by David Archer
“I'm sure they're flooded with tips, yes. Sam, do you have a room number for this person?”
“No, but it's on the fourth floor, fifth room on the left, if you go to the right of the elevator. Thing is, the guy isn't there. He dropped the bag off and then hot-footed it out the door. He got into a new model Lexus rental with another man, and drove away.”
Harry said, “He'll be back. They wouldn't leave a package like that unattended for long, it's too important and too valuable. Can I get you back on this number?”
“Yes, of course,” Sam said.
“Alright, let me see if I can get someone on this, and I may call you back. And Sam—thank you, and thank that lovely new wife of yours, too.” He was gone.
“Harry says thanks, to both of us.”
“Well, if you get the chance, tell him he’s welcome. Did he take you seriously?”
“He says he knows me well enough to know I wouldn't joke about it, but of course, we're still only guessing that this is the nuke. He's going to get someone looking into it. He, uh, he said we need to get more than forty miles out of the city. That would get us outside the danger zone for both blast and radiation. I'm guessing they think these are dirty bombs.”
Indie looked at him. “I think we need to stay here, for right now. If he needs you...”
Sam looked at his wife, and smiled. “Well,” he said, “if we're going to be here anyway, we might as well act like honeymooners.” He reached and took her into his arms and kissed her, and then pulled her to the bed.
A half hour later, as they lay in each other's arms, Sam's phone rang again, and he picked it up to see that it was Harry calling.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Sam, it's Harry. I'm sorry to do this, but I'm afraid we need your help once again.”
Sam nodded, even though Harry couldn't see him. “What can I do, Harry?”
“We've got only a few people in Hawaii, and they're chasing leads the way a hound chases rabbits. I tried to tell them that I have a lot of confidence in you, but the leads they've got are also high confidence; some of them are coming from people we've got inside terrorist cells in other countries, so they're going through those, first.”
“That makes sense. What do you want me to do, Harry?”
The old man sighed. “Sam, do you think it's possible you can get into that room and confirm whether there is a suitcase nuclear device in there?”
Sam closed his eyes. “If that's what you need me to do, Harry, I'll try. What do I look for?”
Harry chuckled. “Sam, I'd bet my rear end that you'll know it's a nuke, if it is. Just be very careful, and try not to blow yourself and the whole city to kingdom come, all right?”
“You got it. Soon as I know something, I'll try calling you, but the circuits are all jammed, so it may take me a while.”
“No, it won't. I've had your number put on high priority; if you place a call, it'll go through even if it has to knock someone else off the line. I'll be waiting to hear from you.” Once again, he was gone before Sam could say another word.
“What does he want?” Indie asked.
“He wants me to try to get into that room, and see if there really is a nuclear bomb in it.” Sam went to his suitcase and opened a compartment on the inside and withdrew his Glock automatic. Indie looked at it.
“I didn't know you brought your gun,” she said, “but now I'm really glad you did. Let me get dressed.”
Sam looked at her. “Baby, you're staying here.”
She had stood up and started toward the bathroom, but now she turned to face him. “And how far do you think you're gonna get with that, gun or no gun? I just married you, remember? If you think I'm gonna let you out of my sight when we may be living our final hours, you have another think coming to you! I'll be ready in ten minutes.”
Sam shook his head, and started changing his own clothes, then slipped his holster onto his belt and put the Glock in it. He wanted to get a shower, but it could wait; saving lives took precedence, he felt, so he'd worry about a shower after he found out if he was right about the bomb. Besides, he figured he'd be a lot sweatier by then.
Indie was ready in less than nine minutes, and Sam hurried into the bathroom to freshen himself quickly. His Power Stick would cover him until he got time for the real shower, and he swirled mouthwash around in lieu of brushing his teeth. He came out a minute later and was ready.
They went down on the elevator, and were instantly inundated with noise. There were probably two hundred people there, all demanding that the hotel concierge find them a plane or a ship that would take them home. A harried young man was trying to tell them all that there was nothing he could do.
At the front desk, just as many people were shouting about checking out. A girl there was telling them all that she would check them out as fast as she could, but she was the only one there because everyone else had left.
Sam and Indie went out the front door, but there were no cabs in evidence. A shuttle van sat there, but the people standing around it seemed confused. Sam heard one man tell another that the driver had parked it, gotten out and run toward the parking lot.
“There's our ride,” he said to Indie, and moved toward the van, pushing people out of the way. “Make way,” he yelled, “coming through!” A break appeared in the crowd, and a man grabbed his sleeve.
“Are you the driver?” he asked.
Sam nodded. “Yes, I'm the relief driver. I'm going toward downtown right now, to pick up some folks there. Any of you want to ride downtown?”
Everyone stepped back except one young woman. “I do,” she said. “I've got an exhibit at the Museum of Art, and I have to get there!”
“Climb on,” Sam said, while Indie stared at him. “The rest of you, another van will be here soon, just hang on.” He climbed into the driver's seat while Indie and the other young woman got in and settled themselves. He leaned over to Indie and whispered, “Find out where the museum is.”
She nodded and took out her phone to Google it, then handed it to him so he could see the directions. As he'd expected, the keys were in the ignition, so he started the van and drove off toward the downtown district. The museum was only a few minutes away, and very close to the Dresden, so he swung by there and let the young woman out.
As she exited the van, she looked around at him. “Thanks. I know you’re not really the driver, but you just saved my life! I appreciate it!” She turned and was gone before Sam could reply, but he figured that was just as well, since he didn't have a clue how to respond.
He turned the van toward the Dresden, and they were there in less than five more minutes. Sam parked it on the street and got out, with Indie right on his heels.
“Any idea how you're gonna get into that room?” she asked him, and he smiled.
“Did you see the confusion back at our hotel? Think this one's gonna be in any better shape? Most people are gonna figure that the bomb will be set to take out downtown, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it just about empty.”
They walked in through the front doors, and Sam saw that he was nearly correct. A half dozen people were at the front desk, where another lone girl was trying to get them checked out. A few more were scattered here and there around the lobby, most of them talking rapidly or dialing over and over on cell phones, trying desperately to call someone to help them. Most of them kept hanging up and dialing again.
Sam walked straight through the hotel lobby and to the elevators as if he owned the place, and no one even bothered to ask him where he was going. The emptiness of the security station told him that even the guards had decided to run out on their jobs, probably to get their families and flee the city as fast as they could. They stepped into the first elevator to open and Sam pushed the button for floor number four.
The ride up was in silence, and neither of them wanted to break it. When the elevator stopped, they got out and went to the right, going straight to the fifth door without any problem. It was room 517, and Sam
knocked once with his hand on the Glock.
There was no answer, as he'd hoped, but when he tried the door, it was locked securely. He looked around for a moment, and realized that the next room, 519, was standing open. He went to it, peeked inside, then motioned for Indie to wait at the door to the room they wanted to enter. He went into the open room and to its big window.
The window slid open and he stepped out onto a balcony. He could see the balcony next to it, but there was a ten foot gap between them, and Sam knew that with his bum leg, there was no way he could ever hope to jump across. He abandoned that idea and started back out of the room, but these were suites, and he suddenly spotted the maid's cart in the bedroom that opened off of the room he was in.
He checked it quickly to see if her master key might have been on it, but it wasn't. However, he noticed that the window from this room, though smaller, would be a lot closer to the balcony next door. He went to it and tried to open it, but this one was sealed.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” he muttered, then picked up a lamp from the nightstand and threw it as hard as he could at the window. He'd expected the glass to be harder to break, but the lamp went through it like it was nothing, and he used the curtain, wrapped around his arm, to bust out the remaining shards. Leaning out, he saw that the railing of the balcony on 517 was only about three feet away, so he began climbing through the hole.
The window was only about four feet high, so when he got out onto it, he was in an awkward position, trying to stand on the narrow ledge while holding on to the top of the window frame. He could see the balcony railing to his left, so he leaned as far as he could in that direction, then extended his left leg over. With his right hand still holding the top of the window frame and his left plastered against the wall, he was just barely able to put his left foot onto the rail, but that was as far as he could go.
Sam knew he shouldn't look down, but he did anyway, and saw a sheer drop of four stories to a concrete alleyway below him. He looked back at the railing with his foot on it, thought, Ah, hell, and pushed off with his right foot as hard as he could, letting go with his hand.
Suddenly he was balanced on one foot on top of a railing that was about an inch wide, and flailing his arms to try to swing his weight over just a little further. As he felt himself start to fall, he slapped the wall with both hands and shoved himself hard to his left, and then fell hard onto the floor of the balcony to 517.
He lay there for several seconds, gasping for breath and praying the ache in his side would go away soon, but he knew he didn't have a lot of time. The broken window may have set off an alarm, or someone down below may have seen the lamp come crashing down, but either way, he figured he was due to be discovered at any moment. He rolled to one side and got painfully to his feet, his hip telling him in no uncertain terms what it thought of his attempts at acrobatics.
The sliding glass door was locked, of course, but Sam was in no mood to let that stop him. He drew his Glock from its holster and used the butt of the gun as a hammer to break through.
The glass shattered, but didn't break. He hit it again, and saw that it had some sort of reinforcement on the inside. He'd heard of a film that made glass stay together in the event it was shattered this way, and that made him mad, so he hit it again as hard as he could, and saw with satisfaction that he'd managed to put a hole through it big enough to slide a hand through, and just over the latch. He reached in and unlocked the door, then slid it aside.
He stepped inside and started looking around. There was no one there, of course; in fact, there wasn't even any sign of human occupation, so he opened the closets and looked through the dressers. He didn't find the bag in the main room, so he moved into the bedroom, and there it was, in plain sight, on the floor right beside the bed.
Sam went to the front door of the room and opened it from the inside, letting Indie slip in. “Found it,” he said, and she swallowed.
“And is it? A bomb, I mean?”
“I don't know yet, I haven't looked. Come on.”
They went into the bedroom, and Sam started looking the bag over from the outside. He ran his hands all around the zipper that opened it, and felt along all of the seams.
“What are you doing?” Indie asked in a whisper.
“Checking to see if I can tell whether it's booby trapped. You know, like a wire that'll detonate it if I open it the wrong way, or something.”
“Oh,” Indie said. “You think of the sweetest things.”
Sam shrugged. “I can't see anything, so I'm just gonna go for it.” He leaned over and kissed her passionately. “Just in case that's the last kiss we ever get,” he said, and before he could think of another reason to delay, he grabbed the pull of the zipper and tugged it open.
He'd held his breath, but when he got the zipper wide open, they were still there, so he let it out and pulled the sides apart to look into it. He saw what looked like three steel canisters mounted on a flat metal plate, with a metal box on either side, something that appeared to be a battery and wiring all over the place. Dead center was a digital display with a keypad beside it, and he saw that there was a countdown running. The timer had just over sixty hours left on it.
He took out his phone and snapped a picture of it and sent it to Harry's number. A minute and a half later, his phone rang.
“Young man, you must enjoy having the US Government owe you favors.”
“Not particularly, Harry, but from that I'd guess the picture I just sent you is a nuke?”
“Well, I'm no expert by any means, but I'd say it sure looks the part to me. I've forwarded it to the boys who'll know for sure. Was anyone there with it?”
“No, and I did some damage getting in, so they're gonna know someone's been here whenever they come back. There was no other way, though, not if you wanted to know right away.”
“You did exactly right, Sam, but it's a safe bet someone's gonna be coming by to check on it. Are you armed, by any chance?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Tell me again where you are. I'm going to send someone to you right away, but I need you to stay there and make sure no one can touch that device. If the damage you had to do is obvious, then do your best not to let them see it until you've got them under your control, and Sam? Do not, and I repeat, do not under any circumstances let such a person get a hand into a pocket. If they try and you have no other choice, you shoot the bastard through the head! Reaching into a pocket would almost certainly mean they're going for a remote detonator; these boys don't mind blowing themselves up right along with their enemies, so do not let him touch anything!”
Sam swallowed, and told him the name of the hotel and the room number. “Yes, sir. How long before reinforcements arrive?”
“Well, now that you've found that, I'm gonna get someone to you within the next fifteen or twenty minutes. They'll give you a pass phrase, and yeah, I know this sounds silly, but humor me. The pass phrase will be, 'Harry is a big,' and you will respond with 'horse's ass.' Got that?”
Sam couldn't hold back the smile. “I've got it, Harry. Send 'em quick, I've got Indie here with me, and I don't want her hurt.”
“Trust me, son, I'm pushing this as fast as I can!” The line went dead.
Sam looked at Indie. “Harry's sending someone to relieve us, but he wants me to stay here until they arrive, just in case the bad guys come to check on the bomb. I want you to go into the room next door and wait for me.”
“I'm staying with you,” she said.
“Indie, if one of them did show up, you're a liability. If they were to threaten me, I could handle it, but if they threaten you...”
She sighed. “Okay, I get it. But I'm gonna have my ear to the wall, and if I hear anything bad, I’m coming back in a hurry!”
Sam smiled and kissed her. “Fine, but go. These people could come back any second.”
He walked her to the door and peeked out, saw no one in sight, and hurried her out. When he saw her go into the next ro
om, he shut his door and stood just out of sight of anyone who might open it.
5
Sam felt like he'd stood there for an hour, but there was a knock on the door less than fifteen minutes later. He peeked through the peephole and saw five men wearing suits. A couple of them were carrying what looked like equipment cases.
“You got something you need to say to me?” he asked, and one of the men grinned.
“Harry is a big what?” the grinning one said, and Sam opened the door.
“He's a big horse's ass,” he said. “And am I glad to see you guys!”
The men stepped inside, and each of them held out an ID. “I'm David Carlyle,” he said, “Homeland Security. This is Jim Cork, Mack Evans, Frank Melchior, and Bob Dorf. Harry says you’re the man of the hour.”
Sam smiled. “I'm Sam Prichard, and I’m just a private investigator from Colorado who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Come on, I'll show you what I blundered into.”
Cork stayed by the door on guard, while Carlyle and the others followed Sam into the bedroom and looked at the bomb. Carlyle whistled, the kind of whistle someone gives when they realize something bad has just come their way, and stooped down to look more closely at it.
“That's a nasty piece of work, right there,” he said. “Modification of an old Soviet design, which tells me that whoever actually built this thing has their own pet nuclear physicist working for them, or they'd never have been able to make this work. See that timer? That means they probably have no intention of stopping these things from going off, even if the government complies with their demands. They might be able to enter a disarm code on the keypad, but they'd still have a hot nuke on their hands. I can't see them putting all of the money and effort into this, and not getting all the bang they can for their buck!” He pulled a small device from a pocket and held it over the bomb; a constant ticking began, almost sounding like bacon frying in a skillet. “And she's definitely hot. The shielding on it is good, and that's why we couldn't find it from the air, but there's enough radiation leaking to know it's genuine.”
