Zero Hour

“Your father doesn’t know,” she said. “We have to keep it that way. We can still help him, but he won’t understand.”

“I agree,” Thero said. “He might hate me for it, but it’s for our own good.”

“You helped the others to escape,” she prodded.

Thero nodded. “I gave them a chance and the information. They never knew it was me. I passed notes. Made things possible.”

Inwardly, she cringed, imagining the turmoil. As George, he’d become the informant, he helped the couriers to make it to freedom. But then, as Thero, he hunted them down and had them killed. No wonder every meeting had been blown. There was no leak in the ASIO, the leak was at the source. It meant some information was passing from George’s personality to Thero’s. It made her more nervous than ever, but she had to press on.

“I thought reason might prevail,” George volunteered.

“It still can,” she said eagerly.

“No,” he replied sadly. “They’ve come to kill us again. Only a show of unstoppable force will keep them away now.”

She had to think fast. “I can negotiate with them for you,” she pleaded, squeezing his smooth hand. “The Americans have already promised amnesty,” she lied. “All you have to do is return to the States with them.”

“Amnesty?”

“Yes,” she said. “For you and your father,” she added, doing all she could to keep George’s personality engaged and on the surface.

“Why would they offer that?”

“They’re afraid of the Russians getting their hands on it.”

“They’re working with the Russians,” George said forcefully.

“No,” she said. “The Russians kidnapped us. They want to kill you. But if you get me to a radio, I can bring help.”

George hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“I promise,” she said. “I just need a chance to prove it.”

He stared at her for a long moment, as if pondering what she’d said.

“This is why you reached out to me,” she said, “isn’t it?”

Finally, he nodded. “Come with me.”

He led her down the bank of control panels, stopping in his tracks as he passed the final console.

Hayley saw why. Lying on the floor were several men and a few women. They wore bloodstained lab coats. They’d been shot.

“Father, what have you done?”

Hayley tried to breathe. “We have to hurry, George.”

Thero hesitated. He cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean they were traitors?” he asked the air.

She could see what was happening. “No, George,” she urged. “Don’t talk to him.”

“They worked for you,” he said sharply, as if arguing with his father. “They built this for you.”

A strange trancelike silence gripped Thero, and Hayley sensed him wavering.

“Stay with me!”

Thero hesitated. He stood with clumsy effort and let go of her hand.

“George?” she asked.

“No,” he said softly.

“George?”

“No!”

This time, the words were bellowed at her. The harshness returned to Thero’s eyes with a rush, and he grabbed her by the throat with his right hand and slammed her into the wall. The impact stu

“Please…” she gasped, crying out to the other side of Thero’s mind. “Please!”

Thero released her, and she dropped to the floor beside the heap of bodies.

“How dare you turn my son against me!”

“I didn’t,” she managed. “We were only… trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help!” he shouted. “Or my son’s, for that matter. I will bring the world to its knees. Once they see what I do to Australia, there will be no need for negotiations. They will beg me for mercy.”

He stepped back over to the control panel and shoved the master switch into the on position. She heard the heavy circuit closing and the big generators in the other room switching on. The lights around them dimmed appreciably and then began to brighten.

Soon, the generators were humming, spi

“No,” she begged. “Please, don’t do this.”

“I’m so glad you could be here,” Thero shouted. “I will not even wait for zero hour. I will punish them immediately. And you will watch from my side as I wreak destruction on those who persecuted me.”

Out in the spherical cavern, the gears began to churn, and the giant collection of pipes and electrical conduits began to tilt. The weapon turned slowly, clinking like a roller coaster being dragged up the steep track to its release point.

Hayley found herself dizzy as the weapon slowly ratcheted itself toward a new position, an alignment that would aim the wave of distortion through the Earth’s crust at the dormant rift in the Australian outback.

FORTY-FIVE

Kurt and his three newfound cohorts crept through several lengths of tu

Every twenty feet or so, there was an alcove with a steel door. At the far end of the hall, a single guard sat at a desk, ostensibly watching the hub.

“How’d you get past him the first time?” Kurt asked.

“We waited for him to take a bathroom break,” Masinga replied.

“Unless he’s been drinking coffee all night, I don’t think we have time for that plan to work again. Get ready to use that skeleton key.”

He took a breath and let the tension fall away from his body. Then, calmly, he stepped out into the hall, leveled the Makarov, and advanced at a brisk pace.

When the guard looked up, Kurt had no choice. With two quick pulls, Kurt triggered the gun. The booming report surged through the narrow tu

He didn’t move, but, to Kurt’s surprise, a second guard appeared at the side of the first.

Kurt fired again. The guard crumpled to the ground, but his hand slammed down on an emergency alarm button as he fell.

The shriek of an electronic alarm rang out, and a thick steel-plated door began to close between Kurt and the guard post and whatever was beyond it. Kurt ran forward, but it shut just before he arrived.

Behind him, Masinga was already rushing to the dormlike cells, letting the other prisoners free. They were shouting and thanking him in several different languages. Soon, they were filling the hall and surging toward Kurt, for whatever good it would do them.

Devlin arrived at Kurt’s side before the rest of the mob. “Now what?”

Kurt slid the backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. Opening it revealed the explosives he carried. “Get everyone back into their cells.”

“You’re go

“No other choice,” Kurt said. “Let’s just hope I don’t bring the roof down in the process.”

Kurt’s instincts tended toward overkill. If a small hammer would do the job, a sledgehammer would leave no room for doubt. In this case, he tempered his basic inclinations, placing two bricks of the C-4 beside the door and jabbing a pair of blasting caps into each of them.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” Devlin asked.

Kurt didn’t reply.

“Could it be too much?” Devlin asked.

The wailing alarm was bad enough, Devlin’s questions only made it worse. “I guess we’re going to find out one way or another,” Kurt said. “Now, get these people back.”

As Kurt attached a wire to each of the caps, Devlin backed down the tu

Kurt was soon backing away with them, spooling out the wire as he went. He reached the first of the alcoves and ducked into it. The newly freed prisoners crowded around him as he attached the wires from the detonator to a small handheld device that resembled one of those grip strengtheners te

“What’s that?” Devlin asked.

“Some people call it a clacker,” Kurt said. “It sets off the explosives.”