EPTEMBER 7, 8:11 A.M.

PRIPYAT, UKRAINE

“Wake up!”

Gray heard the words, but his brain took another moment to decipher them. A stinging slap cut through his grogginess. Light filled his head then dissolved into watery images.

Luca leaned over him and shook Gray’s shoulders.

Coughing, Gray pushed the man back and rose to an elbow. He stared around the room. He was in a bare cement cell with peeling, blistered paint and a rusted red door. Light came from a single barred window high up on the wall. Beneath the window, Kowalski sat on a moldy thin mattress, his head hanging between his knees, groaning with nausea.

Gray took a deep breath, forced himself to relax, and recalled what had happened. He remembered a hard climb out of the canyon at gunpoint, a short helicopter ride, then a cargo plane on a rain-swept airstrip. He fingered a bruise on his neck. Once aboard the plane, they’d been drugged.

Gray had no idea where they’d been taken.

“Elizabeth…Rosauro…?” he asked hoarsely.

Luca shook his head. He slumped against the wall and sank to his bottom. “I don’t know where they are. Maybe another cell.”

“Any idea where we are?”

Luca shrugged. Kowalski groaned.

Gray gained his feet, waited for the world to stop spinning, then stepped toward the window. It was too high to reach on his own.

Kowalski lifted his head, noted where Gray was staring. “Pierce, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“Get up,” he ordered. “Help me.”

Kowalski held his stomach but rose to his feet. He clenched his fingers together into a stirrup. “What do you think I am? Your personal ladder?”

“Ladders complain a lot less.”

Gray mounted the man’s grip, reached to the lower lip of the window, and with Kowalski’s help, he chinned up to the bars. He gazed across a strange landscape. A town, half consumed by forest, spread outward. The place looked dilapidated and shell-shocked. Roofs were covered in moss or collapsed, windows shattered into broken fangs, fire escapes dripped with icicles of rust, and weeds and bushes sprouted out of cracked asphalt. Across the street, a faded billboard advertised some sort of fair, depicting a Ferris wheel and carnival rides. In the foreground, a stylized version of a strappingly robust family headed toward the amusements.

Across the city, Gray spotted the same Ferris wheel from the billboard outlined against the barren sky. A lonely relic of former glory. Gray’s limbs grew leaden at the sight. He knew where he was. The abandoned amusement ride had become emblematic for the city.

“Chernobyl,” he mumbled and dropped back down to the floor.

But why had they been brought here?

Gray recalled the pathologist’s report on Dr. Polk’s body. The radiation signature suggested the professor had been poisoned here. Though further testing by Malcolm Jennings had clouded this assessment.

What was going on?

Over the next ten minutes, Gray searched the entire cell and tested the door. Though rusted, it remained secure. Gray heard sounds of someone out there: a shuffle of foot, a soft cough. Most likely a guard. He must have heard them talking and radioed his superiors because shortly thereafter a tromping of boots approached the door.

Too many to ambush.

Gray stepped back as the door pulled open. With pistols pointed, soldiers in black-and-gray uniforms stormed into the room. They opened the way for a tall man to step forward, framed in the doorway. His features were not unlike those of the father from the faded billboard outside. His face was all angles and hard corners; a trimmed beard defined a strong chin. He wore a navy blue suit with a red silk tie, tailored handsomely to his physique. Even down to his—

“Nice shoes,” Kowalski commented.

The man glanced to his polished black oxfords and frowned at the unexpected assessment of his wardrobe.

“Well, they are,” Kowalski said with a note of defensiveness.

The newcomer’s eyes shifted to Gray. “Dobraye utro, Commander Pierce. If you’ll come with me, we have some business to discuss and not much time.”

Gray remained where he was. “Not until you tell me where the two women—”

A hand waved dismissively. “Elizabeth Polk and Dr. Shay Rosauro. Both fine, I assure you. In fact, their accommodations are a bit more refined. But we had very little time to prepare. If you’ll come this way, please.”

The six soldiers with pistols diminished the politeness of the invitation. Led out into a hallway, Gray studied his surroundings. Cells lined both sides, plainly an abandoned jail. Through some of the open doors, he spotted standing water, rusted overturned beds, and refuse piled high into corners. It made their cell’s accommodations seem generous in comparison.

The hallway ended at a guard station. It had a view across an overgrown, weedy jail yard. In the distance, off by the horizon, Gray noted the tall ventilation tower that marked the Chernobyl reactor.

Closer at hand, a chair squeaked with an almost nervous sound.

Gray turned. A table stood in the middle of the room. Masterson sat behind it, straightening in his seat, again dressed all in white, looking well rested and smug. Gray had to refrain himself from leaping over and snapping the bastard’s neck. But he needed some answers, and cooperation seemed the best way of obtaining it.

Forced to a chair on the opposite side of the table, Gray sat down. A gun remained pointed at the back of his head.

Another stranger waited in the room. She stood behind the table. Her black hair framed a smoky face, stoic and unmoving. She was also dressed in a black suit, a close match in style to that of the man who had led Gray here. The stranger crossed to the table and sat down, barely acknowledging Masterson.

The man folded his hands atop the table. “My name is Senator Nicolas Solokov. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

Gray said nothing, which caused the man’s mouth to quirk with disappointment.

“No? Well, that will be changing,” he responded. He waved to the slim woman. She crossed to Gray, moving with a stiff grace. She sank to a knee beside his chair, tilted her head, and reached toward his hand. Before she touched him, she cocked an eyebrow, inquiring permission.

Gray shrugged. She gently lifted his hand and rested her palm beneath his. Her fingertips tickled the underside of his wrist. Her eyes stared deeply into his.

“We’ve already had a conversation with Elizabeth Polk,” Nicolas said.

“Dr. Polk’s daughter informed us of your discovery in India. Truly amazing. That information alone was worth transporting you all here. It’s fascinating to contemplate that our heritage extends all the way to ancient Greece, to the famous Oracle of Delphi.”

Gray cleared his throat. “Your heritage?”

He waved to the woman. “And Elena’s. We’re all from the same genetic bloodline.”

Gray remembered Luca’s story. “From the lost Gypsies.”

“Yes. Dr. Masterson has informed me that you were told about the unfortunate, but necessary acquisition of those children. In fact, my father was one of those Gypsy children. And I believe you’ve met another of our extended family. Little Sasha. A girl with a special talent.”

Gray knew to whom he must be referring, but he kept his features bland, feigning ignorance.

Elena turned to Nicolas and spoke softly in Russian.

The senator nodded. “So you have met Sasha. Please do not trouble yourself to lie.” He motioned to the woman at his feet. “Elena is quite—well, perceptive, shall we say. Her touch is very sensitive, measuring the heat of your skin, your pulse. She is also keyed into your pupils and breath. Nothing escapes her. She is my personal lie detector.”

Nicolas pointed to his ear. Elena turned, and with her other hand, she parted her hair behind her ear. Gray spotted a familiar curve of surgical steel. The same implant as the girl’s. The woman was the adult equivalent of Sasha, only with a different savant talent.

“She is quite remarkable,” Nicolas growled, his words warmly proud, but with a hint of something darker beneath.

Gray studied the man, noticing something missing. “So then where is your implant?”

Nicolas’s eyes narrowed back upon him. Gray enjoyed the flicker of irritation on his face, plainly a sore point. The man’s fingers combed over his right ear in a self-conscious gesture. “Such a course was not my path, I’m afraid.”

Gray’s mind tracked the implication. If Nicolas wasn’t augmented, then he must have been born without any savant talent. Yet someone had placed him in a position of power in Russia. Why? What was the endgame here?

Nicolas continued, “Back to Sasha. From all the turmoil going on in Washington, we’ve been having trouble gaining clear intelligence on her whereabouts. That was the main reason you were brought here from India.”

Versus being shot on the spot like Abhi Bhanjee.

“We are concerned about Sasha’s welfare and want her returned. So first of all, we’d like to know where she is and who has her.”

Gray stared straight at Nicolas. “I don’t know.”

At his side, Elena shook her head.

“Would you like to try again? I’m attempting to keep this civil. But we do have four of your friends here.”

“I can’t say for sure,” Gray answered. “The last I saw her, she was in the care of our organization.”

Nicolas glanced to Elena, who nodded. It was the truth.

“And I assume you do not work for John Mapplethorpe, since the traitor attempted to assassinate you and Dr. Masterson at the hotel in Agra.”

“No, in fact, we’re fighting to keep the child away from him.”

“Wise. That man is far from trustworthy. So then perhaps we truly can negotiate. Especially since we now have something worth trading.”

“First, what do you want with the girl?” Gray asked.

“She belongs here. With the rest of her family. We can care for her much better than anyone in your country.”

“Perhaps so. But why do you want her? To what end?”

Nicolas stared at Gray, studying him with shrewd eyes. Gray sensed a depth of cunning, along with a hard conceit, someone seeking recognition, compensating perhaps for a lack of talent elsewhere.

Gray pressed that weakness. “Do you have a plan that goes beyond the exploitation of children like Sasha?”

His eyes sparked. “Do not underestimate the scope of our initiative. Nor paint us with such malicious intent. We have nothing but the most humanitarian goals in mind, to better the world for all. The sacrifice required of a few children is infinitesimally small when compared to the atrocities that go ignored every day in the world.”

Gray read the need for validation behind the growing heat in his words. “What goals?”

“Nothing short of changing the course of human history.”

Here the man’s vanity shone brightly. He even sat up straighter and leaned toward Gray.

“Every few centuries, a great figure rises who abruptly changes history—someone who alters the fundamental path of mankind. I’m talking along the lines of the great prophets. Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus Christ. Someone who thinks so differently, who sees the world through such unique eyes, that his very viewpoint bends humanity in a new direction. From where do such figures arise? Where does this uniqueness of mind come from?”

Masterson stirred, stretching a kink in his back.

Gray recalled the professor’s discussion about autism and its role in human history. And the quote he had used. If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.

“Why wait for the right toss of the genetic dice?” Nicolas asked. “If such uniqueness could be recognized, singled out, and harnessed for the good of all, imagine the new age of enlightenment that could be fostered. Especially if such uniqueness could be heightened to astounding levels.”

Nicolas’s eyes settled on Elena.

Gray began to understand the scope of the project’s vision. It was no mere spy program. Nicolas’s organization planned to take control of the reins to human history by using the augmented individuals like draft horses. And Gray began to suspect why Nicolas had been put in such a place of power. Someone was grooming him as a figurehead, propped and supported behind the scenes by the augmented children. Gray tried to imagine all that talent at the bid of one individual.

Gray could not hide his horror and shock. “How do you plan to—?”

“That’s enough!” Nicolas barked. “Now that you better understand our intent, you can understand why we want Sasha returned. She is important to the program…and especially significant to me.”

Gray read something in his eyes. “Why you?”

“Why?” He stared hard at Gray. “Because she’s more than a test subject, she’s my daughter.”

Elena’s fingernails scraped the underside of Gray’s wrist. The woman turned sharply toward Nicolas. Apparently this was as equally surprising to her. No wonder Gray and the others had been dragged all the way to Chernobyl.

“Before this day is over, you will know what I am capable of.” Nicolas leaned toward Gray, his eyes fiery with determination. “And I will get my daughter back.”

8:20 A.M.

SOUTHERN URAL MOUNTAINS

General-Major Savina Martov stood in the heart of Operation Saturn. Behind her, the mine train waited on the tracks, snapping and crackling, smelling of smoke and oil. It rested a hundred yards from where the tracks ended at Mine Complex 337, an abandoned uranium mine that honeycombed the neighboring Ural Mountains. M.C. 337 was where the prisoners housed at Chelyabinsk 88 had spent eighteen hours a day laboring in the dark, slowly being poisoned.

Now it served as a dumping ground for broken mining equipment and piles of rock from Operation Saturn. Over the course of five years, a small team of miners and demolition experts had filled several old shafts to the brim with the debris dug out of this site.

Operation Saturn occupied a small man-made cavern off the train tracks. The blasted room—the size of a hotel lobby—was framed by oil-soaked scaffolding and crowded with mining equipment: conveyor belts, hydraulic winches, rock dusters, water pumps, hoses, all surrounding a compact drill rig with a drummed tungsten-carbide bit. Most of it would be left where it stood or hauled out with the next train.

Savina watched a backhoe dump a load of rock and rubble into one of the ore cars behind her. The train would make one last shipment to M.C. 337.

All was on schedule.

Still, she stood with her fists on her hips, legs apart, surveying the operation site. Her conversation with Nicolas still had her agitated. She had known he was bullheaded and prone to rash and dramatic decisions. She regretted informing him about Sasha. She had not thought he would react so foolishly. Where was his dispassion in such matters? They still had ten Omega subjects, more than enough to seed the new site in Moscow. The ten alone were powerful enough to hand him the world, to guide humanity to its new Renaissance, led by a resurrected Russian Empire. And the future czar would not have one Rasputin to counsel him, but ten. Ten prodigious savants, who together and augmented, could bend time and distance to serve him.

Did he not see that?

What was one child against such a vision?

Two if you counted Nicolas’s son, Pyotr. But the boy’s talent, while strong, was of little value. What use was empathy when it came to forging a new world? If anything, it was a hindrance. All that would be lost with the boy was his genetic potential. A significant loss, but not insurmountable. And there was still hope of recovering the boy. The last she’d heard from Lieutenant Borsakov was that he was about to head into the Asanov swamps. It would be hard to find anything in the dark, but with the sun now up, she expected results at any moment. Or so she had assured Nicolas.

And ultimately it did not matter. Nicolas would grow to see this.

A technician in a white smock, hard hat, and respirator mask approached her. He was an engineer from the St. Petersburg State Mining Institute. “Ready to test the board and iris.”

She nodded. After this final shakedown, the operation site would be evacuated. She’d had to push her crew these last two days in order to meet the shortened timetable. Nicolas’s operation had been scheduled to proceed today, followed by Savina’s in two weeks. But with the recent betrayal by Mapplethorpe, the decision had been made to initiate both operations on the same day. Once she heard of Nicolas’s success, she would proceed.

“Are there any problems?” she asked the engineer.

His voice was muffled in the respirator as they walked. “We’ve run all the diagnostics, rechecked the ammonium nitrate fuel oil concentrations, performed one final GPR scan of the overburden, and troubleshot all electrical systems. We’re ready on your order to clear the site and open the iris. We’re going to test fire it now.”

“Very good.”

Savina followed the man under the arch of scaffolding. The vehicle-mounted drill rig was already being driven out of the way. Men worked around the tight space: in the rigging, on the floor, and amid the equipment. She looked to the upper wall of the cavern. A two-meter-wide shaft sloped upward at a steep angle, lined by an idle conveyor belt, dripping with water from the hoses. Lights glowed at the far end of the shaft, almost half a kilometer away. Tiny shadows moved within the glow, motes in the brightness. The demolition team was doing one final inspection.

Savina appreciated their thoroughness.

Over fifty bore holes—as thick around as her thumb and a meter deep—had been drilled into the end of the shaft and packed with ANFO supercharges. The bores needled through a fault that lay beneath Lake Karachay. Wired to detonate in sequence, the charges would crack a gaping hole in the bottom of the poisonous lake, dumping its slurry of radioactive strontium and cesium straight down the shaft.

“Over here, General-Major.” The technician waved her away from the center of the cavern.

Set into the floor was a three-meter-wide circular hatch. She had obtained it from the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard in Murmansk. It was the latest missile silo door, composed of six flakes of half-meter-thick steel in the shape of an iris.

She stepped off of it and over to where a diagnostic laptop rested on a worktable. The technician had the engineering schematics open on the screen. Other men had stopped to watch.

He spoke into a radio, listened, then nodded to Savina. “We’re set in the control room. Ten seconds until firing.”

Savina crossed her arms. The control room was back in Chelyabinsk 88, in one of the old abandoned Soviet-era apartment buildings. Technicians manned the small room of monitors and computers. Once the site was evacuated, thirty different cameras would provide coverage of the area.

The engineer counted down the seconds. “Three…two…one…zero.”

A snap of an electrical circuit sounded from the silo door, and its steel petals opened like the iris on a camera. As they peeled wider, a low roar of water echoed up to her. She stepped to the iris and stared over the edge. A vertical shaft dropped two hundred meters through the rock.

The engineer joined her and pointed a heavy flashlight down the throat of the mine shaft. Far below, she spotted a silvery rush, reflecting the light. An underground river. There were several such waterways draining the Urals, massive aquifers flowing down from the highlands. On the far side of the mountains, the waters flooded into the Caspian Sea, but here the aquifers drained through a series of rivers, specifically the Techa and Ob, all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

Savina turned and looked up the sloped shaft that led to the fault line under Lake Karachay. It contained over one hundred times more strontium and cesium than was released in Chernobyl. And Chernobyl’s toxic plume had circled the globe. She stared back down the vertical shaft to the flowing aquifer.

It had been an ongoing threat. Geologists were well aware of the faults that underlay Lake Karachay. It was only a matter of time until an earthquake burst one of those fissures and dumped all that radioactivity into the drainage basin of the Ural Mountains. Studies done by geophysicists from Norway estimated that such a catastrophe would sterilize a good portion of the Arctic Ocean, one of the planet’s last great wildernesses. From there, its poisonous pall would sweep halfway around the planet, concentrating its worst effects across northern Europe. Conservative estimates put the death toll from primary radiation and secondary cancers at one hundred million. And that could easily double or triple from the resulting economic and environmental damage.

She stared from the sloped shaft above to the river below. Such a disaster had always been a constant but barely acknowledged threat. All nature needed was a little shove.

Then the world would burn.

Her breathing grew harder at the enormity of what was about to unfold. Out of that radiological fire, a new Russian Empire would rise, like a phoenix out of the ashes of their own nuclear legacy.

She would let nothing stop her.

She had spent her life and soul here in the Warren, all to serve the Motherland. And after so many sacrifices, so much bloodshed, what was left of Russia? Over the past decades, Savina had watched the Motherland devolve into this corrupt, pitiful shadow of itself. Here at the end of her life, she would offer it hope again. That would be her legacy, brought about by her own son.

She would burn away the corruption and create a new world.

“General-Major? Is there anything more?”

She shook her head and controlled her words. “I’ve seen enough.”

The engineer nodded and crossed to a steel lever beside his workstation. It looked like a giant handbrake on a car. He pinched the release on the lever, cranked the bar up, and shouldered it in the opposite direction. The iris swept closed at her toes and sealed the shaft. There was still work to be done. Miners, who had stopped to see the silo doors open, went back to work, crossing over the top of the iris, as they had for the past two years since dropping that first shaft.

Operation Saturn was ready to commence.

Savina turned away and headed toward the waiting train. She also had final preparations back at Chelyabinsk 88 to complete. She checked her watch. Nicolas should be heading to the ceremony at Chernobyl in another hour. Despite his rash actions of late, he did have everything under control. With or without him, systems were in place and would run their course. All was in order. Nothing could stop it from happening.

As she stepped into the train car and the doors sealed, she glanced back to the heart of Operation Saturn. She tried to picture the millions that would die, but they were an abstraction, a number too large to contemplate beyond cold statistics. She faced forward as the train lurched into motion and headed back toward the Warren at Chelyabinsk 88. The teachers and researchers should be readying for their own evacuation. Computers were being wiped, records incinerated. The children were also being prepared—but not for evacuation. They would be taking one last train ride themselves.

All of them, except the ten who would be with her.

Savina pictured the faces of the other children. Sixty-four, including the infants. It was a number too small to view as only an abstraction. She knew a majority of the children by name. As the train trundled toward the Warren in the dark, Savina leaned a hand against the wall. Her knees trembled, and a wave of emotion swept through her. She did not fight it. It welled up out of her chest and choked her throat. A few hot tears streamed down her cheeks. In this private moment, she let her emotions run their course. She recognized her humanity and allowed herself a moment to grieve.

But only this moment.

By the time the train began slowing, she wiped her face and patted her cheeks. She took several deep breaths. There was no turning back.

Necessity was a cruel master.

And she would have to be just as cruel.

9:32 A.M.

PRIPYAT, UKRAINE

Nicolas climbed into the limousine with Elena. A caravan of vehicles flowed out from the staging area in front of the Polissia Hotel. Politicians and officials were being shuttled or had private escorts. Since midnight, news crews from around the world had been setting up cameras and prepping vans that sported towering satellite antennas. Since first light, celebrities and dignitaries had been drifting over there, for interviews, for tours, for a moment in the limelight.

In the next hours, the eyes of the world would be upon the sealing of Chernobyl, a final act to end the old nuclear era and launch a major new summit to address the issue far into the future.

But Nicolas had his own issue at the moment.

As soon as the limousine door clicked shut, Nicolas had his first moment of privacy with Elena. He turned to her. “I’m sorry. I should have told you about Sasha and Pyotr.”

Elena shook her head very slightly, furious. She had not spoken a word to him since his interrogation of the Americans. Even now, she shifted to stare out the window of the limousine. Sasha and Pyotr had always held a special place in her heart. It was more than the usual affection. She had a personal connection, too. It had been Elena’s older sister, Natasha, who had given birth to them, dying in labor.

“You know the policy at the Warren,” Nicolas pressed as the limousine set off down the road. “Birth records are sealed.”

It had been a guideline from the start at the Warren. Familial lines for the most part were kept secret. Children knew their immediate brothers and sisters, to discourage inappropriate fraternization, but that was all. Breeding was dictated and controlled by the geneticists.

But Nicolas had been no ordinary offspring. As the son of the founder, an entire history had been fabricated for him, starting in Yekaterinburg, where his mother had given birth to him at a local hospital, using the false surname Solokov. His mother would have used the name Romanov, but that might have been too obvious. From the very start, he had been groomed for a special destiny. As such, he was granted certain privileges.

“I checked the fertilization clinic’s records one day,” he said. “I was curious if I had any children. It was then that I discovered that Sasha and Pyotr were my own. But I was forbidden from saying anything.”

He reached a hand to her knee, but his palm hovered, fearful of touching her. “In fact, it was because of the production of such talented children that my mother encouraged our union. In an attempt to repeat such a fortunate genetic cross.”

Elena would not turn his way. A part of him enjoyed her coldness, this control. He wanted to touch her, but she had not yet given him permission.

“Please, milaya moya, forgive me.”

She ignored him.

Sighing, he stared ahead.

Through the privacy glass, Nicolas spotted the rise of Chernobyl. A tall ventilation tower, ringed by maintenance scaffolding, climbed high into the sky. It rose from a jumble of cement buildings. Crammed against one side stood a massive blocky crypt of black steel and concrete. It looked damp, as if sweating. It was not a mystery why the structure was called the Sarcophagus. It looked like a black tomb, and at its heart lay the ruins of reactor number four.

Nicolas had seen pictures of the inside, a blasted landscape of scorched cement and twisted steel. In one room, there was a clock, charred and half melted, that forever marked the time of the explosion. Within the Sarcophagus, over two hundred tons of uranium and plutonium remained buried within the ruins, most of it in the form of solidified lava, formed from the radioactive fusion of molten fuel, concrete, and two thousand tons of combustibles. Pieces of the exploded core could be found everywhere, some embedded in the outer walls. In the lowest levels of the facility, seeping rainwater and fuel dust collected into a radioactive soup.

Was it any wonder that a new solution was necessary?

Off to the left was that answer.

It went by many names: the Shelter, the Arc of Life, the New Sarcophagus. The hanger-shaped arch rose thirty-seven stories into the air. Weighing over twenty thousand tons, it stretched over a quarter kilometer wide and half again as long. It was so cavernous inside that engineers feared it might form clouds and actually rain within the structure. On the underside of the arch, robotic trolley cranes waited to dismantle the old Sarcophagus piece by piece, operated by technicians safely outside the Shelter.

But things were already on the move.

The entire arch rested on greased steel tracks and was even now being slowly hauled along the rails, pulled by a pair of massive hydraulic jacks. It was the largest movable structure ever built by man. And by eleven o’clock this morning, the Shelter would be pulled over the old Sarcophagus and sealed up against the neighboring concrete building, totally covering the old crypt, and thus closing forever an ugly bit of Russian history and heralding a new start.

It was fitting that such an event would mark the beginning of the summit to come. A summit that would unfortunately never take place.

The limousine headed toward the stands that lined the south side of the old Sarcophagus. The seats were already filling with the invited VIPs. Speeches had begun on the stage that fronted the stadium seating, leading up to the official joint U.S-Russian statements, picked to coincide with the final seal of Chernobyl. The entire series of events was timed to the clockwork pull of the giant arch.

As was Nicolas’s plan.

A moment of fear flickered through him. Not unlike when he stood on the news podium as an assassin lined up for a fatal shot. Only the risk this morning was a thousandfold worse.

Fingers closed around his hand as it rested on the seat. He turned and found Elena’s hand upon his. She stared out the window, still angry, letting him know this was not over. Her fingernails curled and pressed hard into his palm, a promise that he would be punished later.

He leaned back as she dug deeper.

The pain helped focus him.

Ahead, the arch closed slowly upon Chernobyl.

He knew what was to come.

And he certainly deserved to be punished.

10:04 A.M.

Gray paced the cell when he heard something thud heavily against the door. Kowalski scrambled up, and Luca straightened from where he was leaning against the wall.

“What the hell now?” Kowalski muttered.

The scrape of a metal bar sounded, and the door pulled open.

A figure stepped over the booted legs of a guard on the floor.

“Hurry,” the man said and waved his ivory-handled cane. “We have to get out of here.”

Gray stared in disbelief.

It was Dr. Hayden Masterson.

Confused, Gray remained frozen in place, caught between wanting to slug the man and shake his hand.

Masterson read his shocked expression. “Commander, I work for MI6.”

“British intelligence?”

He nodded with an exasperated sigh. “Explanations will have to wait. We have to go. Now.”

Masterson headed down the hall, dragging them in tow. Gray stopped long enough to collect the guard’s sidearm, a Russian pistol called a Grach or Rook. The man had been knocked out, his nose broken. It seemed Masterson’s cane was more than show.

Gray caught up to Masterson. Suspicion rang in his voice. “You? You’re an operative with MI6?”

Kowalski mumbled behind him, “Not exactly James Bond, is he?”

Masterson continued to hobble along, but he glanced over to Gray. “Retired MI6 actually.” He shrugged. “If you call this retirement.”

Gray remained guarded, but he could think of no upside for this man freeing them from the cell.

Masterson continued in a wheezing rush. “I was recruited after I graduated from Oxford and stationed in India during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I retired ten years ago, then stumbled into this mess when someone offered me good money to spy on Archibald. It didn’t take long to learn the Russians were behind it. So I contacted MI6 and let them know. It was designated low priority. No one considered Archibald’s work a threat to global security. To tell the truth, I didn’t either. Not until he was kidnapped and ended up dead in D.C. I tried to light a fire under MI6, but who listens to an old man these days? I couldn’t wait. Call it old instinct. I knew something bloody large was afoot. So I’m afraid, after losing Archibald, I had to use all of you to force an introduction.”

“Use us,” Kowalski said. “They killed Abe.”

Masterson winced. “I tried to stop them, but our friend was too quick with that whip-sword of his.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe this is a younger man’s game after all.”

“But wait!” Kowalski stumbled with a sudden realization. “You were going to shoot me!”

Gray dismissed his concern. “Masterson was putting on an act.”

A nod. “I had to be convincing.”

“You damn well convinced me!”

“And it was lucky I was so successful.” Masterson turned to Gray. “The bloody bastard is planning on taking out half the world’s leaders today.”

“What?”

Masterson drew them to a stairwell next to the old guard station and lowered his voice. “More men downstairs. They’ve had me holed up here. As much a prisoner as any of you. I’m off to free Elizabeth and Dr. Rosauro.” He waved down the hall past the guard station. “If I could borrow that shapely companion of yours, we’ll try to reach a phone and start an evacuation.”

“Take Luca, too,” Gray said. He wanted the civilians as much out of harm’s way as possible. Plus the Gypsy leader’s presence would go a long way to convincing Rosauro that Masterson was aboveboard.

Luca nodded his agreement.

“Fine. I can use his help,” Masterson said. He pulled a Russian Army walkie-talkie from his jacket and passed it to Gray, so they could communicate. “But in the meantime—”

Gray cut him off. “—I have to stop Senator Solokov.”

Masterson nodded. “You’ve got less than an hour. I don’t know what he’s planning, something to do with the ceremony over at Chernobyl.”

“What ceremony?”

Masterson pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Gray. “They’re enclosing the old Sarcophagus at Chernobyl,” he said and nodded to the sheet. “Under a large steel hangar.”

image

As Gray studied the sheet, Masterson listed the dignitaries and leaders who would be in attendance at the event and quickly summarized the morning’s ceremonies. “As to Nicolas’s specific plans, all I could get was the name. Operation Uranus.”

“Operation Your Anus?” Kowalski said. “That sounds painful.”

Gray ignored him and headed for the stairs. “Where’s Solokov now?”

“Headed to Chernobyl.”

As Gray descended with Kowalski, he pictured the towering ventilation shaft. Whatever the bastard was planning, it must involve the reactor. But the name for the offensive—Operation Uranus—why pick that name? While training for the Army Rangers, Gray had learned of its historical context from his strategic studies classes. Operation Uranus was a Russian offense during World War II that ended the bloodiest battle in human history, the Battle of Stalingrad.

So why that name?

Something troubled Gray, something nagging, but the tension locked it away. Ahead, two guards manned the exit to the jailhouse. They had their backs to Gray.

He lifted his stolen Rook pistol.

Worries would have to wait.