“Those are launch tubes,” Navarro explained, “Each one’s for a shoulder-mounted SA-7. That’s one of the nastiest surface-to-air missiles the Soviets ever built. If they see a big, lumbering target like our Antonov coming at them, they could shoot us down from over a mile away.”
“Dammit, we can’t let him get away with that breeder tank!” Austen insisted. “If we can’t do something about it, maybe someone else could?”
October chewed his lip as if considering saying something. Finally, Redhawk sighed and threw his hands up.
“Fine,” he said. “It’s a slim-to-none chance, but I’ll go see if I can get our satellite dish running again.”
With that, he went out the blasted hole that used to be the front doors. He found the remains of a service ladder and climbed onto the roof.
“He’s right, it’s a slim-to-none chance,” Navarro said, exasperated. “Even if the Russians or the Kazakhs hear our call for help, the closest airbase with combat-ready aircraft is over four hundred miles away.”
“Maybe they’ll already have some fighters up on patrol,” Austen suggested.
“Maybe, but you’re going to have to convince the Kazakh government to bomb what they think is one of their own military convoys. Worse, if we get the Russians, we’ll have to ask them to make an unprovoked attack one of their neighbors!”
Austen threw up her hands in frustration. “We have to do something, Nick! We can’t just–”
October cleared his throat uncomfortably. Then he pointed to Blaine before he spoke.
“He said he had something for you.”
Navarro stopped and looked at him. “Say what now?”
“Him. Mister Fancy-Suit. When I rescue him. He said he had something you and Austen would want more than rubles.”
Austen remembered that Blaine had been pointing at something before collapsing. She turned and spotted Blaine’s precious black attaché case sitting on a nearby table. The stresses of the plane crash and fire had disabled the case’s biometric scanner and left it cracked open.
She got up and stood before the case, unsure of what to do. Navarro reached over, wedged his fingers inside the crack, and gave a pull.
With a crack, the battered case popped open.
Austen and Navarro stared wide-eyed at the contents.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The bulk of the suitcase’s interior had been crammed full of an electronic device the size of a mini laptop. A detachable keyboard and a liquid crystal display screen the size of a paperback book were the only visible interfaces. A keyhole-sized lens projected from the back of the keyboard, next to a flat thumb-shaped groove and a power switch.
The seal of the Department of Defense had been emblazoned across the top of the package. A stern-looking eagle gripping a trio of arrows glared back at them. Austen ignored it for the moment.
Instead, she set the keyboard aside to reach into the document pocket that took up the remainder of the case. She pulled out two folders. One was a folder adorned with the WHO’s stylized world map and snake-headed caduceus. Inside, she found literature on Blaine’s appointment to the Division of Catastrophic Consequence Pathogens and details on the Karakul mine.
The second folder was dull black and made of exceptionally heavy paper. The upper right corner sported a disturbingly realistic human eye hovering over the letter ‘T’. She pulled out the contents and began skimming through them.
“I recognize the device,” Navarro said. “It’s a combination code generator and verification system.”
“Verification for what?” Preble asked.
“That’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question. Given that it’s from the DoD, it’s probably something that’s bad for someone’s health.”
Clanks echoed through the room as Redhawk climbed down from the roof. He walked back inside, wiping dusty residue off his hands.
“Okay, I spliced up some of our wrecked cabling. We should be back in business to broadcast out. I can also remotely connect with the Antonov again.”
“Start warming up her engines, then,” Navarro said. “And take a look at this thing we found in Blaine’s case. You think this could’ve piggybacked off our ZRV band?”
Redhawk craned his neck to see. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen devices like that which can transmit from under six meters of water or bedrock. All you need is enough power.”
With that, he went to his desk. His fingers flew over the keyboard, tapping in commands both to connect to the Antonov’s cockpit and to broadcast out a cry for help. After a moment, Redhawk looked up.
“Okay, I’ve got the engines started up for our ride out of here,” he announced. “But no one’s replying to our ‘we need an air strike, now!’ signal.”
Navarro grimaced. “Keep trying. It’s our only chance to stop Chelovik.”
Austen rustled the sheaf of papers from the black folder and made an irritated sound.
“I don’t get it,” she finally said. “These are financial reports for some company named Turrim. I’ve never seen anything about them.”
“That’s because they’re not a publicly held corporation,” Navarro said, as he took the papers from Austen and glanced over them. “They’re privately held by people tied directly into the DoD and Intel communities, and at a very high level.”
“Could they have been the ones who made sure that Blaine got M&B’s protection? Not to mention a top-of-the-line corporate jet?”
Navarro snorted. “Wouldn’t be hard. And they’d be interested in a bug that sifts out precious metals or rare earths from raw ore. Turrim’s got links to manufacturers that do avionics, weapons, and remote sensors. They even built the cameras in Redhawk’s drones. That’s why they’re known as the ‘Watchtower People’ in the private security market.”
Austen blinked.
“Wait a minute,” she breathed, even as the words she’d committed to memory rushed to mind. “That’s got to be what DiCaprio meant: When there is no one else to call for help, the man in the tower can drop the hammer.”
“Who is this Dee Capree-oh?” October asked.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Navarro said quickly. “Damn it if it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. We’re at the end of our tether right now. Let’s follow those words to the end. Who’s the man in the tower?”
Austen and Navarro both turned to look at Ian Blaine’s supine form.
Preble set aside his cane and knelt by the man’s head. He fished in his pocket, took out an object the size of a lipstick container, and popped open its cap. A quick wave under Blaine’s nostrils, and the man’s eyes fluttered open.
“So sorry to wake you,” Preble said. “But this is rather urgent.”
Austen came to kneel next to the older man. “Ian, we’ve got a problem. Chelovik and Lelache are less than half an hour away from disappearing for good. They’ve got a bioweapon that’s more lethal than anything we’ve seen before. So we need to know: Are you the man in the tower?”
“The man in the tower,” Blaine said, as he smiled weakly. “Fanciful way of putting it, Leigh. But yes, I guess I am.”
“You said that you had something we needed, badly. Is it this device in your attaché case?”
“Yes. The reports coming out of here were bad. Worse than I told you. When Turrim decided to assist the WHO, they gave me a failsafe if it looked like the pathogen could not be controlled.”
Austen frowned, confused. “I don’t get it. What’s in this case that acts as a failsafe? Especially against an organism that could cause a pandemic?”
Blaine gave her a thin-lipped smile.
“The case isn’t the failsafe. It’s a way to talk to it and bring it down. It’s the target and fire control system for something called Thor’s Hammer.”
All of a sudden, the room went quiet.
“Good God,” Navarro said, and his voice filled with awe. “That damned thing is for real?
Chapter Fifty
“You know what a Lazy Dog bomb is?” Nav
arro asked. “That’s tech from the 1950’s, so you may have heard of it.”
Austen shook her head. “I’m drawing a blank.”
“It was the first true kinetic bombardment system. Basically, they were steel cylinders with fins made of folded sheet metal. The U.S. military dumped these from aircraft so that they’d hit enemy troops, vehicles, and buildings at terminal velocity. After-reports said that the earth looked as if it had been tenderized with a giant fork, and that softer targets had been shredded. Or mashed flat with a hammer.”
“I suppose that I should be shocked at how much time and money we spend,” Austen sighed, “trying to find new ways to kill each other. But I’m not. So, this ‘Thor’s Hammer’ is a bigger version of the Lazy Dog?”
“You could say that. No one’s ever confirmed anything for sure…but it’s supposed to be a satellite that can drop a tungsten rod the size and shape of a telephone pole from orbit.”
“Oh, it’s real all right,” Blaine said weakly. “Each strike carries a hit of up to a quarter megaton. But best of all, they’re clean.”
“Clean?” Austen’s voice carried a note of skepticism. “I’d think that any explosion is going to be pretty messy.”
“Not in the way he means,” Preble put in. “I’ve read about kinetic weapons, Leigh. They’re like a big meteor strike. You get the bang, the hot flashover, and the blast wave. But you miss out on the nastier bits like the EMP or the radioactive fallout.”
Austen scowled down at Blaine. “Is that what you had in mind to do to us when you left? Maybe we should leave you here after all.”
“I wouldn’t have done that,” he insisted. “Besides, the Department of Defense wouldn’t let a single person have that much power. Not at this flashpoint.”
“I hate to admit it, but he’s right,” Navarro said. “We’re talking about an American weapons system. Most countries wouldn’t be all that happy if we dropped a nuke on them, even if it was a clean nuke, and with sparkling pure intentions. Using Thor’s Hammer here might trigger war with Russia, maybe even China, if those countries weren’t at least kept in the loop.”
“So, if the Department of Defense wouldn’t let a single person have that much power,” Redhawk added, “then there must be a second person who has to sign off on things.”
“Who was it, Blaine?” Navarro pressed. “Because time is running short.”
But Blaine just shook his head. “I don’t know. That was part of the deal. If I called in a strike of the Hammer, one other person would be contacted, and then they would get the right people to approve.”
Navarro turned back to Austen. “Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute! What was the very last thing that DiCaprio said? After getting the man in the tower to drop the hammer?”
It took her just a moment to recall it. “Clear it first with those who speak to the storm. But that’s just it. Who speaks to ‘the storm’?”
“If it’s a code name, it’s a keeper,” Preble remarked. “It could mean just about anyone.”
An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a moment.
Then Navarro laughed. It was a hearty, belly-shaking laugh of someone who’d just had the scales fall from their eyes. The swelling on the side of his face twisted the edge of his grin, but it couldn’t erase it.
“Or the code name could be so obvious that it’s right in front of us,” he said, as he turned to his Ground Perimeter Security Specialist. “October, isn’t your last name Shtormovoy? In Russian, I’m pretty sure that it means…Storm.”
October said nothing for a moment. The big man simply blushed to the roots of his hair.
Redhawk stared at him. “You son of a bitch! You were the third person talking on the ZRV band!”
“I am sorry,” October finally said, looking like a little boy caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
“I can’t say that I’m happy,” Navarro admitted, as he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “That was a pretty big security violation. And a violation of my trust.”
“I know!” October blushed even deeper and looked miserably at the floor. “That is why I did not speak before. Maybe I do not belong here.”
“What happened? Talk to me, big guy.”
“I get call. Before I leave for Frankfurt,” he said reluctantly. “Men arrived. They put me in car and take me to dacha outside Moscow. I was told that this mine ‘bug’ was dangerous. That if I loved Russia, I must report to them in secret.”
“Who did you meet with?”
A shrug. “Sovet bezopasnosti Rossiiyskoiy Federatsii.”
“That’s the Security Council of the Russian Federation,” Navarro informed the others. “It’s the Russian version of our Defense Council, only with a hell of a lot more power. I can’t blame you for agreeing to report in.”
“I did not. I said no. At first.”
Navarro blinked. “Then what made you change your mind?”
“The Russian Prime Minister. He asked me. I could not say no to him.”
“Why not?”
A heavy sigh. “Because he is my cousin. I never say nyet to family!”
Now it was Austen’s turn to burst out laughing. The others looked at her, surprised.
“Sorry,” she said. “Now it makes sense. On the way here, Blaine asked where Motte & Bailey got the Antonov cargo jet. October said they got it from his cousin. I guess he meant what he said!”
“My cousin,” October added, “he has been talking to others. In China, Mongolia, and here.”
“So, the top brass is in the loop,” Austen murmured. “You know, I think I speak for everyone here. Everything is forgiven…if you make just one more call to your cousin for us.”
The big Russian looked up, a happy gleam in his eyes.
Chapter Fifty-One
October closed the connection on his cell phone and took a look around. Navarro, Austen, Preble, and Redhawk watched him expectantly. Blaine methodically scanned in his thumb print, and retina using the inputs on the back of the keyboard, but even he stopped to look up at the man.
There was a moment of silence that hung in the air before October finally nodded in the affirmative.
“My cousin says we are ‘go’,” he announced. “The premiers of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China say prodolzhat as well.”
Austen felt as if the tension in her body had been suddenly released. She leaned against a wall and put an arm over her eyes.
“Thank God that they agreed.” she breathed. “We’ve got a fighting chance now.”
“From what I gathered,” Navarro remarked, as Blaine returned to his work at the keyboard, “Ozrabek’s been a thorn in everyone’s side for a while now. Either from civil unrest, or from problems like smuggling and refugee resettlement.”
October nodded agreement. “And for my cousin…he said, ‘seeing brings believing’.”
“In other words, I think that Russia wants to see just what the Americans can do with kinetic weapons technology. So they can defend against it. Or duplicate it.”
“How’s it coming, Ian?” Preble asked quietly, as the device’s liquid crystal screen spat out row upon row of data.
“I have some good news,” Blaine said, in a voice made unsteady as both pain and anesthetic fought for dominance in his bloodstream. “Thor’s Hammer is ready to activate. But I have some bad news.”
Austen knelt by his side.
“Go on,” she urged.
“The satellite is crossing overhead right now. If I don’t select a target and time to be used within the next nineteen minutes, then we’ll have to wait for the next orbit to complete.”
“How long will that be?”
“It’s in a semi-synchronous orbit. That makes it twelve hours.”
Austen looked up at Navarro. Her eyes were bright and her jaw set, though her own voice trembled as much as Blaine’s.
“Nick, we don’t have a choice here. Even if the only way we can get Chelovik costs us our lives, then we have to do it.”
Nav
arro looked around the room. Preble nodded in agreement with Austen. October wearily did the same. Redhawk glared back at him a moment and then grudgingly followed suit.
He didn’t hesitate a moment longer.
“Okay, we do this,” he said crisply. “Redhawk, October, get ready to synchronize for zero-hour. Blaine, give us the biggest window you can.”
The three M&B men tapped the buttons on their wristwatches and stood by. Austen helped Blaine force himself into a slightly more upright position as he fed time, code numbers and GPS coordinates into the device. Finally, he let out a sigh. Austen lowered him back onto the folded blanket that made up his pillow.
“It’s done. Detonation will occur eighteen minutes and fifteen seconds from…now.”
Blaine’s eyes closed again. A triple chime echoed in the room as Navarro and his seconds set their watches.
“Okay, if we have even a one-percent chance of getting out of here in time, we take it,” Navarro said crisply. “October, I want you and Redhawk to leave immediately for the airstrip. By the time you get there, the Antonov’s engines should be warmed up. Fix whatever you need to, but get it taxied into position on that runway, no matter what. Lower the rear cargo ramp and wait for us.”
“On it,” Redhawk acknowledged. October bobbed his head in agreement. The two exited through the remains of the front door and disappeared into the outside swirl of dust and rubble. Navarro’s forehead creased in thought as he looked around the room.
“Leigh, we’ve got to get Ted and Ian to the Antonov,” he said. “But all I see here are desktops. They’re heavy, difficult to keep hold of, and won’t take two people.”
“I can still walk, you know,” Preble said archly.
“Not at speed, and not over broken pavement.” Austen shot back. “But we’ve got a wheeled gurney we can use.”
“What? Where?”
“The infirmary morgue. Remember, that’s how we got you that corpse to look at.”
Preble gave them a disgusted look. “But you used it to carry…”
The Devil’s Noose Page 22