Guardian of Lies: A Paul Madriani Novel

by Steve Martini

  “I don’t like it,” Herman whispers.

  I can hear the hum of voices up front in the truck’s cab, though I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  Maricela looks at me, big, oval, dark eyes. Then she starts to say something. I put my finger to my lips to silence her. Without the engine and road noise to cover our sounds, the men up front can hear us as well as we can hear them.

  Herman flips open the encrypted cell phone and punches the power button for light, then gets down on his stomach and goes to work with the pocketknife once more, quietly, but with an urgent desperation this time.

  “What do we have on the other truck, the one the cartel crew said they thought was a rental?” said Rhytag.

  “Nothing. Not enough to track it,” said Thorpe.

  “So where the hell did the damn thing go?”

  “The drivers of the cargo truck had more than three hours from the time they left the ship in Ensenada to the time the CHP picked them up on the highway, up by Pendleton. They could have dropped the device off anywhere along the way,” said Thorpe.

  “It still begs the question, how did they get across the border?” said Rhytag.

  “It’s too late for that now.” The director of Homeland Security hustled through the door. He was followed by three high-ranking military officers. “The problem now is how to get as many people as possible out of the greater metropolitan San Diego area. The president’s been on a conference call with the governor and the city’s mayor, and it’s agreed that in”—he looked at his watch—“exactly twenty-two minutes, the president is going live on national television to make the announcement. Local authorities are implementing an emergency evacuation plan. We’re diverting all planes away from the San Diego airports. We’re shutting down all incoming highway traffic and making all lanes outbound. We’re using buses, trains, anything that rolls to get people out of the area. We’re telling them to take absolutely nothing, only themselves and their children.”

  “You’ll have a traffic jam to choke a horse,” said Rhytag. “Besides, how do we know they didn’t transfer the bomb to another vehicle? For all we know it could be eastbound right now, headed here.”

  “We have to exercise our best judgment based on what we do know. And the last information we had was that the device was in the San Diego area.”

  As they argued, one of Thorpe’s minions stuck his head in the door. “Sir, line two is for you.”

  Thorpe swung around in his chair and grabbed the phone behind him on the credenza. He punched the line button. “Thorpe here.

  “Yes. Yeah.

  “Where?”

  Suddenly all the conversations in the room stopped.

  “Have you pinpointed the location?

  “Can you shoot it down here and put it on the screen?

  “Do it!”

  Thorpe hung up the phone and swung around to face them again.

  “What is it?” said the director.

  “Madriani’s back in town. They’ve picked up a signal from his cell phone again. This time in Coronado.”

  “Isn’t that where you said his office was located?” said the director.

  “It is,” said Thorpe.

  “So maybe he’s just going home.”

  “No,” said Rhytag. “If he’s there it’s for a reason and it’s not because he’s going home. The border was closed, right? Shut down tight. We can’t explain how the cargo container got across?”

  “Agreed,” said the director.

  “Madriani calls his partner on his home phone, which he knows we have tapped, and tells his partner to call my office with the information on the ship in Ensenada. So he’s tracking the device. Somehow he has information. He’s trying to get it to us.”

  “Unless he’s feeding us false leads,” said Thorpe. “The container didn’t have the bomb, remember?”

  “No. It’s in the other truck,” said Rhytag, “and Madriani knows it. If he’s shooting signals from that phone, it’s for a reason. There’s a fugitive warrant out for his arrest, the police are watching the airports, and the border is closed. So ask yourself, how did he get into the country?”

  Thorpe was busy making a note on a legal pad. But as he stopped and lifted his eyes, the look of revelation on his face said it all.

  “That’s right,” said Rhytag, “the same way the truck with the cargo container did. Madriani is either following, or else he’s on that other truck, and so is the bomb.”

  A second later the large screen on the wall in the outer room flickered, as did the smaller monitor in the conference room. All eyes were on it as the satellite image honed in on a quiet street along the waterfront in Coronado.

  “There it is,” said one of the military officers.

  Sure enough, the orange-and-yellow top and cab of a box truck came into view.

  The phone rang through this time, and Thorpe picked it up. “Yeah. We see it. Do you have an address?” Thorpe jotted it down on his pad. “Forward the information to the away team up on I-5. Tell them to get NEST, the two Delta snipers, and as many of our hostage-rescue people as possible. Pile them into choppers and dispatch them ASAP to that location. Give them the description of the truck and see if you can forward the satellite imagery so they can see it.”

  One of the military officers tried to get Thorpe’s attention. “Ask them if they can zoom out on the image,” he said. “I’d like to see a larger area so we can assess what’s involved.”

  Thorpe relayed the message, and a few seconds later the satellite image pulled back, offering a smaller-scale image and less detail of a much larger area including parts of the bay. The second it came into focus the officer, his eyes glued to the screen, said, “Oh, God! No!”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Alim opened the passenger-side door to the truck and climbed down onto the curb at the side of the road. He motioned for Nitikin to follow him.

  The street was in a quiet residential area on what had once been an island many years before. It was still called North Island, but the narrow strip of water that had once separated the island from the town of Coronado had been filled in by the military when the island had been taken over as a naval base before World War II.

  The street itself was one lane in each direction, with little traffic due to the fact that it dead-ended at a gate to the naval base. On each side of the street were expensive homes. On the east side where the truck was parked, they were more in the nature of estates, each one fronting on San Diego Bay, some with large boats docked on the water behind them. The sidewalks were virtually abandoned except for the occasional jogger or a resident walking a dog. The commercial and shopping areas of town were three miles away, to the south, along Orange Boulevard, near the Hotel del Coronado.

  All the traffic for the homecoming of the USS Ronald Reagan had been routed through the main entrance to the base several blocks to the west, leaving this area almost deserted.

  Afundi was wearing white overalls with a zipper down the front, the kind a painter or furniture mover might wear. There were two large pockets in the pants that passed directly through to the pockets in his slacks underneath the overalls. He carried a small Walther PPK pistol in the right pocket of his pants and made a point of showing it to Nitikin as the Russian stepped down out of the truck.

  Alim said something to the interpreter, who told Nitikin to go and stand by the back of the truck.

  The Russian immediately did as he was told, while Afundi and the interpreter continued to talk up front.

  As he reached the back of the truck, Yakov’s eyes were riveted on the latch sealing the truck’s rear lift gate. He glanced at Alim and saw that he was deep in a discussion with the interpreter over something. Nitikin realized he would never have another chance. It was now or never. Casually he stepped off the curb and behind the truck, then silently opened the latch and without a sound lifted the door just enough to look inside.

  Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness, Herman’s pocketknife was at his throat.

  I cup my hand over Maricela’s mouth before she can cry out or say anything as I hold her q
uietly in place. Then I turn her head so she can see me and put the forefinger of my other hand to my lips.

  She nods, and I let go of her.

  Silently she crawls forward toward her father until she is right in his face as he whispers something to her in Spanish. She eases Herman’s knife away from his throat, then turns and motions that I should follow her and does the same to Herman. I crawl quickly forward.

  By then Maricela has slipped through the two-foot opening under the lift gate. Herman holds the gate up as Nitikin helps his daughter to the ground where he directs her under the back of the truck. I follow her, and Herman takes up the rear.

  A second later, without a word being spoken, the three of us are flat on our stomachs on the pavement under the truck. An inch at a time we ease slowly forward so that our feet won’t be seen by anyone standing up close next to the lift gate at the back of the vehicle.

  I can feel the heat of the exhaust from the manifold and hear the engine tick and tack, issuing all the noises of contracting metal as it cools.

  Herman is on the driver’s side, I’m on the right, with Maricela between us, each of us with the sides of our faces pressed to the pavement. I can see the shoes of the other man standing at the curb next to the pas senger door. His left foot is so close that if I tried I could reach out and touch it with my right hand as we continue to inch forward toward the center of the truck.

  Suddenly I feel someone touch my left hand. I lift my head and turn as Maricela is looking directly at me. She mouths something, but I don’t understand what she’s saying. Then she points up toward the bottom of the truck. I look at the undercarriage but I don’t see anything. She taps my hand again and shakes her head. She mouths the words “my father.” This I understand. Then she squeezes my hand and forms the word “bomb” with her lips as she points up toward the bed of the truck. Her father has told her the bomb is on the truck. The wooden crate!

  Yakov had gently lowered the lift gate and was just about to latch it when he heard Alim’s raspy voice hollering by the side of the truck.

  Afundi suddenly realized that Yakov had disappeared. An instant later the driver’s door opened and both men converged on the Russian from opposite sides of the vehicle.

  The translator was twirling a closed padlock around his finger, shaking his head and smiling as he looked at the Russian.

  Afundi had his pistol in his hand, looking at Nitikin through slit eyes until his gaze fell on the open latch at the back of the truck. Seeing it, he pushed Yakov out of the way and threw open the lift gate. He pointed the pistol inside as he scanned the interior and the large box. His focus finally centered on the area around the wooden crate up near the front wall, directly behind the cab.

  Alim was about to climb onto the bed of the truck when his fingers touched something tucked just inside the corner behind the metal track that guided the lift gate up and down. He stopped and reached into the recess behind the railing. There his fingers found a small clamshell cell phone. He looked at it for a second and then turned to Yakov. He held the phone up and said something.

  “He wants to know where it came from,” said the interpreter.

  Nitikin locked eyes with Alim for a moment, then glanced back at the phone in his hand. “Tell him it’s mine. I have two of them,” he said. Then Yakov touched the front pocket of his pants with one hand as if to show them where the other phone was.

  An instant later the interpreter was searching his pockets. Alim exploded and struck the Russian across the side of his face, full force with the back of his hand, the one holding the pistol. The front sight on the Walther’s short barrel caught Yakov’s cheek and ripped a jagged inch-long wound just under his left eye. The force of the blow sent the Russian to the ground.

  Before the interpreter could pick him back up, Nitikin had sprung to his feet. His quickness surprised the two men as he spit a string of Russian invective at Afundi, blood dripping down his face.

  Alim dropped both phones onto the pavement and stomped them into tiny bits of plastic and metal. He said something in Farsi.

  “He wants to know who you called,” said the interpreter.

  “Tell him I wanted to talk to my daughter, to make sure that she was all right, but he never went to Panama, so I couldn’t get a signal.”

  As he listened to the translation, Alim eyed Yakov for a moment and then he smiled. “Tell him that his daughter is dead. Tell him I had her killed in San José and that she died slowly and screaming in pain.”

  “There is no need,” said the interpreter. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Tell him!” Afundi yelled. He pointed the little pistol at the translator and then directed the barrel back into the Russian’s face before the translator could finish delivering the message.

  Nitikin’s eyes showed his fury but it rolled off Alim like water. He motioned Yakov up into the back of the truck and the interpreter followed him while Afundi covered the Russian with the pistol.

  Alim checked his watch as the interpreter slipped the closed padlock into his back pocket, pulled a set of handcuffs from his left front pocket, and pushed Nitikin toward the front of the truck and into the shadows where anyone driving by or walking down the sidewalk was less likely to see him. Then the interpreter clasped one of the handcuffs around the Russian’s wrists.

  Alim kept checking his watch, then looking over his shoulder for the blue sedan. The two brothers who were supposed to take care of the Mexican should have been here by now.

  From his pocket the interpreter pulled several pieces of cotton cloth, balled them up, and stuffed them into the Russian’s mouth. Then he retrieved a roll of duct tape and placed pieces over the Russian’s mouth and eyes.

  With his mouth closed tight, Nitikin had to struggle to avoid choking on the cloth while he breathed through his nose. Blinded by the tape over his eyes, he was forced to hang on to the tie-down rail for fear of becoming disoriented, losing his balance, and falling.

  Only then did Alim climb into the back of the truck. He pulled a screwdriver from his inside pants pocket, removed the side panel from the wooden crate, and checked the electronic timing circuit.

  The timing device had been procured from a manufacturer in Switzerland and modified by technicians in Alim’s homeland before being trekked across the ocean in a Cuban diplomatic pouch. It was designed for industrial use and employed a handheld time setter about the size of a cell phone. This plugged into the small electronic circuit board that contained the digital timing chip. The circuit board was connected by two wires to the electronic detonator, which in turn was embedded in the cordite charge in the breech of the nuclear gun barrel.

  The timing circuit had been modified to include an antitamper loop. Anyone trying to sever the connection to the detonator, or damage or alter the circuit board, would trigger an immediate detonation.

  Alim checked the time setting, then looked at his watch. In seventeen minutes, unless someone reset the electronic clock with the handheld setter, the circuit would fire, setting off the cordite charge in the bomb’s gun barrel. In the blink of an eye, a fireball hotter than the surface of the sun would incinerate everything within the radius of a mile, including the aircraft carrier and thousands of sailors and military families on the dock. It would leave at the epicenter a crater into which the ocean would flow.

  He held the small timing tool in his hand and looked out the open end of the truck searching for the two idiot brothers in the blue sedan. They were late.

  Alim and the interpreter had plenty of time to put enough distance between themselves and the blast if only the car would get here. Otherwise Afundi would have to reset the clock. He looked at his watch one more time, checked it against the digital countdown clock on the time setter, and watched the seconds tick down.

  “Where are you?” Thorpe was now at a computer console with a headset and mike talking to one of the pilots on the incoming choppers.

  “We’re about six minutes out,” said the pilot. “I can see Mission Bay up ahead.”

 
There were four helicopters, one each for the two sniper teams, with the NEST team and hostage rescue loaded onto the other two. It took longer than Thorpe had hoped to gather their equipment, muster the choppers, and get everyone on board.

  The game plan was the same as for the cargo truck: bring in the snipers, take out anyone in or around the vehicle, hope that they got them all and that none of them had access to a triggering mechanism. Hostage rescue would move in to breech the truck and provide security, and NEST would deal with the bomb. They would now have to do it without their leader. The head of the NEST team had been pronounced dead moments before while on the medivac flight to the hospital.

  Rhytag moved up behind Thorpe, at the console, looking over Thorpe’s shoulder at the monitor. The camera showed the ground streaming beneath one of the low-flying helicopters as it screamed south toward Coronado.

  “Tell them to keep an eye out for Madriani,” said Rhytag.

  “Sorry,” said Thorpe, “but we don’t have time to pick and choose or identify targets. If Madriani is around that truck, he’s dead. At most, we’ll have ten or fifteen seconds of tactical surprise. After that, all hell’s gonna break loose. We have got to isolate that truck. Gimme a second.”

  “Can you patch me in to the NEST team leader?” he asked.

  A few seconds later a voice came over the tactical frequency.

  “Stop me if you don’t have time. But I have a question,” said Thorpe.

  “Go ahead.”

  “If the detonator is electronic, is there any chance of jamming it?” asked Thorpe.

  “We have it covered,” said the man. “The answer is affirmative if the electronic detonator is wireless remote. We scrambled two EA-Six Prowlers for the container earlier. They jammed frequencies up and down the line, any radio or microwave signal, including cell phones. They’ll do it again over Coronado. But chances are the detonator is probably hardwired, with an analog backup or antitamper device. Which means if we try to fry their electronics, we run the risk of setting it off.”