Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

  “Why don’t you guys go back to the safety point?” said one of the agents. “There’s no sense in all of us staying up here. I can pull the doors by myself.”

  “Two miles out and two miles back, we don’t have time,” said the head of NEST. He was already donning a radiation suit from their equipment bags, dropped from the helicopters when they landed. “Besides, if we get a full-yield detonation it won’t make much difference. On the other hand, if we get a fizzle I want you and all of your agents as well as the rest of my team to take cover over there behind that concrete divider.”

  None of them argued with him. Thorpe and Rhytag watched on the screen as two more members of NEST put on radiation suits. Then the two men joined the agents behind the concrete divider.

  There were two doors on the rear of the container, each with two sets of heavy locking pins, one at the top and one at the bottom. Each locking pin was controlled by a levered handle. Pull up or push down on the handle and the pin would be released.

  The head of NEST gripped one of the levered handles on the container door. “Are you ready?” he called out.

  “Go ahead. Do it.”

  He pulled the handle up, sliding the heavy steel pin from the latch at the top of the container. “Got it. That one’s out. One down, one to go,” he said.

  He took the second lever at the bottom of the door. “For some reason this one doesn’t want to come,” he said. He let go of it, straightened his back, and took a deep breath.

  He pushed again. “Damn thing’s stuck…”

  “Be careful, don’t force it,” said one of them.

  “The container’s got some dents. It’s just bent.” This time he put his full weight on the lever. The pin started to slide from the hole. “Got it,” he said.

  Several hundred pounds of steel plate backed by a liner of lead shielding hit the leader of the NEST team like a rocket sled. The heat from the blast radiated in ripples from the back of the container, tearing the door from its hinges. It tossed the man’s limp body fifty yards down the highway as the steel door, sliding along beside him on the pavement, threw up sparks.

  An instant later the shock wave rattled the camera on the helicopter a quarter of a mile away and broke up the picture for a few seconds.

  “Oh, no!” said Rhytag.

  When the images flickered back into focus, they could see sheets of flame and smoke billowing from the open end of the cargo container. The side nearest them was bulged out by the blast. It flattened the rear tires of the truck, and one of them caught fire.

  “Bring in fire suppression. Foam…And get an ambulance in here now.” There was chaos at the scene as two of the agents jumped the divider and ran toward the downed man. The two NEST team members, hampered by the bulky radiation suits, moved more slowly. They cleared the divider and approached the back end of the twisted container. One of them was holding a Geiger counter.

  “What are you reading on the meter?”

  “Nothing. A few rads above background.”

  “Doesn’t make sense. The shielding’s been blasted out.” The two men disappeared into the smoke at the rear of the container.

  Everyone in the command center sat silently, their eyes riveted on the huge screen as they listened for voices over the tactical communication system.

  A few seconds later the two men emerged from the smoke. “Conventional explosives,” said one of them. He pulled off his hood, sweat pouring down his face as the camera zeroed in on him.

  “It could be Semtex or C-four, or some other synthetic, I can’t be sure.”

  They could hear the electronic wail of sirens in the background as the ambulance made its way up the highway. “There are traces of elevated radiation around what’s left of the wooden crate inside, but the device is not there.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  After separating from the cargo carrier, the rental truck continued west for almost a mile until it approached a high-arching bridge over what appeared to be a big harbor dotted with yachts and large ships. The truck moved along at full speed, staying with the traffic as it climbed onto the bridge, two lanes in each direction separated by a concrete divider.

  Yakov could see what appeared to be a kind of fairyland through the mist ahead of them. Below the bridge on the left were white sand beaches and a nestled cove harboring luxury boats, brigantines, and other exotic sailing craft.

  Straight ahead there was what looked like an island except for the endless strip of sand that disappeared into the haze along the ocean to the south. The area directly across the bridge was awash in lush vegetation, a green oasis of palms and billowing eucalyptus. Though he didn’t know it, Nitikin was looking at a golf course. In the distance he could see the broad blue expanse of the Pacific. And laid right at its sandy shore, the fantasy touch of a layered wedding cake, an immense wooden structure with red roofs in various shapes, its round one topped by a cupola itself capped by a large American flag. It was the Hotel del Coronado. The place where the film Some Like It Hot had been shot back in the sixties.

  None of this meant a thing to Alim. He was seated next to the Russian on the front seat with only one thing on his mind.

  Off to the right, a little over two miles away, Alim could see the immense flat expanse of the ship tied up to the dock as four fireboats out in the channel shot arcs of colored water, red, white, and blue, high into the air in celebration. It was the moment Afundi had worked for since that morning in Havana at Fidel’s linen-covered dining table, when through sleepy eyes he first saw the photograph of the aircraft carrier the Americans called the USS Ronald Reagan, the viper that had nursed the warplanes that killed Alim’s mother and father.

  For months, information had come from comrades-in-arms around the world tracking the progress of the ship as it moved from one ocean to the next. Reports were sent to Havana from newspapers and online blog sites reporting the current location of the carrier and its strike force.

  From his camp in Colombia, Alim devoured the news, like Ahab chasing the great white whale. At one point he was nearly sick with stress when he read reports that the carrier was expected to proceed to its home base, restock its stores of supplies, and return to sea before the bomb could be ready.

  But as Castro had told him that morning, this was destiny. A typhoon swept across the far Pacific and the great carrier, which was on its way home, was diverted to the Philippines. According to American propaganda the ship and its devil fleet were assigned to fly aid missions carrying food, water, and medicine to stricken islanders. Despite all of the Americans’ lies, Afundi didn’t care as long as the ship was delayed.

  Then ten days ago he’d received the final piece of information that the Reagan had weighed anchor in the Philippines. Two sailors on leave the night before had told some girls in Cebu that they would call them from San Diego the minute they reached port, and gave them the date the carrier would arrive back home.

  After more than six months at sea, the crew of fifty-five hundred, more than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, now lined her decks for the arrival. Thousands of family members and friends were gathered along the pier in the shadow of the ship. This did not include the entire carrier strike group now in the harbor, missile cruisers and destroyers, frigates and supply ships, along with part of the carrier’s air wing, now down on the field at North Island Naval Air Station.

  The destruction from the single atomic blast would dwarf the events at Pearl Harbor. Worse for the Americans, who seemed to suck their strength from their vanquished enemies, there would be no identifiable foe to whom they could attach blame, no place where they could scratch their itch for vengeance. They would have to lick their wounds and complain of injustice to a world that no longer cared.

  As the truck rumbled across the bridge and down past the open ticket kiosk on Coronado, Alim saw the promise of the future, the destruction of the great powers at the hands of single individuals such as himself. With a single weapon in the back of a truck, they could now de
liver death and destruction on a level never before dreamed of in history. If the gun was the great equalizer of men, then the infliction of nuclear terror was the ultimate counterweight for oppressed people everywhere. It was the dawning of a new age and Alim Afundi was about to give it birth.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  I look at Herman as the truck begins to slow. Perhaps it’s tied up in traffic or is pausing for a stop sign. It comes to a complete stop, then begins to back up. We feel the rear end of the heavy vehicle maneuver to the right.

  “He’s parking,” says Herman. He gets on his feet and moves toward the rear of the truck’s bed.

  The driver finishes the maneuver. The truck suddenly lurches to a stop and Herman stumbles a bit, then catches himself, and the driver turns off the engine.

  “I don’t like it,” Herman whispers.

  I can hear the hum of voices up front in the truck’s cab, though I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  Maricela looks at me, big, oval, dark eyes. Then she starts to say something. I put my finger to my lips to silence her. Without the engine and road noise to cover our sounds, the men up front can hear us as well as we can hear them.

  Herman flips open the encrypted cell phone and punches the power button for light, then gets down on his stomach and goes to work with the pocketknife once more, quietly, but with an urgent desperation this time.

  “What do we have on the other truck, the one the cartel crew said they thought was a rental?” said Rhytag.

  “Nothing. Not enough to track it,” said Thorpe.

  “So where the hell did the damn thing go?”

  “The drivers of the cargo truck had more than three hours from the time they left the ship in Ensenada to the time the CHP picked them up on the highway, up by Pendleton. They could have dropped the device off anywhere along the way,” said Thorpe.

  “It still begs the question, how did they get across the border?” said Rhytag.

  “It’s too late for that now.” The director of Homeland Security hustled through the door. He was followed by three high-ranking military officers. “The problem now is how to get as many people as possible out of the greater metropolitan San Diego area. The president’s been on a conference call with the governor and the city’s mayor, and it’s agreed that in”—he looked at his watch—“exactly twenty-two minutes, the president is going live on national television to make the announcement. Local authorities are implementing an emergency evacuation plan. We’re diverting all planes away from the San Diego airports. We’re shutting down all incoming highway traffic and making all lanes outbound. We’re using buses, trains, anything that rolls to get people out of the area. We’re telling them to take absolutely nothing, only themselves and their children.”

  “You’ll have a traffic jam to choke a horse,” said Rhytag. “Besides, how do we know they didn’t transfer the bomb to another vehicle? For all we know it could be eastbound right now, headed here.”

  “We have to exercise our best judgment based on what we do know. And the last information we had was that the device was in the San Diego area.”

  As they argued, one of Thorpe’s minions stuck his head in the door. “Sir, line two is for you.”

  Thorpe swung around in his chair and grabbed the phone behind him on the credenza. He punched the line button. “Thorpe here.

  “Yes. Yeah.

  “Where?”

  Suddenly all the conversations in the room stopped.

  “Have you pinpointed the location?

  “Can you shoot it down here and put it on the screen?

  “Do it!”

  Thorpe hung up the phone and swung around to face them again.

  “What is it?” said the director.

  “Madriani’s back in town. They’ve picked up a signal from his cell phone again. This time in Coronado.”

  “Isn’t that where you said his office was located?” said the director.

  “It is,” said Thorpe.

  “So maybe he’s just going home.”

  “No,” said Rhytag. “If he’s there it’s for a reason and it’s not because he’s going home. The border was closed, right? Shut down tight. We can’t explain how the cargo container got across?”

  “Agreed,” said the director.

  “Madriani calls his partner on his home phone, which he knows we have tapped, and tells his partner to call my office with the information on the ship in Ensenada. So he’s tracking the device. Somehow he has information. He’s trying to get it to us.”

  “Unless he’s feeding us false leads,” said Thorpe. “The container didn’t have the bomb, remember?”

  “No. It’s in the other truck,” said Rhytag, “and Madriani knows it. If he’s shooting signals from that phone, it’s for a reason. There’s a fugitive warrant out for his arrest, the police are watching the airports, and the border is closed. So ask yourself, how did he get into the country?”

  Thorpe was busy making a note on a legal pad. But as he stopped and lifted his eyes, the look of revelation on his face said it all.

  “That’s right,” said Rhytag, “the same way the truck with the cargo container did. Madriani is either following, or else he’s on that other truck, and so is the bomb.”

  A second later the large screen on the wall in the outer room flickered, as did the smaller monitor in the conference room. All eyes were on it as the satellite image honed in on a quiet street along the waterfront in Coronado.

  “There it is,” said one of the military officers.

  Sure enough, the orange-and-yellow top and cab of a box truck came into view.

  The phone rang through this time, and Thorpe picked it up. “Yeah. We see it. Do you have an address?” Thorpe jotted it down on his pad. “Forward the information to the away team up on I-5. Tell them to get NEST, the two Delta snipers, and as many of our hostage-rescue people as possible. Pile them into choppers and dispatch them ASAP to that location. Give them the description of the truck and see if you can forward the satellite imagery so they can see it.”

  One of the military officers tried to get Thorpe’s attention. “Ask them if they can zoom out on the image,” he said. “I’d like to see a larger area so we can assess what’s involved.”

  Thorpe relayed the message, and a few seconds later the satellite image pulled back, offering a smaller-scale image and less detail of a much larger area including parts of the bay. The second it came into focus the officer, his eyes glued to the screen, said, “Oh, God! No!”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Alim opened the passenger-side door to the truck and climbed down onto the curb at the side of the road. He motioned for Nitikin to follow him.

  The street was in a quiet residential area on what had once been an island many years before. It was still called North Island, but the narrow strip of water that had once separated the island from the town of Coronado had been filled in by the military when the island had been taken over as a naval base before World War II.

  The street itself was one lane in each direction, with little traffic due to the fact that it dead-ended at a gate to the naval base. On each side of the street were expensive homes. On the east side where the truck was parked, they were more in the nature of estates, each one fronting on San Diego Bay, some with large boats docked on the water behind them. The sidewalks were virtually abandoned except for the occasional jogger or a resident walking a dog. The commercial and shopping areas of town were three miles away, to the south, along Orange Boulevard, near the Hotel del Coronado.

  All the traffic for the homecoming of the USS Ronald Reagan had been routed through the main entrance to the base several blocks to the west, leaving this area almost deserted.

  Afundi was wearing white overalls with a zipper down the front, the kind a painter or furniture mover might wear. There were two large pockets in the pants that passed directly through to the pockets in his slacks underneath the overalls. He carried a small Walther PPK pistol in the right pocket of his pants and made a poi
nt of showing it to Nitikin as the Russian stepped down out of the truck.

  Alim said something to the interpreter, who told Nitikin to go and stand by the back of the truck.

  The Russian immediately did as he was told, while Afundi and the interpreter continued to talk up front.

  As he reached the back of the truck, Yakov’s eyes were riveted on the latch sealing the truck’s rear lift gate. He glanced at Alim and saw that he was deep in a discussion with the interpreter over something. Nitikin realized he would never have another chance. It was now or never. Casually he stepped off the curb and behind the truck, then silently opened the latch and without a sound lifted the door just enough to look inside.

  Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness, Herman’s pocketknife was at his throat.

  I cup my hand over Maricela’s mouth before she can cry out or say anything as I hold her quietly in place. Then I turn her head so she can see me and put the forefinger of my other hand to my lips.

  She nods, and I let go of her.

  Silently she crawls forward toward her father until she is right in his face as he whispers something to her in Spanish. She eases Herman’s knife away from his throat, then turns and motions that I should follow her and does the same to Herman. I crawl quickly forward.

  By then Maricela has slipped through the two-foot opening under the lift gate. Herman holds the gate up as Nitikin helps his daughter to the ground where he directs her under the back of the truck. I follow her, and Herman takes up the rear.

  A second later, without a word being spoken, the three of us are flat on our stomachs on the pavement under the truck. An inch at a time we ease slowly forward so that our feet won’t be seen by anyone standing up close next to the lift gate at the back of the vehicle.

  I can feel the heat of the exhaust from the manifold and hear the engine tick and tack, issuing all the noises of contracting metal as it cools.