Here is a given amount of water occupying a given amount of space and it has no easy exits. And here now in the heart of that tense yet balanced natural relationship of pressure, cold and stone is a ball of superhot exploding steam which is expanding really fast and really hard. Some of that pressure goes outward in a wave and bounces off the walls of the lake—that is to say basically off the European continental plate, which is big enough to take it—and rebounds inward to the point of origin. Above that point there is now a column of rising steam and bubbles frothing like extreme cappuccino-style up into the vertical pipe leading to the Kircheisen vaults. Up above it there is a great plug of cold water and that water falls downward through the steam, which loses heat and energy and compresses rapidly so that the whole load falls down hard in time with the compression wave. Everything arrives in the same place at the same time.

This time, pretty much all the force of the explosion goes up the pipe looking for a way out.

Which isn’t there.

Because Hans Eiger’s vault is fixed over the top.

It’s the weakest point in the mountain so—

The Kircheisen Festung explodes.

We can see what happens perfectly because of the spotlights. The mountain crinkles like cooking foil and then a piece slips and slides off to the side. The rumble in the ground becomes a howl like the biggest bottle in the world being filled from a spigot. I can see people running and being blown clear off the edge of the mountain and then—

The metal frame of the vault rips out like a spaceship launching on a pillar of steam and screaming white fire.

For a moment it just hangs there in the air at the top of a shallow arc.

Present moment perfect moment: I have made a bank fly.

Some parts of the mountain come too although not a whole lot percentage wise and I would say not very many people from the plateau but that’s kinda ballpark.

Agent Hannah will probably be fine.

The vault turns through ninety degrees in place just like a diver coming off the high board.

And then it falls.

Down.

Down.

Down the way you always imagine God will come when you’re a kid and someone’s shitty to you and he never does come.

Until now.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Onto the cable car station.

And two dozen French Nazis in a fleet of four-wheel-drive cars.

And an old Dutch lady who was very rich and smelled like cheap chocolates.

And a saluki called Marta who really did not deserve any of this.

Say one thing for German auto design say this: the vault does not actually crush them completely flat. There’s like a five-inch gap between the metal base and the soil.