by Tom Cain
The various nuclear materials that can be used in bombs all decay at specific rates, giving off particular quantities of gamma rays. Some of them, like plutonium, emit enough radiation to be detectable over a considerable distance. Others, however, register only at very short range. Standing by the camera, Kady wasn’t getting a reading on her spectrometer. That immediately ruled out most of the possible suspects, but not all. That case could contain a dummy weapon, yet another false alarm. Or it could be armed with weapons-grade uranium. Kady had no choice. If she wanted to find out the truth, she was going to have to get up close and personal.
She crept across the floor toward the case, hardly daring to breathe, starting at every creaking board. As a little girl she had loved playing Grandmother’s Footsteps, sneaking up on her dad when his back was turned, her heart thumping as she dared herself to take just one more step before he sprang around and caught her. Now there was a bomb where her father had been, and one wrong move could make it spring into action, too. She was perspiring inside her plastic bubble, unable to wipe away the drop of sweat that was trickling down her forehead.
She could feel her pulse racing, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The spectrometer was quivering in her hand. The way she was now, she might easily trip on a loose floorboard, or drop her gear. If she knocked into the case, and it was booby-trapped… She didn’t finish the thought. She knew she had to calm down. She stood still, her eyes half shut, arms down by her side, trying to regulate her breathing and slow her heartbeat. Gradually the frenzied drumming of blood in her ears slowed to a more regular rhythm.
When she got near the case, she spoke to Henry Wong once again.
“Okay, here we go.”
“Be careful, Kady.”
“You think?”
She stepped right up to the open case, which was maybe thirty inches long, rectangular, with reinforced corners. The contents were nestled within a thick polystyrene base. The main unit was a metal pipe, which ran for most of the length of the case. One end was thicker than the other, as if ringed by an additional reinforcing band of metal. A wire extended from the other end, and ran to a black control unit, with a series of switches, a keypad, and a digital timer. There were no numbers showing on the timer, no dramatic countdown, just a bunch of controls with Russian markings. A single, small red bulb glowed, to indicate that the unit was receiving power from its electric cable.
Kady pointed the spectrometer at the unit. A series of digits and letters appeared on its display, and, via the cable, on a screen in front of Henry Wong. There was a low, awestruck whistle in her ear.
“Weapons-grade uranium-two thirty-five. You just found a genuine suitcase nuke, Kady. Man, that is cool.”
She smiled, the tension momentarily broken. “That’s not the word I’d have chosen. It looks to me like Alexander Lebed was telling the truth. The Soviets really did cache portable nukes all over the Western world. But if this is one of them, where are the rest?”
“Not our problem,” said Wong. “And nothing we can do till this one’s deactivated. Why don’t you get on down here, we can recheck those readings?”
“Sure. But not till I get a close-up of this thing on video. We need to have a record of exactly what we’re dealing with.”
She made her way back to the camera, still taking care over every step, but feeling a fraction more secure now, having faced the weapon once and survived. Now that she knew what she was dealing with, she felt as if she were more in control of the process. As she unscrewed the video from its tripod and carried it back toward the case, she told herself she’d worked on far more powerful warheads, both Russian and American, and never come to any harm. Why should this be any different?
She didn’t notice the loose nail protruding from the floor till the boots of her suit snagged against it. Her hands were gripping the camera, so she had no way of using her arms to regain her balance or break her fall as she tripped.
“Kady!” shouted Wong, as she fell on top of the case, becoming hopelessly entangled in her air tube as the light on the control unit began flashing and the bomb emitted a rapid series of high-pitched beeps.
Like a warning.
A booby trap activated.
The tension she had felt since she clambered up into the loft was blown away in an instant by a nauseating, heart-pounding, flop-sweating rush of pure terror. The fear seemed to blur her vision her as she thrashed her limbs, frantically trying to scramble away, as though that would do any good.
In her ears she could hear Wong’s voice, “Oh, shit…”
The beeping stopped.
There were no more words in her headphones.
She lay stock-still, unmoving, unable to breathe in the absolute silence of the loft.
From somewhere inside the case there came the noise of a feeble detonation, no louder or more powerful than a Christmas cracker. Then silence once again.
Kady scrambled back onto the floor, trying to get her breath back. Then she noticed the electric plug, sitting at the end of the cable that led from the case. It had been jerked from its socket by the impact of her fall. The flashing and beeping were simply a warning to the bomb’s users that its power had been cut. There was no booby trap.
But there were Soviet suitcase nukes loose in the world. And neither Kady nor anyone else in America had any idea where they were.
38
The staff of the bierkeller weren’t too anxious to let Carver and Larsson in. A waitress tried to tell them the place was about to close. Carver took out a hundred bucks.
“We’ll only be a few minutes,” he said.
The waitress took the banknote and nodded toward the empty tables. “Help yourself.”
They ordered a couple of wheat beers, an authentic taste of Germany, right in the heart of French Switzerland. Carver looked around. There was only one other customer in the place, a bland-looking man in his thirties or forties, sitting in a corner of the room, nursing a glass of whiskey. He was thinning on top, wearing a mass-produced gray suit, just one more lonely salesmen on another solitary night.
Carver turned his attention to the phony Bavarian decor and the two waitresses in their wigs and costumes, both tired and short-tempered at the end of a long shift. He felt ashamed to think of Alix working in this dump, into the early hours every night. She’d always been at the hospital first thing in the morning-she must have been exhausted. Maybe that’s why she’d run away. She needed a decent night’s sleep.
He finished his drink and went up to the bar.
“How much for two beers?”
“Ten francs,” said the barman.
Carver paid with a fifty and told him to keep the change.
The barman thanked him, then regarded Carver, an eyebrow raised, lips pursed, as if to say, “There has to be a catch.”
Carver caught the look. “You’re right,” he said, slipping into French without a second thought. “I do want something.”
He slipped his photo of Alix across the table.
“Do you know this woman? Her name is Alexandra Petrova. She used to work here.”
The barman said nothing.
“Look,” said Carver, “I’m not a cop. I’m just a friend of hers. She’s disappeared and I’m trying to find out what happened to her, that’s all.”
Finally the barman spoke. “You English?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Been in the hospital lately?”
Carver unfolded the photograph and showed him the other half.
“Okay,” said the barman. “I heard about you. But I don’t know where Alix went. One night she was here, the next… poof!”
He shrugged and lifted up his hands to emphasize his bafflement, then pulled out a cloth from behind the bar and started wiping the countertop in front of Carver.
“But maybe Trudi can help you. She was a friend of Alix’s.”
The barman gestured at one of the waitresses-the one Carver had met at the door.
“Hey, Trudi! He w
ants to buy you a drink.”
The waitress made a show of looking Carver up and down.
“Do I get another hundred dollars?” she asked and sauntered over.
The balding man in the corner, attracted by the sound of conversation, watched her as she walked toward the bar. Carver saw him and just for a second thought he caught something in the man’s eye, a way of looking that suggested intense concentration, a kind of professional curiosity. But then Trudi was standing next to him, cheerful, busty, the classic barmaid-her costume laced extra-tight to make her cleavage all the deeper-and the thought vanished.
“So, are you going to get me that drink?” she said.
“Sure,” said Carver. “What are you having?”
“Double vodka and tonic.”
The drink appeared. Trudi downed half of it in one gulp and gave a contented sigh.
“I needed that. So, what can I do for you?”
“It’s Alix. I’m trying to find her.”
Trudi looked at him for a moment, then a sly smile crossed her face.
“So you’re her mystery man, huh? She talked about you a few times. Not often, though-it upset her to say too much. I thought you were sick in the hospital.”
“I was. Now I’m not. What happened to Alix?”
“I don’t know-she just… well, she just vanished.”
“When? The last time she came to visit me was around the middle of February.”
Trudi considered for a moment. “Yes, that sounds right. She walked out just before our big Valentine’s Day party. I was cross with her, leaving the rest of us to fill in. It never occurred to me she wasn’t coming back.”
“Had she been worried about anything?”
“Sure,” said Trudi. “Paying your hospital bills. She really loved you.”
“Tell me about the bills. What did she say about them?”
“Just that she didn’t know where she was going to find twenty thousand francs. It was really on her mind.”
“And the last time you saw her, the night you say she walked out: Do you remember what happened?”
Trudi took another sip of her drink.
“Okay, I remember. I’d been working a couple of hours before Alix arrived, and I was waiting for her to start work, so that I could take a break. I saw her come out from the dressing room, just over there…”
Trudi pointed toward a door set into the wall not far from where they were talking. There was a sign on it forbidding entry to customers.
“Then what happened?” asked Carver. “How did Alix seem to you?”
Trudi gave a quizzical little pout. “I don’t know, normal, I suppose-at first, anyway. But then suddenly she stopped completely still, right in the middle of the floor. She was staring at one of the tables, like she’d seen a ghost, you know? Then she turned and walked really fast, right out of the bar, toward our dressing room. I thought it was kind of odd, but I didn’t have time to think about it because I was serving customers. There was a problem because two men got up and left without paying and Pierre, the barman, was giving me shit for letting them do that, but in the end it didn’t matter because a woman paid their bill. Weird, huh?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Carver impatiently. “But concentrate on Alix. When did you know she’d left the building?”
“About ten minutes later. She hadn’t come back and I still hadn’t had my break and I just thought she was being a selfish cow, so I went to look for her. But when I got to the dressing room, she wasn’t there, and her bag and coat were both gone. And that was the last time I saw her.”
“Go back to when you last saw Alix. She came out of the door. She saw something. What did she see?”
Trudi thought for a moment. Then she got up and said, “Come with me.”
She led Carver across the room till they were standing in front of the door from which Alix had emerged. Behind them, the man in the cheap suit had come to the bar and was settling his account with Pierre. From time to time, he glanced up to check out the pantomime being acted out by Trudi.
“Right,” she said. “Alix was looking over… there!”
She pointed across the room. Directly in her sight line there was a single small table.
“Who was sitting there?” asked Carver.
Trudi puffed her cheeks. “Oh, monsieur, it was many weeks ago-how can I remember one customer?”
“Start with the basics: Was it a man or a woman?”
“I don’t know!”
Carver could feel frustration rising inside him. He was close to losing his temper, but that would serve no purpose at all. As much to calm himself as Trudi, he spoke as gently as possible, coaxing her like a stage hypnotist.
“Take your time. Just close your eyes, relax, and try to go back to that night. There’s someone sitting at the table. Tell me about them.”
Trudi did as she was told. Her eyes had been shut only for a few seconds when her face suddenly came alive again.
“Of course!” she cried. “I remember now. It was the woman, the one who paid the bill for the two men I was talking about, the ones who ran out without paying.”
“That’s great,” said Carver. “Well done. Now, this woman, what did she look like?”
“Well, she had very dark hair, cut short, in a bob.”
Trudi framed her face with her hands to illustrate what she meant.
“How old was she?”
“Oh, quite old, maybe fifty. But quite chic… you know, for a Russian.”
“Hold on-this woman was Russian?”
“Yes, I think so. Her accent, it was a bit like Alix’s, and she is Russian, right?”
Carver nodded distractedly, no longer paying attention to Trudi. His mind was fully occupied trying to make sense of the Russians: the woman and the two men. Who had they been? What did they want from Alix? He had a strong sense that the answer was in him somewhere. He had the information he needed to solve the problem if only he could retrieve it. Like Trudi, he needed to close his eyes, relax, and think. He couldn’t do that now.
“Is that all?” Trudi asked, sounding disappointed that her information had not been met with more enthusiasm.
“Yeah,” said Carver. “Thanks. You’ve been great. But you’d better clear up.”
The other waitress was placing chairs upside down on top of the tables, banging them down hard, just to let the world know she wasn’t getting any help. Larsson had got up from their table and was standing by the main exit, waiting to go. The barman was trying to disentangle himself from the solitary drinker’s attempts at conversation. Carver heard him say, “You’ve got to leave now, my friend.”
Carver nodded farewell at the barman and gave Trudi a short, brisk wave as he started to walk out.
She called out, “If you find Alix, send her my love,” and he forced a smile to show that he’d heard.
He was feeling edgy again, just as he had on the train. It was the drinker, who was now turning away from the bar and following Larsson and Carver as they walked out. Carver didn’t like the look of him. Ever since he’d walked into the bierkeller, he’d felt that the man had been looking at him and trying to listen in on his conversations. He was being kept under surveillance-he was sure of it. He had to take action before it was too late.
As he walked through the main exit to the street, Carver slowed his pace, waiting for the sound of the door swinging open again behind him. He heard the footsteps of the man in the suit. Then, without any warning, he turned around, swiveling on his toes, then he took one strong, quick stride back the way he had come and punched the man full in the face.
He caught him right on the bridge of the nose, which crumpled under his fist.
The man gave a muffled cry of pain, held his hand up to his face, and staggered back through the door. Carver followed him, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him to the ground.
“What are you looking at?” he snarled.
The man’s eyes widened. He had been caught totally unawares. He was i
n pain. He was frightened, and he was baffled.
“Why did you hit me?” His voice was as plaintive as a bullied child. “What have I done?”
Carver could not answer him. He did not know what to say. He had attacked an innocent man for no reason other than his own paranoia. He looked up and saw Pierre running toward him, the waitresses looking on in horror.
Pierre stopped beside the wounded man, uncertain what to do next. He turned his head toward the women and said, “One of you, call the police.” Then he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the handle of a knife. He pressed a button and the blade flicked open.
He looked at Carver. “I know how to use this,” he said.
The man at Carver’s feet moaned in pain. Blood was seeping through his fingers and spattering his clothes.
Now the door crashed open again and Larsson was there, grabbing Carver and dragging him away from the scene.
“Get out!” he shouted and Carver’s legs started pumping, his feet scrabbling on the floor until he got some purchase, and he dashed out of the bierkeller after Larsson.
Pierre hesitated, not knowing whether to follow the two fleeing men or attend to the wounded victim. Then he hurried to the man on the floor, who was making a groggy, disoriented effort to get to his feet. The man let himself be led away from the exit, under a low stone arch, into a small, deserted office.
“Wait here,” said Pierre, lowering him onto a chair.
The man groaned. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Seconds later, the door opened and Trudi walked toward him. “You poor thing,” she said.
He winced as she dabbed some cotton soaked in disinfectant over his face, gasping in pain when she touched his broken nose.
“Look at what that bastard did to you,” she said. “I’m not surprised Alix ran away if that’s what he’s like.”
She paused, the cotton dripping in midair, as she suddenly realized what she’d done.
“Oh, my God. I’ve helped him find her! I just hope the police-”
The man gripped her arm with surprising force. “No police,” he mumbled. “Don’t want police. No time. Too busy.”