Guardian of Lies: A Paul Madriani Novel

by Steve Martini

  “Understood,” said Thorpe. So much for second-guessing the experts. “Good luck!”

  A few minutes ago, coming out of the truck with my back to Nitikin, I had no idea where I was. But for now my universe was the concrete curb a few feet from my face. It was the strangest sensation. Lying on the pavement under the truck, I thought about life and how short it might be as I heard muffled voices in the truck above me. I lifted my head and looked out between the two front tires. And there in front of me, like déjŕ vu, was the familiar image of a gate I had driven by a thousand times. Suddenly I realized I was home.

  The open chain-link gate and the small guardhouse a hundred yards beyond is one of the entrances to North Island, the naval base. It is less than a mile from my house. I can easily walk there. A little over a mile to the office. I look at my watch and realize that Harry is probably there now. Oh, God. The only saving grace is that Sarah, my daughter, is away at school.

  No doubt we all wonder from time to time what random thoughts will stream through our brains at the moment of death, but for me I have always known deep down that they would be memories of Sarah.

  “There!” said Alim. He nearly dropped the timing device as he pointed from the back of the open truck.

  Down the street, two blocks away, he saw the blue sedan coming this way.

  Alim looked down at the timing device and checked the clock. Still enough time, if they moved. They could get across the bridge and head south toward the border. He had already mapped out a surface street that would take them on a direct line to the building on this side of the border and the tunnel beneath. Even if they got only halfway, they would be well beyond the blast zone. Once inside the building and into the tunnel, nothing could touch them. Within days, Alim would be back in the Zagros Mountains of his homeland, a hero to his people.

  Alim turned once more expecting to see the blue sedan pulling up to the truck, but it wasn’t there. Now he could see it again, up the street. The idiots were backing the sedan into a parking space at the curb two blocks away. Were they blind? Couldn’t they see the truck? Afundi cursed out loud.

  “Jamal!” he hollered at the translator, who was standing guard outside the truck. The interpreter stuck his head in the open door.

  “Go get them. Tell them to drive the car down here, and hurry.”

  The translator took off running, all the speed he could muster with his stodgy middle-aged body.

  Alim checked the clock and his watch, then disconnected the lead wires. He didn’t bother to close up the wooden panel. Instead he quickly made his way to the door, jumped from the truck, and pulled the lift door down behind him. He sealed the latch and looked for the padlock, checked his pockets, and suddenly realized Jamal had been twirling it on his finger.

  By the time Alim turned to look, the translator was already a block away. He shook his head and raced up toward the cab. He opened the passenger door and grabbed his day pack. He pulled from behind the seat another larger sports bag that held an assault rifle, three clips of ammunition, and two bottles of water.

  He took a drink as he walked toward the rear of the truck with the two bags. The blue sedan hadn’t moved. And he could no longer see Jamal, either on the street or the sidewalk.

  Afundi shook his head, glanced at the unlocked latch on the back of the truck, and started moving as fast as he could down the sidewalk and toward the car.

  SIXTY-SIX

  I am sliding sideways under the truck so I can see down the sidewalk behind us when I realize we are alone. I can see him in the distance walking the other way, toting two bags over his shoulders.

  “Herman.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Slide out on your side. There’s nobody here. I think they’ve gone.”

  The three of us make our way out from under the truck on the left side. We stay low, moving toward the front of the truck so that if someone on the sidewalk looked back they wouldn’t see us.

  We wait until he is a block away and then race for the lift gate in the back. Herman throws the gate up as Maricela and I clamber aboard. Herman comes in behind us and lowers the gate, but not all the way.

  He holds it up a few inches, just enough for light to come in so Maricela and I can try and get her father free. He is shackled to a metal rail along the inside of the fiberglass box.

  Maricela removes the tape from his mouth and eyes as I try to figure out some way to release his hand from the metal rail.

  As soon as the gag is out of his mouth, he starts spitting instructions at his daughter in Spanish.

  “What’s he saying?” I ask Herman.

  She is arguing with him.

  “He wants her to go. He wants us all to leave now. He says to run as fast as we can.”

  I look down and see the open panel on the side of the wooden crate, get on my knees, and look inside. There is a green metal container, just a little smaller than the crate itself.

  “Ask him”—I look up at Maricela—“ask him if there’s any way to stop it.”

  Herman is looking around desperately for something to prop up the door with so he can help me.

  She says something to him and Nitikin responds with an answer that seems to take forever.

  “He says there’s a safety. A wire on the side of the metal box inside the crate. But he says it won’t do us any good. It will stop the big bomb, but the little explosion will kill us all anyway. He says we must leave now.”

  “There must be a way to stop it,” I tell her. “Ask him again. Tell him we’re not leaving until we stop it.”

  She speaks to him and they argue. He yells at her. She reaches up and pulls on his arms, trying to free his hands as tears run down her face. Suddenly he says something, a quieter and calmer voice this time as he looks over his shoulder at the crate behind him.

  “He says there’s a pipe sticking out of the metal box inside, near the top, in the front. It should have two wires coming out of it. Do you see it?”

  I look, but I can’t see a thing. It’s too dark inside the crate, especially with the lift gate down.

  “I need more light.”

  “Screw it,” says Herman. He throws the lift gate all the way up. Light streams in through the back of the truck. I see the two wires and then the black metal pipe. Dangling from the end of the wires is a small green circuit board not much bigger than a playing card.

  Alim wondered what was going on. He was halfway between the truck and the car and he still couldn’t see the two brothers anywhere. But Jamal was in the passenger seat looking down at something in his lap. Alim could see him even with the late-afternoon sun glinting off the car’s windshield.

  With the straps from the two heavy bags over his shoulders Afundi waved his arms in the air and signaled for the car to pick him up. But Jamal wasn’t looking. His attention was drawn to something else.

  At this rate, by the time Alim made it to the car, they would have to drive back to the truck to reset the timer in order to gain enough of a cushion to get away. As he thought about it, Afundi turned and glanced back over his shoulder at the truck, then turned back toward the waiting car. He was walking toward the sedan before the image in his brain registered. When it did, he stopped dead, turned around, and studied the back of the truck. The lift gate was up!

  Alim dropped both bags on the sidewalk, unzipped one, and pulled out the Kalashnikov along with two of the loaded clips. He pushed a clip up into the receiver, slapped it home, then cycled the bolt to chamber the first round. He left the folded stock closed knowing the gun would be easier to conceal.

  He tried to signal Jamal, who was still sitting in the passenger seat. It looked as if he was reading something. In his mind, Alim made a pledge to shoot the bastard and to take the heads of the two brothers with a sword at the first opportunity.

  “I think I see it.” I follow the wires with my eyes until they disappear beyond the end of the pipe.

  Nitikin tells his daughter something.

  “He says that’s the breech of the gun barrel. There is a cork żcómo se dic
e?” She says something in Spanish to her father. He corrects her.

  “He says it’s a plug,” she says. “The plug screws into the end of the barrel where the wires go in. Do you see it?”

  Herman comes over to the crate and moves around behind me to stay out of the light. He pulls on the tie-down rail holding Nitikin’s wrists to the wall, hoping to free him so the Russian can help me.

  I feel with my hand along the two thin wires until I find where they disappear into what feels like tiny holes in the threaded plug. The plug is screwed into the end of the barrel. The metal is warm to the touch. I don’t even want to ask what is causing the heat. With my fingernail I can feel about a quarter inch of exposed thread along the edge where the plug sits above the closed end of the barrel of the gun.

  “Yes. I can feel it,” I tell her.

  She relays this to her father, who is looking anxiously over his shoulder as Herman jerks on the steel rail, trying to free him.

  He says something else to her.

  “If you can unscrew the plug, he says you will be able to pull the wires, they will be attached to something I don’t understand the word he is using,” she says.

  “It’s a detonator.” Herman is jerking hard on the metal rail tie-down as he speaks. Then he stops for a second to catch his breath. “He says it’s an electronic detonator attached to a cordite charge. Which means it’s probably enough to take your hand off up to the elbow. ’Course if it goes off in the gun, you won’t have to worry about that.”

  “My father says that once the small explosive charge is removed the gun will no longer work. If we throw the small explosive out the door, no one will be hurt when it blows up.”

  I trace the wires back up to the end of the gun and feel the plug with my fingers once more. I touch the sharp edges of a hex head, like the hexagonal head on a bolt, only larger. If I had an expandable wrench I might be able to get a purchase on the plug and unscrew it. I try turning it with my fingers, but it won’t budge.

  The two small MH-6 Night Stalkers came in at two thousand feet with their blades running on whisper mode so that the sniper teams could reconnoiter the area around the truck.

  Using forward-looking infrared (FLIR), the “little birds” searched for warm bodies out in the clear and then zeroed in on the windows of the truck’s cab.

  They circled for two or three minutes, but the only heat signatures they picked up came from the box in the back where the thin fiberglass shell revealed four separate figures as well as a larger square inanimate object that seemed to be emitting heat. The object rested on the forward center section of the bed, up near the cab.

  As the snipers hovered in place, the larger Blackhawk put the NEST team down in the middle of an intersection cleared by the police. They dropped their duffel bags with their gear and asked one of the officers to load them into patrol cars and to follow them to the site. They took only their tool belts with the basic implements needed to get at the bomb. As soon as the empty bird lifted off, the next chopper, carrying the hostage rescue team, used the same controlled intersection and deposited the agents.

  Together the two teams jogged east down the street toward San Diego Bay and the box truck parked two blocks away.

  The snipers circling in the air overhead asked the NEST team about the wisdom of firing through the fiberglass shell of the truck’s back half.

  The answer came back in a flash, negative. Depending on the source of detonation and whether the people inside could trigger it, a loose round in the wrong place or a ricochet and they could set off the device.

  Alim folded the stock back on the Kalashnikov, unzipped the front of his overalls, and slipped the assault rifle inside to conceal it. He held it with his right hand by the pistol grip with one finger on the lever between safety and full automatic.

  Afundi moved to the other side of the street, into the shadows, and slowly walked back toward the truck. Halfway down the block he stopped and set up under some trees, behind a parked car.

  Because of the deep shadows inside the truck he couldn’t see far enough into the open back end to make out what was happening.

  Alim checked his watch and knew he was now at the point of no return. He either had to break and run for the car to get across the bridge at near-light speed, or take his chances on entering the truck to reset the timer. It was one or the other. The single certainty was that he couldn’t wait any longer.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Herman finally realizes that what he needs is leverage. He grabs the wooden panel from the side of the crate and looks at it. It is heavy, made of South American junk wood, something called Ipe, hard as iron and almost as strong.

  He slides the wooden panel up under the tie-down rail a few inches from where Nitikin’s hands are chained, puts his foot against the inside wall of the truck’s box, and lifts with all of his might. The washer and bolt holding the section of rail in place from the outside of the box pops through the fiberglass. Herman grabs the loose section of railing and bends it back. A second later Yakov is free.

  Maricela tries to grab her father to hug him. She wants to wipe the blood from the side of his face but instead the old man goes down on his knees and moves toward the opening in the crate.

  I get out of his way, figuring if anyone can do it, he can. I watch him as he stretches his arm to the end of the barrel and strains with his fingers to turn the breech plug. I can see the pain on his face as his fingers are rubbed raw by the metal.

  Herman drops from the back of the truck and runs around to see if there are any tools in the cab of the truck, but I hear him pulling on the doors. Both of them are locked. Next he starts pounding on the window trying to break it, but he can’t, at least not with his fists. A few seconds later he’s back in the truck shaking his head.

  “Lemme try,” he says.

  I tap Nitikin on the shoulder and point to Herman. We want to get the man with the brawn in there. The Russian backs out of the opening in the crate and Herman squeezes into it. He tries to turn the plug, but it’s frozen tight. None of us can get a grip on it or sufficient leverage to turn it.

  “Ask him what happens if we pull wires?” I say.

  Maricela puts the question to her father, who quickly shakes his head. I don’t have to wait for the translation. I can tell by the look on his face that this is not a good idea.

  “Be careful of wires,” I tell Herman.

  Just as Alim started to break cover to head for the truck, the ear-splitting rush of noise overhead sent him ducking back into the shadows under the trees. The helicopter streaked through the sky, cut an arc directly over the truck, and proceeded on a direct course toward the naval carrier.

  For a second Afundi thought it was probably just part of the festivities in the harbor, but a moment later a man in black combat gear with a rifle rushed from in front of a house a few doors down. Another broke cover farther on. They both approached the truck from the same side. Suddenly another helicopter moved in and hovered overhead no more than fifty yards in front of Afundi’s position. The sound of the rotors and whine of the turbine engine drowned out every other noise. It also gave Alim just the opening he needed.

  He pulled the rifle from his overalls, unfolded the stock, and pushed the safety lever all the way down, setting up for single shots. Alim took careful aim and squeezed off a round. He watched as one of the men in black fell to the ground ten feet out from the truck. Quickly he moved the muzzle and acquired another target and faster than he could think he dropped it.

  The noise of the helicopter and the beat of its rotors lay like a blanket over the sound of Alim’s shots as he picked off two more. By now the pavement behind the truck was littered with bodies.

  “Where is it coming from?” one of the snipers asked.

  “I don’t know.” They were baffled. “It could be coming from the back of the truck.” The element of surprise was gone and so was the initiative. The order was given to pull back and a few seconds later the helicopter dipped its rotors and disappeared out over the bay.

&
nbsp; As I watch a guy in military gear go down just beyond the open door to the truck, I think he has tripped. But as I stand and look, I notice that he isn’t moving. When I see the other two go down, I know someone is shooting but we can’t hear them because of the noise of the helicopter.

  Maricela sees what is happening and starts toward the door. I grab her and pull her back.

  Behind me Nitikin is shaking his head. Then Herman comes out from inside the crate.

  “No use,” he hollers. “We need something to turn it.”

  I put Maricela’s back against the inside wall and tell her to stay there, not to move. Her dad comes up to take care of her, and I join Herman by the open crate.

  “Any ideas?” I say.

  “No.” I can see the fear in Herman’s eyes. The only saving aspect is that when it happens, it is likely to be so quick that none of us will even feel a thing. If I had a phone at this moment, I would call Sarah and say good-bye.

  Suddenly the roar of the helicopter is gone and all I hear is the plaintive cry of Maricela as she calls my name. By the time I turn and look she is pointing out the back of the truck toward her father, who is outside on the ground running.

  I scurry across the bed of the truck on my hands and knees until I land flat on my stomach at the open door. Trying to present the smallest target possible, I watch as the Russian reaches one of the bodies prostrate on the pavement behind the truck. He bends over, fumbling with something on the man’s belt.

  “Target acquired. Do I have a green light?”

  “Take him out,” said Thorpe.

  The sniper squeezed the trigger. The recoil rocked his shoulder as the bullet sliced through the air.

  When he rises back up and turns to face me, I can finally see what it is that he has in his hand. Nitikin starts to run back toward us. He takes two long strides. His eyes connect with his daughter as his upthrust hand releases the heavy item, tossing it toward the bed of the truck. Just as he does it, the bullet rips through his upper body, sending a cloud of crimson mist out the front of his chest.