Quantum

31

Leskov looked down at the broken remains of the beige network server, its thin metal shell stripped open to reveal the delicate circuitry. Five minutes into their assault of the Preservation Lab, he’d received a panicky report from Orlov’s electronics group in Moscow about some difficulty they were experiencing with the MARC network. Apparently, their attempt to penetrate that network had met with an effective resistance and retaliation. Leskov answered their request to break the connection by destroying the lab’s network server.

‘Moscow confirms that contact with the MARC network has been terminated,’ the young man in charge of communications reported.

‘Obviously, Misha,’ Leskov said, laughing. Although his solution to the possible security breach might be considered crude, it was decidedly effective. ‘Hand me the magnet.’

Misha, a lanky twenty-five-year-old with ice-blue eyes, slipped the backpack off his shoulders and extracted the electromagnet.

Leskov kicked several pieces of broken plastic away from the exposed metal supports to reveal the server’s stack of hard drives. He flipped the switch on the powerful magnet and began slowly waving it over the stack. A strong electromagnetic field bathed each of the sealed drives, obliterating the organized patterns of information stored on the thin disks within. In seconds, the drive stack was wiped clean.

From the rear of the lab, Josef, the thickset Georgian who’d been part of the team that struck Sandstrom’s lab a month earlier, walked quickly toward Leskov.

‘I have the notebooks,’ Josef said as he zipped his backpack closed and slipped it over his shoulder. ‘The technician was very helpful.’

Leskov glanced back at the small room that Josef had just left and saw a pair of legs lying on the floor. The technician was either unconscious or dead. Leskov checked his watch — in a few minutes he would know for certain.

‘Time, everyone.’

Josef and two other men, Kiril and Grigori, moved out into the hallway where Evgenii, the point man, stood watch.

‘Burn it.’

Misha nodded, held out a plastic squeeze bottle, and squirted a clear golden fluid throughout the room. When he reached the door, he capped the bottle and slid it into his pack.

‘Ready,’ Misha announced.

Everyone backed away from the door as Misha, using a handheld spark igniter, set a nearby puddle of the fluid aflame.