Six Seconds (21 page)

52

East of Great Falls, Montana

Distant reddish-brown figures emerged in the field glasses slowly coming into focus.
White-tailed deer.
Some two hundred yards off.
A doe and two spotted fawns stepping from the forb and dogwood.
Snouts to the ground, they browsed around the lone U.S. flag affixed to a pole of pine dowelling. Quite a sight against the grand sky. Nothing out there but the deer and the flag, flapping in the open range at a height of precisely five feet.
The flag had been erected by the deer watcher, Ali Bakarat, a specialist in chemical engineering.
Using an alias, Bakarat was identified as a professor from England. He was visiting the U.S. to attend an international symposium in Portland, Oregon. It had ended a week ago. He’d told American authorities that he was taking a holiday and driving across America to New York, before his return to London.
Previously, he’d flown from Addis Ababa, to Algiers,

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to Cairo, to Istanbul, Paris then London. None of which was known because he’d used counterfeit documents. His fingerprints and eye scan did not raise any red flags. He didn’t exist on any no-fly or Interpol watch lists. But here he was, east of Great Falls, Montana, at the fringe of Malmstrom Air Force Base, finalizing his part of the operation.

He’d broken a salt lick, spread chokecherries and snowberries, and set a water bucket around the flagpole. It was like a candy stand for the deer. They would graze for hours. Bakarat looked at his watch when he saw his partner’s Jeep approaching, raising dust.

Bakarat’s associate, Omar, an expert in molecular nanotechnology, had arrived with the operative.
The nurse.
Samara.
She wore jeans and a Seattle Mariners T-shirt, which enhanced her figure. Even under her ball cap and dark glasses, her beauty exceeded the description given Bakarat by the old men in Africa.
The Tigress had blended in nicely, Bakarat thought.
Omar shouldered Samara’s computer bag then set up her computer alongside their equipment on the folding table where Bakarat was working under the shade of a beach canopy.
To anyone who’d happened upon them, they were re searchers for a European wildlife magazine.
“Sister,” Bakarat greeted Samara. “This is a great honor. Uncle sends his prayers.”
She nodded then took stock of the hardware on the table. The laptops, cameras, field glasses, satellite phones. Well-thumbed notebooks with codes, tables, calculations. “Is everything ready?”
“All is ready,” Bakarat said. “Conditions are good. Our subjects are well positioned.” He passed Samara a set of binoculars to use to see the deer.
Omar was making calculations in his notebook, then entered them on one of the laptops. Then he set the co ordinates into one of the satellite phones.
“Are we ready, Omar?” Bakarat asked.
“Ready.”
“Sister, this is what you need to know.”
The scientists explained to Samara the basics behind the new weapon. Then they showed her an animated program which simplified the science that had gone into developing the system. They’d produced a new synthetic fabric that was highly explosive, undetectable and detonated through radio frequencies.
It worked like this:
A radio signal was sent to activate the new material, which was equipped with nanoreceivers. After the signal was received, it took about sixty seconds for the process to “warm up” to the stage of detonation readi ness. At that point, the controller could detonate it at will.
Samara studied the animated demonstration on Bakarat’s laptop.
“You send a radio message to the material. Upon receipt it takes sixty seconds to warm up,” Bakarat said.
“Then it’s a bomb,” Samara said.
“A bomb waiting for a second command to detonate.”
“And how do you explode it?”
“You send a second signal. It can be sent from

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anywhere in the world via a laptop, wireless through the Internet, as long as it is programmed with the proper codes, see?”

Bakarat’s animation showed it bouncing from satel lite phones via wireless connection to a laptop.
“Or, through your camera,” Omar said. “Many digital cameras have a focus assist beam. When pressed, it emits an infrared light beam from the front of the camera to the subject to measure distance. We’ve programmed your camera with the codes to send a signal to your laptop.”
Omar, who was very soft-spoken, repeated the process.
“You activate the fabric, wait sixty seconds, and a green light will flash indicating you may detonate the bomb at any time. The next second, or the next day.”
“The kill zone is tight,” Bakarat said. “Everything within eight to ten feet.”
Samara looked at him.
“If you use the camera, you can be at any distance, as long as nothing obstructs your focus beam. On the laptop, you can set a timer to start a countdown to the process, or use the camera. We’ve programmed the codes, set you up with everything.”
Samara studied her laptop with the step-by-step in structions Omar had installed.
“Are you clear?” Bakarat asked.
“I think so.”
“Ready to test it?” Omar handed her a camera.
Samara studied it.
“Go ahead, photograph the flag down there.”
Samara focused and pressed the button.
“See.”
They watched her laptop count down sixty seconds. As they waited, Bakarat chuckled.
“The irony is rich, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?” Samara asked as the seconds ticked down.
“We’re at the edge of Malmstrom, part of the stra tegic command for the American Minuteman III inter continental ballistic missile,” Bakarat said. “There are some five hundred nuclear warheads buried in silos across North Dakota, Wyoming and right here in Montana.”
Samara nodded.
“And did you also know that U.S. forces bound for Iraq once trained here before deployment.”
The seconds ticked.
“And here, in the realm of America’s might, we prepare to plunge a sword of sorrow into the heart of the entire nonbelieving world.”
A light flashed green and beeped.
“You’re good to go,” Omar said.
“You now have a bomb. Point your camera at the flag and take a picture.”
Samara found the flag and deer in her viewfinder.
She pressed the button.
Her brain registered the blinding white flash before she heard the whip-crack of the blast and saw the bloodied-dust plume in the distance.
When it cleared the flag and deer were gone.

53

East of Great Falls, Montana

A sudden burst of distant light near the ground flashed in Jim Yancy’s periphery.
What the hell?
Must be a lightning strike, the rancher thought before the firecracker
pop
rolled across the plain to him.
No, couldn’t be lightning. Not with this clear blue sky.
Yancy shrugged it off, edged his ATV forward and went back to repairing fencing along his property near Malmstrom Air Force Base. Likely military people doing some live fire exercise, or detonating old shells. But he hadn’t seen them do any of that for years.
The more Yancy thought about it, the more it made him curious. He squinted under his ball cap toward the flash and watched an SUV driving from it, kicking up dust clouds.
After it vanished, Yancy left his fence and headed to the site. It was odd. Nothing out there but a whole lot of nothing. Yancy had lived in these parts most of his life and that SUV was no military vehicle.
He had a bad feeling about this.
He came upon a tattered rag the size of a washcloth. Red, white and blue, like Old Glory. He saw a salt lick, a fragment of a tin bucket, blood-soaked shortgrass crowned with the head of a white-tailed deer.
Its dead eye locked in open horror on Yancy.
“Gee-Zuss-H!”
Yancy called the Cascade County Sheriff.

The deputy and Malmstrom military personnel arrived first. Then came the Air National Guard fire fighters, Malmstrom’s EOD technicians, Montana Highway Patrol and the FBI.

It was clear that something had exploded, but after investigating they were puzzled as to just what it was. The components remained a mystery. More calls were made through the chain of command to Washington, D.C., and by that afternoon Tony Takayasu’s team had arrived from Maryland.

They’d barely had time to recover from their call to Pysht and had only begun further analysis of the sub stance in the Nigerian beer bottles, when they were deployed to Malmstrom in Montana.

During the flight, Takayasu, Karen Dyer and the others studied all the e-mailed Montana reports and photos. With the fragments of a salt lick, a bucket, the incident seemed premeditated, planned.

Like a test.
Takayasu’s unit also kept in mind Montana’s history of domestic acts, such as the Unabomber and the armed antigovernment extremists who forced a standoff with the FBI near Jordan.

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After their jet landed at Malmstrom they were taken to the site in a school bus. On the way, they were briefed by FBI Special Agent David Groller, an intense man who let it be known he’d lost friends in the towers.

“We know this can’t be attributed to kids from the uni versity playing a prank,” Groller said. “And we don’t think the animals stepped on any unexploded devices, or that someone local is testing a new method for culling a herd.”

Groller underscored the fact Malmstrom controlled missiles with nuclear warheads.
“And,” he continued, “the pope is due to arrive in Montana within some seventy-two hours, so the heat’s on us to identify the substance ASAP, assess whether or not it is a threat, who’s the target, who’s behind it, then hunt the mothers down.”
Takayasu’s elite team suited up and worked flat out.
As they did in Pysht, they collected samples, analyzed residue, tested the air, the soil, measured and took readings and photographs.
Analysis showed that recovered pieces of fabric seemed to originate from a U.S. flag. The material seemed to be a cotton weave common in East Africa. So maybe a Third World sweatshop had manufactured the flag.
Nothing unusual.
However, the residue taken from the parts of the dis membered deer exhibited troubling characteristics as the team conducted a number of examinations.
Karen Dyer applied an advance test involving a mi croscopic silica film treated with nitrogen-containing macrocyclic molecules known as porphyrins. Then she scoped it with fluorescent light. Sensors picked up minute traces of triacetone triperoxide that seemed to have been mixed with pentaerythritol tetranitrate. All in visible to the naked eye.
“What do you think, Tony?”
“I don’t know how this was done.” Takayasu pointed to his laptop screen. “Look at these animal parts. Appears to have been an adult and two young deer. Look at the average weight for the species common here.”
“I know.”
“Whatever exploded was something vastly more powerful in proportion to its volume. Thirty, forty times, maybe more. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But what’s the vehicle for delivery? We’ve found no components.”
“I don’t know. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”
Takayasu conducted one last analysis before packing up—the early results unnerved him.
“Karen, once again, we’ve got to get back to the lab for more testing, to break this down.”
“I’ll alert our pilots.”

54

Cold Butte, Montana

Watching from the window, Jake placed his beer on the TV, then went to the driveway to meet Samara. He was at her van door before she could get out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Where were you?”
“Great Falls. It was a meeting for medical staff for the visit. Why?”
“No one at the school or clinic knew about it.”
“Few people did. It was about security. Why did you call them? I left you a note.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Samara.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You’re always working on that damn computer. Or whispering to someone on your cell phone. You force us to go to Seattle, then you disappear to Great Falls. What’s going on?”
Any warmth in Samara’s face evaporated.
“Get away from the door,” she said.
Jake took half a step back.
“What the hell’s going on, Samara?”
“Lower your voice.”
She collected her things, tried to go around him but he grabbed her arm.
“Let me go.”
“I asked you a question. Why are you sneaking around?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Did you hook up with that guy from Seattle? That it?”
“What? I don’t believe this!”
“Dammit, Samara! We left everything for you! Gave up everything! And you act like we’re not even here!”
Her eyes burned with icy fury as they pulled Jake’s attention to Logan standing at the doorway behind him.
“Release me now and get hold of yourself.”
A tense moment passed before Jake surrendered her arm.
“I’ve told you,” she said. “I am taking advanced cor respondence nursing courses online. I also talk to my friends in London and Baghdad. I had a life before we met. You know all this, Jake. And, I went to Great Falls today to prepare for the visit.”
Staring at her, he realized that they were strangers to each other. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth then walked off down their lane.
“Dad!”
Logan started after him but Samara held up her hand to stop him.
“Let him go. He needs to cool off.”
“Dad!”
Jake cut a lonely figure as he walked off to the end of their long lane. He stood there searching the empty

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land. As the afternoon faded he made his way back to the house but remained outside, perched on the picnic table, contemplating the setting sun.

Samara watched him from the kitchen window while she prepared dinner.
She and Logan ate without him.
Afterward, she came out and set a plate next to him: a big chicken sandwich, baked beans and coleslaw. She also brought him a black coffee in a large ceramic Mariners mug.
Jake had to leave soon for a job that would take him away for a couple of days.
“Are you good to drive?” she asked.
“I barely touched that beer.”
Jake said nothing more and Samara returned to the house.
After he ate, he sat there wrestling with his situation until darkness fell. Iraq had messed him up, no question about it. And Samara had saved his life. That was a fact. But he’d lost himself over there.
Maggie had been right all along. His experience over there, all the crap he faced, had changed him.
Jake covered his face with his hands then peered over his fingertips, feeling a fog lifting from his mind as he realized that he might have made a huge mistake.
“Dad?”
Logan was standing beside him.
“Hey, son.”
“Dad, what’s happening with everything?”
“I’m just doing some thinking.”
“Dad, I need to ask you something but promise you won’t get mad, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“I want to have Mom here, you know, for the big day. Everybody says, like, it’s historic and stuff, and it just doesn’t feel right without her.”
Jake closed his eyes to find patience, then smiled.
“Logan. I know you want her here but we’ve talked about this. It’s just not going to happen. I’m sorry.”
Logan started to cry.
“But I miss her so much it hurts.”
“I miss her, too.”
“Really?”
Jake pulled him closer and held his shoulders. “So much it hurts.”
Logan looked into his father’s face, surprised by what he found. His dad, his real dad was back. Logan heard it in his voice, saw it in his eyes. His dad was telling him the truth, that he still loved Mom.
A lot.
“I thought you were going to stay mad at her forever.”
“You know I saw some terrible things in Iraq. Terrible things.”
Logan knew it was bad there.
“I don’t talk about it much but I got banged up pretty good. I still get headaches, real whoppers.”
“I know.”
“The whole deal shook me up, crossed my wires. I got confused about things. Like that time with your soccer coach.”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“Well, there are a couple of things I am clear on. One is I love you and, in spite of what I may have said when we left, I know your mom loves you, too.”

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Logan cried again.

“She never stopped loving you and she never will.

She’s a good mother.”
Logan nodded.
“Samara’s a good person, too. She risked her life in

Iraq to help people, including me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here, son. It’s that simple. I’ve just got a lot of thinking to do these days, okay?”

“Okay.”
“The pope’s visit is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, son. You’re going to do a good job. Samara’s going to take lots of pictures. I’ll be there. I’ve got to leave now for a couple of days, but I’ll be back in time. I won’t miss it. After it’s all over we can talk some more.”
Logan nodded and brushed away his tears.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, pal. And so does your mom. Always remember that.”
It was a little before midnight when Jake pulled out.
Logan watched from his bedroom window, watched his running lights glow against the immense night sky.
Logan watched until they vanished.
Not long after, he heard the familiar soft tapping coming from the living room.
He left his bed and cracked open his bedroom door. Samara was there, working on her laptop. As he watched her, he spotted her purse.
Logan had a secret plan.
He was sure it would work.
It had to.