If the alarm was going off, that meant the facility was in the process of lockdown. When complete, the entire space would be flooded with radiation. The weapon would be destroyed along with every living thing trapped inside.

“Sir, I don’t—”

“Shut up and listen! Shut down the breach protocols. Do you understand me?”

Relief was audible in the man’s voice. “Yes, sir. We’re initiating the override now.”

Takahashi stared at the glass in front of him, turning the situation over in his head—the missing canisters, the reboot of the security system. The phantom breach.

Ito.

He pressed his palm against the reader next to the portal that allowed access to the weapon. As expected it just pulsed red, indicating that it had been frozen by the alarm. Takahashi pulled the cover from a keypad and punched in his override code—one of many Ito had not been told about. The bolts securing the portal retracted and he ducked through, grabbing two of the canisters and starting back into the corridor.

His earpiece came to life a moment later. “Sir, the shutdown sequence isn’t responding.”

Takahashi started to run, feeling his rage increasing to the point that even he found it hard to control.

“Why isn’t it responding?” he asked, suspecting that he already knew the answer.

“We’re being blocked by the central computer, sir. It’s Dr. Ito. The cameras have come back online and we can see him in the server room. He’s with the American.”

59

59

Northeastern Japan

It’s done,” Dr. Hideki Ito said over the drone of the alarm. “The facility is locked down and the sterilization process has begun.”

He leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the computer screen in front of him. A red bar graph indicating the ambient radiation levels dominated it. Twenty-three rads and rising.

Smith leaned over the scientist’s shoulder, ignoring the graphical illustration of his slow death and focusing on the security camera feeds. Three men had reached the main cavern and were coming full tilt in their direction.

“Can they get through the door?” Smith asked, tapping the image with his index finger.

“It’s virtually indestructible,” Ito responded. “And even if they do, it wouldn’t matter. The system is designed with the idea that the servers would be attacked by the nanotech—there was no way to construct them without using vulnerable materials. So even if they gain entry and destroy everything, it will have no effect. The sterilization protocols have the ability to operate independently from the mainframe.”

Smith backed against the stone-and-dirt wall, looking down at the two men lying motionless on the floor. What would it be like to die from radiation poisoning? How long would it take? It wasn’t exactly something they went into in medical school.