CHAPTER 56
The security chief handed the radio back to Dorian. “They won’t give your girl any more trouble. I apologize for that Mr. Sloane. It’s all the new faces, we don’t do well—”
“Spare me.” Dorian turned to the nuclear scientist, Dr. Chase. “Continue.”
“The shipments we received from the North — I’m not sure we can use them.”
“Why not?”
“The nukes from Belarus have been tampered with. If we had the time, we could probably disassemble them and sort them.”
“What does that leave?” Dorian said.
“The Ukrainian and Russian devices look ok, they’re just old. And the shipment from China was pristine, very recent builds. How did you—”
“Never mind that. Numbers?”
“Let’s see.” He scanned a print out. “126 total warheads. And most are extremely high-yield. It would be helpful to know the target, outside of that I can’t say—”
“What about the portable nukes?”
“Ah, yes, we have them ready.” Dr. Chase motioned to an assistant across the room. The young man left the room and returned carrying an over-sized silver egg slightly smaller than a shopping cart. The man could barely get his arms around the slippery egg, so he carried it like a load of firewood, leaning back to make sure it didn’t roll out of his cupped arms. When he reached the table, he set the egg down and stepped away, but the egg wobbled awkwardly, then drifted toward the edge. The assistant lurched forward and steadied it with a hand.
Dr. Chang put his hands in his pockets, nodded once to Dorian, and smiled expectantly.
Dorian glared at the egg, then again at Dr. Chase. “What the fuck is that?”
The man slid his hands from his pockets and took a step toward the egg, pointing at it. “It’s the… portable device you requested. It’s 7.4 kilos or about 16 pounds.” He shook his head. “We simply couldn’t reduce it any more, well, we could with time.”
Dorian leaned back in the chair, looking from the egg to the scientist.
The scientist walked closer to the egg, scrutinizing it. “Is there something wrong with it? We have the other one—”
“Portable. I need two portable nukes.”
“Oh and indeed it is. You saw Harvey carrying it. Granted it’s a bit bulky, but—”
“Over distance and in a backpack, not some magic egg an ogre could skip across a loch. How long to make it smaller — like something that could actually fit in, keyword here Doctor, a suitcase?”
“Uhmm, well… you never said…” The man glanced at the egg.
“How long?” Dorian pressed.
“A couple of days, if—”
“Mr. Sloane, we have an issue in the power plant, you need to see this.”
Dorian wheeled over to the tablet the security chief held. Behind him, he heard the scientist pacing and complaining to Harvey. “It’s not like in the movies where you just ‘clip the green wire’ and shove it in a rucksack and take off for a hike up Everest, I mean we have to…” Dorian blocked the scientist out and focused on the video on the tablet: a man moving through some mechanical room.
“Where is this?”
“The main circuit room outside the reactors. There’s more.” The security chief rewound the video.
Dorian watched the man plant a series of charges. There was something. Dorian tapped the tablet, paused the video then zoomed in on the face. It couldn’t be.
“Do you recognize him, sir?”
Dorian studied the face and thought back to a mountainside village in Northern Pakistan, the flames rising from every hut, the women and children running, the men lying in front of the burning homes… and a man shooting back at him. He remembered shooting him, he didn’t know how many times. And finishing the job. “Yes, I know him. His name is Andrew Reed. He’s a former CIA Field Operative… You will need a lot more men to contain him.”
“Shoot to kill?”
Dorian glanced away absently. In the background, he heard the radio crackle and the security man barking orders. Reed was here, trying to kill the power. He wouldn’t be alone. Where had he been for the last four years — if he wasn’t dead? Why the power?
The security chief leaned over. “We have the charges and timer. We’re taking them out of the building. We’ve reviewed the security footage since he entered, they are the only threat. We’re surrounding him. Do you want us to—”
“Don’t shoot him. Where is he now?” Dorian said.
The chief held up the tablet, pointing to a place on the map.
Dorian tapped another location on the map. “What is this room?”
“One of the reactor halls, just a passage way between reactors one and two.”
Dorian pointed at two large doors on opposite sides. “These are the only two entrances and exits?”
“Yes. And the room has 10-foot concrete walls on all sides.”
“Perfect. Drive him in there and close the door,” Dorian said. What was he missing? He waited while the security chief worked the radio. The children. “What’s the status of the children?”
The chief looked confused at the question. “In their holding cell.”
“Show me.”
The chief jabbed the tablet. Then looked up in surprise.
“Find them,” Dorian said.
The chief yelled into his radio. They waited a few moments, the radio squawked a few times and the chief typed into the tablet, handing it to Dorian just as another video came to life: Naomi, and with her, Kate Warner and the children. Was it the worst news ever or the best news ever?
The chief was screaming into his radio with the other hand.
Dorian thought. Could it be just the two of them?
“We’ll have them momentarily, sir. I don’t know how—”
Dorian held a hand up, not looking at the man. “Stop talking.”
What to do? Clearly there was still a security breach, a serious one. And there were only a few suspects. Dorian motioned to one of the staffers he’d brought with him. “Logan, send a memo to the Immari Council: China facility under attack. We are attempting to secure, but anticipate all research capabilities will be destroyed. As such, proceeding with Toba Protocol with all haste. Will post further updates as events develop. Include the videos of the man in the power plant and the two girls trying to extract the children. I want to know the minute anyone responds.”
The chief rocked back on his heels. “We have them, sir.”
“Great work, truly,” Dorian said derisively.
The chief swallowed and said with less confidence, “Should we…”
“Take the two girls to the Bell, put them in with all the other subjects that are ready, but make sure they get in. I want them at the front of the line. Then throw the switch as soon as possible — tell Chang no excuses.” Dorian paused. Kate Warner, in the Bell room, it was such sweet, sweet justice. And there was nothing Martin could do. There would be nothing anyone could do soon. It was actually working out better than he could have planned. Dorian motioned to Dr. Chase. “Are all the nukes on train cars?”
“Yes, except for the Belarus devices and… the portable—”
“Good.” Dorian turned back to the chief. “Put the kids on the train car with the nukes and move it out of here right now.” He swiveled on Dr. Chase. “And I expect you to be on that train as well, and by the time it reaches the coast, either those eggs will fit in a backpack or you will. You understand?”
Dr. Chase nodded and looked away.
The chief listened, then dropped the radio to his side. “The saboteur is locked in reactor hall two.”
“Alright. Make sure none of the remaining train cars leave. We need them to move something else.” Dorian walked over to Dmitry Kozlov, second-in-command of Dorian’s personal Immari Security unit.
“When the Bell is finished, load the bodies on those train cars and move them out,” Dorian said. “We need to set up a loading zone, probably Northern India, somewhere with access to airports.”
“What about the rest of the staff here?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Dorian said as he led Dmitry farther away from any of the other staff. “They’re a liability. We certainly can’t let anyone leave, at least not until Toba is in full swing. We have another problem. There are only 119 human subjects on-site.”
The man saw the implication immediately. “Not enough bodies.”
“Not even close. I think we can solve both issues, but it won’t be easy.”
Dmitry nodded and glanced over at the scientists milling around in the lab. “Process the staff through the Bell? I agree. It would require Chang’s team to operate the machinery… on their own people. Doable, but it could get ugly. There are at least 100 security personnel on site. They won’t go quietly, even if we segregate them and orchestrate it as a drill.”
“What do you need?” Dorian said.
“50, maybe 60 men. Immari Security or Clocktower field agents would be ideal. Immari Security is purging the New Delhi Clocktower station now. We might be able to task the remaining field operatives.”
“Make it happen,” Dorian said as he stepped away.
“Where will you be?”
“Someone inside Immari has to be working with Reed. I’m going to find out who it is.”