Imminent Threat

by Jeff Gunhus

  As he pulled the compact bomb from the shelf, he decided that relative value between him and the Secret Service agent could prove to be a problem in the future. But that was a problem for another day.

  “That’s it?” Rick said. “I thought it’d be larger.”

  “Miniaturized nuclear device,” Asset said. “The Americans were always warning about a nuke the size of a suitcase. Here it is.”

  “A nuke? I thought it was a dirty bomb. The polonium piggybacking on a conventional explosive. No one ever said it would be a nuclear device.”

  Asset grew quiet, analyzing Rick’s stance, his voice, his body language. If he had to kill this man, his employer was going to be very upset. But he’d be even more upset if Rick got cold feet and torpedoed the operation they’d all worked so hard to bring to fruition.

  “Is that a problem?” Asset asked, ice cold.

  Rick pursed his lips, eyeing the device. Finally, he shrugged. “Fuck it, what’s the difference?”

  Explosive power of about one thousand tons of TNT, thought Asset. But he didn’t say it.

  “Is the delivery vehicle online?” Asset asked.

  “Ready to go,” Rick said. “System access cut off from the outside to prevent any interference.”

  “The radio frequency blockers they had on-site at the UN? They didn’t bring them here, correct?”

  “Correct,” Rick said. “Anything else?”

  “If you’re here, might as well get some value from you. Is the egress up into Bryant Park still secure?”

  When the stacks had been built, there’d been a concern about a fire blocking the single exit from the area under Bryant Park back into the main library. An escape hatch had been dug out, exiting at the far end of the lawn area right in front of the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain. The six-foot-by-twelve-foot metal door was disguised as a plaque honoring the committee who had restored Bryant Park in some past renovation. Thousands of people, tourists and New Yorkers alike, passed the spot every day, not knowing the metal sheet was on a hinge and covered stairs leading down into the stacks.

  It was their way out.

  “Yes, nothing’s changed.”

  “All right,” Asset said, hefting the nuclear device onto his shoulder. “Let’s finish the job.”

  CHAPTER 63

  It only took a couple minutes to make their way to the book train.

  Asset had retrieved a bag of dog treats from Officer Brody’s corpse. Whether it was because of the treats, or because Rick had been with the cop before he was killed, the dog settled. When they’d first led the dog away from its handler’s corpse, it continued to look behind it, whimpering. Each time it did, Asset fed it a treat. Soon, it was walking next to Asset as if they were on patrol together.

  He knew the dog was a soft spot, but he rationalized that the animal might come in useful before the night was through.

  They worked their way through the stacks to the book train.

  For years, the stacks had been connected to the main library through a conveyor belt system. A request for a book would be sent from one of the research rooms, originally through pneumatic tubes and later online, then a worker would pluck the book from the shelves and place it on the correct conveyor belt. In all the research rooms, the belts would run continuously as a book approached, sometimes taking five to ten minutes.

  The last renovation of the library had replaced this antiquated system that was prone to breakdowns with a state-of-the-art system that was the envy of librarians around the world.

  Powder-coated steel tracks replaced the conveyor belts throughout the library. Individual book trains, single-serve carriages that were two feet long and a foot wide, crawled along the tracks on their own power, carrying up to thirty pounds of books. A latching system meant the trains could transition from horizontal to vertical without a problem as the train rose up inside the building as if on an elevator. The container holding the books turned on a swivel to reorient as the train trudged toward its destination.

  The best part was that there was no conveyor belt to run and disturb the librarians in the research rooms. Or to break down, causing delays for requests. If a single train went offline, it was simply removed from the system for repair.

  And, most importantly for the purposes of people who might want to utilize the system to transport a nuclear bomb into the middle of a gathering of world leaders, unless there was someone with an eye on the computer screen tracking the locations of the trains in the building, no one at the receiving end of the train would know it was approaching until it arrived.

  It was the perfect bomb delivery system.

  And as the Rose Reading Room filled with world leaders, including the president of the United States, no one was watching the system.

  Asset loaded the bomb, designed to fit perfectly into the book train. He patted it like it was a small child, Moses set to drift on the Nile.

  “Do you want to press the button to change the world?” he asked Rick. “Or do you want me to?”

  He already knew the answer, but he wanted to see the man squirm.

  “No, you do it,” Rick said. “It’s your job.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Asset located the button to start the bomb on its ninety-second journey to the Rose Reading Room. They would be safe if they stayed underground in the stacks. Over six feet of dirt over them, followed by a thick concrete encasement designed to block all moisture, a bunker that could have been designed to survive a nuclear blast.

  The problem with that scenario was they wouldn’t be able to leave for a few decades without walking through a radioactive wasteland outside.

  Asset double-checked the RF transmitter and receiver. He would detonate the bomb from a safe distance once he was aboveground. A detonator instead of a timer had been at Ryker’s insistence. He wanted to ensure the bomb struck during the U.S. president’s speech when every leader was in the room. These functions were prone to delays. He wanted to be sure that the devastation was absolute.

  Everything was going according to plan.

  “What in the hell do you two think you’re doing?” a new voice said behind them.

  Instinctively, Asset stepped away from Rick. If there was one shooter, no reason to give them an easy way to cover them both.

  As he turned, he saw a uniformed NYPD cop. A young kid. Acne on his face. His jacket a size too big for him.

  He had his gun pulled.

  Texas didn’t react. This was a cop, after all. Probably someone he knew better than Asset and Rick.

  “Where’s Brody?” the kid asked.

  “Easy does it,” Rick said. “I’m Secret Service. My badge is in my jacket pocket. I’m reaching for it now.”

  “Stop right there!” the cop shouted. His eyes kept flitting to the device in the book train. Nothing about this was normal. “I don’t want to see you even tr––”

  A red circle the side of a quarter appeared in the center of the kid’s head. As Asset’s bullet tore through his brain, the cop’s nervous system sent out one final message. In that message, the kid’s hand clenched tight, pulling the trigger on his service revolver.

  The weapon discharged and Rick doubled over, clutching his stomach.

  Texas barked and pulled at his leash but responded to Asset’s commands and calmed down quickly.

  Asset stepped over a groaning Rick Hallsey, pulling back his hands to examine his wound. His shirt was already drenched in blood. And it smelled foul.

  “Asshole,” Rick said through gritted teeth.

  “Asset,” he corrected. “Something you no longer are for our employer.”

  He smashed a right fist into Rick’s face, knocking the man out. If his employer grew curious and even subjected him to a lie detector test, he wanted to be able to say he didn’t kill Rick. But he was happy with how things worked out. He wondered if Scarvan would be pleased.

  He supposed not until the bomb went off. He checked his watch.

  Two minute
s until he was to start the train on its ninety-second journey.

  He used the time to make the best of a bad situation and began to remove the young cop’s uniform. It was just his size.

  Maybe Scarvan’s belief that God had ordained them to do this was right.

  Asset just hoped that whatever divine protection might be left would extend to him safely getting away. He’d know soon enough.

  CHAPTER 64

  Scott tore up the metal staircase. He hadn’t been able to reach anyone outside the black site. All systems were down. Anna stayed to keep watch on Scarvan, in case the coms blackout was a precursor to some kind of assault to free him. It would be madness, but it was shaping up to be a day for surprises.

  By coming up from the subterranean levels of Grand Central at the right spot, the New York Public Library would only be a block away. At a full sprint, he could get there in less than a minute once he got to street level.

  His leg muscles screamed as he churned up the stairs, taking two at a time. He’d lost count at five floors. He just pushed it out of his mind and willed himself to go faster.

  Mara was there.

  World leaders be damned, all he cared about was Mara.

  As he got closer to the surface, he repeatedly pressed his earpiece, trying to contact Jordi.

  “Come in! Come in, Jordi!”

  Nothing.

  After Scarvan had made his mistake with the time, he’d clammed up. Scott knew no amount of pain would make him talk. Still, the three extra seconds he’d taken to break the man’s nose had been time well spent.

  As he charged up the stairs, he tried to generate a plan.

  He didn’t know what Scarvan had in place, but whatever it was he’d thought it would have already been done. That meant it could happen any second. Or could have already occurred.

  Mara could already be dead.

  The thought pushed him even harder, finding a reservoir of energy he hadn’t tapped into yet. He had to be getting close.

  “Jordi! Can you hear me?!”

  Still nothing.

  This transmission issue could be from being in the ancient metal and concrete staircase rising from the bowels of the original subway construction. But the black site coms, that was a different matter. That was a sophisticated, coordinated attack.

  Omega.

  And he expected the same at the library.

  The remaining hope he had was that Jordi’s logic about the detonation remained true.

  That whatever device they’d been able to get into the library wasn’t on a timed countdown, but cellular and radio frequency.

  They could shut down the cellular in the area.

  The portable RF blocker in his right hand was their chance to stop the detonation. But it had to be within seventy-five feet of the device to work. That was a problem.

  He reached the top of the stairwell and punched in a code on the lock to get it open.

  The door opened into an alley filled with dumpsters and New York’s most permanent residents, massive rats that regarded him with only mild interest.

  He got his bearings and sprinted toward Forty-second Street.

  “Jordi!”

  “I’m here,” came the voice his earpiece, distant and crackling. “Scott?”

  “Is Mara okay?” he asked.

  Static.

  What did that mean? Had Jordi been attacked too?

  Mara.

  Oh shit.

  “. . . here . . . hacked our . . . can’t even talk to . . .”

  “Jordi, I can’t hear you. Scarvan has a bomb. In the library. You have to warn them. Jordi!”

  Nothing but static.

  Scott ran faster, a sense of foreboding that when he turned the corner on Fifth Avenue, he might see billowing smoke, fire, and chaos.

  The crowd was thicker here, people attracted to the immensity of the event, encouraged by the area being designated an official protest area. Scott pushed his way through, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw the building.

  No smoke or fire.

  Not yet anyway.

  They still had a chance.

  CHAPTER 65

  Jordi Pines hated everything he saw.

  Every system he looked at was compromised. And it had happened all at once. Every audio feed, surveillance camera, satellite transmission. All of it. Gone.

  His brain tried to quantify the size of the attack, the necessary power to circumvent his private security settings and firewalls. He couldn’t fathom it.

  Because if he could have, then he would have built the defenses stronger.

  The only outlet to the outside world was the single-band radio feed he’d established with Mara. And that was wonky at best. When Scott had come online, it’d thrown him off.

  “Scott, I can hear you!” he shouted into his mic. “Status?”

  The feed was back to static.

  He toggled to Mara, multitasking as his fingers flew on the keyboards in front of him, fighting to bring his prized systems back online.

  “Mara, your dad just made contact,” he said.

  “Status?”

  Great goddamn question.

  He pressed a final button and at least one system was back up. He had geo-location on the earpieces. Three dots on the screen showed the relative locations of Scott, Mara, and Hawthorn.

  He pressed another button and combined the three devices into one open system.

  “En route to the library. Front entrance,” he said.

  “Is there a threat?” Hawthorn said, his voice sounding distant, like he was in a well. “I have eyes on the president across the room from me.”

  A squelching sound erupted on the line and Hawthorn was gone.

  “What just happened?” Mara asked.

  Jordi hit the table his fist. He was failing his team.

  “I was trying to increase his power. I think I just fried his earpiece. Dammit.”

  “Stay focused, Jordi,” Mara said. “I need you. Can you reach my dad?”

  “No, nothing but static.”

  “But you can still see where he is?”

  Jordi rechecked his screen. The dot continued to move, edging closer to the main entrance. “Yeah, I’ve got him.”

  “That’ll have to do.”

  CHAPTER 66

  Scott shoved his way violently through the crowd. He picked a line with no women or children in it and relived his old running back days from college, lowering his shoulder and bellowing, “Police, get out of the way!”

  It was New York, so many in the crowd were unimpressed and didn’t do much to move. Those who didn’t got a feel of what 210 pounds of muscle felt like when Scott was on a mission. He ignored the creative slurs hurled his way as he pushed on.

  He spotted a uniformed motorcycle NYPD cop, leaning against his bike. He weighed the pros and cons.

  It all depended on what kind of cop the guy was.

  Scott decided to risk it.

  He ran to the cop, pulling his CIA credentials out. “I need you to clear a path for me through this crowd. Right now.”

  The cop hesitated, reaching for Scott’s credentials like they were written in a foreign language. He was older, late forties, the kind of guy who’d been passed over for promotion and was running out the clock for his pension. He didn’t look impressed at all.

  Shit.

  “There’s a credible threat against the president. All communications inside the library are down,” Scott said. “If you hesitate right now, when they write the story about today, you’re going to be the cop who could have stopped the president of the United States from getting killed, but who failed to act. Is that the story you want to tell your kids?”

  The cop still hesitated, but Scott had seen something click in the man’s eyes. Maybe the heroic cop he’d always imagined he would be was still in there somewhere.

  “This is the real thing,” Scott said. “A chance to make a difference. Are you going to take it or not?”

  The cop handed back
the credentials, and Scott could see a decision had been made. “All right, you’re with me,” he said. “To the security perimeter, then you talk to the Secret Service guys.”

  He jumped on the bike, fired it up, and flipped on his lights and siren. Scott didn’t climb on, he held on to the backseat and ran with him.

  The crowd parted like magic before them. Everyone gawking at the odd scene of the motorcycle cop with a plain-clothed man running behind him, a metal disc cradled under one arm.

  The security detail positioned behind two rows of concrete barriers strong enough to stop a Mac truck, let alone a motorcycle, sprang into action. A combination of NYPD, SWAT, and Secret Service all gathered at the point in the barrier where the motorcycle cop aimed.

  As he slowed, the most miraculous thing happened. The assembled law enforcement parted to reveal Mara running toward him.

  She had a senior Secret Service agent in tow, and he was barking orders as they ran.

  Mara met him at the concrete barrier. He wanted to ask how the hell she’d known to meet him there, but it didn’t matter.

  “Scarvan saw my watch and was confident he’d already accomplished his mission,” Scott said quickly. “That means the bomb could go off any second.”

  Mara spotted the RF blocker. She took advantage of him being out of breath and took it from him before he could object.

  “No, I’m going, Mara!” Scott shouted.

  “You’re spent. I have fresh legs,” she said, kicking off her high-heeled shoes. “Not to mention, I’m faster than you on your best day.”

  Scott knew she was right, but he didn’t give a shit. “No, send someone else. Goddamn it, Mara. Will you listen to me? Just this once, listen to me.”

  Mara smiled and it almost broke his heart. There was love in it, but so much of the smile was sadness in saying goodbye. “Love you, Dad. Now get these people out of here.”

  Scott reached over the barrier, trying to grab hold of her, to make her stay, to make her listen. But it was no use. She was gone.