Travis, still standing at the end of the hall, laughed derisively. “We’ll see.”

“Keep your thumb firmly on the button,” Eric said as he transferred the box to the Major’s hand. He held onto the wire until the Major handed him the control panel with the small dial. Both he and the Major backed away from each other slowly. Suddenly a fury gripped Eric, and he whirled, hurling the transmitting control against the wall with all his strength. It hit and shattered, spraying pieces across the hallway. Then he turned and darted down the corridor and around the corner.

“We have another one, you fool!” Travis screamed after him. “We’ll still get your precious Nicole.”

“Travis,” the Major commanded, “get inside. Make sure no one bumps this wire until we can defuse it.”

Moving quickly but carefully, the Major stepped inside the Monitoring Room, holding the red button firmly. As Travis moved over to join him, the sound of rifle fire came faintly down the hallway.

“We saved it, Major,” Travis said, his eyes following the Major’s as he looked round. “And we’ll get them too.”

“Let Lowry handle it for now,” the Major said. “You stay right here until we get this thing unhooked.”

He turned and surveyed the room with its scattered furniture, letting his free hand run lightly over the keys of one of the computer consoles. “We came so close, Travis,” he murmured. “So close to losing it all.”

“I know.” As Travis turned, his eyes fell on the body near the side door, and he moved over to it. “Which one of them did we get?”

He dropped to one knee, grabbed the dead man’s shoulder, and turned him over as the Major came in closer to look.

“No!” The Major’s cry and Travis’s stunned gasp of surprise echoed in the Monitoring Room simultaneously, but it was not the face of Donald Brownley they stared at. A blue box was lying on the floor beneath the body—a blue box identical to the one held in the Major’s hand, except that when they turned Donald Brownley over, the red button on that box popped up into its full position.

For several moments they both stood rooted to the spot, frozen with shock. Then Travis leaped to his feet. “Run!” he screamed, shoving the Major. He had barely cleared the doorway when the ten-second delay switch closed a fraction of an inch, sending the voltage from two small flashlight batteries racing down the wires to the detonators. With a stupefying roar of yellow and orange fire, the computer banks and monitoring consoles, the tracking screens, and most of the lower level of Central Control disappeared in a shattering blast of flying glass, broken bricks, shards of red-hot metal, and shredded silicon boards speckled with circuitry.