“Exactly,” Dustin acknowledged.
“Bulgrov launched a series of EMPs to detonatewhen?" Greystone asked, his voice so low, Gabriel had barely heard him.
Halston shifted from the computer screen to the people sitting around the table. “In one-hundred and twenty minutes.”
“What?” Sydney blurted. “Is this for real?”
“Can we stop it?” Sonya Devereux asked.
“Let me see it,” Dustin replied.
Caroline entered the room, eyed Bulgrov. “What happened? I just walked the nurse out. Should I call him back?”
“Poison,” Gabriel explained.
Teddy stood so Dustin could take his chair. Father and daughter spoke as Halston translated the information from Russian to English.
“Look!” Halston said. “At the bottom of the screen, there’s a button that says, ????????? ???????????. It translates to Emergency Stop Switch.”
“Do it,” Greystone commanded.
Halston placed the cursor over the button and tapped the mouse. The silence was so thick, it felt like the oxygen was being sucked from the room.
“The countdown timer stopped,” Halston said as she flicked her gaze to Gabriel.
“That’s good,” Sydney said.
Dustin continued staring at the screen for several seconds. “Oh, no,” he blurted.
“Talk to us,” Teddy said.
Dustin’s shoulders fell. “The timer started up again.”
“Another window popped up,” Halston said. “The kill switch was overridden. Activation sequence has resumed.”
“This is catastrophic,” Dustin said. “Five satellites have been programmed to deploy the EMPs into the highest parts of the earth’s atmosphere over the US.”
“In less than two hours,” Gabriel said.
“Oh, no,” Caroline bleated. “This can’t be happening.”
Z rushed into the conference room, his hair disheveled, his eyes darting around the room. Instead of wearing a suit, he stood there in a rumpled coat, sweatshirt and sweatpants. “The hangar door was wide open.”
Greystone jumped up.
“I closed it,” Z said. “What’s with the corpse in the wheelchair? He looks like he’s in time out.”
Slash stifled a snicker.
“We’re in crisis mode,” Greystone said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Z replied. “Kathrine Austin finally got a reliable source to give her something relevant. The Russians are looking to plunge the entire country into permanent blackout, except that the lights in the DMV just came back on.”
“We’re way past that,” Gabriel said.
“Wait,” Halston said. “There’s a single word at the bottom of the screen. It translates to Abort.”
“Hit it,” Greystone said.