Around them, the prisoners ducked and covered their ears. Fortunately for Kurt, the clacker was a tiny generator, not a battery-powered object or it would have been drained by the flash-draw that took out the snowmobile.

“Ready?”

Devlin and Masinga nodded in unison. With a quick compression, Kurt squeezed the clacker. The action sent a tiny electrical pulse racing down the wire. The pulse set off the blasting caps, which in turn detonated the C-4.

A thunderous explosion racked the subterranean halls, and a concussion wave surged down the tunnel and into the alcove. Kurt felt the air knocked out of him and was thrown to the ground along with everyone else in the cavern.

Getting up quickly, he fought his way through clouds of dust and down the tunnel. As he neared the far end, the dust began to clear. He saw light and an open room ahead. The door lay on its side.

Stepping into the hall, Kurt found no resistance. “It’s clear,” he shouted. “Let’s go.”

Devlin and Masinga came running up first. Kurt handed them weapons taken from the dead guards, and the three of them moved out with the crowd of prisoners close behind.

The shrill call of the alarm caught Thero’s attention as he began to run through the start-up checklist. He paused, wondering what could be happening.

As he waited, Hayley called out, “George, it doesn’t have to be like this. Tell your father there’s another way.”

Thero looked to his left. His son was there, staring at Hayley like a lovesick schoolboy.

“Don’t listen to her,” Thero shouted. “She never cared for us. She would have come to Japan if she had. She betrayed us and brought these men to our door.”

“I only want to help,” Hayley said.

Thero was trying to concentrate on the start-up procedure. He had no time for his son’s weakness.

“I can get you out of here,” Hayley said. “Both of you. You can fulfill all your dreams peacefully. You know that’s what you really want. You know that’s the right thing to do.”

Thero began to feel confused. His son urged him to reconsider. “Father, I think—”

A reverberating explosion shook the room. It came from somewhere deep in the cavern. Thero’s mind cleared. The alarm, the explosion. They were under attack.

When Thero looked up, George was gone. He must have run off somewhere. “Coward!”

“Please!” Hayley cried.

“Silence!” Thero shouted. He didn’t have time to worry about his son anymore, he had to strike before he was trapped and buried like the last time in Yagishiri. Even if they stopped him, he would lash out and wound the world for what they’d done.

“If you do this,” Hayley said, “they’ll know where you are. They’ll come here and destroy this place and you along with it.”

Thero looked down at her and stepped closer. “Of course they will,” he said. “But I’ll be gone. And I’ll take what they threatened me with to use against them.”

He pointed to an object resting by the wall. The Russian suitcase bomb. He could either use it to obliterate some enemy or sell it for millions.

Thero saw the fear in her eyes as she stared. He relished it and went back to his console, reaching over to the intercom and switching it on.

“Janko!” he shouted. “What’s happening?”

“We’re under attack,” Janko said. “Must have been…”

The staccato sound of gunfire blocked out the rest of Janko’s statement.

“Janko?”

“They’ve released the workers,” Janko shouted. “There’s a riot down here. We’re being overwhelmed.”

“Bring your men up here,” Thero ordered. “We can hold them off from the control room.”

“I’ll send them now,” Janko said, his words punctuated by another blast of gunfire.

Thero turned his attention back to the power grid. The levels were coming up. As soon as they reached the green margin, he began the initiation sequence, and the first ghosts of effervescent light began flittering through the cave on the other side of the window.

The sight mesmerized him, as it had always done before. So much so, he never saw Hayley Anderson sneak up on him.

She tackled him and threw a punch into his face, but Thero had few nerve endings left there. He felt the impact and little more. Enraged further, he flung her off and slammed her head against the console, knocking her cold.

He felt a short spasm of remorse, but it passed. She deserved it. Another traitor.

He stood and went to the window. The orb had locked itself into place. Target: Australia. The system was beginning to draw energy from the zero-point field.

It wouldn’t be long now.

FORTY-SIX

With the gale rising in strength, Paul and the other NUMA commandos had a difficult time boarding the MV Rama, but once they were aboard, things calmed down. They marched to the bridge and took over command of the ship.

The Vietnamese captain then led them to the sick bay, where Captain Winslow and four members of the Orion’s crew were being held. They also found several of the Russian commandos laid up and dehydrated.

“Grab their weapons,” Paul said to the Gemini’s chief. As his men traded in their wooden rifles for real ones, Paul felt a sense of control building.

He made his way to Captain Winslow, who eyed him strangely.

“Paul?” the captain said, glancing at the Australian flag armband. “You make a career change recently?”

“Sort of,” Paul said. “Gemini is standing by to help. What’s the story here?”

Winslow explained about the sinking of the Orion and the rescue/abduction of the survivors at the hands of the Russians.

“How’d you get control of the ship?” Paul asked.

“Obviously, we didn’t.”

“But this ship’s been tracing out the path of the constellation of Orion for the past thirty hours,” Paul said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

Winslow smiled. “Kurt,” he explained. “He had those Russians chasing their tails. Zigzagging all over the place. He said it was to keep the final destination secret. Who’d have thought he was sending up a message at the same time.”

“Where is he?” Paul said. “We haven’t found him.”

“The Russians took him, Joe, and the Australian woman with them. They’re staging some kind of raid on Heard Island. That’s where Thero’s base is. That’s where he’s hiding.”

Paul turned to the Vietnamese captain. “Where’s your communications center?”

The news that Kurt, Joe, and at least some of the Orion’s crew had survived was met with joy in Washington, D.C. It was tempered by the hands of the clock. Zero hour was a hundred and twenty minutes away.

Pitt looked at Heard Island on the map. Printouts of the Russian spy photos indicating Thero’s assumed location were coming through on the fax machine. The more Pitt studied them, the more precarious the situation appeared.

“Everything this guy has done is underground,” Pitt said. “Looks like he followed the pattern here. I have to give this info to the NSA.”

Yaeger looked grim. “They’re going to put a spread of missiles on that target.”

“I know,” Pitt said unemotionally.

Yaeger leaned in close. “Kurt and Joe are probably there right now.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Pitt said.

“So they’ve been brought back from the dead just to be obliterated by Tomahawk missiles from our own submarines?”

Pitt glanced up at his old friend without a hint of malice. He understood exactly what Yaeger was saying. “I don’t do this lightly, Hiram. But we have no other choice.”

He pressed the intercom button. “Get me Jim Culver at the NSA.”

FORTY-SEVEN

Joe Zavala felt the rumble of the explosion as it surged through the cave. He and Gregorovich pricked up their ears and soon heard gunfire. It sounded as if a chaotic battle were raging in the cavern.