“I am so disappointed you were going to go home and leave us behind without at least saying good-bye,” he said as he pushed the master chief hard into Virginia’s arms, who stayed his fall while giving the Russian a withering hate-filled glare. He gestured with his Colt .45 for the others to stand. “I am sure you won’t mind if we go first this time?”
Jack rocked back and forth as Sarah stilled him. Charlie Ellenshaw helped Farbeaux to his feet and Will and Ryan were still trying to gather their senses. Carl was on the ground with a bleeding Anya lying prone with her head in his lap. Everett was watching the Russians with murderous intent. The dark-haired Gypsy moaned and they all felt relief as she batted her eyes. Everett looked down — his relief was most visible.
“Now.” Doshnikov stepped forward and then reached for little Sarah. When Jack tried to stop him, Doshnikov shot the colonel in the upper thigh, sending him crashing to the ground.
“You son of a bitch!” Sarah said as she fought the hold of the Russian.
Ryan and Will ran to Jack but another shot rang out and ash and dirt flew from the bullet striking just inches from their feet.
“Another foolish attempt to stop us will result in us leaving one of these behind as we pass through the doorway.” He raised something he held in his left hand and easily tossed it up and down. It was an old grenade. “It seems you were right in your theory about others coming here before us, Colonel,” he said as he watched Jack hiss as he struggled to sit up. “We found two of these inside the pack attached to the skeletal remains of a soldier. We couldn’t tell if he was Japanese or Chinese, but I must say it was indeed fortuitous that we came across him in our flight from your treachery.”
“There he goes using those big words again,” Jason said as his anger was just about to boil over. He would rather die here and now than take a chance at his friend being left behind in this whacked-out menagerie.
Doshnikov turned and looked at Ryan. He pointed the .45 at his head and pulled the trigger. Click, the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
“Your luck is holding, my friend.” He eased the old and rusty pin from the grenade and smiled as he held the handle in place and turned to the master chief and Virginia. “Now, start the process and get me and my men out of here.”
Jenks looked at Virginia and winked. She didn’t understand why Harold was taking this so well. He stood on wobbly legs and made his way back to the trailer. He looked at Jack, who was watching while holding his wounded thigh. Of all people it was Henri who was applying pressure and a dressing to the bleeding hole. Collins fought his building anger with every ounce of willpower he had as the Russian reached out and took Sarah by the arm and steered her toward the still-spinning doorway.
“Remember, all I have to do is drop this inside of there and your dreams of a future are done — am I understood?”
Jenks smiled but it was brief and only Virginia saw it. She bit her lip, wondering why the gruff bastard was taking all of this so well.
“Behave and you just may see this lovely young lady again; misbehave and she will die a horrible death and you can stay here and contend with the animal life.”
“Master Chief, send this man to where he wants to go,” Jack said as Henri assisted him to his feet.
“Yes, sir,” Jenks said as he started the collider rolling at full RPMs. “Slim, stand by on the lasing system.”
Virginia saw Jenks switch to another tone setting on his control panel and made sure the volume was down when the return signal arrived. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was going to do. She looked at Sarah and then hurriedly back at Jenks, who winked.
“Start the lasing and get the collider lined up.”
Doshnikov heard the orders and, remembering this was where they were tricked back in Brooklyn, roughly brought Sarah to his side.
Henri made as if to move on the Russian but Jack forcibly stayed him. They exchanged looks and then Farbeaux knew the Americans had other plans for Doshnikov.
“Let’s just cut to the chase — no countdowns, no fact-checking. Either this damn thing works, or it don’t.” He smiled at Virginia and then nodded. “Bring the collider online at full power, Slim.”
Without even looking at the panel before her, Virginia did as she was told. Sarah looked over at Jack with fear in her eyes. Jack nodded at Jenks, telling her to concentrate on him. The master chief looked at the small woman whom he had come to like immensely.
“You trust me, Shorty?” Jenks asked as Doshnikov forced her to the doorway’s opening. Sarah could only nod that she did. “Then tell everyone we’ll be along shortly.” She nodded and Jenks smiled, relaxing her as much as he could.
As the other Russians came forward to join their boss, the doorway went into full-power mode. Suddenly the lasers reached the correct frequency and the burst of pure atomic sunlight exploded from the circling laser apertures, sending out a brilliantly illuminated perfect tunnel of spinning light. Doshnikov turned and smiled at the Americans. He halfheartedly saluted them as he started forward through the vortex of wind and multicolored light.
“Short Stuff, remember: that asshole doesn’t have a Group security clearance,” Jack yelled above the din of noise.
The dawning look of understanding filled her face. She smiled as she realized what was about to happen.
The five Russians along with Sarah stepped into the doorway.
The doorway went to 115 percent power and the world inside the building started to shake and rattle as the dimensional doorway opened before them.
“Dr. Morales, we have six targets coming through, only one has a transponder.”
“All right, Europa, cull the herd down to size,” he said as he watched on from Nellis.
“Separation of signals commencing,” came the call as the explosion of light bathed the old building in a myriad of color. Before they saw the doorway start to power down they heard it.
They heard a woman’s yelp of pain as the vision of the technicians returned slowly after having their retinas fused by the brilliant lasers. When they cleared they saw a lone figure standing on the far side of the doorway as the lasers shut down one at a time.
“Los Angeles, cut power!” called out the lead tech as she stood and ran to the latest traveler.
“Damn, that hurts!”
Niles smiled when he recognized the small form of Sarah McIntire. And then that smile was replaced with a look of concern for his missing nine people. He started to open the intercom to get his people moving again, but Xavier Morales was ahead of him.
“Get the doorway back up!”
As Sarah was assisted from the pad, she looked around in confusion and was wondering through her pain just what in the hell happened to her traveling companions.
Heinrich Himmler smiled as the young Jewish lab rat, as he referred to her, stepped through the doorway and vanished. He smiled as her brother was led out of the lab and the doorway started to slow.
Many Nazi officers smiled and congratulated the Reichsführer on the success of the Wellsian Doorway.
“How soon can we transport the doorway to Berlin?” he asked, but was soon cut off.
“Doorway is coming back online!” called out one of the German techs.
Down below in the laboratory, Professor Thomsen’s mood went from one of triumph to one of confusion.