Mission Atomic

by Sarwat Chadda

  Cara glared at Ian. “Sit down, Ian. Do as he says.”

  But Ian didn’t listen. He was walking calmly forward, in the direction of Dmitry. He stepped right up to him, pressing his chest against the barrel of the pistol. “Out of my way or shoot.”

  That’s it. He’s finally gone insane.

  Ian gazed up at Dmitry. “I’ll count to three. Then I am going to hit you very hard.”

  “Ian!” Cara yelled.

  “One … ” counted Ian. He raised his briefcase. “Two … ”

  “Foolish little prince.” Dmitry smiled, sadly.

  And pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  And Cara’s heart started beating again.

  Ian looked down at the pistol. “Disappointed, Dmitry. You are officially off my Christmas card list.”

  He swung the briefcase hard. It slammed into Dmitry’s head with a sharp thud. Dmitry groaned but stayed upright. Ian hit him again. “Don’t just stand there,” he yelled at Cara. “Help me!”

  Cara delivered a roundhouse kick and Dmitry was out.

  Then she hugged Ian. “You stupid, stupid boy!” She drew apart and met his gaze. “You knew it was empty?”

  Ian pulled a fistful of bullets from his pocket and tossed them away. “You know I don’t like guns. Time to leave.”

  “Wait a minute.” Cara grabbed the car keys. “Let’s go.”

  They rushed along the corridor into the staircase. She heard footsteps down below, Dmitry’s backup. The elevator was still broken and this was the lone staircase. “The only way is up,” she yelled.

  Ian grabbed her hand and together they ran. They were panting by the time they reached the top floor and Cara kicked the roof door open.

  “Nice view,” said Ian. They were up high and Kiev at night sparkled brightly with lights.

  Doors slammed open and men shouted from a few floors below. They were searching the apartment. He heard Dmitry yelling, then a heavy thump and Dmitry went silent.

  “They don’t sound happy,” warned Ian.

  Cara walked to the edge. “We need to get off this roof.” She met Ian’s eyes. “We have to jump. It’s less than ten feet. Anyone could do it.”

  “I am not jumping! That’s suicide.”

  “Says the boy who just marched up to a man with a pistol pointed at his heart.”

  “I’d taken out the bullets.”

  “And it never occurred to you he might reload?”

  Ian gulped. He took a few steps back. “We jump?”

  “On the count of three?”

  Ian ran. He launched himself off the roof with a high-pitched scream, briefcase still in his hands. He galloped in midair, trying to gain more momentum, then down he came, crashing onto the opposite roof. Cara winced as he skidded in the gravel.

  “That boy … ”

  And she jumped after him.

  Shanghai, China

  “Jonah Wizard does not do incognito,” said Jonah. “The world rocks to my beat; I am what I am!”

  “And right now you’re Phil Smith, research student at MIT,” said Amy. She held up the bottle. “And this is going to happen.”

  Jonah stared at the bottle as if it were full of toxic waste, which it was, sort of.

  Toxic waste for superstars.

  Amy grinned. This wasn’t meant to be fun, but she was having a great time.

  Jonah backed away farther into the bathroom. “You’re not qualified to do hair. Let me call my man in Beverly Hills. I’ll fly him out here. He’s the only one I trust to come near the Wizard scalp with a pair of clippers. I can’t risk another repeat of … Sassoon-gate.” He shuddered. “I thought I’d died.”

  “Sassoon-gate?” Amy asked. “Is that a thing?”

  Jonah blanched. “It was the premiere of Electro-Judge, my homage to the classic disco era. My hairdresser had come down with some tropical disease while on-set at Angelina’s latest, and they just let this total stranger cut my hair. An hour before I was to cruise the red carpet.”

  Ham shuddered. “You should have seen the tweets, Amy.”

  Jonah raised his hands to his head protectively. “It took me a month at my pad in the Seychelles to get over it.”

  Amy sighed. Famous people just didn’t have the same problems as everyone else. “Jonah, we can’t have Jonah Wizard parading around Shanghai. We’ve got the drop on Nathaniel, so this has to be done. I need to give you … a makeover.”

  “Just not my hair!” Jonah complained. “My image consultant took six months to design it!”

  Amy pointed at the suit on the hotel bed. “And that is Phil Smith’s look.”

  Jonah slumped over the sink. “Okay. Fine. I can do Method. So, where’s the suit from? Dior? I’ll settle for Tom Ford if it’s silk.”

  Ham inspected the label. “Polyester and Lycra, bro.”

  Jonah gave a pitiful wail.

  “Man up,” said Amy. She flipped the bottle cap open.

  * * *

  Jonah stared at his reflection. “It’s … horrible.”

  Amy nodded. “Sorry, it’s the best I could do.”

  “No one would believe it’s me.”

  “Which is kind of the point, isn’t it?” She held out the glasses. “Now these.”

  “Do I have to?”

  They were the cheapest, ugliest plastic frames she could find at the street market in downtown Shanghai. It hadn’t been easy. Shanghai was top dollar, filled with designer shops and chic restaurants all along the Bund, its famous main street. Jonah’s latest album was high on the Shanghai charts; his face seemed to be plastered on every wall and their entire plan would crumble to nothing if Nathaniel discovered he was out here.

  Now bleached blond (badly) and wearing a suit that was too short in the arms and too long in the legs and way too wide around the waist, not even Jonah’s most fanatical fan would recognize him.

  Jonah put the glasses on.

  Ham burst into laughter. And promptly fell off the bed. The room shook with his laughing. He slowly got it under control, saw Jonah again, then collapsed into a second round of hysterics.

  “You look like a dork. Not a geek, which is sort of cool, but a total dork.”

  Amy handed out the invitations. “Here you go, Phil Smith. And here’s one for you, Tod Jones,” as she handed Ham his own specially forged invitation to the symposium. She checked hers. “And my name’s Alice Munroe.”

  Jonah scowled. “You think these will work?”

  “Cara based them on Dr. Peerless’s own invitation. And she replaced his details with ours on the check-in system so, yes, these will work.”

  Ham grinned. “Hey, mine says I’ve got a PhD in sports mechanics! Cool!”

  “Your mom would be so proud,” Jonah replied sarcastically.

  Amy reviewed the schedule. “The symposium lasts three days with a gala dinner at the end. There’ll be lectures every day, starting with a meet-and-greet reception in an hour. Then straight into the first series of presentations. We need to keep an eye out for anything that may hint at nuclear power. If Nathaniel is planning something, it’ll be connected with that.”

  Ham pointed at the list of events. “I want to go to the talk on bees. Maybe there’ll be a free honey tasting?”

  “Eyes on the prize,” said Jonah. “We’re here to stop a nuclear apocalypse, got it?”

  Ham gave a mock salute. “Got it, Phil.”

  * * *

  Shanghai gleamed. Amy sat by the window as the taxi took them through the new city. Gigantic towers of glass, chrome, and neon surrounded her from all sides, each launching light into the night sky so that it seemed carved with color.

  Cranes scored the horizon like titanic herons. New towers were going up, and each higher than the last. Shanghai was in a hurry to catch up, and overtake, the other cities of the world. This was what the megacities of the future would look like.

  And Nathaniel wanted to destroy it all.

  Why? As an Ekat, doesn’t he applaud all
this?

  Walls shimmered with paneling, huge devices that converted the sun’s rays into electricity. Amy and the boys had even traveled from Pudong International Airport to central Shanghai on a magnetic levitation train, the only commercial one of its kind.

  Amy had gotten word from Ian and Cara. The files they’d sent were grim reading and filled Amy with dread. Nathaniel had caused the Chernobyl disaster. If he’d done it once, she was convinced he’d be more than willing to do it again. But was it here, in Shanghai?

  Tianlong Center unfurled before them. The entrance was guarded by two dragon carvings of green marble and the drive itself was a sinewy path through bamboo gardens and pools.

  “Now, this is more like it,” said Jonah. “The five-star treatment.”

  A marquee stood in the arrival courtyard, with lines of visitors awaiting registration before entering. How many could the center hold? Thousands, for sure.

  Five minutes later they were tagged and through into the main building. A vast atrium rose ten floors toward a starry sky. One wall of glass faced the river, and Amy watched ferries, their lights aglow, drift silently along the oil-black water.

  “Are you here for the science symposium?”

  Amy turned to face a young Chinese woman. She smiled and offered her hand. “I’m Dr. Lin. Welcome to the Tianlong Center.” She pointed toward the main corridor. “There are three talks about to begin. The first is on climate change and will be held in the Silver conference hall. Then we have the future of bees being presented in the Bronze hall—”

  Amy ignored the wistful moan from Ham. “And the third?”

  “I will be giving a presentation on the future of energy supply,” said Dr. Lin. “That’s in the Jade conference room, down three floors.”

  Amy nodded. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Amy and the guys put themselves near the back of the lecture hall, letting the real scientists and engineers crowd in the front row seats like boys at the Super Bowl.

  Amy recognized a few from the files they had back at Cahill HQ. There were about fifty or so people in the Jade conference room, over half of them Ekats. A few looked over toward her, as if she rang some sort of bell, but with the big red-frame glasses and her hair covered with a baseball cap, Amy succeeded in staying anonymous.

  Though not Ham. Dr. Lin had stood next to him in the elevator and then personally taken him to his seat and was, even while preparing the audio-visual equipment, glancing over at him, smiling.

  Amy nudged him. “Hey, have you seen how—”

  Ham chuckled. “Is she fluttering her eyelashes?”

  Amy peered. “Yes. And flicking her hair. Want me to let her down gently?”

  “No, let her dream.” He sighed. “Sometimes being this handsome and ripped is a burden, y’know?”

  “You’re blushing!” said Amy. “Why are you staring at her?”

  “Not her. Check out the guy on her left.”

  The lights dimmed.

  “Looks like we’re starting,” said Amy.

  Dr. Lin brushed her hand over the patch of wall and instantly a 3-D projection appeared, floating over the audience.

  “Whoa,” exclaimed Ham.

  There was a smattering of applause.

  Dr. Lin waved at the projection. The network grew, a vast web stretching out under a holographic Shanghai. The web grew wider, taking in the surrounding area, passing over hills and across valleys, linking town after town.

  “The Chinese government is keenly aware of the problems of energy supply, for the world’s energy problems are our problems also. Which brings us to the most fundamental problem we all face. Where will this future energy come from?”

  The scientists sat up.

  Amy leaned forward as the holograms transformed into a range of modern systems. First up were rows of oil fields, spewing black smoke into the sky. Then big coal stations and finally nuclear reactors. “Even the youngest child realizes the danger of reliance on fossil-fuel technologies. But we are not yet in that utopia of reliable, global green technology.” She snapped her fingers. “And does the answer truly lie here?”

  Wind farms drifted overhead, their massive propellers rotating lazily. Buildings covered with solar panels rose around the audience, then floating tidal generators. A scientist laughed as a school of holographic fish swam past, and through, him.

  Dr. Lin walked among the images. “These systems are inefficient. A wind farm in Alaska will do Texas no good at all. Covering the Sahara with solar panels will not make a lightbulb in Sweden glow. Transmission loss through cabling is a physical fact. What is needed is clean, local power on a global basis. We are taking the first steps toward that goal by melding the potential of future technology with the best of current science.”

  Amy looked around the audience. There were murmurs among some of the scientists.

  Dr. Lin smiled. “What I mean is hybrids. Building a better future from the foundations of the present.”

  “Come on, then, tell us!” shouted a woman from the back.

  People laughed, and Dr. Lin bestowed a generous smile on the group. She shook her head. “Alas, I can tell you nothing.… ”

  The audience groaned. A few muttered “fraud” and “gimmickry.”

  Dr. Lin’s smile broadened. “But I can certainly show you something.”

  The lights dimmed. The far wall began to open. It split in the middle and drew away. A warm breeze blew across the room and lights shone from the other side of the wall. Bright, industrial-scale lights.

  “Stay close,” Amy suggested.

  Ham nodded. He kept casual, but Amy picked up the subtle signs that he’d switched into “body-guard” mode: his eyes scanning for threats, limbs loose and ready to react to any hint of trouble. Ham was different. When everyone else got tense at the hint of danger, he grew more relaxed. As if this was his natural state of being. His muscles were honed for a reason. To respond to and deal with danger, whatever its form. Ham had the ability of knowing trouble was here before it had even pressed the doorbell.

  The wall opened up to reveal a large, busy control room. There was a glowing digital map on one wall; the others were lined with banks of control panels and screens. One wall was made up of glass, and beyond that was a vast underground chamber. A hundred yards below them was a series of huge semicircular enclosures.

  “Steam turbines,” muttered one of the engineers in the audience. He stood up to have a better look. “We’re in some power station.”

  Dr. Lin summoned them forward. “Not any power station, but one unique to China, to the world. The world’s first hybrid fission-fusion nuclear reactor.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Jonah.

  The Black Forest, Germany

  “Dan’s gone? How?” Nellie stared at Sammy. “Did you check everywhere?”

  “Everywhere,” Sammy insisted. “He’s not on the train.”

  They’d known something was wrong when they’d discovered they’d been locked into their compartment. It had taken some banging on the door and the conductor with the emergency key to get them out. Then the saga of the dining car. One of the passengers had heard gunshots, and a bullet hole was discovered in the wall. Nellie had managed to slip in and found, alongside the bullet hole, their map and guidebook.

  “He was in the dining car when it all kicked off,” she said, trying to piece the clues together. “And the passenger said she heard the shot around four A.M.”

  Sammy checked his watch. “Three hours ago.”

  “The conductor wants us all to stay aboard for the police in Stuttgart.”

  Sammy shook his head. “That’ll slow us down, and what can we tell them? We need to find Dan.”

  “How? Assuming he got off at four in the morning, he’s had three hours to move, or be moved.”

  Sammy glanced out the window. “Stuttgart’s dead ahead. If we’re going to do something, we need to do it now.”

  Had Dan gone off on his own? Nellie dismissed that immediately. H
e’d never leave without telling them. And someone had put a bullet in that wall.

  No, he’d been taken, or someone had tried to take him. Nellie racked her brain. Where could Dan be? If he’d run, where would he run to? If he’d been taken, where would they take him?

  They had to find him. Every atom of her body hummed to that purpose, that desire. Dan was alone, he needed them.

  But how? She looked down each path and each one was a dead end. Nellie’s heart was being torn in two.

  The train was slowing down. The platform ahead was empty but for a handful of policemen. She had to decide what to do before they reached the station.

  “Pack up. Fast,” ordered Nellie.

  “You’ve got a plan?”

  “Yeah. The same as before. We find out what’s at this location in Grace’s blackmail file.”

  “We’re not going after Dan?” Sammy sounded stunned.

  “Believe me, I don’t want to do this.” Nellie folded up the map and tucked it into her combat pants. She felt sick; it was as if she was betraying Dan. “If I had a clue, a single clue, to which way Dan had gone, then I’d follow it.” Her guidebook went into the top of her backpack. “But I don’t. So we do what we were sent here to do. Dan will have to find us.”

  “How?”

  “He was looking at the map, Sammy. The boy’s got a photographic memory. We don’t know where he is, but he knows where we’ll be.”

  * * *

  The train stopped. As the police boarded from the left, Nellie activated the emergency door release on the right and disembarked onto the opposite platform. With their backpacks and trekking gear they looked like any of the hundred or so students and hikers already milling around in the station.

  They found the car rental just outside, and twenty minutes later they loaded their backpacks into the trunk and were heading south on the A81, Nellie at the wheel, Sammy riding shotgun.

  Nellie peered into the rearview mirror. “You see that gunmetal gray BMW? Two cars back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think it’s been following us since the train station.”

  “You sure?”