Targets of Opportunity

by Jeffrey S. Stephens

  Sandor was still wearing the SEAL helmet, his headphones now constantly ringing with the various voices that were on the call, a headache in the making when he needed a clear mind. He stepped ahead of the others as they made their way to the end of the pier.

  “Gentlemen,” he broke in, his voice loud and firm over the microphone, “with all due respect I would appreciate it if you would all shut the hell up right now except for Captain Krause. We’re in the middle of trying to resolve this crisis and you’ll just have to stay tuned for results. Sir?”

  “Go ahead,” the CO said.

  “I’ve got Major Formanek and Captain Franz heading the team to disable these nukes. I need a straight answer sir. Am I dealing with the best available technicians?”

  There was silence on the line for a moment. Then Krause said, “Let me get this straight. You’re in the middle of a hurricane with fifteen minutes to go before your ass winds up in the center of a nuclear explosion, and you want to know if there’s a more qualified group to handle this situation?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

  “You’ve got balls, son, I’ll give you that, so let me set you straight. If the sun was shining and I had two days to put a group together, I’d still want Carol Franz leading the charge. You copy that?”

  For the second time that day, Krause made him smile. “Copy that, and thank you, captain.”

  Sandor turned back to the river, where two Coast Guard boats awaited. He looked to Formanek, Franz, and the other six members of their squad. “So, we need to jump in these speedboats, corral the pods while they’re still running downstream, then disarm them both. That’s the plan?”

  “That’s the plan,” the major agreed.

  “All right, anyone not absolutely necessary to the mission should get the hell out of here now. We have no idea what’s really in these floating coffins, but let’s put as few people directly in harm’s way as we need to.”

  “We’re all necessary,” Captain Franz told him.

  “We have two of the terrorists, both have been shot, any chance they might be helpful to have along?”

  “Highly doubtful,” Franz said. “There’s still the chance they’re willing to die for this cause, whatever it is, and so they may lie to us or slow us down. I’d rather we rely on our own team,” she said.

  “All right then,” Sandor agreed, “let’s move out,” and they jumped into two waiting speedboats and took off upriver.

  ————

  It took less than two minutes for them to reach the Coast Guard cruisers that were heading south as escorts alongside the two bombs. The pods had been set to track slowly, actually fighting the current so the detonation of the nuclear devices would occur as close to the refinery as possible while giving the terrorists time to get away in their truck.

  Sandor was on the boat with Captain Franz, Major Formanek in charge of the other.

  “If they’re on timers we can’t waste another moment,” Franz told her squad. “From what we know, it’s unlikely that any sort of triggering mechanism is tied to the hatches. The men involved had neither the time nor the expertise to rig that, would you agree, Agent Sandor?”

  He nodded, for an instant trying to recall the last time someone had referred to him as “Agent Sandor.”

  “You agree, major?” she asked into her headset.

  Formanek gave the thumbs-up from across the way.

  “If we’re wrong,” she went on, “it could be a disaster, but I think it would be worse to lose the opportunity to disarm these weapons because we allowed the clock to run out on us while we tried to figure a safer way to get inside the pods.”

  “It’s your show now,” Sandor told her.

  Each of their boats was fitted with a large netting device that could be employed for various purposes. Today they would be used to haul in the fiberglass encasements, allowing the technicians to work on them as they continued to run alongside the USCG vessels. This way they did not have to interfere with the programmed navigation systems in case they were somehow part of a triggering device. With long, expandable aluminum rods, the nets were extended to corral the pods and secure them while still moving downstream.

  The maneuver was fairly simple and within less than two minutes each pod was drawn next to the railing of the boats. The two teams immediately went to work, Franz leading the way to open one, Formanek the other.

  The captain had been correct: unbolting the hatches did not ignite any sort of defensive device. Once they got inside, however, the real danger began.

  “You were right,” Captain Franz reported to Sandor. “There’s a digital display and it shows there’s not more than ten minutes still remaining here.”

  “And mine,” the major reported from the other boat.

  “The problem is that the timer appears to have been set with an acceleration device.” She looked across at Formanek, speaking into her headset. “Is that what you get sir?”

  “Affirmative,” Formanek replied.

  “Which means,” Sandor said as he peered over her shoulder at the interior of the gray fiberglass shell, “any attempt to disarm the mechanism…”

  “Is designed to bypass the timer and set it off.” She finished the thought.

  “How do you work around that?”

  Franz and two of her men already had their heads and hands inside the pod now. “The nuclear device is fairly antiquated,” she explained, “appears to be an old Soviet RA-115. But the timer is modern, digital and hardwired on a circuit board. No red or green wire to clip here.” She turned around and looked up at Sandor. “So, if you can’t take a chance playing with the trigger, it’s time to unload the gun.”

  Sandor’s earphones suddenly filled with a battery of questions, one voice atop another from Washington, until he again reminded all of them to pipe down and wait until he had an update. Captain Franz and Major Formanek, meanwhile, agreed that there was no room inside the pod for anyone to enter and work on the nuclear weapons that way, and there was no way to get them on land with enough time to tackle the problem from there. Without wasting another moment, Franz pulled off her helmet, took a couple of hand tools from her kit, and had two of the men grab her by the ankles and lower her, head down, into the pod. Formanek did the same with his team.

  All the while the rain pelted them, the winds rocked the small craft, and they continued their inexorable path downriver. Sandor tried to stay out of the way, but he could not resist inching forward to see what progress, if any, she was making.

  After a couple of tense minutes hanging over the edge of the boat into the fiberglass shell, Franz said, “Weapons-grade plutonium.”

  One of the young members of her team glanced at Sandor. “The radioactivity exists,” he explained, “but until it’s detonated it poses no real danger.”

  “I understand weapons-grade plutonium,” Sandor replied. “If we all don’t get blown to smithereens, at least we don’t have to worry about glowing in the dark afterward.”

  No one laughed.

  Captain Franz asked for a ratchet wrench, 24 mm. They handed it down to her and, after another few minutes, she said, “I think I’ve got it. Tell the major to try twenty-four millimeters on the interior plate.”

  The information was promptly conveyed to the other boat.

  Then, a few moments later, she said, “I’ve got it open. Now pull me up. And slowly.”

  They did so and, as she emerged, she was holding a sphere in her hands, smaller than a soccer ball and appearing as harmless as that. They helped her to her feet as she continued to cradle the destructive orb in her hands. “Open the box,” she ordered, and carefully placed the plutonium into a lead-lined case on the deck, then grabbed a headphone from one of the men. “How far has the major gotten?”

  When one of the team on the other boat told her he was still working on his, she took a quick check of the time. Sandor did as well, and saw there was less than three minutes left.

  “Ask the major if he
wants my help.”

  “That’s a negative,” she was told. “He’s almost there.”

  Franz turned to Sandor and the others, saying, “This device is still live, although it’s no longer nuclear. There are explosive components designed to detonate the nuclear blast. We need to release this pod and let it run downstream. We can detonate the charge ourselves at that point by firing at it, or let it blow itself up. Either way we need to get it away from this boat.”

  Sandor was impressed at her calm demeanor and the way she delivered the information, especially since they were only a couple of minutes from being incinerated. As Franz’s team went to work to unhook the pod from their cruiser, Sandor had a look across the water. He could see that Formanek was still facedown in the fiberglass shell.

  “Is he going to make it?”

  Franz glanced at the other boat. “He’ll make it,” she said.

  Another anxious minute passed. Captain Franz’s team had cut their pod loose and it was already proceeding down current as their boat made a turn back upriver. They stood at the railing, watching anxiously until they finally saw Formanek being raised out of the fiberglass shell holding the plutonium.

  Only at that moment did Sandor sense the slightest panic in Franz’s demeanor.

  She was clutching at her headset and, as soon as she saw the major get to his feet, she was barking orders over the line.

  “The device is still live, repeat, the device is still live. Secure the nuclear fuel and cut the pod loose. Repeat, cut the pod loose and reverse course. Sir, do you read me?”

  “Roger that,” came the reply but at the same moment the passengers on Sandor’s vessel witnessed the first pod, the one they had sent floating free downriver, ignite.

  It was not a large explosion, nor, in the midst of this hurricane, was it particularly loud. Their boat had already motored upriver far enough to create a safe distance but, before Formanek’s team had the chance to fully release their pod and get clear of it, the device in their pod erupted.

  As the second pod detonated, it spewed flames into the air and showered burning fragments across Formanek’s small craft. In an instant the boat’s fuel line caught fire, and the sky was suddenly filled with fire and debris and, even amid hurricane winds, the screams of pain and horror could be heard.

  The two USCG Defenders that had first encountered the pods, one of which now carried Tom Martindale, were holding their position north of where Sandor stood beside Captain Franz as they helplessly watched the fire rage upward into the pouring rain. They now gave full throttle to both outboards and took off toward the burning speedboat. Captain Franz also gave the order to move into position to assist.

  All three boats swiftly came to the aid of their stricken mates, but it was too late. Major Formanek and the two sailors who had held on to him as he prevented a nuclear catastrophe paid the highest price of heroism. They were closest to the pod and now all three were dead. The others aboard were injured in the explosion and ensuing fire.

  Captain Franz wept openly, as did the men on her team.

  In the haze of smoke and noise and tears and drenching rain, Sandor could not bear the cacophony of voices that filled his headset. He pulled off his helmet, tossed it into the river, then stared across the water at Tom Martindale, sharing that moment of ineffable sorrow that always comes after intense combat and the inevitability of death. They had ridden to the precipice of massive catastrophe and successfully faced it down, but now they were left to confront the personal tragedies that follow in the wake of the grotesque actions visited on this world by those who traffic in evil. No one who has not experienced the horror of battle can ever understand that moment, no one who has not engaged the enemy can feel that pain.

  All they could do was nod to each other. Then Sandor turned away, sat on a bench off to the side, held his face in his hands, and wondered again what needed to be done to put an end to all of this.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

  THE SURVIVING MEN and women were evacuated from the horrific scene on the Mississippi and whisked off to Baton Rouge General. An excellent hospital, it was fortunately close enough so that ambulances and military vehicles could transport all of the wounded there quickly and without the need to risk helicopter flight. As Hurricane Charlene continued to intensify, the latter was not a viable option.

  Baton Rouge General features a burn center that is one of the finest such facilities in the South. Its state-of-the-art capabilities would be tested as the twelve-bed unit suddenly found itself crowded beyond capacity.

  The others were left at the refinery to sort out what had just occurred—and what had almost occurred. Back on land Sandor assisted Captain Franz as she organized a cleanup operation. They were in possession of two containers holding weapons-grade plutonium, the remnants of the two fiberglass pods, and the two wounded prisoners. Military personnel appeared in force now to take control and, once matters were put in a semblance of order, Franz stepped away for a moment and found Sandor standing off to the side, soaking wet and staring out at the rainstorm.

  Her eyes were still rimmed with red, bearing that vacant look that Sandor had seen too many times. “If you hadn’t found that truck in time…” She hesitated. “What would have happened is unimaginable.”

  “Unfortunately, in my line of work the unimaginable is very much the reality, captain.”

  She nodded slowly. “You saved so many lives here today.” She wanted to express her gratitude, to say something else, but her voice trailed off.

  “I know,” Jordan said in a soothing voice. “But we couldn’t save everyone.”

  Her eyes welled up again.

  “You did a great job today. And so did Major Formanek.”

  She drew an uneven breath. “Yes, I guess we all did.”

  ————

  Sandor was shown to an office in the refinery administration building. He called CENTCOM and was promptly tied into Captain Krause as well as the team in the SitRoom at the White House. He made his report, and the group in Washington was obviously elated at the news.

  “We lost some good men and women today,” Krause broke in.

  “Of course,” the man from NSA replied, “but those men and women helped avert a major catastrophe.”

  “Pieces on a chessboard,” Krause muttered. Sandor heard him and responded with a grim smile. The others did not make out what he said, or pretended not to.

  “Gentlemen, I still have two prisoners down here,” Sandor reminded them, “and I think they may have a thing or two to tell us.”

  “Sandor, Walsh here,” the Director of Central Intelligence said. “You need to get those men up here straightaway.”

  Sandor stared out the window again and shook his head. The gale was blowing the rain sideways and he suddenly realized he was drenched from head to toe. “Well, sir, I could start driving north and probably make it back in a couple of days. Maybe I can stop over in Busch Gardens and show them the sights.”

  Sandor could picture the grimace on the DCI’s face as he replied. “We understand you’re in the midst of a hurricane.”

  “That would be affirmative, sir. I think it would make sense if we secure the hostiles on premises until this blows by, then perhaps Captain Krause could arrange transportation for us out of Corpus Christi.”

  “I’ll send a chopper for you as soon as we can get one safely in the air,” Krause told him.

  “All right,” Walsh agreed. “You keep them under lock and key for now. You have military on premises.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well use them.” He paused. “With Captain Krause’s cooperation, of course.”

  “At your disposal,” the Navy man told the bureaucrat, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “And Sandor,” Walsh added, “don’t engage in any of your unique interrogation methods in the meantime.”

  Sandor almost laughed, knowing the DCI was in a room full of Washington toadies. “Oh c
ome on, sir, just a little torture?”

  Before Walsh could ream him out, Sandor heard chairs and people moving, followed by the familiar voice of President Forest as it came booming over the line.

  “Just got back down here, my NSA briefed me. Good job, Sandor.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “When you get back here I’ll want to hear all the details. And I’ll want them directly from you, you got that?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “And Sandor.”

  “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “I heard that last comment you made.”

  “I apologize, sir.”

  “No apology required, son. You’re in charge down there, and you have my full confidence, all right?”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  PANMUNJOM, DEMILITARIZED ZONE BETWEEN NORTH KOREA AND SOUTH KOREA

  KIM’S GOVERNMENT WOULD not agree to an exchange of prisoners inside the United States. They resented any implication of wrongdoing on their part or that of their minister, Hwang Hyun-Su. They claimed his kidnapping was an unprovoked violation of international law and they would not sanitize the barbaric actions of the United States by having him released to them in Washington, D.C. There should not even be an exchange, they insisted, since he was entitled to diplomatic immunity and should be returned to his country as a matter of course. They also categorically denied any involvement in an attempt to sabotage the refineries in Baytown and Baton Rouge, which attacks were not officially reported or confirmed by Washington.

  James Bergenn and Craig Raabe were quite another matter, according to the emissary from Pyongyang. They were Americans who had posed as Canadian citizens, entered North Korea under false pretenses, wreaked havoc on the peaceful people of the Great Leader’s nation, and committed any number of capital crimes. They were spies and subject to the death penalty.

  The White House saw things a bit differently.