The other feed showed the reactor control room, where four men stood in front of a giant bank of instruments. This was more problematic. One only needed to study the picture for ten seconds to begin willing them to move. It wasn’t natural for four individuals to stand frozen like mannequins. Still, there were 148 other monitors to study.
It came down to time. Emma couldn’t risk resetting the pictures. It would have to do as it was.
Emma opened the door and returned to Grégoire’s office. Hurriedly she dumped her tools back into her purse. A moment later the door opened and Alain Royale returned, carrying a pair of notebooks under one arm. “The manifests,” he said.
“Put them on the table,” said Emma.
Royale did as he was told.
“Still no word from M. Grégoire?” asked Emma.
Royale shook his head.
“I hope you understand that I’m not allowed to wait,” said Emma, in a sufficiently authoritative voice. “I like my inspections to begin promptly at shift change. I can’t have word getting out that I’m on site.”
“I’m sure he’ll be in any moment. I know he would want to say hello.”
“We’ll have ample opportunity to discuss my findings once I complete my inspection. In the interim, I’m sure he knows how to find me should he be so inclined.”
Alain Royale handed Emma her site badge, instructing her to wear it around her neck at all times. “And here is your key card. Swipe it downward quickly and the doors will unlock. Is there anything else?”
“No, thank you,” said Emma, slipping the key card into her pocket. Out the window, she had a clear view of the large reactor dome, and beyond it the Atlantic Ocean. “This will be more than enough.”
69
In London, sunrise came two minutes earlier, at 5:40 Greenwich Mean Time. In room 619 of the intensive care floor of St. Catharine’s Hospital, the first shaft of light dodged the drawn curtains and fell squarely upon the brow of the sleeping patient. He was a hard-looking man, with tousled black hair, a Roman nose, and a dense stubble darkening his hollow cheeks. In repose he maintained a formidable presence, a coiled animal-like tension that gave the impression that at any moment he might leap from the bed and attack. Everyone on the floor knew of the man and his reputation. They were right to be frightened.
But the patient did not move. Even as the minutes passed and the sunlight grew brighter and slanted across his eyes, he did not stir. For almost ninety-six hours, Russian Interior Minister Igor Ivanov had lain in a coma. Though he bore no visible wounds, the examining neurologists all agreed that he had suffered a terrible trauma caused by the concussive wave of the bomb blast that had killed a number of his countrymen. By now the patient’s vital signs had returned to normal. His blood pressure measured an admirable 120 over 70. His heart rate was an athlete’s 58 beats per minute. His bloodwork showed his cholesterol to be below average and his testosterone to be far above it. The same physicians concurred that it was the patient’s excellent level of fitness that had allowed him to survive such a heinous injury in the first place and kept him alive ever since.
A nurse entered the room and began her daily ministrations. She drew the curtains, lifted the patient’s head and plumped his pillow, then checked his urine bag and made sure that his catheter was properly in place. As usual, she lingered on this last task a second or two longer than was necessary. She was a devout Catholic girl, and though she had worked in the hospital for over a year now, she had rarely seen such a gifted endowment. She smiled, ashamed of herself, but only a little.
It was then that the frighteningly powerful hand grasped her arm and she cried out meekly.
“Next time,” said Igor Ivanov, his voice remarkably strong despite the hours of sleep, “please knock before you enter. And if you want to have a look, just ask.”
The nurse covered her mouth and fled the room.
Ivanov set his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. The mild exertion had left him with a headache and surprisingly fatigued. Still, he could already feel strength returning to his limbs. In a few hours he would be bristling with impatience. He decided that by six o’clock that evening, he would be on a plane to Moscow.
The doctors were wrong about what had kept him alive and prevented him from drifting ever after in a coma’s eternal netherworld. It was not his fitness. It was anger.
Igor Ivanov knew well and good who had done this to him.
And he wanted payback.
70
They formed lines on both sides of the hallway, each with six policemen clad in assault gear, backs to the wall, with Graves and Ford pulling up the rear. Black Panthers were permitted to carry weapons of their own choosing. The first man in line clutched a Benelli semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun. The second followed with a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. The strategy was blast and spray. And God help whoever was on the receiving end. The rest of them held pistols at the ready to fire on more precise targets.
The captain gave the signal to go forward. A policeman carrying a Remington Wingmaster ran down the hall and aimed the rifle at the door. The captain raised his gloved hand. His fingers counted down: five… four… three… two…
“Ready?” whispered Kate.
Graves nodded.
An earsplitting bang rent the hallway. The door careened off its hinges and slammed to the floor. There was a flash and a concussive change in the air pressure as the stun grenades exploded. One, then another. Smoke flooded the hallway. By now Graves was running into the apartment, his pistol extended, eyes watering. Someone was shouting, first in French, then in a language he couldn’t understand.
“Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Bougez pas!”
Shotgun blasts fired in rapid succession. Graves’s ears rang painfully. He registered the apartment in static frames. A run-down kitchen. A living room with threadbare furniture. The crate of machine guns. And another larger crate next to it, with the words “Property of Italian Armed Forces. Semtex-H. 50 kg.” It was the Semtex that Emma Ransom had stolen from the barracks near Rome. He heard a scream. He turned a corner to see a slew of black uniforms tackling someone to the ground. It was a man with gray hair, and he struggled fiercely, shouting something in a language Graves recognized but at first did not understand.
A staccato burst from an automatic weapon forced Graves to spin and look behind him. Pieces of drywall scattered through the air, clipping his face and neck. He ducked instinctively. The policeman next to him went down, half his face blown away. Graves leveled his gun at a woman who stood facing him, an AK-47 held in her hands. He squeezed the trigger, but before he could get off more than one round, there was another blast and another, and the woman was blown across the room and slammed high onto a wall. Graves looked and saw the French police captain, the Benelli shotgun pressed to his cheek.