by Blake Banner
I said to Bill, “What time is it?”
He smiled with more irony than malice. “Why? You got a date?”
“No, Bill, there is going to be a bomb detonated at the conference at twelve o’clock. I want to know how long we have left.”
He grinned at his partner. “You hear that, Maria? We have a bomb.”
Maria glanced at her watch. “It’s eleven thirty. We have half an hour to get away. So who’s going to bomb the conference? It ain’t easy to do, you know.” She smiled at me. “How they gonna get a bomb through that security?”
I looked back over my shoulder, at the long lines feeding in through the vast plate-glass entrance. As we moved toward their patrol car, I muttered, “I think it just got through.”
“No way, pal.” They opened the back door of the car and I climbed in, still staring back, playing over in my mind what I had just seen. Maria got in the driver’s seat and Bill climbed in beside her. As he slammed the door, he said, “They got scanners, metal detectors, and dogs trained to sniff out all types of plastic explosive. There ain’t no way anybody’s gonna get a bomb in there!”
As he said it, I went cold all over and my scalp prickled. Because suddenly I understood what I had seen. Suddenly, I knew. Maria reversed, turned, and headed for the gate. I caught Bill’s eye in the mirror. He frowned. “You OK, pal?”
I shook my head. “There’s no time! There is no time!”
I have devoted my life, since I was a kid, to practicing martial arts and exercises designed to gain control over my mind and body, so that I could master every type of combat technique—and also escape techniques. I always assumed I would have to use them in the Middle East, or the Third World. I never expected I’d have to use them on First Avenue in New York in the back of a cop car. But that’s the way life is. You just never know what’s going to happen next.
I breathed out hard three times, emptied my lungs, rolled back on the seat and, sucking my stomach up into my hollowed chest cavity, pulled my knees up to my chin and curled in on myself. I heard Bill say, “What the hell…!”
It was hard, and I thought I was going to dislocate my shoulders, but I managed to drag my wrists past my ass and then over my ankles. Bill shouted, “Holy shit!”
But it was too late. I sucked air back into my lungs, said, “Sorry, pal!” and slammed my two fists into his temple. He slumped, unconscious, and I reached down by his side and grabbed his .38 service revolver. I pointed it at the back of Maria’s head and spoke calmly and deliberately.
“I do not want to hurt anybody, Maria, but there is a bomb in that conference hall. It went in as we were coming out. It is going to detonate in half an hour and I have got to get back in there, because if I don’t, hundreds of thousands of people will die. Now don’t make me choose between you and them.”
Eighteen
“OK, Mister, take it easy. We’re going back. Just stay cool, OK?”
“No. Don’t bank on it. Put your fucking sirens on and get me back in there!”
She put her sirens on, did a U-turn, and floored the pedal back toward the UN complex while I rummaged in Bill’s pockets and found the key to my cuffs. While she drove, she was saying, “I’m telling you it is impossible to get a bomb through…”
I cut across her, speaking savagely. “Conventional explosives, Maria! But did you ever hear of a tactical demolition nuclear device?”
She stared at me in the mirror as we screamed through the gates toward the crowds outside the main entrance. “What?”
I took the cuffs from my wrists. “It’s the smallest warhead ever built by the U.S. It’s designed to be carried in a rucksack. It weighs one hundred and ten pounds and has a yield of one point five to two kilotons. It will flatten everything in a radius of two miles. That’s from the docks in Brooklyn to Central Park South, and it will kill hundreds of thousands of people.”
“Holy shit!”
She skidded to a halt outside the main doors and turned in her seat, frowning at me. Her brain told her I was crazy, but her gut was telling her I wasn’t. “But how? I never saw no hundred and ten pound rucksack! That is one big, heavy sack!”
I snarled at her, “The damned wheelchair! It was motorized, but they were pushing it!”
“Oh, dear Lord…”
I pulled Mclean’s badge from my pocket and stared fiercely into Maria’s face. “You have to help me!” I looked at my watch. “We have twenty minutes. You can’t take the risk! Think about it. What if I am right?”
She nodded. “OK. Let’s do it.”
I pushed open the door and we ran toward the entrance, waving our badges and bellowing, “Everybody out of here! Go! Go! Go! There is a bomb in the conference hall! Go! Get out of here!”
They didn’t run. They gaped and stared at us and at each other, as the information slowly filtered into their brains. This was natural selection in action. But either way, it made no difference. They could not possibly get far enough away in the time they had. I waded through them, shoving and pushing them aside, and burst through the doors with Maria beside me, bellowing at the security guards, “Evacuate the area! Evacuate the area! There is a bomb in the General Assembly Hall!”
The reaction was the same as it had been outside, with everybody gaping and staring at us and each other. Outside, people were beginning to turn and run, and the panic I had seeded was beginning to spread. I pointed at the security guard in charge of the door and roared at Maria, “Him! Talk to him! Make him evacuate the area!”
And while she tackled him, I vaulted the barrier and ran for the stairs up to the second floor, where the General Assembly Hall was. I took them four at a time. Behind me, I heard shouts, but I ignored them and kept going.
The lobby was practically empty, with just a few last stragglers making their way into the conference room. I sprinted through them, past the elevators. I crashed through the crowd around the door, spilling from the Indonesian Lounge, shoving people away and bellowing at them like a sergeant on parade, “Out of my way! Evacuate the hall! Evacuate the hall! FBI! There is a bomb in the hall! Get the hell out of here! FBI! FBI! There is a bomb! There is a bomb in this hall! Get out! Get out!”
People started to back away. I strode toward them, pointing at the stairs. “Go! Go! Go!”
They started to scatter and run, making for the stairs, the escalators, and the elevators. I turned and scanned the vast, seated audience. Some people in the chamber were beginning to stand, craning, looking, trying to see what was going on. I searched among them, seeking the wheelchair. I couldn’t see it. I ran down the aisle to the dais, jumped up and walked to the lectern, still searching the crowd with my eyes. I switched on the microphone and spoke clearly and deliberately, holding up Mclean’s badge.
“I am Special Agent Harrison Mclean of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need everybody to leave in an orderly fashion now! There is a bomb in this chamber!”
The effect was electric. Like a great tide, they all rose. People started scrambling like crazy, climbing over seats and swarming down the aisles. Meanwhile, I had spotted the wheelchair while I was talking. It was halfway up the central block of seats, on the left. The couple who’d been pushing it were struggling to maneuver it in the huge swarm of humanity streaming past them. The old guy looked scared.
I jumped from the stage and ran, shouldering my way through the crowd, shoving people out of the way, bellowing at them to move. Finally, I made it to where the couple were trying to make headway toward the exits. I grabbed the man’s shoulder and he turned to stare at me in alarm.
“Where did you get this chair?”
He looked at me like I was out of my mind. It was a look I was getting used to seeing. “What?”
“There is no time. Tell me now! Where did you get it?” He stared at the woman who was with him. The old guy in the chair was craning around to see what was going on. People streamed past us, jostling and panicking. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him toward me. “Liste
n to me! You do not look like suicide bombers to me! This chair is a bomb! So who gave it to you?”
He went white. The girls said, “Oh my god, Dad!” and reached down to help the old man to his feet. “Come on, Papa, we have to hurry!”
The man I was holding shook his head. “Let me go with my wife, please…”
“Who?”
“It was donated, through a charity…”
“Along with the tickets to the conference?”
He nodded. “My father-in-law has been a campaigner for years…”
“Who!”
“The Muslim Fraternity for Understanding…”
I shoved him and snarled, “Get the hell out of here!”
I grabbed the chair and hurled it on its side. Underneath, where the electric motor should have been located, it was unlike any electric wheelchair I had ever seen. There was just a steel case. I looked at my watch. I had fifteen minutes. I went ice-cold inside, pulled my Swiss Army knife from my pocket, and started removing the screws that held the casing to the seat.
My hands were steady. A stillness had descended on me. I knew that I was racing death, and I knew that I would probably lose the race. All I could do was stay focused and work methodically. As the last screw came out, I was aware that the last few people had scattered from the chamber. But now new feet came running. Three or four people. I glanced up. It was Maria and three security guards. They came to a halt a few feet away, staring at me and at the chair. I noticed with the cold absurdity that comes with the proximity of death that they made a sad and strange tableau. The big, portly guy behind her, with the big moustache. His name badge said he was Olsen. It seemed important I should know his name. He was about to die with me, I should know who he was. The guy next to him who watched me with large, brown eyes filled with terror. His name was Peralta. I wondered if he had children. And the young guy next to him, with his hand on his .38, was Ortega.
They all closed in around me, unsure what to do or who their enemy was. I ignored them and turned back to the chair. I pulled away the casing, and there it was. The shiny steel canister, almost three feet long, a foot wide, containing maybe two kilograms of compressed plutonium. And next to it, connected by a short, steel tube, the timer counting down: eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds, thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five…
A hushed, awed voice said, “What is it?”
I pulled out my cell phone, called Gantrie, and put him on speaker.
“Dude, what’s happening?”
“I need to disarm a SADM. You know what that is? A Special Atomic Demolition Munitions device. I figure it probably has a W54 warhead, or something similar. It will explode in eleven minutes and probably wipe out southeast Manhattan and part of Brooklyn. Any suggestions?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then his voice, calm, like I had asked him to find a telephone number, “Eleven minutes?”
“Yeah.”
“We might just make it. You cool?”
“Yeah.”
“OK… So tell me what you’re looking at.”
“There is a cylinder, about three foot long, that’s where the fissile material is, probably plutonium. Then there is a short housing, which I guess holds wires that connect the cylinder to a digital clock, which is counting down.”
I pulled out my cell, took a photograph, and sent it to him.
“OK, Lacklan, this is actually quite simple. What’s going to happen is that the timer is going to trigger a small explosion which will drive the fissile material together. It’s very unlikely to be booby trapped, because this is not a homemade bomb. This bomb was made by the U.S. for the U.S. military. So what you need to do is remove the housing for the wires and cut them all, everything you find, simultaneously.”
He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know, but it was good to have it confirmed. I said, “OK…”
I stared at the small steel tube that connected the cylinder to the timer. The feeling of unreality which I’d had before became suddenly overwhelming. I could feel my heart pounding but there was a stillness inside me, like time had frozen. Ortega, the security guard, turned and fled from the room. Maria drew closer and knelt by my side. We stared together. There were no screws visible. There was no lip or seam to indicate a join. There was no way to remove the housing.
“Maria.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to run down to the parking garage. Just beside the entrance, in a tool box, you’ll find a Smith & Wesson revolver. I need you to get it and bring it back…”
“I have a .38.”
“No, I need this one. And you need to get it…” I flicked my eyes at the timer. We had eight minutes. “In less than five minutes.”
She scrambled to her feet and ran from the room. Gantrie’s voice came over the phone. “Dude, what’s happening?”
“There is no point of access to the wires. It seems to be molded out of a single piece of steel.”
“No, there has to be a join. You’re just not seeing it. How long have we got?”
“Seven minutes.”
“OK… so the housing has to connect somewhere, right? Tear the chair apart. Approach from a different angle.”
I was already exploring it with my fingers. I said, “The bomb has been bolted to the seat of the chair. But the whole thing is a unit. The housing for the wires is a solid steel tube…” I peered closer. “It’s been screwed into the timer and to the cylinder.” I turned to Olsen. “You! Olsen! Give me your revolver!”
“What?”
“Give me your damned revolver or I’ll tear your arm off!”
He stepped forward, drawing his piece. “OK!”
There were four bolts holding the entire bomb to the underside of the seat. The base of the seat had a steel frame, but the seat itself was made of plywood. I aimed at each bolt in turn, point blank, and blew it out of the seat. The bomb seemed to lever away without fully dropping off. It was still attached by the timer.
I turned to Olsen and Peralta again. “You two! Take hold of the timer. Hold it firm. I’m going to twist.” They approached, looking very sick, and took hold of the clock. It read six minutes and thirty-five seconds. I seized hold of the canister with both hands and strained hard against it, trying to twist it free from the timing device. I could see the guards’ faces turn crimson with the effort of resisting me. Their arms were trembling and sweat was beading on their brows.
Suddenly, Peralta gave a great shout and the canister jumped free from their hands. He fell forward, sprawled across the chair and Olsen staggered back. I felt a jolt of triumph. We might just make it. But it was short-lived. Peralta was on his knees with blood pouring from his hand, but the housing for the wires was intact, firmly connecting the timer to the bomb. Four and a half minutes and counting.
A shout and pounding feet made me look. Maria was approaching at a frantic run carrying the Smith and Wesson. She handed it to me. “How long have we got?”
“Not enough. Stand back. Everybody stand back.”
The 500 is a small cannon. It will shatter two cinderblocks and keep going. I aimed and fired twice. The explosions echoed around the hall like thunder. I took a look. The coupling was dented, bent. Maria gave a little shout of joy. I hoped she was right to, because I was pretty sure I was sealing the damn thing tighter. I emptied the remaining three rounds and dented it more, but we still had no access to the wires.
Four minutes. I shouted, “An axe! Come on, guys! Wake up! Somebody get a fire axe!”
They blinked at me and scattered. I started savagely kicking the timer, stamping on it, trying to dislodge it. It wouldn’t budge. A voice kept screaming at me in my head that there had to be a way in. Defeat was not an option.
Pounding feet. Peralta, panting, shaking with terrified eyes, holding out an axe to me. I went to work on the join between the housing for the wire and the timer, where it had been dented by the bullets. The steel rang out, dull and stubborn, but it would not budge. Mar
ia shouted, “One minute!” But by the time she’d finished saying it, it was fifty-eight seconds. I roared like some demented freak and hammered savagely over and over at the coupling. A dead voice said, “Thirty seconds…”
I dropped the axe. Maria whimpered, “Don’t give up… please…”
I fell on my knees and reached over to the splintered plywood seat, tearing away the pieces. I heard Maria say, “Fifteen seconds…” My heart thudded hard, once, high up in my chest. I felt sick and the room seemed to rock. I grabbed at one large sheet of ply and tore at it with both hands. It groaned and came away. I heard a crazy laughing and realized it was me. Maria said, “Five seconds…”
I reached over with my right hand, grabbed the red and the blue wires, and ripped at them savagely, stamping at the chair as I pulled. I stared at the frayed ends in my hand. There was a nanosecond that seemed to last an eternity while I waited for the vaporizing explosion. Then, trembling, I looked up at Maria. She was staring at the timer. I followed her gaze. It stood at zero. Her voice was a rasping whisper in her throat. “What did you do?”
I swallowed, breathed. “The timer was connected to the chair battery. The battery was in the seat, behind the plywood.”
She started sobbing and dropped to her knees, crossing herself and crying like a child. Peralta fell on his knees next to her. Olsen sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
A voice in my head said, “Marni…” I stood. “Maria.” She looked up at me. Her face was sodden with tears. I shook my head. “Not yet. Get a grip. Phone your station commander. Make a report. Tell the truth and stand by it. You understand me?”
She nodded and struggled to her feet. I turned to Olsen. “You and Peralta contact the press, the TV, all the media. Tell this story. Tell this fucking story and don’t let anybody say it’s a lie!”
I ran for the stage and out through the wings on the left, bellowing for Marni and Gibbons. I searched for them, but I knew they weren’t there. I knew that Ben had finally got what he wanted. I had led him to Marni, and he had taken her.