first wave of new projects. One of the largest corporate grants came from Harcourt Biosciences, to pay for a cutting-edge nanotech complex. Now, in the wake of the destruction of its Teller Institute facility, the company's senior management saw the IRB lab as an urgently needed replacement - and a signal of its continued determination to pursue nanotechnology. Inside the lab suite, technicians and work crews were busy installing computers, scanning microscopes, remote manipulators, filter and air pressure systems, chemical storage, and other equipment.
Jack Rafferty came on-shift with a grin and a spring in his step. The short, skinny electrician had spent the commute from his suburban La Grange home adding up how much the overtime on this project was going to put in his pocket. He figured he could pay off the twins' parochial school tuition and still have enough left over to buy the Harley motorcycle he had been eyeing for more than a year.
The grin faded as soon as he walked inside the lab. Even from the door, he could see that someone had been screwing around with the wiring he had finished putting in just yesterday. Wall panels were left hanging open, exposing disarranged bundles of color-coded cables. Untidy coils and loops of insulated electrical wire dangled from jagged holes cut in the brand-new ceiling tiles.
Rafferty swore under his breath. He stormed over to the shift supervisor, a genial bear of a man named Koslov. "Tommy, what exactly is all this junk? Did someone change the specs on us again?
The supervisor checked his clipboard and shook his head. "Not that I know of, Jack."
Rafferty frowned. "Then maybe you can tell me why Levy dinked around with my work - and left all this goddamned mess?"
Koslov shrugged. "It wasn't Levy. Someone said he called in sick. A couple of new guys were filling in for him." He looked around the room. "I saw 'em both maybe fifteen minutes ago. I guess they knocked off early."
The electrician rolled his eyes. "Nice. Probably nonunion goons. Or maybe they're just connected." He hitched up his tool belt and settled the hard hat squarely on his narrow head. "It's gonna take me half my shift just to clean this up, Tommy. So I don't want to hear any bitching about being off-schedule."
"You won't hear any from me," Koslov promised, conspicuously crossing his heart with one beefy paw.
Satisfied for the moment, Rafferty got to work, trying first to untangle the rat's nest of cabling Levy's substitutes had left behind the walls. He peered into one of the open panels, shining a flashlight into a narrow space filled with bundled wiring, pipes, and conduits of all sizes and types.
One strand of loose green wire caught his eye. What was that supposed to be? He tugged gently on it. There was a weight on the other end. Slowly, he reeled the wire in, maneuvering it through the maze, using his long, thin fingers to guide it past obstructions. One end of the wire came into view. It was plugged into a solid block of what looked like some sort of gray moldable compound.
Puzzled, Rafferty stared down at the block for several seconds, wondering what it could possibly be. Then it clicked in his mind. He turned pale. "Jesus . . . that's plastic explosive - "
The six bombs planted in and around the lab complex exploded simultaneously. Searing white light ripped through the walls and ceiling. The first terrible shock wave tore Rafferty, Koslov, and the other workers inside the lab to shreds. A wall of flame and superheated air roared through the corridors of the half-finished building - incinerating every-
thing and everyone in its path. The enormous force of the blast rippled outward, shattering steel-and-concrete structural supports, snapping them like matchsticks.
Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, one whole side of the IRB shuddered, folded in on itself in a shrieking cacophony of wrenching, tearing steel, and then collapsed. Masses of broken stone and twisted metal cascaded down into the Science Quad. A thick, choking cloud of smoke, pulverized concrete, and dust billowed skyward, lit eerily from within by the surviving construction lights.
An hour later and ten blocks away, the three leaders of a Chicago-based Lazarus Movement action cell met hurriedly inside the top-floor apartment of a Hyde Park brownstone. Still visibly shaken, the two men and one woman - all in their mid-twenties - stood staring at a television in the living room, watching the frantic reports being broadcast