Tishenko nodded and the men stepped away. Max kicked the chair across the room, wanting to back into a corner to defend himself.
“Death is only a bridge between two worlds. Look what I offer you,” Tishenko said.
He slid back a frosted-glass door. Inside was a cabinet with a couple dozen vials of amber liquid.
“Your blood will be mixed with that of one of the animals whose DNA we have stored-and then placed deep inside that crystal. The scientists at CERN believe their particle accelerator can find that moment, that fraction of a second after this world was created. At dawn tomorrow my lightning charge will blast through my own particle accelerator, and its design is more powerful. I will re-create creation. Not a microsecond afterwards, but the exact moment. And life will, years from now, grow from that crystal. Charged with power, it will evolve man and beast. Intelligence and strength that will determine a new world species. Symbiogenesis: it is the creation of a new form of life through the merging of different species.” Tishenko smiled. “I have built the new Noah’s Ark.”
“I’ve seen supermarket carts with a wheel missing that are more stable than you,” Max said, unable to hide his disbelief. “You’re certifiable.”
Tishenko’s insanity was all the more frightening because of the power he wielded and the resources at his command. It would make no difference if a warning had reached CERN. Once Tishenko triggered that power, it would rupture and tear apart the nuclear research facility and everything that lay beyond it.
Tishenko looked with pity at the boy who had backed into a corner, crouching, as if ready to fight for his life.
“You will die, Max, before I unleash the storm. You will be dead by then. I promise you.”
Sayid had to be found. And Angelo Farentino had given him another reason to survive-to discover the truth about his mother’s death.
Max knew he had no chance unless there was more time. Never give up.
“You’ve got the wrong time for your big bang theory,” he said.
“And why do you say that?” Tishenko asked carefully.
“Because I have seen Zabala’s stone and the alignment of the planets-that’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? Well, that’s all supposed to happen at twenty-six minutes to twelve tomorrow morning.”
“And you think I am going to believe you?”
“You have to. I have the stone.”
Max knew he had to hand over that last vital piece of Zabala’s prediction, because without the extra few hours’ grace he had no time to make a plan.
Tishenko shuddered. An involuntary ripple of expectation. At last; the exact moment for his ambitions to be realized.
He held out his crinkled hand.
From where Corentin and Thierry sat, the distant mountains looked more formidable than they had ever seen them. The lightning flashes were fairly constant now, and the thunder reverberated across the valleys. Sophie had begged them at the hospital to help Max. If they didn’t there’d be destruction on a massive scale. And Max was trying to save his friend. Corentin and Thierry would do that for each other, wouldn’t they?
Corentin had phoned an old friend, a former Legionnaire who now worked in the French DGSE, the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure, their secret service. Corentin’s urgency ripped through the usual formalities. Governments were frightened now. Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit more neatly. Intelligence communities and the French police were liaising, scientists were forced to look at a possible disaster scenario, and while no one could actually agree and put a plan together, Corentin and Thierry had made their own.
A flurry of sleet danced around the car. Corentin opened the trunk and hauled out two huge holdalls. Each man pulled out the equipment he needed: ropes, climbing gear, two Heckler amp; Koch machine pistols with laser sights, extra clips of ammunition, grenades, flares, two-way radios, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles. Thierry led the way. They couldn’t destroy the obstacles in their path-that would warn Tishenko’s people-so, like Max, they had to find another way in. Corentin’s contact had told him about the vucari. Private armies were one thing, but blokes who thought they were so special they called themselves wolf men needed a lesson in reality. It would take time, but Corentin and Thierry would climb round, find a way inside the mountain and engage the enemy. That had a nice ring to it.
That felt good.
Max had cut the stone out of his trainer’s heel, and within minutes it was confirmed that this was indeed the vital, final part of Zabala’s secret.
“And those numbers etched into the crystal?” Tishenko had demanded.
Max could only shake his head. “I’ve no idea. Part of some code. But I don’t know what.”
The truth of Max’s ignorance convinced Tishenko. Numbers meant nothing now-the time was what mattered.
He gestured to his men and Sharkface was pulled to his feet. “I shall give one of you the opportunity to die quickly-the other will be torn apart by wolves.”
A gaping hole led out onto a snowfield. Churning clouds muscled each other aside as they rolled across crevasses and peaks. The cold air bit into Max’s face, but it wasn’t the chill wind that made him shudder.
Max and Sharkface stood on a steel grid. A pack of about twenty wolves yelped and snarled five meters below their feet. These animals had been deliberately starved.
“You two seem destined to fight each other,” Tishenko said.
He gestured to his men, who grabbed Max and Sharkface. They attached a stainless-steel clamp to Max’s left wrist and another to Sharkface’s right. Two meters of chain joined them. Max had been chained to Aladfar, but this boy was a far more dangerous beast.
“You have ten minutes to run before my wolves and I give chase. Two kilometers away, on the edge of this escarpment, you will find two ice axes. If you live that long, I expect one of you to kill the other, and then I, or my wolves, will kill the survivor.” Tishenko checked his watch. “I suggest you start running.”
Max leapt forward, Sharkface half a second behind him.
They ran through hardened snow covered by a few centimeters of powder. The two boys were dependent on each other at least until they found those ice axes-after that, Max didn’t even want to think about.
Despite the darkness there was enough light to see the sweeping valley and the mountain’s jagged claws of bare rock reaching down into the ghostly white. Max took a handful of the swaying chain, tightening it, making it easier to run. After a moment Sharkface did the same. Max glanced at him. Spittle flecked away from the boy’s jagged mouth. Was Sharkface fit and strong enough to keep this pace going for a couple of kilometers?
It was almost as though Sharkface had heard Max’s thoughts.
“I’ll kill you, Max. I’m not ending up as wolf bait. You’d better keep up.”
“You worry about yourself!” Max said, breathing hard, the sweat already clammy under his clothes.
“He’ll come out of the sky. It’s how he hunts. We have to keep watch,” Sharkface grunted.
Max looked over his shoulder. Clouds obscured just about everything except the lower thousand meters or so of the Citadel. A dull light flickered from the cavelike hole they had left, but a couple of hundred meters higher a broad tongue of shiny dark rock stuck out, from where another light glowed within the mountain. Max saw a giant bat flutter, drop momentarily, then rise and level out. It was a black-winged paraglider.
Max stumbled and fell. Sharkface went down with him. The snow felt like sandpaper as he piled in. Sharkface was on his feet in an instant, grabbing Max by the front of his jacket, shaking him angrily as he hauled him to his feet.
“Get up, you fool! Every second counts!”
Max shoved his opponent’s arm away. “Keep your hands to yourself!”