Devil's Gate

56

Moscow, Russia

THE BALD MAN FROM THE STATE, a ranking member of the FSB, held court in a windowless room in the Lubyanka, the huge monolithic headquarters building of the Russian Federal Security Service.

In the room with him were several members of the Politburo and a representative from the Russian Navy and a general in the Red Army.

He’d just finished listening to a radio call from Katarina Luskaya, claiming she was aboard a ship with a man named Andras who wanted to sell them a superweapon, one that would put them years ahead of the Americans and the Chinese.

After listening to the explanation, one of the politicians could not contain his scorn. “Strange that we have not heard anything of this weapon,” he said, “and now we are to believe your most junior operative has uncovered it.”

“She was captured by Andras,” the Bald Man said. “It is fortunate that he has kept her with him. It is he who brings the offer to us. We have a history with him.”

“It is not a good one,” the general noted.

“No, it is not,” the Bald Man admitted.

“And he demands an outrageous amount,” the Politburo member said.

The Bald Man waved him off. “Of course we would not pay what he asks. A fraction, perhaps ten percent. Even then, only if it was decided that we should.”

“Your agent sounded as if she was under duress,” the general said.

“Yes,” the Bald Man replied. She had used a code word designed to alert only them to the fact that she was being held against her will. But, to her credit, she had chosen the less harsh of the two codes, which meant she thought the situation might be manageable. He was rather impressed with the young former Olympian.

The lone naval representative in the group spoke up. “It would be nice to get a look at that ship,” he said. “If it turns out to be of interest, we can start negotiations. If it turns out to be a lie, we simply write Ms. Luskaya off.”

The Bald Man cut his eyes to the naval representative. This younger generation understood little. It concerned him. “All of you are missing the bigger point. According to Andras, they will demonstrate the weapon against the American capitol in less than thirty minutes. That makes the question of the ship irrelevant. What we must decide — now that we have been informed — is whether to tell the Americans.”

The room went silent. No one wanted to speak.

“It is a very delicate situation,” the Bald Man said. “If the threat turns out to be real and it should come out that we knew about it in advance…”

There was no need to elaborate.

The Politburo member spoke. “What do you recommend?”

The Bald Man wrung his hands. Every instinct in his body told him it was an American problem. To some extent, he wouldn’t have minded seeing a disaster sprung on his old adversary. But the repercussions could be enormous. The law of unintended consequences could not be discounted.

“Inform the Americans of the threat,” he said finally. “Do not speak of the ship, and make sure you forget that we had this conversation.”

He looked around the room. All present were men of power, but they feared him, as they should.

“What happens after that is up to them,” he added.

“And the ship?”

“If the opportunity should arise,” the Bald Man replied, “we take it when it’s offered. Perhaps we pay, perhaps we barter. Those are mere details to be considered later.”

FIVE THOUSAND MILES AWAY, in the middle of the Atlantic, Andras stood over Katarina, who remained at the radio console. Finally, a call came through. It was the Bald Man.

“Tell Andras we are not interested in damaged goods this time,” he said.

She looked up. Whatever the message meant, Andras understood. He nodded.

“He understands,” she said, keying the microphone.

“Da,” the Bald Man said. “Well done, Ms. Luskaya. We await your return.”

She didn’t feel as if she’d done well. All she’d done was cower before a thug who’d kidnapped her, threatened her, and killed others, including Major Komarov and Kurt, who had tried to save her from this very fate. And now she was part of an incident that would take countless lives in his country.

She could see no way to stop it.

Suddenly, Klaxons began to sound. Andras reacted, and the door opened seconds later.

“What the hell is going on?” Andras demanded.

A breathless crewman stood there. “Problem in the reactor compartment.”

“A leak?” he asked.

“No,” the man said. “We have an intruder.”

Andras laughed. “An intruder? Are you sure? We’re twelve hundred miles from the nearest land.”

“I know,” the man said. “I can’t say how it happened. No ships or boats have come close to us. Sonar has detected no undersea craft. Maybe a stowaway,” he guessed finally.

“Also unlikely,” Andras said with supreme confidence. “More probable, someone’s drunk and making a very big mistake.”

Katarina could hear the anger in his voice. She wouldn’t want to be the crewman who might be making that mistake.

“All the crew are accounted for,” the man said. “One of the engineers is dead, another was beaten up by an American commando with silver hair.”

Katarina’s face lit up.

“Silver hair?” Andras said, suddenly tensing.

The crewman nodded.

“Austin,” Andras muttered slowly.

Katarina hoped so. She couldn’t figure out how it was possible, but she hoped it was true.

Andras saw it.

“Look at your eyes,” he said sarcastically. “All full of hope. You won’t make much of an agent if that’s the best you can hide your feelings.”

“I’m not an agent,” she said.

“Clearly.” He sounded disgusted.

“We’re looking for him now,” the crewman said, interrupting. “But he ran through the Fulcrum bay and vanished.”

“This is a ship,” Andras said. “There are only so many places to go. Keep searching. I’ll be on the bridge. Post guards at all entrances to the Fulcrum and near the reactors. Shoot anything that approaches either.”

The crewman nodded, and Andras looked at his watch. “We have nineteen minutes. Keep him at bay that long, and I’ll hunt him down myself.”

The crewman left. Andras grabbed Katarina by the wrist and dragged her into the hall. Two doors down, he opened her cabin, threw her in the chair, and tied her up once again. Hands first, behind the back of the chair, and then her feet.

“I’d hoped to have more fun with you,” he said, “but it’ll have to wait. Don’t worry, you won’t need to pretend that you’re interested anymore. I don’t care.”

With that, he stormed out, slamming and locking the door.

If ever there was a time to escape, she thought, now was it.

She pulled and twisted and tried desperately to slip the ropes, but they only grew tighter. She looked around the room. Nothing sharp presented itself; no knives, no letter opener, no scissors. But that didn’t mean she would give up.

She rocked the chair back and forth until it fell over. Now on the floor, she dragged it, moving along like an inchworm with a stone on its back and making about as much progress. Finally, she had inched her way over to the small desk.

Sitting on top were two wineglasses and the bottle that she and Andras had shared, each of them hoping to impair the other’s judgment.

Lying at the base of the desk, she began banging into it with her shoulder. It rocked back and forth slowly until one of the glasses fell and shattered.

She squirmed around, trying to reach one of the pieces. She felt a few shards digging into her arm. She didn’t care. All that mattered was getting a larger curved one and using it on the rope.

Finally, she touched one. Grabbing it awkwardly, she felt it cut her palm, but she managed to hold it in a position where she could work it against the rope. She began to move it back and forth, pressing it against the rope as best she could.

She hoped it was cutting into the rope that bound her because with each movement she felt it slicing into her hand, and her palm and fingers were growing slick with blood.

It hurt like crazy, but she wouldn’t give up until every drop of blood had drained from her body.

Still working on the rope, she heard a soft thump on the door. Almost like someone had bumped against it.

The sound of the door opening came next. She couldn’t see it; she had her back to it. She feared what Andras would do if he discovered her. Maybe he’d just let her lie there and bleed to death.

The door shut, and something heavy thumped onto the ground beside her. She felt hands on her, not cold and threatening but caring.

She turned.

Instead of Andras’s face, she saw kind blue eyes and silvery hair.

“Kurt,” she gasped.

He held a finger to his lips. “Don’t move,” he said, “you’re bleeding badly.”

He untied her, grabbed a rag, and wrapped her palm tightly.

Behind Kurt a crewman lay dead on the floor, blood trickling from a bullet hole in his chest. She guessed he’d been the guard at her door.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“Seeing you on the floor with blood all over your wrists, I thought the same thing about you,” he said.

He helped her to sit up.

“They’re going to use this ship to harm your country,” she said. “They’re going to attack Washington, D.C., in less than fifteen minutes.”

“How?” he asked.

“They’ve built a colossal particle accelerator off the coast of Sierra Leone. They intend to send a massive beam of charged particles at Washington. It will sweep back and forth like the scanning beam on a computer screen. It will destroy every electrical device in the city limits and set fire to anything that burns. Gas mains will explode. Cars. Trucks. Aircraft. People will spontaneously combust as they walk down the street. It will kill and maim hundreds of thousands.”

“I’ve seen some of that already,” he said. “But how can they do it from so far off?”

“This ship is fitted with a powerful electromagnetic array,” she said.

“The Fulcrum,” he said. “I saw it. What does it do? Does the beam come from there?”

“No,” she said. “The beam comes from Sierra Leone. But it passes over us, and with all the power they’re generating and running through the Fulcrum, they’ll be able to bend the course of the particle beam. Instead of continuing off into space in a straight line, it will reach an apogee of sorts, miles above this ship, and then it’ll be bowed by the magnetic forces and directed back down onto your capital.”

“Like a bank shot in pool,” Kurt said. “So that’s why they call it the Fulcrum.”

She nodded in agreement.

“They must be insane,” he said. “They’re inviting all-out war.”

That they had to be stopped went without saying. Kurt stood, popped the clip out of his gun, and switched it for a full one. “I have to get to that array,” he said.

She stood up beside him. “They’re waiting for you there. They know you’ll go for it. They have the reactors covered too. “

He looked aggravated. “Tell me you have a suggestion?”

She racked her brain. It was fuzzy from the lack of sleep and the half bottle of wine, but finally something came to mind.

“The coolant,” she said.

“Liquid nitrogen,” he said.

She nodded. “If we shut off the nitrogen, the magnets will rapidly warm above their operating temperature. Their superconducting properties will fail, and the array will lose power. Hopefully, enough to keep it from doing the job.”

Katarina noticed Kurt’s face tighten with determination. Then he turned slightly at a sound she also heard.

The door to the cabin opened with a rush. A crewman stood there. “I told you to stand guard out—”

They were the last words he ever said as Kurt drilled him with two shots from the Beretta. Kurt ran for the door, but it was too late, the man had fallen back out into the hall.

He crumpled in the passageway. By the time Kurt reached him, shouts were raining out from down the hall.

Kurt fired, first in one direction and then the other.

“Come on,” he shouted to Katarina.

She ran out and cut to the right as he fired down the hall to the left.

Kurt ran after her, and in a moment they were scampering down a ladder.

“I know where to go,” Kurt said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. “Let’s just hope we can get there in time.”