by Alex Lukeman
Valentina shot the man kneeling in front of the truck. He jerked as the bullets hit him and fell onto his side, blood spitting from his mouth. His rifle clattered on the concrete floor. Lamont and Ronnie brought down one of the runners. His momentum carried him forward in an awkward dance. His rifle fired into the floor in front of him as he fell, blowing chips of concrete into the air. The third man made it to an open door at the end of the room and disappeared.
"Shit," Nick said. "Ronnie, Lamont, cover that doorway."
He turned. Valentina was clutching her arm. Her face was pinched and white with pain. Selena was helping her to the floor.
"She's hit."
"Take care of her," Nick said.
He ran over to the doorway.
"Valentina's hit. Lamont, you stay here and cover for them. Get them behind the truck. There may be more of these people. Ronnie, we'll go after the runner."
"Copy that." Lamont ran to Valentina and Selena.
"Ready?" Nick said.
Ronnie nodded. Nick glanced through the door and ducked back as a stream of bullets smashed into the frame near his head. He kept out of sight and fired blindly into the room. A door slammed. He risked a glance and saw another large room. There was no sign of the man who had fired at him. Against the opposite wall was a long workbench, cluttered with electronic equipment and tools. At the far end of the room, another door was closed .
Nick and Ronnie ran to the door. A long smear of blood led up to it.
"Looks like he's hit," Ronnie said.
"I don't think so." He bent down and touched the stain. "This blood is dry."
Nick stood to the side and opened the door. Beyond was a long tunnel lined with stone, lit at intervals by naked light bulbs hanging overhead. There was no one in sight.
The third man was somewhere inside the maze of passages under the complex.
"Shit," Ronnie said. "He could be anywhere in there."
Nick saw a spot on the floor of the tunnel and bent to look at it.
"Blood," he said. "Fresh. He's wounded."
"A little luck, he'll bleed out before we find him."
"Now who's being an optimist?"
They moved along the tunnel. Every few feet, Nick saw another drop or two of blood. They came to a T junction and paused.
"Right or left?" Ronnie said.
"The blood trail goes left."
"Left it is, then."
Nick looked around the corner and jumped back as a hail of bullets zipped by. The explosions echoed in the underground chambers. The sound of the bolt on the Chechen's AK told him he was empty. They had a few seconds before he could reload. They came around the corner, firing into the tunnel. Sparks danced off the walls from the ricocheting rounds. The Chechen dropped his rifle and sat down on the floor, clutching his gut.
"Don't move," Nick said.
Ruslan looked at him, blood trickling from his mouth. He held a cell phone in his right hand. He held it up and grinned.
"Now you die," he said .
He pressed a number. Nothing happened. Ruslan stared at the phone, a look of disbelief on his face that quickly turned to rage. He dropped the phone and reached inside his jacket. Nick and Ronnie fired at the same time. A half dozen rounds struck the Chechen. He sighed and fell to the side.
"That was crazy," Ronnie said. "Who the hell was he trying to call?"
"I don't think he was calling anybody. I think he was trying to set off a bomb."
"I don't see anything down here."
"Maybe it's not down here. Maybe it's upstairs."
"One of the nukes?"
"I don't know. Whatever it was, it didn't work."
Nick walked over to the body and picked up the phone. He began laughing.
"What's so funny?"
Nick held the phone up so Ronnie could see the display. "No service."
He bent over and searched the body. He put everything he found in one of his jacket pockets, along with the phone.
"Let's go back," he said.
They reached the T junction. Some of the lights in this section had stopped working. The tunnel to the right was dark. Ronnie put his hand on Nick's arm.
"What's that on the floor down there?"
"I see it."
As they got closer to the shape on the floor, they saw it was a body.
"He doesn't look like a Chechen," Ronnie said.
"No. European. Or American."
"They must've killed him and dumped him here."
"That explains the dried blood I saw."
"Who is he?"
"Maybe he's got ID."
Ronnie bent over the corpse and went through the pockets. He came up with a passport .
"Robert Butler."
Ronnie looked at the photo on the passport and then at the dead man.
"He's not looking as good as his picture, but it's the same guy. Says here he lives in Dallas. What's a Texas boy doing here?"
"We'll find out," Nick said.
When they got back to the door leading into the main room, Nick called out.
"Lamont, it's us. Hold your fire."
"All clear," Lamont called.
Valentina was sitting on the running board of the truck. A bandage was wrapped around her upper arm.
"How are you doing?" Nick asked.
"It is nothing," Valentina said. "A scratch, only."
"Some scratch," Selena said. "You almost lost your arm."
"But I did not," Valentina said. "That is what is important."
"What did y'all find down there?" Lamont said.
"We got the one who ran out of here," Nick said. "We also found the body of an American."
"What's an American doing here?" Selena asked.
"That's a question in search of an answer. Anybody take a look in this truck to see what's in it?"
"Nope," Lamont said. "Now's as good a time as any."
The truck was a high roofed delivery van, a vehicle that was common in Europe. Nick pulled open the doors in the back. A long crate lay inside. The contents were stenciled on the outside in three different languages.
"What does it say, Selena?"
"Automotive parts. Manufactured in Romania."
"Sure they are," Lamont said. "Any bet one of the bombs is in there?"
"Find something to open it up," Nick said .
Ronnie was back in a minute with a pry bar. It didn't take long to get the crate open. Three automobile transmissions packed in layers of brown paper lay on top of whatever was below.
"Give me a hand with these, Ronnie."
They moved the transmissions out of the crate. Nick pulled back the next layer of wrapping, revealing a long metal tool box with a label on it.
"It says electrical parts," Selena said.
"Maybe you shouldn't open that up," Ronnie said. "It could be booby-trapped."
"They were going to move this somewhere. It would be too risky to have it set up with a trap."
He reached down to open the box.
"You'd better be right," Ronnie said.
"If I'm not, we'll never know it," Nick said.
He lifted the lid. The bomb lay inside, a sealed package that fit neatly inside the toolbox. A cell phone was mounted on the outside of the casing.
"Now we know who that creep was trying to call," Ronnie said.
Very gently, Nick turned off the glowing phone. He closed the lid.
"What now?" Selena asked.
"Now we call Harker. Someone has to disarm this and get it out of here. She'll take care of it."
Chapter 36
Two days later the team was back in Elizabeth's office. Valentina's arm was in a sling.
"How are you doing, Valentina?" Elizabeth asked. "How's the arm?"
"My arm will be fine. I was lucky. He missed bone."
"I'm glad it wasn't any worse."
Elizabeth looked at her team.
"That was good work in Hungary," she said. "You all deserve medals. Don't hold your breath waiting f
or them, though."
"What about the American we found, Butler?" Nick asked.
"He was the bomb maker," Elizabeth said. "He was kicked out of the Air Force for sexual harassment. Before his court-martial, he was in charge of maintaining the nuclear weapons at Dyess. He was considered an expert on the B-61."
"That explains a lot."
"There's more, and it's going to help us find the last two bombs. He recorded a message on his home answering machine. Hood's people found it when they went into his apartment. Butler realized the Chechens might double cross him, so he recorded the message as insurance."
"Didn't work out too well, did it?" Lamont said.
"We don't know what happened, but whatever he told them wasn't good enough to keep them from killing him."
"What did the message say?" Selena asked.
"You can listen to it for yourself."
She pressed a button on her desk. Butler's last message began to play .
If you're listening to this, whoever you are, I'm a dead man talking. If I'm dead, it means I can't enjoy the big payoff I was going to get from these bastards, so I'm not going to let them get away with it.
I've been pushed around most of my life. They shouldn't have kicked me out of the Air Force, that was the last straw. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm a victim of a woman that hates men. When Ruslan showed up and gave me a chance to get even, I jumped at it. He offered a million bucks. To show he was serious, he gave me a hundred thou up front. It's hard to argue with that kind of money. He promised me the bombs wouldn't be used against America.
"Traitor. Like that makes it all right," Lamont said.
I built three bombs for them. Me, by myself. No one else could have done it. I bypassed all the security systems no one is supposed to beat, took it apart, and repackaged everything into something you could hide in a toolbox.
I dialed them all the way up. If one of those babies goes off, it's going to make a hell of a big boom. Like I said, no one else could have done it. I set it up so they could trigger it by calling a cell phone. It's not rocket science. Once everything is packaged the right way, all it needs is something to trigger the initial explosion. The rest is physics.
Here's the kicker. I put a tracking device in each one of the bombs. That was my insurance, in case they decided to go back on the deal. Since you're listening to this, they must not have believed me, or I never got the chance to tell them.
There were three of them who ran everything, Ruslan, Beslan, and Akhmad. I don't know their last names. I'll tell you one thing, these people are really pissed at the Russians and they hate everybody in the West almost as much. I saw a list of the targets. They're going to use those bombs against Paris, London, and Moscow.
It doesn't matter now. I'm hoping that whoever you are, you can find the bombs and stop these people from setting them off. I'm sorry for what I did, but the Air Force should've backed me up. I didn't do anything wrong .
The recording ended
"Holy shit," Lamont said.
I am confused by your expression, Lamont. Why are you describing excrement as sacred?
"Not now, Freddie," Elizabeth said.
Very well, Elizabeth.
"Don't sulk, Freddie. I'll explain later."
As you wish.
The computer made a sniffing sound.
"Did I just hear him sniff?" Selena asked.
"Freddie has started adopting human expressions. I didn't realize he'd begun including nonverbal communications as well," Stephanie said.
"I'll never understand why people sell out their country for money," Nick said.
"I don't think money was the main reason he did it," Selena said. "Money is only part of it. This man was a narcissist. Everything on that recording says he thinks the world revolves around him. He says he's sorry, but then he justifies it by saying it's somebody else's fault. That's classic narcissistic behavior."
"Whatever he was, he's created a real problem," Nick said. "Director, have they picked up the trackers he talks about?"
"Not yet. NSA, Langley, and everybody else is working on it."
"Maybe the bad guys found the trackers and took them out," Lamont said.
"If they did, it's going to be tough to stop this in time. Those bombs could be anywhere."
"Have the affected governments been notified?" Selena asked.
"You're not going to believe this, but no," Elizabeth said.
"What? Why not? "
"Because it's political. What other reason would there be? Hopkins is in a panic. How do you think Moscow is going to react when they find out an American bomb has fallen into the hands of their terrorist enemies? Not to mention the fact that if it goes off, Moscow will cease to exist."
"Don't forget London and Paris," Nick said. "I don't imagine they'll be happy to hear someone's getting ready to nuke them."
"As usual, you're the master of understatement," Elizabeth said.
"So what are we going to do?" Selena asked. "Someone has to stop this from happening."
"We're forgetting something," Nick said. "One of those targets is off the list. We have one of the bombs that was going to one of those cities."
"Yes, but which city?" Elizabeth said.
"I think it's safe to say Moscow is still on the list," Selena said. "Their first priority would be the Russians. So one of the bombs has to be headed for Moscow."
"I agree," Elizabeth said. "The question is, where is the other one going? Paris, or London? There's no way to tell until we get a fix on it."
"Assuming the trackers are working and we pick them up," Nick said.
"Yes. Assuming they're working."
"And if they aren't?"
"Then we are up the famous creek," Elizabeth said.
"What about the things we found in Hungary? Cell phones, documents, all of that?"
"The phones are encrypted, but Langley is working on it. The documents are all forged. The only thing we know for sure is that all of them were Chechen. That would explain the targets."
"I can understand Moscow. Why the others?" Selena asked .
"Part of it is religious. Chechnya is Muslim. The fundamentalist virus is spreading there. Attacking the West fits right in."
"You said part of it. What's the rest?"
"We helped Russia kill the man who led the first Chechen Republic. That makes us the enemy."
"Making the world safe for democracy?" Nick said. "Winning hearts and minds?"
"Whoever made that decision probably thought it would help relations with Moscow."
"Yeah, that worked out really well. Sometimes I wonder how people like that get to be in charge."
"It's human nature, Nick," Elizabeth said. "People with power have to use it. Otherwise someone will come along and take the power away from them."
"What about consequences? How many people died because of that decision?"
"I don't think anyone thought much about that. If they did, it would have been justified as collateral damage."
"Ever get the feeling we're living in some kind of lunatic asylum?"
"Every day, Nick. Every day."
That evening, Selena and Nick were home, relaxing on one of the couches in the loft. A recording of Miles Davis played in the background. Selena had a glass of red wine in her hand. A half-full tumbler of Irish whiskey sat on the coffee table in front of Nick. The twins were down for the night.
"Damn, I'm tired," Nick said.
"You're jet lagging," Selena said .
"It's more than that. I'm worn out. I'm tired of trying to stop all the crazies who are out to destroy everything because they can. Terrorists who think nothing of killing innocent people are bad enough, but sometimes I think politicians are worse. They don't care about anything except covering their ass. You could say they're as responsible as the terrorists for killing people who are just trying to live their lives. At least the terrorists believe in something, even if it's bullshit."
"You're talking about President H
opkins?"
"Him, people like him, and those clowns in Congress. I've never figured out why people believe their lies and keep voting them back into office."
"I've never understood it, either," Selena said. "I mean, politicians always promise all sorts of things that people want. Then they get elected and they don't follow through. You'd think that would be enough to get them voted out of office. But it almost never is, is it?"
"The system is rigged in a lot of places, but it wouldn't make any difference if people paid more attention to what was really going on. Seems to me most people can't be bothered. Then you and I end up putting our lives on the line because of some decision like the one that took out the Chechen president."
"It's never been any different, Nick. All you need to do is look at history to see that. Rome, ancient Greece, Europe. It's always been like this."
"That's a depressing thought," Nick said.
"How tired are you?"
"Pretty tired. Why?"
"Because I have an idea to cheer you up."
"I'm listening."
Selena stood.
"Follow me."
She led him into the bedroom.
Chapter 37
Gregor Kondor put down the phone and thought about what his informant at Langley had just told him. He was angry, but it would do no good to indulge his anger. At least two of the bombs were still in play. Two would be enough, if they reached their destinations. He had no doubt the Chechens would keep their end of the bargain and detonate the weapons, once they were in place. It was the one thing he was sure about. Their ridiculous code of honor demanded it. It was so easy to manipulate people who believed in abstract values like honor and courage.
Once again, the Project had gotten in the way. Now they were responsible for the fiasco in Hungary. It was time to put an end to their interference. He should have done something earlier, but he hadn't thought they'd find the weapons in time to stop what he'd planned.
He touched a button on his intercom.
"Yes, Herr Kondor."
"Find Crowther. Send him to me."
"At once, Herr Kondor."
Kondor got up and walked to a window, looking out at the stunning scenery. Far below, the twin lakes of the town of Interlaken lay like shimmering emeralds in the clear mountain air. It was a beautiful afternoon, but Kondor sensed that the weather was about to change. An itch began under a large gold ring set with diamonds on the middle finger of his left hand. He pulled the ring off to scratch and glanced at the swastika etched on the back of the block of gold. The ring had once belonged to Hermann Goering, and was one of Kondor's prized possessions. Goering had died a long time ago, but Kondor liked to think they would've gotten along quite well if they had been contemporaries .
