Booker. He pointed the pistol at the physicist’s head.
“Put the capacitors and timer back into the backpack with your left hand,” he said. “Do it slowly and carefully. Then set it down next to me.” His voice was firm, deliberate. He moved a few steps closer to the edge of the fissure.
Atkins realized Jacobs was going to kick the bag over the side.
“I’m afraid I can’t, Walt,” Booker said. He sat down, both hands clutching the blue backpack to his chest. “I’m not trying to be brave or stupid. But you’ll have to shoot me to get this. Do you really want to kill me?”
Elizabeth was standing next to Murray and Wren. She gestured to the on-off switch for their headlamps. It was on the battery pack attached to their belts. They understood. So did Atkins, who’d noticed what she’d done.
Jacobs fired a shot at Booker’s feet. The explosion was deafening. The earsplitting echo blasted back through the tunnels.
“Put the pack down, doctor,” Jacobs repeated, his face hard-set. “I’ll shoot you if I have to.” The pistol practically touched Booker’s forehead.
Calmly staring at Jacobs, Booker continued to hold the backpack on his lap. gripping the sides.
“Fred, give it to him,” Atkins pleaded. He realized that Jacobs’ change of heart about a nuclear explosion had been a ruse. He’d gone to some trouble to pull this off. Shown a lot of nerve. He’d kill Booker. Atkins didn’t doubt it for a moment.
Booker said, “Are you completely sure you’re right about this, Walt?”
“For the last time. Give it to me,” Jacobs repeated.
Booker set the backpack down on the ground.
“Turn out your lights!” Elizabeth shouted.
Within seconds, everyone switched off their headlamps. Jacobs pivoted, trying to keep all of them in sight, but the sweeping arc of his light wasn’t wide enough for him to see everyone. He missed Atkins, who ducked down and crawled to his left, toward the collapsed man shaft.
“Stop right there!” Jacobs shouted. He’d heard movement in the darkness that pressed in around him. He turned just as Atkins lunged at him from the side, catching him hard around the waist and driving him to the ground.
The impact knocked Jacobs’ helmet off. The lamp disconnected. Atkins groped for Jacobs’ hands. He was trying to get the pistol. He couldn’t remember where the edge of the crevasse was. He sensed they were very close to it.
There was another shot, a ringing explosion close to his ear. Atkins gripped Jacobs’ gun hand. He felt the hot barrel of the pistol and was suddenly aware of light. Elizabeth and the others had switched on their headlamps. Atkins got a close look at Jacobs’ twisted face. His eyes were bulging with rage. He looked like someone else.
Something crashed against the side of his hard hat. Jacobs had hit him with the pistol. Atkins let go.
Jacobs scrambled to his knees, clutching the backpack.
They’d rolled to within a few feet of the crevasse.
Murray stepped toward Jacobs, who whirled and fired, the gun roaring. The shot missed him. Murray, everyone, dropped to the floor of the tunnel. Jacobs fired at the bomb. Then another, the bullets making a slapping sound when they ricocheted off the metal casing.
Atkins grabbed Jacobs around the legs. Jacobs swung down hard with the pistol, slashing at him, clipping him on the shoulder blade. The pain burned, but he managed to hold on. Jacobs chopped at him again, and this time Atkins grabbed his gun hand and bent it back sharply at the wrist.
Crying out in pain and anger, Jacobs dropped the weapon. He pulled away, chest heaving, and stepped toward the dropoff. He still gripped the backpack.
“Walt!” Elizabeth screamed. “For God’s sake, let’s talk!”
Jacobs hesitated. He looked at her, his expression softening. He was only inches from the edge.
“Don’t do it, please.”
Atkins could see his friend’s fear and anguish. The man had lost his wife and daughter, everything. He wasn’t going to lose this last battle. Atkins wanted to help him. He slowly reached out his hand.
“Walt, take it.”
He said it over and over, begging his friend to take his hand.
Jacobs took a slow, deep breath, clutched the backpack to his chest, and threw himself backward into the crevasse.
NEAR KALER, KENTUCKY
JANUARY 20
11:20 A.M.
ELIZABETH DROPPED TO HER KNEES AND CRAWLED to the edge. She looked down, her headlamp playing on the walls. Jacobs had disappeared, swallowed up in the deep black hole.
Atkins put his arm around her waist and gently pulled her back. His shoulder throbbed where Jacobs had struck him with the pistol.
Elizabeth shook her head. “John, what happened to him?” She could only imagine what losing his family had done to him, how it must have affected his reason. Their deaths, compounded by the overwhelming destruction he’d lived with for days in Memphis. It was too much for him.
Atkins was in awe of what his friend had done. It left him speechless.
Murray walked to the edge of the hole and stood there, staring down into the blackness. His legs spread slightly for balance, knees bent, he looked perfectly at ease. Weston and Wren also inched forward to take a look. Both quickly stepped back.
Weston said, “That could be a thousand feet deep.”
Murray shook his head. “More,” he said. “I’ve looked down some deep holes in my day. I was listening hard. I didn’t hear that man hit the bottom.”
“What exactly was in the backpack he took with him?” Wren asked Booker. “What’s the damage?”
Booker didn’t answer. Bent over the weapon, he was carefully feeling the casing with his fingertips, searching for bullet holes. One of the slugs had skipped off the metal hard case. The other had penetrated the housing an inch from the weapon’s nuclear package. Booker couldn’t believe it when he saw the hole.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “A bullet from a handgun shouldn’t be able to penetrate a missile’s hard case.” He looked astonished. “If it had hit two inches more to the left, we’d all be dead.”
“From an explosion?” Murray asked.
Booker said, “From plutonium radiation escaping from the primary. We would have received a lethal dose in about two seconds.”
Repeating his earlier question, Wren wanted to know what was in the backpack that Jacobs had grabbed before he went over the edge.
So did Atkins.
“The batteries and timer,” Booker said matter-of-factly. He continued to examine the surface of the bomb.
“Then how are we going to do this?” Wren said in a screaming burst of anger. It was the first time Atkins had seen him lose his composure. Normally easygoing, the young geologist looked like he’d finally reached the breaking point.
“What about the capacitors?” Elizabeth asked.
Booker stood up. “They’re right here,” he said, smiling as he patted the pocket of his heavy jumpsuit. He removed a small package of electrical components. “When all the lights were out, I managed to slip it out of the pack before Walt grabbed it. It’s the only part that’s crucial to the detonation. The only one I couldn’t do without.”
“We still need batteries and a timer,” Atkins said.
“That’s not a significant problem,” Booker said. “We can use batteries from the flashlights. And I’ve got a
