Sam grew intensely upset with every word the German bastard spat out. Every muscle in Kemper’s face fueled Sam's hatred, and every hand gesture pushed the journalist to a point of unadulterated wrath. ‘Wait. Just wait a bit longer.’
“Your Nina is now rotting beneath the highly radioactive Reaktor-4 ground zero.” Kemper imparted with no small measure of enjoyment. “Her sexy little ass is blistered and decomposing as we speak. Who knows what kind of things Purdue has done to her! But even if they survived each other, the starvation and radiation sickness will have ended them.”
‘Wait! Don’t. Not yet.’
Sam knew that Kemper could shield his thoughts from Sam's influence and that attempting to get a hold of him would not only waste his energy but be futile altogether. They pulled into Shalkar, a small town adjacent to a lake in the middle of a flat desert landscape. A petrol station on the side of the main road accommodated the vehicles.
‘Now.’
Sam knew that although he could not manipulate Kemper's mind, the skinny commander would be easy to subdue physically. Rapidly Sam's dark eyes checked the back of the front seats, the foot well and the items lying on the seat within reach of Kemper. The only threat to Sam was a Taser device next to Kemper, but Highland Ferry Boxing Club taught a pre-teen Sam Cleave that surprise and speed trumped defense.
He took a deep breath and began to latch on to the chauffer's mind. The big gorilla had physical prowess, but his mind was like cotton candy to the battery Sam was packing in his skull. Not even a minute later Sam had gained complete control of Dirk's brain and decided to get nasty. The suited thug stepped out of the car.
“Where are you g…?” Kemper started, but his effeminate face was obliterated by a devastating punch from a well-trained fist bent on freedom. Before he could even think of grabbing the Taser, Klaus Kemper received another hammer — and a few more — until his face was a mess of swollen bruises and blood.
On Sam's command, the chauffer pulled his gun and started opening fire on the workmen on the giant truck. Sam took Kemper's phone and slipped out of the back seat, heading for a secluded place near the lake they had passed on their way into town. With the ensuing chaos, the local police arrived quickly to arrest the gunman. When they found the battered man in the backseat, they assumed it was Dirk's doing. As they tried to capture Dirk, he took one last shot — to the roof of his mouth.
Sam scrolled through the tyrant’s contact list, adamant to make his call quickly before having to discard the cell phone to prevent getting tracked. The name he was looking for appeared on the list and he could not help but throw an air fist pump for it. He dialed and waited anxiously, lighting up when the call was answered.
“Detlef! It’s Sam.”
Chapter 34
Nina had not seen Purdue since she had struck him against the temple with her two-way radio the day before. However, she had no idea how much time had passed since, but by her exacerbated condition she knew it had to have been a while. Tiny blisters had formed on her skin, and her inflamed nerve endings had made it impossible to touch anything. Over the past day, she had attempted to contact Milla several times, but walloping Purdue had rattled the wiring out of place and left her with a device that could only produce white noise.
“Just one! Just give me one channel, you piece of shit,” she wailed softly in despair as she pushed the talk button incessantly. Only the hiss of white noise persisted. “I'm going to run out of batteries soon,” she muttered. “Milla, come in. Please. Anyone? Please, please come in!” Her throat was on fire and her tongue swollen, but she held on. “Christ, the only people I can contact with white noise are ghosts!” she shouted in frustration, aggravating her throat. But Nina did not care anymore.
The smell of ammonia and coal and death reminded her that hell was closer than her last breath. “Come on! Dead people! Dead…fucking Ukrai…dead people of Russia! The Red Dead, come in! Over!”
Hopelessly lost inside the bowels of Chernobyl, her hysterical cackle traveled through the underground system the world had forgotten decades ago. Inside her mind everything was nonsensical. Memories flashed and melted with plans for the future, becoming lucid nightmares. Nina was losing her mind faster than losing her life, so she just laughed and laughed.
“Didn’t I kill you yet?” she heard a familiar threat in the pitch darkness.
“Purdue?” she sniffed.
“Aye.”
She could hear him lunge, but she had lost all feeling in her legs. Moving or fleeing was not an option anymore, so Nina closed her eyes and welcomed the end of her pain. A steel pipe came down on her head, but her migraine had numbed her skull, so the warm blood only tickled her face. Another blow was due, but it never came. Nina's eyes grew heavy, but for a moment she saw a mad whirling of lights and heard the sound of violence.
She was lying there, waiting to die, but she heard Purdue scuttling away into the dark like a cockroach to get away from the man standing just outside the reach of his light. He bent over Nina, gently lifting her into his arms. His touch hurt her blistered skin but she did not care. Half awake, half lifeless, Nina felt him carry her toward a bright light overhead. It reminded her of the accounts of dying people seeing white lights from heaven, but in the sharp whiteness of daylight from outside the well mouth Nina recognized her rescuer.
“Widower,” she sighed.
“Hey sweetheart,” he smiled. Her tattered hand caressed his empty eye socket, where she had stabbed him, and she began to sob. “Don't worry,” he said. “I lost the love of my life. An eye is nothing compared to that.”
When he gave her fresh water outside, he explained that Sam had called him, having had no idea that he had no longer been with her and Purdue. Sam was safe, but he had asked Detlef to find her and Purdue. Detlef had used his security and surveillance training to triangulate radio signals coming from Nina's cell phone in the Volvo until he had been able to pin her location to Chernobyl.
“Milla broadcast again, and I used Kiril’s CB to tell them that Sam was safely away from Kemper and his compound,” he told her, while she was cradled in his arms. Nina smiled through cracked lips, her dusty face riddled with bruises, blisters and tears.
“Widower,” she dragged the word with her swollen tongue.
“Yes?”
Nina was about to pass out, but she forced her apology. “I’m so sorry I used your credit cards.”
Kemper was still nursing his brutalized face, but he was hardly crying about it. With the Amber Room beautifully converted to an aquarium of decorative gold carvings and stunning bright yellow amber over wooden patterns. It was a substantial aquarium right in the middle of his desert fortress, about 50m in diameter and 70m high, dwarfing the tank Purdue had been kept in during his stay there. Well-dressed, as always, the refined monster sipped his champagne, waiting for his scientific staff to isolate the first organism to be implanted into his brain.
A storm was raging over the Black Sun compound for the second day. It was a freak storm, unusual for that time of year, but the occasional bolts of lightning that struck were majestic and powerful. Kemper looked up to the sky and smiled. “I am God now.”
In the distance, Misha Svechin’s IL 76-MD cargo plane appeared through the raging clouds. The 93-ton aircraft careened along the turbulence and fluctuating currents. Aboard were Sam Cleave and Marko Strensky to keep Misha company. Tucked and safely secured in the bowels of the plane there were thirty drum loads of sodium metal, covered with oil to prevent contact with air or water — for now. The highly volatile element used in reactors as a heat conductor and coolant had two naughty traits. On contact with air it combusted. On contact with water it exploded.