Deepkill

by Michael Kilian

  So there was only one decision to make after all.

  He finished his coffee, then opened the right-hand lower drawer of his desk. Removing a stack of old Air Force news releases he’d put there, he took out the file he’d hidden beneath.

  It was thick. He’d made a copy of everything, including the service records of Schilling and the Navy woman. Placing them in a large, padded mailer, he sealed it and affixed an address label, filling it out by hand. Then he went to his office closet, stripped to his underwear, and pulled on a pair of jogging shorts.

  “Going for a run,” he said to the sergeant at the desk outside.

  “Yes, sir,” said the man, barely taking notice. Baldessari was always going for runs.

  His route took him out the main gate of the base and up Highway 113 to the State Capitol complex—a mere three miles. The post office was not much farther. Pausing to cool off before entering, he reconsidered his plan, but could think of no alternative.

  “I’d like to send this Express Mail,” he said to the woman postal clerk behind the counter.

  “You’ll need to fill out an Express Mail label,” she said. He felt stupid as he completed the one she gave him. What he was, though, was rattled. Baker would cut him orders for Thule, Greenland, if he ever learned what Baldessari was about to do.

  But it had to be done. He returned the package to the woman. After she had affixed postage and collected money from him, she dropped it in a canvas bin. He left the post office without looking back at it.

  When he returned to his office after stopping at the BOQ for a shower, he felt good—as he always did after a run.

  Pec sat at the kitchen table, sipping from a cup of hot, strong tea while he cleaned his pistol, pausing also from time to time to glance irritably at the wall clock. They were late, and then later. Finally, the screen door from the rear porch and three men came in. He had been expecting four.

  “Is he dead?” Pec asked.

  The first man through the door slumped into the chair opposite, yawning. Then he shook his head. “Don’t know.”

  Pec slammed the receiver of his automatic closed. “You were to have followed him throughout, and taken him afterward.”

  The other man, an Albanian named Kucove with a pleasant face and a close-cut beard, now shrugged. “We waited by the car—where he left it—but he never came back for it.”

  “Did he have another car?”

  “No. Just the Toyota and the rental truck. The only other car we saw on the road was a police car. It sped away after the explosion.”

  Pec set down his pistol and took a larger swallow of tea. “Was he killed in the explosion then?”

  “It is strongly possible. The man with him was found dead by the security fence. Turko was to lay the charge himself. Perhaps, to make certain it did what we wished, he gave his life for the cause.”

  “They said nothing about a fourth man on the television news.”

  “Perhaps his body was completely destroyed. It was a large explosion.”

  Pec pondered this, slowly finishing his tea. Kucove patiently waited. The other two had gone into the living room of the shabby apartment and now could be heard snoring. “I would not expect Turko to do anything like that,” Pec finally said.

  “Perhaps you misjudge him.”

  Pec gave the Albanian a sharp look. The effect was the same as a slap. “If I misjudged men like Turko, I would be dead now.”

  A vaguely pained expression came over Kucove’s face. He gave every indication of wanting to join the other two in the living room. “Are you angry that he failed?”

  “He was more successful than I thought he would be. I had doubts that he would even try. I thought he would run.”

  Another yawn. “But now he is dead—probably. We are done with him.”

  “He is not dead.”

  Kucove became more alert. “How can you know that?”

  “You said the police car sped away from the power plant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Police cars would be speeding toward the plant, you idiot. That was Turko. He drove right by you.”

  “How would he get a police car?”

  “He is a smart man.” Pec stood, putting the pistol into his pocket. “Come. We must leave this place now.”

  The instant Turko saw the gun in Gergen’s hand, he knew he had made a serious miscalculation. He should have been suspicious when he found the tugboat at its mooring with no one aboard or about, yet with the wheelhouse doors and aft hatch standing open. He had been waiting with his pistol ready, but had completely lost the advantage.

  “Is your crew with you?” Turko asked.

  Gergen nodded, taking a step forward. “If you look up at that open hatch above you, you’ll see a large firearm pointed at your head. Another man is behind the door to your right. A third is waiting on the deck to cut short any attempt at a departure.”

  Turko lowered his own weapon. “Is it your intention to kill me?”

  “If I was going to do that, I would have done that. I want to talk to you.”

  The door to Turko’s right opened and a crewman as large as Gergen entered, carrying a baseball bat. Turko had been tortured by Russians. These Americans didn’t seem any more benevolent.

  “What do you want to know?” Turko asked. “Are you working for the police?”

  Gergen came close and snatched away Turko’s pistol, then motioned to the Chechen to sit down on the flooring, as he seated himself on a nearby bunk. The large crewman stood just behind Turko, brandishing the bat.

  “You killed Homer?” Gergen asked.

  Turko doubted the two were close friends. “An associate did that. He has a compulsion. If it is consolation, he is now dead.”

  “This was so he wouldn’t be able to identify you as the man he sold explosives to?” Another nod. “And you came here because you thought I supplied that C-4 to Homer?”

  “You were the most likely source of it. That tavern keeper would have trouble laying hands on firecrackers.”

  “And you were going to kill me too?”

  “No. I wanted to join forces. My associates are all dead. I need a refuge.”

  “You’re a cautious man.”

  “I’m still alive.”

  “For guys who like to still be alive, I may not be the best choice for a pal.”

  “I don’t have a lot of choices.”

  Gergen studied the man’s face, leaning forward on his knees. “I want to talk to you about a business proposition—involving a more interesting kind of explosive.”

  “What could be more interesting than C-4?”

  Bear assumed an unnatural calm, which only increased Turko’s nervousness. “A nuclear weapon.”

  Turko looked at him incomprehensibly. “We have no nuclear weapons.”

  Gergen grinned, relaxing a little, letting the barrel of his pistol swing slightly away from Turko. “I know that. What I have in mind is a way for you to take care of that lack.”

  “You’re offering to provide us with a nuclear weapon?” For a fleeting moment, he thought Gergen might be insane. But, except for his bizarre offer, he showed no sign whatsoever of that.

  “I believe that operative word is ‘sell.’” Gergen grinned again, more widely.

  Not insane at all. “What sort of nuclear weapon?” Turko asked. “A missile—something like that? It would be no use to us.”

  Gergen shook his head. This “Skouras,” or whatever his real name was, was no military man. “It’s not a missile. It’s a forty-year-old Mark-28 hydrogen bomb. Detonated according to the manual, set it for an airburst at, say, two thousand feet, you could wipe out a pretty good-sized city—Baltimore, Washington—even Philly. But that’s not any good to you. You guys probably don’t have a bomber, do you? And even if you did, you’d still never get near ’em. The Air Force has combat air patrols over pretty much any place with traffic lights.”

  “Then what …”

  Gergen raised his hand. “What you
want is what’s inside. Plutonium. All kinds of nasty things you can do with that.”

  Turko stared, thinking. “What proof have you that you have this bomb?”

  Gergen pulled up the left leg of his jeans and tugged something out of the lining of his boot. He handed it over to Turko.

  It was a Polaroid photograph of the stern of a large boat. A long cylindrical object hung in what appeared to be a basket. Holding it closer, Turko saw that it was the twisted wreckage of the aft rail. The bomb, if that’s what it was, appeared to be heavy. The boat leaned to one side.

  “How do I know this is a nuclear bomb?”

  “What else could it be? You ever see a conventional bomb like that?”

  “They used big strange bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also in Iran. ‘Bunker Busters,’ they call them.”

  “This is no mere Bunker Buster. This is a genuine Cold War H-bomb, designed to be dropped by B-52’s. The guy who owned this boat? He was the pilot of the cargo plane that jettisoned the bomb and another just like it into the Atlantic. Engine failure or something. He let them sit there on the bottom all this time. Now, for some reason, he’s pulled it up again. Maybe he plans to sell it. Or maybe use it to shake the government down for something he wants. Anyway, I have it now.”

  Turko held the photo very close. “There is someone lying on that upper deck. What do you call it?”

  “The bridge. The flying bridge.”

  “The person seems dead.”

  “The person is. There was an explosion. The boat is kaput. Finito.”

  “This picture was taken before that.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But you have the bomb?”

  “I do.”

  Turko handed the bent photo back to the bearded man. “You said ‘sell,’ Mr. Gergen.”

  Bear liked the “Mister.” “I did indeed. You have associates left, Skouras? Superiors? Someone up the food chain?”

  “I cannot speak for them.”

  “But you can speak to them. That is what I want you to do—as soon as possible.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Bear nodded to Roy Creed, who grabbed Turko by the collar and dragged him close to where Gergen sat on the bunk. “Here’s what you can be sure of, Skouras. I have to get rid of this thing fast. Thanks to you shitheads, there are Feds from every agency in the book swarming all over the place, including the Coast Guard. They’re the biggest problem of all.” He leaned down, his face not a foot from Turko’s. “I want a million dollars in cash.”

  “That much? You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe so. But I like the sound of it. A million. Very nice and neat. That’s what I want. When I turn you loose, you will have twenty-four hours to do the deal. You will need an oceangoing boat and—did I mention it?—a million dollars in cash.”

  “This is ridiculous. Impossible.” Turko felt the end of the baseball bat come to rest at the back of his neck.

  “Nothing is impossible for you guys. Look at all you’ve accomplished. Nineteen guys with plastic box cutters knocking down the World Trade Center. You got the U.S. to go to war in the Mideast—and we still have people getting killed over there. Look at what’s happened since. Jeez, these last few days, a handful of you just about shut down five states and the District of Columbia, even though you blew your missions.”

  “A million dollars. We have nothing like that.”

  Gergen shook his head. “Sure you do. A cell phone call to Saudi Arabia. That ought to do it.”

  “I am not an Arab.”

  Gear made a face. “I’m an ex-Naval officer, pal. I’ve been dealing with you pricks for years. I know exactly where your money comes from. It’s time you recycled a little of it, don’t you think? Anyway, that’s my offer. A million dollars. You get the bomb. You bring a vessel that can handle it. You do all this within twenty-four hours. If not—well, I’ll go elsewhere.”

  “How will I contact you?”

  “I’ll give you the number of my cell phone. I’ll expect your call before midnight. Later ’n that, you can forget it. I’m going elsewhere.” Bear nodded to Roy Creed, who pressed down with the baseball bat until Turko’s head was against the flooring. “I want you to know something else, Skouras. You’re a little too homicidal for my liking. I was in the Navy eleven years. Navy SEALs. All that time, I don’t think I’ve killed as many people as you have in the last couple of weeks.”

  He put his foot on Turko’s head. “I kinda liked Homer. Really pissed me off, your whacking him like that. I want you to put it out of your mind that you might try doing that to me. That’s not how this is going to end. If I even have a dream about your trying that, you’re all dead. I’m better than you. My crew, we’re all better than you. We’re all ex-military. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Bear nodded to Creed again. The foot and the bat were removed. Turko sat up. “You’re going to let me go?” he said.

  “Twenty-four hours. My guys will give you a ride to wherever you need to go.”

  Harpoon Hannah’s was a waterfront restaurant and bar that sat on the busy channel connecting Assawoman Bay with Little Assawoman Bay just south of the bridge that carried Highway 54 from Fenwick Island to the mainland. In normal times on such a warm and pleasant summer evening, it would have been jam-packed, but on this nervous night fewer than half the tables were taken.

  The outdoor Tiki bar was a little livelier than the restaurant, and closer to the water. Cat and Westman found an empty open-air booth with a view up and down the channel. The adjoining rental operation had some pontoon boats and a couple of runabouts tied up along its dock, but appeared to be closed. The channel otherwise was surprisingly busy with traffic.

  A breathless, harried waitress appeared suddenly beside them. Westman ordered a glass of red wine and Cat a gin and tonic.

  “Do you want to eat in the restaurant?” he asked.

  Cat shook her head, a strand of blond hair falling across her eye. She brushed it back. “Out here is fine. I’m not too hungry. They have a good crab dip.”

  The sun was near setting and had slipped into the westward haze, suffusing everything with a pinkish glow. On the water, a pontoon boat with two elderly couples on it was heading upstream toward the bridge. Behind it, a Boston Whaler was following close—a young man in cap and T-shirt at the wheel, his girlfriend, similarly dressed, riding up front at the bow.

  High in the eastern sky, a faint circle of moon was emerging in the darkening blue. Cat’s eyes were on the wooden table. He touched her hand.

  “You holding up?”

  She gave him the weakest of smiles. “Not really. How could I be?”

  “Can you make it?”

  “Sure. As you put it, to the end.”

  Their drinks came. She withdrew her hand. Westman ordered their food, then leaned back, looking down the channel.

  “I wish I knew how to get from here to there,” he said.

  “To where?”

  “The end.”

  She took a large swallow of the gin and tonic. “We’ll think of something.”

  “The bomb has to be in Ocean City—unless they moved it inland.”

  “There’s no place where that big tug could get close enough to the shore. No deep-water dock. We looked at every inch of that bay front today.”

  “I know.”

  The water in the channel had turned a luminescent turquoise. It would be gone in a few minutes, but it made the moment magical.

  “Romantic,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s romantic here.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry. That’s not exactly where I have my thoughts right now.”

  He sipped his wine, watching the distant running lights of another boat coming up the channel. “Whatever we do,” he said, “we’re going to need Burt. Do you think he’s up to this?”

  “If he got some sleep today. That, a decent meal, and a couple of shots of Jim Beam, he’ll be up to it. Whatever ‘it’ is go
ing to be.” She looked at her watch. “Your Coast Guard mates said they might be free to help us after 1600 hours. It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  “He said he’d call when he was clear. I don’t want to bother him again.”

  The approaching vessel was fully in view now—a pontoon boat, with a green-and-white-striped canopy. There was a large party aboard—every seat taken—yet the big pontoons kept it high above water.

  “Poor Coast Guard,” she said, “stuck in the Homeland Security Department—the only federal agency more screwed up than the Pentagon.”

  The boat went by—its passengers looking happy, snatches of music audible over the noise of the outboard.

  “Erik. Are you all right?”

  He took out his cell phone, quickly punching in a number.

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to bother Dewey,” she said.

  “I’m not calling him,” Westman said. “I just now realized where they’ve put the bomb.”

  Chapter 31

  Once free of Gergen’s man, Turko walked to the parking lot of Wilmington’s Amtrak station and a Volkswagen Jetta. He had become so good at this form of theft that, if he could somehow extricate himself from his dangerous situation, he supposed he might go to New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles and take it up as a profession. They weren’t going to let him practice law in this country.

  Using a circuitous route, he drove to the parking area on the Delaware River opposite the Farmingdale plant. He’d no idea whether Pec had tried to follow his movements since their last encounter, but he’d done his best to throw off the Kosovar’s people. Presuming he’d succeeded, he put this car in place well before he made his telephone call, using Pec’s special number. The conversation took only a few seconds.

  Within an hour, a van came down the entry road to the park, pulling off to the side well before the parking lot.

  Turko was not in the Volkswagen but hiding in bushes on a sandy bluff that had a view of the entry road. He watched intently as the vehicle stopped well short of the parking lot. Its headlamps went out and four men emerged, moving swiftly and silently toward the river. When they were past him, he crept down the sandy slope, and moved back up the road toward the van, keeping to the deepest shadows.