by Mari Carr
“I’m sorry, Grand Master,” Levi said. “The situation was one I wasn’t prepared for.”
“This is bigger than just us,” Rich said, cutting in. “And we might need him.”
“You think I’m incapable of identifying our needs?” The Grand Master’s question was cold.
Rich winced, and when Mina motioned for him to shut up, he did.
Silence stretched for almost a full minute. As someone who used silence as a negotiating tactic, Rich shouldn’t have been so susceptible to the effects, but he found himself fighting to speak, and if Mina hadn’t been glaring at each of them in turn, he might have filled the silence.
“Levi?” the Grand Master said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Open the door.”
Levi checked his phone, then went and opened the door.
Three men walked into the suite. Each was the size of Levi and had that hard, grim expression that Levi had worn when Oscar knocked. Two wore jeans and college T-shirts, while the third had on a graphic tee with Friedrich Nietzsche on it.
One of them was pushing a laundry cart.
“I will see you shortly.” The Grand Master ended the call.
Levi nodded to each of the newcomers, glanced at his phone again, and then pulled Rich and Langston aside. One of the new arrivals approached Oscar. “Sir, we will need you to remain calm.”
“Calm?” Oscar shook his head. “If you actually want someone calm, telling them to be calm is the last thing you should—”
One of the other men walked up behind Oscar and dropped a black bag over his head.
“The fuck?!” Oscar yelled.
Levi wrapped his arms around Langston when he lunged to help his brother. “Let go of him! Rich, save my brother!”
“Uh, don’t hurt him,” Rich said slowly. He was pretty sure Levi and the three new guys all had guns, so there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do.
Langston managed to elbow Levi in the gut and glare at him. “Really, Rich?”
“They have guns.”
“Throw some money at them, then.”
“We’re not going to hurt him,” the guy wearing the Nietzsche shirt said as he stabbed a struggling Oscar in the butt with a syringe.
“Really? You say that while injecting him?” Mina asked coldly.
Rich watched as Oscar was black-bagged, subdued, and put in the laundry cart.
“Just a little sedative,” a breathless Levi assured Langston, who had almost managed to slip his hold. “He’s coming with us.”
Langston stilled. “Oh. We’re bringing him?”
“Yes.”
“In a laundry cart?”
“Well, we’ll put him in a book cart to get him into the library,” the man with the syringe said cheerfully. “I’m Tate, by the way.”
“Hi, Tate,” Rich said.
“Don’t make friends with the guy who is drugging our brother-in-law,” Mina scolded.
“I’m a nice guy, honestly.” Tate tossed a sheet over Oscar’s body and started wheeling him out. “German philosophy grad student by day, Grand Master’s henchman by night.”
“And a Marine sniper with fifty-four confirmed kills,” one of the Harvard-shirt-wearing men said as he walked out with Tate and the basket containing an unconscious Oscar.
“Maybe I should tell my advisor that, and then they’ll approve my damned thesis proposal,” Tate said as they disappeared into the hall.
Levi released Langston, who was cursing, his southern accent so thick that Rich barely understood him. Langston glared at all of them, then went to gather up the papers, careful to stack them in the order Oscar had figured out.
Langston, Rich, and Mina followed Tate, with Levi and the fourth man at their backs.
As they walked to the elevator, and the moment of levity Oscar’s drugging had provided faded, Rich was once more faced with the reality of what they’d discovered.
A bomb so powerful it could wipe out a city.
A city killer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mina kept close to Rich, and when she thought no one would see, she slid her hand into his, squeezing his fingers. He glanced at her, smiling slightly as they walked down the echoing stone hallway in the Trinity Masters’ headquarters. Langston was keeping pace with Levi, who was pushing the library cart that held an unconscious Oscar. They’d been brought here in two cars—a town car and a van with the logo of a commercial linen company on the sliding door—and came in the back entrance of the library. They’d still had to access the underground areas via the rare books room, Langston insisting on squeezing into the elevator with Oscar’s cart.
Levi led them to the large men’s dressing room, though it looked like a lounge in an expensive, private athletic club, with closet-sized teak lockers along one wall. Mina had never been in here before, so she looked around, though there wasn’t much of a surprise. The women’s dressing room, where everyone changed into their robes before attending the handful of all-member events held here every year, looked much the same.
Levi opened one of the lockers, reached in, and then did something that caused the back of the locker to swing in.
“Does it lead to Narnia?” Rich asked in a slightly irritated voice.
“Annoyed you didn’t know about it?” Mina asked.
“I usually change in one of the private rooms,” Rich said haughtily.
She knew him well enough to know he was trying to get a rise out of her. Probably to ease some of her tension.
“Snob,” she whispered.
“Peasant,” he teased.
Levi reached into the library cart and hauled Oscar out. Much to her surprise, he seemed to be awake and moving. There were muffled sounds coming from under the black bag on his head, and when he was set on his feet, Oscar swung out his hands, the cuffs around his wrists glinting in the light.
Levi ducked out of the way and Oscar cracked Langston on the side of the head.
“Ouch! That was me, you dipshit,” Langston snapped.
Oscar shrugged.
“We gagged him when he woke up in the van,” Levi explained. “And threatened to pour coffee on everything in his backpack if he didn’t stay still in the cart.”
“An effective threat,” Mina observed.
Oscar’s head turned in her general direction.
“In you go.” Levi gestured to the hidden door he’d opened. “It’ll be dark, so stay close until we’re all in and I close up.”
When no one moved, Mina decided to go first, knowing they’d follow her. She stepped into and then through the locker. Enough light filtered to the other side for her to see rough-hewn walls, but then Rich and Langston came in, and she had to back up, into the dark. Langston and Levi helped Oscar through. Levi closed them into the dark. There was a moment of scuffling, and then he raised a camping lantern.
“Are these some of the recently discovered tunnels?” Rich asked.
Mina had a better question. “Who exactly are you, Levi? You seem to know a lot of secrets.”
Levi glanced at her and smiled, then started walking, one hand holding the lantern while the other guided Oscar.
“One of the Grand Master’s advisors?” Rich asked her in a whisper.
“Is he a legacy? He looks about our age, so you’d think we’d know him…”
It wasn’t a long walk, so two rights and a left turn later, Levi opened an old, worn wooden door. They walked in to find a ten-by-ten stone room. The walls and floor were bare, pale stone block, not the solid granite walls that would indicate it had been carved from bedrock. No, this place had been made when they’d backfilled the bay. She tried not to think about the weight of the library above, waiting to fall on them.
A simple wooden table had been set up in the middle of the room. Seated at the table were two people—a dark-haired woman with Asian features, chic bangs, and large black-frame glasses. She had on a white button-up dress shirt, over which she wore a sweater coat.
Th
e other was the Grand Master, who wore the same cape-like coat, with the hood up, that she’d worn when she came to the hotel.
It was cold in this room, and Mina wished she’d been given time to grab something warmer.
Rich put an arm around her as Levi guided Oscar farther into the room, sitting him down in the empty chair across from the unknown woman. Langston glared at Levi, then reached out and snatched the bag off his brother’s head. Oscar blinked and looked at the woman.
“Who are you?”
The woman’s brow arched above the frame of her glasses. “What did you do to piss her off?”
Oscar’s attention shifted to the Grand Master. As soon as he saw her, he slumped. “Great. I’m in the cult headquarters.”
Juliette Adams ignored him and gestured at them to join her at the table. Levi took up a position behind her.
Langston took the seat by his brother, and then glanced guiltily at them. Mina brushed his cheek with her fingers. She understood. His brother had put him in a bad spot, especially since Langston probably thought his own place within the society was still a little shaky.
He didn’t need to worry about that anymore. Langston had her and Rich.
“Grand Master,” Rich said, as he helped Mina scoot her chair in.
“Rich. We’re waiting for a few people to join us. There’s some information we’re verifying, based on what your sister said.” She glanced at Langston and Oscar.
“Sylvia only did what they asked her to do,” Langston said hotly.
“You think that the Masters’ Admiralty asked her to call Oscar?” Though the Grand Master’s face was shadowed so Mina couldn’t see her expression, she could hear the disbelief in the other woman’s voice.
Langston opened his mouth, and then closed it.
The door they’d entered through opened and Franco walked in, followed by Sebastian, and finally Devon. Mina and Rich stood, shaking hands with Devon, whom they’d known a long time. Devon smiled briefly, then passed a long roll of paper to Franco, who took off the rubber bands and started to spread it out on the table.
Langston and Oscar both leaned forward, Oscar bracing his still-cuffed hands on the table. The printout was a single large image showing the schematics they’d been looking at earlier, but instead of multiple pages that had to be arranged, someone had put it all together and printed it out like an architectural blueprint.
The Grand Master raised one hand, and Langston slowly sat back, looking a bit sheepish. Sebastian grabbed Oscar’s shoulder and forced him back in the chair.
Oscar yanked his shoulder out of the other man’s grip. “Let go. The way it was laid out was—”
“Purposefully misleading,” the unknown woman said. “Don’t worry, I corrected it.”
Oscar looked at her, and his expression softened, making him look startlingly like Langston and transforming his face.
“I’d like you all to meet Dr. Selene Tanaka,” Sebastian said. “She’s a member, and an atomic physicist, specializing in theoretical nuclear physics.”
The word “nuclear” sat heavy in the room.
Mina cleared her throat. “Oscar had just reorganized the pages and figured it out.”
Selene tilted her head curiously. “Physicist? Chemist?”
“Just a guy who likes knowing things.”
Selene smiled. “Knowing enough things that you can recognize the chemical notations of fission?”
“What can I say? I like to read.” Oscar smiled.
Mina hadn’t even known Oscar could smile.
“He’s not a member,” the Grand Master told Selene.
“Oh. But that one is?” Selene pointed at Langston.
“It appears,” the Grand Master said, ignoring both Selene’s question and the way she and Oscar were flirting, “that we are all aware of what we face, but I’d like Selene to explain. She flew in this morning. Once Preston Kim, who’s a chemist, identified what the chemical notations meant, I had Selene join us.”
Selene inclined her head. Mina assessed the other woman, who looked like a chic academic, though that wasn’t even an aesthetic Mina had known existed until she saw Selene pulling it off.
And why was she thinking about something so inane as what the other woman was wearing?
Because thinking about how a simple mistake you made—picking up the wrong tablet—uncovered a plot involving a portable nuclear bomb is too horrifying.
“What we’re looking at is a small but powerful nuclear fission bomb.” Selene looked around, and everyone besides Levi took a seat. “Will any of you feel like I’ve insulted your intelligence if I explain the difference between fusion and fission?”
Everyone, even Oscar and Langston, shook their heads.
“Simply put, fusion is combining atoms, the process of which produces both a new, larger atom, and an incredible amount of energy. Fusion is what I work on, what I study, because we have yet to create working applications for fusion.”
“Nuclear power plants aren’t fusion?” Franco was taking notes like he was in class.
“No. Fusion powers the sun. If we could create fusion plants, we could produce electricity directly, without heating water, and our energy crisis would be solved.” Selene pursed her lips. “But again, we’re talking about harnessing the power of the sun.”
“But this isn’t that?” Devon asked, pointing at the paper.
“It isn’t…quite.” Selene leaned forward and pointed at one of the notations. “What we have here is fission. The splitting apart of an atom, which releases heat energy. This is what powers nuclear power plants—the heat energy released in turn heats water, which goes into a steam turbine, creating the energy. It’s a very simple and highly physical process. The nuclear reactor is an efficient heat source for what is in reality a water-based power plant.”
Selene slid her finger along the paper. “Normally, fission starts with a heavy atom. Uranium, plutonium, but here, we’re starting with neptunium.”
“Is that why it’s backpack-size?” Langston asked. “Because the casing, the wiring…it’s for a small bomb. A portable bomb.”
“And you are?” Selene asked, not unkindly, but with curiosity.
“Langston. Electrical engineer. Also, I like to blow stuff up. But just explode it. No radioactive fallout.”
“You’re correct. What they’re showing here is a small fission bomb, but the energy output is disproportionate to the materials. It would have a blast radius of four kilometers, given that the detonation would probably be at ground level. That means a destruction diameter of over two miles, with fallout expanding several more miles.” Selene looked grim. “The immediate destruction would take out the width of Manhattan, with radioactive fallout destroying the rest of the island.”
Mina’s whole body felt cold. She wanted to cry, or scream.
“A city killer,” Rich said.
Devon closed his eyes, looking older than he had only moments before, and oh so weary.
“But…” Selene tapped her fingers on one of the numerical notes. “This output is closer to what I theorize with fusion. It’s not what we know fission can do.”
“So maybe it won’t work? Maybe it’s just theoretical,” Franco said hopefully.
“Everything is just theoretical until you build it,” Selene said quietly, unknowingly echoing what they’d said the other day. “Nuclear research and experimentation is heavily controlled. If I told you I could solve the world’s energy crisis, but it would mean making a bomb so powerful that if something went wrong, it would put a massive crater in the earth, would you let me do it?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a fucking little bit,” Mina said fervently, some of her early horror receding as hope that this wasn’t a real thing bloomed.
“I’d shoot you from a distance,” Levi added.
Selene nodded. “Which is why I don’t know if this would work. There are too many unknowns. First of all, they’re using a neptunium-237 isotope instead of uranium
or plutonium. Use of neptunium simply hasn’t been researched because it was discovered later than the others. Because that’s an unknown, yes, it’s possible that the payload would be larger because of that alone. However, it wouldn’t be fusion-large, which is what this indicates.”
“Nuclear reactors are big,” Rich said. “Building-size. I’m in the energy business. I might not know much about it, but I own one nuclear plant, and the reactor is in its own building, not a backpack.”
Selene pointed at part of the diagram that showed several springs inside large cylinders. “You’re right, but here we have another theoretical element. A small particle accelerator that would—again, in theory—give a neutron enough speed to allow it to break apart the neptunium.”
“A particle accelerator?!” Langston and Oscar both yelped. In tandem, they leaned forward to study the area of the diagram she’d pointed at.
“Like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN,” the Grand Master said. “I bet that’s controlled by the Masters’ Admiralty.” Her hand, resting on the table, curled into a fist. “I don’t believe in coincidences and that their bomb expert—a man they hired—would be building something like this without them knowing. Having Langston’s sister call was a clumsy, cowardly ploy.”
“Smaller particle accelerators aren’t unheard of. They’re fairly common,” Selene said, glancing uneasily at the Grand Master. “Particle acceleration is used in particle therapy, ion implanters, even oncology.”
“And those accelerators are enough to cause a nuclear reaction?”
Selene licked her lips, and then shook her head. “No, not with the current configurations.”
“I’m sure the Masters’ Admiralty knew.”
Mina cleared her throat, drawing the Grand Master’s attention. She knew she should just keep her mouth shut, but the lawyer in her couldn’t help but see the flaws in the case as it was being presented.
“I don’t think we have the evidence to definitively say that.”
“Oh?” The Grand Master’s tone was silky smooth. “Make your case, counselor.”
Rich and Langston both reached for her, their hands clamping down on her knees under the cover of the table. Her boys, her husbands, trying to protect her.