face? You want to be moving away from him, fast.’ She hurried down the line of gleaming gas tanks, drawing Olivia with her. Eddie didn’t follow. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Just get outside.’ He flipped the axe around to favour the sharp point at the other end of its head. ‘I need to pass some gas.’

‘No, don’t!’ the horrified Olivia cried as he swung. ‘It’ll expl—’

The point stabbed into the first tank’s steel skin with a clang — then was blown clear as hydrogen sulphide jetted out.

Eddie reeled as the escaping gas tore at his clothing. If the smell in the turbine room had been bad, this was more like a chemical attack. He closed his eyes and held his breath, burying his face into the crook of his arm for protection — he was now literally standing in a cloud of poison. Another alarm wailed as detectors registered the deadly substance.

He waved the axe in what he thought was the direction of the exit, trying to find a pipe to use as a guide, then abruptly drew it back. Stainless steel, at least the kind used to contain explosive chemicals, wouldn’t spark, but that might not be true of the blade. He turned it over to grip it by the head, using the wooden handle like a blind man’s stick to feel his way forward. He had to get clear before the guard reached the entrance.

The handle barked against something in front of him. The route to the exit had been clear of obstructions. He was off-course, and realised with growing fear that he had lost his bearings. The roar of gas echoed off the walls, seeming to come from all around him. The howling alarms increased the confusion. A couple more sweeps of the axe revealed an open path… but was he facing the exit, or back towards the turbine room?