Northeastern Japan
The layout of the facility was predictably simple—nothing more than a set of wide corridors carved from the earth, most of which emanated from a massive central cavern. Individual shafts occasionally split off, leading to storage areas. Some were filled with fifty-gallon drums containing nuclear waste, but most were empty. Others had been hijacked by Takahashi’s organization and were guarded by the familiar composite doors.
Smith and Ito moved along at an excruciatingly casual pace, with Smith’s head bowed submissively. Just another worker on his way to make some trivial repair for management.
Of course, that cover story would bear precisely no scrutiny at all but his dark complexion and black hair would be enough to dampen the interest of anyone more than twenty paces away. Thankfully, no one had come anywhere near that close so far.
They crossed the main artery leading to the loading area and Smith subtly shifted his gaze to the massive blast doors and the smaller adjacent door dedicated to pedestrian traffic. Two men were standing guard in front of the exits, both with compact assault rifles hanging across their chests.
Ito ducked into another corridor and Smith felt himself relax a bit when they left the guards’ line of sight. The passage dead-ended into a door after about another fifty yards, and Ito stopped to speak to a camera bolted above it.
Smith didn’t understand anything that was said, but they’d settled on a story about a problem with the rebooting of the security system. Specifically, a couple of physical connections that weren’t responding. Not exactly a stroke of genius, but reasonably credible and it went a long way toward explaining why Ito was accompanied by a large man with a screwdriver.
Smith kept his head down, trying to relax. They had one chance at this and he couldn’t afford to blow it. According to Ito, there was one systems administrator and one security man inside. What the scientist couldn’t tell him was which of those men would come to the door. It was precisely these kinds of operational unknowns that Smith spent his life trying to avoid.
After an endless thirty seconds of back and forth, the door finally slid aside. Ito glanced back at him and gave a gruff order before walking inside. Smith followed along obediently, head still bowed, but eyes straining upward.
The room was as described, no more than twenty feet square with walls mostly hidden by computer equipment. There was a single desk with a terminal on it to the right and two rolling chairs—only one of which was currently occupied.
The tech was a young man with an artificial reddish tint to his hair and the air of having downed a few too many espressos that morning. He was talking a mile a minute, gesturing maniacally toward his screen as Ito approached and put a hand on the back of his chair.
The security man was lifting his wrist to his face, undoubtedly to report the unusual situation into a radio microphone secured there. Smith backed toward him slowly, pretending to watch Ito, but really focused on the guard.
The angle of Smith’s body would make it hard to for the man to get a clear view of his face, but this wasn’t just some rent-a-cop. He wasn’t going to be fooled for more than a few seconds.
It turned out to be even less than that. The man’s left hand suddenly stopped rising toward his mouth and his right went for a gun in an exposed shoulder holster.
Smith spun, going for the man’s throat with the screwdriver but knowing there was no way in hell he’d connect. At the last moment he let his knees collapse and redirected the blade to the man’s upper thigh. It sank halfway to the hilt but the guard barely seemed to notice, smoothly wrapping his hand around the grip of a Sig Sauer P226.
Smith ignored the shouts coming from behind him, forced to rely on the dying scientist to handle the computer tech. The gun was nearly free now and Smith lunged, slamming his shoulder into the man’s elbow with the full force of his 180-pound frame. The pain flared in his injured back, but the impact had its intended effect—the gun was rammed back into its holster.
The screwdriver had hit the guard’s femur and was stuck there. Smith tried to get hold of it again as the man drew back a hand to drive down into the crouched American’s neck. He didn’t fully compensate for the weakness in his thigh, though, and the brief hesitation was all Smith needed. He leaped upward, slamming the back of his head into the man’s chin. He staggered to the side as Smith used his superior weight to drive him toward the wall and buckle his injured leg. He put his hand over the man’s face and shoved downward as they fell, ramming the back of his head into the flagstone floor. The give was noticeable as his skull collapsed.
Smith grabbed the Sig Sauer and spun to see the computer tech trying to escape through the door. Ito had his arms wrapped around the younger man from behind and while it wasn’t a particularly powerful effort, it was enough to keep the tech’s hand from making firm contact with the palm reader.
Smith went for them, grabbing the young man by the hair and dragging him to the floor. He squirmed wildly, shouting unintelligibly in a panicked voice.
“Do we need him?” Smith said, gritting against the pain in his back while the computer tech clawed at him.
“No.”
Smith slammed the butt of the gun into the man’s forehead and he went completely still.
“Are you all right?” he said, staying on his knees for a moment to let a wave of pain and nausea subside.
“Yes,” Ito replied. “Are you?”
Smith gave a short nod and the scientist took a seat behind the terminal.
“Once I activate the sterilization process, the system will initiate a general lockdown. It will take a few minutes for that to be completed, and then the entire facility will be flooded with radiation. If you can get past the guards at the entrance, you still have time to escape.”
It was a tempting offer. To not die of a massive dose of radiation in a dark hole. To smell the forest and see the sky again. But when Ito fired this thing up, Takahashi could be counted on to do everything in his considerable power to stop it.
“No. I’ll stay and make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Ito was visibly relieved. He’d already gone through this once and knew that he wouldn’t survive this time. Dying alone, for some reason, was so much more terrifying than dying with someone else. Even a stranger.
The scientist tapped a few commands into the terminal and hit the “enter” button. A moment later the wail of an alarm began echoing through the facility.