“A diversion?” said Doc, getting up.
“Definitely a diversion,” I said. “The question is, for what?”
“Hey, Dick — nothing’s exploding when these things land,” said Shotgun.
“They’re firecrackers,” explained Doc. “Big ol’ firecrackers. A lot of boom and flash, not much else.”
More likely they were training rounds, or maybe specially prepared pyrotechnics, but Doc was in the right neighborhood.
“What’s their plan?” asked Shotgun.
“Let’s look at the effect,” I said. “They fire mortar rounds into the middle of the compound. Everyone there takes shelter.”
“Except us,” said Shotgun.
“We’re not here. We don’t count.”
I scanned the area between the buildings.
“There should be a team running right across here,” I told the others. “Any second now.”
We waited a minute. I could hear gunfire coming from the eastern side of the complex.
It didn’t sound like blanks.
“Maybe they’re already inside,” said Shotgun. “Maybe they snuck in like us, and this is the signal for them to attack.”
“It could be,” I said.
“Or maybe they infiltrated the guard force,” said Doc. “And they’re working on the fuse to one of those bombs. Now if there was a nuclear explosion in the middle of all those weapons…”
He didn’t finish his sentence. He was too busy trying to catch up to Shotgun and myself as we clambered down to the ground and headed to the nuke armory.
* * *
Three black-clad maniacs who look like avenging angels and smell like creatures from the underworld burst through the front door of a heavily guarded armory shouting. What would you do?
If you were assigned to protect the nukes, you’d shoot first and ask questions when those assholes were good and cold. And if you were the bad guys, you’d shoot first and skip the questions. So there was no way we were going in the front door or the side one I passed as I ran toward the back of the building.
The guards who’d been outside had gone back in as soon as the shelling started, buttoning up so they weren’t hit by shrapnel. Obviously I couldn’t see them, but I’m guessing they were crouched a few feet from the portals, fingers all too heavy on their triggers, waiting for someone to come crashing against the door.
“Up to the roof,” I said, grabbing on to the metal drainpipe that ran down the back corner of the building. “Doc after me, then Shotgun.”
“Don’t worry,” said Shotgun. “I’ll cover you guys.”
I wasn’t worried about us getting picked off — the compound was still empty, and was likely to remain so as the barrage continued. The metal drainpipe didn’t seem all that sturdy, and I thought Shotgun’s weight might be too heavy for it. But it stayed in place as he climbed up after us.
From the ground, the windows that ran in the rectangular cupola above the first roof looked barely taller than a cigarette carton. But they were nearly six feet tall.
Unfortunately they were mostly dirty as well, the glass thick with years of exhaled crud. Breaking them would alert whoever was inside that we were here, so I took out my knife and worked it gently against the frames, trying to find one that wasn’t locked or would give way easily. I tried four or five before realizing that the panes actually swung upward rather than sideways.
Duh.
Once I knew that, they were easy to open. I picked a pane from the back of the building, reasoning it was not a likely place for anyone to be looking, then opened it and leaned in.
I thought I’d have an unobstructed view of the interior of the building, but that wasn’t the case. A metal framework ran directly below the long cupola. It was a raceway for the hoists and chains used to move the bombs and other equipment around. It was just wide enough and close enough to the ceiling to keep me from seeing much of the floor below.
But what hid the floor would also hide me.
“I’m going inside,” I told the others. “Quiet. And remember, even the good guys are going to think we’re not on their side.”
Doc grunted.
I slipped down through the window, swinging my legs toward the centerline of the roof to make sure I landed on the runway. It was only six or seven feet from the peak of the roof, but I couldn’t afford to miss.
The grating shook when I landed, but not as much as I expected. It was supported by heavy rods inserted into the roof members every four feet.
Crouching down on the gridwork, I moved over to the edge and took a peak. The room was lit by a few lights from above, a yellowish cast flowing toward the floor.
The nuclear caskets were arrayed along the back two-thirds of the room. Aside from the bombs and some machinery used to move them around, the space was empty. A set of walls and partitions at the front separated the room from the forward part of the building. Some of this space was covered with ceilings, I imagine for offices. The forward area nearest the front was open; I peered down and saw the guards hunkered behind sandbags, heads forward, no doubt waiting for an attack.
I made my way back toward the window. I was debating whether the guards might be stationed in a corner I couldn’t see when I heard something fall below. I leaned over and saw a man in a pair of coveralls pick up some sort of tool from the floor near the middle of the room. Another man stood a few feet away, shaking his head. They’d either been in the shadows when I’d come in or entered through one of the doors on the side, which connected to a hallway of offices flanking the center of the building. They moved to one of the stacked caskets, attached it to a chain, then started up a winch.
“Shotgun,” I whispered through the window, “come down here, quietly.”
Shotgun eased in through the window. He was just tall enough to let himself down without jumping.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I pointed out the two men. They’d pulled the crate off the other and set it down on the ground. They were unscrewing the locks — they looked like large T handles — getting ready to open it.
“Think they’re going to blow it up?” Shotgun asked. “Or steal it?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say they were going to blow it up. Come on.”
I led him all the way to the back, where several rows of chains hung down to the floor.
“Why don’t we just shoot ’em?” asked Shotgun.
“Because we don’t know what they’re doing,” I said. “And we might miss.”
“Doc says the bombs can’t go off.”
“Is Doc a nuclear scientist?”
“Uh — ”
“Let’s go, Guns.” I started climbing down. “It’s a rhetorical question.”
“I knew that.”
Once we were about halfway down, we could no longer be seen from where the men were working. They were talking to each other in a kind of hushed whisper, but it was in Hindi or Urdu and neither Shotgun nor I could figure out what they were saying. I circled around the back end of the stacks, then moved up the side along the wall. Along the way I spotted a fire extinguisher and grabbed it. Shotgun took the next one.
We crept through the rows of caskets, angling in the direction where the men were. They’d stopped talking, but the hoist they’d used was still overhead, so it was easy to gauge their location. Finally we got to within five yards of them, at the corner of one of the large caskets across from where they were working.
They had removed the top part of the crate, exposing what looked like a black garbage pail. The front skin of the garbage pail had been stripped away, and I could see some wires and circuit boards beneath the metal frame. The men were bent over, examining what looked like a small oscilloscope they’d perched atop the body of the warhead.
They glanced over at the bomb, looked back at the scope, adjusted something on the bomb, and then started the whole process over again.
I turned to Shotgun. “You’re left. I’m right.”
I p
ulled the pin to the extinguisher and sprung to my feet. I hit the trigger on my third step.
The blast from the fire extinguisher was so fierce it knocked both of the men over, and caught me off balance as well. I stumbled, but stayed upright, dousing both men with the powder from the extinguisher.
Shotgun was right behind me. He gave a short burst, then put his extinguisher to more practical use, slamming the body into the head of one of the men as he started to rise. The other man threw up his hands in surrender.
We hadn’t been exactly quiet, and I expected the guards from the front to come running in. But they didn’t. It’s possible they didn’t hear us, but my theory is that they were so focused on the direction they thought the threat would be coming from that they were oblivious to everything else.
“Up,” I told the other man, dropping my fire extinguisher. I pulled my MP5 from off my shoulder. “Stand over there, away from the warhead.”
The man complied, hands trembling. Shotgun, meanwhile, pulled the other man away, sitting him up against the top of the crate. He was out cold.
“Who are you?” I said to the man who’d surrendered. “And what are you doing?”
“Bhavata,” he said. “I am a technician.”
“With India for Islam?”
“Islam?”
“You’re a terrorist.”
“No, no. No terrorist. No.”
He started to reach into this coverall. I put my foot against his chest quickly, stopping him.
“Shotgun, check what he’s fishing for,” I said.
It was ID, showing that Mr. Bhavata was a member of the Indian Nuclear Commission.
“I am making sure the weapon is safed,” he said.
“Is it?”
“Yes.” He nodded quickly. “We had four more to check. We had planned to do them tomorrow, but now with the attack we had to hurry.”
A likely story.
* * *
But it turned out to be true.
I used my satellite phone to call the nuclear ministry, and when I finally got someone — it took more than a half hour — I confirmed that the two workers were indeed legitimate employees, and were assigned to the storage project. That of course told me almost nothing, but a call to my friend at State got me connected with the security supervisor.
“Why are you implying that we are endangering our country?” he said, pretty damn huffily. “Where are you coming from?”
His tone pissed me off.
“I’m not coming from anywhere. I’m sitting in the middle of your family jewels. I suggest you get over here before somebody else figures out how to get around your guards.”
Consternation followed. There was the usual spitting and empty threats. The building was surrounded and a SWAT team moved in.
It was all very amusing, or would have been if we’d stayed to watch. By that time the mortar shells and gunfire on the perimeter had ended, and I figured that our energy could be put to better use elsewhere — say, at the fancy Irish bar at our fancy hotel.
After securing the workers just in case, Shotgun and I climbed up to the roof while Doc went around and got the truck. We drove out the front gate just as the first SWAT team vehicle responded.
We blinked our headlights as a salute and headed into the city.
( III )
Out in the Indian Ocean, Mongoose was scrambling up the side of the Chinese container ship, doing his best to ignore the increasing list to starboard. His plan was simple: he’d climb up, drop one of the life rafts into the water, and look for Junior.
It was a decent, workable plan, and remained viable even as explosions began tearing the bow to pieces. The rapid movement of the aft end in the direction of heaven was not a positive sign, however.
Mongoose pressed on with a perseverance born in BUDS, and a stubbornness Douglas MacArthur would have admired. He walked up the side of the ship, bending forward and moving sideways, even as it began to roll under him. The ship leaned so badly that by the time he reached the rail, he was practically horizontal. The metal was making loud groaning noises, grunting as it worked to tear itself apart.
Mongoose was just considering how to alter his plan when he heard the blare of a horn behind him. It sounded like the horn of a diesel train, and he thought at first that he was having an aural hallucination.
He ignored it, trying to climb along the rail toward the stern that was now rising like an eighteen-year-old’s erection. It wasn’t until a flare shot overhead that he glanced over his shoulder and saw a boat in the water behind him.
Not just any boat. It was one of the Tiger boats. Junior was at the helm, loading the flare gun for a second shot.
Mongoose literally ran off the side of the sinking ship and jumped into his arms, knocking him to the deck of the heavily modded speedboat. They got up, cranked the engine, and headed away, barely escaping the giant suck that followed the sinking of the ship.
* * *
WTF? How did Junior do it?
About a quarter of a second after Junior grabbed on to the wheel of the helicopter, he realized he’d made a serious mistake.
It was a bit too late to back out. The helicopter swept aft, over the deck of the ship, just barely missing the bridge as it veered over the port side and banked westward. Junior decided that his only real option was to keep going — climb up the wheel strut and force his way into the cabin.
There’s no question in his mind that he would have made it. There’s no question in mine that he wouldn’t’ve. But the point is moot, because Murphy stepped in, prying Junior’s fingers off the slippery wheel strut as it began folding upward.
Oh, you don’t believe it was Murphy? You think Junior just slipped? Or maybe just got tired?
I’d be inclined to agree, were it not for what happened next. As Junior began to fall, he glanced down, worrying about how hard the waves were going to be.
To his left, he saw the Tiger boat they had set adrift earlier.
A hundred-to-one shot? More luck than anyone has a right to experience? Or just very good planning?
Take your pick. All I can say is that Murphy works in mysterious ways.
One of Newton’s Laws of Motion dictates that once in motion, a body tends to stay in motion, until acted on by another power. In Junior’s case, the other power was gravity and water, which smacked him for being so foolish. He got a good smack on the seat of his brains, and took a bit of salt water into his nose for good measure. He surfaced, shook his head, then turned around just in time to avoid being clocked by the hull of the Tiger boat. He worked his way around to the side and climbed aboard.
Better to be lucky than smart: a motto to live by.
* * *
The Indian navy had sent two destroyers out on a quote routine end quote patrol. One of those destroyers just happened to be close enough to see the fire from the cargo container ship and rushed forward to its aid. It arrived too late to prevent it from sinking — not that it could have in the first place — but did manage to save most of the crew. Meanwhile, a helicopter from the other destroyer and several jets from a shore base caught up to the helo Junior had jumped from and offered the pilot a choice — instant, fiery death, or a nice warm bed in the clink.
* * *
The pilot,31 to much surprise, turned back toward shore.
So where was it and its companion, which never got off the ship, headed?
It’s hard to be sure, but a pair of Chinese navy vessels were sailing about 150 miles to the west — less than an hour’s flight time for the Ahi. They would seem to have been the logical destination. Interestingly enough, when a helicopter from one of the Indian vessels flew in the ships’ direction, the helicopter decks on the ships’ fantails lit up.
The Indian helo hailed the Chinese ships, asking if they were conducting nighttime operations. The lights went off, and the ships changed direction, heading farther west.
A coincidence, I’m sure.
“What an incredible turn of luck,” s
aid Admiral Yamuna when we talked later that morning on the phone. “We managed to recover one of the stolen helicopters. And we are reasonably sure that the other will not fall into our enemy’s hands.”
“Well, that is lucky,” I said.
“We found one of our little Tiger boats out to sea,” he added. “Apparently it slipped from its berth and the tide pushed it out into the ocean.”
“Amazing.”
“The other was right where it belonged. And a funny thing — its tanks were filled to the rim. The day before, only halfway.”
Always return the car with a full tank — somebody taught those kids well.
“Just one piece of luck after another,” I said.
“I hear you have had some luck as well,” added the admiral. “I understand the al Qaeda tried to strike an important base last night. You broke it up.”
Well, not exactly, but I saw no point in correcting him.
“This Mr. Murphy you always speak of,” added Admiral Yamuna. “He is not interfering with you much of late. Maybe he is losing his punch.”
* * *
Ol’ Murph was still throwing monkey wrenches left and right, but I wasn’t about to tempt fate by saying anything on the subject.
Recovering the helicopter made the Indian navy the hero of the day, but I wasn’t doing too poorly myself. In fact, I was getting incredibly positive spin from the press following the adventures out at the armory. Which was a bit of a puzzle.
Even before I’d managed to soap away the last of the sewage stain from my toes, the story was circulating inside the Indian government that I had personally stopped a team of terrorists from detonating a warhead. Not the worst thing that’s ever been said about me behind my back, I’m sure. But given how far it deviated from reality, and how quickly it began circulating, it was pretty damn interesting.
Even Omar brought it up. In fact, he delivered the official American version in person.
Following our return to the swanky hotel and requisite steam bath to remove all external toxins, the three of us headed to Dublin — the pub, not the city — to restore our internal stasis with assorted medicinal elixirs. We’d just ordered our second round when Omar loomed around the corner.
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