“There were no other bodies,” said the man.
“None?”
“Just this bastard.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty damn sure. Look — he’s burned to shit, but he’s the only one here.”
110
Chelsea tried to move her arms but it was no use; she was strapped into a restraining jacket like a 1960s mental patient. She looked down into the clear water, peering at the top of the nuclear reactor. The water was bubbling, and given the heat in the room, she was sure it was boiling. The place smelled of steam, like an iron ready to press a wrinkled dress.
It’s not boiling. It’s my imagination.
The water bath doesn’t boil. I’ve been here. I’ve seen this.
It looks like it’s boiling.
Mind tricks.
I need to clear my head and figure a way out.
There were voices. Chelsea lifted her head, straining to hear.
Someone moved through the fog.
Massina.
I’m hallucinating.
Massina stopped at the railing.
Ghadab came toward him, trailed by the pair of “students”—clearly his own people, whom he’d managed to substitute at some point over the past several days… or maybe weeks, even years.
The computer geeks he’d gathered in the Syria bunker had obviously been working on a plan to make the reactor go critical while fooling the monitoring devices into thinking nothing was wrong. He’d managed to get his own people onto the reactor team — maybe they were all deep-planted agents, or maybe he’d brought them over when he decided on his target.
It was all moot now. The reactor core must be in breach: an unstoppable chain reaction spewing radiation.
This was not a nuclear bomb; Cambridge and Boston and Massachusetts would remain intact. But people would die — at least a few hundred in the blocks close to the reactor. Thousands more might succumb over the succeeding years to radiation-caused cancer or some other disease that took advantage of their compromised immune systems.
As horrible as it was, as unthinkable, the loss of life was not the worst thing that would happen. The center of the city would be abandoned, perhaps for a century. The university would be permanently damaged, shunned.
That would pale next to the longer-term consequences. People would want, would demand, revenge on a scale beyond anything before.
Unleash a nuke on us, we will unleash one on you.
It was not inconceivable that Mecca would be leveled in retaliation. And then?
Once used, nuclear weapons would be “thinkable” again. North Korea, Iran — who would use them first, and what would the consequences be?
Massina took a step along the railing, backing away from Ghadab. The kid with the gun waved it in Massina’s direction.
Three against one was bad enough, even if he’d been thirty years younger, but the gun made the situation impossible.
The knife wouldn’t be much fun either.
Massina jerked his head upward and saw that a bundle had been tied to a rope dangling from the block-and-chain mechanism over the cooling pool.
Old clothes?
A doll…
Chelsea!
“Yes, that’s your woman,” said Ghadab. “How does it feel to see your people dying?”
“Let her go,” said Massina. “It’s me you want. Right? You left enough clues that I would come and see this.”
“I expected you sooner,” bragged Ghadab.
“My life for hers.”
Ghadab pointed the knife upward. “Would you trade her life for the city’s? You can save her, or save the city.”
The terrorist was implying that the reactor could reach its final critical meltdown in moments — that there was only a short amount of time to stop it.
Maybe he was right — maybe there was still hope. But if so, what would he do? What could he do?
“Let her go,” said Massina.
“I can drop her in the water.” Ghadab pulled a smartphone from his pocket. “Then she’ll die instantly. And you won’t have a choice — your city will burn. And your puppet will, too.”
“That’s not what Allah wants,” said Massina.
“What do you know of God’s will?”
“I know he doesn’t want slaughter.”
“You know nothing of religion.” Ghadab’s tone was adamant, angry — he’d been taken by surprise by the argument, clearly, but it was one he couldn’t ignore; it touched him to the core.
“Everyone who follows you,” said Massina, “dies because of your crazy beliefs. You’ve turned your religion into something perverse. God doesn’t ask for destruction.”
“Silence, blasphemer! You dishonor the one true God.”
“You’re not even a true believer.”
“I know you, Satan. I know you’ve pulled all of these strings, like some master manipulating his puppets.”
“I’m not Satan. I have no puppets.”
“Look at her!” Ghadab shouted, pointing to Chelsea twisting above the pool. “She’s already sick from the radiation.”
“You expect Armageddon,” said Massina. “I know from your notes in the bunker. But that’s not going to happen. The West will simply crush you. If there were ever an Armageddon, it would be Islam that would be eliminated, not the West.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Explain it to me, then. If you are what and who you say you are, enlighten me. Or are you just a psychotic, as even the Saudis claim you are?”
Ghadab felt his anger rising beyond the breaking point. He struggled to control himself — there was still so much to be accomplished.
But he couldn’t. He drew back the knife and aimed his body at Massina.
He saw the American’s shoulders start to droop. The man was a coward!
Disappointment mixed with triumph.
Then, in a flash too quick to record, surprise.
Massina launched himself arm-first into Ghadab, slamming his arm into the terrorist’s windpipe like a baseball bat. Ghadab gasped as he fell backward, rolling over the railing and into the containment pool.
Light flashed in the room, then the overloud echo of rifle shots — the security guard who had reluctantly followed him down had appeared at the doorway, only to be chased back by gunfire from two thugs who’d been with Ghadab. But the guard’s tardiness had been for a good cause — he’d brought reinforcements. The room lit with a white flash, instantly followed with a boom that hollowed out Massina’s ears — a flash-bang grenade thrown by a member of the local SWAT team, assigned as backup security for the campus.
Massina climbed to his knees. He couldn’t hear — the explosions had rendered him temporarily deaf.
Two bodies lay on the platform nearby — the “students” who’d been with Ghadab.
Massina got to his feet and went to the control panel. The emergency shutoff was a simple lever; remove the guard and pull it, and the reactor would automatically begin shutdown.
Except, knowing Ghadab, things wouldn’t be that simple.
Massina took his hand off the panel.
“Chelsea.” She was suspended from a rope tied through a hoist in the ceiling; the end was secured on the railing. But before Massina could get to it, he felt himself pushed hard to the floor. One of the SWAT team members appeared at his side, screaming something.
“I can’t hear you!” Massina shouted back. “The grenade. I’m Louis Massina. We need to shut the reactor down! I need Chelsea! My employee!”