“You’ll kill us all,” he said as he collapsed.
Treading carefully over the massive fragments of the library’s shattered glass dome, Nina followed the boys toward the smoldering pit. At the precipitous edge, she looked down. Hundreds of feet, past the crumbling masonry, the twisted metal posts, the smoking husks of several taxis that had been unloading passengers, the fused layers of iron and drywall, the sparking wires, the jagged bookshelves thrust like spears into the sides. Huge chunks of the library’s outer wall—the rounded Aswan Granite carved with scripts from 120 different languages—littered the ledges and were scattered about the pond, the highway, and even lodged in the walls of nearby buildings. Several boats in the harbor had been crushed with exploding debris. In the pit, a host of pages fluttered about, still whirling, descending into the darkness.
In the wreckage, Isaac found a large leather-bound book, its cover sheared in half, spine dented. Smiling, he picked it up, dusted it off and then flung it, Frisbee-style, into the void.
Nina lowered her head. So unlike his father.
Jacob stood farther back, a little wary of heights, still shaken from the last minor aftershock that had rescue crews and spectators running for safety. He edged closer to Nina, started to reach for her hand again, but then saw his brother glaring at him; so he withdrew, shambling over to Isaac.
“Keep back,” Nina ordered. “You had your look. That should be enough.”
Isaac shrugged like he hadn’t a care in the world. “No problem, not for us. Just wanted to see the carnage, we did. See what daddy Calderon can do when he sets his mind to it.”
“And when we help him,” Jacob added, the excitement in his voice faltering as he surveyed the damage once more.
“Come along then.” Nina led them around the barrier, carefully stepping over blocks and gaping fissures. They made their way to the makeshift command center that had been set up inside the planetarium. Rising from a reflecting pool on the outskirts of the main library, the planetarium had been miraculously spared, along with several other ancillary buildings, research centers and administrative offices. The waters of its reflecting pool however, displayed only a pall of lingering smoke, occasionally bisected by roving news helicopters.
Nina and the twins walked around shell-shocked workers, numb-faced police standing beside army members and rescue workers who looked dumbfounded at the totality of the destruction, so much so that they had nothing to do and no one to save. Anyone down in that hole, they reasoned, was beyond hope.
But Nina knew otherwise. After flashing her credentials to a pair of soldiers, she entered the planetarium lobby.
She strode into the main command center, through members of UNESCO, who gave her a wide berth, barely registering the presence of the two out of place boys at her heels; she headed for the center terminal where a man in khakis was bent over a flat screen monitor. He adjusted the Bluetooth device at his ear and then tapped a section of the display—the output of the ground-penetrating radar, showing ridges, clumps of debris and hollow sections.
“Yes sir,” he said. “We’ve pinpointed three such cavities directly under the impact site that could contain survivors. We can get drilling teams started, but without any other information, we’re going to have to guess…”
“You don’t have to guess,” Nina said.
The man turned. Typical retired general sort, Nina thought. Stocky, a little pot-bellied. Neck like an elephant’s leg and a hair as white as a tusk. He stood up straight and let his eyes wander over her body. “Yes senator. She’s here now. With… a couple kids.”
Nina saw Isaac stick out his tongue.
“All right, all right. Your call.” He tapped his ear, ending the conversation. “So, your boss says to dig where these rugrats tell me to dig.”
Nina smiled. “He’s your boss too. And these rugrats are our only chance.”
The man shrugged. Looked her over again, his gaze lingering around her chest. Then he stuck out his hand. “I’m—”
“I don’t care,” Nina said, brushing past him and letting the boys take two vacant chairs around the screen. “We don’t have time to get acquainted.”
Jacob glanced up at her with a smile of admiration at the way she handled the general, then settled his attention on the screen.
The commander tried to move in closer. “This, I gotta see.”
“Give us some space,” Nina ordered. “Go assess something. Now, boys. You know the target, and we know he’s alive. So I need you to focus. Think about these three air pockets down there. Think hard, and try to see. Where is he? Where is-?”
“-our brother,” they both said in unison, after closing their eyes.
But Isaac peeked, and nudged Jacob’s arm. “Wanna race?”
“Shut up. I’ve already won.”
“Boys,” Nina began. They were rushing, clouding the reading. This wasn’t the way.
But then, aware that the commander was still at her back, watching all this, both boys reached out at the same time, as if they were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, and both pointed to the middle cavity, under the thickest section of collapsed concrete, earth and debris.
“Shit,” said the commander. “Had a bad feeling they’d pick that one.”
Just to be sure, Nina thought, she joined her hands to theirs, squeezed and let the information jolt up her arms like two pythons coiling and slithering up to strike at her skull.
Two visions, both almost identicaclass="underline"
Near darkness. A feeble beam of light, dancing around the wreckage, highlighting broken scrolls and broken bodies crushed under huge blocks. The light shining up… and the vision scuttling up the beam with it, through the gap in the cracked ceiling, up past huge blocks, broken metal beams, another body impaled on broken glass, and then out, looking straight up from the center of the crater…
She let go. “Good job, boys.”
“Of course, mother.” Isaac beamed at her, although she couldn’t help notice the sarcasm in his voice. Jacob lowered his eyes. “How soon can we get down there?”
“About six hours, I’d say.” The commander picked up a CB and started barking orders in Egyptian.
“So what do we do while we wait?” Jacob asked, glancing around at the exhibits, the huge photographs taken from the Hubble Telescope, the models of lunar modules and landers. Nina saw his curiosity and wondered again what kind of childhood they’d had with Calderon. School? Friends? Regular boy stuff like playing with rockets and digging for worms? Or had they bypassed all that, being groomed instead for a grander destiny?
“I’ve got new objectives for you all,” said Mason Calderon, striding inside, then leaning on his cane. “And another set of eyes.”
He moved aside, and pointed the cane like a stage magician—and there stood Xavier.
“Why,” asked Nina, “is he out of handcuffs?”
Xavier shrugged. “Bondage was never my thing.”
“Xavier has seen the wisdom of our mission, and that really there is no other choice. Isn’t that right?”
Xavier kept his eyes on Nina. He seemed pale, shrunken, like he’d lost a couple years. She remembered how she’d reacted when Calderon first showed her what was at stake, who the real enemy was. It was a lot to digest, almost too incredible to comprehend.
“We’ve been working the same side all along, just from different angles. All that’s important is stopping them.”
“And your recurring visions of doom?” Nina asked, barely moving her lips.
Xavier gave a slight nod, a tell she knew all too well. And one he knows I’ll see, she thought. What was he up to?