‘Why, Comrade Major! I do believe that this is the first time I’ve seen you in a real flap! Has something upset you?’
‘Get back,’ Khuv shrilly warned.
‘Back?’ Rublev seemed to mimic him. ‘Have we offended in some way, Major? But that’s too, too bad . . .’
They were almost within arm’s reach, and still Litve babbled and cursed while he tried to find the right key. Khuv fired, a deafening cacophony of sound in the enclosed space. He squeezed the trigger of his gun and kept it squeezed until the stink of cordite stung his eyes and clawed the back of this throat. Then he released it, and as the fumes cleared saw the two where his sleeting lead had picked them up and hurled them half-way across the room. They lay there moaning, but even as he stared in disbelief they were struggling to rise up again.
Litve gave a sobbing gasp – and the key he was trying turned in the lock. He yanked the door open, stumbled outside. Khuv was right on his heels. As the Major came he stooped to retrieve Litve’s discarded weapon. Litve locked the door and both of them leaned on it, Khuv scowling while he checked the flame-thrower over.
‘You can tell by its weight that it’s loaded,’ he said. ‘What?’ He pointed a shaking finger at the mix-lever on the stock. ‘Look! You were giving it too much air and not enough juice. Fool!’
He adjusted the lever, aimed the weapon along the corridor and fired. A jet of flame instantly roared out, white at its core and tapering to a shimmering blue tip. He killed the flame, said: ‘Now open that door.’
Litve unlocked the door, kicked it open and stood back. Roborov and Rublev were on their feet, advancing. Behind them, the young soldiers were also out of their boxes. Khuv didn’t wait for further developments. He turned all four to shrieking, crackling torches, burned them until they collapsed, melted them to bubbling, crumpled, stinking piles of fused flesh. Then, as Litve once more locked the door, he turned away and fought to retain his control, fought desperately not to be ill.
‘Grenzel wasn’t in there,’ said Litve. That pulled Khuv out of it.
‘That’s right,’ he choked the words out, holding up a hand to his mouth. ‘Which means there are two of them on the loose!’
‘Where to now?’ Litve was in control of himself again; and now that the immediate horror had been dealt with, Khuv’s mind got back in gear and began working with its usual efficiency. Perhaps too efficiently. His bottom jaw fell open and he grabbed Litve’s arm, then released him and set off down the rock corridor at a run.
‘Where to?’ he called back. ‘Where would you go if you were Agursky, or Grenzel? What would you do?’
‘Eh?’ Litve came running after him.
‘We know what they are,’ Khuv cried. ‘He knows we’ll burn him if we can. He can’t let any of us live. There’s only one place he can go!’
Of course. Failsafe Control!
24
Inferno – Harry and Karen
Chingiz Khuv and Gustav Litve raced for their lives, for the lives of all concerned, through the serpentine bowels of the Perchorsk Projekt and toward Failsafe Control. At any moment they expected, dreaded to hear the failsafe klaxons starting up; they realized what would happen when the klaxons did sound – the panic, horror, the mad, futile scramble – and mainly the nightmare of more than one hundred people waking, staggering from their beds, opening doors to see liquid death spraying from the sprinklers, and hear the roaring of a rushing, all-consuming inferno.
For if Vasily Agursky, or the thing he had become, got to Failsafe Control before them … it was obvious what he would do. Save himself and burn them. Burn the entire Projekt.
And yet, for all their terror, the two KGB men weren’t without courage. Twice at telephone points, Khuv skidded to a halt and tried to phone ahead. On the first occasion the phone was dead, and on the second he noticed the cable sliced through, trailing its severed ends down the wall. Agursky had outmanoeuvred him. Litve, where he ran on, as he reached the scientific accommodation section, thought to re-check Agursky’s room; on the way out he roared like a bull, kicked doors, screaming hoarse-voiced for everyone to ‘Vacate, vacate, vacate!’