Critical Mass

by David Hagberg

  “Just left.”

  “I wanted to tell her that her friend Lana Toy is all right.”

  “She’s not dead?”

  “No. We have her in protective custody.”

  “But you told Kelley …” McGarvey let it trail off.

  “We needed her help, Kirk. In the meantime how are you feeling?”

  “I’ll live,” McGarvey said, understanding now what was wrong with Kelley. It was the business. There was no honor to it.

  “The general is grateful, I mean that sincerely. And the President will be calling you in a couple of days to thank you.”

  “What about Kathleen and Liz? Are they all right, Phil?”

  “They’re back in Washington. Your daughter insisted on coming out to be with you, but we convinced her to stay here for the moment. Just in case.”

  McGarvey’s heart was jolted. “Just in case what, Phil?”

  “We finally came up with some answers in Switzerland. Two sets of triggers were taken from ModTec, not one. Which means it’s very possible there’s a second bomb floating around out there somewhere.”

  McGarvey closed his eyes, and tried to make his muddled brain work. Something just outside his ken was nagging at him. Something Nakamura had said to him aboard the airplane. He tried to bring it back.

  Carrara was saying something about tracking down the British-made initiators, but McGarvey was back on the 747.

  “ … your government would not dare interfere with me,” the Japanese billionaire had said. “Even if they were suspicious, they would wait until we landed to ask my permission to search the aircraft.”

  McGarvey remembered having thought that the man was probably correct, but then Nakamura had said something else. Something odd.

  “Even in that unlikely event, it wouldn’t matter.”

  McGarvey opened his eyes. “Was the bomb aboard the plane set on a timer?”

  “Yes, it was,” Carrara said. “But we had all the time in the world to disarm it, because it hadn’t been set to go off for another 98 hours.”

  McGarvey did the arithmetic. A little over four days. “What day would it have gone off?”

  “Thursday.”

  “I mean the date, Phil. What date was it set to explode in San Francisco?”

  “The sixth of August.”

  McGarvey was suddenly very cold. He had no idea what the date was now. “What day is it today, Phil?”

  “It’s Sunday, August ninth … Oh, my, God.”

  “On August 6, 1945 we dropped an atomic bomb on the seaport city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9th, we dropped a second bomb on a seaport city, Nagasaki, south of Hiroshima. Nakamura’s first bomb was set for San Francisco. His second is set for Los Angeles.”

  “Today,” Carrara said, amazed.

  “What time was the Nagasaki bomb dropped?” McGarey asked. He looked up at the digital clock in the overhead television. It was 8:47 A.M.

  Carrara was back a few seconds later. “The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:05 on the morning of August sixth. Nakamura’s bomb was originally set to go off in San Francisco at exactly that time.”

  “What about the second bomb?”

  “This morning at 11:02,” Carrara said. “Your time, I hope, which gives us less than two and a half hours. But where the hell is it?”

  “Call the FBI,” McGarvey said, throwing off his covers and painfully crawling out of bed. “Have them standing by with the fastest plane they have to get me down to Los Angeles. I’m leaving here immediately. I know where the bomb is located—exactly where.”

  “Where?” Carrara shouted.

  “Aboard the Grande Dame II disguised as a sewage lift pump.”

  Kelley Fuller was just climbing into a cab when McGarvey emerged limping from the hospital. He’d found his freshly laundered clothes in the closet and over the doctor’s protestations and threats had bullied his way out. Kelley fell back in shock.

  “What’s happening, Kirk?”

  “There’s a second bomb down in Los Angeles,” McGarvey shouted, shoving her aside and climbing in.

  “What’s this about a bomb?” the cabbie demanded.

  “Never mind, just get me to the airport as fast as you can. The general aviation terminal.”

  “I’m going with you,” Kelley said, trying to climb in after him, but he pushed her back.

  “You’re staying here.”

  “I have to go with you,” she cried.

  “Your friend Lana Toy is not dead.”

  She looked at him, her eyes suddenly wide. “What?”

  “She’s in protective custody. She’s not dead, I swear it.”

  “Was it Phil Carrara?” she asked in a small voice.

  McGarvey nodded.

  “Why?”

  “He needed your help, and he was willing to tell you anything.”

  “Now you?”

  “I’m different.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Yes, you are different,” she said, stepping back. After a moment she turned and walked away.

  A Learjet with the FBI seal emblazoned on its fuselage was warming up on the apron for McGarvey when he arrived at the airport and paid off the very impressed cabbie. Special Agent Sam Wilke helped him aboard and even before he was strapped in they were taxiing toward the active runway, Special Agent Richard Conley piloting.

  “We’ll be in L.A. in about an hour,” Wilke said as they started their takeoff roll. “Washington wasn’t real specific about what was going on, except that you’re CIA, you need help, it’s damned important, and we need to go like a bat out of hell.”

  “All of the above,” McGarvey said, sitting back. “Can you have a helicopter standing by for me?”

  Wilke nodded. “Where are we headed?”

  “To wherever the Grande Dame Two is docked. She’s a pleasure vessel out of Nagasaki, but registered in Monaco. Should have pulled in yesterday or maybe even this morning.”

  “Do you want her and the crew impounded?”

  “Negative,” McGarvey said, opening his eyes. “Under no circumstances is that ship or her crew to be approached by anyone.”

  Wilke was looking at him. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good,” McGarvey said, lying back again as they climbed. He closed his eyes, and he could see the look on Kelley’s face when she’d learned that Carrara had lied to her, and that her friend was still alive. Relief. Hurt. Finally, fear.

  An FBI 206 JetRanger helicopter was waiting for them on the pad at Los Angeles International Airport. Wilke came along with McGarvey and Kelley, and minutes after they stepped off the Learjet they were airborne toward the waterfront.

  “The Grande Dame Two came in last night, and just cleared customs about two hours ago,” Wilke shouted over the roar. He’d been on the radio most of the way down.

  “Where?” McGarvey asked.

  “The Long Beach Marina. About twenty miles from here. We’ll make it in a few minutes. But would you mind telling me what the hell is going on? Your boss said he’s on the way out.”

  “What’s nearby?” McGarvey asked.

  “Huntington Beach, Long Beach, of course.”

  “Strategic targets.”

  Wilke’s left eyebrow rose. “Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Los Alamitos Naval Air Station.”

  “Anything high tech?”

  “TSI Industries is building a new research unit somewhere down there, I think.”

  McGarvey looked at him. “There’s an atomic bomb aboard that ship.”

  Wilke didn’t know whether or not to believe him. “Set to explode when?”

  “Two minutes after eleven, this morning.”

  “Christ,” Wilke swore. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” McGarvey said. “I think I’ll be able to find it, but the problem might be the crew. Could be someone aboard who’ll push the button if we show up in force.”

  Wilke was shaking his head. “It won’t matter,” he said. “At least it won’t in another fou
rteen minutes. That’s all the time left.”

  The Grande Dame II was tied up at the end pier, and although the marina was very busy there was no one to be seen on deck.

  The chopper had set down in a parking lot a quarter mile from the ship, and they’d commandeered a delivery truck from a confused, angry UPS driver.

  Wilke remained with his walkie-talkie in the truck parked at the side of the office about fifty yards from the ship. He’d called for a SWAT team, a hostage negotiator, and the Bureau’s Interpol liaison man. A pair of nuclear weapons experts had already been dispatched from nearby Travis Air Force Base on Carrara’s orders and were expected on the scene at any minute.

  McGarvey walked directly down to the ship and climbed the ladder, absolutely no time now for explanations or any sort of delicacy. Even if they tried to run, they couldn’t possibly get far enough away to escape the probable blast radius.

  At the top he halted for a moment, listening, his ear cocked for sounds aboard. Some machinery was running below decks, but there were no other noises.

  Nakamura’s people would have abandoned ship in time to get well away. At least they would have if they knew what they carried and when it would explode.

  Wilke had given him a 9-millimeter Ruger automatic, which McGarvey pulled out of his belt and cocked. He didn’t bother checking his watch; knowing exactly how much time remained wouldn’t help.

  He ducked through the hatch, and hurried as best he could down the stairs into the machinery spaces where he’d had his confrontation with Heidinora back at Fukai’s docks. The big Jap had been doing something down here. Maybe making sure that the area was clear so that the sewage lift pump could be readied for the bomb.

  Stepping out on the same catwalk he stopped. Below, the engines had been shut down, but a generator was running, and the lights had been left on.

  There were pipes and lines running everywhere in a seemingly jumbled maze. Nothing seemed to make any sense, nothing seemed familiar.

  Time. It always came down to time.

  The same Company psychologist who’d once told him that he had a low threshold of pain had also told him that he was a man who did not understand when it was time to quit.

  “I suppose I could study you for ten years and still not find the answer to that one,” the shrink had said. “If there is an answer.”

  He spotted the oblong metal container, marked in French, PORTSIDE SEWAGE LIFT PUMP, attached to a series of pipes on the interior of the hull.

  But there was no time left. It had to be nearly 11:02, and he could see with a sinking feeling that it would take a wrench or a pair of pliers to open the cover of the bomb. Two nuts held it in place.

  Now there were only seconds. No time to search for tools. No time to call for help.

  “Goddammit!” McGarvey shouted in frustration.

  He stepped back, raised the pistol, turned his head away and fired a shot nearly point blank at the left-hand nut holding the cover in place.

  The bullet ricochetted off the metal, bending but not breaking the nut and bolt assembly.

  “Goddammit!” McGarvey shouted, and he fired a second shot, and a third, and a fourth, bullet fragments and bits of jagged metal flying everywhere.

  But the bolt was off. Tossing the pistol aside, McGarvey pulled the left side of the cover away from the case, bending the metal back by brute strength, three of his fingernails peeling back.

  The inside of the device was simple. A long, gray cylinder took up most of the space, while tucked in one corner was the firing circuitry and timing device.

  The LED counter showed three seconds.

  McGarvey reached inside to grab one of the blue wires, when someone came out onto the catwalk behind him. He looked over his shoulder as the LED counter switched to two.

  A short, wiry man with bright red hair, wearing an Air Force master sergeant’s uniform, came up, reached over McGarvey’s shoulder into the bomb’s firing circuitry, and as the counter switched to one, pulled out a yellow wire.

  The counter switched to zero, and nothing happened.

  “Sorry, sir,” the sergeant said. “No time to explain. But you had the wrong wire.”

  THE END

  FICTION BY DAVID HAGBERG

  WRITING AS DAVID HAGBERG

  Twister

  The Capsule

  Last Come the Children

  Heartland

  Heroes

  Without Honor

  Countdown

  Crossfire

  Critical Mass

  Desert Fire

  High Flight

  Assassin

  White House

  Joshua’s Hammer

  Eden’s Gate

  The Kill Zone

  By Dawn’s Early Light

  Soldier of God

  Allah’s Scorpion

  Dance with the Dragon*

  WRITING AS SEAN FLANNERY

  The Kremlin Conspiracy

  Eagles Fly

  The Trinity Factor

  The Hollow Men

  False Prophets

  Broken Idols

  Gulag

  Moscow Crossing

  The Zebra Network

  Crossed Swords

  Counterstrike

  Moving Targets

  Winner Take All

  Achilles’ Heel

  *Forthcoming

  “The cold war may have iced over, but the age of the terrorist still offers job opportunities for larger-than-life CIA assassins like Kirk McGarvey … . A HIGH ACTION THRILLER!”

  —Booklist

  “STEP OUT INTO THE OPEN, MR. MCGARVEY, AND I PROMISE THAT YOUR WIFE AND DAUGHTER WILL NOT BE HARMED. WE WILL HAVE NO FURTHER NEED OF THEM ONCE WE HAVE YOU.”

  A door on the far side of the courtyard opened with a crash and a man carrying an assault rifle burst outside.

  “Don’t!” McGarvey shouted.

  Schade had pulled something from inside his jumpsuit and was tossing it toward the helicopter when the man above opened fire and the man across the courtyard started to fall back.

  In the last possible instant, realizing what was about to happen, McGarvey threw himself against the church wall, burying his face in the dirt and covering his head with his arms.

  A tremendous thunderclap burst in the courtyard, and McGarvey was lifted two feet by the force of the explosion, the night sky lighting up as if a thousand suns had suddenly switched on … .

  “Hagberg now takes his rightful place alongside Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler!”

  —Mystery Scene

  An exciting excerpt from

  David Hagberg’s

  new novel,

  Desert Fire

  available in hardcover from

  Tor books

  Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti stood at the open flap of his desert tent some miles west of Baghdad, the skirts of his flowing galabia ruffling in the cool evening breeze. He was alone, for the moment, as he seldom was, and it gave him a curiously disquieting feeling. As if he were the very last man on earth. Cities were empty. No one worked the land. No one lived across the sea. Emptiness.

  Far to the southeast he picked out a slow-moving pinprick of light against the brilliant backdrop of the stars. His advisors told him that it was the CIA’s latest spy satellite, the KH-15, sent up on the tail of an infidel rocket to watch them.

  Almost on instinct he moved a little deeper into the darkness of the tent. This night he felt as old as the desert hills and wadis around him. He felt almost one with the spirits of the ten thousand years of history here. This was the Fertile Crescent. The valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The birthplace of a dozen religions, of civilization itself.

  Like Muamar Quaddafi, Hussein had begun coming to the desert to find solace amongst his ancestors after his defeat over the reclamation of Iraqi homelands in Kuwait. The Revolutionary Command Council was still his to control, and therefore the nation was his. Western forces had, for the most part, finally withdrawn from the region. And o
nce again his oil was flowing, bringing his people the much-needed revenue so long denied them by the infidels.

  And yet it wasn’t enough. A people could either grow and prosper, or wither and die. Iran to the east and Israel to the west would have to be defeated. Decisively. But the Gulf War, as the western media called the battle, had taught him an important lesson. One of Patience.

  “General,” the voice of one of his bodyguards called from the darkness.

  Hussein’s hand went to the pistol in the pocket of his felt jacket. “’Ay-wa,”—yes—he said, softly.

  “He is here,” the guard, visible now just beyond the ten-meter-proximity detectors, said. A dark figure stood to the left and behind the guard.

  The man was an old friend and comrade in the jihad against the West. Munich, Hamma, Beirut. A dozen places, a hundred times, he’d proven himself. And yet there was something different about him in the past months since he’d gone to Germany. Hussein had seen it in the man’s eyes, and he wanted to see if there’d been any change.

  He reached to a panel on his left and flipped a switch that would interrupt the elaborate protective alarm system protecting him for less than ten seconds.

  “Come,” he said, and his grip tightened on the pistol. So much was at stake, and they were so close this time that he could not afford to take any chances. This time there would be no Desert Storm.

  The dark figure came forward, his hands spread outward in a gesture of humility and peace. Seconds later the alarm circuits tripped with an audible snap.

  “I serve at your command,” the man, known to the world only as Michael, said graciously.

  He was taller than Hussein and just as thickly built. His features—which, unlike Carlos’s, were in no police- or intelligence-service file anywhere in the world—were dark and handsome, his hair only slightly gray.

  They embraced—left cheek, right cheek, and left again—then parted, and Hussein managed a slight smile. All was right with Michael. Some tension, perhaps, even expectation, but nothing was amiss.