“It’s called Z-Backscatter,” he explained, pointing to a large flat-panel display screen on the starboard-side bulkhead. “That’s because it uses wavelengths reflected by what are called low-Z materials—that’s low-mass elements like carbon and hydrogen, molecules like water. Here … Kaminsky.” He pointed at the line of cars visible in ordinary light on a smaller monitor to the side. “Give ’em a show.”
“Sure thing, Major.”
The technician did something to the touch-screen controls on his console, and a car appeared in shades of gray on the large screen, frozen motionless, viewed from overhead and to the right. The vehicle itself appeared ghosted, with even the engine block almost invisible. The tires were more easily seen than the hubs or axles. A man, a woman, and two kids seemed to float in space, their clothing vanished, their faces oddly plastic. Teller glanced at Dominique. She met his eyes, then looked away with a small shrug. He could almost hear her thought. I’d just be happier if I knew the Peeping Tom bit is strictly line of duty …
The technician grinned. “Hey, that’s a nice set on the—”
“That will do,” Teller snapped, his voice cold. “Save it for the bad guys.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean any—”
“Just keep it professional,” Teller told him. Briefly, he considered pinning the man’s ears back, but he was wearing civilian clothing at the moment, and he didn’t want to turn the conversation into an officer-enlisted pissing match.
He clearly heard Kaminsky mutter the word “asshole” in response. Probably the guy had no idea the high-tech helmets they were wearing transmitted even words that were all but whispered. He let it go.
“Ah, yes,” Walthers said, embarrassed. “Really dense materials—lead or uranium, say—will reflect well, but the low-Z radiation passes right through steel as easily as it does glass…”
Teller found himself wondering, though, not about the physics of the surveillance equipment but about that family. What were they doing out on a normally empty stretch of Maryland highway at one thirty in the morning? The kids in the backseat looked like they were asleep. Maybe they’d left Ocean City that evening, hoping to drive all night and reach their home, wherever that might be, by morning. From the look of that middle-of-the-night traffic jam down there, they weren’t going to make it.
“We’ve used this technology before,” he said, feeling weary. “We don’t need the physics lecture. Let’s just get it to where it can do some good.”
REYSHAHRI
CONOWINGO DAM, MARYLAND
0150 HOURS, EDT
It was only about fifty kilometers from the point where they’d turned off the main road north in Delaware to the bridge and dam they were looking for across the Susquehanna, but the trip had taken them almost an hour. Telegraph Road had turned out to be a long, single-lane highway with a speed limit of fifty-five, but slowed by stretches where the speed limit had been reduced to thirty. The others in the car were becoming increasingly agitated and impatient.
Now, however, they were back on Route 1, heading south across a narrow road that was actually the top of a dam across the river. “Once we’re across,” Reyshahri told them, “we’ll be safe. No more toll roads or bridges. We’ll take the long way around Baltimore to avoid the Key Bridge or the Harbor Tunnel. We will have our choice of roads south.”
“I, for one, dislike the change,” Hamadi said. “We should have stayed with the original plan. What about New York?”
“The New York part of the operation,” Reyshahri told him, “is unnecessary. We have the freedom to make our own decisions. And we are doing so.”
“You are doing so, Captain Reyshahri. If the mission fails because of your delays, it will be entirely your responsibility.”
Reyshahri did not reply, focusing instead on the driving. The road across the dam was narrow, with no shoulders, and he felt hemmed in, almost claustrophobic.
He wondered if his decision to spare New York City was due to caution or because he actually pitied the Americans.
Reyshahri had questioned the necessity for using the nuclear weapons at all, during his briefing back at VEVAK headquarters, in Tehran. Colonel Ebrahim Salehi, his commanding officer, had merely shrugged. “Those are our orders, Saeed,” he’d said.
“But to launch a nuclear attack on America, sir—” Reyshahri had been horrified. “Such a strike will kill thousands and leave two cities in ruins. If they learn that it was us, they will not rest until our nation lies in ruins.”
“Then see to it that they do not learn, Captain. We will place clues, through our network in Mexico, that the attack was either by al Qaeda or by the Mexican cartels themselves.”
“There must be other ways to destabilize the United States.”
“Are you questioning your orders, Captain?”
Reyshahri had sighed. “No, sir. But to take such an extreme step…”
“Operation Shah Mat is intended to deeply shake the American economy, its government, and its military’s internal command and control. The creation of a free Aztlán will be possible only if the Americans are so … distracted by the attack that they cannot respond.”
“I understand that, Colonel.”
“If you are feeling soft about American casualties, Captain, remember that the United States has been carrying out a covert war against us for years. It was they, we are certain, who produced the so-called Stuxnet virus that destroyed the centrifuges at Natanz, delaying our nuclear program. And the Americans were working with the Jews when Mossad sabotaged our ballistic missile facilities near Tehran. They were probably behind the attack on Estafan as well.”
“I am aware of all of that, Colonel. But there is an enormous difference between covert sabotage and the detonation of two nuclear weapons.”
“A weapon is a weapon, a means to effect an end, Colonel. We have acquired two nuclear weapons—two very small nuclear weapons—and their use will cause the United States to draw back to within its own borders to deal with its own more pressing problems. And that leaves us free to pursue our ambitions in Iraq and in Syria, without American interference.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you do not have the stomach for this, we can find another officer who does.”
Reyshahri had stiffened to attention. “I can do it, sir.”
“Good. I would hate to lose so promising an officer.”
What would have happened, he wondered, if he’d refused the mission? Reassignment, certainly. Demotion, possibly. Questioning by Internal Security, probably—with just a chance that they would investigate his loyalty to the regime.
He was thinking of Hasti, his wife, and his daughter, Mehry, as he drove off the bridge and left the Susquehanna behind them. It was not unknown for the families of men accused of treason to … disappear.
He would have to see this through, no matter how distasteful the assignment might be.
NEST 2/2
ABOVE HAVRE DE GRACE, MARYLAND
0155 HOURS, EDT
With a cruise speed of 150 knots, it had taken the CH-53E Super Stallion just twenty minutes to fly from Easton to the port of Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. They could see the city lights of Havre de Grace out the big helicopter’s windows to port, the smaller town of Perryville to starboard, as they swung northwest and flew up the midchannel of the river.
“Not much traffic up here,” Major Walthers observed.
“Exactly,” Teller replied. “The traffic jams haven’t hit this far north yet.” They would.
“So what are we looking for, anyway?”
“A vehicle. We don’t know the make or model. At least two passengers. And a small nuclear weapon.”
“Chris thinks they’ll want to avoid toll roads and bridges,” Dominique added. “Only if they want to reach Washington, they have to cross either Chesapeake Bay or the Susquehanna River.”
Teller nodded. “Right. Their first choice would be the Bay Bridge, of course. No toll going west, but it’s
such an obvious direct route to D.C. and such a major bottleneck that I don’t think they’re going to try that way.”
“I’d have to agree,” Walthers said. “But NEST is setting up a muon detector at the Bay Bridge anyway, just in case.”
“Right. The only other way from the Eastern Shore into central Maryland is to swing way north, past the top of Chesapeake Bay at Elkton, then head southwest, which brings them to the Susquehanna. There are just three vehicular bridges across the river in Maryland—Route 40 and Route 95, both of which are toll bridges, and the Conowingo Dam. The next nearest crossing is way up in Pennsylvania somewhere.”
“So you think they’re trying to cross at Conowingo?”
“Good chance. I just hope we’re ahead of them.”
“What, they might’ve already crossed?”
Teller turned his laptop to show Walthers. “I’ve been using Tracker.”
Highway Tracker was software designed for use by law enforcement agencies and government organizations. You entered starting time and completion times and a point on a map, and the program downloaded data from Highway Department Web sites and law enforcement networks on factors such as heavy traffic, local speed limits, and construction. A moment later, it showed you on a computer-generated map just how far a target vehicle could have traveled in the requested period of time.
One of the sets of routes Teller had plugged into his laptop had generated a red field that covered everything from the Indian River Inlet north through Newark, then southwest toward the Susquehanna. One tentacle of blue extended just past the bridge at Conowingo and down Route 1 toward Baltimore.
“If they’ve been driving steadily for two and a half hours, no stops, no delays, they could have covered about a hundred twenty miles by now. That puts them here, about five miles southwest of the dam and maybe eight or ten miles northeast of Bel Air.”
“Unless they’ve been breaking speed limits,” Walthers pointed out.
“True … but if you were carrying a small nuke in your trunk and there was even a remote chance that the opposition knew about it, would you risk a traffic stop?”
“No. I suppose I wouldn’t. But what if they’re headed for New York City?”
“A possibility, but not a likely one. The NEST units up there will be covering the approaches to Manhattan. They’re setting up a muon detector on I-95, too.”
“What the hell is a muon detector?” Dominique asked.
“Big unit,” Walthers explained. “A transmitter and a detector. It sends a stream of muons—a kind of subatomic particle—between the two. Muons pass through everything without slowing down—everything except for those elements that are really dense. Plutonium and uranium, specifically. Set it up at a bridge or a toll booth, transmitter on one side and detector on the other, and it sounds an alert if something passing between them reflects the muons instead of letting them through. It’s the best tool we have for sniffing out nuclear weapons.”
“So we don’t have a portable system for that yet.”
“Not for muons, no. If you want portable, you need the mobile Z-backscatter units, vans and helicopters. We’ve had backscatter vans patrolling the streets for a while now. Helicopter units are a bit more recent.” Walthers studied Teller’s display for a moment longer. “So you’re suggesting we go to the dam and then work our way southwest on 1?”
“Right. I understand other NEST units are covering D.C. farther south. But if we can tag this character before he gets close to a major city, I’ll be a lot happier.”
“You’re thinking a dead man’s switch?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“So, when we find him … what then?”
“I don’t know,” Teller replied. “I’m still working on that part.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
INSCOM HQ
FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA
0201 HOURS, EDT
22 APRIL
“There they go,” Procario said.
The INSCOM Ops Center was crowded now with personnel, including CIA, DIA, and NEST officers. General Granger, Haupt, and Devendorf all were present, along with Wentworth from the CIA and the WINPAC officer, Larson, both looking haggard after being woken by late-night phone calls. One woman—Diane Cosgrove—had arrived from the White House, dispatched to INSCOM HQ by the national security adviser himself, Randolph Edgar Preston. The ANSA, she’d informed the group, was unavoidably in California that night, but she was there to observe the op and to advise the president in his place.
The president, she’d just informed the group, was on board Marine One; on his way out of the city.
Just in case.
It was a surreal scene. Formerly the Information Dominance Center, a cyber warfare facility, the INSCOM Ops Center was an exact replica of the bridge of the USS Enterprise out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The place had actually been designed by the guy who’d created the Enterprise set. Any outside observer walking in would have thought he’d walked into Star Trek.
The big display on the wall was showing a dizzying drop into a chaotic blur of night, glaring light, and spray. The image was being transmitted real-time from a camera mounted on the helmet of a U.S. Navy SEAL as he dangled fifty feet above the deck of a Kilo class submarine nine miles off the coast of New Jersey. The deck of the submarine swung and rolled alarmingly; two more SEALs hung suspended below the one with the camera, bulky with tactical vests, weapons, and equipment. The surface of the black water was lashed to white froth by the helicopter’s rotor blast. Two faces, tiny and pale, looked up toward the camera from the submarine’s sail.
“Now we find out if they’re going to let us come aboard,” Colonel Devendorf said.
“Garret said they’d agreed to surrender,” George Haupt pointed out. “If they don’t go through with it, he’ll put a torpedo up their ass.”
“That may not be a good idea,” Granger said. “We don’t want to detonate a nuke that close to our shoreline—or sink that Kilo and have it leaking radiation onto our continental shelf.”
“Then we’d better hope the bastards decide to play nice,” Procario observed.
“Do our people know there’s a nuke on board that sub?” MacDonald asked.
“Of course they do,” Procario said. “They have to know what they’re looking for, right?”
The USS Pittsburgh was still submerged out there somewhere, but with her radio mast and periscope above water. Garret had radioed a situation report shortly after the Russian submarine had surfaced, and INSCOM had immediately dispatched a platoon from SEAL Team Two out of Little Creek, Virginia, on board an HH-60H Seahawk Naval Special Warfare helicopter.
The VBSS team was fast-roping onto the Kilo’s forward deck now, an extremely dangerous evolution to carry out in the middle of the night in a rough swell. The winds had been picking up, and there’d been some rain squalls passing through the area.
The SEALs, trained for operations in all weather, day or night, had gone in anyway. They were armed with H&K submachine guns and clad in black combat armored vests, night-vision devices, and tactical harnesses, which gave them a nightmarish look as they descended on the wallowing surfaced submarine.
The first two men on the line hit the deck and moved toward the open forward hatch; the camera view slid precipitously down, hit with a jar, and then began moving toward the hatch as well. The camera view swerved, jiggled, and swooped, and for a moment the watchers at INSCOM were treated to an up-close look at the rungs of a metal ladder as the SEAL descended through the forward hatch. The voices of the team members called back and forth to one another over the tactical net.
“Arc Five! Moving to the control room!”
“Arc Three! Going down one deck … entering torpedo room…”
“Nazahd! Nazahd! Move back!” A number of the SEALs spoke fluent Russian. “Rukee v’vayrh!”
The scenes on the display showed cramped spaces, harsh lighting, men in blue jumpsuits backing out of the way of the VBSS boarders,
putting up their hands in response to the harsh, shouted orders. It looked, Procario thought, eerily like one of those first-person shooter computer games, where you could see a gloved hand holding a weapon as the virtual soldier wound through a maze of passageways and rooms.
There was a small difference with this version, however. “Game over” did not mean a chance to start a new round of play.
“G’deh Kapetahn?” one of the SEALs demanded.
“I am Captain Second Rank Basargin,” one of the blue-clad men replied in good English, stepping forward. “I do apologize. We appear to have suffered a failure of our navigational equipment, and have accidentally strayed into your waters.”
“So that’s how they’re going to play it,” Granger said.
NEST 2/2
ABOVE BEL AIR BYPASS
BEL AIR, MARYLAND
0210 HOURS, EDT
“I’ve got something!” Kaminsky yelled. “I’ve got a package!”
Teller looked up from his laptop and studied the gray-scale image on the big display.
The vehicle was a Jumbo SUV of some sort, too heavily transparent for him to guess the make and model. Two males were riding up front; the faint outlines of an AK-47 floated on the backseat. Brick-sized packages glowed with silvery-gray opacity everywhere—under the seats, tucked up inside the wheel wells, and massed in a sizable pile in the cargo space at the vehicle’s back.
“I don’t know,” Walthers said. “Does that look like a bomb?”
“It’s low-Z material,” Kaminsky replied. “RTD is negative. No radiation.”
“It could also be shielded in lead. What do you think, Mr. Teller?”
Teller studied the image a moment. “I think what you have there is a drug shipment—cocaine, maybe heroin. Stashing it inside the wheel wells is an old, old trick.”
“So, do we nail ’em?”
Teller thought about it. They were probably looking at several tens of millions of dollars of cocaine packed into that car … and at addiction and misery for thousands of people.
The Last Line Page 33
