Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

Lee Dawn finally nodded, acknowledging her lieutenant’s plea, but she continued to reload her Glock 9mm.

  “We have to retreat—now!” Sun Rey repeated, the desperation strong in his voice.

  Lee Dawn glanced at the little Montengard.

  “What about the prisoners?” she asked.

  “Kill them. We can’t take them with us,” Rey replied, his voice dead flat.

  “No. Not yet,” she said, answering her own question. “Maybe later, but right now they may prove useful if we have to bargain our way free.”

  Another spray of automatic weapons fire shredded the deep blue silk drapes, hanging incongruously from the large, now glassless window. From somewhere in the back of Lee Dawn’s mind an odd image emerged into her consciousness. An image of her as a little girl, giggling as she hid behind those drapes, playing a game of hide-and-seek with her father. He would pretend not to hear her, then suddenly sweep her up, tickle her belly, kiss her neck until she laughed herself out and pled for mercy.

  Lee Dawn suddenly leapt from behind the table and scuttled across the gleaming parquet floor, cutting her hands badly on the glass shards as she crawled. She made it safely to the lanai door, leaving bloody handprints. As she started out onto the stone terrace, she glanced back over her shoulder. Flames were licking through the tower door. This part of the castle would be gone in a few minutes.

  “Are you coming?” she called to Rey, but he was already crawling after her.

  Only a half dozen of the Montengards were mustered to retreat, forming a group around Lee Dawn as they gathered on the terrace. The wounded and dead would have to be left where they lay. They herded the prisoners together and then drove them down a winding stone staircase that led from the terrace and into the dense underbrush that hugged the castle’s lower rock walls. They forced the young people, the American, the yellow-haired man, through the tangled growth. One of the Montengards tried to hack a path for them until it finally thinned enough to allow them to begin climbing up the mountain, the direction from which the attack party had recently come.

  Lee Dawn knew it was a desperate gamble to flee rather than stay and try to fight their way out of this, but maybe they could get far enough away in the confusion and smoke that they could lose Sui Kia Shun’s men in the trackless jungle. There they could hide until the darkness gave them better cover, then scurry away like so many nocturnal rodents. She knew that was their only hope to live to fight again.

  Lee Dawn knew something else. This would be a game of hide-and-seek with far worse consequences for its losers than the childhood games she had once-upon-a-time played with her father.

  The sun was just clearing the horizon, a blood red orb promising another day of unrelenting, scorching heat out here in the Saudi desert. The road stretched to the horizon, an undulating, black ribbon transecting the gray-brown, sandy, rocky wasteland from west to east, tracing the route of caravans that had traversed this godforsaken territory for centuries. The five U. S. Navy SEALs lay just behind a sand ridge, only about twenty meters from the highway.

  “Now what?” Joe Dumkowski grumbled. “I don’t see our limo waiting.”

  “I suggest we hijack a beer truck if we’re gonna stop anything,” Mitch Cantrell added.

  Their team leader, Brad Walker, sucked on his Camelbak water bag, taking a quick swallow before he responded to his team’s jibes.

  “Dumkowski, the way I figure it, this is the road from Jiddah to Mecca. Ain’t no way those North Koreans can get that nuke there by truck, unless they come by here. We park our tired, sweaty asses right about here and wait for them to come to us.” The SEAL lieutenant wiped his dry lips with the back of his hand then pointed to a rock outcropping five hundred meters to the west and only ten meters from the road. “Cantrell, you take that gamma detector and hunker down by that rock. That nuke coming by should trigger the detector with no trouble. You give us a holler, then close the back door.”

  Mitch Cantrell nodded and pulled his backpack off. He rummaged in one of the side pockets for a bit before emerging with a yellow box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. At one end, a fine metal grid protected a thin, very sensitive wafer of gallium-arsenide. The wafer was tuned to sense gamma energy in the spectra given off by a nuclear weapon. A small LCD display on top gave Cantrell the read-out he needed, showing that it was functioning properly.

  Cantrell slipped down the back of the slope and moved in a large loop around to the rocky outcropping. It wouldn’t do for the SEAL to be out in the open, halfway there, should a truck come barreling over the crest.

  “Martinelli, you and Dumkowski set up shop here. Take the M240 and that AT-4. Give us cover fire. Broughton and I are going to be in a couple of hide holes down by the road. When Cantrell gives us the sign, we’ll stop the truck. If it gets by us, you take it out.” He grabbed the young SEAL by his shoulder and looked him squarely in the face. “Remember, that truck must be stopped, no matter what. Understood?”

  Walker liked the look in the young warrior’s eyes as he nodded back.

  The heavily loaded truck ground up the long, slow grade, belching diesel smoke and stinking of hot oil. The Diamond-Reo had once been painted white to better reflect the desert heat. So much dirt, oil, and assorted crud built up over its many trips back and forth to the seaport that it was now a dull grayish-brown. Of indeterminate age, the wheezing diesel had served at least two generations of oil well companies before being relegated to hauling freight for a freelance Yemeni trucking company. The vehicle was the company’s only asset, other than two cell phones and a couple of spare tires.

  The two supposed heavy equipment salesmen sat scrunched together in the stifling cab, sweating in the heat and praying that the battered old vehicle would be able to complete the journey. Being stranded in the middle of the Saudi desert with a broken-down truck and a live nuclear weapon was not something either would relish. But the rattletrap they were forced to use made it a very real possibility.

  Still, they should be okay if the truck held together. There was no indication that the Americans or anyone else were onto their plan. If they were, they would certainly have intercepted them by now, before they were so close to their objective.

  Captain Wang, dressed in robes and burnoose, sat by the passenger’s-side window, clutching his briefcase between his knees. It contained a MAC-10 machine pistol and two hundred rounds of ammunition. Lieutenant Tak-Ji sat between him and the sullen Arab driver. Tak-Ji was armed with only a 9mm Berretta under his robes. The rest of their weapons were jammed behind the seat inside two small bags that also held a changing of clothes.

  The driver had been introduced only as Ahab ben-Muteri . He had not spoken more than two words since they left Jiddah six hours before. He simply drove, his nose inches from the cracked steering wheel and one hand perpetually resting on the truck’s vibrating gearshift lever.

  The eighteen-wheeler crested the long grade with what sounded like a sigh of relief. Ahab up-shifted through the gears as they passed a small rock formation, gained speed, and headed out across a stretch of relatively level desert road. It should be easy going from here on to Mecca.

  Wang caught just a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Almost immediately, before he could even react and look in that direction, the truck slewed sickeningly out of control, swinging wildly back and forth across the road. Wang was slammed hard against Tak-Ji and then back against the door as the driver fought for control of the swerving tractor. The screeching protest of metal and rubber grinding on macadam filled the cab as the world kaleidoscoped wildly across the windscreen.

  The screeching abruptly stopped and clouds of dust flew up around them. The driver had lost his battle. The out-of-control truck left the highway and was now careening into the desert. The vehicle climbed partway across a sand slope before it ultimately lurched to a stop, cocked at an odd angle. Then, almost in slow motion, the vehicle rolled over onto its left side like a huge, wounded animal.

  Wang grabbed his br
iefcase, swung the door open, and laboriously climbed out onto the side of the truck’s cab, onto what was now the top of the upturned tractor. In one swift move, he rolled off and onto the ground, tearing open the case as he fell.

  Then he saw him. Someone in desert camouflage combat gear was running across the sand, directly toward him. Wang realized in an instant what had happened. Whoever was charging toward them had shot out a tire. Now he must stop this attacker before he could close enough to do any more damage to him, their vehicle, or its cargo.

  He dropped to his stomach, took half-aim, and sprayed a short burst toward the running man. The attacker dived for cover behind a pile of boulders.

  Tak-Ji rolled down next to him, firing the Berretta wildly in the general direction of a nearby ridgeline.

  “Save your ammunition…” Wang began, but before he could finish, bullets ricocheted off the old truck’s heavy steel body. They seemed to be coming from somewhere up on that ridge.

  “There’s somebody up there and they’re shooting at us,” Tak-Ji said, stating what was now painfully obvious. Tiny sand plumes and showers of small pebbles spattered the pair of North Koreans as the firing quickly became more accurate.

  Wang raised himself just enough to spray a short burst at their hidden attackers. He knew the effort was really futile. The little Mac-10 was ideal for close-in fighting but was hopelessly outmatched at this range.

  “We need our real weapons,” he shouted at Tak-Ji. “See if you can get back into the cab while I keep their heads down with cover fire.”

  He was interrupted by the rolling rumble of an AK-47, firing from directly above where they cowered in the shadow of the overturned truck.

  “Worthless desert bandits! You think you can steal the bread from my childrens’ mouths!” With that, Ahab turned loose another angry burst of fire. The truck driver was standing in the cab with only his head and shoulders protruding, and with an ancient, battered AK-47 clutched in his hands.

  “Ahab, throw us our bags!” Wang yelled up to him. “Our rifles are in them. We can help you protect your truck from the bandits.”

  The North Korean knew these were no roadside hijackers. Just then, the bags dropped almost in front of where Wang and Tak-Ji lay sprawled in the dust and gravel. Now they at least had a fighting chance.

  Wang was struggling to reach the bags when he saw the man with the grenade launcher.

  There wasn’t time to get the rifles. Not before the grenades ground them up. Them, the truck, and its cargo. Wang fired a full clip from his little machine pistol in vain hope that he could knock the man down before he launched his weapons in their direction.

  The truck cab exploded in a blinding flash. Incredibly to Wang, he heard nothing. Then he knew he was deaf. As if in slow motion, the bits of broken, smoking rag that had, an instant before, been Ahab ben-Muteri, the truck driver, plopped down onto the sand in front of him. The truck cab was a burning, smoking hulk.

  Wang felt a strange tingling sensation along his right side. He used his right hand and felt down his side to see what the problem was. The hand came away sticky and covered with blood. But also miraculously, he felt no pain, only the tingling, as if his right side had gone to sleep.

  Wang looked over at Tak-Ji to let him know that he was wounded. A long spear of smoking metal shrapnel protruded from the North Korean commando’s chest precisely where the man’s heart had been beating ten seconds before.

  Wang was all alone.

  Dizziness and darkness were closing in around him and there was still no sound at all. He could feel his lifeblood pouring out onto the sand. He sensed that his mission was doomed, that he had failed his country and its beloved leader. He could already feel the hot breath of his superior as he berated him for allowing the truck and the nuclear weapon to drive directly into an ambush.

  But then, from somewhere deep in his training, Wang pulled the strength for one last, desperate gamble. He started to crawl toward the upturned crate that had slid off the trailer when the truck flipped over. Its top had come loose and he could see the weapon inside.

  Maybe, somehow, he could set the timer before the last of his blood spilled from his veins.

  Wang grunted as he summoned the last bit of waning strength and edged toward the crate. Maybe, if he tried, he could still complete this one last mission that would ultimately reunite the homeland once and for all.

  Then, someday, they would name buildings and parks for him, for the hero of the road to Mecca.

  Tony Martinelli’s perfectly executed grenade shot had stopped the firefight cold. Brad Walker could clearly see two of the supposed terrorists lying dead beside the shattered remains of the truck cab. The third one didn’t seem to be in the fight anymore either, but it was incumbent upon him to make sure the man was no longer a threat.

  He waited a full five minutes just to make certain the other man was dead or wounded badly enough to no longer threaten his life or those of men. Five full minutes and the last terrorist still hadn’t shown himself. Probably crawled off to die, Walker figured.

  He signaled the team to move in cautiously. No sense getting hit now. The mission was over. All that was left was to call in the heavy-lift chopper to haul the nuke home, then let the big brass and the diplomats sort out the rest.

  Walker moved cautiously toward the truck. It was terribly hard to restrain himself from charging up to claim the prize like some character in a bad Hollywood war movie. The young SEAL lieutenant felt a warm glow spreading throughout his chest.

  He had done it.

  After all the years of doubt, all the worry and hard work, he had finally proven his father wrong. He was a success. He was a hero.

  As he cautiously peered around the steaming snout of the truck, Brad Walker saw the last terrorist just as the dying man spotted him. He was hunkered down beside the big wooden crate, leaning heavily against it, his robes soaked red with new blood.

  Then Walker noticed something else. The man had his hands deep inside the crate, furiously fiddling with something in there.

  The SEAL knew in an instant what the man was doing. He was trying to detonate the nuke right there and then!

  “No! Don’t!” Walker yelled, even as he jerked his M-4 to his shoulder and screamed for his team to take cover. The quick burst of hot lead from the SEAL’s weapon nearly cut the North Korean in half. Wang jerked spasmodically and fell backward into the dust.

  Walker didn’t know it at that moment, but his warning was futile.

  His shot was a millisecond too late.

  As Wang fell, his sleeve caught the toggle to start the timer on the nuclear device. General Kim Dai-jang’s purloined weapon worked perfectly, just as the Russians who sold it to him promised it would.

  With the flip of the toggle, the ultra-high-speed circuitry fired squibs that detonated the shaped high-explosive charges in precise order, explosions timed to the nanosecond. These small blasts shoved the two carefully machined pieces of plutonium 239 into the central core and held them together for less than 10-23 seconds.

  That was more than enough time for Armageddon to be set loose.

  The small neutron population that occurred naturally in the plutonium suddenly had enough plutonium atoms as targets so that the number of fissions shot up exponentially. The new neutrons replicated the population explosion. Every single one of the blossoming fissions released 2.34 MEV of free energy.

  In an instant, the weapon was supercritical. By the time the core flew apart, it was hotter than the surface of the sun.

  A huge pulse of gamma energy flew out in all directions from the core, traveling at the speed of light, incinerating anything within a mile of where the Diamond-Reo truck had flipped over onto its side in the desert.

  The truck, Wang, Brad Walker, the rest of the SEAL team, rocks, dirt and everything else nearby were instantly merged into a mass of superheated plasma. The mushroom cloud roiled skyward behind the series of pressure waves that roared outward from that isolated spot along
side the old caravan trail in the Saudi desert.

  Pilgrims in Mecca, almost one hundred miles away, felt the ground tremble and then saw the burning pillar rising up from the horizon.

  Most of them fell to their knees and prayed. There was no doubt about it. This blinding apparition, the grumbling of the earth beneath their feet, surely marked the second coming of Allah.

  Prophecy had been fulfilled.

  37

  Bill Beaman didn’t like anything about it. A maritime interdiction operation—a MIO—was no place for a woman. Certainly no place for one as beautiful as Heather Jones, even if she was the CIA head-of-station. She wasn’t part of the team, didn’t even know what a MIO was. And, even if she could keep up her end, in the clutch, she would certainly be a distraction to his team. When it got hot and fast, the guys would think of her for an instant before reacting. That instant could be deadly.

  Beaman had tried all these arguments on her. They had not worked.

  At that moment Heather Jones stood there ten feet away from him, her knees slightly bent to brace herself against the motion of the speedboat as it raced across the surface of the Indian Ocean.

  Jones had very efficiently commandeered the harbor pilot boat from Mumbai Harbor Control an hour before, using only her wonderful smile and some conversation Beaman and his men were unable to understand. Mumbai Harbor Control had obligingly radioed out to the Evening Princess that their bar pilot and a couple of customs officials were on the way out to meet the inbound merchant ship. The master of Evening Princess had reported a cargo of construction machinery and requested clearance past the sea buoy at first light.

  The lights of Mumbai glowed brightly on the eastern horizon. To the west, though, was a vast darkness, pitted only by the lights of the small merchant ship just two miles ahead. The speedboat’s frothy white wake pointed, arrow straight, back at the rocky breakwater just visible behind them.

  Beaman stole a glance at Heather Jones. She seemed to be completely oblivious to the night’s promised danger. She just stood there, allowing the warm night air to blow through her long golden hair, as if she was out on a ride on her daddy’s yacht.