Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

Even closed, his eyes were stinging. If he opened them, however briefly, they could be permanently damaged. He had to get clear of the ruptured tank, but if he went the wrong way, the gunman would kill him before the gas could.

He knew what he had to do. It was a huge risk, but there was no choice. He moved his arm just enough to expose his mouth, using the last of the air in his lungs to shout, ‘ Nina! ’

Even exhaling, that was enough to burn his lips and sear his tongue. He clamped his mouth shut again. If Nina was replying, he couldn’t hear her over the noise. But he couldn’t call out again without taking a fatal breath.

He had to move. A fifty-fifty chance: either he was going towards her, or he would die. Sweeping the axe again, he started forward. Another roar, but this was inside his own head — blood rushing in his ears as his body ran out of oxygen—

‘ Eddie! ’

Faint, seeming miles distant — but ahead. He found some reserve of strength and increased his pace. The wooden shaft thunked against pipework, again and again — then nothing. He remembered that the pipes turned inwards at the base of each tank. The way the steel vessels were spaced, that put him about twenty-five feet from the leak. Far enough to risk a breath? Not yet.

Nina shouted again, but now his reserves were gone. He shuffled on, feet turning to lead. Thunk, thunk, thunk of wood against steel—

Another gap. Fifty feet. The hole was only small, and the room big. Was he far enough away? The alarms kept wailing, but with a gas this toxic they would warn of even a small release. Wouldn’t they?

It didn’t matter. If he didn’t breathe right now, he would pass out—

He drew in a desperate gasp of air.

The disgusting taste filled his mouth… but he stayed conscious, and upright. He might suffer some after-effects, but he was clear of the most deadly concentration of the gas. Tears stung his eyes as he opened them, but he saw Nina at the doorway, frantically urging him on. ‘Eddie, over here!’

He headed towards her, pace quickening as he took another breath. ‘Get out,’ he rasped. ‘Get outside! Quick!’

She was about to protest, but then realised from long experience that something catastrophic could happen at any moment. She darted through the door. Eddie ran after her, glancing back at the punctured tank as he reached the exit. A plume of gas was still gushing from the hole, swirling around the pipework before dispersing invisibly into the air.

The turbine room door crashed open.

The gunman charged through, staggering to a halt and clapping a hand over his nose and mouth as the stench hit him. He was about to retreat when he saw Eddie. The Englishman deliberately held his ground as the guard’s weapon came up—

Now Eddie moved, slamming the door — as the man fired.

The gunshot was drowned out by a massively larger detonation as the muzzle flash ignited the flammable gas. The hydrogen sulphide instantly became a fireball, incinerating the man a fraction of a second before his charred corpse was disintegrated by the exploding gas tank.

The blast tore apart the pipework, releasing still more fuel into the conflagration — and the other tanks went up like a chain of truck-sized firecrackers.

The switchover to the emergency diesel generators had warned Mikkelsson that something was badly wrong in the generator room, prompting him to speed up his departure plans. ‘Ana, take this,’ he told his daughter, handing her the small Crucible. ‘We’re going to the airport.’

‘Already?’ she asked, surprised. ‘There’s no way Olivia and the others can be a threat to us now. They’ll never get out of here.’

‘It’s not Olivia I’m worried about. De Klerx!’ The Dutchman, who had stayed to protect the family rather than join the hunt for the fugitives, snapped to attention. ‘Sarah and I will take the jeep with the large Crucible. You drive. Follow us,’ he added to Anastasia, who had been about to object to being separated from her lover. ‘Take one of the men as a bodyguard.’

‘You’re that worried about Nina and her husband?’ asked Sarah as De Klerx used his radio.

‘I’ve read their IHA file,’ Mikkelsson replied, leading the way past the bodies of the Lonmores towards the exit. ‘Chase is especially dangerous — he’s a trained killer — but even Nina has a talent for survival. I would never underest—’

A percussive thump shook the floor — then the entire hotel seemed to jump a foot off the ground as a series of pounding explosions ripped through the building. Mikkelsson staggered, De Klerx rushing to shield Anastasia as more windows shattered. ‘Oh my God!’ Sarah cried. ‘What the hell was that?’

Mikkelsson opened the doors to the hallway. The main reception area was shrouded in steaming mist, but now swirling black smoke broke through it and spread malignantly along the ceiling towards them. ‘The hydrogen sulphide tanks,’ he growled. ‘They must have blown them up!’

‘Then they’re dead,’ snapped De Klerx. ‘Nobody could have survived that.’

‘I’m not going to bet our lives on it.’ He jabbed a finger at the Dutchman’s walkie-talkie. ‘Call in your men, find out how many are still alive. We’re leaving, now . Make sure Olivia and the others don’t follow.’

Nina had just reached the exterior door and pushed Olivia through when the gas tanks exploded. She was thrown against the wall, a hot shock wave of reeking air rushing past. New alarms clamoured in meaningless warning. ‘Oh God,’ she gasped. ‘Eddie!’

‘Nina, wait!’ called Olivia from outside, but she ignored her, hurrying back down a flight of stairs into a thickening haze. The stench of both smoke and residual hydrogen sulphide grew worse. She covered her face as she turned a corner to find the corridor strewn with wreckage. The suspended ceiling had been torn down, wire skeins and battered sections of aluminium ducts littering the floor. The door was ahead, all but wrenched from its hinges. Fires burned beyond it.

Big fires. If Eddie was still in there…

Coughing, she picked her way through the rubble. No sign of her husband. ‘Eddie!’ she cried. ‘Can you hear me? Where are you?’

No answer. The heat was rising, the flames in the processing facility raging harder. There was no way anyone in the chamber could still be alive.

A rattle of shifting debris — and a section of collapsed ceiling shifted aside to reveal a singed, bruised, but still very much alive bald Yorkshireman beneath. ‘Ay up,’ Eddie managed to gasp, before erupting into a coughing fit.

Nina pulled him from the wreckage. ‘You maniac ! What happened?’

‘Muzzle flash plus flammable gas equals, well, that,’ he said between coughs, jerking a thumb at the ruins of the adjoining room. ‘I’m okay, just a bit scorched.’ He recovered the axe, then they made their way down the corridor. ‘Where’s Olivia?’

‘Outside.’ She glanced nervously back. ‘I don’t think Fenrir’s hotel will be taking many guests this season.’

‘The elves’ll be pissed off too.’

Olivia was waiting just outside the building, shivering in the icy wind. ‘Eddie, my God! After that explosion, I was sure you’d been killed.’

‘We’ve still got to get out of here,’ said Nina. They were on the hillside behind the hotel, the section housing the geothermal plant partly dug into the ground. The east wing was ahead down the slope, many windows broken and smoke rising from within. Only emergency lights remained lit, but they were enough to pick out hulking metal shapes sheltering beneath the elevated structure.