Part 20 (2/2)

I punched him in the side of the face. Now was no time for guilt. We had to move or die. I told him this. He ignored me. I hit him again. Nothing. I glanced at my watch. Twenty-seven minutes to detonation.

'Chris we have to get out of here and we have to go right now!'

I was on the point of risking another punch when Chris began to move. He began to jog, then to sprint. Boy, could he move. I ran to keep up.

Then I realized: he was running towards the still-burning HQ.

I stopped. 'No, Chris, not that way! You'll - It was useless. He was gone. Oh G.o.d. Had he lost it? Gone to kill himself in some hopeless act of redemption? As if I didn't have enough to worry about!

Another explosion ripped through the vehicle.

I turned away. By the light of the fire I could see someone waving to us from the chopper. The pilot. He was waiting for us. No? He wasn't waving, he was convulsing. He fell, choking, from view. A moment later sparks flickered inside the chopper and it erupted into a ball of flame.

I think I screamed then. I certainly lost it for a while. I came to when the roar of a jeep's engine sounded beside me. Chris was sitting at the wheel.

His face was a blank mask. I thought he was going to drive straight by for a moment. Then he slammed on the brakes. I piled in. We drove on, caught up with Imorkal, and he joined us, his weight making the vehicle sag alarmingly. The jeep was already blooming with flaky yellow stains. It stank like a kid's chemistry set.

Chris drove on. I realized he was heading the wrong way again. Without bothering to speak I pushed him out of the driver's seat. The jeep slewed, but stayed level. Imorkal pulled Chris into the back seat and I took over the driver's position. I turned the jeep around and slammed it into first. Our only hope now was to drive back the way we had come. Back to our own chopper? That was going to take a while. What the h.e.l.l! We had twenty-six minutes to detonation. All the time in the world?

The jeep coughed and died five minutes later. I grabbed Chris and pulled him clear as the vehicle slumped into a ma.s.s of yellow crystals. It jerked suddenly, as the fuel system ignited. Yellow dust blew over us. I choked. I dragged Chris on up the slopes of the mountain. I suddenly stopped. Imorkal! Where was - He was right behind me, moving fast but jerkily, hissing with pain. He was tough, no doubt about it. But even he was going under. Patches of scabby yellow coated his scales? Parts of his body issued frothy yellow slime. A haze of brown gas lifted from his arms and back.

I could see the chopper up ahead now. We reached it with nineteen minutes left to detonation. My head was spinning with calculations. Time to start the engine, to lift off and attain maximum velocity. We might just get out of the killzone. If we were lucky.

We reached the chopper.

I pulled Chris towards the c.o.c.kpit. He went without protest but seemed able to make no move of his own? He certainly didn't want to climb in. He just gazed stupidly at me, like a kid who can't understand how to fix a broken toy.

'Get in!' I screamed. 'Only you can fly the d.a.m.n thing! If you don't get in we're dead!'

He didn't move.

Eighteen minutes to detonation.

'Imorkal! Help me!' The Earth Reptile moved closer, opened his third eye and looked at Chris.

Chris jerked as if electrocuted. His eyes opened wide, rolled, then settled into the familiar quiet expression I knew? 'All right, Roz. Quit riding me, I'm going.'

I shook my head at the sound of his words. He was definitely losing it. 'Get in the c.o.c.kpit! Get in, Chris! You lost it for a bit but you're OK now and we have to get out of here, right now, before the nukes go off!'

Which was due to happen in seventeen minutes. He just nodded, began to climb into the c.o.c.kpit.

He had his foot on the first step when Samran emerged from behind the fuselage. His face was half gone but his gun arm was intact, the gun, fuming from acid b.u.ms, pointing right at my head.

He smiled and the skin of his jaw slid quietly away in a runnel of blood and fumes. He was a Level Five nightmare, bleeding acid out from every visible surface, obviously terminal. I don't know how he could stand, let alone speak. But speak he did, in a very bad American accent. 'Gimme a ride, buddy?'

He began to laugh and cough blood.

His finger tightened on the gun's trigger.

Chris stepped in front of me and punched Samran hard. He did it without thinking, his fist a blur in the night. Samran's face made a noise like a bag of crisps splitting open. Chris's arm went right through his head, out and back, before I could even draw a breath.

Chris bent double with pain from the acid burns Samran's face had imparted to his fist, and Samran's first and only shot - fired more by reflex than design - went over his head.

In another moment we were in the chopper. Chris cut the preflights, goosed the engine and we took off. In less than a minute we were airborne. Ice-cold air rushed past my face. Above us umber clouds swirled, glowing yellow and brown. The Moon was up there somewhere but all I could see were the clouds, glowing with their own terrible light.

I looked down? The ground was tumbling away beneath us. A couple of miles away the wrecked HQ was burning, sending yellow and blue gouts of flame shooting upwards. I could see the reaction of Agent Yellow spreading out into the nearby rocks. They were beginning to bubble like lava, sending puffs of inflammable gases into the air. The gases caught light. The flames spread. The rock itself was burning. More yellow clouds lifted into the air.

I yelled into the night. My voice was lost in the chopper's engine noise but I didn't care. We'd made it. I'd made it. We were going to - I stopped. Suddenly I felt like throwing up. Bernice. In the panic I'd forgotten about her. G.o.d, how could I have done that? I'd left her behind!

The woman I loved, who I'd forced Chris out here at gunpoint to rescue! I'd left her behind!

I was about to mention this when I realized the chopper was descending.

What was Chris playing at? Had he frozen up again? Leaving Imorkal in the pa.s.senger section I scrambled back to the c.o.c.kpit. Chris was fine. 'We'll be landing at Dogubayazit in a few seconds?'

'For G.o.d's sake, why?'

'Because we can't leave them behind, that's why?'

I wanted to argue, to yell, to rant and beat my chest. I did none of these things because the chopper smacked into the ground at this point. Right back where it all started. Back to square one.

With eleven minutes left to live.

Dogubayazit was a ghost village, illuminated only by the sickly light of Agent Yellow, creeping steadily towards us through the rocks, through the very air I was breathing.

The village was deserted. Beside the hotel door was a puddle of organic remains about the size of a small child. A dog? A goat? I caught a glimpse of something that looked suspiciously like a Filofax caught in the mess and simply refused to think about it any more.

Pinned to the door of the hotel above the body was a note from the Doctor.

Gone to Oktemberyan. Last bus for Noah's Ark leaves tonight. Don't be late.

'Don't be late! Jesus!' '

I was running for the chopper even as I spoke, crumpled in my hand. Chris was close behind me. had been in too much pain to leave the chopper.

In another moment we were airborne again, flying east. Consulting a map he had found in the dashboard, Chris told me Oktemberyan was a small peak about six minutes' flight time away.

I looked at my watch?

Eight minutes until detonation.

Three minutes into the flight the chopper began to shake. Something was grinding hard in the engine? In the pa.s.senger compartment Imorkal was getting really sick. His skin was smoking. Pieces were starting to peel away. The process seemed to be taking longer with him - something to do with his species' DNA I suppose. I didn't care. I had all I could cope with just fighting for breath. I opened the pa.s.senger door. The wind whipped in, yanked a bunch of loose trash out into the night. Beneath us yellow light bloomed. Explosions. Thermals bounced us around like a paper model.

The air stank. I saw the ground rippling like water. Large areas where the ground simply puffed up like a bubble, then sank with a roar, emitting huge clouds of sulphur and gouts of flame. The whole area was turning into what looked like a volcano. An infectious volcano.

The chopper rocked in the updraught from a particularly devastating explosion. Imorkal reeled, emitted a thin whine. I smelt the acrid stink of dissolving metal. 'Electrical systems buried in the floor sparked and caught light. I grabbed a fire extinguisher, sprayed the exposed area of circuitry.

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