Chapter 103

The Commander rose through the trapdoor like Lazarus back from the dead. Despite his soggy clothes, his step was light. He strode toward Node 3‑toward Susan. Toward his future.

The Crypto floor was again bathed in light. Freon was flowing downward through the smoldering TRANSLTR like oxygenated blood. Strathmore knew it would take a few minutes for the coolant to reach the bottom of the hull and prevent the lowest processors from igniting, but he was certain he’d acted in time. He exhaled in victory, never suspecting the truth‑that it was already too late.

I’m a survivor, he thought. Ignoring the gaping hole in the Node 3 wall, he strode to the electronic doors. They hissed open. He stepped inside.

Susan was standing before him, damp and tousled in his blazer. She looked like a freshman coed who’d been caught in the rain. He felt like the senior who’d lent her his varsity sweater. For the first time in years, he felt young. His dream was coming true.

But as Strathmore moved closer, he felt he was staring into the eyes of a woman he did not recognize. Her gaze was like ice. The softness was gone. Susan Fletcher stood rigid, like an immovable statue. The only perceptible motion were the tears welling in her eyes.

“Susan?”

A single tear rolled down her quivering cheek.

“What is it?” the commander pleaded.

The puddle of blood beneath Hale’s body had spread across the carpet like an oil spill. Strathmore glanced uneasily at the corpse, then back at Susan. Could she possibly know? There was no way. Strathmore knew he had covered every base.

“Susan?” he said, stepping closer. “What is it?”

Susan did not move.

“Are you worried about David?”

There was a slight quiver in her upper lip.

Strathmore stepped closer. He was going to reach for her, but he hesitated. The sound of David’s name had apparently cracked the dam of grief. Slowly at first‑a quiver, a tremble. And then a thundering wave of misery seemed to course through her veins. Barely able to control her shuddering lips, Susan opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came.

Without ever breaking the icy gaze she’d locked on Strathmore, she took her hand from the pocket of his blazer. In her hand was an object. She held it out, shaking.

Strathmore half expected to look down and see the Beretta leveled at his gut. But the gun was still on the floor, propped safely in Hale’s hand. The object Susan was holding was smaller. Strathmore stared down at it, and an instant later, he understood.

As Strathmore stared, reality warped, and time slowed to a crawl. He could hear the sound of his own heart. The man who had triumphed over giants for so many years had been outdone in an instant. Slain by love‑by his own foolishness. In a simple act of chivalry, he had given Susan his jacket. And with it, his SkyPager.

Now it was Strathmore who went rigid. Susan’s hand was shaking. The pager fell at Hale’s feet. With a look of astonishment and betrayal that Strathmore would never forget, Susan Fletcher raced past him out of Node 3.

The commander let her go. In slow motion, he bent and retrieved the pager. There were no new messages‑Susan had read them all. Strathmore scrolled desperately through the list.

SUBJECT: ENSEI TANKADO‑TERMINATED

SUBJECT: PIERRE CLOUCHARDE‑TERMINATED

SUBJECT: HANS HUBER‑TERMINATED

SUBJECT: ROCIO EVA GRANADA‑TERMINATED . . .

The list went on. Strathmore felt a wave of horror. I can explain! She will understand! Honor! Country! But there was one message he had not yet seen‑one message he could never explain. Trembling, he scrolled to the final transmission.

SUBJECT: DAVID BECKER‑TERMINATED

Strathmore hung his head. His dream was over.

CHAPTER 104

Susan staggered out of Node 3.

SUBJECT: DAVID BECKER‑TERMINATED

As if in a dream, she moved toward Crypto’s main exit. Greg Hale’s voice echoed in her mind: Susan, Strathmore’s going to kill me! Susan, the commander’s in love with you!

Susan reached the enormous circular portal and began stabbing desperately at the keypad. The door did not move. She tried again, but the enormous slab refused to rotate. Susan let out a muted scream‑apparently the power outage had deleted the exit codes. She was still trapped.

Without warning, two arms closed around her from behind, grasping her half‑numb body. The touch was familiar yet repulsive. It lacked the brute strength of Greg Hale, but there was a desperate roughness to it, an inner determination like steel.

Susan turned. The man restraining her was desolate, frightened. It was a face she had never seen.

“Susan,” Strathmore begged, holding her. “I can explain.”

She tried to pull away.

The commander held fast.

Susan tried to scream, but she had no voice. She tried to run, but strong hands restrained her, pulling her backward.

“I love you,” the voice was whispering. “I’ve loved you forever.”

Susan’s stomach turned over and over.

“Stay with me.”

Susan’s mind whirled with grisly images‑David’s bright‑green eyes, slowly closing for the last time; Greg Hale’s corpse seeping blood onto the carpet; Phil Chartrukian’s burned and broken on the generators.

“The pain will pass,” the voice said. “You’ll love again.”

Susan heard nothing.

“Stay with me,” the voice pleaded. “I’ll heal your wounds.”

She struggled, helpless.

“I did it for us. We’re made for each other. Susan, I love you.” The words flowed as if he had waited a decade to speak them. “I love you! I love you!”

In that instant, thirty yards away, as if rebutting Strathmore’s vile confession, TRANSLTR let out a savage, pitiless hiss. The sound was an entirely new one‑a distant, ominous sizzling that seemed to grow like a serpent in the depths of the silo. The freon, it appeared, had not reached its mark in time.

The commander let go of Susan and turned toward the $2 billion computer. His eyes went wide with dread. “No!” He grabbed his head. “No!”

The six‑story rocket began to tremble. Strathmore staggered a faltering step toward the thundering hull. Then he fell to his knees, a sinner before an angry god. It was no use. At the base of the silo, TRANSLTR’s titanium‑strontium processors had just ignited.