“I’m going to Shanghai,” said Amy.
Ian nodded. “I’ll start packing.”
“No,” said Amy. “I can’t risk you guys. If it goes wrong, I’ll need you to be around to stop Nathaniel without me.”
Ian frowned. “You know what you’re asking?”
Ham stood up. “Seems to me we should decide for ourselves if we’re going or not.”
Jonah slung his arm over the big guy’s shoulder. “Seems to me Ham’s right.” He looked around the room. “Who’s for Shanghai?” He and Ham put their hands up.
So did Ian.
But not Cara. She was frowning at her screen. “A small glitch, guys.”
“What is it?” asked Ian, looking over her shoulder.
“There are no nuclear power stations near Shanghai. Certainly not near enough to do the sort of damage we’re expecting.”
Amy joined Ian. “Are you sure?”
“Yup. Look for yourselves.” Cara magnified the map of Shanghai and the area around it. “I’ve highlighted the stations in red.”
The nearest nuclear power station, Qinshan, was hundreds of miles away.
Cara clicked her mouse and a circle grew up around the stations. “Even with a total meltdown, the range of the explosion would be a dozen miles at best. There could be plenty of radioactive material ejected into the atmosphere, but there’s no guarantee it would blow in the direction of Shanghai.”
Amy looked at Ian. “Is this some sort of double-bluff? Have us looking one way and the danger’s somewhere else?”
Cara scowled. “One man knows for certain,” she said. “That’s Alek Spasky. And he’s headed to Ukraine, where Chernobyl is.”
Amy rubbed her forehead. “That cannot be a coincidence. But what does it matter? He won’t tell us anything.”
Ian shook his head. “I’m not so sure. He was going to see someone in Kiev, and it sounded like she means a lot to him. If there’s a chance to get him to tell us what the plan is, even a small chance—”
“Small?” interrupted Dan. “You mean microscopic. The guy wants us dead, Ian.”
Ian met his gaze. “If Nathaniel is planning a nuclear disaster, we’ve got to follow every lead we’ve got. And our best lead is Alek and this mystery woman he’s going to see.”
“Seems to me,” said Ham, “we have three missions. The Black Forest, Shanghai, and now Chernobyl.”
Amy agreed. “What do you think we should do, Ham?”
Ham started. “You’re asking me?” He looked to her, then Dan, then Ian. “Don’t we have enough bosses?”
She nodded. “Tell us.”
Ham looked around for help. Amy could see the pleading in his eyes as they fell on Jonah, but the superstar just kicked back on the sofa, leaving the stage for the big Tomas.
Ham held up three fingers. “So we need this many teams. One to find out whatever dark secret lies in the Black Forest, the second to go to Chernobyl and question Alek Spasky, and the third to go to Shanghai and try and save the Ekats. Okay?”
Amy smiled. Why had a Tomas never been head of the Cahills? Ham was doing a great job.
Jonah chimed in. “I already volunteered for Shanghai.”
Ham grinned as if he’d just won Olympic gold. “Me too.”
Sammy sat up. “Nellie and I will head off to Germany and look into this research facility of Nathaniel’s.”
Amy frowned. “What about Dan? You’re supposed to take him to Madrid.”
Dan looked at her. She could see the pleading in his eyes. He shrugged, trying to act supercasual. “Sure, Madrid would be great, I’d love to spend the day eating Nellie’s paella, but you need three teams.… ”
Amy didn’t like it, but he was right. “Dan goes with Nellie and Sammy,” she said.
“YES!” yelled Dan, punching the air. He stopped, embarrassed. “I mean, only if you say so.”
Amy grinned. How did she ever think she’d be able to stop him? “I’ll go with Jonah and Ham to Shanghai.” She looked over at Ian and Cara. “You two are heading for Chernobyl.”
Ian looked at Cara. Cara looked at Ian. Then both, with perfect synchronicity, answered.
“Fine.”
* * *
Dan zipped up his backpack and looked around his bedroom one last time.
Did he have everything?
He couldn’t believe it, he was on a mission! All that time they’d argued about him going into hiding didn’t matter now. He checked his watch. The taxi would be on its way to take him, Nellie, and Sammy to the airport.
He paused by the window. Ian and Cara were outside, loading their luggage into the trunk of their own taxi. Or, more precisely, loading Ian’s luggage; Cara seemed to have all of her gear in a single canvas backpack. Ian had three large suitcases and a trunk.
“Dan? You ready?”
Amy stood at the door.
“Yeah.” Dan brushed his hair from his face. “You?”
Amy nodded. “Suitcase is in the hall.”
They stood facing each other, the gap filling with an awkward silence.
“You’ll be careful, right?” said Amy. “I mean, no stupid heroics.”
“And the same goes for you. Leave the charming to Jonah and the heavy lifting to Ham.”
“What does that leave me?”
“Be the brains of the outfit. Beat Nathaniel.”
Amy smiled. “Got it.” She stepped back and ruffled his hair.
“Hey!” Dan swatted her away.
“What! You’re taller than me now—soon I won’t be able to reach!”
They stood side by side. Not so different, as siblings could be. And yes, he was taller now. Dan grinned. “I’m not your little brother anymore.”
Amy laughed. “Yes, you are. And you always will be.”
He wanted to tell her he loved her and that she needed to take care. That she was more important than all the Cahills past and present put together and multiplied by a hundred. That she’d never be like Grace, that she’d be better.
But another taxi rolled up and honked its horn. Dan picked up his backpack and, with one last look at his sister, walked out the door.
Attleboro, Massachusetts
Nathaniel Hartford gazed admiringly at the model of the Wright Flyer. It was perfect in every detail, replicating the first-ever truly modern airplane in precious metals. The struts were platinum wire, the frame gold, and the wings beaten silver. The model stood upon a pedestal carved from an unearthly piece of rock.
He turned it around, letting the morning sun that slipped through the windows of the Cahill study strike and warm every surface.
He loved technology and was grateful to have been born into the most technologically advanced age of mankind. How many thousands of years had people struggled with stone? Then metal and animal power? Now look at us.
To think they’d come from the Wright Flyer to space travel within a single lifetime. Hence the pedestal, a rock from the moon itself.
He looked about the study with satisfaction. All traces of the Cahill children and that Kabra boy had been removed and it was now entirely his.
Yet Grace still lingered. He could not remove her from the mansion without dismantling every brick. Her ghost seemed to haunt each room, each corridor. Wherever Nathaniel turned, there she was. At the desk. By the window. Reading in the library.
“Isn’t this how it should have been, Grace?” Nathaniel asked the silence. “Haven’t I proven I was worthy to lead the family?”
There was no answer, but Nathaniel could feel her scorn.
“The Cahill legacy,” Nathaniel sneered. “That’s all that mattered to you, wasn’t it? That the family would go on. And on. And on. Pulling the strings, guiding the fate of the world. And the world turned out so well, didn’t it?”
Nathaniel rested his fists on the desk. Was this the very desk Grace had sat at when she’d signed the order for his death? He was sure it was. “You know what they say about absolute power? That it corrupts absolutely. You were
the finest example of that. A vindictive, bitter tyrant, quite willing to destroy the lives of anyone who crossed her. Never considering others might be better suited. Or that the Cahills have had their day.”
He smiled to himself. “It’s time to deal with your legacy once and for all.”
Nathaniel paused at a piece of fused glass. He’d collected it from what had been the city of Hiroshima. It was fascinating how many technological leaps were made during periods of conflict. What was it that tied creativity to the urge to destroy?
If only I had ten years more. Even just another five. What things I might see.
He returned to the table, his table.
Things were proceeding almost perfectly. Almost.
Alek Spasky was becoming a problem. No matter, once this business was over, Alek would have no need of him, and Nathaniel would have no need of Alek.
Never trust a traitor, Alek. A spy should know that.
The phone rang.
Nathaniel hit the speaker button. “Yes?”
“We have another sighting of Dan Cahill, sir.”
It was one of the surveillance teams he’d recruited. “Put it up on the screen.”
Dan Cahill stood, poised at the immigration desk at the French-German border. He was smiling awkwardly at the immigration officer, who was reaching to inspect his passport.
Facial recognition technology was getting better and better. Accuracy was over 99.9% with the software one of his companies had developed. But the last two days had registered false alarms all over the world. That could only mean one thing. Someone had sabotaged his system. He had software engineers trying to fix it, but whoever had done it was good, better than his own people.
So he’d seen Dan in Warsaw, in Delhi, in Mexico City. He needed the Cahill boy, so men had been sent to each location.
And now this.
What was he doing in Germany? Nathaniel hadn’t been there in decades.
He paused. Could it be … ? He shivered, then a dark anger pulsed at the back of his head.
The Cahill children were not to be underestimated. If Dan was in Germany, he was there because something had brought him there.
The Black Forest facility.
Not this time, Grace.
He reached for his phone. There were three numbers on his speed dial. He pressed the top one.
“Melinda? It’s Nathaniel. Are you still in Paris? Good. I need you on the first plane to Germany.” Nathaniel smiled. “I have a little job for you.… ”
Kiev, Ukraine
“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” said Cara as she watched Ian gather his luggage off the carousel. “You really think we can persuade Alek Spasky to just spill the beans?”
Ian dropped the third suitcase onto the luggage cart. “If not him, then the woman he’s going to see. You heard him. This ‘Natalia’ means a lot to him, and something’s changed between him and Nathaniel. Something we can use to our advantage.”
They’d reached Ukraine’s largest international airport, Boryspil, a day behind Alek Spasky. There were three suitcases on the cart already and Ian was struggling with the fourth, a grand trunk that could be turned into a rowboat if necessary.
He did not believe in traveling light.
“Need a hand?” Cara asked. Her entire gear had folded up into her backpack. That included her laptop, spare coat, and a solar-powered recharger.
“Do you mind? Just grab the other end and lift on the count of three.”
On the count of three they got the trunk onto the luggage cart. Cara didn’t like the way the wheels buckled. “What have you got in there?”
“A few essential toiletries. This is Ukraine, you know. Apart from a rather wonderful supply of caviar, they do lack a few of the … luxuries one is accustomed to. And man cannot live off caviar alone.”
“Though you’ve tried, right?”
“Second year of boarding school. Honestly, the food they served us would have made a polar bear sick. Fortunately, I had a distant aunt who knew a man in the Ukrainian navy who—”
“Enough, Ian.” Cara helped steer the cart through customs. “So where do we go from here?”
“I’ve contacted an old family friend of ours, Uncle Dmitry,” said Ian. “I’ve asked him to help us out.”
“You’ve an uncle out here?”
“Not a blood relative, but during the collapse of the Soviet Union, my father realized there were quite a few business opportunities to be had. How do you think we bought our Caribbean island? He needed a local willing to, well, go off-piste when necessary. Dmitry Melnikov was a private investigator who helped smooth out some business transactions. I called him to keep an eye out for our Mr. Spasky.”
They steered the cart out into the main hall.
“Ian!” A big man barged through the crowd and lifted Ian off his feet in a bear hug. He kissed Ian, now blushing, once on each cheek. “My little prince! Ah, not so little anymore, eh?”
Ian wiped his cheeks. “Hello, Uncle Dmitry. It has been a long time. This is my … friend Cara.”
Dmitry waggled his bushy eyebrows. “So the little prince has a little princess now?”
Cara held out her hand. “Hello, Mr. Melnikov.”
Dmitry brushed it aside and embraced her, too. “Who is this Mr. Melnikov? I am your Uncle Dmitry!”
He led them to a car outside. A small car. A really small car.
It was an East German Trabant. One window was cracked, another taped, and the doors were lined with orange rust. It couldn’t be more than four feet high, and not much longer. Cara walked around it. How were three adults expected to fit in? “Who’s this for? Munchkins?”
“What happened to the Mercedes?” asked Ian.
Dmitry took a screwdriver to the trunk to open it. “First wife took beautiful car.” The trunk creaked open. “Second wife took house. Third took dacha. And fourth took Lenin.”
“Lenin?”
Dmitry sighed. “My dog. I miss Lenin.”
“Maybe we should take a taxi.… ” Ian waved at a metered SUV on the corner.
Dmitry grabbed his arm and forced it down. “Taxi? Taxi drivers are nothing but thieves! There is plenty of room! We will put your box on the roof!”
“Uncle Dmitry,” started Ian. “That ‘box’ as you call it is a limited edition Louis Vuitton Excelsior cruising trunk. It does not go on the roof.”
Ian might as well have been talking to the wind. Dmitry hauled it up to the top of his Trabant. It was bound tightly with blue nylon rope and the ends threaded through the open windows. Dmitry squeezed in, lit a cigar, and turned the ignition.
The engine coughed to life.
Dmitry grinned as he patted the dashboard. “Not failed yet!”
* * *
Dmitry took them to a dull, gray apartment tower on the outskirts of Kiev, one among a long avenue of identical drab towers. The elevator didn’t work and, judging by the rust, hadn’t since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dmitry balanced Ian’s trunk on his shoulders. “Only ten floors!”
The corridor lights flickered irregularly and the walls were decorated with graffiti. A stray cat picked at an old box of rice forgotten on the landing.
Ian put his handkerchief to his face. “Charming.”
The cat hissed as they passed by.
The apartment walls were bare concrete slabs that had been pasted over with thin wallpaper; the floors were covered with even thinner carpet. Great patches had worn through, revealing the slab underneath. An armchair faced an old cathode-ray television set, and there were loose cables strung from the hi-fi to a clutter of speakers balanced on shelves in the corners. A faded red curtain separated the main living room from the small kitchenette.
“Welcome, welcome!” Dmitry declared, dropping the trunk with a frame-cracking thud. He walked up to a small cage by the window. Two mice appeared from the piles of paper and sniffed the bars as he dropped in some cheese. “Zdravstvuitye, Mickey! Privyet, Jerry!”
“What’
s this?” Ian stopped by the dining table.
Notes, photographs, maps, and documents covered the warped wooden top. Cara joined him and picked up the nearest photograph.
And looked into the cold gaze of Alek Spasky.
“When was this taken?” she asked, unable to control a shiver.
Dmitry filled up a kettle and set it on the electric cooktop. “Last night. Your friend is here in Kiev.”
Cara met Ian’s frowning gaze. Yes, she knew exactly what he was feeling. Worried to the extreme.
“We need to know what Alek is up to. Give us a lead?” Ian said.
Dmitry slapped his back. “The little prince is a warrior—now, that I like! I have something that may help. No prince goes into battle without a sword, eh?”
While Dmitry started rummaging under the sofa, the two of them looked through the pile of information the private eye had gathered for them. Dmitry might have lived in chaos, but his skills at information gathering were as focused as a laser beam.
Ian picked up a list of old flights. “That’s strange. Alek comes here every year. Has done … for a long time.”
Cara checked. The dates went back decades. “You think this is something to do with Nathaniel?”
“No. Alek had nothing to do with the Cahills until recently. So this is either KGB work, or it’s personal.”
“Alek Spasky was top man with KGB. You need to be very careful.” Dmitry dragged out a suitcase from under the sofa. It was covered in painted flowers. Dmitry smiled shyly. “My mother’s.”
Inside were guns. Lots of guns.
Ian’s eyebrows rose. “Your mother lives in a tough neighborhood? Like downtown Baghdad?”
Dmitry drew one out of its wrapping. “German made. The best. Heckler and Koch P30, 9mm. Only 740 grams. Here, you try.” He slid over a box of bullets. “Just shoot out the window. Neighbor is deaf.”
“Er … no, thanks.”
“What you want? I have Beretta. Or a nice Walther PPK, same as your James Bond! No crease in jacket.”
Cara noticed Ian’s gaze pause on the small pistol. No doubt the creasing of his jacket was a major concern for Ian. But he shook his head and handed the pistol back. “I’m British, Dmitry. We try not to use guns.”
Mission Atomic Page 4