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Four teachers sought to organize their sixty or so charges.
Stay in your groups!
The train waited beyond the open blast doors at the back of Chelyabinsk 88. It would be transporting the children for a short pleasure ride. The young ones were occasionally allowed such a luxury, but today the train was on a one-way trip. It would not be returning, coming to a dead stop at the heart of Operation
Saturn.
Behind Savina's shoulders, the old Soviet-era industrial apartments stared down at the children with hollow eyes. The teachers also had the same haunted look despite their bright words.
Did all of you take your medicine? a matronly woman called out.
The medicine was a sedative combined with a radiosensitive compound. While excited now, in another hour the children would be drifting into a disassociated slumber. It would ease any anxiety when the charges blew at the far end of the tu
The group had considered simply euthanizing the children via lethal injection, but such an intimate act of killing strained even the most professional detachment. Plus afterward, all the small limp bodies would have had to been hauled, loaded, and transported to the heart of Operation Saturn. The plan was for the radiation, blasting for weeks as the lake drained, to burn the bodies and denature the DNA beyond examination that is, if anyone ever dared approach the bodies. The radiation levels in the tu
So in the end, the current plan was deemed efficient, minimally cruel, and offered the children one last bit of joy and frivolity.
Still, Savina stood with her arms behind her back. Her hands were clenched together in a white-knuckled grip, necessary to keep from grabbing children and pulling them from the train.
But she had saved ten.
She had to console herself with this reality.
The ten best.
They remained in the apartment building behind her, where the control station for Operation Saturn was located. Once done here, the ten Omega subjects would be transported to the new facility in Moscow. It was time for the project to climb out of the darkness and into the sun.
It would be her legacy.
But such a rise had a cost.
Bright laughter and merry calls trailed behind the last of the children. They argued over who would get to ride in the open ore cars and who would be in the front or rear cabs. Only a few older voices wondered why they were going without any of the adults, but even these sounded more excited than concerned.
With the last of the children loaded, the train hissed, hydraulic brakes sighed, and with a snap of electricity, it rolled off down the tu
The four teachers headed away. No one spoke to anyone. They barely made contact.
Except for a thick-waisted matron in an ankle-length apron. As she passed, she lifted a consoling hand toward Savina, then thought better of it and lowered it again.
You didn't have to come, the woman mumbled.
Savina turned away without a word, not trusting her voice.
Yes Yes, I did.
11:16 A. M.
Pripyat, Ukraine
Gray sat in the back of the limousine. Up front, Rosauro drove, with Luca in the passenger seat. They rocketed past the first checkpoint on their flight out of the city. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone stretched in a thirty-kilometer radius out from the reactor complex. It had two checkpoints, one at the ten-kilometer mark and one at the thirty.
Gray wanted to be outside that second gate before anyone realized something was amiss at the reactor. It would not take long for the dead bodies to be discovered and for the place to be locked down.
Earlier, as Gray and Kowalski had fled overland back to Pripyat from the site of the ceremony, he had called Rosauro on the walkie-talkie that Masterson had supplied him. She had reported an inability to reach Sigma command. He had instructed her to keep trying. By the time Gray arrived at the hotel, lines of communication with Washington had reopened. Rosauro had commandeered one of the limousines. She had also stolen the driver's mobile phone.
Gray clutched the phone now, awaiting a call from Director Crowe. Painter had his hands full over in Washington, but at least Mapplethorpe was out of commission and Sasha was safe.
Gray shared the back of the limousine with Elizabeth and Kowalski. His partner sat bare-chested as Elizabeth treated the gunshot wound to his shoulder.
Quit wiggling!
Well, it goddamn hurts.
It's just iodine.
Sooo, it still stings like a son of a
The woman's scowl silenced any further expletive.
Gray had to give the man credit. Kowalski had saved his life at the hangar by dropping that half-ton steel hook. Though Elena might have done the deed, it had been Kowalski's sharp eyes that had noted the threat and saved him.
Still, they weren't out of danger yet.
Gray turned and stared out at the roll of passing hills, dotted with copses of birches. His heart continued to pound. His mind spun through a hundred different scenarios. As they raced away from Chernobyl, he knew they should be heading somewhere.
Nicolas's last words plagued him: You've not won millions will still die.
What did he mean? Gray knew it had not been an idle threat. Something else was scheduled to happen. Even the name of Nicolas's plan Operation Uranus had bothered Gray before. The name was taken from an old Soviet victory during World
War II against the Germans. But the victory was not won by the single operation alone. It was accomplished via a perfectly executed tandem of strategies. Two operations: Uranus followed by Saturn.
As Gray fled the hangar, Nicolas had hinted as much. Another operation was set to commence, but where and in what form?
The phone finally rang.
Gray flipped it open and pressed it to his ear. Director Crowe?
How are you doing out there? Painter asked.
As well as can be expected.
I've got transportation arranged for you. There's a private airstrip a few miles outside the Exclusion Zone, used to accommodate the ceremony's VIP guests.
British intelligence has offered the use of one of their jets. They're apparently trying to save face for not listening close enough to Professor
Masterson, one of their own former agents. By the way, I've gone ahead and sounded the alarm. Word is spreading like wildfire through intelligence cha
Very good. Gray could not discount that the director's firm voice had helped take the edge off his anxiety. He wasn't alone in this.
You've certainly had a busy day, Commander.
As have you but I don't think it's over.
How do you mean?
Gray related what the Russian senator had said and about his own misgivings.
Hold on, Painter said. I've got Kat Bryant and Malcolm Je
Gray continued, explaining his fears of a second operation, something aimed at a larger number of casualties.
Kowalski also listened as Elizabeth packed a bandage over his wound. Tell them about the jelly beans, he called over.
Gray frowned at him. Back at the hangar, Elena had attempted to warn Kowalski about something before she'd departed to Nicolas's side, but the man had clearly misunderstood, losing something in the translation.
You know, Kowalski pressed. The eighty-eight jelly beans.