Pinnacle Event

by Richard A. Clarke

  “Do you recall a man named Potgeiter? Or one named Roosmeer?” Avidar asked.

  “Yes, Potgeiter, yes. He liked tunnels, built tunnels,” Reuven Avraham recalled.

  Danny Avidar perked up and leaned forward. “Tunnels for what?”

  “Simeon bar Yochai, he built tunnels, too, up here in the Galilee region. Did you know that?” Avraham asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Danny answered. “I don’t know him. Was that when you came back from South Africa that he built the tunnels up here? Why did he build tunnels?”

  “No, before that,” the old man scoffed. “He built them to escape from the Romans. He was a Tannaim. You’re obviously not.”

  Ray Bowman couldn’t help it anymore, he broke out laughing. Avidar gave him an evil look.

  “It is good wine,” Bowman began, “for a blend.” He rolled the red around in his glass. “I saw Johann Roosmeer two days ago. He said if I saw you to pass on his best. He said without you, he could never have redesigned the warhead to fit on to his missile. He makes wine now, Johann does, with his two sons in Stellenbosch.”

  Avraham Reuven turned and stared at Bowman like a falcon contemplating its prey. He pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose. “His missile? It was a Jehrico II, just like ours. You use a little warhead, but you boost it with tritium. Simple. That’s what we did. What they did, too, with the few they made in the tunnel.”

  “Potgeiter’s tunnel. That where they made the tritium gas, in the tunnel?” Ray asked.

  “Of course,” the old man said, disdainfully.

  “And then Potgeiter built another tunnel to store the missile warheads in when he left South Africa?” Ray guessed.

  “Yes. The man loved his tunnels, like the Nazis,” Reuven answered.

  “What did you think of his second tunnel, the one where he moved the warheads? Was it well designed?” Ray asked.

  “Never saw it,” Reuven admitted. “Think I’d go to Madagascar? Even Potgeiter got sick there. Lucky he didn’t get bitten by the bats. Huge things. Built nests in his tunnel. Had to chase them out. Bloody mess. Guano everywhere,” Reuven said laughing, as he took another sip of the wine.

  “Potgeiter told people he sent the missile warheads here, you know,” Ray continued.

  “Pfft…” Reuven chortled. “He never even offered. We didn’t need them. We had two hundred and forty-eight nuclear warheads. Why would we want theirs? No, they never came here. Went straight to the bat cave. Think they moved them lately? That why you came, find out where they moved them? I wouldn’t know. I haven’t talked to any of them in years, the South Africans. Not in years. Wouldn’t know, not me, no.”

  “They still send you the good South African wine though, I hope?” Ray took a shot in the dark.

  “Roosmeer does. A case every year at New Year, their new year, not ours,” Avraham Reuven admitted. “Much better than the piss we make in this country. Haven’t made high-quality wine here since that boy did his magic trick over in Cana.”

  As they left the Reuvens and walked to Danny’s car in the parking lot, the Mossad man stopped and looked Bowman in the eye. “Forget two hundred forty-eight. He never said two hundred forty-eight, all right? Besides, he’s demented, obviously.”

  “I don’t think he’s demented at all. He just didn’t like you. Or Mossad. Or both.” Ray said, and began walking again. “He knew what I needed and he gave it to me. He confirmed that there were secret bombs that the South African whites did not reveal to the UN. He said they never came here. And he told us that they went to Madagascar for safe storage in a tunnel. The coup de grâce? He confirmed the weapons were boosted with tritium.”

  “That’s important, the tritium part?” Danny asked.

  “Damn right. It’s a limited life component. It decays. By now, it’s dead,” Ray thought aloud. “If the bombs were detonated now, they would not be fifty kilotons, more like five kilotons.”

  “Raymond, even a handful of five-kiloton nuclear explosions in Israel and the Exodus happens again, but in the other direction.”

  “Wouldn’t do good things for Manhattan and DC, either,” Bowman replied.

  16

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 24

  HERZLIYA, ISRAEL

  “Oh, you’re black,” Rachel Steyn said as she opened the door. “Oh, forgive me, I didn’t … I just assumed a South African policeman would be, well, a white man. Please come in, I am awfully sorry for that greeting.”

  “My name is Mbali Hlaganani,” the guest said, stretching out her arm on the doorstep.

  “Well, if they had told me that, I would have known, please, do come in.”

  Mbali stepped into the luxurious villa on the beachfront.

  “Most police and security services in South Africa are black. Some are colored, some Indian, a few are whites.”

  “Yes, of course, I haven’t been there since I was a child,” Rachel admitted. “I thought we would sit out by the pool. I have lemonade and biscuits.”

  “First, Mrs. Steyn, I want to express my sympathy on the death of your husband. I want you to know that my organization is working hard with the Israeli government to determine who killed him and why.”

  “Killed him? So you think it wasn’t an accident?” Rachel asked.

  “Most definitely. Haven’t the police told you that?”

  “No, they just said they were investigating, but I suspected it as soon as I got the call.”

  “May I ask you why you were suspicious?” Mbali asked.

  Rachel exhaled and paused, briefly. “Dawid thought he had been followed a few times in the week before, before he died.” She paused again and looked at the ground. “I told him he was being silly, paranoid. Who would want to follow him?”

  Mbali took a cookie from the platter. “Well, that is the question, Mrs. Steyn. Your husband was involved in international finance and controlled very large sums of money.”

  “Yes, but so do many men.”

  “Maybe the Trustees have made enemies, Mrs. Steyn. Now that you are a Trustee, it may be important that you know who your enemies are.”

  “So, you know about the Trustees. Of course you would, wouldn’t you.” Rachel Steyn said, more to herself than to Mbali. “The others have suggested bodyguards for me and the children, but I have said no. It would scare the kids and I don’t even know who they would be protecting me from. Do you think I should have bodyguards? Do you know who or why?”

  “It’s such a lovely view from here,” Mbali replied. “Maybe we should walk along the beach,” she said pointing to her ear and then raising a finger to her mouth.

  Rachel understood immediately. “Yes, I was going to suggest that. You may want to leave your shoes here.” Mbali did and also left her mobile. Seeing that, so did Rachel.

  As they strolled down the sand on the empty beach, Mbali wrapped her silk scarf around her chin, covering her mouth in case they were being filmed and a lip reader might be used later. “I am going to tell you a story that is true, but hard to believe. It is why your husband was murdered and why many more people may be soon.

  “Your husband’s father was one of the original Trustees, men who had worked on the South African nuclear bomb project. When they left the country, they took some bombs with them. Earlier this year, after two decades, they sold them to somebody. That somebody killed them to wipe his traces, so no one would know who had bought the bombs.”

  Rachel put her hand to her mouth. “So that’s where the half billion dollar deposit came from?”

  “Yes, from Dawid’s killers. And they are likely to use the bombs to kill thousands more, here in Israel, or in South Africa, or in the U.S. We don’t know where yet. But maybe you can help us figure out who they are.”

  They turned and began slowly walking back to the house.

  “I gave the police all of Dawid’s records, all of his computers. I only have copies, but I have been over them a thousand times. There is nothing that even suggests where the money came from or why. Do you t
hink Dawid knew about the bombs? I do not believe that.”

  “We assume all the Trustees did, but maybe not. I doubt he would have willingly been part of a plot against Israel or a plot to kill thousands of people.” As she said that, Mbali thought that she really knew very little about Dawid Steyn and whether he would have agreed to sell nuclear bombs.

  “How can I help you find his killers?” Rachel asked as they approached the villa.

  “Maybe you ask for an emergency meeting of all of the new Trustees. You have talked on the phone, but you have not all met each other before? If you got together maybe we could get someone to say something, or do something. Let me do some planning and bring a proposal back to you.” As they walked onto the pool deck, Rachel’s mother appeared, having picked the two children up at their school. The two girls ran to their mother and then looked up in amazement at the tall, black woman.”You are so pretty,” the younger girl said to Mbali. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Mbali and I have a little boy about your age. His name is Nelson. What’s yours?”

  When, a half hour later, after a tour of the kids’ rooms and artwork, Mbali prepared to leave, she whispered to Rachel, “Don’t tell the others about me, but I will stay in touch.” Mbali handed her a mobile phone. “If you need me, hit speed dial #1. Anytime. Don’t use it for any other calls. Check the voice mails every day. The PIN is the month and day Dawid was killed.” Rachel grasped the phone and Mbali’s hand and squeezed them.

  “Toda raba,” Rachel whispered.

  17

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 24

  POLICY EVALUATION GROUP

  NAVY HILL, FOGGY BOTTOM

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “Even a five-kiloton nuclear detonation devastates Manhattan,” Dugout said into the modified iPad to Bowman. “I pulled up a model that Homeland uses, developed by Oak Ridge nuclear lab.” He described to Ray what he saw on his desktop monitor. “Detonate it on the south end of the island at Battery Park and the blast is felt as far north as Canal Street.

  “It’s a smaller bomb than Hiroshima and the buildings are now built much better, so only knocking over buildings within a couple of blocks of the blast, but setting fires and sending glass flying for many more blocks.

  “The electromagnetic pulse fries all circuitry in Lower Manhattan and over in Jersey City so cars don’t work, ambulances, fire trucks, phones, any computer, any engine.”

  “Does the computer model give you casualty figures?” Ray asked.

  “Detonated at midday during the week and you get twenty-five to forty thousand prompt deaths from incineration, burns, building collapses, flying debris,” Dugout read off the chart. “An equal number of nonprompt deaths from burns and radiation poisoning over the following thirty days.”

  “And if the tritium gas had not decayed, what would happen?” Bowman asked.

  “Exponentially worse,” Dugout said, switching screens. “The explosion is ten times as big, so more buildings collapse, buildings up to Central Park are damaged, the EMP fries equipment in every hospital on the island, first responders all over Manhattan and into Brooklyn could not communicate or likely even get their vehicles to start. And the long-term radioactivity makes most of the city uninhabitable for a century or more.”

  “Even if that weren’t the case, nobody would want to live anywhere near New York, or any other big city after that,” Ray added.

  Dugout paged down through the Homeland department’s model. “Listen to this: ‘At fifty kilotons, first responders should not attempt to go within at least two miles of the blast site. Those still alive within the hot zone will perish within hours or days even with medical care and by entering the area first responders will only become fatalities themselves by exposure to high doses of lethal radiation. Establish a perimeter and prevent anyone from going into the hot zone.’ It means there will be thousands of people dying in great pain, but no one should go to ease their pain. What a horror.

  “Fewer deaths in Washington because the concentration of people is less, fewer high-rises, but it still takes out all the government buildings and makes the place too hot to ever use again. Fifty kilotons at the Washington Monument turns the Potomac into steam.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, thinking about what would happen if they failed. “How is the election campaign going?” Ray said, breaking the quiet.

  “Well, the debates are finally over, but the ads are all over the TV. It’s going to be close,” Dugout said.

  “What about what Reuven said about Madagascar. Any leads there?” Ray asked.

  “Well, there we have a bit of good news, potentially. Seems like land ownership is a big problem there, knowing who owns what. Leads to a lot of conflict and also makes it hard to sell land, which hurts the economy. So USAID gave the government in Antananarivo a grant to bring in Oracle and create a digital database, going back thirty years, of land sales. That gave Minerva a lead and data to trace.

  “In 1989, the Springbok Mining company of London, England, bought a tract in the north, including a big hill. Springbok Mining dug a diamond mine into the hill, according to an old mining magazine from the time, but came up dry. Want to guess who one of the principal stockholders of Springbok was?” Dugout asked.

  “The late Karl Potgeiter?” Ray asked.

  “Along with the late Mr. Merwe and the now-departed Marius Pleiss, all of them Trustees,” Dugout replied. “Sloppy in covering their tracks.”

  “Well it was in 1989, before they actually started the Trustees, so they probably bought the land with ARMSCOR money they could not repatriate from weapon sales to Singapore or wherever. I will bet Springbok no longer owns it,” Ray guessed.

  “You win the teddy bear,” Dugout said. “They sold it in 1991 to Gazelle Trading of Sydney, which, of course, had the same address in Sydney as Mr. Merwe. As far as I can tell, Gazelle still owns it, but it looks abandoned and largely overgrown on the satellite imagery I pulled up. Want me to send you the photo?”

  Bowman was walking along the Tel Aviv corniche, carrying the iPad, using headphones and a mouthpiece to chat with Dugout, hoping that even Mossad and the Shin Beth could not hear the conversation. “No, just tell me the date on it.”

  “Shit, it’s two years old. Guess we don’t have much need to do strip photography of Madagascar.”

  “Get NGIA to target it for a close-up right away. If the cave looks like it’s been opened up in the last few months, then we will need Winston to talk to the Pentagon,” Ray told Dugout. “It may be time for JSOC to drop a little team into northern Madagascar for a look around, complete with Geiger counters.”

  He stopped and watched the sun sinking into the Mediterranean. For the first time in eight days since he had started this goose chase, he felt he was getting closer to an answer. At least, he might now know where the bombs had been. He had six days to find out where they went, before the President ordered Operation Rock Wall to look everywhere for a nuke. And fourteen days to the election.

  Winston Burrell had assumed the bombs would go off just before voting day.

  The last ray of the setting sun refracted through the sea and for an instant, Raymond Bowman thought he saw a green flash. He wondered if, when it happened, he would see the nuclear flash.

  18

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 24

  CULLINAN, GAUTENG

  SOUTH AFRICA

  Unusually for a back country road, there were streetlights on the telephone poles every hundred meters as the road meandered from an abandoned mine near Cullinan, east toward Mamelodi. Just before the Bedford step van turned at the bend, the streetlights went out.

  “What was that noise?” the guard in the truck asked.

  “We ran over something,” the driver said.

  The truck made a flapping sound and slowed.

  “I’ve got a flat,” the driver said.

  “You’ve got more than one, my man,” the guard said, and drew his Beretta from its holster. As he did, the bullets came through th
e window, two in his head, two in the driver’s.

  The three men in the Range Rover escorting the truck did not hear the shots, since the shooters used silencers. The Range Rover hit the same set of spikes on the road, but the driver did not stop. He swung the wagon into reverse, but not in time. The bullets that sprayed the Ranger Rover came from three automatic weapons, also with sound suppressors. The Range Rover kept backing up and fell off the road into a ditch. The shooters shot out its lights. Then they moved quickly, in two teams of two, to give each of the five men in the two vehicles a coup de grâce in the head. A third team, of three men, blew open the back door of the Bedford van with a small charge. Then they took one small black case, containing five special bottles. They left two other cases with similar content. They only needed five bottles.

  It had taken four minutes and then they were gone. The cars that had been blocking the road up ahead and behind, left quietly without ever seeing another vehicle. The Mercedes S-Class and the ambulance carrying the heisted material drove south to the N4 and then on to the airport at Midrand, where a medevac flight was waiting. The chartered Boeing Business Jet, a modified 737-800, took off with a “patient,” his family, his aides, and one small black case.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 24

  POLICY EVALUATION GROUP

  NAVY HILL, FOGGY BOTTOM

  WASHINGTON, DC

  The speakers on the server began playing the opening stanza of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It was a sound that Dugout did not want to hear. He had programmed that music to play when one of a handful of unwelcome events were observed by the scanners he had set up looking for key words in the flood of raw intelligence that the United States vacuumed up around the world, all day, every day.

  He walked to the monitor connected to that set of servers and woke up the screen. There were reports from South Africa: the police, security service, the Interior Minister’s office, the Prime Minister’s office. They all seemed to be about a hijacking or a robbery from a truck east of Pretoria. What had triggered the alert was the phone call to the Prime Minister’s office in which the Interior Minister had said the word “tritium.”