Temple

It was the New York Times article that he had read on his way to work yesterday morning—before he had arrived at the university to find a team of Special Forces troops waiting for him in his office.

The article had said that thieves were finding it easier to break into people's bank accounts because 85 per cent of people used their birthdays or some other significant date as their ATM number.

'When was his birthday?' Race said suddenly.

“Oh, I know that,' Renee said. 'I saw it in his file. It was in 1914 sometime. Oh, what was it? That's it. August 6. August 6, 1914.”

00:00:30 00:00:29 00:00:28

'What do you think?' Race yelled over the roar of the indoor rain.

“It's a possibility,” Renee said.

Race thought about that for a second. He scanned the room around him as he did so—saw Ehrhardt sitting with his back up against the wall, cackling through his blood- filled mouth.

'No,' Race said decisively. 'That's not it.'

“What?”

00:00:21 00:00:20 00:00:19

For some reason, Race was thinking with crystal clarity now.

'It's too simple. If he used a date at all, it would be a significant one, but one which would be in some way clever or smug. Something which shoved it to the rest of the world.

He wouldn't use something as inane as his birthday. He would use something with meaning.'

“Professor, we don't have much time. What else is there?”

Race tried to remember everything he had heard about Fritz Weber earlier.

He had performed experiments on human subjects.

00:00:15

He had been tried at Nuremberg.

00:00:14

And sentenced to death.

00:00:13

And executed.

00:00:12 Executed.

Executed…

That's it, Race thought.

00:00:11

But when was the date?

00:00:10

'Renee. Quickly. What was the date of Weber's supposed execution?'

00:00:09

'Oh… November 22, 1945.'

00:00:08

November 22, 1945.

00:00:07 Do it.

00:00:06

Race leaned forward, punched in the numbers on the Supernova's keyboard:

ENTER DISARM CODE HERE

11221945

Once he had entered the code—with the sprinkler rain pounding down around him and the timer in front of him rapidly counting down to zero—-Race slammed his finger down on the 'NTR' key.

Beep!

Ehrhardt's cackling stopped as soon as he heard the beep.

Race's face broke out into a wide grin.

Oh my God, I did it…

And then suddenly the Supernova's screen changed:

DISARM CODE ENTERED.

DETONATION COUNTDOWN TERMINATED AT

00:00:04

MINUTES.

ALTERNATE DETONATION SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.

Alternate detonation sequence?

'Oh, damn…“ Race breathed.

His eyes flashed over to the other timer—the one that sat on top of the hydrazine drums on the other side of the

room—the timer that was set permanently at 00:00:05.

The second timer activated, ticked over to 00:00:04.

Ehrhardt's eyes went wide with surprise.

Race's went even wider.

'Oh, man,' he said.

Exactly four seconds later, at the expiration of the abbreviated countdown, the hypergolic fuels in the drums mixed and the walls of the control booth blew out with shocking force.

Its windows shattered as one, blasting out into the sky in a million fragments, closely followed by a roaring, billowing, blasting ball of flames.

Debris shot out in every direction—doors, pieces of the Supernova, torn segments of wooden benches, sections of floor—all dispatched with such monumental force that some of them even managed to clear the rim of the crater, landing in the thick foliage that surrounded the giant earthen mine. The cracked pieces of the two thermonuclear warheads that had comprised the Supernova landed harm lessly on the floor of the crater—the hypergolic blast far too crude to split the atoms inside them.

In a moment, all that was left of the control booth was a blackened skeletal frame-charred beyond recognition, hanging loosely above the mineits walls gone, its win dows gone, its floor and ceiling also gone.

William Race was gone too.

SIXTH MACHINATION

Tuesday, January 5, 1910 hours

The two rivercraft motored slowly across the river's surface toward the abandoned mine.

One of the vessels was a long sleek speedboat, the other, a battered-looking little seaplane, with only one pontoon hanging down from its right wing.

The world was silent, the river calm.

Leonardo Van Lewen and Doogie Kennedy peered out from their respective cockpits, stared at the deserted mine in front of them. Slowly, they both brought their vessels in toward the riverbank, ran them gently aground.

They had heard the hypergolic explosion and now they saw the mine—the immense brown earthen crater—and the plume of black smoke rising from the charred box-shaped shell hanging in its centre.

There was no-one in sight.

Nothing stirred.

Whatever had happened here was well and truly oven The two Green Berets jumped out of their vessels and walked cautiously over to the collection of old warehouse- like buildings at the edge of the canyon, guns in hand.

Then, abruptly, Renee appeared from a door in one of the buildings. She saw them instantly, came over, and the three of them stood together at the edge of the canyon, staring out at the blackened remains of the control booth.