the wall beside the entrance to the crypt. The fall was excruciating and he almost lost consciousness. He groaned as he fought the urge to cry out, his breathing growing shorter and more rapid, and then the pain slowly became more manageable once again and he looked around.
Soldiers were making their way carefully forward along all three walkways towards them.
‘Tell them there’s a bomb and to stay back,’ Stratton said.
Gabriel looked at the soldiers and then back at Stratton.
‘Why?’
‘Tell them,’ Stratton said as forcefully as he could.
‘What difference does it make? They’re all going to die anyway.’
Stratton looked at him coldly. ‘Do what I said.’
Gabriel could not see the point, but faced the walkways anyway, suddenly unsure how to say what was really not a difficult thing to communicate.
‘There’s a bomb,’ he said, nowhere near loud enough for them to hear. He could not remember the last time he had raised his voice and it felt awkward. He cupped his hands over his mouth. ‘There’s a bomb,’ he said louder. ‘Stay back . . . A bomb,’ he repeated along all three walkways. ‘Stay back.’
The soldiers who understood English relayed the message to those who did not or could not hear. They were well experienced with bombs and quickly moved to more solid cover while an officer and a radio operator in the centre walkway moved back until they were out of view.
‘What was the point of that? It’s going to explode and kill everyone for miles.’
‘Gabriel,’ Stratton said. ‘Can you see the bomb? Inside.’
Gabriel walked to the door of the crypt, grimaced at the sight of Zhilev’s bloody corpse, and stepped over him to lean inside. ‘It’s on the table.’
‘How’s it look?’ Stratton asked. ‘Any sign of life?’
Stratton did not know what to expect but any information would be welcome at this stage.
Gabriel stepped inside the small, dank, dark room, the stone walls and domed ceiling darkened by centuries of candles and oil lamps. The only furnishings were an icon and crucifix on one wall, a chair and a small table with a dull metal sphere on it, slightly oblong, similar to a rugby ball but a little bigger. He stepped to the table and leaned over it to see the control panel. There were no flashing lights, dials, or digital countdown clock. The only indication of life was the grey LED bar which Gabriel had to lean closer to see. A thin black line was passing slowly along it from left to right.
He stepped back through the door and into the walkway.
‘It appears to be doing something,’ Gabriel said.
That’s all Stratton needed to hear.There was nothing more for it but the final Neanderthal phase of the operation. ‘You need to break it open,’ he said.
‘Break it open?’
‘Yes.’
Gabriel looked confused. ‘Why? It’s going to explode. We’re all going to die anyway.’
‘I want you to break it open and remove the plutonium core.’
Gabriel was dumbfounded. ‘But there’s no point,’ he said.
‘Now you listen to me,’ Stratton said, anger creeping into his strained voice. ‘I don’t give a damn what you thought you saw in your daydream. I had a daydream too and it was me, walking out of here and going home, and it wasn’t as a ghost. That atom bomb is little more than a ball of plutonium surrounded by explosive. The explosive sets off the nuclear chain reaction. The device is designed not to initiate by accident or tampering. Its most important features are its safety protocols. Now I don’t know for certain, but it seems to me you could break it open and remove the plutonium without detonating it.You have more chance of stopping it blowing than you do of setting it off.’ Stratton stopped to deal with a bout of intense pain and concentrated on Zhilev’s Uzi on the ground beside him. When the pain reduced, he picked up the Uzi and pointed the barrel at Gabriel.
‘If you don’t I’m going to upset your plans of dying in a nuclear blast by shooting you through the fucking heart, right now.’
Gabriel looked at the weapon in Stratton’s hand, unaware the magazine was spent.
‘Which is it going to be?’ Stratton said. ‘If I have to blow you away, I’ll go and do it myself.’
Gabriel believed the bastard would do it too. But he was unfazed. He did not believe Stratton could save the day and did believe that his viewing had been accurate. He was strangely serene by the time he had walked to the old city. All the fears and depressions of the past few weeks had melted away as he came to terms with his destiny.The one beautiful thing that had come out of it was that he finally believed in himself and it felt good. He was not afraid of death now, and therefore Stratton’s threat was meaningless to him. He even had the courage to smile.
Stratton could see the change in the man and the genuine contempt in his eyes for Stratton and his gun. His threat to try and defuse the bomb himself was a bluff. He would try, but he did not think he would have the strength to succeed. He maintained his determined gaze, but he felt his control of Gabriel slip away.
‘What difference does it make?’ Gabriel finally said. ‘Tell you what, Stratton. Since it’s your last wish, I’ll grant you it, but you have to do something for me in return.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Pray to God and ask him for forgiveness for all you’ve done in your life. I don’t know what that is, but I’m damn sure a lot of it didn’t please him any.’
Gabriel stepped into the crypt.
Stratton dropped the Uzi, unable to hold it any longer, and contemplated Gabriel’s words. The man had a point, but asking God for forgiveness now, just before he was likely to die, seemed to him like the actions of a creep. Apologising for a wrongdoing when all other options had gone was not a real apology in his eyes. Apologise when you don’t need to and it means something.
Stratton took a shallow breath and felt dizzy. He was not getting enough oxygen. He found the bullet hole in his shirt and, biting on the pain, tore it open to reveal the hole in his chest. The blood bubbling out of it with every exhale of breath was frothy. The only good news about a bullet through the chest was that there were no major organs or arteries in front of or behind the lungs, only ribs and muscle. Bleeding to death would be unlikely and as long as one lung was working properly, life was sustainable. The bad news was that the lung could collapse and come to rest against the heart causing it to spasm and stop beating. He could lie on his side but that guaranteed nothing.The only way to ensure survival until he could get to a hospital and be patched up was to re-inflate the lung.
Stratton looked around on the ground for anything he might be able to use and saw a photograph. His eyes moved on and found another that he could not ignore. It was a picture of Zhilev and his brother, standing in the snow, arms around each other and smiling broadly. A stab of pain reminded him of his immediate needs and he disconnected from the photo and picked up a small piece of plastic wrapping beside it. As he took a breath, the frothy blood immediately around the hole was sucked back inside. He placed the plastic over the bloody hole to seal it. It did not matter how filthy it was since dying of infection was a low priority. But placing the plastic over the hole was not enough. That only blocked it; he needed to get air back into the deflating lung and that required a valve. He noticed a piece of masking tape on the side of the Uzi with the owner’s name and number on it. Using the tape, he stuck the piece of plastic to his chest, the tape placed above the hole so that the plastic flapped down over it. As he breathed in, the plastic blocked the hole, and as he exhaled, it allowed some of the air in the chest cavity to escape. With each breath, the lung would eventually inflate again. He dropped his hands to the ground, the effort exhausting him. It was all now up to Gabriel.
Gabriel stood inside the crypt looking at the device that appeared every bit as evil as it was. He wondered what kind of sick mind had invented such a weapon, and what even sicker one would use it. Zhilev had such a mind, but he had paid the price.
Gabriel ran a hand over it. The dull metal was cold. For some reason he had expected it to be hot, such was the stigma of the weapon. On reflection, cold suited it better. The worst killers were always cold.
He rolled it over carefully and was then amused at his own stupidity. He had come to break it open and here he was treating it with reverence, a forgivable reaction perhaps for a thing of such power.
He picked it up, surprised to find it heavier than it looked, and rolled it over in his hands searching for an
