The Hand of War

by Blake Banner

  He went white. The girls said, “Oh my god, Dad!” and reached down to help the old man to his feet. “Come on, Papa, we have to hurry!”

  The man I was holding shook his head. “Let me go with my wife, please…”

  “Who?”

  “It was donated, through a charity…”

  “Along with the tickets to the conference?”

  He nodded. “My father-in-law has been a campaigner for years…”

  “Who!”

  “The Muslim Fraternity for Understanding…”

  I shoved him and snarled, “Get the hell out of here!”

  I grabbed the chair and hurled it on its side. Underneath, where the electric motor should have been located, it was unlike any electric wheelchair I had ever seen. There was just a steel case. I looked at my watch. I had fifteen minutes. I went ice-cold inside, pulled my Swiss Army knife from my pocket, and started removing the screws that held the casing to the seat.

  My hands were steady. A stillness had descended on me. I knew that I was racing death, and I knew that I would probably lose the race. All I could do was stay focused and work methodically. As the last screw came out, I was aware that the last few people had scattered from the chamber. But now new feet came running. Three or four people. I glanced up. It was Maria and three security guards. They came to a halt a few feet away, staring at me and at the chair. I noticed with the cold absurdity that comes with the proximity of death that they made a sad and strange tableau. The big, portly guy behind her, with the big moustache. His name badge said he was Olsen. It seemed important I should know his name. He was about to die with me, I should know who he was. The guy next to him who watched me with large, brown eyes filled with terror. His name was Peralta. I wondered if he had children. And the young guy next to him, with his hand on his .38, was Ortega.

  They all closed in around me, unsure what to do or who their enemy was. I ignored them and turned back to the chair. I pulled away the casing, and there it was. The shiny steel canister, almost three feet long, a foot wide, containing maybe two kilograms of compressed plutonium. And next to it, connected by a short, steel tube, the timer counting down: eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds, thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five…

  A hushed, awed voice said, “What is it?”

  I pulled out my cell phone, called Gantrie, and put him on speaker.

  “Dude, what’s happening?”

  “I need to disarm a SADM. You know what that is? A Special Atomic Demolition Munitions device. I figure it probably has a W54 warhead, or something similar. It will explode in eleven minutes and probably wipe out southeast Manhattan and part of Brooklyn. Any suggestions?”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then his voice, calm, like I had asked him to find a telephone number, “Eleven minutes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We might just make it. You cool?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK… So tell me what you’re looking at.”

  “There is a cylinder, about three foot long, that’s where the fissile material is, probably plutonium. Then there is a short housing, which I guess holds wires that connect the cylinder to a digital clock, which is counting down.”

  I pulled out my cell, took a photograph, and sent it to him.

  “OK, Lacklan, this is actually quite simple. What’s going to happen is that the timer is going to trigger a small explosion which will drive the fissile material together. It’s very unlikely to be booby trapped, because this is not a homemade bomb. This bomb was made by the U.S. for the U.S. military. So what you need to do is remove the housing for the wires and cut them all, everything you find, simultaneously.”

  He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know, but it was good to have it confirmed. I said, “OK…”

  I stared at the small steel tube that connected the cylinder to the timer. The feeling of unreality which I’d had before became suddenly overwhelming. I could feel my heart pounding but there was a stillness inside me, like time had frozen. Ortega, the security guard, turned and fled from the room. Maria drew closer and knelt by my side. We stared together. There were no screws visible. There was no lip or seam to indicate a join. There was no way to remove the housing.

  “Maria.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to run down to the parking garage. Just beside the entrance, in a tool box, you’ll find a Smith & Wesson revolver. I need you to get it and bring it back…”

  “I have a .38.”

  “No, I need this one. And you need to get it…” I flicked my eyes at the timer. We had eight minutes. “In less than five minutes.”

  She scrambled to her feet and ran from the room. Gantrie’s voice came over the phone. “Dude, what’s happening?”

  “There is no point of access to the wires. It seems to be molded out of a single piece of steel.”

  “No, there has to be a join. You’re just not seeing it. How long have we got?”

  “Seven minutes.”

  “OK… so the housing has to connect somewhere, right? Tear the chair apart. Approach from a different angle.”

  I was already exploring it with my fingers. I said, “The bomb has been bolted to the seat of the chair. But the whole thing is a unit. The housing for the wires is a solid steel tube…” I peered closer. “It’s been screwed into the timer and to the cylinder.” I turned to Olsen. “You! Olsen! Give me your revolver!”

  “What?”

  “Give me your damned revolver or I’ll tear your arm off!”

  He stepped forward, drawing his piece. “OK!”

  There were four bolts holding the entire bomb to the underside of the seat. The base of the seat had a steel frame, but the seat itself was made of plywood. I aimed at each bolt in turn, point blank, and blew it out of the seat. The bomb seemed to lever away without fully dropping off. It was still attached by the timer.

  I turned to Olsen and Peralta again. “You two! Take hold of the timer. Hold it firm. I’m going to twist.” They approached, looking very sick, and took hold of the clock. It read six minutes and thirty-five seconds. I seized hold of the canister with both hands and strained hard against it, trying to twist it free from the timing device. I could see the guards’ faces turn crimson with the effort of resisting me. Their arms were trembling and sweat was beading on their brows.

  Suddenly, Peralta gave a great shout and the canister jumped free from their hands. He fell forward, sprawled across the chair and Olsen staggered back. I felt a jolt of triumph. We might just make it. But it was short-lived. Peralta was on his knees with blood pouring from his hand, but the housing for the wires was intact, firmly connecting the timer to the bomb. Four and a half minutes and counting.

  A shout and pounding feet made me look. Maria was approaching at a frantic run carrying the Smith and Wesson. She handed it to me. “How long have we got?”

  “Not enough. Stand back. Everybody stand back.”

  The 500 is a small cannon. It will shatter two cinderblocks and keep going. I aimed and fired twice. The explosions echoed around the hall like thunder. I took a look. The coupling was dented, bent. Maria gave a little shout of joy. I hoped she was right to, because I was pretty sure I was sealing the damn thing tighter. I emptied the remaining three rounds and dented it more, but we still had no access to the wires.

  Four minutes. I shouted, “An axe! Come on, guys! Wake up! Somebody get a fire axe!”

  They blinked at me and scattered. I started savagely kicking the timer, stamping on it, trying to dislodge it. It wouldn’t budge. A voice kept screaming at me in my head that there had to be a way in. Defeat was not an option.

  Pounding feet. Peralta, panting, shaking with terrified eyes, holding out an axe to me. I went to work on the join between the housing for the wire and the timer, where it had been dented by the bullets. The steel rang out, dull and stubborn, but it would not budge. Maria shouted, “One minute!” But by the time she’d finished saying it, it was fifty-eight seconds
. I roared like some demented freak and hammered savagely over and over at the coupling. A dead voice said, “Thirty seconds…”

  I dropped the axe. Maria whimpered, “Don’t give up… please…”

  I fell on my knees and reached over to the splintered plywood seat, tearing away the pieces. I heard Maria say, “Fifteen seconds…” My heart thudded hard, once, high up in my chest. I felt sick and the room seemed to rock. I grabbed at one large sheet of ply and tore at it with both hands. It groaned and came away. I heard a crazy laughing and realized it was me. Maria said, “Five seconds…”

  I reached over with my right hand, grabbed the red and the blue wires, and ripped at them savagely, stamping at the chair as I pulled. I stared at the frayed ends in my hand. There was a nanosecond that seemed to last an eternity while I waited for the vaporizing explosion. Then, trembling, I looked up at Maria. She was staring at the timer. I followed her gaze. It stood at zero. Her voice was a rasping whisper in her throat. “What did you do?”

  I swallowed, breathed. “The timer was connected to the chair battery. The battery was in the seat, behind the plywood.”

  She started sobbing and dropped to her knees, crossing herself and crying like a child. Peralta fell on his knees next to her. Olsen sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

  A voice in my head said, “Marni…” I stood. “Maria.” She looked up at me. Her face was sodden with tears. I shook my head. “Not yet. Get a grip. Phone your station commander. Make a report. Tell the truth and stand by it. You understand me?”

  She nodded and struggled to her feet. I turned to Olsen. “You and Peralta contact the press, the TV, all the media. Tell this story. Tell this fucking story and don’t let anybody say it’s a lie!”

  I ran for the stage and out through the wings on the left, bellowing for Marni and Gibbons. I searched for them, but I knew they weren’t there. I knew that Ben had finally got what he wanted. I had led him to Marni, and he had taken her.

  As I sprinted for the stairs down to the lobby I saw Maria on her cell, while Olsen was dialing his own. The lobby was empty, as was the plaza outside. On First Avenue, there was a cordon of cops and patrol cars. I pushed through the door and walked toward them. Two SWAT guys in body armor came running toward me. As they approached, I said, “It’s OK, it’s been diffused.”

  They took my arms and hurried me toward the cordon, shouting at me, “Are you OK? Are you injured?”

  “No. The area is clear. The bomb has been diffused.”

  I could see the captain behind the cordon talking on his cell phone. I pointed at him. “Talk to the captain. He’s on the phone to one of his officers on the inside right now.”

  We had arrived at the cordon and they shoved me through, between two vehicles. The captain was approaching me. Before he could ask me any questions I put my left hand on his shoulder and pointed at the building.

  “The situation is contained. There was a bomb concealed in a wheelchair. It has been diffused. You have an officer in there who has just spoken to you on the phone. The area is clear, Captain. I repeat, the area is clear. You can go in.” I flashed Mclean’s badge at him with my finger accidentally over the picture. “Now I need to go. My suspect is getting away. I will report back to you this afternoon. Now get in there and secure the evidence, Captain!”

  I walked away toward 42nd Street and felt his eyes on my back for a full five seconds. Then I heard a shout, but it wasn’t calling me back, it was ordering his men to proceed into the UN. I glanced back and saw them on the move. That was when I started to run.

  I scrambled around the corner onto 42nd, clambered into the Zombie, and wrenched the tracker from the glove compartment, praying to whatever deities deal with that kind of stuff that Gibbons still had the tracker in his pocket. I switched it on and the bleep was there. The location was obvious. Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey.

  Nineteen

  I spun the Zombie and accelerated down 42nd Street, leaning on the horn as I went, and wishing for once that the twin engines made a noise. I needed the other drivers and the pedestrians to hear me coming, and I needed them to get out of the way. I moved to the center of the road and stayed at a steady forty miles per hour. The oncoming cars flashed their lights at me and the cars I left behind added their horns to mine. Pedestrians scattered and shouted abuse the way only New Yorkers know how.

  When I got to 10th Avenue, I careened right, standing on the footbrake, jumped the red light, picking my way through the scattering crowds who were trying to cross the road, then hit the gas and started accelerating again, dodging from lane to lane, moving north doing fifty, reaching for sixty, with the brakes and the tires screaming as I weaved among the cars, taxis, trucks, and buses. I kept going north until I’d passed Washington Heights. Then I skidded into West 179th and hurtled across the narrow tip of the island onto the George Washington Bridge. Once I was there, I opened her up and felt the surge crush me back in the seat as the massive twin engines delivered their one thousand eight-hundred foot-pounds of torque, instantly to the back wheels, and the beast hurtled forward, touching a hundred and twenty miles per hour in less than a second.

  I followed the I-95. The other cars on the highway looked stationary as I flashed past. At Ridgefield Park, I slowed to come off onto Route Forty-Six into Teterboro. As I did, I checked the tracker. He was still there, and the voice in my head was yelling at me that this was wrong. They should have flown out before the explosion. Why had they waited? Why, when the bomb had not exploded, had they not left immediately? It didn’t make any sense.

  I raised smoke from the back wheels skidding from Route Forty Six onto Hollister Road, screeched to a halt outside the airport, and killed the engine. Then I sat, staring at the wheel, with no idea of what I was going to do next. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels. As I opened the box and extracted a cigarette, I noticed my hands were shaking. I lit up with my battered, brass Zippo and inhaled deeply. I couldn’t afford to go into shock right then. If you know how to use it, shock can help you recover and heal. But it won’t help you fight and win. I had to postpone it.

  I put the tracker in my pocket, popped the trunk, and climbed out. I tossed the Smith & Wesson 500 back in my kit bag, pulled out my remaining Sig and stuck two magazines in my jacket pocket. Then I had a look at the airport. It was internal, business flights only, mainly small, executive jets and air taxis for businessmen. Security seemed to be minimal. There was only a five-foot iron fence between the sidewalk and the air fields; air fields which right then seemed to be completely devoid of activity.

  I walked the hundred yards to the main gates and in toward the terminal building. I pushed through the glass doors and found myself in a large, empty lounge with elevator music playing through the PA system. The boards displaying the flights showed every one of them as cancelled. Clearly Homeland Security had been informed and were taking over.

  There were a couple of desks with women in uniform sitting behind them, looking bored. I pulled out the tracker and checked it. He was less than a hundred yards away, out on the tarmac. I walked to the large viewing windows and saw the plane. It was a ten-seater Dassault Falcon. Gibbons was on board and Marni was almost certainly with him. Obviously Ben had special clearance to fly.

  I heard heels echoing on the marble floor behind me and turned. A tall, blond woman in an Atlantic Air uniform was walking toward me, looking straight at me. She didn’t smile until she was three or four feet away. Then she stopped and said, “Are you Mr. Walker?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “They are waiting for you. Will you follow me, please?”

  I frowned. “They’re waiting for me? Who is?”

  “Your party. They are already embarked. You’re cleared for takeoff. This way.”

  I followed her across the hall, through an emergency door, and along a narrow passage. She held open another emergency door for me and next thing, we were on the tarmac. After that, she led me the seventy or eighty pa
ces to the steps that led up to the jet. She wished me a comfortable flight and left. I watched her walk away, back toward the terminal building, then turned and climbed the stairs up into the plane.

  There was something unreal, or perhaps surreal, about the scene that met my eyes as I entered the cabin. Yet I was aware that for that small world where Ben operated, detached from the rest of humanity, this kind of thing was the norm. It was like a luxurious old world drawing room stuffed into a tube. There were leather sofas and big leather armchairs. The walls were paneled in oak and there were art deco lamps on the high-polish mahogany tables.

  Ben was sitting at one of those tables reading a document. In front of him he had a martini glass with an olive in it. For a freakish moment he looked to me suddenly like a very old man. Across the aisle from him was Marni, seated in a leather armchair, staring at me from behind an expressionless mask. Beyond them both, Gibbons was lying on a couch, apparently asleep. Opposite him on another sofa were two large men holding assault rifles. Behind me the door hissed and began to rise. A steward who looked as though he’d learned to be an in-flight attendant with the Russian Mafia, approached me from the back of the plane. He put a huge hand on my shoulder and gestured toward Ben’s table.

  “Sir, we are about to take off, would you take a seat, please?”

  Ben looked up as I approached and sat. He stared me in the eye, and for the first time since I had met him, he looked mad. His face was tight, his skin was pale and he had two red dots on his cheekbones. I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You are becoming a real pain in the ass, Lacklan.”

  “Really?” I looked over at Marni. I smiled and she smiled back. I turned back to Ben. “I thought my trivial actions couldn’t hurt the mighty Omega.”

  He drew breath, hesitated, blinked slowly, and finally said, “You can’t.”