by Jack Mars
The problem was Swann. She liked Swann. He was funny. She liked Luke and Ed, too. And so far she had failed them. Swann’s life was in danger.
Who was she kidding? There was a good chance he was already dead.
All the same, she couldn’t just sit here, waiting for a plane to take her away. She couldn’t abandon them. It wasn’t how she’d been raised. Sure, her job was on the line, and she didn’t really care about that. This wasn’t about the FBI job. It was about honoring a commitment. She had come on this operation, and she had been thrown for a loop. But she should try to finish it out the best she could.
She could quit the job, or keep it, when she got home.
She stood on numb legs, and looked for the elevator to the surface.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
8:31 a.m. Eastern European Time (2:31 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Deep Underground
Ankara, Turkey
“They have broken through the perimeter,” a voice announced. “The guards have all fled or been killed.”
Ismet Batur, the President of Turkey, sat waiting to meet the men who had come to depose him.
He was inside a bunker left over from the Cold War.
When tensions were at their highest, the government had built these sites, where the ruling class and the heads of the military would retreat in the event of a nuclear war. The shafts were so deep it was believed that no radioactivity could ever penetrate to the bottom levels.
At one time, the tunnels down here were extensive. They connected bunkers in various parts of the city. There were living areas, command centers, gymnasiums, even a prison. There were farm areas where produce could be grown under artificial light. Millions of gallons of water were stored for such an eventuality.
The system had fallen into disrepair over the years, but was gradually being rebuilt. Not fast enough for Batur’s tastes, however.
He lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and exhaled a cloud of smoke. He was not a nervous man, but he had to admit the current state of affairs had left him very nervous indeed. An aide had offered him a pistol a little while ago—the implication being to shoot himself instead of being captured. Batur had declined the generous offer.
“Keep the gun,” he told the aide. “You may need it yourself.”
He sat inside a rounded chamber in a chair that 1960s designers would have thought of as space age. Just across from him was a large flat-screen, rounded to conform to the wall to which it was fastened. The screen was off, at his request. He had tired of watching bad news.
There were perhaps twenty men remaining in the cavern around him. They were agitated, and very alert. They had drawn their weapons and were watching the elevators. There were four elevators in an alcove, two facing two across a narrow hall. It seemed that when those doors opened, the men here could kill anyone emerging from there.
It seemed pointless to Batur. There were two stairwells—almost certainly enemies were making their way down those as well. It was possible that this small group of guards could hold this chamber for quite some time—maybe even for hours. But eventually the opponent would take it.
Perhaps that was what made people hate Batur—he saw the writing on the wall, and became resigned to the outcome instantly.
“Should we disable the elevators?” a guard said.
Batur shook his head. “Let him them come. It is inevitable. And lower your weapons. We are surrendering.”
Within moments, he saw that it was a foolish decision. The first wave of soldiers to arrive arrested his men and bound their wrists. Then the elevators returned to the surface. When the next wave of soldiers entered, they came with the man himself.
The tall mustachioed colonel in the Turkish Air Force dress uniform walked directly to the President and stood over him.
“Musharaff,” President Batur said. “I suppose I knew it was you.”
“And I knew it was you,” Colonel Musharaff said. “I knew it was you who oversaw the dismantling of our great military. I knew it was you who let the swindlers and the speculators run amok and prey on the common people. I knew it was you who stood by while the Russians stole our land. And I knew it was you who must be deposed if we are to restore our country to greatness.”
“Very impressive speech,” Batur said. “Also very unfortunate. You will never hold the country for long. Your advantage was surprise, but the surprise is over. Perhaps forty-eight hours from now, order will be restored and you will lose your grip on power.”
Musharaff nodded. “Yes. Very likely. But forty-eight hours will be more than enough to make the Russians feel the sting from stirring up a wasp’s nest.”
Batur stared at him.
“You are weak,” Musharaff said. “The Russian aggression must be avenged. You won’t do it, so I will do it in your stead. The people demand it. The Turkish military demands it. Our history demands it.”
Batur shook his head. He knew Musharaff was insane, but he hadn’t really considered how dangerous he was.
“A direct attack on the Russians will bring almost certain doom,” he said.
Musharaff smiled.
“On the contrary. A direct attack on the Russians will force the Americans to our defense.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
8:42 a.m. Mediterranean Time (2:42 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Outskirts of Aleppo, Syria
Russian bombers roared overhead.
Luke covered his ears as the sound split open the sky. A moment later, the bombs hit, maybe twenty miles behind him. The blasts were muffled at this distance, but the ground still trembled, shaking the news truck. The Russians were bombing the city of Aleppo to smithereens.
Luke sat on the roof of the truck, staring into a pair of high-powered binoculars, scanning the distance ahead. The road was choked with traffic—thousands of people on foot, streaming down the highway like a Biblical exodus, carrying their meager belongings, their children and animals in tow. Mingled in with the people were dozens of cars and trucks. Everyone was trying to leave the city. But there was a Syrian army checkpoint up there, and it was a slow go passing through it.
“Ed, what are we going to do, man?”
Ed stood on the road, gazing at the same checkpoint with a different pair of binoculars. “I don’t know. At the rate this is going, it could be another hour before we reach the checkpoint. If they’re being thorough, then they’re going to find our friend Nigel. He’s gonna be hard to explain.”
Luke shook his head in frustration. He stood and paced back and forth across the roof of the truck. The giant white letters TV had also been painted on the roof—these guys weren’t taking any chances. He walked across the letters.
There had to be a way. Every minute they were stuck here brought Swann another minute closer to death.
“Hey, Stone?” one of the Canadians, the reporter, yelled. His name was Chris. He appeared on the road next to the truck, holding the satellite phone.
“You have a call.”
Luke made a hand gesture, indicating to toss it up. Chris flipped it to him, and he snagged it in mid-air. It was probably Washington. Maybe they had a lead on Swann. Maybe they had found him. Luke felt a tickle of nervous dread in his stomach.
“The battery is running down,” Chris said. “So please don’t stay on there all day.”
“Stone.”
“Luke, it’s Mika.”
“Mika, I’m glad you called. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I was a little shaken up, but I’m okay now. They took me to the military base. They’re going to start evacuating people as soon as the flights are cleared.”
“Good,” Luke said. He wasn’t sure if that was good or not. Mika’s acumen hadn’t exactly set Luke’s world on fire so far, but he was still better off with her here than on a plane back to the States. “Before you leave, we need your help.”
“That’s why I called. Just before I left the hotel, a woman came to my room. She was dressed as a Muslim, very cons
ervatively, but I could tell by her voice she was American. She gave me a hard drive. She said she was a friend of yours.”
“A friend of mine?” Luke said. “I don’t have any friends in Turkey. What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. Her face was covered. She was thin and had dark curly hair.”
“What’s on the drive?”
“I don’t know that either. It’s encrypted. She said to ask you if you remember your good friend’s number.”
“Do I remember my good friend’s number?”
“Yes.”
Ed was listening. He looked up at Luke. “Trudy?”
Luke shrugged. “In Turkey? In the middle of a coup d’etat? Somehow I doubt it, but okay.”
“Do you know her phone number?”
“Sure.”
Ed shrugged. “So try it.”
“Are you at a computer right now?” Luke said into the phone.
“Yes.”
“Okay, so put in this number.” Luke gave Mika Trudy’s ten-digit phone number, which he knew by heart. He waited.
“No good,” Mika said.
“How many digits is the code?”
“It doesn’t show you,” Mika said. “That’s up to you to decide.”
“So try the seven digits, without the area code. If that doesn’t work, try the final four digits. If that doesn’t work, try the number of her street address—231.”
Another few minutes passed. “Mika?”
“None of that is working.”
“Okay, let me think about it a minute. In the meantime, this is what I need from you. We found the boat here in Syria. There were no weapons on board. We captured an ISIS fighter, and he told us the warheads were sent to Russia. He claims that they’re going to launch the missiles at Russia, from inside Russia. I told the President and her National Security Adviser about this—they didn’t seem impressed. I want you to find out what they’re doing about it, if anything. If nothing, I need you to scare up a tech person there at the base, see if you can retrieve satellite data from the past couple of days, and find some likely suspects on the roads in Turkey, and a route for those trucks into Russia.”
Her answer surprised him. “I don’t have to do that.”
His shoulders slumped. “You don’t have to—”
“No. I spent my first six months on the job studying Russia and her former Republics. The most direct overland route from Turkey to Russia is through Georgia. It’s really the only way to do it, and that border has been tight since the Russian-Georgian war. It’s practically closed. The hassles getting through the crossings aren’t worth the trip. I can’t imagine anyone trying to sneak stolen nuclear warheads through there.”
“What if they paid off the guards?” Luke said.
“Not a chance,” Mika’s tiny voice said. “There are thousands of troops massed at the border, and the guards pull apart everything that comes through as a matter of policy. On the ground level, there are too many people watching to try to pay someone off. You could try someone higher, I imagine. But what mid-level Russian military functionary is going to let bombs into the country so that ISIS can attack Russia? Those guys hate ISIS. There isn’t enough money on Earth to justify that payoff. If Kurt Kimball wasn’t excited about that theory, there’s your reason. It’s impossible.”
Luke stood on top of the truck without moving. He thought about the kid Nigel that had caught at the boat. Just some stupid kid who ran away from home. He probably thought he was doing something romantic. Someone had told him the trucks were going to Russia, so in his mind, they were. This was the same kid who thought he knew where Swann was being kept. Jesus.
The warheads were gone. Bill Cronin and two chopper pilots were dead. Swann was kidnapped by ISIS. This operation couldn’t have gone any worse.
Half a mile away, at the checkpoint, some kind of commotion was going on. People were running, scattering.
“You seeing this?” Ed said, his eyes planted against his binoculars.
“Yes. What is it, can you tell?”
“Not yet,” Ed said.
“Okay, Mika,” Luke said. “I see your point. But please don’t dismiss this out of hand. Just do what I ask, all right?”
Her voice was cold. “All right, Luke.”
“Before you look for the weapons, though, I want you to use the satellite data to help us look for Swann. Specifically, look for anything—a truck, a plane, a car, a helicopter, anything at all—that went from Adana to al-Raqqa in the past eight hours. And please don’t tell me it’s impossible. I can’t hear that right now. Instead, tell me how it is possible, who did it most recently, and where they parked when they arrived. Okay?”
“Is that where you’re going?” she said.
“Yes.”
“It’s the ISIS stronghold.”
“Yes, I know,” he said.
“The Russians bomb it every day. I’ve heard that there are Spetsnaz troops on the ground there, trying to assassinate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the other leaders of ISIS. It’s a shooting gallery is what I’m trying to say.”
“This whole country is a shooting gallery,” Luke said.
As if to prove his point, the sound of gunshots came from the checkpoint. Suddenly, an explosion rattled the ground. The small building at the checkpoint blew apart. Everywhere, people started to run. The crowds flowed off the road and into the fields at either side. People flung themselves to the ground and covered their heads.
“Someone just blew themselves up,” Ed said. “Looks like they took a few checkpoint personnel with them.”
Another, larger explosion rattled the day. Thick smoke rose. Luke could make out fire on the horizon.
“Mika, I have to go.”
Luke slid down the windshield to the ground. He landed with a jolt on the dusty highway. Ed was already jumping into the truck. Luke was one second behind him.
He slid into the passenger seat. Chris was in the driver’s seat.
“Let’s go, man,” Luke said. “That’s our cue.”
Chris’s eyes were wide. “Our cue to do what?”
Luke pointed at the suddenly empty highway in front of them. In the distance, flames reached for the sky. Black smoke billowed. “Go through the checkpoint! What are you waiting for? Can’t you see? The road is open.”
Luke reached for the dashboard siren and turned it on.
“Hit it. This is news up ahead.”
The former ambulance took off, siren howling, straight for the burning checkpoint.
CHAPTER THIRTY
3:15 a.m.
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“Hold for the President of the Russian Federation.”
Susan held the big red phone to her cheek and rolled her eyes. She was beyond tired now. She looked at the other people in the Room—a dozen left. She, Kurt, Kat Lopez, and Haley Lawrence had cooked up the idea to call Putin back. Susan didn’t know if it was a good one or not.
It was hard to make decisions at this level of exhaustion.
His voice came on the line. Nothing formal this time—he wasn’t even going to bother. “Yes, hello, Missus.”
Susan shook her head and almost laughed. “Hi, Vlad.”
“You will forgive me, but my trusted interpreter Vasil is still with me.”
“Of course,” she said.
Putin started talking in Russian again, not waiting for her to say a word. In a moment, Vasil caught up with the gist.
“Six months with no call, now two calls in six hours. They will say we are lovers. I will be the next…”
In the background, Putin conferred with someone else, a gruff masculine voice. There was a momentary back-and-forth in Russian, a debate about something. Then Putin was back.
“Tommy Zales,” he said. He didn’t need Vasil for that one.
Susan felt a blush creep up her neck. In case she needed a reminder that people were always watching—and she supposed she did need one—this was it
. She thought of Pierre, just a fleeting wisp of anxiety—when would he find out?
“Vladimir, I’m calling to share some information with you.”
She let Vasil begin translating, then she plunged on ahead of him. He was good at catching up, and she didn’t want his boss taking advantage of any pause.
“We have intelligence to suggest that the stolen warheads are going to be smuggled into Russia.”
Putin made a sound with his mouth—a child’s sound of disbelief, very nearly what Susan used to think of as a Bronx cheer. Then he began speaking.
“Why darling,” Vasil said. “Would we steal your obsolete nuclear warheads, or sponsor such an activity? We have more warheads than we need, and ones in good working order.”
“I’m not saying you stole them,” Susan said. “I’m saying that terrorists, possibly ISIS, may be planning to smuggle the warheads into Russia, then launch them at Russia from within your own country. I’m suggesting that you double and triple security at your overland border crossings—anything within a few days’ drive of Turkey. The warheads may be coming your way.”
“I want to tell you something,” Vasil said. “I want to be very clear. We already monitor our border crossings effectively, and we will quadruple our efforts. But this does not mean we will be successful. These are your weapons. And ISIS is your bastard love child with the Sunni extremist states of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.”
Susan began to speak but was cut off.
“Please don’t pretend otherwise, dear one. We know how ISIS began, and from where their funding emerged. We know men like al-Baghdadi were held in your Camp Bucca prison, and we know what kinds of psychology experiments were carried out there. We understand the methods of your CIA very well. Now you have put very dangerous weapons in the hands of very dangerous people. If they manage to use them, we will hold you responsible. Of course.”
“Vladimir—”
“If a single Russian city is attacked, we will return fire. What choice do we have? To see our loved ones annihilated, while we stand idly by? I don’t think so. But we will be measured in our response. If Volgograd is hit, we will take Boston. If Saint Petersburg goes, so goes New York. Moscow? We take Washington, DC. Does that sound like a pleasure to you? I can tell you I take no joy in it. But it is the most fair and balanced remedy I can think of.”
