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ON THE FIRST floor of the school’s main building, an austere lecture hall now doubled as a ready-room. It was crowded with students, the school’s most senior and seasoned, the ultimate survivors, male and female. They were all dressed in tactical gear. Nobody sat. They were all too nervous and eager. The news of the attempted intrusion had spread through the student body, but only the elite—these twenty—had been chosen for primary pursuit. The room hummed with anticipation.
The side door to the classroom flew open and Irina walked in, her face grim. The room instantly fell silent. Irina walked to the front and looked over the class. She had trained most of these students herself, and she knew they were ready. She clicked a controller and brought up an image on the monitor at the front of the room. It showed a close-up of the blackened metal door.
“You all know we had an attempted breach early this morning,” she said. “Unusual. And unacceptable. But we also happen to know who’s responsible.” She paused. “It was somebody who lived here and trained here.”
The students eyed one another nervously. Was this a setup? A test? Was there a traitor in the room?
Irina clicked to the next image—the grainy frame of the woman’s silhouette. The students leaned forward, trying to digest every pixel of information. Irina let them stew for a few seconds, then clicked again. The next image was sharp and clear. It was an enhancement of a surveillance photo taken in Chicago. It showed Kira alone on a city street. Her copper curls glowed in the light.
“Her name is Meed,” said Irina. “She’s brilliant and she’s dangerous. She is a danger to this school’s existence, and to our power throughout the world. She is a threat to me and to Headmaster Kamenev and to each and every one of you.”
She zoomed in on the image until Kira’s face filled the screen.
“This is your target,” said Irina firmly. “This is your final test.”
CHAPTER 87
The Bering Sea
ACCORDING TO THE dials on the console, I was moving at about ten knots. I’d found the switch for the forward-facing spotlight, and the beam cut through the water for a distance of about twenty feet. Beyond that, it was all haze.
My depth was twelve meters. And if I could believe the compass, I was headed due west—directly toward the Kamchatka Peninsula, ten kilometers away. The hull was making terrifying noises, creaks and thuds that were even louder than the hum of the engine. Heat blasted through the cabin. I could smell motor oil and fuel and my own sweat. Every muscle in my body was tense. I was taking quick shallow breaths and keeping my movements to a minimum. I felt like I was in a very fragile egg, and I prayed that it would go the distance.
Suddenly a loud squawk filled the cabin. My adrenaline shot through the roof. A red light on the panel was blinking. A second later, I knew why. I looked down and saw water seeping through a seam on the floor. I pulled the ballast lever to lift the nose angle, but the sub wasn’t responding. There was no way to surface. I felt a sudden rush of ice water over my feet, then my ankles.
I scanned the controls and flipped the switch markedPUMP.Somewhere behind me another motor fired up, and I could hear water being sucked out through a vent. But not fast enough. The flood was rising up my calves. The nose of the sub was tilting down. I was descending fast. Twenty meters. Now thirty.
The creaking got louder. I heard a rivet pop, then another. Like gunshots. I looked around the cabin. I started pressing every button, hoping something might seal the leak. I looked behind me. The only thing I saw was a hand-cranked radio mounted to the rear of the cabin, like something out of a museum. The sub tipped almost vertical and picked up speed. I knew I didn’t have much time. I was riding a rocket to the bottom of the sea.
CHAPTER 88
Eastern Russia
THE ATVS WERE even louder than Kira remembered.
She covered her ears and held perfectly still as the search party bounced over a ridge and down a rocky slope at the bottom of a steep 200-foot cliff. Kira knew the riders would be jostling for position, each one hoping to spot the target first. She knew they’d be pumped with energy and bent on speed. Her hope was that they’d scan the trail ahead but ignore the perimeter.
Huddled under a pile of brush, covered with a thin mesh net that make her look like part of the landscape, Kira lowered her head and held her breath. The riders passed so close to her that the tires threw sharp bits of stone against her head and back. She did not flinch.
Her body was already bruised and aching from the night before. She had no memory of the crash, and no idea how long she’d been unconscious in the water, only that her backpack had somehow kept her afloat until she’d washed ashore. She’d spent a desperate hour in the dark searching for the professor, hoping he’d been carried in on the same current. But there was no trace of him. She’d lost the one person on earth who could help her, the one person she could depend on. No matter how unlikely, the professor had become her partner. Now she was on her own again.
Kira was furious with herself for her clumsy attempt on the shed early that morning. She should have known that the thermite had been degraded by age and by the salt water. She realized that she might as well have left a fingerprint. But she was desperate for weapons, something to even the odds—something beyond the meager supplies in her backpack. She’d hoped that she’d retreated far enough to avoid the dragnet. But she now realized that they were looking everywhere.
As the roar of the ATVs faded into the distance, Kira shrugged off the camo net and stuffed it into the backpack. She needed to move, improvise another plan, accomplish the mission, no matter what. The mission was everything. She stood up, legs aching, and started to head back in the direction of the school.
She’d gone just a few yards when a single ATV crested the hill in front of her.
The rider was slender, with black hair and a bruised face.
Irina.
Kira gasped. She felt bile rise in her throat. She froze in place, but she was no longer camouflaged. She was trapped in plain sight.
Irina froze, too, but only for a second. Then her mouth curled into a strange smile. She revved her engine.
Kira made a dash across the trail for the cliff, about twenty yards away. She saw Irina begin to roll down the hill on her ATV. She was in no rush. She was enjoying this.
The cliff face was nearly vertical, but it was laced with narrow cracks. Kira reached into her backpack and pulled out a handful of steel climbing pegs. She jammed them into small cracks and began to pull herself up the rocks. She looked back as Irina rolled to a stop at the base of the cliff. As Kira found another handhold, an incendiary bullet spattered flames and stone fragments inches from her head. She swung herself around a ledge and nearly lost her grip. Another shot exploded just below her feet. Kira knew that Irina was an expert sniper. She wasn’t going for a kill shot. She was just playing with her. For now.
