little bigger. He stepped to the table and leaned over it to see the control panel. There were no flashing lights, dials, or digital countdown clock. The only indication of life was the grey LED bar which Gabriel had to lean closer to see. A thin black line was passing slowly along it from left to right.
He stepped back through the door and into the walkway.
‘It appears to be doing something,’ Gabriel said.
That’s all Stratton needed to hear.There was nothing more for it but the final Neanderthal phase of the operation. ‘You need to break it open,’ he said.
‘Break it open?’
‘Yes.’
Gabriel looked confused. ‘Why? It’s going to explode. We’re all going to die anyway.’
‘I want you to break it open and remove the plutonium core.’
Gabriel was dumbfounded. ‘But there’s no point,’ he said.
‘Now you listen to me,’ Stratton said, anger creeping into his strained voice. ‘I don’t give a damn what you thought you saw in your daydream. I had a daydream too and it was me, walking out of here and going home, and it wasn’t as a ghost. That atom bomb is little more than a ball of plutonium surrounded by explosive. The explosive sets off the nuclear chain reaction. The device is designed not to initiate by accident or tampering. Its most important features are its safety protocols. Now I don’t know for certain, but it seems to me you could break it open and remove the plutonium without detonating it.You have more chance of stopping it blowing than you do of setting it off.’ Stratton stopped to deal with a bout of intense pain and concentrated on Zhilev’s Uzi on the ground beside him. When the pain reduced, he picked up the Uzi and pointed the barrel at Gabriel.
‘If you don’t I’m going to upset your plans of dying in a nuclear blast by shooting you through the fucking heart, right now.’
Gabriel looked at the weapon in Stratton’s hand, unaware the magazine was spent.
‘Which is it going to be?’ Stratton said. ‘If I have to blow you away, I’ll go and do it myself.’
Gabriel believed the bastard would do it too. But he was unfazed. He did not believe Stratton could save the day and did believe that his viewing had been accurate. He was strangely serene by the time he had walked to the old city. All the fears and depressions of the past few weeks had melted away as he came to terms with his destiny.The one beautiful thing that had come out of it was that he finally believed in himself and it felt good. He was not afraid of death now, and therefore Stratton’s threat was meaningless to him. He even had the courage to smile.
Stratton could see the change in the man and the genuine contempt in his eyes for Stratton and his gun. His threat to try and defuse the bomb himself was a bluff. He would try, but he did not think he would have the strength to succeed. He maintained his determined gaze, but he felt his control of Gabriel slip away.
‘What difference does it make?’ Gabriel finally said. ‘Tell you what, Stratton. Since it’s your last wish, I’ll grant you it, but you have to do something for me in return.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Pray to God and ask him for forgiveness for all you’ve done in your life. I don’t know what that is, but I’m damn sure a lot of it didn’t please him any.’
Gabriel stepped into the crypt.
Stratton dropped the Uzi, unable to hold it any longer, and contemplated Gabriel’s words. The man had a point, but asking God for forgiveness now, just before he was likely to die, seemed to him like the actions of a creep. Apologising for a wrongdoing when all other options had gone was not a real apology in his eyes. Apologise when you don’t need to and it means something.
Stratton took a shallow breath and felt dizzy. He was not getting enough oxygen. He found the bullet hole in his shirt and, biting on the pain, tore it open to reveal the hole in his chest. The blood bubbling out of it with every exhale of breath was frothy. The only good news about a bullet through the chest was that there were no major organs or arteries in front of or behind the lungs, only ribs and muscle. Bleeding to death would be unlikely and as long as one lung was working properly, life was sustainable. The bad news was