the dreams of his father, would die here, the maelstrom that would follow never to grow into the fiery inferno certain to consume the world. And when that world was remade it would be in the image chosen by Archer and others like him, an image foreseen by his father.
Starting here. In a mere matter of hours.
“Pacing will not get us there any faster, my friend,” Chernayev told Middleton as their Boeing streaked through the sky en route to Kashmir, General Zang’s airfield well behind them.
Middleton stopped. “We can’t let this happen.”
“And we won’t. My men will be meeting us there. Along with U.S. security forces and Indian security. Sikari’s people will be stopped.”
Middleton slid closer to Chernayev’s seat and glared down at him. “That isn’t good enough. This is the President of the United States we’re talking about. The secretary of state was one thing, but this… ”
“I admit it’s an unexpected complication.”
“Unexpected complication? Is that the best you can do?”
“You didn’t let me finish, comrade. It’s an unexpected complication we must nonetheless not let distract us from destroying Sikari once and for all.”
“Sikari’s dead.”
“But not his cause, his mission. We find this heir of his and we can end this forever.”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
“You speak as if we have a choice. The president is coming here under cover. Even his most trusted advisors, believe he’s sick with the flu in the White House. He is coming to the dam opening to make a statement and nothing we can do can stop him. He’s been made aware of the danger and he’s coming anyway.”
Middleton could feel the heart racing in his chest. “In the face of a threat to his life. Those explosives… ”
“Cannot destroy the dam. We know that now. Remember, we’re not even sure Archer’s there.”
“Then we’re missing something. We’ve been missing it all along.” Middleton thought for a moment. “Sikari’s son couldn’t have anticipated his presence here either.”
“Now what is your point?”
“Everything, all Sikari’s plans, would’ve been based on the secretary of state. Less security. A different upshot to their plans.”
“I don’t follow, comrade.”
“Zang said it for both of you: chaos. That’s what this is about from Archer’s standpoint. To set the world on the road to a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan. You know what that would mean.”
“I’ve read the same studies you have,” Chernayev said, joining Middleton on his feet. “The complete collapse of the world economy. A decade or more of deep depression. And that’s just for starters.”
“A possible but unlikely scenario before. Now, with the president… ”
“Likely, if not inevitable.”
“Exactly,” said Middleton. “Pakistani militants will be blamed for the attack. The United States’ response will be… God, I can’t even find the word.”
“The vision suffices. Pakistan’s retaliation aimed at India because it’s all they have. Destroy our proxy.”
“Nuclear war,” said Middleton. “A world of chaos.”
“Not if we can stop it,” Chernayev told him.
Keeping up the ruse, Tesla wheeled Charley through Srinagar Airport. The airport, and the city known as the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, was located in the heart of the Kashmir Valley a mile above sea level. Tesla knew the inland and low-lying waterways made it the ideal site for the Baglihar dam.
As a smaller airport, this facility offered light security, even token. But the grounds both inside the terminal and out on the tarmac itself were teeming with Indian soldiers and district police.
“What’s going on?” Charley asked, still slumped in her chair to avoid detection.
“Look.” Tesla pointed to a large sign that welcomed visitors to the opening ceremonies of the dam. Then she gasped, “Charley.” She grabbed the younger woman’s arm.
At the bottom of the sign was some information about the dam-size, electrical output and factoids, one of which was that the people displaced by the construction and flooding had been relocated to a beautiful, new town nearby. It was affectionately called “The Village.”
“The warning in Balan’s email! Something’s going to happen here, now.” She stepped to a kiosk and bought a prepaid mobile. When it was activated, she called all of Middleton’s numbers-even his landlines-and sent text messages and emails.
After finishing, she slipped the phone away and wheeled Charley out the door. “If your father can get to any phone or computer, he’ll find out where we are and why.”
“If he’s alive,” Charley muttered.
“Stop it,” Tesla said, though not unkindly. “He’s fine. I know he is. He might even be here. If he knows about the Village.”
“The two of you are fools.”
“What?”
Charley cocked her gaze upward enough to briefly meet Tesla’s stare. “Why bother saving the world if you can’t enjoy it?”
“Charley, please… ”
“No, whatever it is the two of you share, I want you to know I’m fine with it. I’m honestly not sure you have any better idea how to define it than I do. But you need to make sense of it, for your own sakes.”
“Thank you.”
The doors slid open mechanically and Tesla wheeled Charley into the steaming air. It assaulted her skin like a blast furnace, seeming to instantly melt the make-up that had already turned her face into a Halloween mask. Tesla eased the chair up to the curb and raised a hand to hail a taxi.
Almost instantly, a grime-encrusted white sedan screeched forward, cutting off another cab in the queue. A fierce exchange of explosive Hindi shot back and forth and the winning cab, the sedan, pulled up in front of the women. Tesla busied herself with helping the costumed Charley out of the chair and helping her into the backseat. Leaving the airline-issued wheelchair by the curb, she walked around and climbed in the taxi’s driver side.
“What is your destination?” the ancient turbaned driver asked in awkward English. His massively wrinkled face glanced at them in the grimy rearview mirror.
“Take us to the Baglihar dam,” Tesla said.
Archer still had not heard from Jana and was fearing the worst even before word reached him that she was apparently en route to the United States-at least her cell phone was. He wondered if this was some form of cosmic punishment, that taking the life of his father had sentenced him to a life in isolation without the distractions of love and romance. No matter. He was young enough to enjoy the fruits of his labors and eventual power that would come once his work at the dam was done.
Still, he found Jana’s failure to contact him disturbing as he did the anomalies in the picture of the apparently dead daughter of Colonel Harold Middleton. And if Charlotte Middleton was still alive, then so was the female Volunteer Tesla, holding fast to Archer’s trail. It was a good thing he’d taken precautions, another legacy bequeathed him by Sikari himself.
As if on cue, Archer’s scrambled cell phone beeped and he raised it to check the incoming text message from the man he had dispatched to Kashmir.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Middleton stood in the cordoned-off security area, gazing up at the sky in expectation of the president’s arrival. The structure of the Baglihar dam beyond made for a magnificent spectacle. The only thing that even remotely approached it in size and scope was Nevada’s massive Hoover Dam. Then, as now, construction had gone forward in essentially a wilderness; desert for the Hoover, rural unpopulated land for the Baglihar. If the concrete used here was even half what it had been there, Middleton could see no way any explosives short of the nuclear variety, including thermobaric, could possibly destroy the facility. Nor could it result in the kind of collateral damage
