Movement across the park caught my eye. There were people in the distance, moving around the funfair despite it being closed. “Give me your scope,” I told one of my men, not bothering to look at him.

He passed me the scope from his rifle and I put it to my eye. Three men and a woman. One of them turned and—

It was the one from the photo. Briggs!

They were smashing open part of the old carousel. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they were here. Somehow, they’d found it.

I turned to my men. “All of you, with me. Shoot to kill.”

59. Danny

59

DANNY

We were all working together, pulling chunks of wood off the elephant. It was bitterly cold and our fingers were going numb but nobody wanted to stop.

Finally, JD and I managed to break off the whole side of the elephant’s torso and there it was, a boxy leather case, smaller than a modern briefcase but thicker, too, almost cube-shaped. I got my arms around it and tried to lift it out but it slithered through my arms and landed right on my toe. “OW! FUCK IT!” It hurt a lot more than it should have done. I pulled my foot out from underneath it, wincing.

“You okay?” asked Erin.

I nodded. But I wasn’t: my foot was throbbing. Why did it hurt so much? Maybe because my foot was so cold.

The top half of the case was made to zip off but the zippers were stiff from lack of use. Erin eventually managed to get them open. She took a deep breath…and lifted the lid.

I’ve never seen anyone look so awed. It was exactly the sort of vintage tech she loved, all mechanical timers and chunky buttons and switches. And yet it had enough power to snuff out hundreds of thousands of lives.

She ran her hands over, mumbling to herself absently. “Some sort of key must go there,” she said, brushing a circular hole.

JD and I looked at each other, grins spreading across our faces. We did it! Now we just had to take it to a police station, give ourselves up and tell our story. With the nuke as proof, they’d have to believe us. Becker would go to jail, Katharina would be released…

Yuri suddenly shouted in alarm. We looked up to see Becker and his men running towards us, guns drawn. “Shit,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Erin quickly zipped up the case. I grabbed it and—

“Christ!” It felt like someone had nailed the thing to the floor for a joke. How could something so small weigh this much? “Why’s it so bloody heavy?”

“Shielding,” said Erin. “It’s probably mostly lead.”

“‘Least we know it’s not irradiating us,” muttered JD.

I gritted my teeth, heaved and managed to get the thing up into my arms. “Go,” I panted.