THIRTY-FIVE

02 HOURS, 53 MINUTES

TWENTY-ONE HOURS WITH no food. Not a bite.

No likelihood of food suddenly appearing.

Jack’s stomach no longer growled or rumbled. It cramped. The pains would come in waves. Each pain would last a minute or so, and stretch out over the course of an hour. Then there would be a reprieve of an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. But when the pain came back, it was worse than before. And lasted longer.

It had started in earnest after about twelve hours. He’d been hungry before that, hungry for a long, long time, but this was different. This wasn’t his body saying, “Hey, let’s eat.” This was his body saying, “Do something: we’re starving.”

A new round of pains was just beginning. Jack dreaded it. He wasn’t good with pain. And this pain was worse, somehow, than the pain in his leg. That pain was outside. This pain was inside.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Caine demanded. “Have you got it, Jack?”

Jack hesitated. If he said yes, then the next round of this nightmare would begin.

If he said no, they would sit here and sit here and sit here until they all starved.

He didn’t want to say yes. He knew now what Caine planned. He didn’t want to say yes.

“I can do it,” Jack said.

“You can do it now?”

“I can withdraw a single-fuel rod from the pile,” Jack said.

Caine stared at him. Almost as if this wasn’t the answer he wanted.

“Okay,” Caine said softly.

“But I have to start by lowering the control rods all the way. This will stop the reaction, which means it turns off all electricity.”

Caine nodded.

Diana said, “You mean, there won’t be any power for anyone. Not just Perdido Beach.”

“Unless someone restarts the reactor,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Caine said, but distracted, like his head was somewhere else.

“I can lift out a power rod. It’s twelve feet long. Actually it contains pellets of uranium 235. It’s like a very long, thin can filled with pebbles. It’s extremely radioactive.”

“So your plan is to kill us all?” Diana said.

“No. There are lead-lined sheaths they use to carry the rods. They aren’t totally effective, but they should shield us for the time we need. Unless . . .”

“Unless?” Caine demanded.

“Unless the sheath is damaged. Like if you drop it.”

“Then what happens?” Diana demanded.

“Then we’re hit with massive doses of radiation. It’s invisible, but it’s like someone is shooting tiny bullets at you. They blow millions of tiny holes through your body. You get sick. Your hair falls out. You vomit. You swell up. You die.”

No one said anything.

“So we don’t drop it,” Drake said finally.

“Yeah. We carry it for miles and we don’t drop it,” Diana said. “While Sam and Dekka and Brianna are coming at us. I can’t see how that would be a problem.”

Jack said, “The closer you are, the deadlier it is. So if you’re a couple feet away, you’re dead real quickly. If you’re farther away, you die slowly. If you’re far enough away, maybe you don’t die until you develop cancer. And if you’re even farther away, you’re safe.”

“I choose farther away,” Diana said dryly.

“How long to get ready?” Caine asked.

“Thirty minutes.”

“It’s late enough now we should wait for dark,” Caine said. “How do we get out?”

Jack shrugged. “There’s a loading dock behind the reactor.”

Caine sagged into a chair. He bit savagely at a thumbnail. Drake watched, making no attempt to disguise his contempt.

“Okay,” Caine said at last. “Jack, get everything ready. Drake, we’ll need a diversion. You attract Sam’s attention out front. Then you catch up with us.”

“Let’s just grab a truck,” Drake suggested.

“We can’t go up the coast road. They’ll see us right away,” Caine said. “We have to go overland. There are trails going up over the hills. We find a way to the highway. Cross it. Then get a vehicle and head into the desert.”

“Why should we sneak?” Drake asked. “We’ll have the uranium, right? Who is going to mess with us? Who is going to take a chance on you dropping it?”

“Let me ask you something, Drake,” Caine said. “If you were Sam, and you saw me and you and Diana and Jack all together marching up the coast road, and you saw that I was carrying this big, dangerous radioactive thing around, what would you do?”

Drake frowned.

“Oh, look: Drake’s trying to think,” Diana said.

“This is why I run things and you don’t, Drake. Let me explain it in terms you might grasp. If I’m Sam, and I see the four of us, and I figure I can’t go after us . . .” Caine held up four fingers. One by one he subtracted them. He left the middle finger up.

“He takes the rest of us out,” Drake said. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes blazed with suppressed rage.

“So if the three of you want to just walk out of here all bold and brave, let me know,” Caine said, meeting Drake’s glare with one of his own. Then he leaned close to Drake, almost embracing him. He brought his mouth to Drake’s ear and whispered, “Don’t start thinking you can take me down, Drake. You’re useful to me. The minute I start thinking you’re no longer useful . . .”