Page 249 of Dark Angel
The code had not worked, and their situation had gone from bad to worse. With twelve minutes left and no solution in sight, Halston’s confidence was starting to wane.
25
EVERY SECOND COUNTS
GABRIEL
Gabriel wasn’t afraid of drying, but he was concerned the country was mere minutes from total electrical annihilation. As he understood the power of the electromagnetic pulses, it could completely disable all electrical devices. Not only would there be historic devastation, there would be no mass communication… and little that the government or any commercial entity could do about it.
President Garrison was in the process of getting in touch with the Russian President.
Things moved too damn slowly for Gabriel. The President had been right about one thing. Gabriel was a man of action. Sitting around a table, plugging in numbers wasn’t working for him.
Grit burned through him as he stared at the pocket watch. He turned it over. There was an inscription engraved in Russian on the back.
??? ???, ????? ??????? ??? ???????????? ?????. ??????????? ????????? ? ??? ????? ? ???????.
? ???????, ????.
“Halston, translate this,” Gabriel said.
Halston, huddled close to her dad, was busy interpreting everything on the laptop screen.
“Halston,” Gabriel repeated. “Help me.”
She looked over, then flicked her gaze to the timepiece.
“Read this,” he said.
She refocused her attention on the inscription. “My Son, life gives us limited time,” Halston read. “Do good with the time you have. Love, Father.”
“Nothing,” Gabriel bit out as he opened the watch and stared at its face of Roman numerals. The small diamonds below the I, III, and VII glittered beneath the bright lights of The Situation Room.
“No, get me the President,” Garrison’s annoyance hijacked everyone’s attention. “I’m not talking to someone in his cabinet! We’re seven minutes from a national disaster that’s going to have global repercussions!”
The President hung up, pushed out of his chair. “What do we need to do to kill the electricity in every major Russian city?”
An eerie silence fell over the group.
“When no one responded, the President directed his attention to Dustin Devereux. “Dr. Devereux, can you do it?”
“I… um… yes, but I would need a team of hackers,” Dustin replied, “and days to pull this off.”
Teddy dragged his chair over. “You got the best. Let’s do this.”
“What about just one city?” asked the President. “Moscow.”
“Easier,” Dustin replied as everyone seated around the table made room for Teddy.
Gabriel went back to studying the pocket watch. Why would Dr. Laskin give it to him if the code was a bust? The answer was in that watch, or the scientist’s death had been in vain.
“Think, Gabriel,” he muttered.
Halston took the watch from him, studied the inscription. “Do you think the code is in this note?”
Together, they stared at the Russian inscription. The note looked like it had been engraved decades earlier.
“No,” Gabriel replied. “That’s a worn inscription.”
