State of Emergency (16 page)

Of all the technological wonders available to E-Force from
the work of CARPA, the Big Mac was perhaps the most
impressive. It was a massive aircraft, and aspects of its
design made it look like the great-grandchild of the B2
Stealth Bomber. It consisted of a giant disc referred to
as a uni-wing. Above and below this were bulges, which
in profile gave it the shape of a burger. The upper bulge
housed the flight deck and ops rooms, while the lower
contained the giant engines. The Big Mac worked on the
same ram-jet principle as the Silverbacks, and like the
smaller craft it was a VTOL aircraft capable of hypersonic
speeds.

Stephanie Jacobs had piloted the huge craft from
Base One and made a perfect landing outside the CCC,
her failures in the simulator forgotten. She and Pete
Sherringham unbuckled just as Mark came through on
the comms.

'Had a slight hiccup with the police,' he began. 'News
of your arrival hadn't gone right along the chain of
command. It's okay now, though. Josh has talked to the
ground commander and he's coming over to you to assess
the situation and work out a plan.'

'What's the latest on Mai?' Stephanie asked.

'On her way. Should be with you in five.'

Ten minutes later, Stephanie, Pete, Mai and Josh were in
the Big Mac's ops room. On a wall-sized video screen they
could see Cyber Control at Base One. Mark was in the foreground,
and Tom was sitting beside him in his motorised
wheelchair. In the background they could see the holoscreens
and virtual keyboards of the workstations, and operators in
boilersuits manning the controls.

'Hi, Mai. We all really appreciate –' Mark began.

She raised a hand. 'Please, forget that. Where're we at?'

'The emergency services have swung into action. As you
all probably know by now, there was a shooter.'

'A shooter?' Mai hadn't heard.

'Obviously linked to the bombings, maybe the guy who
planted the devices. Anyway, that threat has passed, at
least for the moment. But it delayed things. Some of the
emergency crews were hit. Most are now in the building.
Paramedics are bringing out the injured.'

Through the windows of the Big Mac they could see
teams of doctors and nurses triaging the victims. A line of
body bags lay at one end of the plaza.

'Yeah, we can see,' Pete said, turning back to the screen.
'What's the state of the building?'

Tom looked up from the electronic pad attached to his
wheelchair, a laptop the thickness of a piece of card with
a holographic screen above it. 'Bad bits and less bad bits,'
he began. 'The overall structure is okay. The whole thing
isn't about to do a Twin Towers, but the environment of the
Main Concourse and Hall A, which took the full brunt of
the blasts, is extremely hazardous. Masonry and girders are
coming loose all the time and whole sections of roof could
come down . . . along with the three floors above them.'

'What state are the upper floors in?'

'Not good,' Tom replied. 'Huge structural damage. There's
a restaurant directly above Hall A on Level 1. Or at least
there was. It's taken a big hit. The east end of Level 1 and the
First Floor Reception were some way from the second blast
but took it bad from the first blast, which had its epicentre
behind the Ground Floor Reception. Most of the east end
of Level 1 is a bar. It's pretty smashed up. Fortunately, there
were very few people in any of these areas at the time of the
explosions.

'Above these, Level 2 is almost all conference and meeting
rooms. Every single window has been blown out, including
a huge wall of glass at the front of the building. There's some
pretty serious structural damage to the main support girders,
but they should hold. There were only four people up there.
They're all still alive, but we have no idea what condition
they're in.

'On the top floor, Level 3, there's a pool and gym. The wall
of the pool has fractured and water is leaking down through
the CCC. Again, there were only a handful of people up
there and they managed to escape down external emergency
stairs to the rear of the complex.'

'What sort of casualty figures we talking about overall,
Tom?'

Erickson tapped at the virtual keyboard. When he looked
up, he was paler than usual. 'The big event was Kyle Foreman's
talk. It was sold out and queues had formed at the front
of the CCC since this afternoon. He's a popular dude.' He
paused for a moment and took a deep breath. 'There were
just over 1100 people in Hall A.'

In a corner of the big screen a strange-looking image
appeared. It was a dark rectangle with a random arrangement
of dots in red and orange.

'This is a thermal image from BigEye 7, which is directly
overhead. It was taken about ten minutes ago. It shows that
fires are still burning fiercely in Hall A.'

'Didn't the second bomb go off directly under it?' Mai
interrupted. 'That's what I was briefed in the Silverback
coming over.'

'That's correct. And as a result, almost everyone in the
auditorium was killed.'

Tom's words fell like lead weights into the room. There
was silence in the Big Mac. Its heavily insulated windows
sealed out any sounds from outside.

'Analysis of the image suggests there are fewer than 65
people still alive in the room. And we have no idea how
many of them are critically or even mortally injured. I think
the rescuers and paramedics should get there soon, although
it's heavy going and extremely hazardous.'

'Over a thousand dead,' Josh said, almost in a whisper.
'Gone . . . Just like that.' It was close to the death toll of
the
Titanic
; one-third of the number killed on 9/11. 'We
have to do something. We have to help the emergency
teams.'

Mark looked up from an image of Hall A on the holoscreen
next to him. 'Not our job.'

'Not our job?' Josh exclaimed. 'There may be hundreds still
alive in other parts of the building. They may be trapped.'

'That's not what we've been sent in to do, Josh.' Mark
glanced at the faces of those aboard the Big Mac.

'But with the equipment we have we could save a lot of
lives.'

'Yes, and we'll do as much as we can. But we have a very
clear objective.'

They were all silent.

Josh took a deep breath. 'Okay, okay. I know.'

'There are three dozen fire trucks, almost 60 ambulances
and dozens of police units there already, or close by. Every
hospital in Los Angeles is on high alert and every ER in the
county is preparing for casualties. The air is thick with medical
choppers and they'll soon be ferrying the most seriously
injured to the nearest ERs. We'll offer every assistance we
can. But our mission parameters are clear. We have to rescue
Senator Kyle Foreman, who, it now seems obvious, was the
prime target of this attack.'

'What's the latest on him?' Stephanie asked.

'We have two separate traces on his cell,' Tom replied.
'They were both fleeting. The debris is blocking the signal
and his phone may have been damaged. The first call came
from a point at the rear of Hall A very soon after the blasts.
The second was just over 30 minutes later, from a point in
one of the lower levels of the building.'

'A lower level?'

He called up the schematic of the CCC. 'We've pinpointed
the call to one of the elevator shafts. Between B3 and B4.'

'He's stuck in an elevator?' Steph asked.

'Looks that way,' Tom said. 'We have infrared traces from
BigEye. Foreman's with three other survivors. We're keeping
a constant trace on them and will let you know immediately
if there's any change.'

'Tom and I formulated a plan as you guys were en route,'
Mark said. 'Pete, you take one of the Moles. You need to
get down to B2 via the car park access.' He pointed out the
spiral entrance ramp. 'From there you can get to the lower
levels. The Mole will get you through any rock falls or other
obstructions. Mai, Steph and Josh, I want you to find a way
down via the Main Concourse. Questions?'

'Any sign of more bombs?' Pete asked. 'It would be nice
to know.'

'I have a team conducting a detailed sweep, Pete. Nothing
yet. But obviously . . .'

'And the structural integrity of the Main Concourse and
Ground Floor Reception?' Josh asked.

'We're monitoring it from BigEye,' Tom replied, bringing
up another image on the screen. It was a diagram of the
four above-ground floors of the CCC – Ground to Level 3.
It consisted of strips of grey and black. Superimposed on
these were jagged lines in green, orange and red. 'The dark
regions are the structural components of the building,
and the coloured lines are stress features. Green indicates
the safest, red the most dangerous. As you can see, the
red lines are clustered around the area to the west of the
Main Concourse, close to Hall A. It's the point where both
bombs had an impact. This is the part of the building where
Senator Foreman was before he and his companions took
the elevator. It's undoubtedly the most dangerous part of the
building. But I'm pretty sure collapse is not imminent.'

'Pretty sure?'

Tom looked up. 'Okay. Fairly sure.'

'This is getting worse by the second. Give me some
figures.'

'There's a 50 per cent chance it will last more than an
hour.'

The most senior member of the rescue team on the ground
was the fire chief of Area H, Truman Maclenahan. He had
a ruddy face, ginger hair and an almost comic handlebar
moustache. Although he had grown up in the Bronx, he was
proud of his Scottish heritage. According to rumour, he took
it so seriously he organised private caber and haggis nights
at his house in Palos Verdes and wore kilts in the privacy of
his study. It was Maclenahan who insisted on a briefing with
the E-Force team members before they set foot in the CCC.
It was a reasonable request, but in Mark Harrison's eyes it
was just a waste of vital minutes.

The briefing took place in an ops centre in a specially
designed fire department RV-type vehicle, which was parked
on a slip road just beyond the east wall of the CCC. It was
surprisingly spacious, with a round table at the rear of the
truck. On the wall, a screen relayed live images from the
inside of the gutted building. At the front of the vehicle, a
small team operated the computer systems that linked the
van with the County Emergency Operations Center, which
was across town. Sitting with E-Force were Maclenahan and
his number two, Assistant Chief Gerome Roseley.

'I'll be honest with you,' the Chief said. 'I'm only allowing
you into that building because I've been told to.'

'I understand your reticence,' Steph replied. 'But we can
assure you our operation will not impede your rescuers in
any way.'

Assistant Chief Roseley sniffed and glared at the four
members of E-Force.

'That's precisely our grievance,' Maclenahan responded.
'There are a lot of injured people in there. My men are
doing the best they can. Yet you insist on focusing on one
individual, Senator Kyle Foreman.'

'Chief,' Josh said evenly, 'I appreciate what you're saying.
Indeed, I, for one, am not totally convinced what we've been
ordered to do is right. But those are our orders, and we have
to follow them.'

'Whose orders?' Roseley asked, rather more aggressively
than he had intended. 'Who do you represent?'

'I thought it had all been explained to you,' Mai said.

'Some ridiculous rescue organisation? It's a wonder you're
not wearing capes.'

There was a silence for a moment. On the screen they
could see the smoke and the debris, the remnants of human
beings, charred bodies, fires burning, flames licking up the
walls and across the roof. Fire Chief Maclenahan looked
embarrassed. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Emotions are running a
little –'

'Excuse me, Chief,' Roseley interrupted. 'You don't need
to apologise for me. Yeah, sure, I'm emotional. I don't like
seeing a thousand Americans incinerated. But these people
aren't here to help us. They're serving outside interests, and
I don't like that.'

'I'm sorry you feel that way, sir,' Steph replied in her most
diplomatic tone.

She was about to go on but Fire Chief Maclenahan cut in.
'What exactly is your plan?'

Mai outlined what they had decided. She, Steph and
Josh would try to reach Kyle Foreman and his companions,
who were trapped somewhere between B3 and B4, by going
through the Main Concourse. Pete would take a machine
called the Mole directly into a lower level.

'Okay,' Maclenahan replied. 'That sounds like a plan. But
I wish to make a request. You know I can't insist.' And he
flicked a glance at Roseley, who looked like he was sucking
on a lemon. 'I guess I have to simply appeal to you.'

'What is it?' Steph asked.

'We have reason to believe there are some survivors
trapped in Hall A. Problem is, the techs believe the roof
is about to come down. I have men in there, but it's slow
going. I think it's likely the roof will collapse before they can
reach anyone. Do you have anything on that ship we can
use to support the roof? To buy us time?'

It was easy to see how Truman Maclenahan had reached
his position. He was gutsy and self-motivated, but he also
knew when to play the diplomatic card. It was a skill largely
lost on Roseley, who snorted and folded his arms.

'I'm afraid –' Steph began, but Josh cut across her.

'The stabilisers.'

His three colleagues turned to look at him.

'How?' Steph asked.

'We used the stabilisers during training to contain the
energy field inside the pods. If they were positioned carefully
in Hall A, they could be set to repel each other and act in the
same way as a metal strut holding up the ceiling.

Steph was nodding slowly.

'But no one outside E-Force could operate the equipment,'
Pete said.

'What equipment? What're you talking about?' Maclenahan
asked, his face screwed up. Even Roseley had looked up,
suddenly interested.

'Steph, Mai and I could stick to the plan,' Josh snapped
back to Pete. 'And you could help in Hall A, then make your
approach to the basement.'

'It's not what we've been ordered to do, Josh.'

Maclenahan had his hands up in front of him. 'Could
someone please explain?'

Stephanie sighed and was about to respond when Mai
butted in. 'We have a way of stabilising the roof.'

'Then –' Roseley began.

'I think Josh is right,' Pete said, ignoring the assistant
chief.

'But –' Stephanie started to protest.

'It's not what we've been ordered to do – I know, Steph,'
Pete insisted. 'I'm sorry, but I can't obey those orders. For all
we know, I could be wasting my time ploughing through the
car park in the Mole. I could cause more damage. You could
get to the senator long before me. Surely I'm just backup?
You see that, don't you?'

'Yes,' Stephanie said. 'I get it. But who's going to convince
Mark?'