Austin reluctantly handed the gun over. In return she reached under her smock and handed him a manila envelope.
“It’s all here, Kurt. Guard this with your life,” she said.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see when you give it to the world.” She gave Austin a long and lingering kiss. “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to postpone our date,” she said with a smile. Then she turned to the others. “Good-bye, my friends. Thank you for everything.”
The finality in her voice was unmistakable. Austin suddenly realized that she had no intention of being rescued.
“Get in!” Austin yelled, and made a grab for her arm.
She stepped easily out of reach and glanced at her watch. “You have exactly five minutes. Use them well.”
Then she punched the Up button. The door slid shut, and the elevator quickly shot out of sight. The guards diverted their attention to watch the elevator. Francesca eased the gun from under her smock and shot out the elevator controls. Then she did the same with the freight elevator and tossed the gun aside. As Brynhild rushed over with the other guards, a loud klaxon began to sound from loudspeakers set around the dome.
“What have you done?” Brynhild shouted.
“That’s the five-minute warning,” Francesca yelled back. “The reaction has been locked into place. Nothing will stop it now.”
“You said you would stop the reaction if I let your friends go.”
Francesca laughed. “I lied. You told me never to trust anyone,” flinging Brynhild’s words back at her.
The technicians had realized the danger before anyone, and while attention was diverted they silently slipped off to climb a narrow emergency staircase that spiraled in a separate waterproof shaft that led to the surface. The directors saw them trying to flee and tried to follow. The discipline of the guards quickly dissolved under the influence of fear. They used their gun butts to drive the directors back, then opened up on those who wouldn’t yield. Bodies piled up in front of the portal that led to the stairway. Guards scrambled over the heap of corpses only to be stuck in the narrow space. None would give way, and others pushed from behind. Within seconds the only way out was clogged with crushed bodies.
Brynhild couldn’t believe how quickly her world had deteriorated. She focused all her anger on Francesca, who had made no move to get away. Scooping Austin’s handgun from the floor, she aimed it at Francesca.
“You will die for this!” she screamed.
“I died ten years ago when your mad plan sent me into the rain forest.”
Brynhild’s finger squeezed the trigger and let off three shots. The first two went wild, but the third caught Francesca in the chest. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor, landing in a sitting position with her back to the wall. As a black curtain fell over her eyes she smiled beatifically. Then she was dead.
Brynhild threw the gun aside and walked over to the control panel. She stood helplessly in front of the computer screen as if she could make the reaction stop through sheer force of will. She bunched her fists and held them high over her head. Her howl of rage mingled with the hoarse bray of the klaxon.
Then the tortured atoms and molecules trapped within the core material broke free, unleashing a tremendous burst of energy. Blasted by the internal pressures, the core container turned to molten metal. Brynhild was incinerated instantly in the white-hot explosion, and a giant fireball turned the lab into an inferno.
Superheated smoke reared up the elevator shafts, along the tram tunnel, and into the complex, where it filled every passageway, then into the Great Hall. The smoke burst into billowing flames that boiled the air, touched off the banners hanging on the walls. The smoldering gray ashes of the Gogstad ship in the heart of Valhalla vanished in a final firestorm.
41
THE BOSTON WHALER streaked across the lake with its bow up on plane, Austin pushing the twin Evinrude 150 outboard motors for all they were worth. His face was a bronze mask of anger and frustration. He had tried to go back to the lab, but the elevator had gone dead after it delivered them to the boathouse. The freight elevator wasn’t working, either. He had started down a staircase only to have Gamay pull him back.
“It’s no use,” she said. “There isn’t time.”
“Listen to Gamay,” Zavala agreed. “We’ve got less than four minutes.”
Austin knew they were right. He would die and jeopardize their lives if he attempted a futile rescue. He led the way out of the boathouse onto the pier. The guard sat outside dozing in the sun. He got up and tried to unsling his gun. Austin, who was in no mood for Marquis of Queensberry rules, rushed the terrified guard. He slammed his shoulder into the man’s midsection and knocked him off the pier.
They piled into the boat. The key was in the ignition, and the gas tanks were full. The motors started right away. They cast off, and Austin gunned the throttle and steered the boat on a direct line for the Nevada shore. He heard a shout from Zavala and turned his head. Joe and Gamay were looking back toward the pier, where the lake bubbled like water boiling in a pot.
There was a muffled roar, and a blood-red geyser shot hundreds of feet into the air like a water spout. They covered their faces with their hands against the scalding rainfall and the cloud of steam that followed. When they dared to look they saw that the pier had completely vanished.
A wave at least ten feet tall was rolling in their direction.
“These boats are supposed to be unsinkable,” Zavala said tensely.
“That’s what they said about Titanic,” Gamay reminded him.