by J. G. Sandom
The Gambian cleared his throat. His eyes bulged in his head and he said, “The police and FBI came to the warehouse.” He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. “They looked inside the container that I showed them, the one we’d unloaded this morning. But the crate was gone. Then these astronauts came in.”
“You mean federal agents dressed in protective clothing.”
“Yes. They told me they were looking for drugs.” Momodou laughed. “I may be a Gambian. I am proud of that. I may not be well-educated, but I am not a fool. The men in the white suits,” he said. “They were carrying Geiger counters. I have seen them before, in the mines of Gambia. They were looking for something radioactive. I heard the boxes in their hands. They were clicking. And then one said, ‘It’s hot.’” He paused and looked into the camera. He smiled.
“Did they find what they were looking for?” asked Gallagher.
“No, it was gone. It was there before; I saw it. But now the crate is gone.”
“You mean it’s been unloaded? Right here? In New York City?”
“Yes.”
Gallagher turned and looked back at the camera. “And what,” he continued, “do you think that they were searching for? If it wasn’t drugs.”
The Gambian’s head bobbed side to side. And then he said, “A bomb.”
The camera focused in on Gallagher. He waited a few more seconds. Then he added, “A radioactive bomb.” He shook his head. “This reporter has tried to obtain confirmation from the FBI but they refuse to comment. One policeman involved in the raid insisted that this was just a routine drug bust. But, if that’s the case, where was the DEA? Why was the New York City Police Department’s Bomb Squad here? And why technicians from the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response? What kinds of drugs are radioactive?
“It is well-documented that Homeland Security inspects less than five percent of all the cargo containers shipped into this country. And those are simply X-rayed, scanned to identify ‘suspicious-looking’ cargo. Only a fraction of that five percent is manually inspected.” He shook his head once more.
“A few days ago, I reported that a Weapon of Mass Destruction might be on its way to New York City, presumably transported here at the behest of Islamist terrorist El Aqrab. Now, an anonymous source in Washington has just confirmed my gravest fears: The FBI believes a thermonuclear device has indeed been shipped to New York City, unloaded here, right here,” he pointed at the dock, “in Brooklyn.”
The camera pulled back, taking in the cityscape across the Hudson River.
“In the shadow of the shadows of the former World Trade Towers.”
Momodou Marong climbed up the gangway. He felt deflated. The adrenaline of being on TV had come and gone. Now he was spent. Exhausted. When he reached the main deck of the freighter, he stopped and watched the TV crew climb back into the WKXY-TV van crowned with a white extendable transmitter. In truth, the Gambian had thought the Algerian was really smuggling opium or heroin, and he had hungered for a piece. Indeed, he had resolved to blackmail the Algerian. But there was something about Hammel that had frightened Momodou, and he had let it go. At least until the FBI came calling. Then he had been only too eager to show them where the container with the jukebox was – empty, of course. But to the press, to that pygmy-like reporter Seamus Gallagher, whom he had called at the request of Captain Bréton, Momodou had known that there was something wrong with the Algerian from the very start.
The Gambian walked along the port side of the freighter. He gazed astern, across the river at the cloud-capped towers of the city. In two or three hours, the Rêve de Chantal would put to sea again. In a day or so, he’d be scraping and painting in the glaring Caribbean sun, on his way to Caracas in Venezuela. He scratched at the cut on his neck. He smiled and closed his eyes. He couldn’t wait. He had a lot of friends in Venezuela. They didn’t call it the “love run” for nothing.
* * *
Gallagher finished editing the story back at WKXY-TV. “Big Apple Atom Bomb!” he called it. Following a quick review by Legal under producer Ira Minsky’s care, the story was aired immediately, interrupting the regularly scheduled soap. It had the wrapper of a public service announcement. As soon as it had aired, Gallagher buttonholed Minsky in the hallway.
“I need a few days off,” he said.
Minsky looked shocked. “What?” He couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you serious?”
Gallagher nodded. “Dead serious.”
“But you just broke the story. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, Seamus. It’s got Emmy written all over it. You can’t leave now.”
“I’m leaving, Ira.”
“Now wait a minute,” Minsky said, puffing on his inhaler. “There may or may not be a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in Manhattan. I need you to stay on top of things until it’s found. If it exists. It’s your story. You can’t leave now. It would be totally irresponsible.” He began to pant.
“I’m sorry, Ira. But I’ve made up my mind. What if I’m arrested?”
“We’re protected by the First Amendment, Seamus. You heard Liebowitz in Legal. You’re protected. This isn’t someone yelling ‘fire’ in a cinema when there isn’t one. We have real evidence that a device loaded with nuclear material was brought in here by ship.”
The reporter refused to listen. He shook his head and looked away and Minsky realized that Gallagher was genuinely terrified – in all probability, of being right. Already, dozens of employees had fled the station. Soon the entire city would know. He begged Gallagher to stay, offering money, a promotion, anything, but the reporter wouldn’t budge.
“Look, Ira. I need a break,” Gallagher said. “I’ve been working like a fucking coolie on this thing. I’m going to Bermuda for a little golf and R and R. Two or three days.” He shook his head. “I’ve had enough.” Then he turned and simply walked away.
Chapter 36
Wednesday, February 2 – 11:06 PM
New York City
A pall hung over the city, muffled by snow. The wind carried no noise. Only the odd piece of garbage or newspaper billowed down the street. It was not even midnight and yet the city was practically deserted. Whoever could leave – by car, or bus, by train or plane, or on foot – had already done so. Only the occasional siren split the night, the frantic movement of emergency vehicles. Only the homeless lingered. And then an ambulance from the Cabrini Medical Center tore up the Avenue of the Americas.
Within the darkened interior, Ali Hammel leaned on the steering wheel and counted off the streets. They were almost at Twenty-ninth. Time to get ready. He barked a command in Arabic. Salim Moussa, Mohammed Qashir, bin Basra and Ali Singh began to assemble their gear.
The loading dock was on the south side of Thirty-fourth Street, near Fifth Avenue. As soon as the ambulance pulled over, Singh jumped out and spray-painted the security camera on the right side of the loading dock. He was dressed in a jet-black jogging suit and ski mask. He moved more like a shadow than a man, even through streetlights, almost unseen. He knelt down and pulled a bolt cutter from his bag. There was a loud snap as the heavy lock on the loading dock door fell apart. He inserted a key in the wall, turned it, and the large gray metal shutter started to rise.
Singh slithered through the darkness to another camera winking on the wall. He spray-painted the lens and ran back to the ambulance. He knocked on the rear door. It burst open, revealing Salim Moussa, bin Basra and Mohammed Qashir. They were all wearing ski masks on their heads like watch caps. They looked around the street, the loading dock, pulled the ski masks down across their faces, and followed Singh into the ill-lit loading bay. Ali Hammel remained sitting in the driver’s seat, nursing his knee.
The men began to unload the jukebox from the ambulance. It was visible but fixed inside a reinforced wooden frame, lying on a gurney. With care they rolled it out across the rear lip of the ambulance and down onto the loading dock. They pushed it as gently as a pram across the bay.
Bin Basra was waiting at the el
evator. He slipped a master key into the control box and unlocked the elevator door. He had already disabled the camera inside and reattached it to a digital video player the size of a large matchbox. Now, all that the security guards upstairs would see would be an endless loop of inactivity. They nudged the jukebox through the elevator door. They checked and re-checked their 9 mm Uzi fully automatic machine pistols. Each weapon shot thirty rounds in seconds. They checked their MIL-C-45010A high velocity plastic explosive, wrapped up in blocks, covered with honey-colored wax paper. It still looked somewhat powdery, but with a little kneading would plasticise and mould itself to any shape. And at only $20 a kilo, it had been the cheapest of their assets to procure. They checked their extra clips, their knives, their masks again, and closed the elevator door.
The elevator rose, ascending slowly through the narrow shaft. It seemed to take forever. The men stood absolutely still. There was no room for words inside the cab. The air would not accommodate them. The jukebox – with its dozens of CDs, hundreds of songs and thousands of notes and lyrics – sat strangely silent on the gurney. The elevator rose and rose, marking the numbers off. They winked. It was unbearably cold. They flashed. The reverse countdown decomposed. The elevator slowed. It hesitated, then stopped at the eightieth floor. The door retracted with a groan. The corridor was black.
Mohammed Qashir and Ali Singh began to push the gurney from the elevator. The first two wheels slipped with a crisp click over the crack, and then they heard a hissing sound and something fell onto the floor, right at their feet.
It started to shake and give off smoke. A canister. It hissed and slithered like a startled snake. Ali Singh lifted his weapon and sprayed the corridor with gunfire.
He was hit directly in the forehead. He fell but his Uzi kept on firing. Bullets lanced the walls and ceiling. Plastic shattered. Metal shrieked. Bin Basra stumbled to the floor. Mohammed Qashir coughed and sputtered as smoke began to fill the elevator. A bullet pierced his throat, and he went down. Salim Moussa tried to hide behind the jukebox. He screamed and raised his weapon and another soundless shot abandoned a small hole in his left hand, a drop of blood, and then the eyeholes of his mask seemed to explode, to pop as a bullet pierced his face, right through one temple and out the other, and he unrolled across the floor. His body shook. The elevator door began to close, then bounced against his leg. It opened and closed. It opened and closed.
Light beams transfixed the darkness. Men with night vision goggles, gas masks, body armor and small-caliber handguns appeared like cyborgs out of the dark. They approached the elevator cautiously, their weapons trained upon the lifeless occupants within. Blood started pooling, massing up, until it drained into the crack between the elevator and the floor, within the doorframe, and dribbled down the elevator shaft.
SAC Johnson appeared in a nimbus of white light. He was holding a gas mask over his face. He looked down at the bodies. Then he turned and motioned, seemingly toward nothing, at the shadows. The counter-terrorist squad checked the bodies for signs of life and pushed them roughly to the side. Then, with agonizing care, they rolled the gurney out into the hall. A figure appeared out of the shadows, wearing a reinforced body suit, breastplate and mask. The soldiers carefully removed the frame from around the jukebox. The man in the body suit knelt down, and pushed a clip, and opened the front side panel of the jukebox containing a clear plastic cylinder. The cylinder slipped out. He turned on a tiny flashlight and looked inside. Something silver twinkled back. He reached into the opening and removed an aluminum attaché case. He set it gently on the ground, studying the latches carefully. In one smooth movement, he released them and lifted the lid.
The device lay still within. It was lifeless, dead. Turned off. Or, not yet on. The man in the mask moved his gloved hand across the bulging ball of steel, and pressed a button in the console. The fuel case popped up with a click. Everyone in the corridor seemed to take a breath at once. He eased the chamber open carefully. Slowly. A small wrist Geiger counter chattered like frigid teeth. The soldiers and agents unconsciously stepped back. Some moved intentionally away.
The housing was empty. Not a trace of fuel. They were reading residual radioactivity.
Warhaftig hovered next to Jerry Johnson. He looked down at the jukebox, then back up at Johnson once again. The SAC felt his eyes burn a hole in the side of his neck. Somebody flipped a switch and the lights burst on. “Go on, say it,” Johnson spat.
“Say what, sir?”
Johnson raised his shirt cuff to his mouth. “Eighty is secure,” he said. “Close in on the vehicle. I repeat. Close in.” Then he stepped into the elevator, adding, “Well, come on. Doesn’t the Agency want to interface?”
Warhaftig followed the SAC into the elevator. He found it difficult to keep from laughing.
As soon as they got downstairs, they slipped through an emergency exit and hovered in the shadows only a dozen yards away from the loading dock. The ambulance was still parked in front. The engine was still running, sending a white cloud of exhaust aloft into the snow-filled air.
Johnson watched as a homeless man, dressed in a dirty black jacket and torn blue jeans, staggered up the street. He approached the loading zone casually, oblivious. The vehicle’s engine roared as Hammel gunned the accelerator. But the ambulance didn’t move. It was in neutral still. And the stranger didn’t turn. He continued to saunter over, not even looking at the ambulance. He crossed directly in front, and swung his arms, and pointed his weapon at the windshield, directly at Hammel. “Raise your hands,” he screamed. “Now!”
Hammel ducked, the agent fired, and the ambulance jumped forward, pitching the man high into the air like a matador on the horns of a bull. A moment later the agent fell and struck the pavement with a nauseating crack, and rolled into the street. The ambulance banked right, then left, almost as if the driver were aiming at the figure rolling in the road. The vehicle bumped over him. The body wriggled for a moment, strangely inverted, and grew still. The ambulance roared on.
Johnson discharged his weapon but it appeared to have no effect. The vehicle rattled through a phalanx of policemen, by special agents, by counter terrorist SWAT teams and marksmen on the roof. Somehow, miraculously, despite the shower of lead, Hammel remained unscathed. The cab seemed reinforced. The ambulance burned west on Thirty-fourth, as a pair of police cars closed the block. They came together, nose to nose, but Ali Hammel never slowed. He charged right through the narrow gap. There was a loud crash as he struck the cars, punched them aside, and kept on going.
Johnson ran to his car with Warhaftig close behind. He started her up. With a squeal, the car peeled out into the street . . . followed by a second, a third, and then a fourth police car. Sirens wailed. Lights flashed. Within minutes, the Cabrini ambulance had made it to the West Side Highway. There was no traffic and Hammel had little trouble swinging north. The police cars hurtled close behind, their cherries flashing – bright crimson and turquoise bubbles floating through the falling snow. Their sirens howled against the night. One minute the ambulance was charging up the highway, the next it swerved against the steel divider, showering sparks. A helicopter dropped out of the sky. It struck the ambulance. Hammel continued to swerve and weave along the highway, trying to avoid the helicopter skids. Suddenly, a blazing spotlight illuminated the ambulance from above. “Pull over,” a voice boomed through a loudspeaker. “Pull over now!”
Without warning, Hammel jammed on the breaks, and the ambulance slalomed on the snow. The helicopter over-shot the road. It banked and climbed. It looped around. The police cars skidded in behind. One crashed into the rear right fender of the ambulance. The ambulance was blasted up the road. It turned. It spun about. It bounced against the outer guardrail and somehow ended facing uptown once again.
The rear wheels screamed. The ambulance exploded forward, barely avoiding SAC Johnson’s car, barely avoiding the guardrail as it shimmied to the left on Forty-sixth Street, then off the West Side Highway. It was heading for The Intrepid
– Sea, Air and Space Museum.
The ambulance crashed through the metal gate. Sparks flew up all around it like a fireworks display. The massive light gray flank of the great aircraft carrier was suddenly illuminated. The ambulance kept going. A piece of the fencing was stuck under the axel. The ambulance kept showering sparks the entire length of the museum pier, as it paralleled the aircraft carrier, from prow to stern, as it kept churning up the night, with Hammel still at the wheel, still clutching it with all his might, until it ruptured through the wooden fence at the far end of the pier, and rose into the snowy air, and flew above the dark and inky waters of the Hudson River. It seemed to hang against the cloudy sky, against the bright face of New Jersey – with its train-set-sized high-rises – seemed to hover for a moment longer, before plunging with a mighty crash into the waves.
Police cars poured through the opening in the fence. Their engines panted in the frigid air, swept in off the river. Steam rose, illuminated by bright blues and vibrant reds. The sirens faded. The police cars came to a stop at the very lip of the pier, their headlights lancing at the waves. Agents and policemen leapt out of their vehicles, amongst them Johnson and Warhaftig. They stepped up to the water’s edge. They looked out as the ambulance tipped over onto its side, illuminated by the helicopter spotlight. In seconds it had sailed a good ten yards downstream, then twenty. Then it began to slide, to slip under the water, and was gone. Nothing remained. No sign. No marker, even. The waves rolled back upon themselves, covered in snow, erasing everything.
Chapter 37
