Rules of Vengeance

74

Emma Ransom was nowhere near the containment building. Two hundred meters away, she crouched beside the outer wall of the spent-fuel cooling pond. The wall was made of standard poured concrete and measured 45 centimeters thick. Unlike the containment building, which was designed not only to keep projectiles from penetrating, be they laser-guided munitions, air-to-ground missiles, or supersonic aircraft, but also to prevent radioactive gases from escaping in the event of an accident, the spent-fuel building was deemed neither a “risky environment” nor a priority target. Positioned at the southwestern corner of the building, she dug in her bag for one of the explosive devices she had retrieved from the warehouse. Ripping off a strip of adhesive backing, she affixed the bomb to the wall approximately 20 centimeters above the ground. As determined by the handheld theodolite two nights before, the spot corresponded to a point 5 meters below the surface of the giant cooling pond that lay on the other side of the wall.

Flipping open the control panel, she set the timer to ten minutes. Papi had instructed her to set it to thirty minutes, thus ensuring her enough time to escape. But plans had changed. She had no doubt that within thirty minutes the bomb would be discovered. Ten minutes left her enough time to set the second device and reach her extraction point before detonation. If, that is, she was not captured. It was the sole eventuality for which she had not planned.

Without delay, she switched the device to “run.”

The red numbers displayed on the LED clock began to run backward.

9:59

9:58

9:57

Emma checked in her bag for the second explosive, looked to her right and left, then set off for her final target.