Cal looked around and saw metal walls and the silhouettes of a bunch of people, and figured he’d been thrown in the boxcar with… well, who else?
“The Russkies,” Yamato said quietly. “Me, Miguel, Hei Feng, and most of the Soviet Variants. All stuck in here. And they’re using null generators on us.”
Cal slowly sat up. “Well, ain’t that something. How’s everybody feeling?”
“Pissed off,” Yamato said with a grin, offering a hand to help Cal to his feet. “Seems like Beria turned the tables on ’em. Only ones not accounted for are Maggie and that speedy guy, Boris.”
To Cal’s surprise, his body wasn’t protesting as much now. Maybe the null generators were having an effect on his aging — but then, that hadn’t happened before during testing at Mountain Home or Area 51, either. “What else?” Cal asked.
Maria Savrova came over, rage on her face. “There is an atom bomb in here with us,” she said in English.
“Come again?” Cal said, his heart starting to beat really fast.
“Beria has taken an atom bomb. He plans to detonate it — with us sitting here next to it,” Savrova said.
“Why in God’s name would he do that?” Cal asked.
The answer was terrifying.
Danny sped through the heart of Kaesong toward the concentration of Variants he had detected. There were two or three that had split off from the main group and were heading to the south and east, but he figured he’d best go with numbers for now. Besides, for whatever reason, his senses were growing fainter, not stronger, as they approached the city. Something was off, and he didn’t know what.
He turned to Katie over in the passenger seat — and nearly ran off the road. A strange, ephemeral mist seemed to hang around her head, and it coalesced into the ghostly face of an old man, looking angrily at him. He glanced back at where Sorensen sat, still invisible, but saw the same mist where he should’ve been, and another face, this time a middle-aged Asian woman, glared back as well.
“Something’s happening,” Danny said. “Our Enhancements are changing.”
Katie looked at him quizzically. “How do you know?”
“There’s…”
Suddenly, the man’s face hanging around Katie’s head seemed to scream silently before dissolving into nothingness. The mist around Sorensen was gone by the time he turned his head. And suddenly, his senses grew much sharper, as if someone had finally fixed the rabbit ears on the television inside his head.
“Never mind,” Danny said. “I’m getting Cal and Yamato up ahead. Maggie is heading to the southeast with two others. Assuming at least one of them may be Beria. Let’s move.”
Danny let his Enhancement guide him as he drove, and they soon pulled into an abandoned, bombed-out factory — surrounded by a couple dozen North Korean troops. Danny drove past the installation instead. “Ideas?” he asked.
“I’ll recon and see what’s there,” Sorensen said as the jeep’s rear lifted slightly, the telltale sign that he’d jumped off.
“I’ll get close,” Ekaterina said, sliding out of the jeep. “It is an old building. It looks like it will collapse at any moment. I will help it.”
Danny waited a few minutes for everyone to get in place, then wheeled the jeep around and drove into the factory compound. Immediately, a half dozen soldiers leveled rifles at him, but he continued to drive ahead until he was no more than thirty feet from the building entrance before stopping on several rail tracks.
“W
men yào qù kāi chéng. Ràng wmen tōngguò,” Danny ventured as an officer walked forward.
“I speak Russian,” the officer replied. “I do not recognize you.”
“I am here to join the others,” Danny said. “Surely they told you I would be coming?”
The officer frowned deeply. “They did not tell me this. We did not expect anyone back here for two hours.”
Somebody left for sure, then. “Well, where did they go?” Danny said. “Come now! I need to catch up to them.”
The officer put his hand on his sidearm. “Step out of the vehicle.”
Suddenly, there was a groaning, crumbling sound from above them, and Danny looked up to see the side of the corrugated metal building start to collapse downward. He took the opportunity to fling himself at the North Korean officer, tackling him to the pavement, and then rolled under the jeep as hundreds of pounds of metal crashed down on top of it.
From the darkness under the jeep, Danny could hear the sounds of men crying out, then gunfire, and then a massive snapping sound — and more screams. It took about five minutes for the ruckus to die down, and another three or four before light returned.
He rolled out to find Ekaterina and Sorensen standing over him. “No napping,” Sorensen chided.
Danny got to his feet and looked around. Not only had the entire facade of the factory collapsed, but a massive steel girder, some thirty feet long, was on the ground about twenty feet away, with several inert bodies under it. “Baseball?” Danny asked.
“A bourgeoisie sport,” Katie said. “But useful.”
With the face of the building gone, Danny could see that the rail tracks continued into a large loading area inside. Sorensen handed him a Korean rifle, and together the three Variants ventured inside. Danny could sense all the Variants ahead, and it seemed like they were all inside the boxcar.
“Odd. Why—” Then his senses winked out. “Null generators,” Danny said. “Find ’em. Move!”
They ran forward and fanned out around the boxcar, searching around the wheels and by the doors. The first two were easy to find and destroy, but Sorensen had to climb up on top of the car itself to find the third. Once that was off, Danny’s senses roared back to life.
Katie crushed the now-dormant null generator in her hands, then went toward the chained and padlocked doors of the boxcar. But Danny rushed over and pulled her aside. “Give it a moment,” he said, then shouted toward the boxcar itself. “All clear!”
The doors of the boxcar burst open, one of them flying across the loading area. Then, slowly, a large crate moved out of the boxcar…
… hovering in thin air.
“Well, that’s new,” Sorensen said from the top of the car.
The crate gently settled onto the concrete floor, and Danny could see that the top had already been removed.
Inside was the unmistakable shape of a bomb.
“Jesus,” Danny breathed.
People began pouring out of the boxcar, including Yamato and Cal. The last time Danny had seen him, Cal was a hale thirty or so. Now, he looked close to his natural age. Danny rushed over and gave him a bear hug. “You all right?” he asked.
Cal returned the hug. “I’m okay. But we got a problem.”
Danny turned and saw eight Soviet Variants, including Savrova and the Mongolian, staring at him. “Is this the problem?” Danny asked.
“Not sure. That bomb is the bigger problem,” Cal said.
Savrova walked over to Danny. “We cannot disturb the bomb,” she said. “Any attempts to disarm it or cut off the radio detonator will automatically engage the nuclear reaction.”
Danny held up a hand. “Nuclear? This is an A-bomb?”
“Actually, it’s a prototype H-bomb,” Yamato said. “Our friends here say Beria diverted it from the Russian nuclear program he’s been overseeing.”
“And Beria has the radio detonator,” Danny finished.
There were nods around the room, along with some quiet Russian translation.
“You all know where he’s going?” Cal asked. “Come on, now. You know we gotta stop him.”