by Tom Lowe
Sharif’s dark eyes radiated hate. “Do you have a brother or sister?”
“No.”
Sharif pulled a knife out of his belt. “Infidel. When I cut your head off, it will be to remove your father’s seed and yours from the face of Earth.”
Jason’s hands trembled, his breathing rapid, bile rising in his throat.
Sharif touched the blade to the center of Jason’s throat. He smiled, his teeth wet with saliva. His men watched him for a moment, the only sound coming from a blowfly hovering and buzzing above Borshnik’s body.
He lowered the knife. “There will be a better time for your death,” he said, placing the knife in the sheath. “Perhaps you will be the young man who is there when the atomic bomb detonates in this country. It will be an explosion heard around the world. They will call you the ultimate suicide bomber. But I do not believe paradise will await you, Jason Canfield.” He turned to his men. “Take the infidel to the boat.”
***
IN LESS THAN TEN MINUTES, the ten U-235 canisters were loaded on the forty-five foot Sea Ray at the end of Pier 13. Sharif looked at two of his men standing on the dock and said, “Rayhan, you and Nasif take the SUV. Proceed to Savannah. We will contact you before we arrive at the docks. Meet with Hashmin and Yasir. They are holding the professor’s daughter in the house we rented. I will speak to the professor directly. I feel positive that he will be most cooperative.”
The men nodded and ran back to the Ford Navigator. Sharif boarded the boat with the rest of his men. “Cast off!” he yelled. They untied the stern and bow ropes. “Go! Go! Now!” Sharif ordered. The man behind the wheel gunned the big diesels and within a minute the Sea Ray was on plane, the pilot heading for the channel markers.
“Set a course to Savannah, Georgia. Up the river from there is a place—the Savannah River Site. It is America’s largest facility for the manufacture of nuclear bombs. And near there lives the man who will make ours.”
Sharif glanced at Jason, bound and lying on the salon floor. He said, “Your time is short Canfield. Admit and recant all of the atrocities your country does, on video, and perhaps you will live. Or you will die strapped to an atomic bomb.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
O’Brien pulled onto a service road. The chain on the gate had been cut, the gate partially open. “Follow the yellow brick road,” he said.
“Don’t follow it too far,” Hunter said, reaching into the back seat for two assault rifles. He put one on his lap and the second between the seats. “Backup’s coming. We have two choppers in the air—”
“Tell them to stay back. Stay back far enough so Borshnik can’t hear them. All he needs is an excuse to slit Jason’s throat.”
Hunter hit numbers on his cell. “Keep the birds back … yes … at least half a mile, maybe more if they’re coming over the river.”
Three vans of federal agents and six SUVs filled with SWAT team members pulled up behind O’Brien. Hunter and O’Brien got out of the car and briefed the men. O’Brien said, “We’ll look for the most obvious point of entry in relation to wherever the hostiles have their vehicles. Cab driver is a non-hostile. A twenty-year-old male is being held hostage. His name is Jason Canfield. I will need four men to follow me. Hunter can use that many on the rear and sides of the warehouse we enter. The rest of you spread along the perimeter of the buildings.”
Hunter said, “We’ll leave the vehicles here. Follow the tree line down toward the water and then separate.”
***
O’BRIEN HID BEHIND a tall growth of weeds next to a fence and looked at the scene less than one-hundred feet in front of him. He could see at least three bodies. Something in his gut told him there would be more.
Was Jason alive? His thoughts raced, trying to suppress the images of Lauren Miles dying on the floor. “I have a visual on what appears to be three dead hostiles,” O’Brien whispered into the small microphone.
“It’s time we paid our respect to the dead,” Hunter said in O’Brien’s earpiece. “Gents, cover Sean and me as we run for the cab on the east side of the warehouse.” From where Hunter lay in cover, behind a partially crumbled seawall, he watched as O’Brien used a hand signal for the two of them to move forward. Both men ran hard, heads down, zigzagging toward the parked cab.
Except for the slight sound of a chopper in the distance, silence. O’Brien rose to look in the taxi window. “Head’s almost gone,” he said in a low voice.
“Look … .” Hunter mumbled, pointing toward two bodies. “Man, what the hell did they do to Gates?”
“Borshnik electrocuted him. Same fate his father got in 1951.”
“Eye for an eye. The second body, it’s one of Borshnik’s men. I recognize him from the Chapman’s Fish House camera. What the hell’s going on, Sean?”
O’Brien was silent for a few seconds. “Gates was killed in there, where there’s electricity … this guy was probably taking the body out for disposal … maybe to dump it in the river but never got that far. Somebody nailed him in the back of the head.”
“Maybe it’s Mohammed … or one of his guys.”
“Gates was a big man. Would have taken two of Borshnik’s men to carry him down to the river.”
“Which means—”
“Borshnik has a defector. Eric, tell your men we’re working our way around to the other side of the building. The main entrance.”
Hunter relayed the information, and requested four SWAT members for backup. He and O’Brien kept low, hugging the exterior wall. O’Brien peered around the edge of the building. “Another down. Looks dead.”
Hunter used a hand signal and four members of the SWAT team converged next to them in seconds. They approached the body.
“Even without a forehead,” Hunter said, “this guy looks like the second man in the Chapman’s video. Why is he here and Gates and the other Russian back there?”
O’Brien knelt down for less than five seconds. Then he rose and motioned for the men to come to the partially opened wooden door. He whispered, “Blood splatter was blocked by something with a corner side, like a box. Maybe a briefcase. Whatever it was, it’s gone. So are the guys who did it. I think he met someone here. Could have been a payoff. We might find a lot of blood in there.”
***
O’BRIEN AND THE MEN MOVED stealth-like though the rooms and halls. They followed blood splatter on the floor to a room with an open door and cautiously entered. The smell of gunpowder, blood, and burnt electrical wire was in the air.
“Holy shit … ,” mumbled one SWAT member.
“It was a fuckin’ slaughter,” said another.
They counted nine bodies. Hunter knelt by Borshnik and looked at the bullet hole in the center of his chest. “Looks like the auction is off,” Hunter said sarcastically. “He’s the oldest here … the son of the only Russian spy ever killed by execution in America. He carries out his own revenge and gets a bullet through the heart. Ironic—it’s not by us, but by a new breed of spies—Islamic jihad extremists.”
“The hate is the same,” O’Brien said, looking at Borshnik’s body. “They took Jason. Mohammed Sharif has him.”
“Looks like Sharif had the same idea we had. But he was faster.”
“That’s because he knew the location before we did,” O’Brien said. “And I’m betting the reason why is that dead man in the front lot, he sold out. O’Brien walked to a window facing the front entrance. He studied the area while the men checked the bodies for signs of life. Then O’Brien stepped across the room, trying to avoid pools of blood, and looked out a window facing the wide river. He watched as a Navy Blackhawk helicopter hovered near Pier 13. Hunter joined him at the window.
“We’ll get Jason alive,” Hunter said. “I’ll have the choppers fly the main roads.”
“What are you going to look for?”
“They don’t have a long head-start. We’ll watch for fast driving with an emphasis on trucks and vans. Probably crated the uranium in a truck or a cargo van
and are on their way to someplace like the Port of Miami … or they may be near here, right under our noses at Jax Port.”
“Maybe,” said O’Brien. “But, what if they have no intention of exporting the stuff? Why head south when you can go north.”
“Where would they go from here?”
“The closest place to make an atomic bomb.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
The taxi driver with no face rose from the cab’s front seat, sat up, placed both hands on the wheel and slowly turned his head toward O’Brien. Greenish yellow blowflies fed on the blood from the eye cavities.
O’Brien was in the old warehouse looking out toward the river. He watched the black helicopters in the distance hover then sweep down above the surface. They looked like giant black prehistoric birds, predators ready to scoop prey out of the dark water.
He awoke from a deep, erratic sleep, sat straight up in a strange bed and stared at a clock on the nightstand: 3:57 a.m. He sat there for a minute, the sweat dripping through his chest hair, the images of the dead fading in the dark, the sound of a passing car outside the motel.
O’Brien sat on the edge of the bed for a few seconds trying to clear his head. Think. He got up, turned the light on and walked into the bathroom where he shook three aspirins from a bottle he’d bought earlier. He filled a glass with water and chased down the aspirins. O’Brien looked at himself in the mirror. Eyes red. Lips chapped. Hair matted. A four-day growth on his face.
He flashed back to his dream, to the Blackhawk helicopters flying over the river. “The river … ,” he mumbled. “A perfect escape … if they had a boat.” O’Brien splashed water on his face, dressed, shoved his Glock under his belt and walked to his Jeep.
***
HE STOPPED AT PIER 13, got out and turned on his flashlight. Pockets of mist drifted up from the river’s surface, like ghost couples entwined in a silent dance across a black marble floor. He heard the drone of a tanker moving upriver. He walked down to the edge of the dock, slowly panning the flashlight across the concrete for clues. O’Brien leaned over the edge, shined the light on the big rubber bumper guards protruding from the dock.
Blood.
Just above the water line, in the center of the cement joint. A spot the size of a dime. The tide was rising and O’Brien could tell by previous waterline marks, it wouldn’t be long before the blood was washed away. Was it Jason’s blood? Was one of Sharif’s men wounded? He looked at the last piece of physical evidence leading to the river. The escape was done in a boat. Why? He looked up at the river, the twirl of mist in the foreground, the silence of dark water moving toward the sea.
***
ON THE WAY BACK TO THE MOTEL, O’Brien called Hunter and told him what he found and what he thought.
“Gimme a second,” Hunter said, his voice heavy with sleep. “Could have been fish blood for all we know. Maybe somebody had been fishing there earlier.”
“No. There are high-water marks on the bulkhead. Tide was probably going out when Mohammed hit Borshnik. Tide’s been rising all night. At high tide it’ll cover the bumper. I could see the blood was fresh. It dripped there today.”
“How far are you from the motel?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“I’ll start the calls now. Coast Guard and Navy are all over this place. Mohammed could have been in the Atlantic in a half hour from Pier 13. Depending on the speed of their boat, they may have headed south toward Miami or north. They have a big head start.”
“I don’t think Sharif plans to export something he’d kill to have imported into this country. Where is he going to get the stuff packed and made into a real bomb that will work? If we can figure that out, we might have a chance of stopping him.”
CHAPTER NINETY
It was early morning when the 45-foot Sea Ray turned portside from the Atlantic and slipped into Wassaw Sound east of Savannah. The pilot followed the channel markers. Small fishing boats and jet skiers buzzed across the wide bay.
Mohammed Sharif sipped a dark coffee. He had not slept in two days. He knew there would be no sleep until the work on the bomb was underway. That would be very soon. He watched as they passed Sister Island on the left and the opulent homes of the Wilmington Island Club on the right. An attractive blond woman in a tiny bikini stood at the end of a dock and applied sun screen. Mohammed stared at her, watched her rub sunscreen on her breasts, felt the movement in his loins and disgust in his heart.
The pilot looked at his gauges and said, “We will have to refuel in about an hour.”
“They will be waiting for us in a cemetery next to the river,” Mohammed said. “It is called Bonaventure Cemetery, and we will see the road next to the river. This road is Mulryne Way. We will load the truck. You will go on farther, perhaps three kilometers to dock in Savannah off East River Street. Leave the keys, walk away, check into a hotel and wait for instructions. You will fly the plane. You, Anwar, will be the man who releases the bomb on America.”
“It is my honor … my duty and destiny. Allah Akbar. ”
***
O’BRIEN PULLED INTO A McDonalds restaurant parking lot. He turned on his laptop and found a signal.
“What are you doing?” Hunter asked.
“If they went south, assuming the boat even had twin diesel tanks, they’d probably be looking to refuel somewhere in the Fort Pierce area. If they went north, Savannah might be as far as they’d get. Now what would be—” O’Brien stopped in mid-thought, his eyes burning into the satellite image of Savannah.
“What is it?” Hunter asked.
“Is Dave Collins out of the hospital?”
“Don’t know.”
“Can you have a chopper waiting for us?”
“Yes, Sean. But I need to know why.”
“It’s a hunch, but I need to Skype in Dave to make it happen.” O’Brien made the Skype connection, glancing at his watch. Nick Cronus appeared on the screen and said, “Hey, buddy. You okay? Where the hell are you, Sean?”
“Where’s Dave? Is he okay, Nick?”
“For an old dude, he’s all right. Got his shoulder in a sling. Picked him up from the hospital last night and brought him back to his boat—refused to stay there overnight. Right now he’s lying down, maybe sleeping.”
“Get him, Nick. We have a hell of an emergency here.”
“Hold on.”
O’Brien pinched the bridge of his nose, his scalp tightening, head pounding. He looked over at Hunter and said, “If my hunch is right, we need to head north.”
“Sean,” said Dave on screen. “What’s the situation?”
O’Brien said, “I’m here with Eric Hunter, near Jacksonville. When you were talking about Remote Viewing, you mentioned a physicist. Believe you said he worked at the Savannah River Nuclear Site.”
“Yes, name’s Lee Toffler. Why?”
“You’d said he had a daughter who was just killed in a car accident.”
“Awful. From what I read she died in a car fire. Burned beyond recognition.”
“Did they check dental records?”
“Don’t know. Probably not if it was her car.”
“Was another car involved?”
“A second car? I remember the story … said she’d lost control and hit a tree.”
Eric Hunter looked at his watch and asked, “Sean, where the hell are you going with this?”
“Maybe to one of the most dangerous places in America.” He glanced at the computer screen. “Dave, when was the last time you saw Toffler?”
“Not since the ‘90s when we hired him as a consultant for the Remote Viewing.”
“Do you have his number?”
“Probably in my files. Toffler is the kind of guy that’s lived in the same house for thirty-five years. Drives the same car until the engine dies. Frugal and very smart.”
“Call him.”
Dave sipped his coffee. “Okay. But what am I going to ask him? ‘Hey, Lee, are you sure you buried your daughter. Hell of a conv
ersation opener.”
“No, you won’t have to ask him that because by now he probably knows his daughter is alive and being held hostage.”
“What?” Dave asked.
“When you had mentioned Toffler to Nick and I and then said his daughter had just died, it was about the same time Sharif thought he’d have his hands on the HEU. Kidnap the renowned physicist’s daughter and you raise red flags. Fake her death, nobody remembers in a few weeks. Sharif probably called her father a day after the funeral, put the terrified daughter on the phone a second and then started making demands. Toffler keeps his mouth shut and does what the terrorists want.”
“In this case,” Hunter said, “you get him to take the HEU and make it go boom.”
“Jesus,” Nick said, taking a sip of black coffee.
“Nick,” said Dave, “hand me the Rolodex on the desk, next to the laptop.”
O’Brien said, “After you touch base, ask him who’s holding his daughter.”
Dave nodded. “I’ll put him on speaker. Jump in, Sean, wherever you want.”
In two rings, a fatigued voice answered, “Yes?”
“Lee, this is Dave Collins, CIA.”
“Oh … Dave. I can’t talk right now … ”
“Have your daughter’s kidnappers approached you?”
Silence. Then, “How’d you know she was kidnapped?”
“We didn’t for certain, Mr. Toffler,” O’Brien said.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Sean O’Brien. Old friends with Dave. I’m helping the FBI and CIA find the people who took your daughter. Do you know where they are holding her?”
“I can’t risk my daughter’s life. They said they’d cut her head off if police—”
“We’re not police. We’re the people who can get your daughter back alive. But we can only do it with your cooperation.”
“I’m sorry.” The phone disconnected.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
Lee Toffler drove slowly through the northwest Savannah neighborhood of 1960’s ranch-style homes. Toffler, with his wide forehead, graying hair and thick wrists, looked more like a retired football coach than a nuclear physicist. He stopped in front of 2973 Sycamore Drive, backed up, and pulled his twenty-year-old Land Rover into the drive next to a dark blue van. He knocked on the door and waited. A man with dark features answered. In perfect English he said, “Professor Toffler, we’ve been waiting for you.”
