Silencing Eve

power. I could press a gun to your head right now and end it all.”
    “It wouldn’t end. I’m not that important in the scheme of things. Someone would stop you and destroy all your dreams. Destroy you, Doane.”
    “You believe that your death would mean nothing. And that’s one of my greatest regrets. You’re not afraid to die. I can cause Zander to suffer when he sees you die, but you’re going to cheat me of the same pleasure with you.” He added speculatively, “So I might have to throw Quinn or Jane MacGuire into that mix when I kill Zander instead of attending to them later.” He thought about it. “But I might be able to spark a response from you in a different way. Let me think … You have such a tender heart. Just the thought of needless death makes you sick, doesn’t it? What if it was the deaths of thousands of children, thousands of innocent men and women? Yes, I believe that knowing you weren’t able to stop that slaughter would cause your last moments to be a torment.”
    She stiffened. “Thousands of children?”
    “You see, you focused on the children immediately.” His tone was filled with delight. “I knew you would. Think about it, Eve, you’ve spent your entire adult life trying to bring children back to their grieving parents. How would you feel, if in the flash of a second, a greater number of children than the total you sent back to their parents were vaporized? No bodies to retrieve, no children for you to bring home to their parents. But, then, there might not be any parents grieving for their little ones. One has to consider that probability.”
    Probability, not possibility. The choice of words terrified Eve. “You’re talking crazy, Doane. Vaporized? What the hell are you planning?”
    “You know, I thought that the bodies of Blick and the whore he brought to the ghost town might be vaporized. Maybe I should have used more explosives. Kevin would know better than I what kind of effect a blast would have. I’m an amateur compared to him.” He added, “But I believe the blasts that Kevin and his friends planned would cause vaporization. I hear that’s what happened in Hiroshima. Come to think of it, the numbers might climb to millions.”
    She couldn’t breathe. “Nuclear. You’re talking nuclear.”
    “Of course. What else? Kevin wouldn’t deal with anything that was penny-ante. I told you once how much he admired Hitler. If Hitler had gotten the atomic bomb first, he would have been a god. Naturally, Kevin would follow in his footsteps. Only his plans were much more brilliant than Hitler’s, and he was right on track to bring them to completion.”
    “How?”
    “Your voice is weak. I’m frightening you, aren’t I?”
    Don’t deny it. She was frightened, and he was more likely to keep talking if he felt that heady sense of power. “How can I help it?” she asked shakily. “It’s a horror story. He’s a horror story.”
    “Kevin was magnificent. Horror is in the eye of the beholder. Horror can be power. It can twist the heart and bring a man to his knees.” He added maliciously, “Or her knees. I think that you’ll bow down before him before this is over, Eve.”
    “Those children…” she said hoarsely. “How?”
    “It’s really hurting you, isn’t it?” He paused. “And I’m not afraid you’ll ever be a threat. Kevin is getting stronger, and you’re getting weaker.”
    “How?”
    “And I’d really like you to be dreading it during the next few days. I’d enjoy that very much.”
    “How?”
    “A very sophisticated device that can be triggered from a great distance. It was state-of-the-art five years ago, but nowadays it’s a little behind the times. But it will work.” He murmured. “Oh, my, how it will work. Boom! There go ten blocks of prime real estate in two American cities.” He chuckled. “And the possibility of the rest of the city being unfit for habitation for the next three decades. It’s a very dirty device. If Kevin does something, he does it right.”
    “Two cities.”
    “It was estimated that the destruction of two large cities would definitely destroy the U.S. economy. What’s left of it after the last years of recession. Of course, back when the plan went into place, the recession wasn’t as rocky, and they were considering adding—”
    “Who would do this? And don’t say Kevin. He wouldn’t have had the power to initiate a plot like that.”
    “Well, he didn’t actually initiate it. It was