“Hah. What’s going on, really?”
As Eric spoke, Deion’s arms and legs grew cold. Eric stopped for a breath, and Deion said, “I’d rather be driving the other way if it’s no sweat off your back.”
“Nah,” Eric said. “Think about how you can lord this over me if you’re successful.”
“And if I’m not?”
There was a long pause. “A couple of million people in the Pittsburgh area are going to have a really shitty day.”
“Damn you, Steeljaw. You had to go there.”
Less than a minute later, Deion was cutting across the interstate and heading back east on I-70, pushing the Corolla to its limit.
“What’s going on?” Kara asked.
Deion started explaining, but Kara stopped him when he got to the part about the bomb. “We can’t do that. It’s insane!”
Deion looked up at the rearview mirror and saw the way Kara clutched John. John, however, was staring straight ahead, his face blank. “What do you say, John? Are you ready to do insane for breakfast one last time?”
“I’m going to die anyway,” John finally said. “What’s the difference?”
“That’s the spirit,” Deion said.
As he drove, he finished explaining the situation. Finally, John asked, “What gear do we have?”
“I’ve got my M11,” Deion said. “I’ve got my go bag with two extra magazines, a collapsible baton, my earpiece and cell phone.”
“Thought I’d go easy?”
“Yes, actually.”
He considered telling John that he had planned on shooting Kara as a distraction, retrieving the master tablet, and engaging the kill switch. Within seconds, a poison would have coursed through John’s veins, killing him instantly.
“You’ve got my M11,” Kara said.
Deion leaned over and withdrew the pistol and extra magazine with his right hand while steering with his left and tossed them in the back.
John caught the M11, dropped the magazine and checked it, then reinserted it and cycled a round into the chamber. “We’re really doing this?”
“If we make it in time. Steeljaw says we will be cutting it close. Dewey is working on a solution. He should have something by the time we get there.”
“Should have?” John asked.
“We’ll play it by ear,” Deion said.
As if we have a choice.
Chapter Twenty
Huang Lei inspected the four men dressed in black tactical body armor. “You are ready?”
Ivan Kostyk, the leader of his private security force, held up his HK MP5 in response. “What are your orders?”
“We will soon be under assault. You must keep them outside as long as possible.”
“How many enemies?” Kostyk asked.
Huang Lei pursed his lips. After the OTM had shut down his network connections to the other bomb sites, he feared an all-out assault. “It could be many men.”
Kostyk smiled grimly. “How long must we hold off the enemy?”
Huang Lei checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
Kostyk turned to his men. “We will hold this place. We will not surrender. We will kill our enemies. Do you understand your orders?”
The men shouted their acknowledgment, and Huang Lei nodded at them and then left for the stairwell.
Only twenty minutes until the bomb detonates.
As he made his way down the stairwell into the basement, he wondered if the men would stay, knowing they were only minutes from complete destruction. He had paid them handsomely over the years, and the bonuses to their families in the Ukraine made them wealthy beyond measure.
He halted one step from the basement floor, his foot hovering in the air. If he fled, he could make it beyond the blast radius, but not beyond the fallout. It was far too late for that.
What choice do I have?
His once-considerable fortune was almost exhausted. There were few places on earth he could go without the OTM’s watchful eye eventually catching up with him. If he had another twenty years, he could rebuild his empire and find another way to destroy the United States and the USSR.
He had finally realized that destroying the United States and the USSR was his goal. He loved China, but the history of it was not his history.
It was hard to admit, but he wanted them to suffer.
Not just suffer. I want to hurt them… to destroy them. I want each and every one of them buried in the ground and their bodies nothing but rotting piles of meat.
He had never thought of himself as a bad man. A damaged man, yes, angry at his father’s treatment. But not a bad man.
His foot finally touched the basement floor. He was committed. The bomb was armed, and nothing could stop that.
Kostyk’s men will ensure that. They only need to hold them off for nineteen minutes.
Deion hit the brakes, and the Corolla came to a screeching halt in front of the five-story brick building. Police cars blocked off traffic at the other end of the Boulevard of Allies and officers were busy waving people away.
John opened the car door, and Kara grabbed his hand and pulled him back. “Are you really doing this?”
John blinked. The morning sun had risen and soft light filtered into the backseat of the car, glowing against Kara’s rich olive skin. “I don’t have a choice. You’ll die. I love you, Kara. I can’t let that happen.” Kara wrapped her arms around him and squeezed hard.
Deion had exited the vehicle and was busy flashing his credentials to a police captain and pointing at different spots around the building’s perimeter. He turned and saw Kara holding John, and his expression softened.
Deion gave him a second to embrace Kara before nodding his head.
Although he wanted nothing more than to stay, John extricated himself from Kara’s embrace and stepped out of the vehicle, stuffing his spare magazine inside his jeans pocket. He caught up to Deion, and they took off at a brisk walk to the building’s front. “How long do we have?”
Deion checked his watch. “Not long, man. Dewey, you better have something.” He tilted his head, listened to his earpiece, then frowned. “That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What’s he saying?”
Deion held up his cell phone and turned on the speaker. “Repeat that, Dewey.”
“Nancy’s mom has been so helpful. She’s, like, really smart. I’ll bet—”
“Stay focused,” Eric barked over the speakerphone.
“Sorry. The bomb has a PAL — a permissive action link — that prevents accidental arming. There are two different sets of dials, one set of six on the front and another set of six on the back. It’s supposed to take two people to activate it, but the steppers and NC code manipulated the discs—”
“I don’t see how this helps,” John said.
“I’m getting to it. First, the unit has to be powered up. It takes two dozen D-cell batteries.”
“Won’t removing the batteries deactivate the bomb?” John asked.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Dewey said. “The batteries charge a series of capacitors inside the bomb casing. Any attempt to breach the casing will trigger them.”
“Just repeat what you told me,” Deion growled.
“The nuclear pit is a ball about the size of a grapefruit,” Dewey said. “When the bomb is activated, the pit releases into the center of the bomb. If you can get the pit out, the bomb won’t go critical.”
John stared at the cell phone. “Wait a minute. That won’t disarm the bomb. That’s what you’re saying, right? The bomb will still go off, it just won’t be a nuclear explosion.”