Independence Day (30 page)
To an observer, the scene was mayhem, the conclusion simple: a battle had taken place, and the guard, Dewey, now holding the gun, had prevailed by a whisker, killing the intruder, after the intruder somehow killed the other guard.
Dewey looked up, pretending to be dazed, registering the arrival of a small horde of officers. His eyes met one of them, who said something, but Dewey didn’t respond. Instead, he shut his eyes, lowering the submachine gun to the ground, and let his head fall back.
They carried Dewey to one of the police cruisers and lay him across the backseat. The door shut, then the car started to move.
The driver said something into the police radio, which was followed by a sharp squawking noise, then a female voice, probably a dispatcher, telling the driver where to go with the injured officer.
Dewey felt the weapons belt, removing a handgun. He opened his eyes just a crack, glancing to the front seat. There was only one officer, the driver.
Dewey sat up and swung the muzzle of the Skyph to the back of the driver’s head. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, jerking back reflexively at the weapon held against his skull.
“Do you speak English?” asked Dewey.
The driver nodded.
“Yes,” he said in a coarse accent. “Little.”
“Keep driving,” said Dewey. “Do
not
pick up the radio. Do
not
adjust the lights. Keep your hands on the wheel. You understand?”
The police car was moving quickly. The daylight was rapidly turning the sky a light shade of blue.
“Tell me you understand.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Who were you looking for?” Dewey asked. He already knew the answer, but some small part of him hoped perhaps he was wrong. He also wanted to find out how much they knew.
The driver glanced in the mirror, a look of confusion on his face.
“You,” said the policeman.
He nodded to his right. On the seat was a fake leather folder. Dewey leaned over the seat, keeping the gun against the driver’s head, and opened the folder. There on the inside was a sheet of paper. It was an all points bulletin. The top half was covered in Cyrillic writing. Dewey stared at the paper, then reached his arm down and lifted it up. Beneath it were two photos. One showed him. It had been taken at the Four Seasons, by security cameras, as he checked in. The other showed Katya Basaeyev.
Dewey pressed the gun hard against the driver’s neck, then held the sheet up.
“What does it say?” Dewey asked.
The driver glanced at the sheet, then looked at Dewey in the mirror.
“Multiple homicides,” he said. “As well the abduction of the ballerina.”
“Who put it out?” asked Dewey. “Saint Petersburg Metro?”
The driver glanced at the sheet.
“FSB,” he answered, referring to Russia’s notorious internal federal security force.
“Is it public yet?”
At this question, the officer turned, before Dewey placed the muzzle against his cheek and forced his head back around.
“You kidnapped someone famous. Your photo is everywhere.”
The officer reached to the radio and turned it on. A man was speaking Russian.
“I don’t speak Russian.”
“Well, it’s good for you that you don’t. He’s talking about you.”
“What’s he saying?”
“You’re wanted: dead or alive.”
BEST BUY
STERLING, VIRGINIA
Gant drove to an out-of-the way Best Buy store and purchased a new cell phone, paying for it with a Visa gift card bought under a fake name.
Back in the car, he rolled up his shirt sleeve. A phone number was written on his arm in ballpoint ink. He dialed the number.
“
Hola,
” came a soft female voice.
“Is he there?”
“No.”
“He needs to call me. It’s urgent.”
“Yes,” said the woman.
Gant read her the number for the new phone.
“Tell him it’s extremely important.”
Gant hung up. He glanced around the parking lot, then took out a pack of wipes from the glove compartment. He wiped the number from his arm, buttoned his shirt, then sped quickly out of the parking lot.
ABOARD THE
LONELY FISHERMAN
INTERNATIONAL WATERS
Dawn was at least an hour away as Poldark trudged along the dank, musty corridor belowdecks. At the cargo hold where the bomb was, he slowly pulled on the hazmat suit.
Each time, the suit took longer and longer to get on, most likely because, despite the self-contained breathing apparatus, radiation from the bomb was getting through. But those small doses were about to become a thing of the past. Today, exposure for him and anyone else on the boat would escalate dramatically. Today marked the beginning of the end for him and the crew.
He opened the steel door, stepped inside, then shut the door tightly behind him.
All extraneous pieces of the original bomb had been removed. What remained was on the stainless steel table. It looked like a giant soup can, four feet long, two feet in diameter. Thick, dark, reddish-green steel. A seam at one end of the cylinder. The other end smooth and rounded and slightly bulbous.
Poldark went to a large red duffel bag against the wall. He opened it and removed a black case. Inside was a set of instruments. After measuring the circumference of the end piece, Poldark attached a series of specialized clamps, then attached a wire to the clamps. This enabled Poldark to pinpoint the precise apex of the seam between the end of the cylinder and the barrel. Once that was done, he removed what looked like a pencil from the case. Placing it at the seam, he hit a small switch, producing a soft hum as a tiny, nearly invisible diamond-tungsten cutting device moved rapidly up and down, etching a minuscule cut into the steel.
It took Poldark six hours to penetrate the seam at the end of the barrel. It took him eight more hours to complete the cut in a manner that would not unintentionally set off the trigger.
Other than bathroom breaks, he didn’t leave the room.
Sometime after eight at night, Poldark left the bomb and went back upstairs. He went directly to his bedroom and climbed into bed. He was so tired that he forgot to remove his suit as well as the breathing unit covering his head.
OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE
John Schmidt, the president’s communications director, stepped into the Oval Office. Already gathered were President Dellenbaugh, National Security Advisor Josh Brubaker, and Vice President Daniel Donato.
“Sorry I’m late.”
The mood was tense. Schmidt had called the meeting to discuss a subject that made all of them uncomfortable.
“We have to get the fact that a nuclear bomb is on its way to the United States out there,” said Schmidt, standing just inside the doorway. “It’s going to get out there, so we might as well be in front of it.”
“I disagree,” said Brubaker. “The level of panic that would be created would not only be hard to manage, it would hinder our effort to find the bomb.”
“Josh,” said Schmidt, shaking his head in impatience, “how many times have we had this debate on any number of topics?
It’s going to leak.
There are too many people at too many agencies, not to mention the terrorist himself.”
The door behind Schmidt abruptly opened. Schmidt’s deputy, Gary Foster, poked his head in.
“They’re breaking the story about Katya Basaeyev,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Who’s got it?”
“BBC.”
Schmidt opened up what looked like a bookcase. Behind it were six flat-screen plasmas. He took the remote and switched on the BBC.
A female correspondent was on a bridge in Moscow, the lights of the city behind her.
* * *
“
This is Sarah Rainsford, reporting to you live from Moscow, where a series of incidents tonight have the country rattled and Russian authorities on high alert…”
* * *
The television cut to an aerial video taken from a news helicopter showing flames coming from a building.
* * *
“
What you are looking at is live video from Rublevka, an exclusive Moscow suburb, where, according to several eyewitnesses, a loud explosion occurred just a few hours ago. As you can see, the inferno is still burning as firefighters try to stop the flames from spreading to nearby dachas…”
* * *
The TV cut to live video from Saint Petersburg, where a swarm of police lights flashed on a locked-down street near the Four Seasons Lion Palace.
* * *
“
In addition, in the city of Saint Petersburg, just a few hours from here, an intense manhunt is under way after the apparent abduction of one of Russia’s most famous citizens, the ballerina Katya Basaeyev, taken, according to one source, from her hotel room following a performance at the Kirov Ballet. This photograph, taken by a hotel security camera, shows an unidentified man whom the FSB called its main suspect in the abduction…”
* * *
A black-and-white photo of Dewey flashed to the television screen.
Schmidt muted it.
“The story is going to get closer and closer,” he said emphatically.
“We can’t let any aspect of the bomb get out,” said Brubaker, almost yelling. “The American public would panic—”
“You don’t get it, do you?” interrupted Schmidt, shaking his head and taking a step toward Brubaker, then pointing. “It’s not the White House versus America, Josh. It’s America versus the terrorists. We need the public’s help. We need their support. If you lie about stuff like this, you’ll lose them. They’ll blame us for not being up front, and by ‘us’ I mean the president.”
Schmidt turned to leave.
“Mr. President,” said Brubaker, looking at Dellenbaugh. “You need to make the call.”
Dellenbaugh nodded at Schmidt.
“I understand your argument, John,” said Dellenbaugh, “but Josh is right. If America finds out a nuclear device is on its way to our country, there will be widespread chaos. We can’t stop the terrorist and deal with that at the same time. For now, this stays close to the vest.”
ELEKTROSTAL
Cloud looked out the window at the low-flung buildings of Elektrostal. Until now, the city meant nothing to him. It was a place to work. A place to remain anonymous, off the radar screens of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Off the radar of men like Alexei Malnikov. But tonight, Cloud felt hatred for the small, shabby city.
Two forces had guided him to this place and to this moment. The nuclear bomb represented the past. It was the achievement of a life’s work, and the bomb’s detonation on American soil would be the culmination of it all. Then it would end, that life he desperately wanted to step away from, and his new life would start. That new life was Katya. Respectability. Belonging. Above all else, family.
A child.
Yes, a child. He hadn’t admitted that part to anyone, not even her, but it was what he wanted more than anything else. A little girl. Now it was gone. The dream was gone.
It was the first time he felt outdueled by anyone. In the span of a few hours, the plan he’d carefully constructed was cracking. Andreas had succeeded in taking away the future. All that was left was the past.
So be it,
he thought.
“Has Langley discovered the trapdoors?” Cloud asked.
“No,” said Sascha. “They know something is going on. They’re running standard procedures to attempt to block us, but we should be fine.”
“Very well,” he whispered, too softly for no anyone else to hear.
A memory flashed. It was his father. He could hear him speaking. Sitting alone with him, in front of the hearth, playing chess.
“
There are some moves in chess that are not understood, even by grand masters,
” his papa said. “
Moves that are made by some part of the brain that is the part that knows how to win.
”
“But you did know,” he whispered. “You knew they would come after her. You exposed Katya. You exposed her the moment you sacrificed Al-Medi. It was inevitable.”
Cloud had hired the best three men money could purchase to guard Katya. Perhaps he could’ve somehow gotten her to cancel her performance, but he knew it ran the risk of alerting the Americans. The entire night had been based on subterfuge, on the Americans believing one reality while in fact another one lurked beneath.
Now, when he should have been on his way to Saint Petersburg to surprise his fianc
é
e, he stood staring into the pitch-black oblivion of his own eyes reflected in the glass.
Had he misread his opponent? Had America been deceiving
him
all along?
“Impossible,” he remarked to himself.
Cloud knew the United States would never sacrifice men as part of a deception. They would not allow three soldiers to die at a dacha. This was not in their DNA. Russia, China, for that matter almost any country but the United States, would sacrifice men. But not America.
“Oh, no,” he said to himself as a tingling sensation arose from his spine.
He arrived at the conclusion he was after: he was playing chess against an opponent who played by a different set of rules. Tonight, he’d fallen victim to the lowest of rule violations in the game of chess, a move done by children: the United States had placed an extra piece on the board. And not just a pawn or a rook. The abduction had been the work of a knight—bold, reckless, and violent.
“Interesting,” said Sascha.
Sascha’s words brought him back.
“What is it?”
“Saint Petersburg Metro,” said Sascha. “All points bulletin.”
Cloud read the document:
** FLASH: URGENT **
Possible mult homicide at rail yard
Kolpinsky Rayon km 554.7
Two dead
** SUSPECT AT LARGE **
“Where is Kolpinsky Rayon?” asked Cloud.
Sascha brought up a map of Saint Petersburg. The town was several miles downstream from Saint Petersburg, then inland, in the direction of Moscow.