Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

With the sweat acting as a lubricant, Joe finessed his hand deeper into the cuff. Finally, it came free.

Joe smiled victorious. “Blood, sweat, and tears,” he said. “That’s all it takes.”

Gregorovich looked down. “What about your feet? I don’t suppose you have big ankles and narrow toes.”

Joe hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“One step at a time,” he said. “One step at a time.”

FORTY-FOUR

In the island’s control room, Hayley was doing her best to act normal. She continued to speak to Thero as if addressing George, infusing her words with affection while trying not to look obvious.

As she fawned over him, Thero showed her the control panels for the great machine and led her to the viewing portal, through which she could see the great orb resting in the darkened cave.

He pressed a series of switches. Lights came on in a cave outside the window. A huge spherical construction appeared. She recognized it from a conceptual drawing Thero had shown her years ago.

“It’s incredible,” she said.

“My father was right,” he said. “This is proof. From here, we can direct vast amounts of energy through the Earth to any point on the globe. Energy we draw from the zero-point field.”

“You don’t need the generators?” she asked.

“Only to start the wave,” he replied.

That gave her an idea. If they could possibly destroy the generators she’d seen outside, perhaps they could prevent the machine from engaging.

“This is amazing,” she said, gazing through the observation window at the latticework. “How did you solve the dynamic feedback problem?”

“We’ve only partially solved it,” he admitted.

“Do you still end up with uncontrollable vibr

ations?”

“We use the water as a dampening field,” Thero said. “It absorbs much of the energy. Also, by creating a spherical emitter instead of an open-ended conductor, we get a much more stable wave.”

“You were always a step ahead of us, George,” she said, smiling. “That’s really quite brilliant.”

“My father did most of the theoretical work,” he replied. “But I crunched the numbers.”

As they spoke, she tried to gauge how strong a grip the George persona was exerting. Working on her own phobias, she’d learned a great deal about mental health. She’d heard of cases where subjects with multiple personality disorder had absolutely no idea what the other personalities in their minds were up to. To the point where they passed lie detector tests after committing crimes or even carried on affairs or entirely different lives when the dominant personality went dormant.

If that was the case here, perhaps she could coax George into letting them go, or surrendering, or at least giving them more time to come up with some plan to stop the lethal strike he was counting down to launch.

“It was you who sent the letters?” she asked hopefully.

A blank stare issued forth from Thero.

“To warn me,” she said, risking everything.

“Yes,” he replied finally. “I was hoping we might still bring peaceful energy to the world.”

“Your father doesn’t know,” she said. “We have to keep it that way. We can still help him, but he won’t understand.”

“I agree,” Thero said. “He might hate me for it, but it’s for our own good.”

“You helped the others to escape,” she prodded.