“Do we need him?” Smith said, gritting against the pain in his back while the computer tech clawed at him.
“No.”
Smith slammed the butt of the gun into the man’s forehead and he went completely still.
“Are you all right?” he said, staying on his knees for a moment to let a wave of pain and nausea subside.
“Yes,” Ito replied. “Are you?”
Smith gave a short nod and the scientist took a seat behind the terminal.
“Once I activate the sterilization process, the system will initiate a general lockdown. It will take a few minutes for that to be completed, and then the entire facility will be flooded with radiation. If you can get past the guards at the entrance, you still have time to escape.”
It was a tempting offer. To not die of a massive dose of radiation in a dark hole. To smell the forest and see the sky again. But when Ito fired this thing up, Takahashi could be counted on to do everything in his considerable power to stop it.
“No. I’ll stay and make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Ito was visibly relieved. He’d already gone through this once and knew that he wouldn’t survive this time. Dying alone, for some reason, was so much more terrifying than dying with someone else. Even a stranger.
The scientist tapped a few commands into the terminal and hit the “enter” button. A moment later the wail of an alarm began echoing through the facility.
58
Northeastern Japan
General Masao Takahashi walked into the empty lab and glanced at his watch. The prime minister had insisted that he accompany him to meet with the Chinese president at his retreat outside Hanzhong. They were to fly out of Japan in a few hours and at this rate, he would barely make it to the airport in time for their scheduled departure.
It mattered little, though. What could Sanetomi do other than demonstrate his displeasure in the careful, ambiguous way of all frightened politicians? His anger would quickly dissipate when he saw how contrite and deferential his highest-ranking soldier was in the presence of President Yandong.
Takahashi smiled. Of course, Sanetomi would see this as an indication that the power of his office had been reasserted, but the truth was very much the opposite. Submissiveness was easy to feign when talking to the dead leader of a dead civilization.
When he looked through the lead glass wall at the containers filled with nanoweapons, his brow furrowed. Sixteen. No more than there were last time he’d been there. Ito had promised that all 120 were on the verge of completion, and no one had informed him of a delay.
Takahashi pulled out his radio and entered the code for Hideki Ito. For the first time in their decades-long association, there was no answer.
His jaw clenched as he stared at the empty rows in front of him. Ito had always been weak. His single-mindedness and addiction to research funding had made him easy to manipulate, but recently his focus had begun to waver. It was something that would not be tolerated.
Takahashi switched channels to connect with the head of his security detail. A moment later his man’s voice crackled to life over his earpiece.
“What can I do for you, General?”
“Ito isn’t answering his page. Locate him.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re rebooting some of our security systems and won’t have that capability for a few more minutes. It’s possible that his communications have been affected.”
“If you can’t do it electronically, then send your men out. I want him found and brought to the storage lab. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do it immediately.”
Takahashi felt a familiar knot tying itself in the back of his shoulders. While the technological explanation was plausible, his gut said it was something more. He was losing control of the scientist.
His hunch was confirmed a moment later when the silence was broken by the deafening screech of the containment breach alarm.
He put his radio to his mouth again, reconnecting to security. “Report!”
“We’re on with the main lab and they say they have no breach,” came the frightened reply. “We have people on their way to check the storage lab. It may have—”
“I’m in the storage lab!” Takahashi shouted. “It’s secure.”
If the alarm was going off, that meant the facility was in the process of lockdown. When complete, the entire space would be flooded with radiation. The weapon would be destroyed along with every living thing trapped inside.
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Shut up and listen! Shut down the breach protocols. Do you understand me?”
Relief was audible in the man’s voice. “Yes, sir. We’re initiating the override now.”
Takahashi stared at the glass in front of him, turning the situation over in his head—the missing canisters, the reboot of the security system. The phantom breach.
Ito.
He pressed his palm against the reader next to the portal that allowed access to the weapon. As expected it just pulsed red, indicating that it had been frozen by the alarm. Takahashi pulled the cover from a keypad and punched in his override code—one of many Ito had not been told about. The bolts securing the portal retracted and he ducked through, grabbing two of the canisters and starting back into the corridor.
His earpiece came to life a moment later. “Sir, the shutdown sequence isn’t responding.”
Takahashi started to run, feeling his rage increasing to the point that even he found it hard to control.
“Why isn’t it responding?” he asked, suspecting that he already knew the answer.
“We’re being blocked by the central computer, sir. It’s Dr. Ito. The cameras have come back online and we can see him in the server room. He’s with the American.”
59
Northeastern Japan
It’s done,” Dr. Hideki Ito said over the drone of the alarm. “The facility is locked down and the sterilization process has begun.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the computer screen in front of him. A red bar graph indicating the ambient radiation levels dominated it. Twenty-three rads and rising.
Smith leaned over the scientist’s shoulder, ignoring the graphical illustration of his slow death and focusing on the security camera feeds. Three men had reached the main cavern and were coming full tilt in their direction.
“Can they get through the door?” Smith asked, tapping the image with his index finger.
“It’s virtually indestructible,” Ito responded. “And even if they do, it wouldn’t matter. The system is designed with the idea that the servers would be attacked by the nanotech—there was no way to construct them without using vulnerable materials. So even if they gain entry and destroy everything, it will have no effect. The sterilization protocols have the ability to operate independently from the mainframe.”
Smith backed against the stone-and-dirt wall, looking down at the two men lying motionless on the floor. What would it be like to die from radiation poisoning? How long would it take? It wasn’t exactly something they went into in medical school.
A light started flashing on-screen but Smith was too lost in his own thoughts to notice until he saw Ito jerk straight in his chair.
“What is it?” Smith said, coming up behind the man again.
“It appears to be a malfunction. There are a number of doors that haven’t locked down.” The scientist sucked in a frightened breath as he scanned through various screens of text that Smith couldn’t read.
“Talk to me, Doctor.”
“It’s…it’s the storage lab.” He tapped in a few commands and the screen began flickering through security camera stills.
“There!” Ito said, jabbing a finger at the monitor. Smith leaned in closer. The image depicted Masao Takahashi running with two thermos-size containers.
“Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”
Ito just kept watching the stream of images. Finally he found one of Takahashi time-stamped only
a few seconds before, and he switched to video. The general was still running but he’d been joined by two guards—one in front and one behind.
“He’s going for the exterior doors,” Ito said, spinning his chair toward Smith. “He must have an override code that I wasn’t told about. If he escapes with those canisters…” The scientist fell silent.
“If he escapes with those canisters, what?”
“The nanobots inside are programmed for trillions of divisions and are designed to operate within the borders of China. The collapse of the country will be slower, but the end result will be the same.”
“Hundreds of millions of people freezing and starving.”
Ito nodded.
“Shit!” Smith shouted, slamming a fist down on the table next to the keyboard. “Can we get an outside line?”
“No. You can’t feel it, but the radiation is getting fairly intense. It makes our communications system useless.”
“Can you open this door?” Smith said, pointing to the one leading back out into the corridor.
Ito nodded.
“Where are the security guards that were coming our way?”
Ito typed a few more commands into his keyboard and located them. They were just outside.
Smith stepped back, trying to think. Takahashi would know the door was indestructible. Did he send the guards just to stand there and make sure Smith couldn’t get out? Or did they have an access code that Ito had been kept in the dark about?
His question was answered a moment later when one of the men retrieved a piece of paper from his pocket and pulled the cover off the keypad.
“Open it!” Smith said, crouching and extending the Sig Sauer out in front of him.
“But they’ll—”
“Now, goddamn it!”
The man was beginning to enter the code, but his progress was slowed by the fact that he had to keep referring to the paper in his hand. They had less than five seconds before the advantage swung heavily in the direction of the three men outside. Until then, though, Smith had the edge. He knew their positions from the security camera images, and they wouldn’t expect the door to open until the override was fully entered.
“Come on!” Smith prompted. “Hurry!”
Two of the armed men were standing one slightly behind the other, partially overlapping in the narrow passageway. Both had guns drawn and both were trained on the door.
Smith dropped to the floor and aimed at the right jamb about waist height. With luck, their first shots would go over his head.
The door began to slide open and he could hear the surprised shouts of the men outside. He followed the widening crack through the sights of the handgun he’d taken from the dead guard. One of the security men fired, but it was a blind shot that went well wide and slammed into the bank of computers against the back wall.
A little more…
Smith squeezed off a round, hitting the lead man in the side, just above his belt. Not a fatal wound, but that wasn’t the goal. It was a soft part of the body with no bone to deflect the bullet. The man buckled at the waist and was thrown back into the man behind him as Smith leaped to his feet.
His gamble worked. The bullet passed right through and hit the man behind, interrupting his aim and sending a bullet hissing past Smith’s right ear. He ignored the sound, sprinting forward and firing at the two men struggling to stay on their feet. He hit the front one in the chest and then slammed into them before pressing the Sig’s barrel to the second man’s forehead and squeezing the trigger.
The back of the guard’s skull sprayed across the dirt wall and Smith spun, lining up on the man at the keypad. He’d dropped the piece of paper containing the access code and was going for his gun, but the barrel hadn’t even cleared his leather shoulder holster when a round from Smith’s weapon hit him in the face.
Smith ran down the corridor, stopping just before it opened into the main cavern. It looked clear to the right, so he stepped out, holding his pistol in front of him with both hands.
Takahashi was about fifty yards away—running toward the exit a hell of a lot faster than a man his age should have been able to. It was a relatively easy shot made impossible by the trailing guard who was directly in the line of fire.
Smith squeezed off a round and the man went down, rag-dolling across the ground before coming to a stop on his back.
The second man turned at the sound of the shot, returning fire accurately enough to force Smith to protect his eyes against the spray of dirt and shattered rock exploding from the wall next to him. The guard came to a full stop about sixty-five yards away and was walking his shots toward Smith as he concentrated on Takahashi’s receding back.
Again, though, the guard had put himself in a position to disrupt the line of sight to the fleeing soldier.
A round passed just over Smith’s head and he was forced to duck back into the corridor. There was no time for this. He immediately moved back into the open and raised the pistol. Its dead owner had done a meticulous job of sighting it in, and Smith’s first attempt spun the guard halfway around but didn’t knock him down.
Smith ran at him, covering the distance at a full sprint as the injured man struggled to stay on his feet. By the time the guard was able to raise his weapon, Smith was only about ten yards out and easily put a round directly center of mass.
The thud of the man’s body hitting the ground was audible as Smith continued forward, eyes locked again on Takahashi as the soldier arrived at a small door adjacent to the main blast doors.
He’d obviously taken the precaution of memorizing the override code and a moment later the door slid open. Smith began emptying his gun in the man’s direction. Takahashi turned sideways to present the smallest target profile possible and slipped through the gap into the exterior cavern.
“No!” Smith shouted, trying to will his legs to pump faster. His injuries made it impossible for him to get in a full breath, and his vision was starting to swim as the door began to close again.
He was a good two seconds too slow and instead of passing through, he hit it still running full speed. The pain in his back flared and he dropped to the ground just as a series of rounds slammed into the wall above him.
Smith rolled to his stomach and saw the men coming his way. All were armed and this time there were more than three. This time he counted nine.
They were running in a tight group, creating an easy target. He took out two in quick succession, thinking it would cause the others to scatter, but that didn’t happen. They just kept racing straight at him. He squeezed the trigger again, but the magazine was empty. Smith unzipped the front of his jumpsuit and went for the Glock. They were too close for him to stop them all but at least he could take a few with him.
Maybe it was best this way. The death they planned for him would be a lot quicker than the radiation and a lot more pleasant than living with the knowledge that he’d failed to prevent the murder of tens of millions of innocent people.
There was a quiet hissing behind him and he glanced back to see the door sliding open again. It took him a moment to process what had happened, but when he did a thin smile spread across his face.
Ito, you beautiful son of a bitch…
The men in front of him were only seconds from overrunning his position, a few firing wildly in his direction, hoping to get lucky. The Glock was sighted in just as meticulously as the Sig and the lead man went down, slowing the group’s progress as they were forced to leap over their fallen comrade.
Smith slithered backward and wasn’t quite through when the door reversed itself. He put a hand against the cavern wall and shoved, barely getting his head clear before it closed. The dull thud of men hitting the other side was audible as he rolled onto his back and gulped at the cool air. A moment later that sound was replaced by the far less comforting roar of an engine starting up. Struggling to his knees, he squinted into the sun coming from the cavern entrance. An open jeep was racing toward the light with a familiar outline hu
nched over the wheel. Masao Takahashi.
Smith got to his feet and started running again, but he couldn’t manage anything more than a staggering jog. His broken ribs were preventing him from taking in full breaths and he’d used up the last of his adrenaline. All he could do was watch helplessly as the jeep disappeared.
He was about forty yards from the cavern entrance when he spotted a human outline slip into view. Smith dived to the ground just as man opened up with a submachine gun. The shooter’s eyes were adjusted to the bright sunlight so instead of trying to aim he just hosed the place down.
Smith rested the butt of the Glock in the dirt to try to isolate it from his heaving chest. The gun jerked in his grip but the man kept firing. Smith lined up again and squeezed the trigger, this time forcing himself to hold his breath despite desperately needing oxygen.
The assault rifle kept sparking but the position of the barrel faltered and finally dropped, kicking up a cloud of dust as the rounds pounded the ground. A moment later the man was down.
Smith tried to stand but only made it to his knees before he collapsed. He lay there on his stomach, choking quietly on the dust until the burning in his lungs and limbs started to subside. Finally, he pushed himself to his feet and lurched forward. He had to get to a phone. He had to talk to Klein.
60
Northeastern Japan
Randi Russell’s eyes snapped open, but she couldn’t see much. Just spinning green set to the sound track of the ringing in her ears. She remained completely motionless, moderating her breathing to the point that it was completely inaudible and picking a fixed point to stare at.
Slowly the spinning stopped, but the ringing persisted with enough intensity to make her virtually deaf. Were the projectiles gone or were they all around her, waiting for any sign of motion that they could target?
She moved only her eyes, finding nothing but dense foliage intermittently broken by a darkening sky. The slope she’d cartwheeled down was to her left and the river was maybe another fifty yards downslope to her right. She was in a fair amount of pain but none of it was localized in a way that suggested serious injury—just the depressingly familiar feeling of having spent half an hour in a clothes dryer with a bunch of bowling balls.