by Jack Mars
They didn’t need anything more than that. Zero passed the shotgun back to Todd. Maria switched her assault rifle for one from the dead commandos. Zero unholstered a nine-millimeter Beretta from one of the downed guards, and they split up to find the redheaded woman before Calvert Cliffs’ twin reactors caused a catastrophic meltdown.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Fukushima.
Chernobyl.
Three Mile Island.
Those were the names that ran through Zero’s head as he stole quickly around the western edge of the administrative building, gripping the borrowed Beretta and keeping a keen eye out for any signs of life.
It seemed that the perpetrators, the now-dead commandos and the redheaded Russian, had been thorough. They had attacked the facility the day after a national holiday, when it seemed that the reactor was working on a skeleton crew. They’d blasted the facility with the ultrasonic weapon, the frequencies passing through concrete and steel. His own experience with it had been awful beyond compare, but he at least had the minor advantage of knowing what it was. These people—the two more bodies he passed along the way, not to mention whoever might have been on duty inside at the time—would have had no idea. They simply would have felt it, and fallen to it, their last thoughts being terror and confusion and panic, with nowhere to hide or run to.
Zero knew a lot about a lot of things, but he didn’t know much about the inner workings of nuclear energy. He did, however, know that Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown and subsequent radiation leak was the largest nuclear disaster in US history. He knew that there was still much of Chernobyl that was uninhabitable to humans, let alone plant and animal life. He knew that the Fukushima meltdown was caused by an earthquake, which led to an electrical failure.
Could she do that? he wondered. Could she force an electrical failure, or cut power to the cores and purposely melt down the reactors?
His palm was sweaty at the very thought of it. If the Russian woman was successful, it wouldn’t matter much for him—he would be at ground zero, and likely dead in minutes, if not sooner. He had at least been right about one thing: their plan was always going to be a one-way trip for the black-clad commandos and the woman.
But then there was the child. He didn’t know where she fit into all this, but she was just a child. Despite his warning to Maria and Strickland to consider her hostile, he wasn’t sure he could convince himself that the girl was anything but innocent in all this.
He wondered what, if anything, was happening in the outside world. Where was their backup? Was the FBI or CIA en route in helicopters? Would the National Guard roll up in Humvees and Jeeps? Had they initiated evacuation protocols for the nearest towns and cities?
Or had Zero and his team cried wolf too many times, in Illinois and New York and Washington?
So much of his professional life was spent asking questions that he couldn’t answer.
The structure to the west of the administrative building was squat, one-story and concrete, with a flat roof and smooth facades and thoroughly unremarkable. Behind it the white-domed reactor units rose like massive dunes, not only dwarfing the building but looking all the more intimidating with the slow-blinking red lights that flashed slowly at their peak.
Zero looked for a way inside, sticking close to the concrete wall and moving quickly. His guts still ached. He hoped he hadn’t suffered any long-term damage. His hearing and vision seemed to be fine, as far as he could tell…
He almost passed it by. To his right was a steel door with no knob or handle, just a door interrupting the smooth concrete, and he nearly passed it by because it looked closed. But he paused and frowned.
It wasn’t quite closed. He could see just the shadow of the jamb, and when he knelt to examine it, he saw that the steel door was open just an inch, if that, propped open with a smooth pebble that looked like it had been plucked from the same concrete planter behind which he’d taken cover.
Zero looked it over. The door was accessible by a keypad to the left. Three words were stenciled in white paint across the steel: AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY. Someone had not only accessed it, but had then wedged the pebble in the jamb.
To ensure a quick getaway, if needed.
He put one hand flat on the door to push it open, but hesitated. It could be another distraction. It could be a trap, set for anyone who came pursuing her. But there was simply no way to know other than to go through the door.
Zero let out a breath, and he pushed it open. The Beretta was up in an instant, tracking left and right. There was no movement, no signs of life. The passage beyond the door was dimly lit with caged bulbs in the ceiling. The walls were the same smooth concrete as the exterior, nondescript and utilitarian.
This was not the sort of building that visitors and administrators frequented. This, he reasoned, was a place where strict and somber business was conducted. He left the pebble in the steel door and quietly stole down the corridor.
At the first turn he found another body. Another guard. He’d been shot in the head at point-blank range with a small-caliber pistol. Zero shook his head. The guard was young, likely barely out of his twenties. And this was the day after a major holiday. The young man might have come into work a bit hung over, or still drowsy from the festivities. He might have been somewhat disgruntled to be working that day at all, or looking forward to the weekend. He would have heard someone access the steel door, but it hadn’t been forced. No cause for alarm. But the corner was blind. Whether the Russian woman came around, or if he peered out to see who was approaching, was unclear.
The only thing he could say for sure was that she’d been within arm’s reach when she’d shot him.
He stayed absolutely still and silent for a long moment, and when he heard nothing he dared to speak into his radio. “I’ve got a dead guard here, in the western building, concrete, single story.”
The reply was a hiss of dead air.
“This is Zero. Does anyone copy?”
“…copy,” Maria’s voice came through, though just. “Breaking… way.”
His nostrils flared. The thick concrete was blocking out the signal. He wondered if that was by design, but could only hope that Maria’s message was that she was on the way to his location.
Suddenly he heard a clatter, like something metal falling to the concrete floor. Zero stood straight up instantly, listening intently, not sure he could discern a direction as the sound echoed down the corridor. He decided to go left, past the dead guard, and soon came to a set of steel stairs leading downward.
Down. That meant subterranean. Now he understood why the pebble had been jammed in the door—it was very possibly the only way out in a hurry.
He rushed down the stairs. No matter what he did to try to stifle the noise, every step clanged heavily. He was broadcasting his arrival, but he couldn’t stop. At the bottom was another hall, shorter than the one above him, with doors lining the eastern side.
The first two were closed, sealed by the same sort of keypad he’d seen from the outside. With the Beretta up, he whipped around to the first open doorway he came to. It was filled with a dizzying array of discerning scientific equipment, the function of which he couldn’t begin to guess at.
And one woman.
Zero actually took a step backward, surprised as he was to find her there. She stood facing him, her blazing hair falling in waves around her shoulders as she regarded him with a small smirk. Slowly she lifted her hands, palms toward him.
At her feet was a silver pistol. The noise he’d heard. She dropped it. There was no weapon in her hands. She wasn’t actively trying anything.
This is a trap, a voice screeched in his head.
The pebble. The pipe. An unarmed woman whose team was dead.
“Freeze,” he said, though he felt immensely foolish as soon as the word came out. She wasn’t moving. “Step away from the gun.”
“It is empty.” The words came out softly; they didn’t need to be spoken loudly in the silence
of the place. Her English was perfect, though the guttural Russian accent on her consonants was clear. “You’ve got me.”
Zero glanced over his shoulder, checking his six, certain there must be someone behind him trying to get the drop. But there was no one there.
“Hands behind your back,” he told her sternly.
Her smirk spread to a grin, but her hands didn’t move. “Tell me,” she said slowly. “Are you the crazy one?”
“Crazy…?” Zero wasn’t sure how to answer the question.
“The man who jumped from the helicopter. The one who caused the truck to crash.”
Oh. That crazy one.
“Yes,” he said, for lack of a better response. Then he repeated: “Hands behind your back.”
The woman cocked her head slightly to the side. “You do not want to just shoot me?”
“I’d like very much to shoot you,” he told her plainly. “But someone has to answer for what you’ve done. Your team is dead. We know they’re not Russian.” He paused a moment. “But you are. Aren’t you?”
Her gaze swept the floor in what appeared to be the first genuine gesture he’d seen from her. “I was. Though I suppose that part of me is inescapable.”
“And now you work for the Chinese,” Zero postulated. “To frame Russia for the attacks. Why turn on your own people like that?”
“Why?” she repeated in a breathy sigh. “For what they did to me.”
What did they do to you? he was about to ask, but the words stalled on the tip of his tongue. The woman was plain-featured enough to be nobody and anybody at the same time. There was a slight exoticism to her, the shape of her eyes and the curve of her chin, that was just enough to be attractive yet not enough to stick in the memory. He could imagine that with makeup and a fitted dress she could be stunning. In a sweatshirt and jeans she wouldn’t get a second look.
“You’re a sparrow,” he asked, though it wasn’t said like a question. An elite female assassin. Reared from a young age to be completely indoctrinated to the cause of country. A spy, a killer, a negotiator, a lover, a thief—sparrows were trained for years to be anything they needed to be.
“Was,” she corrected him again. “No longer.”
Zero scoffed. “You consider this a promotion? They sent you here to die.”
“I volunteered,” she said simply. “I defected to those who treated me like a person instead of a weapon. To those who gave me genuine purpose.”
Zero shook his head. “Killing people? Causing chaos and panic? That’s your purpose?”
She smiled again. “Can you say differently about yourself?”
“I don’t…”
He trailed off. He was going to argue it, to tell her that he didn’t kill innocent people, that he didn’t cause chaos and panic—but then the Bosnian boy appeared in his memory again. The Dubai businessman. The Irishwoman.
Can I say any differently about myself?
He forced the thought out of his head. He had enough tumult swimming through his mind; he wasn’t about to revisit his past or consider the role he played in the grand scheme of things at the moment.
He’d save that for tomorrow.
“Hands behind your back,” he said again. “Next time I have to say it, you’re getting a bullet in the thigh.”
At last the hands came down, albeit slowly, past her chest and toward her hips. “Is that what you think I’ve done?” she asked him. “Caused chaos and panic and killed indiscriminately?”
“I know that’s what you’ve done.” He held the Beretta with his left hand as his right slipped into the gear bag slung over his shoulder, fishing for a zip tie.
Her hands paused as her head cocked slightly to one side. “You have not figured it out yet?”
Zero paused. Figured what out?
“I had you pegged from the beginning,” he said, trying to sound confident, though her slight smirk was causing his conviction to shrink by the second. “Chaos. Panic. Dissension. That was your MO. Hit random targets and keep us guessing.”
“Hmm.” The noise came out like a half-chuckle. “Random. Yes. It would seem that way, wouldn’t it? But tell me, if this was our plan along, the reactor, why would we waste time in Kansas, or Havana?”
Zero’s throat flexed. She had a point. If they had a sonic weapon, why show their hand well before their masterstroke? He had assumed that it was to make the attacks appear arbitrary and unsystematic.
But they only wanted it to look random.
“Chaos was a beneficial side effect,” she said, her voice a breathy purr. “Keeping your people on edge, wondering the significance of the locations, if there was one… that was merely a game. But the real reason was elsewhere. A nuclear scientist’s vacation suite in Cuba. An engineer on holiday in his hometown in Kansas, spending Thanksgiving with his family. An employee of this very facility in Prince Frederick…”
Zero’s gaze flitted quickly to the floor and back again as he realized what she was insinuating. The ultrasonic attacks had seemed like random targets intended to cause panic and to keep them on the defensive—but they were a diversion. The panic, the injuries and deaths, distracted him and his team from the real goal.
“You needed information,” he said quietly. “To access the reactor. To get in here.”
The Russian woman smiled. “The attacks were front-page news. No one even noticed a missing phone here, a hacked laptop there. A stolen keycard. Of course, smaller and more talented hands than yours or mine handled that part.”
Smaller?
The girl.
He’d been wrong. The little girl was not innocent in this at all. She was as indoctrinated as the woman standing before him, maybe even more so.
The redheaded woman took a small sidestep. Behind her was a monitor in black and white, showing the unmoving outside of the very building they were in. The steel door, the only access point Zero had seen.
She had seen him coming. She knew he was alone.
Which meant she was stalling him.
“Where is she?” Zero demanded. “The girl you were with.”
“Mischa. Her name is Mischa.”
“Where is she?!” he growled.
“By now?” The woman shrugged one shoulder. “I imagine I’ve kept you here long enough that she has successfully shut off the coolant flow to the reactor cores. The heat generated by the reactors will melt the fuel elements, liquefy the cladding, and release massive amounts of heavily contaminated steam into the air. The winds of the Chesapeake will spread radioactive material north by northwest far faster than any evacuation can occur. Simply put? You’re too late.”
Nausea was already roiling Zero’s insides, but now it doubled. The Russian woman knew he would come looking for her, and not the girl. So she’d sent a child to melt down a nuclear reactor.
He couldn’t be too late. He needed to get out of there, to find the girl and stop her. But he couldn’t just leave the Russian woman there.
Shoot her.
He set his teeth in grim determination.
She smiled as if she could read his mind. “Go ahead,” she prompted. “I can see that you want to.”
His finger twitched. He wasn’t an assassin. Not anymore. This woman should answer for her crimes. Yet there were so many lives at stake.
He made a decision. Past, present, and future, he was a killer.
Zero squeezed the trigger.
“Oomph!” A force like a hurled bowling ball struck the small of his back. He hurtled forward as the Beretta barked. The shot struck a computer bank. Sparks flew as Zero sprawled to his stomach on the concrete.
A small shape tucked into a roll and rose in front of him. The girl. She’d struck him with what felt like a knee to his back. Zero was winded; it was a powerful blow. He struggled to breathe as he rose to his elbows. A small foot kicked out and caught the side of his face, turning him on his side. A second kick left his hand stinging and sent the Beretta clattering away.
“Kill him,” the redh
eaded woman said in Russian. “I will finish it.”
Zero saw stars. Behind them the redheaded woman rushed past. He reached for her ankle, trying to trip her up, but not fast enough.
“Maria,” he coughed into the radio. “Strickland. Anyone!”
There was no response.
The girl stood a few feet from him, perfectly still, arms at her sides. She regarded him impassively, her face a smooth mask. She looked like she was waiting for something—for him to get up, perhaps.
So he did. With some difficulty he rose to his knees, and then his feet. His face stung and there was pain in his spine. He held out one hand.
“Wait…” he told the girl. Or tried to.
“Yah!” she shrieked as she flew at him in a flurry. Tiny fists and feet buffeted him, impossibly fast and stronger than he would have thought possible. It was all he could do to keep his hands up and protect the soft spots she targeted. A blow landed in his kidney and he winced. A foot struck the nerve in his thigh and he fell to one knee.
A small fist came straight for his nose in a jab. He managed to get an arm up, to deflect it an inch from his face. He grabbed hold of her forearm and twisted it, bringing his other elbow up—
The girl cried out, and Zero instinctively let go of her.
Her childlike cry of pain sent a memory ringing through his head. Sara, when she was only twelve, had been stung by a bee on a walk through a park. Her anguished cry sounded exactly the same.
Zero took a quick step back, panting heavily.
The girl rubbed her arm as she pushed out her bottom lip.
She murmured in English: “Please don’t hurt me.”
She barely resembled Sara, save for the blonde hair. But now that was all Zero could see. She was a little girl, barely more than twelve years old herself, downright swimming in an oversized green sweater.