The Reckoning (Unbounded Series #4) (22 page)

Plutonium was a heavy metal at about seven hundred and fifteen pounds per cubic inch. About twenty-two pounds were required to make a bomb. While I had no idea how much plutonium was inside the cask, I was sure the packaging weighed far more than the actual plutonium. The double containers were normally built to withstand a two-thousand-foot drop from an airplane, submersion in water for eight hours, and thirty minutes in fire. A cask would also prevent plutonium leaks during transportation that might cause mortals exposure and endanger their lives. In theory, moving the cask was perfectly safe.

The corridor seemed twice its previous length, and I contemplated opening the box and removing just the plutonium. But I knew it had been packed precisely to avoid forming a critical mass which could then start a chain reaction, so messing with it really wasn’t wise. So I tugged the cask along the corridor, realizing I wouldn’t be able to get it up the narrow stairs alone. How many minutes had passed?

A soft clink drew my attention to the staircase, and I pulled out a gun, reaching with my thoughts. To my relief, it was Keene, his mind unblocked. He was looking for me.

I felt a rush of gratitude.
Keene,
I pushed into his mind,
I’m here with the plutonium. It’s safe.

He came fast down the stairs toward me, bending briefly to look at Jonny. They had been friends once. “Anyone else?” he asked.

“No. But this is too heavy. Awkward. We’ll need one of the others.” I wanted to ask how he’d been able to rid himself of his opponent when Stella hadn’t been able to, but now was not the time to ask. Maybe the agent he’d faced hadn’t been gifted in combat.

“There’s not much time,” I added.

“I can do it.”

He hadn’t reached me, but all at once the weight of the container lightened, and my next tug sent it hurtling toward me, and I flattened against the side to let it careen past, wincing as it ran over my toes. Keene leaned over and caught it.

“Keene, you—” I broke off.

“Yeah,” he said, irony seeping into his voice. “It seems I share a variation of my father and my brother’s ability to see patterns on an atomic level. Not to understand how they interact, but to change them, or at least to increase them. Efforts people make like you did when you pulled that cask. Or I can make physical things change.” He glanced at the cask between us. “I start it, and it continues almost on its own.”

I remembered beginning to fall at the old house, and how I’d felt something pushing me up as I’d scrabbled for purchase on the window. And imagining the support when I’d nearly collapsed in the woods.

Keene. Had he increased my effort or
added
to the air around me? Or maybe both.

Just now, before he’d spoken, I’d guessed some sort of telekinesis, at least as far as being able to lift something without touching it, but it seemed I was a bit off.

Far off.

I wondered how many generations it had taken and how many experiments the Emporium had conducted to rebirth that ability. And what they’d do to get him back once they heard.

“It’s rather difficult to control.” In his thoughts, I saw what he wasn’t saying, how he’d tried to stop the fire in the employee condo but instead had helped trap himself and Mari.

“Maybe that’s just in the beginning,” I told him. After my Change, all I’d felt were impressions of emotions, and now I was blasting people’s minds with flashes of light or forcing their limbs to move the way I wanted. If I stopped to think about the continual developments, I might go crazy.

Keene inclined his head, apparently not willing to agree but hoping I was right. “Let’s get this up.”

“They’re sending a chopper. We have to warn the others.” Oddly enough—or maybe not so oddly—now that he was close, I had enough strength to reach out to Ritter. I found him sprinting toward the cabin, having finished off both his and Stella’s opponents.

Emporium chopper coming,
I told him.
I’ve got the plutonium. Joining you now.
His satisfaction mirrored my own.

I turned my attention back to Keene. “It’s working on me. Your ability—it makes me stronger.”

He shrugged. “You look beat.”

“Just don’t blow me up.”

That got a smile from him. “You’ll be fine. I just excited a few atoms.”

“Hopefully, they’ll go back to the right place when we’re finished.”

“I’m not promising anything,” he said with a laugh.

Together, we hefted the plutonium cask, seeming much lighter now with his effort. I hoped he knew well enough to stay away from trying anything with the plutonium or the cask itself. The last thing we needed was a critical mass.

Now I understood how Keene had beaten the Emporium agent so quickly. He must have experimented with his ability. I was glad for him, glad that he had something more to focus on, an ability that might have some real teeth. And also happy about the very short glimpse I had of him and Mari stuck in a closet at the employee condo. Of course his erratic heartbeat could have had more to do with the fire than her presence, but it might mean something more. A chord of nostalgia rang inside my chest, making me recall the moment I might have chosen to be the woman in his life.

When we made it back to the moonlit deck, Ritter and Jace were readying their rocket launchers. The sound of chopper rotors thumped faintly in the wind.

“Erin!” Stella shouted from the side of the boat where I had boarded. “I need some help here!”

Leaving Keene with the cask, I joined her near a sprawled figure. Jeane. She’d taken a bullet to the chest and was dead—at least temporarily. Her life force barely glowed, so it wasn’t a wonder I couldn’t see it earlier. Maybe I’d have to forgive her for not helping us out.

Stella had activated Jeane’s life jacket and connected a tow rope to the latch. “Once I’m in the water, throw her over. I’ll make sure she gets to the shore. I’ve already called Mari to pick us up. She’s tracking us now. Here’s the raft for the plutonium.”

Stella shoved the raft into my hands. It was nothing more than a thick Styrofoam board that was wider but not quite as long as the cask itself. I laid it on the deck as Stella disappeared over the side. I heaved Jeane over after, making sure she didn’t hit the side of the boat on the way down.

“Go,” Keene said, appearing behind me. “I’ll lower the plutonium.” He began unraveling a length of rope.

I nodded, glancing behind him at Jace and Ritter, who were barely visible in the dark. The sound of the chopper was louder now, but they were waiting for a visual to fire. With all the trees near the river, that might not give them much lead time.

I jumped from the boat with the plutonium raft, the shock of the cold water momentarily engulfing me. Triggering my life jacket, I waited as Keene lowered the plutonium. At first I worried that the raft would sink. But as soon as I’d hit the water, little fans in the bottom activated, buoying it—and me—up. After securing the cask as best I could while treading water, I pushed off after Stella. We had to get out of here before the Emporium arrived.

Behind me I heard two loud explosions and saw flashes of light. A chopper careened toward the boat, slamming into it and exploding in a deafening roar and a rush of fire. But there were more chopper sounds that were growing louder by the moment. Kicking hard, I made it to the side of the river where Stella helped me drag the plutonium onto the bank. Keene joined us as another explosion rocked the sky.

Stella carried Jeane, while Keene and I brought the cask. We’d gone only a hundred feet when Ritter and Jace came up from behind. Ritter took my side of the cask. “Speed it up, folks, we’re about to have a lot of company.”

I risked a glance behind and saw that the boat was burning. Was it wrong of me to hope the Emporium could put it out before Jonny suffered too much? Fire wouldn’t kill him, but it made for a painful recovery. Despite all his delusions, I had a soft spot for my would-be brother.

Mari wasn’t long in catching up to us, and I breathed a sigh of relief as we loaded the plutonium into the back of the SUV.

“What now?” Mari asked, relinquishing her place behind the wheel to Jace, whose energy level seemed to have increased with the fighting.

“Now we separate.” Ritter tossed me a new earbud to replace my damaged one, a line of worry creasing his forehead.

“Cort sent several text messages about activity where the Emporium is holding the factory employees.” His eyes caught mine and held. “I don’t know what the situation is, but Cort and Shadrach need help, and you and Mari are the only ones who can get there fast enough. Jace and I will join you as soon as we rendezvous with the CIA.”

His eyes were asking if I was up to it, so I nodded. “Let’s go, Mari.” I reached out and touched her arm. I knew my action would signal, at least to Ritter, that I wasn’t quite up to my usual strength, since touch enhanced my ability, but preserving what strength I had left was more important than my pride. This was almost over, and then I’d get that monster out of my head once and for all.

WE APPEARED IN THE WOODS
behind the employee prison where pandemonium reigned. Guards were everywhere, gesturing with assault rifles at the employees who spilled from the house, half-dressed, to join others who had apparently just arrived from the factory in the predawn morning. Several cars had accompanied the van, and those drivers were begging the guards to let them go home to their families. I assumed those were local employees, who hadn’t been held before. Something had changed.

The guards had their mind shields in place, but their countenances were dark and sinister, and I knew they were about to commit atrocities that would haunt me for months to come—if I couldn’t stop them.

I searched the trees for the two life forces of our friends and gestured to Mari for us to shift there. We reappeared behind them, far enough away that we wouldn’t startle them. “Cort,” I called softly to the men, who were little more than shadows crouching under a tree.

He turned, his weapon ready, but no surprise emanated from his surface thoughts, so Ritter must have warned him we were coming. I wanted to tell him about Keene and his ability, but it wasn’t my place.

“We listened with Stella’s spybot, and the guards have confirmed that the Emporium can’t risk any connection to the factory, not if it’s linked to Iran or terrorism,” Cort said as we approached. The knit cap pulled over his blond hair somehow made him appear deadly, far from his normally bookish demeanor. “Their orders are to get rid of all witnesses and to raze this place. They have a big pit prepared about thirty yards out from the house. We found it an hour ago. They still have an old backhoe there. Looks like they’re planning a mass grave.”

I couldn’t even respond to that idea, but my silence must have testified of my disbelief because Shadrach said, “They’ve done it before. It’s deep enough not to be a problem with small game or the smell, even if they didn’t own the land out here.”

“All this because your son talked with a reporter?” I was having a hard time believing it.

“It’s probably more to hide the origin of the plutonium,” Shadrach said. “They’re making sure no word gets out.”

Mari made a sound in her throat. “Well, they’ve already figured out that someone knows about the plutonium since we just stole it.”

“Which makes this cleanup even more necessary,” Cort said, the tightness in his voice betraying his worry. “Gives the Emporium time to concentrate their efforts in other areas before people start connecting the dots. While that might mean they’ve abandoned the plutonium idea for the moment, it could also mean they have something even worse underway.” He stood, keeping behind the tree, though it was so dark where we were that the Emporium agents couldn’t possibly see us. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The employees were in full panic mode, knowing something wasn’t right. If they had previously believed they would be released once their job was finished, they understood now that wasn’t happening. I could feel their emotional anguish and fear—a loud cacophony, which echoed the crying and pleadings going on in front of the house. I thought of Dr. Francis Crandall, but I couldn’t find him in the dozens of milling people. I still had the photograph of his letter back at the hotel with the rest of my gear.

The guards were yelling and pushing the people into a pack, using cruel voices that evoked even more fear. A few bolted, and they met with the butt of a rifle, most needing to be helped up afterward by their fellow prisoners. No shots yet, so obviously these guards wanted all the evidence in the pit so they wouldn’t have to clean up stray bodies after the deed.

“We’ll hit them at the far edge of the clearing,” Cort said, “before they disappear into those trees. Erin, you shift to the right side and Mari to the left. We’ll fan out over here. Keep out of sight in the trees for as long as possible. Each of us will take the two guards closest to us. If there is any doubt, talk it out.”

Only two?
There seemed to be more than eight, but Cort would have made a complete count. I put in the earbud and mic Ritter had given me.

“Afterward, we’ll get those people out of here as fast as we can in case more soldiers come.”