“GEO, identify my voice.”
“Voice identified as Jackson Connor,” whispered the speaker mounted beside him on the wall.
“What is the status of Leviathan?”
“Leviathan has achieved full revival of life-support systems.”
“What is Leviathan’s location?”
“Leviathan is two miles away from the power plant and is moving in an eastern direction.”
Connor nodded slowly, reaching back. He pulled the M-79 around, breaking open the breech to confirm that a grenade was locked in the pipe. Then he snapped it shut, staring down the corridor to see the half-dozen long wires dangling from the ceiling, each end stripped of insulation to leave the shiny copper exposed.
If the beast touched any of the wires it would be blasted flat down against the steel walkway, which was also wired. And Connor was confident that, even if Leviathan was certain of the trap, it wouldn’t be able to thread a path between both the electrified platform and the descending wires.
It would be a good start.
“Leviathan is moving more quickly toward the power plant,” the computer whispered eerily. “Leviathan is in a Hunter-killer Mode.”
Connor frowned.
“So am I.”
* * *
To the end, Connor played it out in his head.
He worked his mind through the traps, one by one. And then he remembered the thick black Norwegian power cable that he had pulled from the wall of the power plant, exposing both ends of the line. He hung the severed endings well inside the entrance, leaving a gap of twenty feet between the exposed copper.
Grimacing, Connor knew that he would need a miracle to bring that lightning bolt of electrical power across from one coil to connect to the other, just as Leviathan moved between them. But Connor knew that, if it came to it, he had to make it happen.
It would be their last chance.
But the distance was extreme, he knew, and he really had no idea how he would manage it. He had wanted to move the endings closer but had decided he couldn’t risk the beast sensing the trap.
It learns, Frank had said over and over.
It learns.
It won’t fall for the same trick twice.
Connor released a tight breath, blowing sweat from his lips. He had also remembered the warning as he set his other traps, knowing that each one had to be different. And he had almost exhausted his cunning, using electrical power in ways that even he had never imagined. But the Norwegian power line was both the best and the worst because it held by far the greatest measure of power. And yet it would be the most difficult trap to close.
A sense of doom overcame him, and Connor bowed his head.
Yeah, he’d need a miracle to make it work. “I need a miracle, buddy,” he whispered, shaking his head, his mind reaching out to Thor’s gigantic, comforting presence. “And you were the one who believed in miracles …”
Alone in the gloom, Connor pondered how often Thor had spoken of good and evil and fate and life and how every man’s destiny held the Dragon, an evil that he would meet in the field with only his courage and faith and the fire of his heart to …
A breath caught in Connor’s chest.
His gaze wandered down, unfocused, remembering …
Fire?
An idea, hard and sudden, descended over him. And fumbling in frantic uncertainty, Connor quickly broke open the M-79 grenade launcher. He tore out the phosphorous grenade and stared at the projectile a long time, trying to recall the oxidation level of phosphorus, deciding whether the chemical could carry a current. He closed his eyes as he remembered what Barley had said, understanding now why it had struck him so profoundly … That phosphorous grenade is liquid fire, Connor … Be careful with it … It is pure, liquid fire …
Teeth gleaming in a savage smile, Connor glared at the grenade, raising it before his gaze. His fist closed tight and bloodless around the polished gray cylinder. And tighter.
He needed a miracle. And he was given fire.
Pure liquid fire.
Frowning, Connor nodded.
Yeah. That’d do just fine.
* * *
Connor saw the dark outline of the beast.
It had come.
“It’s about time,” Connor whispered, rising to his feet to stand fully in the middle of the corridor. Defiantly he raised the M-79, resting the stock on his hip to wait in plain sight.
One second later Leviathan was before him, standing boldly at the entrance of the corridor a quarter mile away. It sighted him almost instantly, unhinging its jaws. And even at a distance, Connor could see that the Dragon was not what it had been.
Vaporous clouds of steam floated from sections of its long neck and body where the proud armor scales were ripped and completely torn away from its gigantic body. There were even wide sections of its neck still raw and ravaged, oozing black blood. And there was a wide, unhealed black cleft between its eyes.