dead lover—she wants to get through that badly. She contemplates using explosives against the portal, but figures that this door was designed to withstand anything up to a nuke. So she tears herself away, turns around, and starts climbing up the side of pipe, back into a passageway, taking stock all the while of the noose that’s tightening around her.
The Operative watches his readouts as they show the margin of error vanishing. It’s all over. Haskell’s officially fucked, regardless of which zone-signature she’s hiding behind. The probabilities are dwindling to the point where all her potential routes intersect with one of his formation’s flanks. And those flanks are sweeping together like jaws …
He figured she’d take the route she did. It was predictable enough. He knows how Haskell thinks. After all, he was there when she started thinking. He intends to be there at the end too. Which can’t be far away. He hopes it will be quick. He lets the contours of the war that’s blazing overhead waft through him as he moves forward, bodyguards closing up behind him, following in the wake of his suit’s thrusters.
Find the traitor.
Find the fucking traitor and rip out his fucking heart. Tear his flesh to bits. Gobble his flesh right off the floor. Fucking
Find the traitor.
But other than that, there’s not much in the way of thought. There’s just a set of nerve-reflexes honed to professional levels and looking for a target. Because somewhere in this spaceship there’s a traitor. And loyal SpaceCom soldiers are looking for that traitor. Loyal soldiers just like—
“Linehan.”
Linehan looks around. But there’s no one there. Just more of this shaft that he’s been crawling through, more of the endless innards of the
“Linehan.”
It sounds like it’s right inside his skull. It sounds familiar—like someone Linehan used to know. Someone who knows more about Linehan than maybe even he himself does. Someone who’s become a trait—
“Show yourself,” says Linehan.
“Why?”
“So I can kill you.”
“I don’t think so,” says Stefan Lynx.
“You’re marked for execution.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You’ve betrayed Admiral Szilard.”
“I didn’t
“You were—”
“Trying to get control of his whole fleet.”
“Because you’re Autumn Rain.”
“The original, baby.”
“You tried to use me to kill the admiral but your buddy Carson backstabbed you.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. You’re a traitor.”
“Whatever,” says Lynx. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“That if you can keep me talking long enough your armor can trace me.”
“So far it’s working.”
“But here’s the thing you should be wondering: why the hell haven’t you informed the SpaceCom razor you’ve been paired with that you’ve been chatting with me?”
“What?”
“The SpaceCom razor. The guy who Szilard said go run point in the jungle for. Few score meters back in the shaft behind you, right? I’m sure that guy’s at least a captain. Must be some hotshot razor.”
“He’s tracking you—”
“And he hasn’t found me. So why the hell haven’t you told him that the traitor’s on the line?”
“You’re … fucking with my zone-signal … my software—”
“Sure I am. But tell me why you haven’t even
“I … don’t know. I—”
“I’ll tell you why. Because you’re dickless. Because I’m the fucking Cheshire cat and I’ve sent you my smile to tell you to wake the fuck up. Szilard’s already sold you out.”
“I—what are you talking about?”
“Jesus Christ! Do you leave your brain at the door when you check into Hotel SpaceCom? Did Szilard take out your fucking batteries? Come on, man: the Lizard’s gonna purge you tonight.”
“Prove it.”
“Watch this.”
Abruptly, the train starts slowing. Rocky walls outside the windows become visible as more than just something flickering by. The train keeps on braking, slows even further, hisses to a halt.
But it’s clear all hell is still breaking loose outside. Vibrations keep on rocking through the floor. Apparently the Americans are pressing home their advantage. Everyone’s looking at one another—except the major who’s looking at nothing in particular, save for the readouts in his own head, affording him a vantage that’s more advantaged than anyone else in the car. He exhales slowly—stands up, straightens out his uniform, and starts heading toward the door to the next car.
“The rats are leaving the ship,” says someone.
“We’re supposed to stay
“So stay,” says the major. The car door opens and he goes through as it slides shut behind him. He triggers override codes, locks it shut. He’s in a freight car now—he makes his way through the narrow passage between the metal crates. He moves into the next freight car, and then the next.
Two more cars, and he’s arrived at a door that’s different than the ones he’s been through. It looks to be a great deal thicker. It’s still no match for his codes. It slides open, and he walks on through into the train’s cockpit. The driver and engineer whirl toward him, their expressions just short of priceless.
Spencer and Sarmax get busy getting moving, through the trapdoor in the floor and down into the rooms beneath them. Those rooms are just as packed with nukes as the ones they left. They contain trapdoors that lead to shafts that lead to—
“Fuck,” says Sarmax.
“We really shouldn’t go in there,” says Spencer.
“Not unless we’re feeling lucky.”
Or just really stupid. The shafts below this point aren’t intended for humans. Just nukes, getting slotted through at high speed. Meaning that—
“We’re trapped.”
“Maybe,” says Spencer.
“How many routes are there out of here?”
Depends how you count. The zone’s still down, but Spencer got enough of a glimpse of this area before the lights went out to be able to map it out: a series of interlocking rooms, all of them packed with the fissile material that’s both cargo and fuel. Spencer’s trying to calibrate these rooms against the larger superstructure of the thing they’re in, trying to make some calculations that are really just educated guesses. He’s got no time for anything else.
“This way,” he says, and starts moving through doors that lead to yet more of these rooms that are starting to drive him crazy. He wonders why the Eurasians didn’t just build one big storage chamber. He knows the answer
