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My hands actually started trembling. I set the book on the workbench and started leafing through the pages. The paper was yellowed, but the contents were totally readable. I realized that I was looking at my great-grandfather’s journal. The famous Doc Savage genius was right there in front of my eyes. There were plans for X-ray cameras, fluoroscopes, and desalinization units. There were sketches for gyroscopes and flying wings and crazy pneumatic tube systems. It was like paging through one of da Vinci’s notebooks.
One page near the end stood out from all the scientific scrawls. It was some kind of personal manifesto, handwritten in bold lettering. I ripped the page out and put it on the bench. Then I flipped to the last page of the journal. Glued to the inside back cover was a small sepia photograph. It showed two infant boys, no more than a couple months old. They were lying side by side on a thick blanket. At the bottom of the picture were two names written in bold script:Clark & Cal.
I stared at the picture. Kira had been right. The twin story was true. I carefully pulled the photo loose and put it on top of the ripped-out page. In that instant, I felt a weird sensation come over me. My whole body started shuddering. It was as if everything I’d gone through was catching up with me at once. My legs buckled and my head started spinning. I staggered down the length of the workbench, holding on to the thick wooden top for dear life. I managed to reach a wooden bulwark a few feet from the end. I looked around the corner and saw a row of military cots, each one with a small pillow and a folded blanket. As I eased myself around a support post, I caught a glimpse of myself in a shaving mirror. It was not pretty.
I had a day’s growth of beard. My eyes looked hollow, and my skin was pale. The gash on my head was red and angry looking. I’d have a scar there for sure. Not that anybody would ever see it. Nobody was going to find me. Not here. Notever.
I stripped off my clothes and lay down on the nearest cot. I pulled the wool blanket over me. I realized that I’d never felt so alone. I thought back over the last six months—about how Kira had changed my body, and my brain, and my life.
For what?
Maybe I should have hated her for leaving me in this position, but I didn’t. Somehow, I felt that I’d let her down, and I couldn’t believe I’d never see her again.
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t fair. After all we’d been through together, how could she go and die without me?
“Wrong question,” I could hear her saying. And then, “You have only yourself.”
I turned my face to the pillow and started sobbing like a baby.
CHAPTER 80
Eastern Russia
THE MAIN GROUNDS OF the school compound were dark, except for the glow of security lights from the main building. After his stop in the nursery to admire the new enrollee, Kamenev walked across the yard toward the far edge of the property, beyond the firing range and the oval dirt track. There, at the end of an asphalt strip nearly half a mile long, he waited. Before long, he heard a low whistle in the sky and saw a set of navigation lights beaming through the cloud cover in the distance. Kamenev reached into a metal junction box and flipped a switch. Rows of bright blue lights came to life on both sides of the asphalt, forming bright stripes.
The compact fighter jet touched down at the far end of the runway at 150 miles per hour. By the time it reached the apron where Kamenev was standing, it was rolling to a gentle stop. The engine shut down. The cockpit hood folded back. Irina unfastened her harness and pushed herself out of the pilot’s seat.
Her face was bruised and she favored her left leg as she walked across the tarmac. Kamenev stepped forward, expecting his usual thorough debrief, but Irina brushed past him without even looking up.
“Target destroyed,” she said numbly. “No survivors.”
CHAPTER 81
Gaborone, Botswana
IT WAS JUST past noon when Jamelle Maina finally opened her eyes. She rolled to the side and tossed back her top sheet. Her body was covered in sweat. Since her baby had been taken, she’d had an impossible time getting to sleep. But last night’s pills and wine had finally knocked her out. Now the midday heat was bringing her around.
She swung her long, muscular legs out of bed and walked over to the boxy air conditioner in the window of her tiny bedroom. The machine was rumbling, but the fan wasn’t blowing. With her bare feet, Jamelle could feel a small puddle of warm water on the floor underneath. She banged the unit with her fist, but that just made the rumbling louder.
She walked to the bathroom, turned on the sink tap, and wiped her forehead and neck with a wet towel. She stared into the mirror. Her face was drawn, and her eyes were red. She felt like she looked a decade older than her twenty-three years.
Another week had passed without word from the police—and without contact of any kind from the private investigator. In the beginning, Devos had returned her calls and texts, but now all she got was his voice-mail greeting.
Jamelle flopped back onto the bed and turned toward the wall, staring at a photo she kept taped at eye level, so close she could touch it. Her little girl. Jamelle ran her finger over the picture and imagined the feel of her baby’s skin, the smell of her hair, the sound of her laugh. As tears dripped down her cheeks, Jamelle called her daughter’s name softly, over and over again. Like a prayer.
CHAPTER 82
Eastern Russia
ON THE REMOTE peninsula two continents west, dawn was still several hours away. In a small room buried beneath the school’s main building, security officers Balakin and Petrov were eight hours into their shift, their eyes bleary from staring at screens all night long. It was boring work. The only activity had been a solitary fox crossing the perimeter, its eyes glowing yellow on the night-vision camera. Everything else was quiet and secure, as usual.
Balakin pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit it. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep drag, and exhaled toward the ceiling. A forbidden pleasure. This was the one place on the property he could smoke with impunity, in violation of Kamenev’s strict prohibition. The room’s powerful vent filters removed every trace of smoke and odor. Petrov used the soundproof room to indulge in a vice of his own—one that drove Balakin to distraction.
“How can youstandit?” Balakin shouted. He was referring to the German techno music blaring from Petrov’s Bluetooth speaker.
“Keeps me awake,” Petrov called back, bobbing his head in time to the pounding beat.
“Hey!” Balakin shouted.
