Rules of Vengeance

The clock on the wall showed that three minutes had passed.

On the screen, the troops stormed into a conference room and a dozen plant workers threw their hands into the air.

Jonathan couldn’t wait any longer.

Suddenly he bent over double, gave a horrifying groan, and fell to the floor.

The policeman immediately came to his aid, kneeling by his side. “Ça va?” he asked. “What is wrong?”

“Can’t… breathe,” said Jonathan.

The policeman came closer so that he could check Jonathan’s respiration. As Jonathan expected, he had been trained in first aid. His first action was to lift Jonathan’s head and attempt to clear his air passage. As the policeman bent lower to listen for breathing, Jonathan brought his cuffed hands around and clubbed him on the side of the head. The policeman toppled onto his side. Before he could cry out, Jonathan slugged him again, and nearly passed out himself because of the pain in his shoulder. The policeman lay still.

Jonathan found the keys to his handcuffs and, after a minute’s struggle, managed to free himself. He drew the policeman’s gun, checked that the safety was on, then grasped it by the snout and banged on the door. “Viens vite,” he said. “J’ai besoin de ton aide.” Come quickly. I need your help.

The door opened at once, and the guard stormed into the room. Jonathan struck him from behind at the base of the skull. The policeman collapsed to the ground. Jonathan looked between the men, searching for the key card necessary to get from building to building, like the ones he’d seen the plant manager hand to several of the assault troops. Digging through their pockets, he found it, marked with the initials of Électricité de France, and grasped it tightly.

Standing, Jonathan looked once more at the map, scouting out a path to the spent-fuel cooling building. Then he opened the door to the hallway and ran.

“Stop,” he said.

Emma knelt at the far end of the pool. At her side, contrasting with the white ceramic tiles, was a black metallic box. Even from where he stood, Jonathan could see that the top of the black box was flipped open, and he knew instinctively that it was a bomb.

“Leave,” said Emma, looking at him for a brief moment before returning her attention to the box. “Get out of here. You don’t need to be here.”

“The French authorities have Shvets in custody,” said Jonathan, his voice echoing across the water and off the immense walls. “It’s finished, Emma. Give yourself up. It’s your only chance. There are police everywhere. I told them you were in the reactor building, but any minute they’re going to figure out I was lying. They have orders to shoot on sight.”

Jonathan advanced along the narrow walk bordering the pool. The spent-fuel pond was 50 meters long and half again as wide. The tank was built from stainless steel, the water as clear as glass, clearer than any water he’d ever seen. Beneath the surface lay row upon row of spent fuel rods, grouped into squares seventeen wide and seventeen across and held in place by titanium racks. The rods pulsed with a deep blue glow that danced off the walls and the ceiling and dressed the high cavernous ceiling in an eerie and menacing light.

“Is that why you came?” Emma asked. “To save me?”

“No,” said Jonathan. “It isn’t.” The words came without forethought, and he knew that his relationship with Emma was over. “I came because I’m not going to allow you to kill thousands of people.”

For the first time Emma looked up from the black box. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” she said.

“Shvets told me everything.”

“You still don’t understand.”

“Why, Emma? Why did you go back to him? I saw your file. I know what he made you do.”

“Because more than Shvets, I hate Division. I hate how they manipulate the world. How anything went as long as it was stated to be in the country’s interest. You think I’m the bad guy. You’re wrong. I just pulled the trigger. Someone much higher up chose the target, loaded the gun, and handed it to me.”

“And how is that different from what you’re doing now?”

“Now I’m helping my country. My real country.” She glanced up. “My God, is that a gun you’re carrying?”

Jonathan looked down at the pistol, then tossed it into the pond. Threats were worthless. He could not shoot his wife. “And me?”

“What about you?”

“Was it ever real?”

“No,” she answered indignantly. “It wasn’t real. You were a tool. Nothing more. You got me into places I couldn’t go to by myself. Cover, Jonathan. That’s all you’ve ever been.”

“Then why did you come to see me in London?”

“Because I like you. Because I needed a good screw. OK?”

“Tell me the truth, dammit! That’s all I ever wanted.”

Emma stared at him, her eyes narrowed. “The truth?” she said, shaking her head. “What’s that?” She flipped a switch, shut the top of the box, and stood. “Four minutes. You still have time.”

Jonathan didn’t budge. “You didn’t have to come to London just to tell me that we couldn’t see each other again. You could have done it a hundred different ways. A phone call, for one. It doesn’t fit, Emma. You broke every one of your own rules.”

“So now you’re an expert? You were a decoy. That’s what you were. I was the one who convinced that bunch of doctors in London to book you as their speaker. I allowed you to follow me. I knew I couldn’t blow that car bomb without being spotted. I needed something to take the English police off my trail. It made things easier for me if they were wasting their resources following you.” She checked her wristwatch. “Now get out of here-”

Just then there was a terrific explosion. The entire building shuddered for several seconds, and one of the massive overhead lamps snapped and dropped into the cooling pond. Jonathan fell to a knee, almost toppling into the water. The lights flickered. Giant bubbles rose to the surface of the water. A Klaxon began to wail. Jonathan stood shakily, observing the bubbles that continued to break the surface. He noted with alarm that the water level in the pool was sinking rapidly. Deep below the surface, he could see a gaping hole in the wall where the water was escaping.

Finding his balance, he ran to the far end of the building, where Emma was rising to her feet. “Get up,” he said, grabbing her arms and lifting her. “Turn off the bomb.”

Emma struggled to free herself from his grip. “I can’t do that,” she said, knocking him away.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“Take your pick.”

Jonathan stared at her, seeing her for the first time as she really was. “What kind of monster are you?”

The words ricocheted off Emma, and despite a sudden tic pulling at the corners of her mouth, she might not have heard them. “Get out of here. You still have time. Do you know what will happen when the water dips below the rods? The second the uranium is exposed, it will cook off and bombard this place with gamma radiation. You’ll be roasted like a Christmas goose inside a minute.”

“And what about that one?” said Jonathan, pointing at the box at Emma’s feet.

“That one takes everything up with it. The exposed rods, the building. Everything. Now go.”

But Jonathan stayed put. He looked at his wife and realized that she was a stranger. “Help me, Emma. You can turn off that device. I know you. I know you don’t mean to do this.”

“No, Jonathan, you don’t.”

And then Emma turned and ran away from him, pushing open the nearest door. For a moment he caught her silhouette in the sunlight, and then, without looking back, she was gone.

Jonathan got down on his knees beside the black box. An LED timer on its cover read 1:26. 1:25. He ran his fingers around its sides, but he was unable to feel any hinges or see any screws. No one had bothered searching him since he’d left Paris, and he still had the Swiss Army knife he’d carried for twenty years in his left pocket. Freeing the main blade, he tried to slip it beneath the LED panel. At first it resisted, but he gave the knife an angry shove and the blade slid in. He hammered the knife with his fist, but instead of the LED panel flipping open to reveal its controls, the entire panel popped free of the box, revealing three wires-one red, one blue, one green-ru