Jodle looked through the glass at the waiting Doshnikov and shook his head. The Russian just nodded once and one of his guards went to the first tech in line and stood the young man up. The defiance in the kid’s bespectacled face was evident to Ryan and Mendenhall, who stood with Virginia, Sarah, and Anya. The boy’s eyes momentarily flicked to those of Ryan for the bravery he would need in the next few moments.
“I believe the question was what is the turnaround cycle for the doorway,” Doshnikov asked with an exasperated intake of breath. His eyes bored in on the young tech, who swallowed as the larger Russian took him by the lab coat’s collar menacingly.
“That’s enough,” Jason said as he took a menacing step away from the center of the room, but only made it two feet when an old-fashioned six-shot Colt .45 Peacemaker was put into his face. Ryan raised his brows when he saw that it was the head man who had produced the weapon. The end of the barrel looked like a cannon’s bore. Will followed suit and the gun moved minutely to the right and stilled him. Doshnikov nodded that his man should continue the questioning.
Ryan had decided to move again when he caught sight of Alice Hamilton in the observation window above them. She had her hands on the windowsill and he barely saw the small gesture of her hand waving him off and the small shake of her head. Then one finger went up, two fingers went up, and then finally the third finger.
The gathered Russians flinched when the doorway started its slow revolutions. The lasers were off but the coolant chambers were still charged with nitrogen and that stored liquid vented through one of the ports on the side of the rectangular mainframe of the doorway. This loud noise made the Russians jump back as the revolutions increased, creating a small onrush of air as the doorway gained momentum. Doshnikov looked first at Jodle, who was also watching with interest, and then over at Ryan, who gave the Russian a sad look as if his earlier question had unintentionally been answered by the doorway itself.
“Ah, it has completed its cool-down cycle.” He looked over at Jodle, who meekly agreed with a nod.
The technicians who lined the wall exchanged knowing looks that the doorway did not require a cool-down period before a second attempt could be made. They hoped what was about to happen didn’t occur until at least their friends were out of the line of fire.
Jason, Will, Sarah, Virginia, and Anya all saw Niles Compton as he stepped to the glass and stood beside Alice. Niles Compton closed his good eye and then nodded his head. Ryan swallowed when he realized that the scenario facing them was a simple one — they had to get the Russians and that detonator out of the building, and there was only one way to do that. He didn’t know how they would get the Russians to voluntarily step through the doorway, but Jason was willing to go on faith. Before he turned away, Commander Ryan nodded back at the director. He then looked at the darkened main monitor where Xavier would have been. Ryan raised his eyebrows in concern for the plan. He knew it was a silent plea that asked the young computer whiz if he knew what he was doing.
“Oh, shit,” Virgnia said as it just dawned on her how this plan had only one way of working.
“What?” Sarah asked as quietly as she could as the Russian admired the spinning doorway in front of him.
“There’s only one way to get these dickheads through that doorway without asking them to do so — Xavier’s going to flood the system and open the doorway with a surge burp.”
“A what?” Sarah hissed in questioning.
“It’s a theory, but should work.” Virginia’s features soured somewhat. “Damn, this is going to be something.”
“A what?” The young computer specialist asked as he listened to their new boss’s plan. The other specialists were just as confused.
“When we studied the plans for the German doorway and the more recent apparatus from Madam Mendelsohn, we discovered their earlier mistakes that cost them a few innocent lives in the process. It seems it happened a few times when the doorway was brought online too fast. The surge, or burp, as Madam Mendelsohn called it, is a backwash of energy that rebounds in the opposite direction of the doorway’s intended path when the system’s lasers are started too quickly. The light refuses to bend until the doorway is at full revolutions. Until that speed is achieved the light has no place to go except to bounce off the incomplete doorway path.”
“I don’t follow,” the young man said as he knew he was listening to another computer boss that was light-years ahead of all of them.
“The power of the dimensional shift will bounce back into the room.” Confusion still reigned on most of their faces. “You know, where the bad guys are currently standing.”
It dawned on most at the same time and they realized the Russians were not the only people in the line of fire.
“By the time the burp backfires into the room those people will think the gates of hell have opened up. Madam Mendelsohn claims it’s an enclosed hurricane that sucks everything and everyone into the vortex before anyone knows what’s happening. The RPMs on the machine are at max power and they have a one-way ticket — target, Antarctica — and hopefully a helping hand in Colonel Collins and his team. I hope they’re ready for this.”
The faces staring back at him were worried and Morales knew why.
“It’s the only way we can protect the bulk of the Event Group staff and the doorway. We have to disable those explosives and removing the only way to detonate them is the only way we can achieve that. We just have to hope Mr. Ryan knows what’s happening. So, let’s remotely get this thing started before that Russian asshole decides to kill everyone there.”
The computer center came alive with frightened but determined activity.
“Okay, you can shut it down now, Joshua,” Doshnikov said as his hair was beginning to be tossed by the increasing revolutions.
Joshua Jodle stepped from behind the technicians’ safety glass, shrugged his shoulders, and hurried over to the spot where the artificial wind was starting to move Doshnikov’s heavy coat.
“I said you can shut the doorway down now. We must prepare for your journey.”
“I didn’t start the cycle. I assumed it was on a timer and after she cooled down it would automatically reboot. As you can see it’s just the centrifuge turning, no lasers.” He now had to shout to be heard and that made the young stockbroker concerned as he turned and looked at the spinning doorway. That was when he looked up and saw that little balding man with the eye patch. He could swear the man was moving his lips as he was saying something. It looked like—
“Good-bye.”
Jodle turned and saw that Doshnikov felt the same thing they were all feeling — the electrical charge coursing through their bodies had increased five-fold in seconds. Jodle found he couldn’t move his lips or voice his warning.
Ryan reached out and grabbed a hold of Sarah’s belt. She did the same with Anya. Will and Virginia huddled together, following suit. The room was erupting as the fifteen Russian guards quit paying attention to their charges and their strange behavior. Doshnikov’s heavy coat was almost ripped from his frame as the revolutions increased.
Before anyone realized it, the large monitor sprang to life and the face of Xavier Morales filled the screen. The overhead speaker blared to life and that was the only thing everyone in the laboratory heard as Morales spoke.