The Race: A HELL Ranger Thriller

By Gina Fava

Ah, Rome, the Eternal City in all its majesty: St. Peter’s Square, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, and the Coliseum. Devlin “Lucky” Lucchesi has made a home here with his pregnant wife, Ella, and his five-year-old son, Marcello. As a car racing champion who has won the hearts of fans across Europe, Devlin has settled into a happy-go-lucky existence. His alter ego as a covert special operative HELL Ranger feels far away.

That is, until a terror attack decimates Rome's train station, and rips Lucky's life apart. To blame is Ishmael Zaid, an elusive international terrorist, and a villain from Devlin's past. Devlin vows revenge and he teams with his blood-brother Lupo, the sexy BBC reporter Ana Malia, and his HELL Ranger crew to battle Ishmael's "Race" of Islamic extremist followers. But, as they rush to diffuse a dozen more bombs set to wipe Rome off the map by midnight, it becomes unclear who is with Lucky, who is against him, and who might be up for sale along the way.

The stakes skyrocket when Ishmael kidnaps young Marcello as retribution for a transgression in Devlin's past. What's more, in the aftermath of a recent papal election, Ishmael violates the sanctity of the Vatican, robbing one of its ancient relics to employ as an audacious symbol of war on mankind.

Devlin and Ishmael finally collide in a showdown that will ultimately determine the fate of the world. Can Lucky and his band of HELL Rangers beat Ishmael at his own game, or will they be blasted into eternity along with the City of Seven Hills?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gina Fava
• Release date: Jul 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989358712

Gina Fava

GINA FAVA is the author of the critically acclaimed international suspense novels THE RACE and FORMULA (of her HELL Ranger Thriller series) and THE SCULPTOR (winner of the 2015 IPPY Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Ebook,) as well as her non-fiction collection of recipes and essays on tradition, family, food, wine, travel, and art, entitled UN MOMENTO: A Taste of Italian-American Pastimes (an Amazon Bestseller.) A native Buffalonian, she lives with her family in New England. Visit GinaFava.com. Connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

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Contents

The Race: A HELL Ranger Thriller

Ah, Rome, The Eternal City in all its majesty: St. Peter’s Square, The Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, and the Coliseum.  Devlin Lucky Lucchesi has made a home here with his pregnant wife, Ella, and his five-year-old son, Marcello.  As a Formula One race car driver who has won the hearts of fans across Europe, Devlin has settled into a happy-go-lucky existence.  His alter ego as a covert special operative HELL Ranger feels far away. 

After a Lucky Strike...

That is, until a terror attack decimates Rome's train station, and rips Lucky's life apart.  To blame is Ishmael Zaid, an elusive international terrorist, and a villain from Devlin's past. 

And a Roman Bloodbath...

Devlin vows revenge, and he teams with his blood-brother Lupo, the sexy BBC reporter Ana Malia, and his HELL Ranger crew to battle Ishmael's race of Muslim extremist followers.  But, as they rush to diffuse a dozen more bombs set to wipe Rome off the map by midnight, it becomes unclear who’s with Lucky, who’s against him, and who might be up for sale along the way. 

For all that’s Sacred...

The stakes skyrocket when Ishmael kidnaps young Marcello as retribution for a transgression in Devlin's past.  What's more, in the aftermath of a recent Papal election, Ishmael violates the sanctity of the Vatican, robbing one of its ancient relics to employ as an audacious symbol of war on mankind.

There will be Hell to Pay!

Devlin and Ishmael finally collide in a showdown that will ultimately determine the fate of the world.  Can Lucky and his band of HELL Rangers beat Ishmael at his own game, or will they be blasted into Eternity along with the City of Seven Hills?

The Race

A Hell Ranger Thriller

___________

Gina Fava

Steepo Press

New York Rome Boston Toronto Sydney

The Race: A Hell Ranger Thriller

By Gina Fava

Copyright © 2013 Gina Fava

Smashwords Edition

Cover design and art by Bruce Skinner, copyright © 2013 by Gina Fava

Author photo by Bruce Skinner, copyright © 2013 by Gina Fava

Layout design © 2013 by Cheryl Perez

Excerpt from The Sculptor copyright © 2013 by Gina Fava

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or undead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Gina Fava.

This book is available by Steepo Press in trade paperback and in eBook at most online retailers.

ISBN: 978-0-9893587-1-2 (eBook edition)

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Sculptor by Gina Fava. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

www.GinaFava.com

____________________________________

For Jamie

Always and forever.

For Sabrina and Mario,

Mommy loves her babies.

____________________________________

"To achieve anything in this game

 you must be prepared to dabble

in the boundary of disaster."

—Stirling Moss

Introduction

344 A.D. – 360 A.D.

Roman Empire

Lily unearthed the dripping bundle from the base of the tree and laid it on a boulder to investigate. The ten-year-old girl, born in the far-reaching Roman Empire, often traipsed the hilly ridge on which the city of Jerusalem stands, and this morning's rain had revealed the discovery along her path.

The soggy package, encased in a nearly petrified burlap sheath, was about the size and weight of a loaf of bread. The midday sun glinted off a threadbare corner, and when she tugged back more of the shroud, a tarnished gold box poked through it. With the sleeve of her tunic, Lily polished the metal until it gleamed. She ran trembling fingers over glimmering jewels that dotted the relic's base.

Encroaching clouds dulled the artifact's shimmer, and she glanced up and cursed them. For a moment, she was struck with worry that the dark clouds corrupting the sunlit sky signaled a similar doom for the Roman Empire. Peace had been enjoyed for many years, and the Empire now faced gossip of a mounting offensive by the Sassinid Emperor of Persia, Shapur II.

The sun reemerged, and the jewel-encrusted gold box again shone through the burlap wrap. In the center of the lid, jewels formed a star and moon pattern that she recognized as the ancient Astrale symbol of eternity. Drawn to the clasp of the box, her eyes fell on the seal emblazoned on it. She gasped, and then crossed herself.

The gold seal on the fastener of the box was melted into the form of a cross—the Christian symbol of the Holy Trinity.

Startled by the potential magnitude of her discovery, the young girl tore a strip of her frock, rewrapped the treasure, and ran home. She dug a hole in the dirt floor and buried the seemingly sacred relic and its secret contents behind the family’s hearth, where it remained untouched for many years.

###

In the year 353, nineteen-year-old Lily had taken to horseback riding in the mountains beneath the moonlight. One night, after brushing down the family’s horse in the stable a few hundred feet behind the house, screaming from inside her home jolted her. From where she stood outside the stable, she stared open-mouthed into the window of her house. Her sister, held tight by two lumbering men, bellowed cries of anguish as she witnessed the slashing of her parents' throats. Next to them, two other barbarians dangled her older brothers’ bloody, decapitated heads from their thick fists.  One of them shoved a flaming torch into her sister's mouth and out the back of her head, cutting short her high-pitched wail.

Sobs wracked Lily’s chest, but she clamped her lips tight to prevent the cries from escaping. Painful, searing screams from women and children in the surrounding houses filled the night air. Foreign invaders from the north, including Germanic tribes, Gauls and Huns, were a constant threat to the Roman Empire, and on that night a band of marauding barbarians had become Lily's reality.

A handful of men spilled from her home and ambled out into the road with sacks overflowing with bread, pottery, wine casks and the family’s golden candelabrum. Lily ducked behind a haystack and tore a wide strip from the bottom of her cotton tunic, using it to bind her breasts against her torso. She snatched a set of sheep shears from behind a trough and clipped the long, cascading chestnut mane from her head. She did not look at the hair that pooled at her ankles, but she ran her hand over her shorn scalp to ensure that it was indeed short enough. She knew she’d stand a better chance of surviving the invasion as a man, than suffering the ravages of rape during the raid.

Though flames licked at her rooftop, as well as those of all the neighboring houses, she dashed inside her family’s home. She pulled a woolen blanket from her bed and covered the remains of her family. Then, she dropped to her knees and crawled to the hearth. She used a sharp copper sickle to dig away at the dirt beneath the grate, until she heard the clank of the blade on the gold box. She dug with her nails, cracked and bleeding, until she withdrew the box and ran from the inferno.

She gathered a burlap egg sack and plunged the gold box inside of it, along with loaves of bread and a corked pitcher of water. She galloped through the town until she was clear, and she never looked back.

###

Lily rode the rest of that night, and for many nights thereafter. She left the land of her youth and traveled northwest, using the stars as her guide. She hid inside caves, slept beneath bushes, drank from the streams that emptied into the sea, and fed herself from the land. Avoiding each passing village, she rode alone and grew stronger in body and mind every day, upholding her solitary goal of protecting the golden box. Besides her faithful mare, the box was the only remaining memory of the life she’d had stolen from her, and she vowed to herself and to God that she would protect the relic and whatever its sacred contents were at all cost.

Following the curve in the sea from Antioch to Tarsus, she continued past the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, riding west toward a region in Imperial Rome where the Emperor Constantine I, the first emperor to legalize Christianity in the Edict of Milan, had instituted the building of a basilica dedicated to Saint Peter. Lily determined that the safest place for this Christian relic would be somewhere hidden on the grounds of this symbolic church. So, she traveled toward it, avoiding skirmishes with the threatening Visigoth and Alamanni bands of warriors along the way.

Lily followed the coastline, this time with the Adriatic to her left, until she paused to take comfort in the temperate region of Umbria, where she settled for a week in the small Christian town of Assisi.

One night, a great earthquake shook her from her sleep. She spotted a young woman about her own age, wandering through the main fare, so disoriented by the quake that she’d lost her way home.

My name is Lily. Just take my hand. Do you live up the hill or down?

I am Sabena. I live up the hill. I was walking—

Before Sabena could finish, the earth shook again. A wide crevice sliced open, and Lily tumbled into the earth’s gaping maw.

When the earth grew still, Lily stared up at Sabena from a sunken precipice two feet below the surface. Sabena pulled Lily from the crevice, and then rested her broken body on an open horse cart. Bleeding and unable to move her limbs, Lily knew that her arduous journey was nearing its end.

As Lily lay dying, she conveyed the story of the golden Christian relic. She described in detail her fight to protect the sacred treasure against those who plundered and ravaged her home and family. Lily convinced Sabena to empower herself through the riches of her own beauty, grace, intelligence and strength.

Emboldened, Sabena vowed to carry on the mission. Cradling Lily as she took her final breaths, Sabena swore to uphold the sanctity of the society of sisters—promising to add to their number, pursue the riches that the world had to offer, and at all costs, protect the treasure that had joined them.

###

Days later, on horseback, Sabena stole down the Appian Way through the center of Rome. It was past midnight and the inhabitants slept; the main thoroughfare belonged to her. Sabena led Lily’s horse inside the Roman forum. Home to a spirited debate among prominent statesmen only the day before, the forum now stood empty. Sabena made camp and mourned the brave woman who, days earlier, had opened the young girl’s eyes to a new world bursting with possibilities.

The next morning, Sabena mounted her horse and sought the great basilica that Lily had described. Sabena passed the Roman Coliseum, her head held high and her golden locks flowing freely behind her. Many of the city’s men had since entered the arena to bear witness to the slaughter of the persecuted Christians, Jews, Pagans and gypsies by the wild beasts inside. Outside, the peasant women and children waiting to enter the amphitheatre gazed up at Sabena with adoring eyes. She slowed her ride and filled the women’s ears with stories of a sisterhood and a secret to protect. A chariot halted before the stadium and a bejeweled woman pulled back the curtain to listen to Sabena’s empowering stories, captivated by what she heard.

At that moment, two hefty guardsmen yanked Sabena from her horse and threw her to the ground. What business have you here—an unbound woman, and a thief besides?  In the name of Caesar, you shall be tried as a gypsy and sentenced to death.  With that, one of the men spit in her face and tied her hands behind her back.

The bejeweled woman in the chariot stood with her hand raised.

My brother and his wife are not in standing today. As they are away, I, Benevia, will serve in their place. In the name of my brother, Emperor Julian, I absolve this slave from her sentence and her bondage. Her blood will not be shed here today. 

Sabena raised her hand and touched it to her heart in gratitude.

###

At dusk, Sabena arrived at the magnificent edifice dedicated to the martyred Saint Peter, at long last completing the journey that her new sister, Lily, had begun. In the enclosed gardens behind the basilica, under the blanket of a starry night, women of every age, race, creed, and class, filtered into the hallowed ground. When the moon rose, the last stragglers tiptoed into the coven. Among them was the woman named Benevia—the emperor’s sister.   

Sabena raised both hands and greeted the dozens of anxious female faces before her. Then, atop a great boulder in the green grass amid the cherry trees, Sabena presented the golden box, still encased in mud, burlap, cotton scraps, and string—the sacred treasure unearthed from the Holy Land.

Sabena reiterated to them the entire story that Lily had shared with her. Some wept, others set free their braided hair, and still others shared stories of their own impoverished lives. Stirred by the legend, empowered by the sisterly camaraderie, and driven by the urge to protect the sacred vessel, the women knelt down together and dug a hole intended for the burial of the treasure.

Benevia tapped her shoulder and smiled.

Sabena whispered, Thank you for saving my life.

Do not thank me, Benevia said. It is what any sister would have done.

In the year 360 AD, the group of sisters buried the box. It took most of them to roll the boulder atop the hole. Sabena nicked the skin on her right hand with her trowel, and her blood marked the boulder with a Christian cross. Each woman stepped forward to the boulder, slit their palm, and sealed the marker with their blood. The blood of the Sisterhood. Sworn to protect the unknown contents of the relic buried beneath the tombstone at Saint Peter’s Church for all time.

###

Long ago unearthed from the necropolis beneath New Saint Peter’s Cathedral, otherwise known as the Vatican, the golden box bearing its unknown contents was encased within the walls of the Apostolic Palace under the Sisterhood's watchful eye.

It is here where the sacred relic has remained unopened and secure for centuries.

Until now.

Prologue

1

11:02 a.m., May 17, 1984

New York, NY

Tomaso Lucewicz regained consciousness to find two masked men, clothed in gray army fatigues and possessing AK-47 assault rifles standing over him in a dark, dank room that smelled of rotten seaweed. Cold and hungry, his leg throbbing, and still wearing his dress suit, he tried to figure out what an eight-year-old could have done to deserve this.

He remembered the two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that had buzzed the observation deck of the Empire State Building like giant wasps. Hard to forget the two men, dressed in black and covered by ski masks and leather gloves, who'd emerged from the doors of both helicopters on black rope ladders with hunting knives gleaming between their teeth into the middle of the International Minor Chess Competition.

They'd abducted his opponent, twelve-year-old Blane McManus. Then, they'd turned on him. He'd put up a pretty good fight since he was big for his age, but one of the assailants had stabbed him in the leg before dragging him into one of the choppers. They'd darted skyscrapers on the way to the harbor. He'd glimpsed a docked ship, a small coastal cargo carrier, just before blacking out from the pain in his leg.

Something stirred next to him on the floor. Someone moaned, and then he heard Blane call out for his mother.

Tomaso's mind flashed the memory of his own anguished mother collapsing to her knees just before the chopper pulled away, then a jolt of pain in his leg grounded him firmly in the present.

Ransom. That had to be it. He and Blane were being held for ransom.

Tomaso tried to penetrate the darkened corners of the room with his eyes, yet, aside from Blane and the two guards, he failed to register whether anyone else was there with them. No windows. No electric lights. Only a thick black candle burning in the center of a round table succeeded in barely illuminating the 100-square-foot compartment.

It’s okay, Blane, Tomaso whispered. We’ve been kidnapped, and they’re just holding us prisoner for a little while.  They have to keep us alive as ransom.

Ransom? Blane said.

Money. Our families have loads of it. That’s how they send us to genius schools.

  But— Blane’s next words were cut off, replaced by the sound of a low, steady canine growl. Dogs scare me, Tommy.  The smell of urine suddenly pervaded the already dank room. He guessed that Blane had just released some of his terror.

Hey, doggie, Tomaso said. He could not see the dog, but the enduring snarling motivated him to cover his scrotum. Nice doggie.

That’s two dogs, to be exact, said a deep voice with a barely discernable accent. They’re trained to attack, throat-first.

Tomaso took a deep breath. He shifted from Blane’s supportive hold and limped a couple steps forward on his own. Who are you?  I can’t see you.

My name is Ishmael. I am the last person you will ever meet.

Sir, why—

Silence, you repugnant Jewish filth.

Tomaso shook his head. Sir, I’m not—

Ishmael uttered a guttural signal.

Two lean, muscular Dobermans stepped into the candle’s glow and flanked the boy. One of the canines brushed its snout against Tomaso’s bloody laceration and sent a tremor up his leg. He lost the capacity for words, too intent on keeping his heart from exploding out of his chest while he maintained his balance. He stumbled forward and slumped against the table. The dogs never flinched.

Three feet across the thick marble sideboard, in the amber radiance of the candlelight, Ishmael became visible. About twenty-five years old, the man was dressed in a nice suit. His face had a clear complexion the color of creamed coffee, with a neat beard. His dark hair was short and horsehair smooth. Ordinarily, this stranger’s appearance would have made him feel at ease. Not today.

Tomaso’s nausea returned. His hands grew clammy, and his heartbeat pounded beneath his temples. The man’s sinister charcoal eyes frightened him more than anything he’d ever known. This man, Ishmael, bore the look of pure evil.

He understood now that ransom money would not save his life, nor would anything else. He pushed himself back from the table, up onto his feet and struggled to remain steady. He gulped back burning bile and then whispered, Why me?

Ishmael pulled a snack-size Snickers bar from inside his suit-pocket. He tore the brown wrapper and placed the entire morsel of light brown chocolate into his mouth, closed his eyes and chewed. After he swallowed, he opened his eyes and looked at Tomaso. Why?  Because, Jew, Ishmael said, for every wrong, there is a right. You are wrong. And this is right.

Ishmael snapped his fingers.

Tomaso opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, the dogs lunged at his neck.

His hands flew to his face. Then down to his throat. He hopped two steps backward on his good leg and was pinned to the wall by the dogs’ hulking weight.

The dogs’ muscular jaws chomped almost in unison, their razor-sharp teeth thrashing his hands and wrists, gnashing his flesh in search of his larynx.

He desperately stole a glance at Blane, who had backed himself into a corner, and pleaded with his eyes for help. Blane crouched to his knees and slapped his hands over his eyes.

Tomaso’s body pressed hard against the wall, and he managed to shift some of his weight to his bad leg. Screaming in hot, fiery pain, he lifted his strong leg and kneed one of the dogs hard in the testicles. The dog yelped and staggered backward.

Still covering his face and throat, he pummeled the attacking dog’s head and muzzle with his elbows, over and over again, as if working a punching bag. He took a chance, lowered one of his fists and clocked the dog square in the eye. The carnivore staggered off balance for a moment.

But the Doberman had caught his opening. With one eye shut, the dog pounced forward and sank his incisors deep into the boy’s Adam’s apple.

Eyes wide with horror, Tomaso flailed his arms, as if trying to catch the bright red ribbons of blood that were now spurting in every direction. Thick, coppery syrup bubbled on his tongue. He choked, and spat out a reddish, black mass. His lungs fought for the air that came in short bursts.

His eyes grew murky. He felt himself drowning in a thick fog of blackness. Mama, Tomaso mouthed through lips intact yet unable to express sound. An image of his mother filtered through the haze and reminded him to never give up.

He conjured the one last burst of adrenaline still left in his veins. With his good leg, he kneed the dog so hard in the abdomen that he heard the dog’s ribcage crack. The trained killer, its muzzle dripping with Tomaso’s blood, hair and skin, tumbled back onto the floor beside its cohort nursing its injured ribs.

His adrenaline wasted, Tomaso stumbled again into the table, his breaths shorter, raspier. He grabbed onto the edge of the marble credenza, smeared blood across the slick surface, and almost slipped sideways. He caught himself and steadied his balance with his left hand, clutching his gaping throat with the other. He leaned forward, stretching his body across the three-foot divide, as if to whisper a secret. Tortured, blood-spattered, and mere inches from the smiling face of his murderer, he gurgled incoherently. He took his trembling hand from his wounded throat and curled up the red-stained, pudgy little fingers of his right hand. In a flash, Tomaso punched Ishmael in the eye.

Tomaso withdrew his fist slowly, raking his knuckles down the front of the man’s attractive face. The ring that Tomaso wore on his middle finger, given to him by his mother for his First Holy Communion, slashed the perfect skin on the right side of Ishmael’s face, from his eyebrow down to his chin.

Ishmael bellowed an agonizing howl. It drowned out the whimpering canines, the weeping, cowering Blane, and Tomaso’s own ravaged, suffocating gasps. It culminated in silence.

Tomaso slipped backward from the table and onto his backside. Once more, he silently begged the question, Why?  He closed his eyes and fell to the floor.

###

Ishmael snapped his fingers at the awaiting guard. Send men in to take the body below, Ishmael said.

Shall we feed him to the dogs, Father?

No, the dogs detest kosher meat; they find it bland and won’t eat it. Flush him out to sea with the rest of the refuse.

###

Tomaso Lucewicz’s lungs burned as they filled with the filthy seawater. In the harbor, he clung to a rotten wine barrel among the other debris and floated away from the cargo ship, past a small schooner.

He remembered his mother’s bright, warm smile and how proud she’d been of him. The golden ring she’d given him gleamed with flecks of midday sun so bright that he could see them even when he closed his eyes. He surrendered his life to the light that comforted him so that he might be with her forever.

###

Ishmael pressed a silk handkerchief to the bleeding gash on his face and grimaced. He summoned one of his guards from outside, who entered the cabin, hoisted the cowering Blane to his feet and led him back to the door.

No, wait just a minute.  Ishmael peeled the cloth from his face and refolded it. First bring that sniveling boy to me.

The servant shoved Blane McManus to the round table. Blane kept his hands in his pockets and sniffled.

Ishmael appraised the youth, chosen for his gifted mental aptitude.  The twelve year-old, tall and lanky, appeared physically fit, and already wore a teenager’s face. Ishmael grimaced at the boy’s flaming red hair. The child, his eyes to the floor, shoulders shaking, exhibited no sign of emotional ruggedness. They never did, at first. Later, it would come.

Blane McManus, Ishmael said, "you have been saved. Praise Allah. Mind you, at this moment, you revolt me. You are a vulgar coward that exudes a foul smell. My dogs wouldn’t touch you even if I commanded so.

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, you will become strong, Ishmael said. "The sight of a dead man will no longer fill you with dread or disgust. Instead, you will revel at the sight of a good deed done.

Blane McManus, you will never hear your name as you know it spoken again by my lips. Tomorrow you shall become reborn. You will become brave, cunning, and ferocious. Renewed in my spiritual likeness, like your Muslim brothers before you. Soon, the day will come when you shall realize your full potential as a member of the Race, and if you are so lucky, you will give your life in the name of Allah.

Blane rubbed his swollen eyes with his splayed fingers.

Remember this, ordered Ishmael, rising to his feet. Blane jerked his face up to meet Ishmael’s gaze. For every wrong, there is a right. 

Ishmael wiped the slick, red blood from his lacerated face with the tips of his index and middle fingers. He reached his arm across the table and pressed them to Blane’s quivering lips.

Go now, Arak Nazeer. Your new life awaits you.

2

11:00 a.m., Friday, April 25, 1986

Lenin Memorial Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Pripyat, Ukraine

Arak Nazeer flipped open the lid on the thin, black, state-of-the-art Kolzoi N96 portable computer atop the main bench board of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station’s central control room located at Reactor Four and began programming.

A tall bearded man in his early thirties walked in. He traipsed his heavy steel-toed boots across the stained linoleum floor, stomped past a handful of busy technicians, and heaved down two large black leather duffel bags in the corner. He seated himself and checked the temperature, pressure and water flow throughout the plant. Then, he shifted between the eight monitors that displayed various stations in Reactor Four.

 Arak Nazeer turned to the bearded man and examined the name tag pinned to his lab coat. Nice to see you again, Vladimir, is it?  Nazeer smiled.

Vladimir Pucev, with the Ministry of Power and Electrification, to be precise.  He stuck out his hand and smiled. Alexei Rinkov, I look forward to working with you on this mission.  The two men nodded their silent assent to maintain their aliases, shook hands, and resumed their tasks.

At 11:30 a.m., Alexei/Arak looked up from his programming and turned to Vladimir. Sir, the procedure has begun. Reactor shutdown commenced about a half hour ago. In less than two hours, the power output should be almost half capacity, about 1500 MW.

Look at you, coming to this plant for over eighteen months. You’ve practiced dozens of simulations, and now, even at the age of fourteen, you’re running your first shutdown of a nuclear reactor. You’ve learned much during the short period of time spent walking in my footsteps. It's a good thing you're able to grow that beard; makes you look far older than your years.  Vladimir balled up a Snickers wrapper and tossed it under the desk. So, we're on schedule?

Barring any hindrances, I expect completion by sundown. Permin Donder has led the inaugural Swiss infiltration unit to perfection. There is also the Gamma Operation—

Gamma Operation is your pet project, Vladimir said. As long as it does not interfere with our ultimate objective, I leave it in your hands.  Vladimir pulled a satellite phone from his satchel. I’ll notify the evacuation teams to stand by.

###

1:40 p.m.

One of the plant’s six internal phones rattled next to Alexei. He picked it up, spat a few angry words into the receiver and hung up. Dvorak, the local electric load dispatcher, refuses to complete the shutdown, Alexei said to Vladimir.

Turn off the emergency cooling system. Vladimir picked up one of the duffels and strode to the door. I will take care of the rest.

###

2:45 p.m.

Although Alexei had ensured that the power output had reached fifty percent capacity, he frowned at the glitch in his computer program. He spun in his chair and barked an instruction to one of the younger control room technicians.

Jurg Topovsky, the pimply technician laughed. You’re kidding, right? Your order is in direct violation of all Soviet and International Atomic Energy laws. I do this, and tomorrow, I’ll find myself shoveling roads in Siberia.

Alexei stepped within inches of the operator’s face. "I am your superior, and I have issued you a direct order. If you do not comply, then tomorrow, you will