Rift Zone

by Raelynn Hillhouse

  “Would the East Germans know about taggant?”

  “It’s not highly classified.” He dropped the explosive onto the table. “You owe me an explanation, and I don’t think this can wait until a beer.”

  “Promise me you won’t get mad and you won’t even think about trying to get involved.”

  “At this point, Faith, I can’t promise you much.”

  “I’m sorry, then I can’t tell you much, but I do have a craft project I need to tackle after we’re done with this. I’m going to need you to buy some Play-Doh for me in the PX or Exchange or whatever it’s called.”

  Summer began packing his tools.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Pulling my things together because, as much as I care for you, I can’t do this for you unless you’re up-front with me. And I’m going to have to confiscate this and take it to a base to disarm and dispose of it.”

  “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Or you me.”

  Faith sighed. “They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver it on time. I’ve been blackmailed into transporting it.”

  “Where? Can’t you do better than that? I’m a naval officer, and that means I can’t stay on the sidelines if this is going to terrorists that might hit a US or allied target.”

  “It’s going to an East Bloc capital.”

  “Moscow? The East Germans are using you to smuggle C into Russia? You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  “I didn’t say Moscow.”

  “Well, hell, where else would they bother with? The Germans think they’re better than everyone else, so you don’t think they’d go to such lengths to blow up some frickin’ Romanian, do you? You’re in over your head—and I don’t mean just a couple of inches. I’ve got contacts in the DIA—”

  “Don’t even think about Defense Intelligence. The Stasi would think I’d turned on them. They’d kill me if they knew I was meeting with you, personal history aside.” Faith brushed her hair from her face and felt sweat gathering on her forehead.

  “So then why did you risk meeting me?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me what I was dealing with, and for all I knew they could have been setting me up to carry a bomb on a plane. They made it clear it was booby trapped, but I knew nothing was tamper-proof with you—you proved that when I was sixteen.” She flashed him a smile.

  “So why are you going along with them?”

  “I told you, they threatened me.” She forced herself to make eye contact with him, but couldn’t; she looked away.

  “That’s not good enough. You could get away from here or get help from the government. Why, Faith?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you because it’s so far-fetched, but I’ve received information from the Stasi about Daddy. You know how Mama would never say anything about him or about how he passed away?” She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears.

  He nodded as he turned a chair around and sat in it backward.

  “They claim he’s still alive, and if I cooperate, they’ll help me find him. I’m guessing he’s been held in a gulag or in one of their special psychiatric hospitals, like the dissident physicist Sakharov.”

  Summer removed a pair of scissors from the kit and snipped away the leather flap, widening the hole, gradually exposing a metal cylinder wrapped in duct tape. The end of the soup-can-sized container was recessed like the bottom of a wine bottle and its top was cut away. It was stuffed with C-4.

  He set down the scissors. Four colored wires disappeared into the plastique; a third set linked everything together. His eyes followed each wire as if he were searching for hidden patterns, decrypting a secret code. “Not good.”

  Faith held her breath, afraid to speak. Summer snatched up a handful of X-rays. His eyes darted between the X-ray and the case. He held up one after another to light, all the while shaking his head. He tossed them on the table with enough force that they slid off the other side. Faith crawled under the table and retrieved the film, blowing away the dust.

  “Son of a buck.” He traced an ellipse on the X-ray with his index finger. “See this shadow at the bottom of the battery? It’s got to be a capacitor. I missed it before because of the angles of the pictures. Too many wires and they’re so tightly twisted together I thought they were singles.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “They really didn’t want you messing with this. If it was only single wires, it would be a matter of snipping any one of them to prevent the circuit from closing. You know how in the movies you see two wires going into the bomb and the hero has to decide which one to clip—one will stop the timer; the other will blow ’em to kingdom come?”

  “I’ve seen that flick a couple times.”

  “It’s a bunch of horse hockey. If you only have two wires, it doesn’t matter which one you cut because either one will keep it from getting a current and setting off the cap. But now we’re facing a different story. We don’t know which wire is which. The extra wires and the capacitor muck up everything. Let me take you for a tour.” He pointed at the small cylinder cocooned in duct tape. “This is the battery and this swatch of furnace tape—”

  “I haven’t heard anyone call duct tape furnace tape since I left the Ozarks,” Faith said.

  “As I was saying, this swatch of duck tape on the top hides the alligator clip with the two sides you don’t want to touch each other, like I demonstrated earlier. I’m not sure how it’s stuck under there so that the spacer would get pulled out, but it doesn’t really matter to us right now. The blasting cap is buried in the C in the can. Now the shape of the can at the bottom makes it kind of nasty. They’ve made a shaped charge to increase effectiveness. When the detonation wave hits it, basically the indented part is going to separate from the sides, collapse on itself and form a little slug that’ll come flying out the end with enough force to go through three or four inches of steel.”

  “Glad I didn’t think they were bluffing and open the case.”

  “Amen. I’d say it could take out a good chunk of this building if I’m not careful. But don’t worry. I’m always careful.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  He grinned. “You’re not going to take this away from me now when it’s starting to get fun. Leave me be.”

  “You do this for the rush, don’t you?”

  “And let me tell you, it’s a damn good one—probably about like what you get from playing hide-and-seek with your KGB friends.”

  “Summer, listen to me. I don’t want to blow up this apartment—it’s on loan from one of Hakan’s friends who’s visiting family in Antalya. Actually, it’s not even borrowed. Another friend is supposed to be watering the plants and he gave us the key.” Faith shuffled the X-rays as she stared at the satchel. “And there is this little matter about our own safety.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight. If I thought for a second I couldn’t beat this thing, we’d be blasting it with the water cannon. I won’t do jobs if I’m not confident I’m going to win, and I sure as hell wouldn’t put you in danger.”

  “Have you ever been in the middle of a job and not been so confident you were going to be able to defuse it?”

  “In the middle, of course, but, like I said, I’ve never started a job I wasn’t sure I could finish safely.” He winked at Faith, then turned toward the case, reached into it and grabbed a package of C-4 with both hands. Bending it, he extracted it through the incision.

  “Think fast.” He tossed the C-4 to Faith.

  She dropped the X-ray and fumbled to catch the explosive and then glared at him. “Am I supposed to think that’s funny? What the hell do I do with this?”

  “Whatever you want. I told you it was extremely stable.”

  “You made your point. Don’t do it again.”

  “If you’re going to be dealing with this stuff, you have to learn its parameters. Now calm yourself down. I’ve played with explosives every day for well over a decade, if you only credit my military time. We won’
t count the times when I used to use dynamite to blow stumps out at the farm for my dad.” He pulled out another C-4 package and handed it to Faith.

  “Seems like I remember you blowing up the water main to the whole river valley once.” Faith stacked the plastique on the table beside the other slab.

  “If Possum had been a better water witch, I never would’ve touched that stump.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And you can spare me the story of using dynamite to blast a basement under your grandma’s house.”

  “Didn’t hurt that house one bit. And she loved her new basement.” He extracted another package and handed it to Faith.

  “I’m assuming you’re unpacking this to minimize any possible explosions.”

  “Mainly to get more room to work inside this thing. I wouldn’t expect the packages to go off even if the can high-ordered. It could blow, but I’d be surprised.”

  “So I take it then it doesn’t really matter if I stack them on the table or across the room.”

  “Wherever they don’t get in the way. When you’re done there, see if you can find a can opener in one of the drawers.” He turned the cylinder stuffed with plastique so that the bottom faced upright. “I need you to hold this very steady for me while I cut it open. You’ve got to be careful not to pull it too high or move it too much because we don’t want to yank any of the wires apart.”

  Summer sank the blade of the can opener into the metal and turned the rusty crank, moving it around the cylinder. The metal seemed thicker than an ordinary can and Faith marveled at the strength in his fingers. She missed those fingers.

  She contorted her body, ducking under his arms as the can opener worked its way around the cylinder. One small fragment of metal held the conical lid to the rest of the cylinder. Setting the opener aside, he twisted the lid until the metal snapped. He sailed the lid into the trash like a jagged metal Frisbee. He held the metal container and pressed the C-4 through the newly opened hole. It popped out like the orange ice cream push-ups they shared as kids. He held the plastique with the wires running away from him and then pushed both thumbs into the substance.

  “There. I feel it.” Summer molded the C-4, kneading it and pulling it out toward the edges, as if shaping clay into a pot. It grayed with dirt as he handled it. He picked away at the C-4 until he exposed the blasting cap. A red and a yellow wire led directly into it. “A number-eight cap. They’re using all American hardware.”

  Faith wished she hadn’t noticed small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

  “Hand me the small wire cutters and take a look. Which one do you think we should cut?”

  “Don’t ask me. You’re the expert. I thought you’d know.”

  “It’s gotta be one or the other. What do you think, red?” He slipped the blades of the wire clippers around the red wire.

  Faith didn’t move. She held her breath. “No, don’t. The yellow.”

  He removed the wire from the clippers and put the yellow wire between the blades.

  “No, don’t listen to me. I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.” He snipped the yellow wire. “I told you, when it’s just two wires going in, you can cut either one. We’re done. The dummy wires were tucked into the C, but not wired to the cap. It’s all over.” Summer stood up, examining the explosive embedded under his nails.

  Faith punched him in the stomach, doubling him over. “You son of a bitch.”

  “It was a test and you didn’t do too well, honey. You’ve got a lot to learn if you think I’m going to leave you alone with explosives.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  In the Soviet Army,

  it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

  —STALIN

  SCHÖNEFELD AIRPORT, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

  Colonel Bogdanov hurried through the separate Soviet-controlled terminal, fresh from her final meeting with Kosyk. She had already given her assistant instructions to signal Moscow that the countdown had begun. FedEx had made her pickup. From her discussion with Kosyk, she now knew the details of the operation and was on her way to Moscow to relay the final plans. The drab terminal was nearly empty, save for a few boisterous Soviet Army officers drinking vodka and munching on salami sandwiches at the snack bar. She carried her KGB uniform in a garment bag to change into once in the privacy of the airplane. The small three-engine Yak-40 waited for her at the gate; it sported the blue Aeroflot livery.

  Just as she was about to walk out onto the tarmac to board her aircraft, someone shouted after her.

  “Zara Antonovna.” General Ivanovski, Supreme Commander of Soviet Forces in Germany, called her by her patronymic. The bear of a man waddled to catch up with her, the gold stars of two Hero of the Soviet Union medals swinging back and forth on his chest. His four aides followed.

  “Uncle Yuri! How are you?” She greeted him, exchanging small talk about their families. The aides stood a few respectful meters back.

  “My little Zar! I have wanted to speak to you privately, and I have a few unexpected minutes now. My staff informs me a mechanical repair is needed on my personal aeroplane.”

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry. And depending upon how private, that could be difficult here.”

  “As the little spy of the family, you should know those things.” He laughed, swelling his already puffy double chin. “I take it you are going to Moscow. I will fly with you. My plane can follow with my staff whenever they’re finished taping it up. I only need to take along my communications officer so that I stay in touch in case . . . you understand why. This way we can talk under four eyes.”

  Colonel Bogdanov guessed that they had crossed the Polish border about the time the plane leveled off at cruising altitude. She sat with the general in the first-class section at a table with four seats facing one another. Her back was toward the cockpit, allowing the general to sit facing the direction of travel. The uniformed Aeroflot flight attendant served the general vodka. Bogdanov chose Armenian cognac in hopes she wouldn’t be expected to keep pace with her uncle, a robust drinker even by Slavic standards.

  The flight attendant covered the table with a linen cloth and fanned out a stack of napkins embossed with the signature winged hammer-and-sickle. After arranging silverware, she set a basket filled with black bread on the edge of the table along with crystal dishes mounded over with butter and caviar. She brought out a silver tray of white cheese and hard salami slices before fetching the drinks.

  “Bring us the bottles and go in the back. We will call you when we need you.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “Na zdorove.” He downed the vodka.

  The colonel sipped her cognac.

  He splashed more vodka into his glass. “To the future, may it return past glories.” He drank it and let out a sigh. “I understand you’re the genius behind Operation Druzhba.”

  Zara froze for a moment, staring at her uncle. She then threw the remaining cognac into the back of her throat. “You flatter me. I can’t take all the credit. I’m only a liaison.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been told. You always were too modest.” He reached for bread and smeared it with a thick layer of butter. He dipped the same knife into the caviar, leaving butter traces in the precious roe.

  “What are they saying about me and who’s saying it?”

  “I thought the first rule of your trade was to protect your sources.”

  “Of my trade, not yours. So what are they saying?”

  “That you are working to restore order from the chaos and shame Gorbachev has leveled upon us. And that you’re doing it for the Motherland, for Marxism-Leninism and for my brother-in-law—your father.” The general popped the bread into his mouth and chewed as he spoke.

  She now understood. They had used her. They had set her up. Operation Druzhba wasn’t intended to avert Gorbachev’s assassination and the overthrow of his government. It was to ensure it.

  “Child, are you all right? You’re suddenly pale. I’ll have the pilot turn up t
he oxygen.” The general’s belly hit the table as he pulled himself to his feet. Vodka and cognac sloshed from their glasses.

  High above the Polish capital, Zara Bogdanov realized she was trapped. And she had trapped Faith Whitney. She knew it was her duty to prevent the coup, but she didn’t know whom to trust. Her stomach churned as she recognized it was in her personal best interest for the putsch to succeed. If it failed, she’d be convicted before a secret military tribunal and executed within hours. If it succeeded, she’d enter the Soviet pantheon as one of its greatest heroes, the restorer of the lost order. With the elevated status, she’d enjoy all of the perks of unbridled power and her father would be rehabilitated. Either way, Faith would be killed.

  Her choice was deceptively elegant in its simplicity: duty or power. She could either attempt to stop the coup single-handedly in a futile heroic effort or do her damnedest to make it succeed and save herself. Both were a gamble, but she knew the odds favored the coup—and the payoff was significantly higher. She pressed her face against the cold round window, looked down on the dying forests of the Polish countryside and hoped Faith had broken her word and was headed back to the States.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  TEGEL AIRPORT, WEST BERLIN

  SATURDAY, APRIL 29

  Faith handed the crumpled papers to the German flight attendant and boarded the Pan Am flight to Frankfurt, hoping that the Teutonic obsession with order would make the woman pay more attention to the crinkles than to the forged interline document. The flight attendant held the paper against the bulkhead and ironed the wrinkles from it with her hands. Faith ignored her, praying she didn’t get too picky with the documents. She eyed the last passenger to board, a gorgeous blond, probably some Scandinavian hockey star.