As bad as the scene on that monitor was, the one on the next was worse. A large cargo truck was parked outside the building, the back doors of the vehicle opened to reveal what had to be hundreds of cases of high explosives, the orange Class 1 hazard labels on the boxes clear as day. As he watched, men jumped in with wires and pry bars in their hands to open the crates, rigging them to blow. He remembered Brielle saying Yegor wanted to take down the walls of the containment structure around the reactor, so the radiation from a meltdown would spread even farther.
He started to fill Jake in on what he was seeing when another monitor lit up, freezing him. Yegor, Seamus, Batu, and about a dozen other men were standing in a room full of computers. Behind them was a wall of panels covered in buttons, dials, and LED displays. Adriana and Kristoff were off to one side, one of Yegor’s goons holding a gun to the blond man’s head. Adriana looked terrified and there were blue sparks already sparkling across her skin.
Shit.
“Jake, reactor five is definitely the target,” Sawyer said. “But we need to move fast. They’re already setting up the electromagnets atop the reactor core, rigging a truckload of explosives outside the containment bunker, and Yegor has Adriana starting to spark in the control room. Misty is inside the computer system, but I’m not sure if that’s going to help now. By the way, both Seamus and Batu are in the control room with Yegor.”
Jake cursed. “Erin, Caleb, Harley, and I will head for the control room. Forrest, Elliott, and Jes will take care of the truck. That leaves the reactor room for you, Rory, and Misty, if you can get her out of that damn computer. You need to make sure those magnets don’t get turned on.”
“Copy that,” Sawyer said.
He glanced at Misty, who looked more like a zombie than ever. Something told him that getting her out of the computer wasn’t going to be easy.
* * *
Harley had shot three men in black tactical gear before she, Erin, Caleb, and Jake made it into the building. And even though the others had done as much damage, it barely seemed like they were making a dent in the numbers they were facing. As the four of them charged through the main doors leading toward the control room for reactor five, they were slowed down by a handful of bad guys ahead of them and another group coming up from behind.
STAT had dealt with some tough situations before, but this time, they might be in over their heads.
As they moved through the hallways, the four of them covered each other like they’d been doing it for years. From the corner of her eye, she saw Erin watching Caleb’s back. Man, she was so damn happy the woman had decided to come back. Harley had to admit she hadn’t been so sure when Erin and Elliott had first walked into that microbrewery, but seeing Erin fight to protect Caleb now, she knew it had been the right thing.
She prayed Jake knew where the hell they were going because she simply went into point-and-shoot mode, the MP5 she was carrying firing out regular and rhythmic three-round bursts as targets appeared around her like she was in a video game. Some part of her wondered how a wannabe-school-teacher-turned-werewolf had gotten so natural at pulling a trigger, but then more bullets came her way, and she stopped thinking completely.
As they continued through one corridor after another, Harley heard voices coming through her earpiece—Jes shouting they were encountering stiff resistance in their efforts to reach the explosive-laden vehicle along the backside of the complex and Rory saying they were having problems getting Misty to disconnect from the computer system.
She strained to hear something from Sawyer, but nothing came. She told herself Rory would have said something if Sawyer had been hurt. Still, she couldn’t help but worry a little, even if there was a little voice in the back of her head assuring her she’d know if he was in trouble. Sawyer was her soul mate, even if they hadn’t gotten around to talking that much about it. She would always know if there was something wrong with him. Of that, she had no doubt.
Harley was still lost in thoughts of her soul mate, reloading and firing her weapon on automatic pilot, when the four of them rounded another corner and found themselves in front of a big glass wall, a room full of computers and control panels on the other side.
The reactor control room.
Harley took in the scene in the room. Yegor yelling, Seamus and Batu standing there expressionless, a man in black tactical gear shoving his weapons against the side of Kristoff’s head, Adriana standing by herself near the wall of control panels, sparkling so bright it was like she was glowing from within even as lightning streaked between her and the control panels.
They were too late.
In the second it took for that thought to flicker though Harley’s mind, it happened. Adriana seemed to…erupt. Jagged lines of raw, white electricity ripped through the air, hitting the wall full of computer equipment and one of Yegor’s goons who’d decided to stand too close. Both the panels and the man exploded. Fire, sparks, and pieces went everywhere.
Time seemed to stop as
