Zero Hour

  “Not willing to speak?” Janko asked. He nodded to a pair of muscle-bound henchmen and pointed to Gregorovich. “Start with him.”

  The two bruisers moved in on Gregorovich and began to soften him up with body blows. Kidney punches and uppercuts to the gut landed one after another. Gregorovich grunted and winced, but he never said a word, nor did he look away. At each pause in the beating, he straightened and eyed his torturers.

  “How did you get to this island?” Janko demanded.

  Gregorovich glared back.

  “Wipe that look off his face,” Janko said calmly.

  The thugs cracked their knuckles and moved the target zone from the Russian’s torso to his head. They lined him up and connected with a series of haymakers that left his nose broken, his lips and mouth bleeding, and his right eye all but swollen shut.

  They stepped back, surveying the damage. The Russian sagged in his chains, head down, blood dripping from his face. For several seconds, it seemed they might have killed him or knocked him out cold, but slowly and painfully Gregorovich straightened once again.

  Joe had no love for the Russian, who’d basically kidnapped them, but he had to admit he was impressed.

  Janko, on the other hand, was incensed. “Break his legs!” he shouted.

  The stockier of the two henchmen rushed Gregorovich and slammed a knee into his thigh with a sickening thud.

  “Again!” Janko yelled.

  Another hammer shot landed, and then a third.

  “Hey!” Joe yelled. “Save some of that for me!”

  The group turned to him.

  “You’ll get your share,” Janko said.

  Gregorovich was struggling to get back up, his legs all but useless even if they weren’t broken. He pulled himself up on the chains, trying to straighten using only his arms.

  “Come on,” Joe said. “What, are you tired or something?”

  Joe wasn’t sure why he was trying to draw them off Gregorovich. Perhaps keeping the Russian from being beaten to death was a strategic move, perhaps it was pure emotion. All his life, Joe had been the guy to stand up for the underdog, though he’d never expected a Russian assassin to fall into that category.

  Janko seemed nonplussed. With his arms folded across his chest, he motioned nonchalantly toward Joe. “Give it to him.”

  The first punch landed seconds later, and for the next few minutes Janko’s strongmen kicked or punched Joe repeatedly, allowing just enough time between shots to get in a question or two.

  Joe never answered, and the beating continued.

  Unlike Gregorovich, who’d been intent on taking each hit as if he were unbreakable, Joe used his boxing skills both to harden himself against the rain of impacts and to reduce the damage by twisting and bending, turning the punches into glancing blows. Even then, after the fifteenth or sixteenth punch, he felt certain a rib or two had been cracked.

  Finally, Janko raised a hand like a Roman emperor calling a halt to the gladiator games. “All this is so unnecessary,” he said. “Just tell us who you are. How you got here. And if there are any more of your people out there.”

  Joe kept silent and was rewarded with a punch to the face. He turned away as best he could, but it caught him in the jaw, splitting his lip.

  Joe looked up. “I was just about to tell you,” he said, “but you’ve given me amnesia.”

  Janko gave up on him and pointed to Hayley. She cowered against the wall, trying desperately to pull her hands free from the shackles. Seeing the two men beaten to a pulp first had probably filled her with fear by now. That would only make it easier.

  “Giving up so quickly?” Joe shouted, trying to draw their attention back to him.

  The muscle-bound torturer looked over.

  “And I thought we were just starting to bond,” Joe shouted. “Really beginning to make a connection. I should have known you were too weak to finish the job.”

  The guy fumed for a second, obviously aware it was a trick. He looked back toward Hayley, intent on intimidating her, only to have Joe spit a mix of blood and saliva at his face.

  Furious, the thug stepped back over to Joe and slammed another fist into his stomach. Joe doubled over, only held up by the chains.

  “How do you like that for a connection?” Janko asked sarcastically.

  “Barely felt it,” Joe grunted, righting himself.

  Janko nodded a green light to the thug, who stepped up and slammed Joe against the wall with his left hand, before connecting with a right cross and snapping Joe’s head to the side. A huge welt, split down the middle, formed instantly and began bleeding. Joe’s head hung for a moment.

  Joe lifted his head. He made sure to look weary and woozy. “Is that . . . all you’ve got?”

  This time, the thug reared back and fired an overhand right at Joe’s eye. Joe snapped his head to the side with surprising quickness. The torturer’s fist slammed into the wall of rock behind Joe, and a sickening crack rang out.

  The big thug shrieked in pain and dropped to his knees, cradling his wrist.

  Joe managed a smile. Gregorovich laughed out loud.

  “Enough of this!” Janko shouted. He stepped toward Hayley and grabbed her by the hair. “Talk or I’ll take it out on her!”

  Before he could do anything more, the steel door opened. Three men stood there in the shadows. Joe’s vision was a little fuzzy at this point, but he was fairly certain the man in the center was wearing some kind of mask.

  They stepped into the room.

  Janko snapped to attention.

  “So these are our enemies,” the masked man said. His eyes lingered on Hayley until she returned his gaze. Next, he glanced at Joe, and finally Gregorovich.

  “When they get done with you,” he said, “you’ll need a mask like mine.”

  Gregorovich only stared.

  “What did they bring?”

  Janko pointed to the hard-shell-suitcase bomb.

  “Has it been deactivated?”

  “There was a timing device,” Janko said, “but we have disabled it.”

  The masked man looked to his guards. “Bring it,” he said, and they quickly lifted it and took it out into the hall.

  As the guards vanished into the hallway, the masked leader turned his attention back to Hayley. “Get her cleaned up and bring her up to me,” he said. “I have something to show her.”

  “She’s part of this,” Janko replied. “She’s been with the ASIO from the beginning. She knows what’s at stake here.”

  “Yes,” the man replied in a sinister, raspy voice. “She knows more than you think.”

  He turned around and left. Janko stood still, looking stunned.

  Slowly, he began to act, doing as ordered, moving to unlock Hayley’s cuffs and disconnect her shackles from the wall. He left with her in tow. The two interrogators followed him out. One of them, no doubt, headed for the sick bay.

  As the steel door slammed and locked tight, Joe and Gregorovich were left in the room with the dead commandos.

  Joe glanced over at Gregorovich. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  Gregorovich turned back to Joe, his face mostly bruises and blood. “I didn’t need your help.”

  “Really?”

  “But thank you anyway.”

  Joe figured that was the best he would get out of Gregorovich. “You take a punch pretty well for a Russian.”

  “Sure,” Gregorovich said. “And you handled your pain fairly well for a decadent American. You didn’t even need any whisky to make you strong.”

  Joe accepted the backhanded compliment. “I’d take some,” he admitted, “if you happened to have a bottle on you.”

  The two men stared at each other for a moment, and finally Gregorovich began to laugh. Joe joined him. It hurt like crazy, but it was worth it.

 
“What happened to you out there?” Gregorovich asked. “I thought you were going to get the shot off.”

  “Didn’t count on their wingman coming up behind me,” Joe replied. “What about you?”

  “They sideswiped me and knocked me off the sled.”

  “How’d they get so close?”

  Gregorovich hesitated. “I may have doubled back to look for you. An obvious tactical mistake.”

  So Gregorovich hadn’t been hit by the stun gun, but he’d been felled anyway, trying to help Joe.

  “We all make them,” Joe said, looking at the bodies thrown in a heap on the floor. “You notice something about these men?”

  Gregorovich nodded. “They’re one short,” he said. “The board hasn’t been totally cleared just yet.”

  “Kurt won’t give up,” Joe insisted. “If he’s alive, he won’t leave us here to die. If there’s any way to get help or get us out, he’ll find it.”

  Gregorovich shook his head, but it was disbelief in the situation, not disagreement. “One piece left,” he muttered dejectedly. “One knight trying to save all the pawns. Hard for me to fathom that I’m one of them now.”

  Joe smiled through his busted lip. “Welcome to our side.”

  Hayley shuffled along through the half-lit tunnels of Thero’s underground nest. The man named Janko had given her a chance to clean up, and given her a change of clothes, before bringing her deeper into the lair.

  She moved slowly, filled with trepidation and half wishing she was back with Joe and Gregorovich in the dungeonlike interrogation room. Something about being all alone made this fate seem worse.

  “Be strong,” she whispered to herself. “Whatever comes, face it bravely.”

  Janko arrived at an open room filled with an eight-pack of electrical generators. The squat, cylindrical-shaped devices were the size of industrial washing machines. They were arranged in two rows, and Hayley was marched between them to a door on the far side.

  Janko pressed an intercom button beside the door. “I have the woman,” he said into the microphone.

  “Bring her in,” a harsh voice replied.

  Janko typed a code into the lock, and an electronic click was heard. He opened the door and ushered Hayley inside. She steeled herself for whatever lay ahead and stepped over the threshold.

  This room looked different than the rest of the cave. The walls were finished in a high-gloss white plastic. Computers, control panels, and monitors were placed in various locations. Recessed lighting gave it a warmer look.

  “Welcome to Master Control,” the man in the mask said to her.

  The voice was distorted by the man’s damaged vocal cords, but she was fairly certain who was speaking.

  “Max?” she asked. “Is that really you?”

  The man stared at her for a moment and then looked at Janko. “Leave us.”

  “She could be dangerous,” Janko replied.

  “Not to me,” Thero replied.

  Janko exhaled sharply and then stepped out of the room.

  As the door closed, Thero stepped closer to her. He held out a hand. She saw that it was burned and scarred.

  “It’s been so long,” Thero said. “We’ve been so lonely.”

  Despite the fear she felt, Hayley’s mind was racing. “We?” she said. “Is George alive? Is he here with you?”

  Thero nodded.

  “Is he okay?” she asked, hopeful that George could help her put a stop to this madness and yet fearful that he might be horribly burned and scarred like Thero.

  “He’ll be along shortly,” Thero said. “He knows you’re here. In fact, it was he who suggested we talk to you alone. That perhaps you might understand.”

  She smiled genuinely. George was the only hope. “I’m thankful to hear that. What about Tessa?”

  “No,” Thero said. “They murdered her.”

  Hayley cast her gaze down. George and Tessa had been like siblings. She’d hoped somehow both were alive, though she’d doubted it was possible. At least George had survived. Maybe there was a chance, she thought. Maybe reason could triumph at this last moment.

  “My heart breaks for Tessa,” she said, “though I’m thankful that you and George are still alive. How did you survive the explosion?”

  “I’d begun working on a new theory,” Thero said. “By using a spherical projector instead of a dome-shaped one, I thought the wave might be more stable. We’d only just begun the excavation when the shooting began. George and I escaped and sealed ourselves in while they shot the others.”

  She stared.

  “There was nothing we could do,” Thero insisted.

  “I know,” she said softly. “I understand.”

  He glared at her for a moment before continuing. “After the shooting ended and we heard nothing but silence, we unsealed the door. Seconds later, the explosions flashed. I was burned badly, though George was mostly spared. He cared for me until we made it to a hospital. We paid enough to keep it quiet. I didn’t want them finding us after escaping with our lives. But we couldn’t stay long. We had to find a place where we’d be safe.”

  “And you came here?”

  “Not at first,” he said, “but eventually. We needed a place where no one would ever find us. A place with advantages. Here, we have geothermal power. We have food from the seals and the birds and the fishing grounds. And my study of geography proved most valuable when we discovered diamonds. A series of kimberlite pipes rich enough to fund our operations after the money Tokada had given us ran out.”

  “Why not just take the money and run?” she asked. “Live your life. You’ve given so much already.”

  “What life?!” he shouted. “We’re hunted wherever we go. Banished here as much by their jealousy and hatred as by our own need to work without interference. You see, the world was not willing to let my light shine upon them. So now I will blind them and burn them instead.”

  She considered her precarious position and Thero’s obvious madness. She decided she’d better pander to his ego.

  “The world is full of jealous fools,” she said. “But wouldn’t it be glorious to prove them wrong and become rich rather than begin a war that will only bring more death?”

  “What good is wealth to a man who can’t show his face or breathe the air?” he said. “My lungs will burn without the proper humidity. My skin crawls if it meets the sunlight. I am no longer part of the world. I am doomed to live here on Tartarus, to live forever in darkness. So what good does the light afford me? Revenge is all I have left.”

  “Revenge against Australia?”

  “Against all of them,” Thero bellowed. “Against an entire world set against us. Against any who challenge me!”

  Hayley shrank back. It only seemed to anger Thero more.

  “You have no reason to fear me,” he insisted.

  “I have plenty of reason,” she replied. “You’ve become a murderer. The man I knew was never like that. You wanted peace.”

  “And this is what it got me!” He pulled off his mask to reveal a face horribly scarred by melted and burned skin. His nose had been burned off, the skin over his right eye scarred and twisted until that eye bulged grotesquely.

  Thero stepped toward her angrily. She tried to back away but tripped and fell. Thero’s gaze flicked off to the right and then settled back on her.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” he said aloud. “She’s a traitor. She betrayed us like all the rest.”

  Hayley stared up at him, one hand raised to defend herself. She looked around but saw no one else in the room.

  Still poised to assault her, Thero glanced over his shoulder. Finally, slowly, he lowered his hand and centered his gaze upon her once again. “They’re using you,” he told her.

  “Who?”

  “All of them,” he replied. “The ASIO, the Americans, the Russ
ians. All of them are out to destroy us together.”

  Thero’s paranoid delusions had always run to the grandiose. Strangely, his radical actions had now united much of the world against him.

  “They forced me to come along,” she said, thinking quickly and playing to his thoughts. “They were going to put me in prison if I didn’t help. They claimed I was collaborating with you.”

  Thero stared down at her. His scarred face showed no trace of emotion. She felt sorry for him in a way. Sorry and afraid and confused.

  Thero glanced off to the side once again, staring into the distance. She found it frightening.

  He shook his head as if responding to a question. “No,” he muttered. “No, I don’t agree. We must be cautious. What makes you think she can be trusted?”

  Once again, Hayley looked in the direction of Thero’s gaze. There was no one there, not even in the distant shadows. Her mind whirled. She took a chance.

  “George?” she whispered. “George, I promise I’ve come to help you.”

  Thero turned her way again.

  “I looked for you both,” she insisted, gazing up into his eyes, her face quivering. “I went to Japan after the explosions. I flew there to find you even though I was afraid to get on the plane. You know how I hate to travel. I was there at the memorial services for you and your father and Tessa. You have to know this. Now I’ve come all the way here to find you.”

  Thero straightened a bit, he eased back. “I told him you were always loyal,” he said in an odd tone.

  He held out his hand, his left hand this time. The skin was smooth, unscarred. George had been left-handed, Thero used his right. She reached over and grasped the smooth palm.

  “Come with me,” Thero said. “I’ll show you what Father and I have built.”

  Father and I.

  She now understood. Part of her recoiled at the thought, but she could not reject it any further. George was dead. She was certain of it. He’d died along with Tessa in Japan. Thero alone had survived. The pain and guilt of it had broken his already fragile mind and split his personality in two. Both the threat of destruction and the slim chance at salvation had come from the same body. In life, George Thero had been called his father’s conscience. Now, after death, he’d become just that.