The Midas Legacy (Wilde/Chase 12)

by Andy McDermott

  No reply. Eddie pulled off his headphones and handed them to Nina. ‘You should talk to ’em.’

  ‘Why me?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you’re American, and you’re always telling me I can’t do the accent!’

  She donned the headset. ‘Hello, can you hear me? This is Dr Nina Wilde, working for the United Nations. We’ve uncovered a plot by North Korea to export nuclear weapons, which is why they’re trying to kill us! Please respond.’

  Still no answer. Petrov glanced back at her with an expression that suggested that desperation had just driven ingenuity. ‘Tell them we helped you steal the bombs! We knew nothing about them; the North Koreans told us they were . . . farm equipment! Yes, farm equipment.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said, before trying again. ‘I repeat, this is Dr Nina Wilde from the United Nations. We have—’

  ‘I say again, unknown aircraft,’ the American cut in. ‘Identify yourself immediately. We will shoot you down if you do not respond.’

  ‘Hello, hello? I’m responding! Can you hear me?’ There was no reply. ‘Oh crap!’ said Nina. ‘We can hear them, but they can’t hear us!’

  One of the crew made a hurried check of his instrument panel. ‘Transmitter is out!’ he reported. ‘Electric systems, many kaput!’

  The pilot made another attempt to get through, with no success. The voice on the radio returned. ‘We have you in sight and are approaching from your eight o’clock. We will attempt visual communication. This is your last chance. If you do not respond, we will kill you.’ The threat was delivered with stony calm.

  Petrov turned to look back. ‘I see two jets!’

  Eddie forced himself upright. ‘What are you doing?’ Nina asked, seeing his obvious pain.

  ‘I’ll talk to ’em.’

  ‘How? The radio’s broken! And also, why you?’

  ‘I know how to talk to flyboys.’ He addressed the crew. ‘I need a torch, a flashlight – something I can use for Morse code.’

  ‘The Americans do not use Morse any more,’ Petrov protested.

  ‘Then let’s hope these guys are old school! Come on, get me a light, quick!’

  A pair of F-16 Fighting Falcons, part of the massive US military contingent dedicated to protecting the South Korean border, closed on the lumbering Antonov. One held back, fixing the freighter in its sights, while the second drew alongside to attempt communication with its pilots. Information had been passed on from the ground that the aircraft had been under SAM fire before crossing the DMZ, but that didn’t mean it would get a free pass. North Korea was notoriously sneaky, the lead pilot mused, and faking an attack to get its forces into South Korean airspace under the pretence of a defection was exactly the kind of thing they would do . . .

  A light flashed from the rearmost window of the Antonov’s darkened cockpit. ‘They’re signalling,’ the pilot reported. ‘Looks like Morse code.’ That made sense: the An-124 was a Russian plane. While the USAF had phased out Morse from standard usage decades ago, other countries still used it.

  ‘Can you tell what they’re saying?’ asked his wingman.

  ‘Yeah, hold on . . .’ The code might no longer have been part of air force training, but many pilots still knew it; he had taught himself in childhood after a diet of movies and TV shows where messages were silently flicked between ships and planes, entranced by the idea of sending secret messages to his friends. His memory was rusty, but he pieced this one together word by word. ‘American . . . on board . . . do . . . not . . . shoot . . . you . . . dickhe— Hey!’

  ‘Did they just insult you?’

  ‘Yeah!’ He was affronted – but also oddly intrigued. North Korean insults tended to be much more florid. Maybe there really was an American aboard. He let the message continue. ‘Working for usint . . . huh? Usintel . . . oh, US intel! Have stolen NK illegal weapons . . . three . . .’ He fell silent in shock as he translated the series of flashes into words.

  ‘What?’ said his wingman. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘He says they, uh . . . they have three nuclear warheads aboard, and do we want them?’

  Thirty minutes later, Eddie and Nina were on the ground at Osan airbase south of Seoul – though the landing had been as stressful as the rest of the flight.

  Shepherded by more US and South Korean fighters, all primed to blast the Antonov out of the sky if it deviated in the slightest from its assigned course, the battle-scarred aircraft made a hard and terrifying touchdown on its damaged landing gear, the strut to which the TEL had been lassoed collapsing and tearing away. With only two engines providing reverse thrust, it almost overshot the end of the runway, the twin nose wheels stopping just yards from the mud beyond the concrete. It was immediately swarmed by military vehicles, dozens of troops training their weapons upon the plane as its occupants were ordered by loudhailer to disembark and surrender.

  Nina supported Eddie, helping him limp down the rear ramp as both raised their hands. ‘I was hoping for a reception with, y’know, a lot fewer guns pointed at me,’ she said, blinking into the glaring spotlights. ‘Or preferably none.’

  ‘Wilde and Chase nuclear delivery service!’ Eddie called out as they reached solid ground. ‘H-bombs direct to your door. Don’t forget to tip!’

  The soldiers did not respond well to the joke. ‘Get down on the ground with your hands behind your heads!’ one bellowed through the speaker. ‘Do it now!’

  ‘He’s hurt!’ Nina protested.

  Eddie gritted his teeth as he lowered himself painfully to the runway and lay on his front. ‘They really don’t care, love.’

  The Russians followed them out of the An-124, also lying face-down. A squad of soldiers in armoured hazmat gear ran to surround them. One man hurriedly passed a Geiger counter over the supine prisoners. It crackled, but not enough to cause alarm. ‘Where are the bombs?’ the leader shouted, voice muffled behind his face mask.

  ‘In there,’ said Nina, jerking a thumb towards the hold. ‘There’s a plutonium sphere tied to the floor; you might want to take care of that first. Long story,’ she added, sensing he was about to ask a question that would require a long and convoluted answer. He got the message and quickly led his team inside.

  Boots tramped towards her. ‘Which of you is Nina Wilde?’ another man demanded.

  Nina risked raising her head far enough to give the questioner, an air force colonel, a scathing look. ‘That would be me, with the breasts.’ Eddie had given the F-16’s pilot more information via Morse while the Antonov was in flight, including the nature of their mission.

  ‘And Eddie Chase?’

  ‘Me,’ said Eddie. ‘The one with the bullet in his leg. Which I’d really, really like someone to fix, because it fucking hurts!’

  ‘Stretcher!’ the colonel called to a medical team waiting beyond the circle of guns, before turning back to the couple. ‘The State Department confirmed your story that you were in North Korea as part of an intelligence-gathering operation. So how the hell did you end up in a Russian cargo plane with a hold full of nuclear weapons?’

  ‘Like I said,’ Nina told him wearily, ‘it’s a long story. Too long.’

  Her husband chuckled as the medics carefully lifted him on to a stretcher. ‘It’ll make a great book, though.’

  50

  New York City

  Oswald Seretse gazed out of the limousine’s window as it crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, the afternoon sun shining on the rectilinear forest of brick and concrete and glass. ‘You have been through a great ordeal, that is for sure,’ he said, having listened to Nina and Eddie’s account of events in North Korea on the ride from the airport. ‘One for which I feel in large part responsible.’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ Nina said stonily, nodding.

  He turned back to them. ‘Again, you have my most profound and sincer
e apologies. Had I known that Fenrir was still in the country waiting for you . . . But,’ the diplomat went on, ‘it at least had a somewhat happy ending.’

  Eddie rattled the end of his military-issue crutch against the floor. ‘Yeah, I’m smiling like the fucking Joker.’

  ‘I admit, more on an international level than a personal one. The illegal North Korean weapons facility was destroyed, the nuclear warheads it had already produced were captured, and an extremely dangerous escalation of tensions in the Middle East has been averted – to say nothing of the renewed diplomatic pressure that will be placed on North Korea from all sides. You may not appreciate that right now, but I assure you, you have done a tremendous favour for the world. Thank you.’

  Nina nodded. ‘Has there been any word on Fenrir and the Crucible?’

  ‘Not yet. He seems to have travelled to China, but then we believed that before. The CIA and other agencies are still trying to track him down.’

  ‘Thirty million dollars and a crate of gold bars buys you a lot of anonymity, I guess.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ He shook his head. ‘I am still in a state of shock about Fenrir, as indeed are many others at the UN. The idea that someone we trusted could have betrayed his principles so completely . . .’

  ‘Some people’ll do anything for a shitload of gold,’ said Eddie.

  Nina knew the comment was not referring entirely to Mikkelsson. ‘Yeah. But some of them might realise that other things are more valuable in the end. I hope.’

  ‘Maybe. Right now, though,’ he shifted, stretching his injured leg, ‘I just want to see our most valuable thing.’

  ‘Are you calling our little girl a thing?’ The couple grinned at each other.

  ‘I am returning to the United Nations,’ said Seretse, smiling again, ‘but my driver is at your disposal. He can take you home, or wherever you wish to go.’

  ‘Macy’s at her nursery,’ Nina told him, checking her watch. ‘I already spoke to our niece when we landed; she’ll be waiting for us there. They’ll be finishing soon.’

  ‘Then I shall delay you as little as possible.’ The limo reached the end of the bridge, turning on to 2nd Avenue to make its way southwards.

  Seretse said his farewells and exited at the United Nations. Nina gave the driver the nursery’s address, and the limo headed back uptown. ‘We made it home,’ she said, watching familiar surroundings slide past outside. ‘I honestly thought we wouldn’t, that we’d never get to see Macy again, but . . . we did. We actually made it.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, but found the darkness filled with unwelcome visions of everything she had recently endured. ‘I’m never going to leave her again.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ said Eddie, his voice filled with weariness. ‘But sooner or later, she’ll leave us. It’s what kids do. Holly’s out here doing her own thing. One day, Macy’ll be the same.’

  ‘One day. But not now. And definitely not today.’ She leaned against him, holding his hand. ‘Oh God, I’ve missed her so much.’

  ‘Me too, love. Me too.’

  The journey to the nursery seemed to take as long as the flight from South Korea. At last they arrived. ‘Do you want me to wait for you?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Yes please,’ said Nina. ‘We shouldn’t be long.’

  He surveyed the street. Parking spaces were, as ever in New York, at a premium, and a section of street alongside scaffolding erected outside the nursery’s building had been closed off by road cones. ‘I’ll circle the block until you come out, if that’s okay?’

  ‘No problem,’ Eddie told him as they pulled up. ‘Don’t pick up any hitchhikers, though.’

  The driver pulled over and got out to open the door for them. A few passers-by looked on curiously, wondering if celebrities had arrived. ‘What, nobody recognises us?’ the Yorkshireman mock-complained. ‘Tchah! What’s the point of having a movie about us if we don’t get mobbed by fans every time we’re out in public?’

  ‘I’d rather not end up like John Lennon, thanks,’ said Nina, helping him out and passing him his crutch. The limo pulled away as they skirted the scaffolding and entered the building.

  An unwelcome sight greeted them. ‘Oh, great,’ Eddie said, seeing a sign on the elevator warning that it was out of service due to the renovation work.

  ‘You want to wait here?’ asked Nina.

  ‘No, I’ll follow you. It’s only one floor up. Just hope the lift in our building’s working – I don’t want to have to limp up eight flights of stairs!’

  ‘See you up there, Hopalong.’ She kissed him, then went to the stairwell and jogged up.

  There was nobody in the hallway outside the nursery. Half expecting another reprimand for tardiness, she entered. No one was in reception either. ‘Hello?’

  Penny Lopez emerged from one of the rooms. ‘Oh, hi, Nina. You’re back— oh!’ She saw the bruises and cuts on the redhead’s face. ‘My God, are you okay? What happened?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Nina assured her. ‘We had a fender-bender.’ She saw there were no coats on the hooks. ‘Did Macy go with Holly already?’

  ‘Yes, about ten minutes ago. Holly said you were coming, but I assumed she and Macy went to meet you on the street.’

  ‘They weren’t outside . . .’ Alarm bells started to ring in her mind, worry rising. She went back into the hallway. ‘Holly? Macy?’

  No reply from either, but Eddie responded from the stairwell. ‘What is it?’

  Nina looked down over the railing to see him awkwardly ascending. ‘Penny said Holly already left with Macy.’

  His brow furrowed with concern. ‘She knew we were on the way, she wouldn’t have left without us.’

  ‘I know. Macy! Holly!’

  Her shout echoed from the walls – then a faint cry came from somewhere above. ‘Mommy!’

  The couple regarded each other with sudden fear. There was absolutely no reason why Holly would have taken their daughter higher into the building.

  At least not of her own volition.

  ‘Macy, I’m coming!’ Nina shouted as she ran up the stairs.

  Eddie struggled up behind her, his crutch thudding off each step. ‘Fucking shit!’ he gasped as he stumbled. ‘Find her, don’t worry about me!’

  Nina pounded up the staircase. Macy’s wail had come from one of the higher floors, but she didn’t know which one. She reached the third-floor entrance and pulled it open. ‘Macy!’

  No answer. A wall sign told her this floor was occupied by an accounting firm. The door to its reception area was glass, a woman visible at a desk beyond. She looked up in surprise. Macy and Holly hadn’t been here.

  She hared up the next flight. The fourth floor was vacant, the lights off. Nina tried the door to the offices. Locked. The next level was undergoing renovation work, piles of drywall panels waiting to replace old plaster and lath. ‘Macy!’

  A reply came, another cry of ‘Mommy!’ from above. Not the next floor, but higher. Nina scaled the stairs even more quickly and rushed into the seventh-floor hallway. This too was being renovated, new glazing units propped vertically on a trolley waiting to be installed. The nearest door was open. She rushed through it—

  And froze.

  Fenrir Mikkelsson sat on a crate in front of the windows, Sarah standing beside him. He held the frightened and crying Macy on his lap with one hand and a gun in the other. It was not raised, but still pointed in the general direction of Holly, who stood trembling in a corner of the empty, half-decorated room. ‘Nina,’ said the Icelander with unnerving calm. ‘I am so glad to see you again.’

  Nina had no time for pleasantries or subtlety. ‘Let her go, you bastard! Macy, are you okay?’

  The little girl struggled against his unbreakable grip. ‘Mommy, I’m scared.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ sai
d Holly, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I was bringing Macy downstairs to meet you, he had a gun . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault,’ Nina assured her. ‘What do you want, Fenrir?’

  His cold blue eyes flicked towards the door behind her. ‘Where is Eddie? I would have thought he would be here to meet his daughter.’

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘Then we shall wait for him.’ He leaned back slightly, watching her with what seemed almost like admiration. ‘I understand that you two achieved what years of diplomacy and military posturing could not by ending part of North Korea’s covert nuclear programme.’

  ‘You don’t seem too upset about that.’ She kept her voice slightly above its normal volume, wanting to give Eddie advance warning of the situation.

  ‘I got what I wanted from the North Koreans.’ A glance at a holdall on the floor. From its shape, it contained something spherical, about the size of a basketball: the Crucible. ‘Anything that happened subsequently is not my concern.’

  ‘You brought the Crucible with you?’

  ‘Having gone through so much to obtain it, I was not going to leave it behind. I hope you appreciate that I was correct about US hypocrisy, by the way: the Americans kept the warheads for themselves.’ He straightened. ‘But congratulations on your success. I am sure you returned to this country as heroes.’

  ‘How did you get into the country?’ she demanded, wanting to keep him talking. As long as he was engaging with her, he would be less likely to hurt Macy. ‘You should be on the top of the international most-wanted list.’

  ‘I have my ways. Similar to ones that I know Eddie has used in the past. All of which are considerably easier when backed by large sums of money.’

  ‘So why are you here? Why not just use that money to hide?’

  Mikkelsson’s expression barely changed, a slight narrowing of the eyes and a tightening of the lips, but he became almost infinitely more menacing. ‘You killed my daughter.’