Johnny sensed that something had gone terribly wrong as he made his way down to the Box. After realizing there was no cell service, he’d tried checking in with Torbin via their satellite connection, but gotten no response.
Still, seeing the burned-out hull of the truck was a shock. He couldn’t breathe; he felt the way he’d felt when he woke in the hospital after he lost his legs.
“They’re gone,” said Massina softly.
“God,” muttered Johnny.
Time contorted, somehow moving fast and slow at once. He felt as if he could leave his body and circle the room several times before a second passed. Yet it also seemed he’d been standing there forever, unmoving, welded to grief.
“Chelsea’s not there,” said Massina.
“What…? What?”
“Here.” Massina pointed to another screen.
“What is this?” asked Johnny.
“The watch. She’s still wearing it.”
Johnny looked at the screen. “Where?”
“Heading south, toward Cape Cod maybe?”
“Pilgrim,” said Johnny. “The power plant.”
The Pilgrim Nuclear plant was among the most heavily guarded facilities in the Boston area, let alone on the East Coast. Ghadab would be a fool to attack there.
But it seemed clear that was where Chelsea was being taken.
Massina called their liaison at Homeland Security, warning him.
“I’m going down there,” said Johnny when he got off the phone.
“I don’t know that you’ll be able to do anything,” said Massina.
“I’m going.”
“Wait,” said Massina.
The look in Johnny’s eyes made it clear he was determined to go, no matter what Massina said or did.
“The FBI is sending a chopper down there,” offered Massina, conceding. “Let me see if I can get you on it.”
105
It was all moving together perfectly. Surely this had been God’s plan all along. Ghadab had let his ego get the better of him, believing he was privileged to watch the final apocalypse in person. But God had humbled him. As he deserved.
Ghadab was still important. In fact, perhaps more than he realized. He would initiate the end days, reveling in its joy from Paradise, not earth. The Americans would surely seek revenge after the destruction of their birthplace city.
Shadaa, too, had been part of the plan. God had shown him the power of love — it could be as strong a motivator as religion, if properly understood.
And now he did.
Ghadab ran his thumb along the edge of the knife. It was a long blade, purchased at a hippie military surplus store near Burlington. Beautiful in its simplicity.
Not a khanjar, but certainly serviceable.
106
A state police helicopter had tentatively tracked Chelsea’s locator to a van driving south on Route 3. But even as the van neared the turnoff for 3A — which would take it directly to the power plant — the police coordinator wasn’t convinced that the plant was the target.
“If it’s a kidnapping, the last place they’re going to go is the power plant,” he told Massina.
“This isn’t your ordinary kidnapping.”
“They won’t get to the power plant.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
The state police were feeding real-time images of the power plant to the Box via the CIA connection; the image was from a police UAV circling around the plant. The helicopter Johnny was aboard was just coming south, not yet in range of the van.
The exit for 3A north of the plant was open to allow residents to get to their houses. But the van passed up the ramp, heading instead toward the interchange with the access road. This was closed off, and heavily guarded besides.
He’s going to ram the barrier and that’ll be the end of it, thought Massina. The end of Chelsea, probably.
He felt helpless.
Ghadab was a fool — going to such elaborate preparations only to thrust himself against a police barrier and die in a hail of bullets.
No, that wasn’t him at all. He was crazy, but smarter than that. He’d know his computers were taken and might even have suspected that his men would talk.
He wasn’t going to go throw himself against a police barrier. Not there.
Not there.
“Passed the interchange,” said the cop. “Still going south, turning off at White Horse Road — they’re going the back way? They’re going the back way!”
107
There were so many trees lining the road that Johnny couldn’t see the van as it sped past the residential area, heading back north toward the power plant. A barrier manned by National Guardsmen as well as plant security and local policemen had been set up three days before at the main entrance. Alerted by the state police, a team moved a pair of heavy troop trucks across the road about fifty feet from the intersection itself; the entrance to the power plant was blocked by two other trucks, which together straddled the entrance. Behind them was an up-armored Humvee, with a gun turret.
Nobody was getting in that way.
“Take out the tires and stop them,” said Johnny. He had a headset connected to the command frequency. “Shoot the driver — they have a hostage.”
“They’ll try,” said the pilot over the interphone circuit, an internal line only those in the helicopter could hear. “Leave the line open.”
As they came up toward the intersection, Johnny saw men taking cover behind the trucks. There were snipers along the roadway and a set of spikes that would shred tires farther along. A police car with its lights flashing was ahead of the spikes, and two officers were standing out in front of it.
They waved their arms as the van approached, but it was clear the vehicle wasn’t stopping.
Oh, God. Oh, God, no!
He could see a burst of glass as one of the snipers took out the driver, but it was too late — the van swerved slightly, banging the front of the police car and then careening across the spikes as it erupted in a fireball so intense the men behind the truck threw themselves down or ran back for more cover.
Oh, God, no…
108
Massina stared at the screen as he scrolled through the data, trying to piece everything together. The link to the Annex was still out; he had Chelsea’s last report but nothing more recent.
Trying to blow up Pilgrim? That makes zero sense. And nothing in this report comes close to hinting at an explosion, so…
What the hell is he doing?
Ghadab was not a stupid man. Evil, a psychopath, the Devil incarnate… but not dumb enough to think that he could crash into a power plant and do damage on the scale he dreamed of.
Socrates had to have something.
Chelsea!
He couldn’t watch her die. He had to do something instead. Something tangible. Even if it was a dead end.
“Come on,” he told Boone. “I need you to drive.”
“Where?”
“The Annex.”
Outside the door, Massina stopped short. RBT PJT 23-A sat nearby, in full-ready state.
“Peter, come with me,” he told the bot. “I may need you.”
The bot jumped to follow.
Traffic had been shunted away from the city, and the streets were relatively clear once they got a few blocks from the building. Massina had grabbed a sweatshirt to hide his arm; he sat in the front seat next to Boone, turning the problem over in his mind.