by Tom Cain
Until now.
The call had come in from the FBI in Minneapolis-St. Paul to the Department of Energy’s Emergency Operations Center in Washington, D.C. From there, it was routed to the NEST headquarters at Nellis Air Force Base northeast of Las Vegas. Within minutes, Kady had been assigned to lead a seven-person NEST team. Within the hour, they had taken off from Los Alamos County Airport, on the way to Minneapolis.
The team’s destination was a waterside vacation property on the shore of Gull Lake, a popular destination for city dwellers seeking fresh air, good fishing, and fun on the water. The FBI had cordoned off the area with the help of local police. Floodlights had been brought in to light up the modest timber cabin. The special agent in charge was named Tom Mulvagh.
“So what’s the story?” Kady asked, as her team began unloading gear from one of the two black Econoline vans that had transported them to the site. She was holding a gloved hand across her brow to keep the rain out of her eyes. A bright-red fleece hat was jammed down over her chestnut hair.
“The owner here, name of Heggarty, bought the place four years ago,” said Mulvagh, his face half in shadow beneath his hooded parka. “Now he’s looking to convert the loft space, fit in an extra bedroom. Anyway, he’s measuring up and he can’t figure it right. The interior dimensions of the loft space don’t match the exterior dimensions of the building. He keeps coming up three feet short. Then he realizes that the end wall of the loft is really a partition, with space behind it. So he knocks it down and that’s when he sees a large, brown leather suitcase-he described it as kind of old-fashioned, not like a modern style. He looks closer and there’s an electric cable coming from this sack, connected to a power supply in the wall.”
Kady grimaced. “Tell me he didn’t open the case.”
“Sure he opened the case-human nature. That’s when he saw a metal pipe, a black box with a blinking red light, and what he called, and I quote, ‘That damn towel-head writing.’ ”
She frowned. “Arabic?”
“Don’t think so. From his description, we concluded it was Cyrillic script-Russian.”
“Okay, so now did he keep his hands off the pipe and the box?”
The special agent grinned. “Yeah, he was smart enough to get scared at that point. He called up the PD in Nisswa, and they passed him on to the Crow Wing County sheriff ’s office in Brainerd. They contacted us, and here we all are.”
“Better check it out, then.” Kady looked around. “We’re going to be wearing protective suits. I guess we can change in the vans.”
“Sure,” said Mulvagh, “but do it quick. Makes me nervous standing around here, thinking about what’s in there.”
She gave him a reassuring pat, as if she were his protector, even though Mulvagh looked a decade older than she, and was six inches taller and probably fifty pounds heavier.
“Trust me-it’s okay. If that device really is some kind of Soviet bomb, it’s almost certainly got a permissive action link-that’s a specific code to be entered before it’s armed. Without that, nothing’s going to happen. My guess is it’s been in position for a decade, probably more. And if it hasn’t gone off in all that time, why’s it going to blow now?”
“Because it doesn’t like being disturbed?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be extra polite.”
35
Larsson’s battered Volvo station wagon was already waiting outside Carver’s building when he finally arrived. The Norwegian got out and looked Carver up and down appraisingly, looking for any visible signs of trouble.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Get us inside,” Carver replied. “I don’t like being stuck out on the street-too exposed.”
His voice was tense, strung out.
“You all right, man?” asked Larsson. “You don’t sound so good.”
“I’m fine.”
“Whatever you say.”
Carver hurried into the apartment building and started making his way up the stairs to his top-floor flat. Larsson let him get ahead a few paces, watching him skeptically, then followed on up the old wooden staircase that wound up through five stories, creaking under his feet with every step. When he got to Carver’s flat, the door was already open. Carver was standing in the living room, looking around, aghast at what he saw-or, rather, didn’t see.
“Where is everything?” he asked.
The room had been stripped bare of furniture.
“We sold it,” said Larsson. “We had to.”
Carver calmed down for a moment as he accepted the truth of what Larsson had said. Then a look close to horror crossed his face, and he dashed off into the kitchen.
“Christ, you didn’t…”
Larsson hurried after him. “Didn’t what?”
“It’s okay…”
Carver was standing by the kitchen island. The wine racks were empty. The low-level built-in fridge had been taken from its housing. All that was left was the carcass. But he didn’t seem too bothered by that.
“I suddenly thought you might have sold the kitchen units,” he said.
Larsson grinned for the first time that night.
“Who’d buy that shit?”
Now it was Carver’s turn to smile, if only for a moment. He leaned down and reached inside the wine rack, in the middle of the second row, three spaces along. He grimaced for a second as his fingers groped blindly, and then his smile reappeared as they found their target.
“Watch,” he said.
There was a barely audible humming sound. Larsson looked in amazement as the center of the granite work surface rose from the island. Its smooth ascent revealed a metal frame, within which was fitted a large plastic toolbox, arranged in half a dozen clear plastic-fronted trays of varying depths.
“Unbelievable!” Larsson gasped.
“Looks like my kit is still in one piece then,” said Carver. He was calming down, reassured by familiar surroundings and the presence of the toolbox.
“Okay, the top two trays should be filled with regular gear…”
He opened it up to reveal a thick pad of charcoal-gray foam, within which a series of custom-cut openings housed a selection of immaculately shiny wrenches, screwdrivers, saws, and hammers. The second tray was devoted to miniature power tools and soldering irons.
“It’s all there,” he said. “Next two trays, I think, are gadgets, electronics, that kind of stuff.”
Larsson sighed contentedly as a selection of timers, detonators, brake and accelerator overrides, and radio remote controls were presented to view.
“Oh, yeah, I recognize some of these babies. Nice to know you gave them such a good home.”
“Okay, next down there should be…”
Larsson was confronted with blocks of plastique and thermite.
“And finally…”
Carver slid open the last, deepest tray. It contained a Heckler & Koch MP5K short-barreled submachine gun, with a suppressor and three magazines, plus a SIG Sauer P226 with the same essential accessories. Larsson gave a knowing nod. Both weapons were standard equipment for British Special Forces.
“There’s something else,” said Carver.
He pulled the toolbox out of its housing and placed it on the floor in front of him. Then he got down on his haunches. The lid of the toolbox was a couple of inches deep. He lifted it to reveal another compartment, inside the lid itself, accessed via a hinged plastic hatch. He opened that to reveal a fat, padded brown envelope, roughly twelve by eighteen inches.
“Little did you know…” he said.
Carver took out the envelope and shut the hatch again. Then he removed the SIG, the suppressor, and two magazines from the bottom tray. He closed up the toolbox, keeping it on the floor as he pressed the button inside the wine rack again. The empty housing disappeared back down into the island. Carver put the envelope and the gun back on top of the work surface.
“That got money in it?” asked Larsson, nodding at the envelope. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so c
heery.
“Yeah.”
“Enough to pay the bills?”
“Easily.”
“And you remembered about it when, exactly?”
There was a bitter, sarcastic edge to the words.
“A few weeks ago, pretty soon after I started coming around.”
“So you didn’t need her money at all, then?”
“Sure I did. As long as it was coming through, I knew she was still alive.”
Larsson was forced to accept the logic of Carver’s argument. But he had a legitimate grievance of his own.
“You owe me, too. More than twenty thousand bucks.”
Carver nodded silently. He reached in the envelope and took out an ornately engraved document. It was a fifty-thousand-dollar bearer bond, registered to a Panamanian corporation and signed by him on the reverse. Effectively, it was as good as cash. He gave it to Larsson.
“Thanks, but that’s way too much,” the Norwegian said.
“It won’t be,” said Carver dryly. “Not in the long run. Look, I’ll pay Alix back, too… but first I’ve got to find her. We should start at the last places she’d have been seen. I know she was working at some late-night place. Do you know where it was?”
“The bierkeller? Of course-I used to give her a lift to work sometimes.”
“Fine-you can give me a lift, too. I just need a couple of minutes to get fixed up.”
Carver picked up the envelope, the gun, and the magazines and left the kitchen. Walking through the living room, he saw the picture of Lulworth Cove on the wall, the only one of his most valuable possessions that hadn’t yet been sold. He remembered talking to Alix about it. She’d been wearing his old T-shirt, curled up in the chair, her body fresh from the shower. He could happily have stood there, eyes closed, just wallowing in the thought of her, but not tonight. He had to keep moving.
In his bedroom, he opened up his closet. His gear was still hanging there, pushed over to one side to make way for Alix’s pathetically small collection of clothes. He picked out a jacket from her end of the clothing rod and held it up to his face, catching a faint trace of her scent, savoring it like a dog about to be let loose on a trail. Then, quite unexpectedly, something clicked inside his brain-an automatic, unbidden reflex that switched off the emotional, indulgent, inefficient side of his consciousness and left him suddenly cold and clearheaded.
The panic and uncertainty had gone. There was no heavy, sickening ache of fear in the pit of his stomach, just a strong sense of urgency and purpose.
He reached up to a shelf above the rod and pulled down a leather traveling bag. Then he strained his arm farther into the shelf and extracted a shoulder holster and a broad money belt. It took him barely thirty seconds to pack the bag with two plain white T-shirts and two pairs of socks and underpants, followed by one pair of jeans and a lightweight fleece, both black. Another minute was spent getting dressed in a set of clothes identical to the ones he had packed, except with a charcoal-gray, V-necked pullover instead of a fleece. He chose a pair of plain black lace-up shoes, with thick cushioned soles.
The money belt went around his waist. From the envelope he took a block of one-hundred-dollar bills and another two bearer bonds, identical to the one he had given Larsson. He also extracted two passports, one Australian, the other Swiss. They were both in different names but bore his photograph. He peeled a few of the bills off the top of the block and stuffed them in a trouser pocket, along with the Swiss cash he’d taken from the hitman at the clinic. Everything else went into the belt. Then he closed the envelope, which was still more than half full, and placed it in his bag.
He strapped on the shoulder holster. When the SIG went in, it felt entirely familiar, the holster already adjusted to fit it and him perfectly. There was a short black wool coat hanging in the closet, and he put that on last. The coat covered the holster without any apparent bulge. The spare magazines slipped right into its pockets. It was elegant enough to get him into any hotel or restaurant, but sturdy enough to keep out the cold. There was another coat exactly like it still hanging there, along with more black jeans and three apparently identical dark-blue suits. The drawers from which he’d taken the T-shirts, underwear, and tops had been equally repetitive. So this was how he had been: methodical, functional, finding something that worked and sticking to it.
Other drawers held watches, dark glasses, mobile phones, again with minimal variations. He took one of each, not needing to waste time choosing between styles, plus a couple of spare SIM cards for the phone. Then he noticed a photograph in a frame by the bed. It showed Alix by his chair in the clinic’s dayroom. She had a hopeful smile on her face. He just looked bewildered. He couldn’t remember the photo being taken. He spared it no more thought, but removed it from the frame, folded it in two, splitting himself from Alix and stuffed it in his inside coat pocket. If he wanted to find the woman, a picture would come in handy.
Larsson was waiting for him by the door of the apartment, carrying the toolbox. When he saw Carver, he said, “Hey, you look like a guy I used to know.”
“Yeah-what was he like?” asked Carver.
Larsson was deadpan. “Total bastard.”
36
Dr. Geisel had warned Carver he was a long way from being cured. There was always the possibility of a relapse. Short of that, he could expect sudden, violent changes of mood.
He was beginning to understand what the shrink had meant. It was barely a five-minute drive from his flat to the bierkeller, but as soon as the Volvo got moving, the glorious sense of confidence and self-assurance began to fade and his uneasiness returned, his guts tightening, shoulder muscles tensing. Carver took a series of long, deep breaths and slowly rotated his head, lifting his chin up, then coming around and down till it was almost resting on his chest, breathing out as his head came down, then back in as it rose again.
“You all right?” asked Larsson from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, just trying to get myself level, you know.”
“You’d better tell me what happened at the clinic.”
Carver sighed deeply as he lowered his head, eyes shut. He remained like that for a second, screwed his face up in a grimace, then turned his head toward Larsson.
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“And…?”
“And someone else will be discovering the body any time now, so just shut up, keep driving, and help me get on with finding Alix.”
Larsson brought the car to a sudden halt. He sat quite still as Carver snapped, “What the bloody hell are you doing?”
Without warning, Larsson shot out his right arm and grabbed Carver by the throat, pushing him back until he was forced against the side of the car.
Carver struggled to free himself, his body impeded by the seat belt, his feet stuck in the passenger footwell.
“I don’t like people who are rude to me,” Larsson sounded like he was explaining a misunderstanding, getting things straight. “So just stay cool, all right?”
He let go his grip and gradually brought his arm back, never taking his eyes off Carver.
“Okay,” said Carver. “I apologize. I just want to get Alix back.”
“Maybe, but you’re not going after her now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not in shape. Look at yourself-you let me grab you one-handed. Your mood’s up and down like a yo-yo. You can’t climb the stairs to your apartment without getting out of breath. You’re weeks away from being fit.”
Carver’s eyelids drooped in tacit acknowledgment.
“Okay-maybe you’re right… maybe. But I can’t just sit around on my arse doing nothing. If I can work out what she was doing, where she was before she disappeared, at least that’s something. Look, this beer place will be closing any minute and I can’t come back tomorrow, because I’ve got to be out of town. I’ll just go in, have a drink, ask a few questions, nice and easy. Trust me-I won’t start any fights.”
“Thank God for that
,” said Larsson as he started up the engine again.
37
In that Minnesota loft, Kady Jones felt like an explorer finally about to cast eyes on a mysterious animal species, often written about but never seen. To a scientist from Los Alamos, the suitcase nuke was as potent a myth as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, and just as irresistible a lure.
She climbed up the ladder in her inflatable plastic suit, looking like the mutant spawn of a human being and a bouncy castle, buzzing with anticipation and nervous tension. Despite her confident words to Tom Mulvagh, she was only too aware of all the things that could go wrong. If the device was genuine, it could be booby-trapped. Even if it wasn’t, an accidental detonation was not totally out of the question. The likelihood was infinitesimal, but it existed nonetheless, so the protocol was clear: Look but don’t touch. And stay as far away from the device as possible.
Her head poked through the hatch. The loft was illuminated by a single, bare bulb, whose harsh light revealed the case, lying by the far end wall, wide open, daring her to come and take a closer look. She clambered up onto the floor, dragging an air hose behind her. Then she leaned back down to grab a video camera, passed to her by one of the team. A tripod followed, and a bright orange metal box, with a black handle extending two thirds of its length. A cable ran from the box back down through the hatch.
She set up the video camera on the tripod, switched it on, and focused on the case. “Are you getting that?” she asked, speaking into the microphone mounted in the headpiece of her suit.
Her deputy, Henry Wong, was sitting in one of the vans outside, facing a rack of electronic equipment, dials, and screens.
“Yeah, and it sure looks real to me.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Kady.
Leaving the camera, she picked up the orange box. At one end of it were a numeric keypad and a small backlit screen. The box was a handheld gamma-ray spectrometer, an instrument designed to measure and analyze the radiation emitted by whatever objects it was investigating.