The electrician rolled his eyes. “Nice. Probably nonunion goons. Or maybe they're just connected.” He hitched up his tool belt and settled the hard hat squarely on his narrow head. “It's gonna take me half my shift just to clean this up, Tommy. So I don't want to hear any bitching about being off-schedule.”
“You won't hear any from me,” Koslov promised, conspicuously crossing his heart with one beefy paw.
Satisfied for the moment, Rafferty got to work, trying first to untangle the rat's nest of cabling Levy's substitutes had left behind the walls. He peered into one of the open panels, shining a flashlight into a narrow space filled with bundled wiring, pipes, and conduits of all sizes and types.
One strand of loose green wire caught his eye. What was that supposed to be? He tugged gently on it. There was a weight on the other end. Slowly, he reeled the wire in, maneuvering it through the maze, using his long, thin fingers to guide it past obstructions. One end of the wire came into view. It was plugged into a solid block of what looked like some sort of gray moldable compound.
Puzzled, Rafferty stared down at the block for several seconds, wondering what it could possibly be. Then it clicked in his mind. He turned pale. “Jesus… that's plastic explosive—”
The six bombs planted in and around the lab complex exploded simultaneously. Searing white light ripped through the walls and ceiling. The first terrible shock wave tore Rafferty, Koslov, and the other workers inside the lab to shreds. A wall of flame and superheated air roared through the corridors of the half-finished building — incinerating everything and everyone in its path. The enormous force of the blast rippled outward, shattering steel- and-concrete structural supports, snapping them like matchsticks.
Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, one whole side of the IRB shuddered, folded in on itself in a shrieking cacophony of wrenching, tearing steel, and then collapsed. Masses of broken stone and twisted metal cascaded down into the Science Quad. A thick, choking cloud of smoke, pulverized concrete, and dust billowed skyward, lit eerily from within by the surviving construction lights.
An hour later and ten blocks away, the three leaders of a Chicago-based Lazarus Movement action cell met hurriedly inside the top-floor apartment of a Hyde Park brownstone. Still visibly shaken, the two men and one woman — all in their mid-twenties — stood staring at a television in the living room, watching the frantic reports being broadcast live on every local and national news channel.
Sets of construction company coveralls, hard hats, tool kits, and fake ID cards they had laboriously assembled over four months of intensive planning were heaped on a table in the adjoining dining room behind them. A manila folder sat on top of the pile. It contained IRB floor plans downloaded from the University of Chicago Web site. Tightly capped jars of foul-smelling liquids, cans of spray paint, and folded Movement banners were packed in boxes on the hardwood floor next to the table.
“Who would do that?” Frida McFadden asked out loud in confusion. She chewed nervously on the ends of her straight mop of green-dyed hair. “Who would blow up the IRB? It couldn't have been any of our own people. Our orders came straight from the top, from Lazarus himself.”
“I don't have any idea,” her boyfriend answered grimly. Bill Oakes was busy buttoning up the shirt he had thrown on when their phone first rang with the terrible news. He shook his long fair hair out of his eyes impatiently. 'But I do know one thing: We've got to dump all the stuff we were planning to use for our own mission. And soon. Before the cops come pounding on our doors.'
“No shit,” muttered their heavyset companion, the third member of their action cell. Rick Avery scratched at his beard. “But where can we get rid of the gear safely? The lake?”
“It would be found there,” said a quiet mocking voice from behind them. “Or you would be seen throwing your materials into the water.”
Startled, the three Lazarus Movement activists spun around. None of them had heard the locked front door open or close. They found themselves staring at a very tall and very powerfully built man gazing back at them from the central hall separating the living and dining rooms. He was wearing a heavy wool coat.
Oakes recovered first. He stepped forward, with his jaw thrust out belligerently. “Who the hell are you?”
“You may call me Terce,” the green-eyed man said calmly. “And I have something to give you — a gift.” His hand came smoothly out of the pocket of his coat. He pointed the silenced 9mm Walther pistol straight at them.
Frida McFadden cried out softly in fear. Avery stood frozen, with his fingers still tangled in his beard. Only Bill Oakes had the presence of mind to speak. “If you're a cop,” he stammered, “show us your warrant.”
The tall man smiled politely. “Alas, I am not a policeman, Mr. Oakes.”
Oakes felt a shiver run through him in the last second before the Walther coughed. The bullet hit him in the forehead and killed him instantly. He fell back against the television.
The second member of the Horatii swung his pistol slightly to the left and fired again. Avery groaned once and went to his knees, clutching fu-tilely at the blood pumping out of his torn throat. The big auburn-haired man squeezed the trigger a third time, putting this round squarely into the bearded young activist's head.
White-faced with horror, Frida McFadden turned and tried to run for the nearest bedroom. The tall man shot her in the back. She stumbled, fell awkwardly across a futon sofa, and lay moaning, writhing in pain. He shoved the pistol back in his coat pocket, stepped forward, cradled her head in two powerful arms — and then yanked hard, twisting sharply at the same time. Her neck snapped.
The green-eyed man named Terce surveyed the three bodies for several seconds, checking them for any signs of life. Satisfied, he went back to the front door and pulled it open. Two of his men were waiting out on the landing. Each carried a pair of heavy suitcases.
“It's done,” the big man told them. He stood back and let them past. Neither wasted any time looking at the corpses. Anyone who worked closely with one of the Horatii soon grew used to the sight of death.
Working fast, they began unpacking, setting out blocks of plastic explosives, detonators, and timers on the dining room table. One of them, a short, stocky man with Slavic features, indicated the clothing, maps, chemicals, and paint stacked on the table or packed in boxes on the hardwood floor. “What about these things, Terce?”
“Pack them up,” ordered the green-eyed man. “But leave the coveralls, helmets, and their false identity cards. Dump those in with the bomb-making materials you're leaving.”
The Slav shrugged. “The ruse will not fool the police for very long, you realize. When the American authorities run tests, they will not find chemical residues on any of those you killed.”
The tall man nodded. “I know.” He smiled coldly. “But then again, time is on our side — not on theirs.”
The lights in the bar at O'Hare International Airport were turned down very low, in sharp contrast to the blinding fluorescent strips in the corridors and departure lounges just outside. Even this late at night, it was fairly crowded — as jet-lagged and sleep-deprived travelers sought solace in peace, relative quiet, and large doses of alcohol.
Hal Burke sat moodily at a corner table, sipping at the rum-and-Coke he had ordered half an hour before. His flight for Dulles was set to begin
boarding soon. He looked up when Terce slid into the chair across from him. “Well?”
The bigger man showed his teeth, plainly quite pleased with himself. “There were no problems,” he said. “Our information was accurate in every detail. The Chicago Lazarus cell is now leaderless.”
Burke smiled sourly. Their creator's high-level sources inside the Movement had been one of his chief motivations for bringing the eerie, almost inhuman, Horatii into TOCSIN. Though it galled Burke to admit it, those sources were better than any network he had ever been able to develop.
“The Chicago police will see what they expect to see,” Terce went on. “Plastic explosives. Detonators. And false identity papers.”
“Plus three dead bodies,” the CIA officer pointed out. “The cops might wonder a bit about that little detail.”
The other man lifted his shoulders in a quick, dismissive shrug. “Terrorist movements often cannibalize themselves,” he said. “The police may believe the dead were perceived as weak links by their comrades. Or they may suspect that there was a falling-out among different factions within the Movement.”
Burke nodded. Once again, the big auburn-haired man was right. “Hell, it happens,” he agreed. “You put a bunch of radical nutcases with weapons in the same tight space under serious pressure… Well, if some of them snap and go ape-shit on the others, I guess that's not exactly news.”
