The Midas Legacy (Wilde/Chase 12) (42 page)

‘This’ll destabilise the entire Gulf,’ added Nina. ‘Iran only just stopped its nuclear weapons programme – how do you think they’ll react to having one of their biggest enemies getting hold of them?’

‘They will buy them from us also,’ said Kang smugly. ‘An agreement has been made.’

‘Violating a treaty that took years to work out?’

‘The Iranian treaty will not be violated,’ Mikkelsson said. ‘I know, I helped negotiate it. It prevents Iran from developing its own nuclear fission weapons using uranium from its existing facilities. It does not stop them from buying plutonium-based
fusion
weapons from other nations. The importation of weapons systems was specifically excluded from the terms.’

Eddie let out a disgusted breath. ‘Fucking diplomats. Always leaving loopholes!’

‘And I guess there were other loopholes in the treaty you negotiated with North Korea, right?’ said Nina.

The Icelander nodded. ‘Restrictions were placed on the production of fissile material in its nuclear reactors. This,’ he nodded towards the particle accelerator, ‘is not a reactor. Therefore it is outside the terms of the treaty.’

‘I doubt the US will see it that way.’

‘What the United States thinks is irrelevant. By the time they learn the truth, North Korea will already have an arsenal of thermonuclear ballistic missiles capable of striking South Korea, Japan, even mainland America. The balance of terror will be restored, North Korea will feel safer from American aggression – and a country that feels secure is less inclined to take overtly aggressive acts. You only have to look at your own country before and after 9/11 for proof of that, Nina.’

‘Peace through fear, huh?’ she said scathingly.

‘As the writer Heinlein – an American, I might add – once said, “An armed society is a polite society.” Soon, many more nations will be armed. When everyone has a finger on the trigger, they become very careful about pulling it.’

‘And what happens when someone sneezes when their finger’s on the trigger?’ Eddie demanded.

Before Mikkelsson could provide a smug answer, Sarah again whispered to him, more forcefully than before. ‘Yes, soon,’ he snapped.

‘No,
now
, Fenrir,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to know.
We’ve
got to know!’

‘We do, sir,’ added De Klerx, glaring at Nina and Eddie.

‘Very well,’ said Mikkelsson – but before he could say anything more, the group was distracted by the return of the two technicians from the lower chamber. They were carrying between them a small but heavy metal case.

‘Hold on,’ said Eddie in alarm, retreating until a jab from a soldier’s rifle brought him to a halt. ‘You’re bringing fucking
plutonium
in here?’

Mikkelsson smiled. ‘It is perfectly safe. Colonel, if I may?’ Kang nodded. The diplomat had a brief exchange in Korean with the senior technician, who then gave an order. The two men set down the case and opened it. Eddie tried to edge away, but the Icelander indicated the red box on the wall. ‘If the radiation readings were at even half a dangerous level, that alarm would have sounded.’

‘My sister thought that about her smoke alarm, until she burned some toast and it turned out the battery was flat,’ Eddie retorted.

‘I assure you, we are safe. If we were not, I would not do this.’ He reached into the case and – with effort – lifted out the sphere.

‘You can
touch
it?’ said Nina, both amazed and aghast.

‘I told you, it is pure plutonium-239. It produces almost no radiation; it is plutonium-240 that is dangerous. This emits only alpha particles, and they are so weak they cannot even penetrate the skin.’ He held it out to her. ‘Here. Touch it.’

She hesitated, but Kang and Bok’s expressions made her fear that refusal might not be a choice. Instead, she gingerly brushed the sphere with a fingertip – and involuntarily flinched back.

‘What is it?’ Eddie said, alarmed. ‘Is it electrified?’

‘No, it’s just . . . warm.’ She put her finger on it again. The metal felt hotter than body temperature, but not uncomfortably so. Nevertheless, she withdrew after only a few seconds.

‘You have had a rare privilege,’ Mikkelsson told her. ‘Few people have touched pure plutonium with their bare hands.’ He looked at Eddie. ‘And you?’

‘I’ll give it a miss, thanks,’ said Eddie firmly.

Mikkelsson shrugged, carefully returning the sphere to its case and closing the lid. The head technician spoke with the officers, then Bok used a walkie-talkie to issue a command to someone elsewhere in the base. ‘So now what?’ Nina asked as the other technicians began another series of checks and the two men who had brought the plutonium sphere up from the lower level headed back down the stairs.

‘Now, the particle accelerator is being readied to convert another sphere of uranium to plutonium,’ Mikkelsson said. ‘While this one,’ he gestured at the canister, ‘will be transported with the others, along with their warheads and missiles, to a launch facility at al-Sulayyil in Saudi Arabia.’ He crossed the room to the case Nina had brought. ‘As for the second Crucible, Colonel Kang agreed that we should let you bring it to North Korea, but I am wondering if I should buy it back. It does belong to the Legacy, after all. And soon it will be a great advantage to have our own gold factory. The markets always panic in times of instability and buy gold, raising the price.’

Kang frowned. ‘The Crucibles are ours.’

‘I am sure we can negotiate something to our mutual benefit. My gold will be too heavy to take it all in our jet. Perhaps some could be left with you for . . . safe keeping?’

Bok understood his meaning at once and grinned slyly; Kang took long enough to translate the suggestion that the guide began to do so for him before being curtly shouted down. ‘Yes. We can negotiate. For the good of North Korea,’ the colonel added, giving the translator a stern look of warning that he should never tell anyone else what he had heard. The man quailed.

Several more soldiers entered, led by the broad-jawed captain Kang had spoken to outside. He snapped to attention before his commanding officer, his team following suit. Kang acknowledged with a salute of his own, then reeled off commands. The captain responded smartly, his men loading the canister holding the plutonium on to a small cart, though with the same wary trepidation as Eddie.

‘How come they’re not juggling the thing about if it’s so safe?’ said the Englishman.

‘The dangers of a small amount of knowledge,’ the Icelander replied. ‘North Korea operates on the principle of need-to-know, and its soldiers do not need to know
anything
. They probably believe, like the uneducated in the West, that all nuclear materials are equally dangerous and instantly deadly. Captain Sek is responsible for delivering the plutonium and the warheads; all
he
needs to know is that if anything should go wrong, he is accountable.’

‘I guess they don’t need to know English either,’ said Nina. ‘Otherwise they’d wise up with us talking about it.’

‘It is not encouraged,’ said Bok with a smirk. ‘Not for the ordinary people.’

Kang gave more orders. The team wheeled the cart out of the control room. The particle accelerator started to build up power again, its noise rising. ‘Fenrir,’ said Sarah in a tone of pent-up frustration.

‘In a moment,’ Mikkelsson answered, turning to Kang.

‘No.
Now
.’ She rounded him to stand before Nina and Eddie. ‘Where’s Anastasia? What happened to her, where is she? Where’s my daughter?’ Frustration was replaced by desperation, her voice quavering.

Nina couldn’t help but feel a pang of empathy. ‘She’s . . . I’m sorry. She’s dead.’

Sarah’s expression froze as she struggled to take in the words. ‘What?’ barked De Klerx, his own shock holding back anger. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, she’s dead.’

‘She . . .’ Sarah’s face crumpled into anguish. ‘No, no, she . . . she can’t be. Not my girl, she . . .’ Behind her, Mikkelsson was unreadable, staring silently at the couple.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nina repeated.

De Klerx clenched his fists into tight, furious balls. ‘How did she die?’

‘She fell into the frozen lake.’

He shook his head. ‘No. No! She knew Iceland, she knew the lake. She would never have been that careless! What really happened?’ His eyes narrowed, fixing upon Eddie. ‘What did you do?’

‘Does it matter?’ Eddie asked, assessing the Dutchman’s mental state. He was close to snapping in sheer rage, meaning he might be provoked into doing something unwise . . .

‘Yes, it matters!’ De Klerx snarled. ‘Tell me! Tell me now!’

‘Remember that grenade launcher you had in Greece? I fired it into the ice underneath her. Boom.’ He mimed pulling a trigger, then raised his hand to blow smoke from an imaginary gun. ‘She went swimming with the elves.’ Sarah was shocked, Mikkelsson’s face still an emotionless mask – but De Klerx was now at the point of explosion.

‘Eddie . . .’ said Nina in surprised warning.

He pressed on, forcing a mocking smile. ‘Yeah, I killed her. What’re you gonna do about it, clog boy?’

Detonation. ‘I will kill
you
!’ De Klerx’s voice rose to a shriek as he launched himself at the Yorkshireman.

39

The attack caught the North Koreans by surprise, the soldiers hurriedly pulling back as De Klerx ploughed into Eddie. One brought up his gun, but Kang waved him down. A soldier hauled Nina away as Eddie fought back. The two brawling men lurched across the control room.

‘Rutger, stop!’ Sarah cried, but De Klerx ignored her as he drove a series of furious punches at the Englishman. Eddie blocked most of them, but a couple got through, making him stagger backwards. The soldiers moved to encircle the fight, turning the room’s centre into a ring. Some of the technicians left their stations to get clear, others watching in fascination.

‘
Ik zal je vermoorden!
’ De Klerx shrieked, sending another frenzied blow at his opponent. Eddie swept his forearm up to intercept it, then snapped a punch under the Dutchman’s guard to hit his mouth. De Klerx’s head jerked back. The taste of blood from his split lip enraged him even more – and he charged at the other man with an incoherent scream.

Eddie raised both arms to block him, but De Klerx had momentum on his side. Both men thumped into the human wall surrounding them. The soldiers retreated, one stumbling over a technician’s chair. Eddie slammed a fist into De Klerx’s stomach, making him gasp, but before he could follow up the attack a North Korean clubbed him with a rifle butt. He yelled in pain, stumbling forward, only to take a blow to his jaw.

Kang laughed. Now having approval from their superior officer, the soldiers broke their silence to jeer and holler at the battle as if it were a boxing match. Or, Nina realised from the sadistic glee on their faces, a
cage
match, a cockfight. They had enjoyed similar spectacles before, and were looking forward to seeing one of the contestants being beaten half to death.

Or fully.

‘Stop them!’ she cried. Even the head technician was entranced, letting out thrilled little gasps each time a punch landed. ‘This is insane!’ She turned to the Mikkelssons. Sarah was weeping, her face buried in her husband’s shoulder, while the tall Icelander watched the brawl with cold intensity.

‘They are fighters,’ said Kang, mouth curling with relish as blood began to speckle the white-painted floor. ‘Let them fight.’

Nina turned away in disgust as the two technicians in charge of loading the Crucible ran up the stairs to see what was going on. One of the other operators suddenly remembered that he had a task to perform and whirled back to his control panel. He pulled the lever to close the radiation shield, the grumble of the vacuum pumps becoming audible over the accelerator’s whine. That done, he turned back to watch the fight.

The large digital wall display climbed again, two thousand and rising . . .

Eddie jerked sideways to avoid a kick. He jabbed at De Klerx’s head again, but only caught the Dutchman a glancing blow. A snarl, and another strike came – aimed at his groin. He twisted away from it—

A rifle butt thudded against his shoulder. He gasped, reeling as hands shoved him back into the centre of the amorphous battleground. De Klerx was waiting, his boot heel hitting Eddie’s knee. The Yorkshireman yelled as his leg gave way, only just catching himself as he dropped to the floor. Another swing of his enemy’s foot struck him in the side. The impact bowled him into the soldiers’ shins. They jumped back, a technician looking over their shoulders almost falling as they collided with him. Kang cackled, the others echoing the sound sycophantically.

More kicks, this time from the Koreans. Eddie scrambled clear. De Klerx was right on him, his foot thumping painfully against his hip. He rolled again, this time using the movement to jump upright. De Klerx advanced, balled fists raised. Eddie made a circling retreat, trying to stay out of reach of the soldiers behind him—

‘Eddie! The power’s building again!’

Nina – but why would she tell him
that
? He glanced towards her. She was beyond the wall of leering soldiers, another man holding her arm with one hand. The Type 58 rifle in his other was pointed at the ground, not his prisoner. And just behind her were the control panels, the operators gawping at the fight rather than watching their instruments . . .

He realised what she was trying to tell him. Another glance, this at the stairwell to the lower floor. Nobody was watching it. An escape route – if they could reach it.

Which was a
big
if.

De Klerx closed in. Eddie hurriedly sidestepped so the Dutchman was between him and Nina – then dropped his head and made a screaming charge at the other man.

They collided with a
whump
. De Klerx lurched backwards. He hit two of the soldiers, one in turn reeling into Nina and her guard. The redhead arrested her fall on a control panel, slapping a hand down on to it – and twisting the dial controlling the power flow.

It was only a tweak, as she didn’t want to risk drawing attention. She didn’t even know if it would be enough to make a difference. But as her guard recovered and pulled her away, she checked the large display. The numbers were still climbing, now well past four thousand . . . and rising faster than before.

Nobody else was watching the indicator, though. All eyes returned to the brawl as the soldiers forced the Yorkshireman back into the makeshift ring. De Klerx leapt after him, smashing another blow against his head. ‘You dyke-poking
fuck
!’ Eddie snarled, anger powering a new volley of punches against the Dutchman. De Klerx bobbed and jinked, blocking most – but then crying out as one cracked his nose. Blood squirted from his nostrils.

He drew away, huffing to clear his airways before wiping his face on his sleeve. Eddie circled to position his adversary between himself and Kang. The soldiers shifted, blocking any retreat. He glanced at the digital display – approaching the five thousand mark – but then locked his eyes back on De Klerx as the Dutchman rushed at him.

Eddie swept up one arm to knock away a punch – only for a second jab to catch him squarely in the face. It was not a fight-ender, but it jarred his senses enough that he was too late to block the next. He fell against the hooting soldiers behind him. They shoved him back into the arena—

De Klerx wound up for a brutal haymaker, Eddie stumbling right into its path. He tried to dodge, but had nowhere to go.

The punch hit his skull like a sledgehammer. He went down hard to the floor, the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth. His vision blurred, sounds suddenly echoing. He looked up, seeing howling faces whirl nightmarishly around him. Kang’s took on form, the little colonel pumping a fist in glee.

De Klerx stepped in front of him, anger joined by victorious exultation. He drew back a foot to smash his steel toecap into Eddie’s defenceless face—

Nina’s voice cut through the hubbub. ‘
Fix the fusebox!
’

The senior technician suddenly realised that nobody was monitoring the particle accelerator. He whirled to check the readings – as the display reached five thousand, sooner than he had expected—

The control room was plunged into darkness.

De Klerx hesitated before delivering his kick – but Eddie had already moved in instant response to Nina’s coded warning, twisting to dodge the attack and grabbing the Dutchman’s foot with both hands.

The technician scrambled for the control to activate the second-stage power supply as the accelerator drew greedily upon every erg of electricity from the rest of the base. The circuit closed with a bang, the lights coming back on.

Eddie forced himself up, still gripping De Klerx’s foot and driving the flailing Dutchman backwards. He hit Kang, sending the short man spinning into Mikkelsson and Sarah. Husband and wife both fell as the Yorkshireman threw De Klerx to the floor.

The soldiers recovered from their momentary blindness, guns snapping up – but their commander and chief of security were too close to their target. The only man with a clear line of fire was Nina’s guard. He fumbled to bring his rifle to bear—

Nina threw herself against him. The man stumbled – and tripped over Mikkelsson. His gun skidded across the floor . . .

To be snatched up by Eddie.

The Englishman whipped around and pulled the trigger. The Type 58, an AK-47 copy, was set on full auto, its thudding bark almost deafening as bullets ripped through the soldiers and technicians. They fell screaming, blood spouting from their wounds. Bok dived behind the desk, the bullets meant for him instead sending the senior technician flying against the control panels with gushing rosettes of blood across his white coat.

The rifle’s bolt clacked. It had only taken three seconds to empty the magazine, but that was all Eddie needed. The last rank-and-file soldier still alive was Nina’s guard, who lifted his head – only for it to slam back against the floor with a crimson spurt as the Yorkshireman used the empty gun as a club. ‘Nina, go!’ he shouted, dropping the Type 58 and looking for a replacement. None of the dead soldiers’ weapons were in immediate reach – and now Kang was fumbling for his holstered pistol, Bok doing the same.

Eddie ran for the stairs, stamping on De Klerx on the way. Nina was already heading for the exit, pulling a particular lever as she passed. He held back for a second to let her by, then clattered down the steps after her – as a bullet from Kang’s pistol blew a chunk out of the wall just behind his head. ‘What did you do?’ he asked as they reached the floor below.

‘Opened those!’ She gestured towards the radiation shields, which were slowly parting, exposing the Crucible within.

‘But we’ll get fucking
zapped
!’

‘Not if we get clear! We saw it in the Midas Cave. Radiation travels in straight lines, but the tunnels curve!’ She ran for the nearest circular entrance. ‘We’ve got about a minute before the neutron burst!’

‘A minute? But you sped up the fucking countdown!’

‘Oh. Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Oops.’ They reached the tunnel. It followed a sweeping arc into the distance, the gleaming steel tube of the accelerator and its pipework-entangled electromagnets disappearing around the bend a hundred metres distant. ‘Better run if you don’t want a glowing butt!’

They raced down the tunnel as the accelerator’s shrill grew ever louder.

Bok ran to the window. ‘They’re in the tunnel!’

Kang took in the strewn corpses of his men with shock. The translator was among them. ‘Get another squad down here! Go after them!’ Bok barked urgent commands into his radio.

Mikkelsson stood, helping Sarah up. ‘I think we should leave,’ he said in English as the few surviving technicians hastened to their workstations. ‘And I suggest you do too, Colonel. This area is not safe with Wilde and Chase on the loose.’

‘We will catch them,’ said the security chief.

‘
I’ll
catch them,’ snarled De Klerx. He grabbed a gun from the floor, looking back at Sarah. ‘I’ll make them pay for Anastasia.’ He hurried down the stairs.

Mikkelsson took his wife’s hand and started for the elevators, collecting the case holding the small Crucible. ‘Colonel,’ he said in Korean. ‘Are you coming?’

Kang stared at the container, caught between his desire for revenge and the prospect of riches. ‘Yes,’ he decided. ‘Bok, come with us. Until more men are down here, you’re our bodyguard.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Bok replied, also eyeing the case. Kang ordered the technicians to regain control of the huge machine below and complete the transmutation process, then the group quickly departed.

Fixated on their own readouts, conditioned by the secrecy and paranoia of North Korea to focus only on their own task and not question what was happening beyond it, none of the operators thought to look out of the window at the open radiation shields below . . .

‘How much further?’ asked Eddie as he followed Nina painfully along the curving tunnel.

‘Not far,’ she replied. ‘I think.’ She looked back to see if the shields were still visible beyond the tunnel’s mouth.

They were – but now so was De Klerx. He stopped to take aim—

‘Gun!’ she cried. Eddie ducked as the Dutchman opened fire. Bullets clanged off the accelerator’s casing. Its curvature meant that from De Klerx’s position they were partially protected by it, but he was already running again, unleashing single shots to force his targets to stay in cover.

Eddie tried to squeeze underneath the accelerator, but pipework and cabling beneath it blocked him. He swore, then scrambled to join Nina behind a support brace – the ring of powerful electromagnets immediately making their presence felt. ‘Bloody hell!’ he gasped, jerking his left arm away. ‘Feels like it’s trying to pull the pins out!’ The titanium rods that had been used to splint the bones of his forearm after a break several years earlier were weakly magnetic, and the effect was like invisible hands pawing at him.

‘Too bad they don’t work on bullets,’ Nina said grimly. ‘What do we do?’

‘If we stand up and run, he’ll have a clear shot at us.’ The accelerator was only chest-high at its tallest. ‘You stay low and keep going. I’ll try and jump him.’

‘Eddie, he’ll kill you!’ The brace and its pipework extended merely a foot outwards from the metal tube. ‘You can’t hide behind that!’

‘It’s all we’ve got! Go!’

De Klerx had already closed the gap as Nina reluctantly hurried away. He glimpsed the movement and fired. She shrieked as bullets cracked off the concrete beside her – and the impacts got closer as he came around the tunnel, bringing her into clear view—

He spotted Eddie’s shadow behind the brace.

The Dutchman switched targets to the greater threat – and his lover’s killer. He ran to the support, about to rush around it and spray Eddie with bullets—

The rifle was snatched from his hands.

It smacked against the electromagnets. Startled, De Klerx lunged to retrieve it – only to be tackled by Eddie, who drove a brutal punch into the mercenary’s stomach and threw him back against the tunnel wall. ‘Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?’ Eddie growled, hitting him again.

But De Klerx was far from finished. He hurled himself at the Englishman, sending them both crashing against the shrilling accelerator. Eddie caught him under his chin with a flailing uppercut. The Dutchman spat out blood, only to retaliate by slamming a knee into his opponent’s side. Eddie fell. De Klerx whirled for his gun—