Fifty-four seconds remained on the red digital timer when the first drops of scalding hydraulic oil hissed against the floor grating.
Out in the Master Control Room, the five-thousand-pound cast-iron breaker blade descended in steady, terrifying increments. Its lower edge, sharpened to a surgical taper and weighing as much as a loaded municipal delivery van, groaned as the hydraulic bleed valves vented pressurized oil into the catch-trough.
53 ... 52 ... 51 ...
Inside the Faraday cage, Sammy Chen was on his knees, his hands pressed tightly over his ears. The air inside the cage smelled of singed wool and ionized copper. The blue sparks dancing across the outer woven steel mesh crackled with a dry, static hiss that made the hair on the back of Sammy’s neck stand straight up.
Elena Rostova stood over him, her gray eyes fixed through the shattered blast hole directly on Julian’s hands.
In her mind, Elena’s emergency room training was running cold, mathematical calculations. A five-thousand-pound cast-iron blade falling from twenty feet would generate more than one hundred thousand foot-pounds of kinetic energy upon impact. When that iron wedge struck the top of the cage, the tubular steel frame would buckle inward like an empty soda can.
