Severe Clear

by Stuart Woods

  “Mr. Freeman,” a voice behind him said, “is everything all right?”

  “Get me a pair of handcuffs from the equipment locker and get over here,” Mike said, holding his left hand out behind him. He heard the locker open, then the cuffs were placed in his hand. “Hands on top of your head, fingers interlaced,” he said to Rick, who complied. He cuffed the man, then put his foot between his shoulder blades and pushed him onto his belly. Then he turned toward the four waiting men.

  “Get a manacle set from the equipment locker and secure this man hand and foot, then search him thoroughly. Then I want him on the floor under guard until the Secret Service comes for him.” He closed the case on the workbench. “Give them this case when they come. Now get back to your consoles.”

  Mike walked up the stairs holstering his weapon and came out into the cool night air. His shirt was sticking to his body. He looked around. Now where did everybody go?

  Applause rippled from the Bowl; cheering and whistling and the stamping of feet were heard. “Encore!” the crowd was shouting. Then the noise died, and Immi Gotham said, “Seventy-five years ago, very near this place, George Gershwin was at the piano working on the last song he ever wrote. A few days later, he was dead at the age of thirty-eight. This is the song he wrote.”

  A piano introduction could be heard, then Gotham began to sing “Our Love Is Here to Stay.”

  —

  Stone sat beside Kelli Keane as she drove her electric cart rapidly along a path toward a row of cottages. Another cart followed, driven by the chief bomb technician. “His place is next door to mine,” she said, finally slowing to a halt. “Right there.” She pointed at a door. A “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on the knob.

  A bellman cruised past them, and Steve Rifkin signaled for him to stop. He flashed his ID. “Secret Service,” he said. “Give me your pass card.”

  “Yes, sir.” The bellman retrieved the card from his shirt pocket.

  Rifkin slid the card into the door lock; a green light came on, and he pushed the door open.

  Kelli spoke up. “The trunk was in a bedroom closet, to your left.” Stone, Dino, Rifkin, and the two bomb men filed into the suite, and she followed them.

  Stone found the closet first. “Here we are,” he said. He turned the knob. “Locked.”

  The bomb chief took the pass card from Steve Rifkin, inserted it into the door lock, and opened the door.

  The trunk stood there: elegant, with the patina of age and travel.

  “Locked,” the chief said. “Bob, I need a jimmy, please.”

  The other bomb man set down the case he was carrying, opened it, and handed his chief a small crowbar. The chief made short work of the lock.

  “Do you think it might be booby-trapped?” Bob asked.

  “I don’t think we have time to worry about that,” the chief replied, swinging open the trunk door. He stepped back, so that everyone could see the titanium panel with a slot and a digital clock at the top. The clock was counting down: forty-one, forty, thirty-nine . . .

  58

  Hamish McCallister lounged comfortably in his first-class berth, sipping his second mimosa, reading a magazine, and listening to Haydn over his headset. The music popped off and the pilot’s English-accented voice replaced it.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard our flight. As you know, we are nonstop to London, but we are encountering strong headwinds, and that is going to make it necessary for us to make a fuel stop at Kennedy Airport in New York. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it will add only less than an hour flight time, and with the extra fuel, we may be able to cut that down by flying at a higher power setting. We will be landing at Kennedy at eleven P.M., New York time, and in order to be back in the air as quickly as possible, we ask that you remain in your seats during our brief stop. Thank you so much for your patience.”

  Hamish sighed, but the music resumed and he returned to his magazine. Then he stopped reading. His flight, he recalled, had pushed back at five minutes past five P.M., L.A. time. That would have been eight P.M., New York time, and the New York landing time of eleven P.M. would make their flight across the USA a four-hour one. Since a normal flight from LAX to JFK would take at least five hours, they were experiencing a strong tailwind, not a headwind. Something was wrong. He buzzed for the flight attendant.

  “Yes, may I help you?” the young woman asked.

  “Yes. Since we’re stopping in New York, I’d like to have a prescription medication delivered to me there, something I need but forgot to bring. Can you find out our gate number for me?”

  “Of course,” she replied. She went forward, spoke over the intercom to the cockpit, then returned. “We will be refueling at gate ten,” she said, “and I’ve asked our gate agent to be on the lookout for your delivery.”

  “Thank you so much,” Hamish said. When she had left he picked up his seat’s remote control, which was also a satphone, and called a New York number.

  “Yes?” His brother Mo’s voice.

  “It is I,” he said. “Listen carefully. Do we have a friend at Kennedy Airport?”

  A brief silence. “Yes, a—”

  “No further information, please.”

  “I’m sorry. What do you need?”

  “My aircraft is making an unscheduled stop at Kennedy. Ask our friend to arrange for an airport vehicle, appropriately lighted, to meet me at the foot of gate ten, flight BA 106. There may not be stairs. Our ETA is eleven P.M. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will be leaving the airport area immediately. Please make arrangements for our departure from the airport and for secure accommodations.”

  “It will be done.”

  “See you soon. Good-bye.” Hamish broke the connection. They would arrive before the device in L.A. detonated, so there was time for a clean getaway.

  —

  Mike Freeman flagged a bellman with a cart and began looking for Stone, Dino, and Rifkin.

  “Will they be in a cart, sir?” the bellman asked.

  “Very probably.”

  “I gave my pass card to a Secret Service agent at cottage 202. Is that who you’re looking for?”

  “It is. Hurry, please.”

  The man put his foot down.

  —

  Stone watched the clock count down. His mouth was dry, and his hands were sweating. Thirty-seven, thirty-six . . .

  “Can you stop it?” Rifkin asked the bomb crew chief.

  “Unlikely,” the man said, “but I can try.” He found a screwdriver and began removing screws from the panel.

  “This isn’t going to happen fast enough,” Dino said under his breath.

  Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three . . . “Give me the jimmy,” the chief said. He accepted the crowbar, placed its edge under the rim of the front panel, and with great force, pried it open. He took hold of the top edge of the panel and put all his weight into bending it down to the perpendicular. Now some of the inner workings were exposed, including the wiring. The chief began sorting through a bundle of wires. “Most of these do nothing,” he said. “They’re camouflage for the active wires.”

  Ten, nine, eight . . .

  Stone was salivating, now, and he swallowed hard. He thought of his son, Hattie, and Ben. Everyone he loved would die in six seconds. “Dino,” he said, “give me your gun.”

  Dino handed over a snub-nosed .38. “If you’re going to shoot yourself, shoot me first.”

  Stone raised the revolver. “Out of the way, Chief,” he said, and cocked it for emphasis.

  The chief turned and stared at him. “You can’t—”

  Stone fired twice at the rapidly changing numbers.

  “—do that,” the chief continued. The clock stopped at four seconds. “It might still blow.”

  Then a voice came from the doorway. “I’ve got the key.”

  Mike shoved the chief out of the way, inserted the T-shaped key he had taken from Rick into the slot, and turned i
t left, ninety degrees.

  Three seconds remained on the clock. The numbers went dark.

  “Okay,” the chief said, “one of those actions worked—I’m not sure which one.”

  Stone handed Dino’s revolver back to him. “Thanks.” He looked around the room for a wastebasket, found one and threw up into it.

  Kelli Keane’s knees gave way, and she fell onto the carpet, out.

  —

  A few minutes later the chief had disconnected everything inside the trunk, and he began to give his audience a tutorial on the device:

  “There’s maybe three kilos of fissionable material,” he was saying. “That would have caused an explosion that would have leveled everything and killed everyone within a two- or three-mile radius. It would also probably have brought the Stone Canyon reservoirs above us down the canyon.”

  “How many dead?” Steve Rifkin asked.

  “A million, maybe two—lots more over a period of weeks and months. It’s simply but ingeniously designed. The builder would have sent drawings of various machined parts to several suppliers, who wouldn’t know the purpose of their work. Then they would have assembled the device in a safe house somewhere. They could have brought it here in a van, a station wagon, even, or a light airplane.” He looked around the room. “Unless we find these people, they could do it again in a matter of weeks.”

  —

  Hamish McCallister’s aircraft stopped at the gate. His briefcase was already in his lap, and the moment the flight attendant opened the door he got up, strode forward, and walked into the boarding tunnel, and looked for the door. It was dead ahead, at the first turn. He opened it and looked outside; no stairs, but a white van with a yellow flashing light on top was parked immediately below. To his right, people with guns were running down the tunnel. Hamish took a deep breath and jumped, landing on top of the van and rolling off onto the tarmac. He got up, opened the passenger door, and got inside.

  Mo was at the wheel, and he drove away quickly. “There’s a gate about a quarter of a mile away,” he said.

  “Are you armed?” Hamish asked.

  “Yes.” He handed Hamish a pistol. “Here’s one for you.”

  “If necessary, shoot anyone who impedes our progress.”

  Mo drove on. A gate loomed ahead, one man in a small guard booth.

  Mo stopped and flashed some sort of ID card. The guard nodded, and the gate slid open slowly.

  “Not too fast,” Hamish said.

  “Right.”

  “Where do we exchange cars?”

  “A couple of miles, at a rest stop on the Van Wyck.”

  “Good.”

  —

  Lance Cabot jumped from the boarding ramp onto the tarmac below, spraining an ankle. He raised his gun to fire, but the van had disappeared behind another airplane. Lance grabbed at the radio on his belt. “Seal the airport,” he said. “Intercept a white van with a yellow flashing light. I need transport at gate ten right now!”

  59

  Lance leaped into the front passenger seat of the black SUV. “Nearest exit gate!” he yelled. Two more of his people, carrying submachine guns, jumped into the backseat.

  “Got it,” the driver replied, stomping on the accelerator.

  “Lights!” Lance yelled, and the car lit up.

  “Gate dead ahead,” the driver said.

  “If that jerk in the booth doesn’t open it, knock the fucking thing down!”

  The driver increased his speed, and the gate rolled open just in time for him to miss it. He screeched to a halt. “Which way?”

  “Van Wyck! They’ve gotta be headed for the city.”

  The driver made the turn and accelerated. “Do we want the NYPD?” he asked.

  “No,” Lance replied, sounding calm but determined. “This guy is ours.” He pointed ahead. “Half a mile up there,” he said. “Flashing yellow light. Turn off our lights.”

  The driver did so.

  “Try not to kill any innocent bystanders,” Lance said, “but I don’t give a shit what you do to the guys in the van.”

  “Look, they’re pulling over,” his driver said.

  “Car switch. Block it!”

  “Got it!” the driver shouted back. The white van had pulled into a rest area behind a black Mercedes. He drove around both vehicles and slid to a halt in front of the Merc. The inside lights were on, revealing two men.

  Lance yanked open his door. “Fire at will!” he shouted, and he hit the pavement with his .45 semiautomatic pistol up and firing at the Mercedes. His two colleagues opened up with their submachine guns, and the black car’s windscreen evaporated. The two men inside were jumping like puppets on a wire.

  “Cease fire!” Lance yelled. It took a moment, but his two men stopped firing. Lance walked forward, his gun held out, ready for any twitch. His two men yanked open both front doors and inspected the two bloody forms.

  “No pulse or respiration here,” one man said. “Pupils blown.”

  “Same here,” the other man replied.

  Lance raised his radio to his lips. “This is number one. Cleanup crew to the first rest stop on the Van Wyck, flatbed to the same location to take away a black Mercedes. Move it!” Then he leaned against the car and took deep breaths.

  Finally, he got control of himself and produced his cell phone, pressing a speed dial number.

  “Yes?”

  “Number one. Status there?”

  “Pending, estimate six minutes.”

  “Report back.” He ended the connection.

  —

  In Dubai, a gala was under way at the Burj Al Arab, the huge, sail-shaped hotel on a bridge-accessed island off the city.

  A Rolls-Royce glided up to the main doors, and a uniformed doorman opened the rear door.

  Dr. Kharl, dressed in a tuxedo and blinking in the camera lights, put a foot onto the red carpet. As he did so, he was momentarily blinded by an intense red flash, and in the following second his head exploded.

  —

  Lance watched as the bodies were put into a van, and the Mercedes loaded onto a flatbed recovery vehicle.

  “I want the bodies and the car minutely examined for any relevant evidence,” he said. “Get it done.” As he spoke, his cell phone rang. “Number one,” he said.

  “Status report, Dubai,” a voice said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Subject is down and permanently out. Our executive has left the scene, headed for his departure point.”

  “Let me know when he’s in the air,” Lance said, then hung up. He pressed another speed dial button.

  “Holly Barker.”

  “Scramble,” he said.

  “Scrambled.”

  “The situation is finalized,” Lance said. “Two down and out in New York, bodies being taken to our morgue for postmortems. One down and out in Dubai, our man on his way out of the country.”

  “That sounds like a clean sweep,” Holly said.

  “It doesn’t get any cleaner than this,” Lance replied.

  “Will you call Tom Riley in London and let him know the search for Hamish and Mo is canceled, though I’d still like to have any information about them that he can turn up.”

  “Will do.”

  “The director will be very pleased, Lance. I think you just got a leg up on replacing her.”

  “That would be nice,” Lance said. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  —

  Holly hung up, walked across the room, and whispered in Kate Lee’s ear. “It’s done,” she said. “A clean sweep in both New York and Dubai.”

  “And the aftermath?”

  “The bodies in New York are en route to our morgue for postmortem, our man in Dubai is clear.”

  “You know,” Kate said, “I think that this is the most exciting night of my life that I’ll never be able to talk about. I’ll tell the president. You go thank everybody for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, and left the cottage.
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br />   60

  Stone Barrington sat in the study of his cottage at The Arrington, a brandy snifter in his hand. Kelli Keane sat in the chair opposite him; there was a snifter in her hand, too.

  “How are you feeling?” Stone asked.

  “Much better, thanks. You’re going to ask me not to write about this, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to ask you not to breathe it to a living soul, magazine, news service, publisher, or TV news station for as long as you live. If you can’t accept that, then others will ask you, and less politely.”

  Kelli held up a hand. “I know, I know. Can I ask some questions?”

  “I don’t have all the answers,” Stone replied, “but I’ll do the best I can.”

  “When did you—and those other people, the Secret Service and all—know about the nuclear thing?”

  “Not until the moment you mentioned the trunk,” Stone said. “There had been some very slight indications that something was afoot, but not enough to alter what was happening here for the past couple of days. A thorough search for something as big as a trunk had been conducted, but it seems that the trunk was brought from an airport to The Arrington in a hotel vehicle and deposited in McCallister’s suite without the knowledge of the bell captain, who keeps a log of every piece of luggage brought into the hotel.”

  “Did the explosion at Santa Monica Airport have anything to do with this?”

  “Yes. There were indications of three bombs: one was found by Rifkin’s people in a liquor storage room yesterday. The chief bartender has been arrested in connection with that. A second was found by Mike Freeman in the Strategic Services security monitoring room, and one of his people arrested. The police found a car door at Santa Monica Airport, a hundred yards from the scene of the explosion, that had an Arrington logo painted on it. A hotel employee had checked out the car, and it’s thought that he detonated the third bomb, perhaps accidentally.”

  “What happened to Hamish McCallister?”