Live Bait

by David Archer

  “What? Where are we going?” Indie asked, but Sam only put his finger to his lips. He pulled her out the front door, and she suddenly realized he was taking her to the garage, and she let out a squeal of delight when he opened the door and rolled his motorcycle out into the driveway.

  “We’re going for a ride?” she asked with a smile, and Sam grinned back.

  “We haven’t had a moonlight ride for more than a year,” he said, “and it’s gonna be too cool within a few more weeks. The kids are safe and having a good time, and we just did ‘one hell of a job,’ so let’s go reward ourselves.”

  Indie climbed onto the back and put her helmet on, and Sam hit the button to fire the big Honda Shadow up. He squeezed the clutch and put it in gear, then twisted the throttle and cruised the big bike out onto the street.

  For the next two hours, they just enjoyed the feel of the wind and the road. Sam took them out of the city and into the foothills of the Rockies, leaning into the curves and relishing the feel of his wife’s arms around him.

  Finally, though, it was time to go home. He rolled the bike quietly through the nighttime streets and eased it back into its place in the garage before they climbed off of it. They hung their helmets on the handlebars, and Indie wrapped her arms around him again and pulled him down for a kiss.

  They went inside and straight to their bedroom, and made passionate love while they had the freedom to do so.

  * * * * *

  Morning came and Sam and Indie rose to start another day. She went to the kitchen to start the coffee while Sam got a quick shower, then surprised him by climbing in with him a couple of minutes later.

  “Well, now,” Sam said. “This is a delightful way to get the morning off to a good start.”

  Indie smiled. “And an even better way to get you to wash my back.”

  Sam complied, and then Indie returned the favor. They languished in the water for a few extra minutes, then toweled off and got dressed before heading back to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. Eggs and bacon were sizzling a few minutes later, and Sam sipped his coffee as he offered a silent thanks for the life he was living.

  “You might as well come with me this morning,” he said as they sat down to eat. “You were part of the team this time, so Ron is going to want to hear your take on the case, as well.”

  “Fine by me,” Indie said. “Any idea how I’m supposed to bill for my time on this one?”

  “We’ve got a standard set up, but I know Ron is talking about bonuses for everybody. I’m pretty sure he’ll have it all figured out by the time we get there.”

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I’m gonna follow you, though, because I’ve got to go pick the kids up from the grandmas this morning. The way Mom sounded on the phone last night, I think they’re ready for a break.”

  Sam grinned. “That’ll teach them to volunteer to babysit.”

  TEN

  Ron was in the conference room when they arrived at the office building, with Jeff, Steve and Walter. They all got up to shake hands with Sam and Indie, and Ron and Jeff offered their congratulations while they waited for everyone else before they got down to debriefing. Darren and Denny arrived next, and then Jade walked in alone. A few minutes later, Summer came hurrying through the door, and they got down to business.

  “Once again, Sam,” Ron said. “you’ve proven that you are the best, Sam. Of course, we all knew that already, but having it broadcast all over the world through the news is good for business. Harry Winslow called about an hour ago, after seeing the latest report on CNN.”

  “I’m just glad we pulled it off,” Sam said. “I spent a good part of the time we were on this case feeling like maybe things were going too easy, too smoothly. I mean, we found Reese so fast that it just seemed almost like it was set up. Couldn’t the cops have found him just as easily?”

  “Local cops? I doubt it,” said Jeff. “I’m pretty sure they don’t have access to the voice recognition databases that Indie ended up using. Of course, if things had gone normally and the FBI was called in on this, they probably would have tracked him down, so in one sense, the answer to your question would be yes. The thing is, they weren’t, and it was you and your team that found Amber and got her home safely.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “And we blundered right smack into the middle of an international problem. This PAF, and Heinrich Wegner, they’re going to be pretty upset that their plans were foiled.”

  “Yes, I spoke with Mr. Reese about that this morning,” Ron said. “And I completely understand where he’s coming from, because people like Wegner have connections that could conceivably blow up in his face. He described his plan to lure Wegner into a trap, and I took the liberty of discussing it with Harry. He thinks we should go for it, try to bring this guy in and shut down the PAF before they become an actual terrorist organization.”

  Sam turned to Jeff. “Jeff? What do you think?”

  Jeff chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then leaned his head to the left, as if giving it serious thought. “Just the fact that this outfit resorted to kidnapping,” he said, “is enough to make me want to see them shut down now, while they are still fairly small. Reese is in a position to contact Wegner and set up a chance for us to do exactly that. Or, and this might be more sensible, we could simply turn this over to DHS and let them handle it. After all, this isn’t really within the umbrella we normally work under.”

  Ron looked at him. “We could do that, but should we? The thing that concerns me at the moment is the Beauregard prediction, that this is going to put Sam in some kind of extreme danger. If the PAF was actually behind the kidnapping, then he could be looking at some attempted revenge coming his way.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Jeff said. “If we go after them ourselves, aren’t we running the risk of putting Sam right in the line of fire? I’m not sure I like that idea.”

  “I do,” Sam said. “According to Reese, Wegner and his people can get pretty vindictive. Don’t you think it would be better to take the fight to them, rather than wait for them to try to strike against me, or the team?”

  Ron was nodding. “I think you hit the nail on the head,” he said. “We were asked to bring Amber home safely, but also to catch the people responsible. While the PAF may be an international problem that’s under DHS jurisdiction, they are also the culprits in this particular crime. If they intend to seek revenge against Sam, then we need to get on top of this as quickly as we can.”

  “And that leaves the question of why they might want that revenge,” Jeff said. “Who was involved that would be so valuable that they want revenge for him getting killed?”

  Ron shrugged his shoulders. “I think maybe it’s time to bring Reese in here,” he said. “Let’s see if he knows anything that might help us get an answer to that question.”

  “I already know the answer,” Sam said. “One of the men who died there last night was Heinrich Wegner’s nephew. My gut feeling is that he’s going to be pretty pissed over that, and that it will be the reason he wants revenge.”

  “And you’re probably right.” Ron touched a button on the speakerphone that sat on the table. “Roger, could you bring Mr. Reese to the conference room, please?”

  “Yes, sir,” Roger replied. There was a tap on the door only a few seconds later, and then Evan Reese stepped inside.

  “Mr. Reese,” Ron said. “Please take a seat, we’re trying to figure out our next step.”

  “The next step ought to be getting me a phone,” Reese said as he sat in one of the chairs. “The longer we keep Heinrich waiting, the more suspicious he’s going to be when I talk to him.”

  “That’s possible,” Ron said. “News of the firefight has gone all over the world, and the fact that Amber was returned safely to her father is out there. He’s probably trying to figure out why your name hasn’t come up in the news stories, so he might be wondering if you are the one who tipped off the authorities.” He looked Reese directly in the eye. “We need to come up
with something that will clear you of suspicion before you actually speak to him, don’t you think?”

  “That’s an absolute necessity,” Sam said. “The trouble is, Heinrich knew that Reese was trying to get the girl back to get federal authorities off of his own ass. If I were him, I’d start to wonder if he got turned into an informant. I’m not sure how we can get Heinrich to trust him again.”

  Ron nodded. “I was worried about the same thing,” he said, “so I hit Harry with that question. He came up with an idea, and I think it might actually work.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “And what was that?”

  Ron grinned. “We charge Mr. Reese with murder,” he said, “and put out a press release that he is wanted for killing a federal agent. Billy Jamison, like everyone else here at Windlass Security, was a contract agent with the Department of Homeland Security.”

  “Now, hold on,” Reese said, “Here we go with murder charges again. The trouble is, I didn’t kill anybody! And how is that going to help us with Heinrich?”

  “Because it makes your story more credible,” Ron said, “when you call Heinrich to tell him that you were there when the raid began and had to shoot your way out to get away. Sam, you were smart enough to keep his name out of the news reports about the rescue, and I’ve already arranged for the word to be spread that the men who survived the firefight died later at the hospital. As far as Heinrich knows, none of them lived long enough to be questioned. With Mr. Reese’s face being displayed on television all over the world as a fugitive, his story will be believable.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Reese said, “but if I was on the run, why would I contact Heinrich anyway? Wouldn’t I be trying to hide, change my name, disappear into the woodwork?”

  “Actually, I can see you being even more motivated to get in touch with him,” Sam said. “He still thinks you’ve got the Soviet Sixpack, or at least that you know who actually has it. If you have to start a whole new identity, you’re going to need money. You certainly won’t be able to access any of your own, because the feds would be watching your accounts. Telling him you want a few million would make sense, in this situation. Yeah, I think this could work.”

  “Hello?” Reese said, “anybody home in there? The price for getting him that information was the girl, remember?”

  “Yes,” Sam said, “but just tell him the situation has changed. Now you need cash, and a lot of it. He wants the Sixpack pretty badly, and he’s already mentioned that he would be willing to pay you a finder’s fee. All we have to do is come up with a convincing scenario for how he’s going to get his prize, and some way to draw out the rest of the PAF in the bargain.”

  “You’re crazy,” Reese said. “You freaking people are going to end up getting me killed, you know that, right? I dangled the bait of the Soviet Sixpack because I knew it would get his attention, but after all this, he’s going to want some kind of proof that I really can get it for him. Now, considering the fact that it’s probably nothing but a post-Cold War fairy tale, I don’t know where we are going to get any kind of convincing proof. Do you?”

  Ron looked at him for a moment, then grinned. “Actually, Harry can help us out with that.”

  Everyone at the table was watching him, but Sam was the one who spoke up. “Okay, I'll bite,” he said. “How can Harry help us convince this guy that we have the super weapon he wants?”

  Ron started to speak, but then he chuckled. “Sorry, it’s just funny,” he said. “You see, Harry is the one who stole it and smuggled it out of the Ukraine.”

  “What?” Denny asked suddenly. “Our bloody Harry? The Soviet Sixpack is supposed to be six AN602 nuclear bombs, and each one of them weights about 15,000 pounds.”

  “No, wait a minute,” Darren said. “The AN602 was the one they call the Tsar Bomba, the King of Bombs. They only made one of them, for a test back in the early sixties.”

  Denny shook his head, but Walter spoke up. “There were ten of them,” he said. “One was used in the test, but there were nine others that were retrofitted with a special tamper that raised their yield from fifty megatons to a hundred megatons. They were built in 1960 and ’61, but after the first one was used in a test, the whole world was in such an uproar that the Russians denied the existence of the others. They put some empty casings on display to try to convince everybody there weren’t any more bombs, but then they were taken to the Balaklava Submarine base in Ukraine and hidden there. When that base was shut down in 1995, three of them were found and dismantled, but the other six had disappeared sometime in the years before that. Until mid 1994, there were several nuclear weapons technicians who were employed just to make sure they were properly maintained. A couple of years before that, two of them had defected to the United States, and quietly handed over the proof to the Americans. In January 1993, the United States sent an agent who was codenamed Sparrow to investigate whether the bombs were still there, and there is an existing report that Sparrow bribed a submarine crew to smuggle six of them out of the base. According to that report, they were then taken to a highly secret base somewhere in the south Pacific and hidden, but its location is one of the biggest secrets there is.”

  Everyone at the table was staring at him, but Walter didn’t seem to notice. Despite the fact that he was usually very quiet, Walter was an incredible walking store of information.

  “Is that really true?” Summer asked, her eyes round.

  “If he says it is,” Steve said, “it is. Walter loves to read, and his security clearance lets him read things most people would never be able to get close to.”

  Ron leaned forward and looked at Walter. “Walter, are there any photographs of the bombs?”

  “Yes,” Walter said. “There are several of them. I can download them, if you want.”

  Ron turned to Reese. “Would Heinrich know what he was looking at if we showed him pictures of the bombs?”

  Reese managed to stop staring at Walter for a moment, and turned to look back at Ron. “I think so,” he said. “I don’t think it would be that hard to convince him, anyway.”

  “All right, that’s the basic plan, then,” Ron said. “Walter, get us those photos. Sam, you and Reese put your heads together and figure out where to set the trap. This just might actually work.”

  Everyone started to get up out of their chairs, but Ron held up a hand to stop them. “Hold on, hold on,” he said. “We’re not done here, yet. I had told Sam there was going to be a bonus for everyone on this case, and I don’t go back on my word.”

  Jeff reached down beside his chair and picked up a stack of envelopes. Each of them had a name on it, and he passed them out. Summer got hers first, and she raised the flap to peek inside at the check it contained, and then her eyes went wide.

  “Holy cow,” she said. “Guys, are you serious? I can actually deposit this?”

  Ron chuckled. “Yes, it’s for real. You can actually take it to the bank, and it won’t bounce. Mr. McCabe was quite generous yesterday.”

  Everyone else peeked at their bonus checks and reacted about the same way, but Indie was surprised when one of the envelopes came her way. She glanced at Sam, then raised the flap and looked inside.

  The check was for fifty thousand dollars, and her eyes almost popped out of her head. She looked up at Ron and tried to speak, but only a squeak came out.

  Ron smiled. “You earned it,” he said. “You all did. Now, let’s get to work on the next phase. DHS has given us the go-ahead on this case, so Uncle Sam is paying the bills from here on out. Let’s nail us some PAF.”

  ELEVEN

  Indie kissed Sam goodbye and left, anxious to get to the bank and deposit her bonus, then pick up the kids and go shopping. Sam grinned as she hurried out the door, then went to his office with the team, and Reese, following along.

  “First things first,” Sam said. “If we’re going to convince Heinrich Wegner that we are on the up and up, I need to know everything I possibly can about the Soviet Sixpack.” They were all sitting at the co
nference table, and Sam reached over and tapped the speakerphone. “Jenna, can you get me Harry Winslow on the phone, please? Patch it through to the speakerphone on the conference table.”

  “Yes, sir,” came Jenna’s quick reply. A moment later, the phone chimed. “Mr. Winslow is on the line, sir.”

  Sam tapped the blinking light. “Harry?”

  “Sam, boy, considering this is the second call I’ve had from Windlass this morning, I get the feeling it’s not just to wish me a good day.”

  Sam grinned. “Of course I wish you a good day,” he said. “And I wish you would help me have one. I need to pick your brain, old man. Are you on a secure line?”

  “Of course I am,” Harry said. “Uncle Sam won’t allow me to even touch a phone without one.”

  “Good. Harry, I need to know everything you can tell me about the Soviet Sixpack.”

  “Well, since I know you aren’t much of a drinker, I have to assume you are referring to the souvenirs I brought back from a trip many years ago. What do you need to know, Sam?”

  “Everything I possibly can. We are about to dangle them out as bait, and I need to be as convincing as possible.”

  “All right, then,” Harry said. “Back in early ’93, I was sent to the Ukraine to determine whether rumors of some massive nuclear warheads had any truth behind them. The mission was codenamed Sparrow’s Nest, and I had to infiltrate a secret submarine base. The rumor said that the Russians had built ten massive hydrogen bombs back in the early sixties, though they claimed they had only built one and used it in a test. That test had been so terrifying that they hid the rest of them away, keeping them back as a last resort in the event of World War III. There were nine of them, each one more than three thousand times as powerful as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The one they used in the test was only half as powerful as these, because the leftovers had been modified with a more powerful detonation system than the first one. I passed myself off as a Russian sailor to get inside the base, and that’s where I met Vladimir Petrov.”