'It's too simple. If he used a date at all, it would be a significant one, but one which would be in some way clever or smug. Something which shoved it to the rest of the world.
He wouldn't use something as inane as his birthday. He would use something with meaning.'
“Professor, we don't have much time. What else is there?”
Race tried to remember everything he had heard about Fritz Weber earlier.
He had performed experiments on human subjects.
00:00:15
He had been tried at Nuremberg.
00:00:14
And sentenced to death.
00:00:13
And executed.
00:00:12 Executed.
Executed…
That's it, Race thought.
00:00:11
But when was the date?
00:00:10
'Renee. Quickly. What was the date of Weber's supposed execution?'
00:00:09
'Oh… November 22, 1945.'
00:00:08
November 22, 1945.
00:00:07 Do it.
00:00:06
Race leaned forward, punched in the numbers on the Supernova's keyboard:
ENTER DISARM CODE HERE
11221945
Once he had entered the code—with the sprinkler rain pounding down around him and the timer in front of him rapidly counting down to zero—-Race slammed his finger down on the 'NTR' key.
Beep!
Ehrhardt's cackling stopped as soon as he heard the beep.
Race's face broke out into a wide grin.
Oh my God, I did it…
And then suddenly the Supernova's screen changed:
DISARM CODE ENTERED.
DETONATION COUNTDOWN TERMINATED AT
00:00:04
MINUTES.
ALTERNATE DETONATION SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.
Alternate detonation sequence?
'Oh, damn…“ Race breathed.
His eyes flashed over to the other timer—the one that sat on top of the hydrazine drums on the other side of the
room—the timer that was set permanently at 00:00:05.
The second timer activated, ticked over to 00:00:04.
Ehrhardt's eyes went wide with surprise.
Race's went even wider.
'Oh, man,' he said.
Exactly four seconds later, at the expiration of the abbreviated countdown, the hypergolic fuels in the drums mixed and the walls of the control booth blew out with shocking force.
