Elizabeth sank into a neighboring chair. In the momentary calm, she began to tremble all over. She could not stop. Masterson's death it broke something inside her. Tears started flowing grieving for the professor, but also for her father.
Rosauro finished dialing and waited. A frown slowly formed, and her eyebrows pinched together.
What's wrong? Luca asked.
She shook her head, worried. There's no answer.
12:50 A. M.
Washington, D. C.
Painter knocked lightly on the locker room door and pushed it cautiously open.
He was met by a pistol pointed at his face. Kat lowered the weapon, her eyes relieved.
How's everyone? he asked and followed her inside.
So far, so good.
A Sigma corpsman took up her position at the door. Kat led Painter into the main room, lined by banks of metal lockers and benches. At the back was an archway that led to the showers and sauna.
Kat led him to a neighboring aisle. He found Malcolm on a bench, and Lisa seated on the floor, her arm around Sasha. The girl stared up at him with large blue eyes and rocked slightly. Her gaze found Kat's, and her entire body relaxed.
Lisa stood. She had changed into a fresh pair of scrubs, no longer covered in blood. Kat bent down, picked up Sasha, and sat on the bench with her. She whispered in the girl's ear, which drew a small smile from the child.
Lisa slipped into Painter's arms, then stared up at him for a breath. What's wrong? she whispered, concerned.
Painter thought he'd been hiding it well, but how did one completely mask the fury and grief that filled him now?
It's Sean, he said.
Kat and Malcolm glanced over to him.
Painter took a deep breath. The bastard killed him. He could still hear the gunshot, the snap of feedback, and see his friend's body fall.
Oh, God , Lisa mumbled and pulled tighter to him.
Mapplethorpe's heading down here, searching for the girl. Painter checked his watch.
Kat noted his attention. The fail-safe?
Set for four minutes. Painter prayed he had everything prepared correctly. The air was now heavy with the sweet-smelling accelerant.
If we have to defend the room, Kat asked, do we have to worry about the gunfire igniting the air?
He shook his head. The compound functions like aerosolized C4. It takes a strong electrical spark to set it off, not a flash of fire.
Lisa kept to his side. Then what do we do from here?
Painter waved them to their feet. He wanted to protect them as best he could. He would lose no others. But he didn't have much to offer.
We'd better hide.
Mapplethorpe followed his commando team down the hall.
He had employed this same group of men many times in the past, a mercenary team that included former British S. A. S. and the South Africa's Recces. They were his muscle across the world political map. They shied at nothing that was asked of them: assassinations, kidnappings, torture, rape. Whatever clandestine operation he needed run, these men would get it done. Best of all, afterward they would simply disappear, leaving no trace, just shadows and ghosts.
It was hard men such as these who kept the country secure. Where others feared to tread, these soldiers did not balk.
The point man reached a door at the end of the hall. Its sign read LOCKER ROOM.
The soldier held up a fist. In his other hand, he clutched an electronic tracker.
Earlier, Trent McBride had reported that the child's microchip transmitter was still functioning. There was no place she could hide. They'd picked up her signal on this level.
The commando waited upon his order to proceed.
Mapplethorpe waved him through the door. He checked his watch. The fail-safe was set for another three minutes. In case Painter Crowe decided not to abort the firestorm, he wanted the girl nabbed and evacuated. If they were quick enough, it should not be a problem. An emergency exit lay at the other end of the hallway and led off to an underground garage.
Ahead, the soldiers burst through the door and ran low and fast into the next room. Mapplethorpe followed in their wake, closing the door behind him. He heard quiet orders flow among the group as they spread through the rows of lockers.
Mapplethorpe followed the commando with the tracker, flanked by two more soldiers. The lead man ran along the lockers, his arm held high. He finally reached the source of the signal, dropped his arm, and pointed.
In the silence, Mapplethorpe heard a faint whimper coming from inside the locker.
At last.
A padlock secured the door, but another soldier whipped out a small set of bolt cutters and snapped the lock off.
Mapplethorpe waved. They were running out of time. Hurry!
The head commando tugged the locker's handle and yanked the door open.
Mapplethorpe caught a glimpse of a digital tape recorder, a radio transmitter and a Taser pistol wired to the door.
A trap.
Mapplethorpe turned and ran.
Behind him, the pistol fired with a pop and a crackle of electricity.
Mapplethorpe screamed as he heard a loud whuff of ignition, sounding like the firing of a gas grill. A flash of heat, and a fireball blew outward. It picked him off his feet and carried him down the row. His clothes roasted to his back.
He breathed flames, his scalp burned to bone. He struck the wall, no longer human, just a flaming torch of agony.
He rolled and burned for a stretch of eternity until darkness snuffed him away.
A floor below in the gym locker room, Painter heard the screams echoing down from the medical locker room directly overhead. He had set the trap above, knowing Mapplethorpe would come searching for the girl's signal. He had planted one of the Cobra radio transceivers used to draw off the helicopters back at the safe house. Like before, he set the device to mimic the girl's signal.
As a boy, Painter had often gone hunting with his father on the Mashantucket
Reservation, his people's tribal homelands. He had grown skilled at the art of baiting a trap and luring prey. Today was no different.
His false trail had drawn the others like moths to a flame.
And like those moths, they met a fiery end.
Painter felt no remorse for his trap. He still pictured Sean McKnight falling to the floor. Two other staff members had also been killed. Painter checked his watch. The second hand swept past the twelve, crossing the fail-safe deadline set for one o'clock.
He held his breath, but nothing happened.
Earlier, after setting the fail-safe, he had fled to the mechanical room and manually disabled the electronic sparking system. He had needed the levels flooded with the accelerant gas, but Mapplethorpe had been right. Painter could not let the men and women captured by the commando team die, not even to protect the girl. So he had set the trap instead, localizing the firestorm to the one room and luring Mapplethorpe and his team to it.
With a majority of the soldiers dispatched and its leader killed, the others would likely disperse and vanish into the night.
Lisa leaned against him. Will the fires spread?
The answer came from above. Sprinklers engaged and rained both water and foam over them.
Is it over? she asked.
Painter nodded. Right here it is.
Still, Painter knew things elsewhere were far from settled.
10:53 A. M.
Pripyat, Ukraine
Gray sprinted toward the closing steel door at the back end of the massive hangar. He pounded down the roadway between the tall rails. He passed the bodies of two dead workers, shot in the head.
His heart thundered in his ears, but he still heard cheers echoing from the distant grandstands, as if this were a track meet and he was sprinting for the finish line in the four-hundred-meter dash. Only in this race, the spectators' lives depended on him crossing the finish line in time.