Couldn’t be a cold call, Tyler concluded. A telemarketer wouldn’t call him Dr. Locke. Tyler wasn’t an MD. He had a PhD, and the only time anyone called him doctor was on one of his consulting gigs. None of his co-workers used the honorific unless they were making fun of him.
The call might be work-related, but he had fifty emails to plow through before he reached Bremerton, and he didn’t want to be sucked into a long conversation. He again let voice mail handle it and put the phone away. Eventually, the caller would get the hint to leave a message.
A minute after he began working on his laptop again, the phone beeped with another text message. Tyler sighed and pulled the phone from his pocket.
Dr. Locke, unless you answer my call you will be dead in twenty-eight minutes.
Tyler had to read the message three times to believe what he was seeing. He closed his laptop and sat up straight, taking his feet off the seat. He slowly scanned the passengers around him, but no one seemed at all interested in him.
The phone rang. Same number.
Tyler tapped the screen and said, “Who is this?”
“This is the person who is going to kill everyone on that ferry if you don’t do what I say.”
Tyler couldn’t detect an accent in the gravelly voice on the other end. “Why don’t I just hang up on you and call the police?” he said. “Should make your day when the FBI drops by.”
“You could do that, but what would you tell them? My number? It’s a prepaid phone bought with cash. Believe me, I’ve thought this through.”
For a moment, Tyler considered doing just what he’d threatened: hanging up and calling the cops. But the man was right. He had little to tell them.
“What’s this about?” Tyler said.
“It’s about you, Dr. Locke. Actually, that sounds pretentious. I’ll just call you Locke.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It may seem like that now, but it won’t in a few minutes.”
Tyler paused. “Why are you calling me?”
“Because you’re exactly who I need. Bachelor’s degree from MIT in mechanical engineering. PhD from Stanford. Former Army captain in a combat-engineering battalion, which makes you an expert in demolitions and bomb disposal. Now chief of special operations at Gordian Engineering. And all of that before you’re forty. You know, you sound very good on paper.”
“So you know who I am. I should take all of this seriously because …?”
“Because I just emailed you a couple of pictures that show how serious your situation is. I know the ferry has Wi-Fi. Take a look at them. I’ll wait. Better hurry, though.”
With the phone propped in one hand, Tyler reluctantly opened his laptop and checked his in box.
One new message from an email address he didn’t recognize. The subject line read 27 minutes left.
Tyler opened the message. The body of the email had no text, just two images.
The first showed a two-axle truck with the name SILVERLAKE TRANSPORT on the side.
The second showed a refrigerator with its door open. Inside was a transparent plastic canister the size of a beer keg filled with a powdery gray substance. Cloth concealed an object on top. A digital timer was mounted on the front of the canister. The water was dead calm outside, but Tyler felt seasick.
“I’m listening,” he said, his mind already racing to how he could warn the passengers to get to a life raft.
“I thought you might. You know a bomb when you see it. In case you didn’t get it, the fridge is inside the truck, which is on the vehicle deck below you. And don’t call the police. I’ll know.”
“You couldn’t have gotten it on board.”
“You think I’m bluffing? Tell me about binary explosives.”
Tyler sucked in a breath before responding. “Binary explosives start as two separate inert compounds, but when they’re mixed together they become highly volatile. They’re often used for target practice by shooting clubs. The explosives can only be set off by a high-powered rifle round or a detonator. You can buy them on the Internet.”
“See? You are good. There’s a hundred pounds of binary in the fridge. Enough to blow a thirty-foot hole in that ferry and set half the cars on fire. I doubt there’d be many survivors.”
“The bomb-sniffing dogs at the dock would have detected it,” Tyler said.
“I took precautions to make sure the taggant odor was sealed in, and I paid some jobless college kid three hundred bucks to drive it on board. What’s bad for the economy is good for me.”
“If you want to blow up the ferry, why warn me?”
“Listen and find out. I want you to go to the truck. It has a padlock on the door. The key is taped inside the left wheel well. Go there now, or the ferry will never reach Bremerton.”
Bremerton. Suddenly, Tyler had a horrifying thought: the naval base. This guy wanted Tyler to drive the truck into a US Navy port using his credentials.
“So you want me to become a suicide bomber for you?” Tyler said, furiously thinking of a way to ditch the truck before he reached the entrance to the base.
The man laughed. “A suicide bomber? Not even close.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Locke, you’re going to be a hero. That bomb is set to explode in twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds. I want you to disarm it.”
THREE
As Byron Gaul waited for the elevator in the lobby of the Sheraton Premiere, he checked his surroundings. He was relieved not to find unexpected security alterations for the conference being held in the hotel. He’d scouted the location thoroughly the week before in preparation for the mission, but given that the hotel was in Tysons Corner, Virginia, just outside Washington, there was always the chance security had been beefed up, especially for a Pentagon-sponsored conference called the Unconventional Weapons Summit.
Two Army majors approached, deep in conversation. When they saw Gaul, he nodded to them, and they replied in kind. Because they were inside with their hats off, his lower rank didn’t require a salute. Gaul was dressed in a class-A Army service uniform with the rank of captain and a name tag that said Wilson. The uniform and all its ribbons and adornments were purchased off the Internet. The hardest part had been finding a size to fit his below-average height and above-average musculature.
He readied himself for questions, but the majors went back to their discussion, ignoring him. Gaul didn’t know if he’d have to use his prepared backstory, but he was ready in case anyone asked. He would say that he was a liaison officer to a Washington think tank called Weaver Solutions, one of hundreds in the city. He was attending the summit to learn about the newest technologies and tactics that might be used against military or civilian objectives. These kinds of military conferences were held virtually every week in the nation’s capital, but this was the only one his target was scheduled to address.
The elevator opened, and Gaul got on with the majors. At the first stop, the door opened to a buzz of activity. It was just after 11:30, the morning sessions over, including his target’s keynote speech. The participants would be breaking for lunch. The majors got off, and two men in civilian attire entered. Gaul glanced sideways at their name tags, which said Aiden MacKenna and Miles Benson.
Both of them seemed to be enhanced by technology out of a science-fiction movie. A black disk was attached to MacKenna’s skull with a wire connected to his ear, as if it were a hearing aid with a direct pipeline to his brain. MacKenna was walking, while Benson was driving a motorized wheelchair like nothing Gaul had ever seen. The chair was balanced on two wheels, apparently in defiance of the laws of physics, so that the eyes of the man in the chair were almost even with his own.
Though Benson wore a suit, Gaul could see that the man had the upper torso of someone who spent time at the gym. He had the intense gaze and close-cropped hair of a former Army officer, so Gaul guessed that he’d been injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. MacKenna looked more like Gaul’s idea of a research analyst, with tortoi
seshell glasses and a physique that suggested nothing more strenuous than typing in his daily routine.
“Think he’ll take you up on your offer?” MacKenna said with an Irish brogue.
“I don’t know,” Benson said. “Depends how good my sales pitch is.”
“It was a good keynote.”
“That’s exactly why I want him.”
The elevator door opened at the mezzanine.
“Where is the Capital Club?” Benson said as he drove out of the elevator.
“To the left, I believe,” MacKenna said.
“Okay, we should have a table reserved. We’ll save a seat between us for the general.”
Gaul trailed them around the corner. MacKenna and Benson went through the restaurant’s glass doors, but Gaul didn’t follow. He stopped abruptly, as if he’d gone in the wrong direction, and turned back toward the mezzanine’s conference rooms.
Attendees were streaming from the conference seminars to their lunch destinations or milling about in the hall to chat after the sessions. The dress was a fifty-fifty mix of military and civilian clothes. Gaul blended right in.
Gaul wandered down the hall, pretending to study a conference program. He passed by the glass doors of the Capital Club but didn’t see his target. He found a spot near the elevators and had to remind himself not to lean against the wall so that he would stay in character as a ramrod-straight military officer.
His cell phone buzzed. The text message was from Orr.
We’re under way here. You?
Gaul texted back,
Everything’s in place.
Have you spotted him?
Not yet. But he’s here and scheduled to attend the lunch.
Good. We’ll know in 20 minutes. Be ready.
K.
With nothing more to do but wait while keeping an eye on the elevators and stairs, Gaul went back to scanning the program. He smiled when he saw the title of the keynote address by his target, the former military leader of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The speech was called “The Dangers of Asymmetric Threat and Response: How to Combat Improvised Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Gaul thought the speaker would be surprised by how personal that danger would become.
The elevator emptied three times before Gaul saw who he had come for. The newly retired major general looked a little grayer than in the photo he’d memorized, but the intense gaze and the wrought-iron jaw were still the same. All eyes followed the general as he strode toward the restaurant.
Gaul took out his cell phone to text Orr with the confirmation that he now had Sherman Locke in his sights.
FOUR
Tyler liked the sense of duty, purpose, and camaraderie of the military, but he could do without the threat-of-death part, which was one of the reasons he’d left for civilian life. He took calculated risks, as when he raced cars or worked with explosives on a demolition project, but that was because he was in control. This situation was definitely not under his control.
“I’m back,” the man on the other end of the phone said. “Had other business to attend to. You there, Locke?”
“I’m here,” Tyler said as he descended the ferry’s stairs to the vehicle deck. “Why do you want me to disarm a bomb you put on the ferry?”
“I need someone with your skills for a special job, but before we get started, I need to make sure you can handle it.”
“A job?” Tyler said. “Why didn’t you just hire me?”
“Consider this task your interview. The clock is ticking, so you better get moving. Before you go to the truck, put the keys in the glove box of that little red sports car of yours. Leave it unlocked.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so, and I’m the one with the bomb. Just do it.”
“I’m on my way,” Tyler said. “So if we’re going to be talking to each other on this job, what should I call you?”
“You might be getting ahead of yourself. We could be working together for just the next twenty-two minutes.”
Tyler set his watch to synchronize with the time he had left. “I’m the confident type,” he said, though he felt anything but. Bombs were tricky in the best of conditions. Tyler didn’t know what this guy’s game was, but he didn’t sound stupid.
“I think you’re more cocky than confident,” the man said. “You’ll know what to call me as soon as you get in the truck.”
I already have some ideas about what to call you, Tyler thought. Why do I attract all the crazy people?
He reached the vehicle deck and went to his Viper, tucking the keys in the glove box as ordered. Looking forward from his position at the stern, he could make out several trucks, which were usually boarded first. He trotted in that direction.
Tyler saw the truck marked SILVERLAKE TRANSPORT and angled toward it.
“So what do I have to do?” he asked.
“The instructions are taped to the fridge. It’s all written down for you. Well, not you, but you’ll see what I mean. And remember, no police. I have my eyes and ears on you, and I’ve got a remote detonator, so get busy and behave yourself. Ferry goes boom if SWAT arrives or life rafts start popping over the side.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll know if you’re successful. If you are, I’ll give you a call back. If not, you’ll go down with the ship.”
The man hung up.
Tyler reached the back of the truck and ran his hand under the left wheel well. The key was there, just as the guy had said it was.
He looked around, but apart from an elderly woman walking her dog he was alone.
The key fit the padlock, and Tyler slid the door up carefully. He didn’t think the guy was planning to have the bomb triggered by this, but he checked just in case. Nothing.
Tyler pushed the door just high enough to squeeze in. If there really was a bomb in here, he didn’t want one of the deckhands to see it and sound the alarm.
He thought he was going to have to leave the door open for light, but two lanterns were lashed to the sides of the interior. He switched them both on and closed the door.
Boxes were piled on a sofa, a couple of chairs, and a table. In the middle sat an icebox, one of the old models with a latch. A manila envelope was taped to the front of the door. Tyler examined it and, when he was sure it was safe, tore it away and ripped it open.
The envelope held one page. Tyler pulled it out expecting instructions on what to do next.
The sheet may have had instructions, but they weren’t much help. The numbered paragraphs weren’t written in English. Although Tyler couldn’t read the words, he recognized the letters immediately. He had never been in a fraternity, but he’d used all the letters in equations while earning his engineering degrees.
The page was written in Greek.
Tyler scanned the text to see if there was any hidden code or some other message for him. He searched for a formula, something that would help him defuse the bomb, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. Given how much the guy on the phone knew about Tyler, he would have learned that foreign languages weren’t exactly Tyler’s strength. He could order a beer and ask where the bathroom was in French and Spanish, but even that was pushing it.
The man had mentioned that the instructions weren’t written for him. Then who were they written for?
He racked his brain trying to come up with someone he could call to translate the document, but he was interrupted when the truck echoed with the sound of pounding on the rear door. Tyler froze.
“Is someone inside?” he heard a woman’s voice say.
“I’m okay,” Tyler said, thinking that a crew member was checking on him. “I’m just repacking some items that came loose.”
“Open the door.”
Twenty minutes left. He didn’t have time for this, but ignoring her would just bring more attention than he wanted. He’d get rid of her quickly and focus on how to get the document translated.
He pulled the door up expecting to see someone dressed in the crew�
�s crisp blue uniform. Instead, he saw a petite woman in her thirties dressed in a black leather jacket, jeans, and stylish but functional boots. Shoulder-length blond hair framed her face, and light makeup accentuated high cheekbones and pillowy lips. It was a no-nonsense, attractive look.
Tyler recognized her immediately. Stacy Benedict, host of the television show Chasing the Past.
He didn’t know where to begin, other than to say, “What are you doing here?”
The woman had been appraising Tyler as much as he had been studying her, and his abrupt demand made her pause. “A man told me someone would be waiting inside this truck for me.”
“Did he have a gravelly voice?”
“That’s him. But he didn’t mention it would be you.” So she remembered Tyler from his appearance on her show. No need for introductions.
The instructions are taped to the fridge, the man on the phone had said. It’s all written down for you. Well, not you, but you’ll see what I mean.
“You don’t happen to read Greek, do you?” Tyler asked.
Stacy’s look told him that the question sounded as ridiculous to her as it did to him, but her answer made it clear that it seemed ridiculous for another reason.
“I have a PhD in Classics,” she said. “Of course I know Greek. Why?”
He gave her the piece of paper. “That’s why.”
As she read it, Tyler could see the blood drain from her face. But she didn’t panic. No screaming. No crying. Instead, her face contorted with barely contained fury.
She looked up from the page and said, “Where’s the bomb?”
FIVE
Stacy boosted herself into the truck. As Tyler closed the door behind her, she read the first line on the sheet again. It was typewritten in modern Greek with awkward phrasing, as though it had been translated from another language by a free Web service. But she got the gist of it.
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