State of Emergency

CHAPTER 74


Quinn woke to Aleksandra touching his face. He’d never seen her do anything so gently. Coughing, he rose up on one elbow, testing each limb and joint for broken bones. A persistent whine assaulted his ears, providing background music to the drumbeat of pain in the front of his head.

The door to the boiler room hung half off its hinges. A layer of greasy smoke curled through the room.

“I don’t know what we’ve been worried about all these years.” He coughed again, nodding at the door. “Looks to me like you Russians build some pretty poor nuclear bombs.”

Tears dripped from the tip of Aleksandra’s freckled nose as she looked down at him. “I thought . . .”

“So did I.” Quinn touched a large knot on his forehead, wincing. “Seriously, why aren’t we a speck of ash in crater right now?”

“Both our countries build weak links into such devices—a row of capacitors or something similar that will fail and render the bomb useless in the event of a fire or unintended plane crash.”

Quinn nodded. “And that’s what you had me shoot.”

“Correct. The initial explosive went off but was not able to trigger a nuclear detonation.” She sniffed. “The blast was localized to the boiler room . . . and your forehead. We will need to be decontaminated since some of the nuclear material was surely released—like a dirty bomb—but everyone upstairs is safe.”

“You know, we’ve been through a lot over the last couple of weeks,” Quinn moaned, falling back on the floor with his eyes shut. “And this is only the second time I’ve seen you cry.”

Aleksandra gently smoothed his hair. “I have only ever had two friends.”