Free John Gardner by Goldeneye Page A

here very quickly indeed, and, if she had to face the snow and ice above ground, she needed more than the black skirt, the shirt and the skimpy underwear she wore with comfort in the air conditioned, underground facility which had been her natural habitat.
    In her room she quickly changed into thermal underwear, jeans and her stout leather boots which she had bought during her last leave.
    She shrugged herself into a thick fur coat, jammed a fur hat onto her head and was already drawing on fur-lined gloves as she ran back to the charnel house that had been the work area.
    She could not hear the three jets, now in tight formation, at four thousand feet above the complex, their leader talking to base, saying that all seemed normal.
    Above the aircraft, things were far from normal. The piece of space junk was changing shape, a hundred kilometres up. It appeared to detach pieces of charred and blackened metal that were merely outer covering. Petya was revealing itself as a hard steel core, while around it, a series of shields fanned out, like the ruff which opens up on some threatened reptile. Then, as it rolled slightly downwards, it detonated.
    The immediate area around Severnaya was suddenly lit up by a cone-shaped blinding light. Within the light there were hundreds of writhing electrical charges, like long blue snakes.
    Two of the “Flogger-Ks’ - one stationed just above the other were immediately engulfed in coils of electricity.
    The upper aircraft seemed to be slammed down by the charge. The two aircraft merged together as one in a brilliant flash and explosion.
    The lead “Flogger-K’ was hit by a similar bolt of electricity. It simply turned on its back and began to plunge earthwards, the pilot desperately pulling on the eject handle. He was still pulling when the machine bulleted into the huge radio telescope dish and burst into a fireball.
    Below ground, Natalya Fyodorova Simonova thought there had been an earthquake. The entire complex shook violently and was plunged into darkness so that she found herself in the middle of the technical area with crackling blue lights circling and in constant movement around the masses of electronics which were scattered across the once pristine, hygienic computer room.
    Her fear fed on the already obvious need to escape, and by the flickering deadly lights she dodged across the room, through what had been the main control section, stepping over the Duty Officer’s body, then running to the voice recognition unit. Twice she called out her name, but nothing happened. She thought of Boris and again crossed the minefield of ceaseless electrical charges, making her way towards the now blocked utility escape door.
    At one point, when she had almost reached the door, Natalya screamed as a great creaking started above her.
    She leaped to one side as two wall-mounted monitors came hurtling down. Then the creaking began in earnest and she saw in the dim light that the ceiling had begun to cave in.
    She had never known dread or claustrophobia like this before. Her years of working in closed off facilities had never once produced anxiety or the horrible vision of being buried alive. Now it had changed. If she had to claw her way out, she would do it. Above her the groaning of weight against stressed concrete became louder; grit began to fill the air, stinging her eyes and drying her throat. She clasped a hand over nose and mouth, and when the final crash came she pushed her back against the wall as though it might be possible to physically penetrate the brick, steel and concrete.
    Blood pounded in her ears and the rending, tearing, sliding sound of a whole section of the bunker finally giving way removed, for a moment, all her senses.
    With a final grinding explosion half the roof collapsed, and with it the electronics and part of the huge radio telescope dish, mingled with pieces of the aircraft.
    It was only when the dust started to clear and she felt the cold night air descending into