“All done?” Kowalski asked, putting the vehicle into gear, the engines growling.
“For now.”
“Been all quiet here . . . except for some cries out there in the dark. I think this place took care of those two deserters for us.”
And Wright, too.
Gray pointed to the lights glowing up the wall, worried about Jason and the others. He didn’t want to wait a moment longer. “Let’s get to that Back Door.”
6:22 P.M.
Jason crouched over the control console of the substation. Stella stood behind him, her arms hugging her chest, her eyes glassy with tears. She would glance often to the window that overlooked the Coliseum.
After Jason had climbed up here, he had told her about her father, about what had happened. She had merely nodded, the news expected but not welcome. She had barely said a word since then.
“Tell me about this code,” he said, trying to get her talking, needing her help for any chance to solve this riddle. “Do you know if the password must be a certain length? Is it case sensitive?”
Jason stared at the access screen to the detonation controls. He had tried hacking his way past this level, but he kept hitting sophisticated firewalls. The security was rock solid. Without Sigma’s decryption software, this was a lost cause.
He needed that code.
Stella finally spoke. “If this system is like the others at the station, the password could be any length. But the sequence must have both upper and lowercase letters and at least one number and symbol.”
That was common protocol.
“Do you know any of your father’s old codes?” he asked. Many people reused the same password for convenience sake.
“No.” Stella moved closer to him. “And my father gave you no clue at all to his password?”
Jason stared into her wounded face. “He was more concerned with you. I think he only held out for as long as he did to make sure you were safe.”
A single tear finally fell, rolling down her cheek. It was quickly wiped away. “What if it wasn’t all about me, about my safety?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if the password has something to do with me? Maybe that was what my father was trying to communicate to you.”
Jason considered this. Many people picked meaningful people in their lives to base their passwords upon. The professor certainly loved his daughter. “Let’s give it a try.”
Jason typed in Stella and tried various common iterations, but with both a number and a symbol required, the possibilities were too broad, too variable. It still could be anything.
He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.
“Tell me about your father,” he said. “What sort of man was he?”
A small trickle of confusion entered her voice at this odd question. “He . . . he was smart, loved dogs, was a stickler for details. He believed in order, structure, everything in its place. But when he loved something . . . or someone . . . he did it with all his heart. Never forgetting birthdays or anniversaries, always sending presents.”
These memories slowly warmed the cold grief from her words.
Jason rubbed the scruff on his chin. “If he was that structured, then your father likely wouldn’t have picked something whimsical as his code. It would be something practical, yet personal, to him.” Jason turned to Stella. “Like your birthday.”
“Maybe . . .”
Jason leaned over the keyboard, glancing back at her. He typed as she told him her birthday, using the British order for denoting dates.
17 JANUARY, 1993
He held a finger over the enter button. “This password does have an upper and lowercase letter, along with numbers and one symbol.”
Stella’s hand found his, squeezing hopefully.
He hit the button.
The same error message came up.
“That’s not it,” he said.
He had been so sure. It had felt right.
He tried the Americanized version.
JANUARY 17, 1993
Another failure.
A defeated tone returned to Stella’s demeanor. “Maybe we should just give up.”
Jason considered this option. He pictured that tide he had witnessed below, flowing away from that the earlier blast from Wright’s camp. That tidal wave of panic was surely rolling inevitably toward the station.
But maybe I’m wrong . . . maybe one blast wasn’t enough.
Plus so far, that sonic cannon continued to remain silent.
Surely that was a good sign.
6:23 P.M.
Dylan Wright lay in a bloody pool, racked in pain, barely able to move. He felt the nymphs squirming inside him.
I’ve become their nest.
Others fed upon his flesh, latched on to his legs, his arms, his face. They wormed under his clothes, burrowed beneath his skin, and explored every orifice.
In his right hand, his three remaining fingers clutched a small device. Shortly after being abandoned, he had pulled it from his belt. He must have passed out for a few minutes, but death would not take him.
Not yet.
Not until I do what I must.
He moved his thumb to the button of the remote activator for the LRAD 4000X—and pressed it.
Distantly, the world wailed, mourning its own doom.
If I must die this way, then let Hell take the rest of the earth, too.
6:25 P.M.
Gray covered his ears against the sonic assault, staring back the way they had come.
“Turn us around!” he hollered.
Kowalski had stopped the CAAT at the edge of the river, not far from the blasted-out bridge. They had almost made it back to the substation when the LRAD ignited once again.
What the hell?
Even at this distance, the barrage rattled everything on the vehicle and everyone inside it.
A moment ago, they had both searched for noise-suppression gear aboard this CAAT, but all they found were moldable earplugs, which they quickly donned. The crew working on the LRAD must have nabbed those more powerful sound-muffling headphones.
“Never make it to that camp without better protection,” Kowalski warned. “By the time we got there, our eyes would be bleeding, probably our brains, too.”
Gray knew his partner was right. He stared across the river toward the glow of the Back Door.
Then, Jason, it’s up to you. You need to bottle this place up tight.
“What do we do?” Kowalski asked.
Gray considered his options. “I know one piece of noise-suppression gear we overlooked.”
“What’s that?”
Gray shifted out of his seat and retrieved something from below. He returned with it in his arms.
Kowalski nodded when he saw it. “That oughta do the trick.”