"Outer casing, aluminum and titanium alloy, weight: 4.75 kg," the team leader reported, her voice clear. "Electronic drive modules, three units, each weighing 0.08 kg. Control motherboard, 0.12 kg." Numbers filled the graphs on Daniel's screen, building an accurate profile of the device.
"Attention, team leader," Daniel instructed. "When you reach the fissile core, extra caution is required. There is a secondary proximity sensor that may have been activated as a precaution. Maintain a constant deactivation rate. Any abrupt acceleration or deceleration may be interpreted as a reactivation attempt."
The image on Daniel's screen changed, showing a new area on the same street, a few meters away, where another dumpster, identical to the first, was parked next to a fire hydrant. The team leader's scanner flashed red over this second location. An audible alert, a sharp, short "beep," cut through the silence. A line of code appeared in the corner of Daniel's screen:DUPLICATE DETECTED. IDENTICAL SIGNATURE. 50 METERS WEST.
"The team leader has a reading," Daniel said, his voice rising, the urgency intensifying, the glow from the screens casting dancing shadows across his tense face. "She's detected a second device. It's fifty meters west of the current location. Confirmed. I knew there would be more. Now you understand the gravity of the situation. Henry, project the location of the second device to all terminals. Relocate half the deactivation team there immediately. And activate the secondary pulse emitters at the new location. We need to replicate the mitigation we performed on the first." Daniel commanded, his orders received and executed without question by Henry, who now worked with renewed agility, his fingers flying over the keyboard, adrenaline driving him through the exhaustion. He was the physical extension of Daniel's will.
"A second? In New York?" The Secretary of Energy muttered, panic returning to his face, his hands gripping the frames of his glasses so tightly his knuckles were white. "How many more, Ghost? How many of them are scattered?"
"That's the question we'll answer, Secretary. But right now, we have two in Manhattan that need to be disabled," Daniel replied, his voice filled with cold gravity. "The team is moving. General, I need you to mobilize more EOD teams. There's no time for flights from other states. Use local units. We need more hands and more equipment to sweep the city. Not just Manhattan. All five boroughs. And, Director Vance, mobilize your agents. I need all the information on the terrorist groups that have the capability to transport and activate these devices. Track every connection, every transaction. I'm giving you the target. You need to hunt down the shooter."
TheDirector Vancenodded, hisblue eyesnow burning with new determination, his fatigue momentarily forgotten in the face of the magnitude of the threat. He was already tapping away at his keyboard, issuing quick, concise orders to his subordinates, the sound of his voice echoing through the stuffy room filled with blinking monitors. "Consider it done, Ghost. My teams are already on full alert. The Attorney General is drafting unlimited warrants. No one will rest until every single one of these artifacts is found and every single person responsible is arrested." The Attorney General, nodding vigorously, was already on the phone with her legal team, the urgency in her voice palpable, her face tense in a mask of seriousness.
On the screen, the deactivation team split up. Two of the technicians headed to the second device, while the leader remained with the first. The tension was almost unbearable, hanging in the air like a cloud of invisible smoke. Daniel was in complete control, but the execution depended on human factors, on meticulous and dangerous fieldwork.
"Attention, team one on the primary device," Daniel instructed, his voice now directly into the team's headsets in New York, bypassing government channels, a demonstration of his control capabilities. "I'm injecting the secondary override frequency. Team leader will synchronize. When the electromagnetic pulse is generated, it will fry the circuits. Maintain a minimum distance of five meters. Team two, prepare for the same procedure. The time to detonate the devices not yet deactivated is inthree minutes and forty-five seconds."
Sweat ran down Henry's face, his hands clenched tightly, his eyes glued to the screens. He saw life and death played out on a digital chessboard, and Daniel was the only master there.mansionin Dubai, with its opulent luxury and frigid air conditioning, seemed an oasis of illusory calm in the face of the storm raging across the world.
The team on site acted with military precision. The technician on the first device placed a small device on the surface of the metal cylinder. A green light flashed. The team leader, with a voice command, activated it. A low, almost imperceptible hum emanated from the screen. And then, the device's graph on Daniel's system transformed into a blue blur. Second device: neutralized. A quiet relief, a collective sigh, echoed through the conference, a sound Daniel could feel through the audio, even through the digital compression layer. The Pentagon General let out a hoarse laugh, half-relieved, half-hysterical, his shoulders visibly relaxing. The Secretary of Energy wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The Attorney General slumped in her chair, her hands still covering her mouth, herteary eyesof pure gratitude. The White House Counsel closed his eyes for a brief moment, before reopening them, filled with newfound awe and terror.
"Two! We got two!" the Secretary of Energy exclaimed, his voice filled with renewed hope.
"We haven't found anything yet, Secretary," Daniel corrected, his voice cold and sharp. "We don't yet know how many there are. This is a race against time. The second artifact has the same signature as the first. That means it's a production model. There's a supplier. There's a builder. And there's a customer. And the clock is ticking to detonate the ones we haven't located yet."
Daniel enlarged the map of the United States on his screen, then expanded it into a world map. Small green dots blinked in strategic locations: London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Sydney. Capital cities, financial centers, centers of power. Green dots that indicated the presence of their own emitters, discreetly implanted over the years, dormant until activated. Green dots that now seemed to blink with a new urgency, awaiting a command from Daniel.
"Director Vance, General," Daniel continued, his voice grave. "We need a global sweep. My network is ready to provide the exact location of devices with identical signatures in other cities. Don't wait for detonator alerts. I've detected the device's signature. That's enough. Activate your international teams. I'll give you the location, signature, and deactivation frequency for each. We must act now. We have no choice but tofifty minutesbefore the global detonation window closes for all active devices."
The information hit the conference members like a punch. The scale of what Daniel was revealing was terrifying. A coordinated attack on a global scale, not just focused on the United States, but aimed at destabilizing the entire world.
"Fifty minutes?!" the White House Counsel exclaimed, his voice in shock. "Ghost, this is... this is war! How can a single individual have access to this information and this technology?"
"There's no time for questions, Councilor," Daniel replied, his voice like ice. "There's time for action. Whether you trust me or not, I'm giving you the chance to prevent global collapse. The choice is yours. I've already initiated the global scan. The data is being processed. In less than thirty seconds, you'll have the complete target list."
Already mansion, the hum of Daniel's servers grew louder, a chorus of computing power. The glass walls of his office shimmered with thousands of lines of data, satellite images, network diagrams, and world maps pulsing with energy. Henry, even without fully understanding what was happening, felt the gravity in the air. He trusted Daniel more than anyone else in the world.
Daniel turned to Henry, thehoney brown eyesfixed on him. "Henry, prepare communication channels to the leaders of the intelligence agencies in London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sydney. Secure channels. Direct information. No intermediaries. We need total and unrestricted coordination."
Henry nodded, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Adrenaline kept him alert, even as sweat poured down his face. He knew what he was doing was crucial. The lives of millions depended on this man and his invisible network.
The conference screens flickered. A new window appeared, displaying a list of coordinates and signatures. Dozens of them. Major cities on every continent. The terror network knew no borders.
"The list is there," Daniel declared, his voice heavy with the magnitude of the revelation. "Twenty-seven nuclear devices on the ground, scattered around the world. Timed to detonate within a sixty-minute period. Three have already been mitigated, including the two in New York. That leaves us withtwenty-four critical targets. And the clock doesn't stop."
He looked at each face on the screen, his expression steely. "Start the action. Now."
As the conference turned into a frenzy of commands and urgent phone calls to global capitals, Daniel turned his attention to the team in New York. On the screen, the team leader was now focused on disassembling the first artifact, with the technician at her side carefully recording every detail.
"Ghost, we've reached what appears to be the plutonium core," the leader reported, her voice tense. The zoomed-in image showed a polished cylinder of dense, dark metal with an almost sinister sheen. "We're preparing the precision scale and Geiger counter. The background radiation level is low, consistent with what you predicted after the shutdown."
"Excellent. Maintain security protocol. Your life is the priority. Then the data," Daniel ordered.
The technician, with steady hands, placed the cylinder on the digital scale. The numbers fluctuated for a moment before stabilizing. "Gross core weight:3.8 kilograms"Ghost," he announced. The Geiger counter, positioned near the material, emitted a soft but constant crackling, a reminder of the object's deadly nature. "Gamma radiation reading: 0.7 microsieverts per hour. Alpha and beta consistent with plutonium-239."
Daniel recorded the data in his mind as it was automatically entered into his database. "Plutonium-239," he repeated to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. "This is significant. It's not dirty bomb material. It's an artifact with genuine destructive capability."
"Attention, Ghost," the team leader continued, moving the tweezers to expose more of the material. "The core is encased in a layer of bismuth and a polymeric material that appears to be for neutron absorption. Disassembling carefully. There are microfilaments embedded in the material. It appears to be an attempt to complicate analysis."
"It's a layer of protection against detection. Ignore them for now. Focus on weighing the pure fissile material. They want to slow us down. Don't get distracted," Daniel instructed. "Weigh the amount of pure plutonium, isolating the bismuth casing. I need critical mass."
The technician adjusted the grip and gently used a tool to separate a section of the core casing. The digital scale wobbled again. "Net weight of plutonium-239:3.5 kilograms, Ghost," the technician reported. "The bismuth and polymer weigh 0.3 kilograms combined."
Daniel absorbed this information. 3.5 kg of Plutonium-239 was a substantial amount. Enough for a low-yield nuclear warhead, but still devastating to an urban area. The quality of the material indicated a sophisticated origin.
"Excellent work," Daniel praised, a rare flash of recognition in his voice. "Now, proceed with the complete disassembly of all electronic components, cables, and internal casings. Each component may contain fingerprints, chemical residue, and tool marks. All of this is crucial for identifying the manufacturers and the supply chain. And continue monitoring the radiation level in each disassembled part. Compare the weights of the individual parts to the total weight of the artifact. Any discrepancies may indicate hidden compartments or other materials."
As the New York team continued their meticulous work, Daniel activated the other communication windows. The faces of intelligence agency leaders from London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sydney were now visible, their expressions tense and serious. They were listening to Daniel's feed, absorbing the magnitude of the threat.
"Gentlemen, ladies," Daniel began, his voice clear and straightforward. "What happened in New York is just the beginning. My network has detected twenty-four additional nuclear devices with the same signature, scattered throughout their respective capitals and major cities. I've just sent you the exact coordinates and deactivation plans."
A murmur of shock and disbelief ran through the call.
"Twenty-twenty-four?!" the head of London's MI6 exclaimed, his face ashen. "This is an unprecedented terrorist operation. Who's behind it?"