Phantom Prospect - Alex Archer [88]
The second guard backed away to check on the first guard. Annja shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The guard looked and blanched at the sight of what Annja’s sword had done. He stared at her. “Where did you get that thing?”
“What thing?” Annja asked.
The guard didn’t hesitate and raised his gun. As he did so, Annja flicked her hands toward him and sent the sword spinning right at his head. His neck spouted a fountain of blood before he fell forward, a spreading pool expanding outward toward the shaft with the nuclear bomb.
Annja helped Cole to his feet.
“Are they dead?” he asked.
Annja nodded. “Yeah, the sword saw to that,” she said as she willed the sword back to the otherwhere.
“Good. The bastards.” Cole looked around. “Can we leave now? I’m tired of being here.”
Annja smiled. “I wish. We’ve got to take care of some other business first.”
“What business?”
“First, my handcuffs, then the bomb.”
Cole grabbed a set of keys from one of the dead guards. He freed Annja’s hands and then removed the broken cuffs from his own wrists.
Cole shook his head. “I must have missed some of the details after they knocked me out. What did you say about a bomb?”
Annja pointed at the shaft. “You see that?”
“Yeah, you saved me from falling down there. What about it?”
“Take a look at what’s inside.” Annja waited until Cole crawled over to the lip of the shaft and looked down. The color drained from his face and he stared back at Annja. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s a nuclear device, Annja.”
Annja nodded. “Yep. That’s what Henderson is using to open up the reservoir of oil that’s buried beneath the bedrock in this cavern.”
“You’re joking.”
“I wish.”
Cole frowned. “So, we’re sitting atop a nuclear bomb right now. Any idea when it’s going to go off?”
Annja frowned. “Don’t know. Those two were supposed to put us down there and then take one of the mechanical sharks to rendezvous with Henderson at another facility.”
“He’s waiting for them?”
Annja shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
Annja sat down on the lip of the shaft and dangled her legs over the side. The bomb sat thirty feet below her. “Depends on how much you trust Henderson’s word.”
“And you don’t?”
“The guy’s a fruitcake. Banking on his word would make as much sense as trusting a politician. What I think is going to happen is Henderson is going to get a safe distance away and then trigger that bomb. If the guards are gone, well and good, but I don’t think for a moment he really gives a damn about them.”
“Which means we don’t have a lot of time,” Cole said.
“Exactly.”
Cole cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but why the hell are we staying here instead of getting out?”
Annja pointed at the bomb. “Because if that thing goes off, then hundreds of thousands of people might die.”
Cole frowned. “The bomb’s not that big, Annja.”
“Henderson’s got this thing positioned atop a fault line. As in earthquake fault lines.”
“So it will cause an earthquake.”
“What it might do is precipitate a massive quake that would result in a tsunami that could take out part of the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada.”
Cole’s eyebrows shot up. “No way!”
“We’ve got to stop that thing from going off.”
“Just like that?”
Annja faced him. “Got a better idea?”
“Hey, my specialty is sharks. Bombs weren’t on my course electives, Annja. I’m fairly useless in this situation.”
“Well, you can always amuse me with your comedic gold routines.”
“Great.”
Annja looked at the walls of the shaft. The drilling had left a series of pockmarks that Annja thought could make decent hand-and footholds. She lowered herself over the edge and found her way onto the first one close to her feet.
“Jesus, you’re really serious about this,” Cole said. “You think you can do something?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got to try.” She looked up at him. “Look, it’s not fair for me to ask you to stay. Why don’t you take that shark and get out of here?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Cole said.